![]() | This page is not a forum for general discussion about Houston A. Baker Jr.. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Houston A. Baker Jr. at the Reference desk. |
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Can we please get some more information on Baker? 90 percent of this article focuses on his response to one (relatively minor) event in 2006. He was a noted literary scholar for thirty years before that happened, and he's an important thinker in African American Studies.
I can't add to it myself because I don't know enough about his work, but surely someone can. Michial 22:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
To User: Stevietheman: achieving NPOV is not achieved by erasing sourced text that tells a part of the story that you think is overemphasized. It is achieved by entering sourced text that tells a part of the story that you think is neglected. I will reintroduce my sourced text--I was careful to use the exact words of Terry Teachout, an important mainstream critic (take a look at who publishes his stuff!) whose judgment is respected by most other mainstream critics, thus avoiding the problem of libeling a living person. If you think the article is one-sided then get to work!--find your own sources, write your own paragraph! And you might check the previous discussion regarding this article, at User_talk:Gamaliel#Houston_A._Baker_Jr., where you will find these two sentences:
-- Anthon.Eff 21:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, so I looked up Terry Teachout after reading this thread. "Important mainstream critic"! You must be joking. I follow US literary criticism reasonably closely and I had not heard of him. I spen a few hours looking up his articles and reading them, and he I did not find anything even vaguely important and if this kind of right wing pandering is mainstream, well, I suppose the right wing fanatics do control American media. But enough time spent on the trivial. 12.151.151.3 21:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I second opinion of those who have pointed out how biased this article is in its depiction of Baker. Baker is one of the most prominent scholars of American (including African American) literature and African American culture in the United States. The section titled "Scholarly contributions" basically states nothing besides claiming that Baker holds an extremely pessimistic view of social progress in the US. A similarly reductive statement would be to say that Stephen Jay Gould was a famous baseball fan. Baker's corpus of important publications reaches back into the early 1980s. The bibliography section lists only one of his numerous books. The overemphasis of Baker's involvement in last year's Duke Lacrosse incident as the primary event of Baker's career is blatantly inflammatory--the writer is purposely trying to sling mud without even a cursory attempt at making this look like a legitimate summary of Baker's relevance in academics and general intellectual life.
I removed most of the quotes as the ideas that he expressed can be shortened quite a bit without resorting to quotes of passages. it probably can be shortened more but I think the real problem is the lack of content addressing his other contributions. Based on his wiki bio, it's not clear to me why his views on duke would be important but of course they are so his other accomplishments need more detail to support his notability. Does anyone have other biographical data that would support his notability? -- DHeyward ( talk) 08:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
If we want to ensure this article is not a WP:Coatrack, it seems better to add other information about his work rather than remove relevant information about the Duke case, especially if the cite for the latter is a place as notable as the NYT. WhyDoIKeepForgetting ( talk) 20:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Because something is inflammatory does not make it non-notable. Moreover, you are not the final judge of what is important. It looks very much like censorship to disallow a quote that you don't like. If you want the rest of the article expanded, you do it. Assignments are not part of how things work here. DIY WhyDoIKeepForgetting ( talk) 19:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
The way I see it there are three possible outcomes here:
1) The article is expanded to a reasonable length to discuss Baker's work and the reasons for his notability. Then the lacross section can be expanded. 2) The lacross section is kept reasonable short as not to overwhelm the article as per well established WP policies, WP:NPOV, WP:COATRACK, WP:BLP. 3) Baker is deemed non-notable for his academic work and the article is deleted as per WP:COATRACK and WP:BLP1E.
Having a section on one minor event dominate an article is in violation of Wikipedia policies. If you are here to write an article on Baker, you are welcome here. If you are here to make him look bad, you are in violation of core WP policies.
Within the rules established by Wikipedia, the choice is yours. What do we do? Gamaliel ( talk) 19:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Do you really care about length? I shortened the section to make it shorter than you proposed. You reverted that, making the section longer, just to keep out a quote that was notable enough to be used in a NYT article about the case. WhyDoIKeepForgetting ( talk) 03:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Its pretty clear that the consensuses is to keep the quote "quite sadly, mother of a 'farm animal' ". It appears that only one editor is arguing to keep it out of the article and her actions are bordering on disruption and tendentiousness. Are there any other editors involved who think this quote should stay out of the article? CENSEI ( talk) 00:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
The article is relevant to the scandal as a whole and should remain. What with the lawsuits against Duke for the faculty's (in particular Baker, Curtis, and Halloway) hostile and prejudicious attitudes are even more germaine. I have read the reasons and the WP rules cited for the deletion of the material and cannot find any justification. I would suggest to those who feel the selection regarding Baker's inflammatory (and later legally declared) false accusations have no place should prudently read up on the scandl. HoundofBaskersville ( talk) 00:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
An editor is trying to 'sanitize' this article to his liking (and seems to feel that he can edit war if necessary to attain that); my take on this man is that his actions during the Duke Lacrosse Scandal define his as much, if not more, than any of his academic works and the article should reflect that.
The WP rules are meant to be followed by everybody, even if it is an admin making these edits. Cheers. Duke53 | Talk!
Perhaps deletion IS the best course of action here. This seems to be deja vu of already discussed and dealt material. If Baker's notability cannot be reconciled with BLP, then there is little sense in keeping this article. Cheerio. HoundofBaskersville ( talk) 03:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Houston A. Baker Jr.. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@ Rms125a@hotmail.com: I still haven't found any evidence of a "conflict of interest" in this article's revision history. Can you explain why you added these cleanup tags to this article? Jarble ( talk) 23:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Houston A. Baker Jr.. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 23:07, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This page is not a forum for general discussion about Houston A. Baker Jr.. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about Houston A. Baker Jr. at the Reference desk. |
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Can we please get some more information on Baker? 90 percent of this article focuses on his response to one (relatively minor) event in 2006. He was a noted literary scholar for thirty years before that happened, and he's an important thinker in African American Studies.
