Lance Friedman

This is my first stab ever at editing wikipedia page. In the corruption section, I deleted --- "Critics of the mayor point to Young's relationship with President Carter and it has been suggested that Carter discouraged the Justice Department from aggressively pursuing any indictments against Young." --- because none of the citations listed back this up. Plus, it is just plain silly. How on earth could Jimmy Carter protect Coleman Young from the Reagan & Bush Justice Departments?

Welcome!

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ANI thread

Please feel free to respond at the WP:ANI thread I opened, discussing your arguments about the POV-section tag. Binksternet (talk) 21:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Detroit

Hi, how are you seeing the Popper material as relevant to the history of the city? It seems to me to be just a theory of urban/rural decline that happens to use Detroit as an example. Rsloch (talk) 14:10, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Race Riots

Hi, I appreciate what you're saying, but adding "racist" to each mention of whites doesn't make the article any clearer or more informative, it just seems trashy. There is already one mention of the white groups being racist, it does not need more. thanks. Benboy00 (talk) 16:51, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

It is trashy to call a cross-burning segregationist a racist? Lance Friedman (talk) 19:40, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

It's trashy to prepend racist to every mention of the word white. Once, at the start, is enough. Adding it more than that is unnecessary reinforcement that seems to go against WP:NPOV. Many of the other race riot pages don't even mention the word racist, probably again because of POV (also, please see https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Words_to_watch#Contentious_labels). Benboy00 (talk) 22:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The word racist is widely used by reliable sources to describe segregationists & cross burners. It is not POV or contentious to label a cross burner or segregationist a racist. It is simply the most accurate word that you can use to describe them. Changing the word racist to something like "white groups" makes the article unnecessarily vague & inaccurate. If the race riot pages you looked at don't even mention the word racist, then they are probably very flawed articles that are very poorly sourced. Unfortunately, there are a great many of those on wikipedia.Lance Friedman (talk) 23:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

It would seem that the word "white groups" is actually more accurate, because it says something about the group. "Racist" is a judgement, just like sexist and terrorist. It is better to tell the reader the information and let them make up their own minds about things like racism. I agree that in this case the white groups were being racist, but is it not fitting for an encyclopaedia to keep on repeating the fact that they were racist. If you want to use in text attribution, like WP:LABEL insists that you should, then thats a different matter, however I feel that this would clutter the article even more, and so I think it should be left the way it is. Benboy00 (talk) 15:37, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, again, please do not do multiple edits like that. From looking at your past contributions, it seems like you have a history of doing this. It makes it much harder for people to follow what's going on, so please try to make all your edits in one session instead of 3, 4 or sometimes even 10! Benboy00 (talk) 16:52, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I have been told by many wikipedia users that it is often better to edit gradually by multiple edits because you can explain each edit.Lance Friedman (talk) 23:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

That may be true, but in this article your explanation for each edit was the same. If your explanation doesn't change for different edits, please just perform one edit with all the changes and one description. Also, while responding on talk pages and the like, use : before your response to make it more clear Benboy00 (talk) 15:37, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

July 2013

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Detroit. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Please be particularly aware, Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made; that is to say, editors are not automatically "entitled" to three reverts.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. DMacks (talk) 15:56, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

OK cool, I have already been talking to Rolsh on Detroit's talk page about these edits. I'll defer to whatever the consensus is.Lance Friedman (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned neither of us has been edit warring and have informed DMacks of that. Rsloch (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Your recent edits

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August 2013

Your addition to Detroit has been removed, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for more information on uploading your material to Wikipedia. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text, or images borrowed from other websites, or printed material without a verifiable license; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images—you must write using your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

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See also: List of countries by firearm-related death rate

Do you know how to change the default sorting order for a list? If we are going to link these articles via the See also section, then they should all sort the same way: List of countries by firearm-related death rate, Number of guns per capita by country, List of countries by intentional homicide rate. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 17:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Richard Reading

Category:Mayors of Detroit, Michigan which Reading is already in is a sub-cat of Category:People from Detroit, Michigan. Articles should be in only the most specific category that applies to them, and not any additional parent categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:35, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

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Hello! There is a DR/N request you may have interest in.

This message is being sent to let you know of a discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute discussion you may have participated in. Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help find a resolution. The thread is "United States". Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you! EarwigBot ^{operator / talk} 02:11, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Estate tax in the United States

Dear Lance: The material you referenced in Estate tax in the United States deals only with the TENTATIVE tax, not the final tax amount. Nothing in that section says what the tax will end up being. You have to read the following sections. It's a step by step process to determine the tax amount. And, the material includes a citation to the actual statute. I'm not sure what the source of your confusion is. Comment? Famspear (talk) 20:01, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

By the way, the estate tax credit effective exclusion equivalent amount for estates of persons dying in 2010 or 2011 was $5,000,000. For estates of persons dying in 2012, it was $5,120,000. For persons dying in 2013, it's only $1,000,000.

That means that for persons dying in 2013, if you take the amount of the fair value of the properties in the gross estate and you subtract all the available deductions, and the amount of the net difference (the "taxable estate") is $1,000,000 or less, then the estate will have incurred no federal estate tax. Famspear (talk) 20:09, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

PS: That's the general rule. I think the amount of your estate tax credit effective exclusion equivalent would be reduced if you use some of it during your life time to reduce gift tax. Famspear (talk) 20:12, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lance: The sources that you thought were "faulty" or "obscure" were none other than the Cornell University Law School web site re-publication of the United States Code (in this case, title 26, the Internal Revenue Code) -- the actual statutes enacted by Congress. I'm unclear as to what you thought was incorrect or misleading. The article very clearly states the basic computation: You start with the amount of the gross estate and you subtract available deductions to arrive at an amount called "taxable estate." The subject of Federal estate taxation as a whole is extremely complex, but that basic concept of the computation of the taxable estate is pretty straight forward. Comment? Famspear (talk) 20:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lance: Correction -- it appears that the exemption equivalent for estates of persons dying in 2013 is $5,250,000. In other words, although the "tentative tax" computation in the article appears to be correct, the exemption equivalent is $5,250,000, not the $1,000,000 figure that I gave you above. Famspear (talk) 20:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The source for the incorrect info which you are trying to preserve is something called itself the Legal Information Institute which describes itself as a "small research, engineering, and editorial group" The info on the site appears to be out of date or simply inaccurate. The sentence in the wiki article stating that the "federal estate tax is imposed "on the transfer of the taxable estate of every decedent who is a citizen or resident of the United States" is just simply false. Numerous reliable sources state that the vast majority of Americans pay no federal estate tax. The section on the tentative tax also has no reliable sources and is also quite clearly inaccurate and contradicted by the information above it that states the first 5 million dollars is exempt from federal estate taxes. Also, I notice that you give no reasoning at all for deleting the reference that I added to the article [[1]]Lance Friedman (talk) 21:14, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lance: The Legal Information Institute material is from the Cornell University Law School web site. The Legal Information Institute material at the Cornell University Law School web site is the very material that the Internal Revenue Service itself links to in some of its own official publications. For heaven's sake, what part of this do you not understand? The federal estate tax is indeed imposed "on the transfer of the taxable estate of every decedent who is a citizen or resident of the United States". That is an absolutely correct statement. What part of that do you not understand? It does not say that the estate of every citizen or resident incurs the tax, or owes the tax. I don't think you understand what you are reading.

Obviously, you don't understand the term "tentative tax." The STATUTE ITSELF IS A RELIABLE SOURCE, and THAT IS THE SOURCE USED IN THE ARTICLE. What part of this do you not understand? The statute is the law.

No, the data on the tentative tax is not "contradicted" by the information that states that the first 5 million plus is exempt. The two statements are not contradictory at all. The tentative tax computation is just ONE PART OF THE COMPUTATION, and it's not the final part. READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE!!!!

Look, fella, I understand that this is a complex subject, but you need to READ THE ARTICLE carefully. The term "tentative tax" is the actual legal term used in the statute. Read the entire article. The term "tentative tax" means just that -- the tentative tax is NOT necessarily the the tax that's actually going to come out of the complete computation. Indeed, that's why it's calleD the TENTATIVE tax. It's not the actual, final figure. Nowhere does the article say that the tentative tax is the final tax figure. The article clearly explains the steps.

Sorry to be so curt with you, but you really need to read this stuff a bit more carefully. Famspear (talk) 21:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

And here's the actual language again:

"A tax is hereby imposed on the transfer of the taxable estate of every decedent who is a citizen or resident of the United States."

That is VERBATIM from Internal Revenue Code section 2001(a), codified as 26 U.S.C. section 2001(a). THAT IS THE LAW. It's not a "false" statement; it's the law, my friend. Famspear (talk) 21:47, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lance: The section on "Credits against the tax" clearly shows (for example) that for the estate of a person dying in 2013, there would be a tax credit that corresponds to an exemption of $5,250,000 of "taxable estate." In other words, although the "tentative tax" computed in the tax rate schedule on, say, a million dollars of taxable estate would be a $345,800, the actual tax figure would be zero after you take into account the credit. That means that if the taxable estate is $5,250,000 or less, the tax will be zero -- regardless of what the tentative tax figure is.