I can't add to it myself because I don't know enough about his work, but surely someone can. Michial 22:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
To User: Stevietheman: achieving NPOV is not achieved by erasing sourced text that tells a part of the story that you think is overemphasized. It is achieved by entering sourced text that tells a part of the story that you think is neglected. I will reintroduce my sourced text--I was careful to use the exact words of Terry Teachout, an important mainstream critic (take a look at who publishes his stuff!) whose judgment is respected by most other mainstream critics, thus avoiding the problem of libeling a living person. If you think the article is one-sided then get to work!--find your own sources, write your own paragraph! And you might check the previous discussion regarding this article, at User_talk:Gamaliel#Houston_A._Baker_Jr., where you will find these two sentences:
-- Anthon.Eff 21:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, so I looked up Terry Teachout after reading this thread. "Important mainstream critic"! You must be joking. I follow US literary criticism reasonably closely and I had not heard of him. I spen a few hours looking up his articles and reading them, and he I did not find anything even vaguely important and if this kind of right wing pandering is mainstream, well, I suppose the right wing fanatics do control American media. But enough time spent on the trivial. 12.151.151.3 21:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I second opinion of those who have pointed out how biased this article is in its depiction of Baker. Baker is one of the most prominent scholars of American (including African American) literature and African American culture in the United States. The section titled "Scholarly contributions" basically states nothing besides claiming that Baker holds an extremely pessimistic view of social progress in the US. A similarly reductive statement would be to say that Stephen Jay Gould was a famous baseball fan. Baker's corpus of important publications reaches back into the early 1980s. The bibliography section lists only one of his numerous books. The overemphasis of Baker's involvement in last year's Duke Lacrosse incident as the primary event of Baker's career is blatantly inflammatory--the writer is purposely trying to sling mud without even a cursory attempt at making this look like a legitimate summary of Baker's relevance in academics and general intellectual life.
I removed most of the quotes as the ideas that he expressed can be shortened quite a bit without resorting to quotes of passages. it probably can be shortened more but I think the real problem is the lack of content addressing his other contributions. Based on his wiki bio, it's not clear to me why his views on duke would be important but of course they are so his other accomplishments need more detail to support his notability. Does anyone have other biographical data that would support his notability? -- DHeyward ( talk) 08:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
If we want to ensure this article is not a WP:Coatrack, it seems better to add other information about his work rather than remove relevant information about the Duke case, especially if the cite for the latter is a place as notable as the NYT. WhyDoIKeepForgetting ( talk) 20:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Because something is inflammatory does not make it non-notable. Moreover, you are not the final judge of what is important. It looks very much like censorship to disallow a quote that you don't like. If you want the rest of the article expanded, you do it. Assignments are not part of how things work here. DIY WhyDoIKeepForgetting ( talk) 19:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
The way I see it there are three possible outcomes here:
1) The article is expanded to a reasonable length to discuss Baker's work and the reasons for his notability. Then the lacross section can be expanded. 2) The lacross section is kept reasonable short as not to overwhelm the article as per well established WP policies, WP:NPOV, WP:COATRACK, WP:BLP. 3) Baker is deemed non-notable for his academic work and the article is deleted as per WP:COATRACK and WP:BLP1E.
Having a section on one minor event dominate an article is in violation of Wikipedia policies. If you are here to write an article on Baker, you are welcome here. If you are here to make him look bad, you are in violation of core WP policies.
Within the rules established by Wikipedia, the choice is yours. What do we do? Gamaliel ( talk) 19:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Do you really care about length? I shortened the section to make it shorter than you proposed. You reverted that, making the section longer, just to keep out a quote that was notable enough to be used in a NYT article about the case. WhyDoIKeepForgetting ( talk) 03:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Its pretty clear that the consensuses is to keep the quote "quite sadly, mother of a 'farm animal' ". It appears that only one editor is arguing to keep it out of the article and her actions are bordering on disruption and tendentiousness. Are there any other editors involved who think this quote should stay out of the article? CENSEI ( talk) 00:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
The article is relevant to the scandal as a whole and should remain. What with the lawsuits against Duke for the faculty's (in particular Baker, Curtis, and Halloway) hostile and prejudicious attitudes are even more germaine. I have read the reasons and the WP rules cited for the deletion of the material and cannot find any justification. I would suggest to those who feel the selection regarding Baker's inflammatory (and later legally declared) false accusations have no place should prudently read up on the scandl. HoundofBaskersville ( talk) 00:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
An editor is trying to 'sanitize' this article to his liking (and seems to feel that he can edit war if necessary to attain that); my take on this man is that his actions during the Duke Lacrosse Scandal define his as much, if not more, than any of his academic works and the article should reflect that.
The WP rules are meant to be followed by everybody, even if it is an admin making these edits. Cheers. Duke53 | Talk!
Perhaps deletion IS the best course of action here. This seems to be deja vu of already discussed and dealt material. If Baker's notability cannot be reconciled with BLP, then there is little sense in keeping this article. Cheerio. HoundofBaskersville ( talk) 03:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Houston A. Baker Jr.. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 13:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
@ Rms125a@hotmail.com: I still haven't found any evidence of a "conflict of interest" in this article's revision history. Can you explain why you added these cleanup tags to this article? Jarble ( talk) 23:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Houston A. Baker Jr.. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 23:07, 5 February 2018 (UTC)