In U.S. Federal tax law, the term "taxable" does not necessarily mean that there will actually be a tax. You can have a "taxable estate" of literally millions of dollars, and yet there will be no Federal estate tax on that taxable estate. Same for income tax: For income tax purposes, you can have "taxable income" of a certain amount, and yet incur no federal income tax on that taxable income. The fact that a tax is imposed on a "taxable estate" does not necessarily mean that a tax liability will actually be generated in every case. After you compute the tentative tax, there are other calculations (namely, the tax credits) before you arrive at the actual tax figure. I think you're just confused about technical legal terms. Famspear (talk) 22:13, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

PS: I didn't even notice the link to the article by Huang and Frentz, "Myths and Realities About the Estate Tax." I'm adding that back to the Wikipedia article. Famspear (talk) 22:34, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect famspear, by your own admission you are clearly a little misinformed about the federal estate tax. You were just earlier incorrectly arguing that the 2013 federal estate exemption had been reduced to only a million dollars. Changes that you yourself have made to the intro contradict the factually inaccurate info you have in the body of the article. The tentative tax sub section in the federal income has no sources and reading the rest of the article does not explain why the graph in the section says things like: lower limit 10,000, upper limit 20,000, initial tax 1,800. This graph is clearly either out of date, inaccurate, or highly misleading. Even if data in this graph is in some law, it clearly had been superseded by the exemptions that are in different laws.Lance Friedman (talk) 23:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lance: OK, this is getting frustrating. Actually, I was wrong about the 1 million dollar figure. I'm the one corrected that myself -- not you. The part you don't seem to be getting is the concept of the "tentative tax". Nothing in the article about the tentative tax contradicts what you are saying. THIS CHART IS FROM THE ACTUAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR FORM 706, revised in August 2013. THIS IS CLEARLY CITED.

No, there is nothing in the law that has changed since the most recent change -- JANUARY 2, 2013. There are no "exemptions in different laws" as you claim that somehow supersede the material in the article. You are making this stuff up.

IF THE TAXABLE ESTATE IS LESS THAN APPROXIMATELY $5 MILLION, THERE WILL GENERALLY BE NO ESTATE TAX -- REGARDLESS OF THE AMOUNT OF THE TENTATIVE TAX. I don't know what part of this you are not getting.

The material on the tentative tax is CLEARLY SOURCED to the actual statute and to the IRS instructions. THERE HAVE BEEN NO CHANGES IN THIS LAW SINCE AUGUST. I have been assuming good faith on your part, but you have twice falsely stated or implied that the material on the tentative tax is not sourced, when you obviously can see that the sourcing is right there under the table.

What in the world is going on here? Famspear (talk) 03:44, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

PS: I've copied and pasted the sourcing from the article to here:

Internal Revenue Code section 2001(c), as amended by section 302(a)(2) of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4853), Pub. L. No. 111-312, ___ Stat. ___ (Dec. 17, 2010), as amended by section 101(c)(1) of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, and "Instructions for Form 706 (Rev. August 2013)," page 5, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Dep't of the Treasury, at [2].

I even added a link to the Instructions for Form 706, so you can pull up the actual IRS instructions. I haven't checked every line in the table in the article, but the table in the article should agree to the table on page 5 of the IRS instructions, in the third column. THIS IS THE TABLE FOR COMPUTING THE TENTATIVE TAX. You have to read the rest of the article (or the rest of the IRS instructions, if you want) to see how the tentative tax can be reduced -- or even completely eliminated -- by the tax credits. THIS IS WHY THE ESTATE TAX REALLY AFFECTS ONLY LARGER ESTATES (IN TERMS OF VALUE). Famspear (talk) 04:08, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

The article that you are defending as currently written clearly violates wikipedia rules on multiple levels. Even though I might be too busy to fix it at the moment, someone will eventually do it.Lance Friedman (talk) 03:18, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

According to my understanding

Coleman Young probably was a CP member, but I still agree with your edit there. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 06:45, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

YES, I suspect he probably belonged to or was around people from the socialist party as well. He probably also had creepy contacts in the Libertarian Party, though I am not sure that he was a card carrying member? One thing we can all know for sure is that Ronald Reagan kept super quiet about the communist coleman young because for some reason it was important to make PUTIN in charge of all those nuclear weapons that are still pointing at us. Anyway, I guess the MAJOR point is that Reagan couldn't expose Coleman Young in order to allow Vladmir Putin to take power????

It's a strange world. Carptrash (talk) 15:32, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

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February 2014

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for clearly not being here to contribute to building the encyclopedia: cannot edit neutrally and here to push an agenda..... If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.  
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 22:02, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I am not convinced that you can edit in a neutral way and you will need to convince any admin that may consider unblocking you that you can. This reinstatement is a type of cherrypicking to push your agenda....it is most certainly not neutral. Too much heat and not enough light.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 22:08, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Berean, well this is a first for me. You are quite literally the first person on wikipedia to ever accuse of me trolling. As far as your cherry picking accusation, I was simply quoting a well known mainstream source that was already in the article. Anyone who actually reads the article: [[3]] can see that Foner has an extremely negative view of Andrew Johnson and what I was quoting was clearly not cherry picking. I think it is a pretty extreme move to with no warning block me indefinitely on these highly questionable accusations. Lance Friedman (talk) 22:52, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Lance Friedman (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

Hello, this is a request to unblock me for edits that I made in the Reconstruction Era article. Anyone who reads the source that I was directly quoting from can see that I was not cherry picking or misrepresenting the views of the author. Foner's explicit statement that Johnson was a racist is shared by virtually all modern mainstream historians. I can provide a myriad of mainstream sources explicitly stating that he was deeply racist and I doubt that any wiki editors that are familiar with the the views of modern historians would disagree with me. For reasons of clarity and accuracy wiki rules state that it is not inappropriate to describe a historical figure as racist if there is such widespread agreement among modern scholars. I definitely should have made a greater effort to discuss the issue in the talk page before making the edit. It is definitely debatable as to whether mentioning Johnson's racism improves the article. However, I don't think this is a good reason for someone to be blocked indefinitely. I would also like to apologize for being overly harsh. I still am disturbed that this article uses outdated KKK apologist sources when better more modern sources are available. These 100 year old sources are being used in a misleading way to give false equivalencies to views that have largely been discredited by modern historians. Specifically the idea that the reconstruction era was more corrupt than other time periods. But, I realize I need to make a much better effort at being polite among other things. I am willing to discuss any of my edits in other articles if anyone has any questions about any of them. Most editors do not seem to disagree with most of the edits that I have made on wikipedia in the past year that I have been involved with editing wikipedia. Banning me without any warning seems to me like a very extreme action. I have never been accused of any of the most serious wiki rule violations such as thinks like sock puppetry, But please feel free to check my IP address and the IP address of people that I have been involved with on wikipedia to make sure there that there are no signs of my involvement in such things. I am willing to address and change any other behavior that are not in keeping with wiki rules. Thanks to anyone who spends any time evaluating these issues. Lance Friedman (talk) 09:31, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Per diffs painstakingly laid out by blocking admin below. — Daniel Case (talk) 20:02, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

I dunno, I keep looking and looking and what I see isn't anything even vaguely troll-like; I see a good historical editor with something of a mission. The mission is the problem; it should be carried out on talk pages, never on the article pages until consensus is achieved. As you suggest, toning it down a notch or three is a good idea. The pernicious historical revisionism that has, unfortunately, become the common understanding of Reconstruction, has been with us since Reconstruction, and it's not going to change tomorrow because we've changed a Wikipedia article today. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:18, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Battleground mentality-"Wikipedia is generally great, except for hot button topics which are typically dominated and controlled by a bunch of crazy right-wing thugs." He wrote that less than an hour after attempting to shame the other editors and imply that they are racist. If you're not certain that he was implying that the editors are racist, here he puts it up into the face of another editor. "Rjensen, R U just really sleepy or are U just a closet-case racist?"

I don't really edit that article except to revert vandalism, setup archiving, etc. I'm not a content contributor there but I saw the anger on the talk page and tried to facilitate communication by getting him to explain. I had a hard time getting him to clarify his problem. The repeatedshouting didn't help.

He returned a few days later and began with new accusations and started an edit war because "This article should not highlight what amounts to a racist cartoon". After he was reverted, he replaced the image with this and was reverted again by an editor whose summary was "the article is not a joke and deserves better from you". Lance reverted again with "This racist cartoon is the true joke. There are plenty of actual photographs that we could use in this article. We do not need cartoons". That made it apparent that his injection of his cartoon was combative because he didn't want cartoons at all. His talk page accusation would be tempered by the other editors and he conceded "I apologize for making a snap judgement". The concession and apology are commendable but the incident shows knee jerk reaction and questions his judgment. This makes many of his actions incendiary.

He returned a couple of days after that with this new bout but after another editor tempered it for neutrality, Lance cherry-picked his punch line with another racist label. I lost confidence in this editor to edit constructively as he paints everything with that label. Other editors have expressed their concern above about labeling everything racist. I don't believe that he can edit neutrally.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 19:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi :Jpgordon, thanks for describing me as a good historical editor. I only started editing wikipedia pages about a year ago and have no experience with being blocked. Since you were the only other Admin commenting on my edits, I was surprised that your views seemed to be completely ignored in favor of berean. Anyhow, do you think there is anything unusual about my current wikipedia situation or is it pretty typical?Lance Friedman (talk) 13:55, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Their research was more complete than mine. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)