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John Kerry's discharge from the Navy deserves more discussing and correcting. He was technically discharged from the Navy on February 16, 1978. John Kerry's own website reveals he was in the Navy Reserves from 1970 until 1978.
This means Kerrys anti-war activities, protest, and negotiations with foreign powers in foreign states took place while he was an officer of the United States military. The affects of this action is very serious and one cannot deny these facts.
I respectfully submit that unless John Kerry identifies himself as a Jewish American, then he not be categorized as a Jewish American. John Kerry's grandparents were Jewish converts to Catholicism; I presume that after their conversion they no longer identified themselves as Jewish. That means his most recent Jewish ancestors were three generations back.
By that standard, I myself am an "ethnic" "German American," since my great-grandfather came from Germany. Hopefully anyone who knows me agrees that is nonsense. I'm an all-American mutt.
Even by most standards of Judaism Kerry would not be Jewish since this is on his paternal line.
IMO, this has only been inserted by someone trying to make trouble and stir up the idea that the whole world is run by Jews or some such nonsense. No sense humoring it; just revert.
I take all of this back if Kerry actually identifies himself as Jewish.
Jdavidb 23:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Look at the description of the category: Americans of Jewish ethnic descent. Kerry certainly qualifies; his great-uncle Otto Löwe died in Theresienstadt; his great-aunt Jenni Löwe died at Treblinka. - Nunh-huh 00:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The category "Jewish Americans" says exactly that - "people of ethnic Jewish descent". I find it silly to keep Kerry under "English Americans" but not "Jewish Americans". Both are ethnic backgrounds that he shares equally. Madonna would not be listed since she has no ethnic Jewish descent, and she never formally converted to Judaism. You made a mistake about Sean Penn (check his Wiki entry). His father was Jewish and his mother Irish/Italian (Catholic). He was raised secularly, and he does not practice any religion. He never converted into Judaism and was never raised Catholic (you can see the "Jewish Americans" and "irish-Italian Americans" categories on Penn's page. Madonna is not included under "Jewish Americans", only under Italian and French Americans, par her ethnic heritage. As for "Jewish" meaning "Jewish mother", that is a Jewish RELIGIOUS law and we would be taking a religious Jewish POV in following it, rather than a non-POV ethnic-based view.
It would be one sided to list Kerry under "Jewish Americans" ONLY. BUT! He is also listed under "English Americans", meaning his ethnic heritage is mixed, which is the case. In a country as multi-cultural as America there are plenty of people who can fall under a large number of ethnic-based categories. As long as all of them are listed I don't see a problem. He is Catholic by religion, and Jewish and English (with mebbe a little Scottish and Irish) by ethnicity. Seems pretty simple, doesn't seem like there's a need to exclude any category, especially since he is 50/50 when it comes to his ethnicities. A reader can obviously see the whole thing explained under his "Family Background" paragraphs. -User 24...something...something
Yes JamesMLane, and it's an annoying difference, isn't it? And yes, I agree on who would be included if we split the categories. Makes perfect sense to me. I think they should be split. Where do we go and who do we talk to about splitting them? (thought I think you missed one of my points, which was at the moment the "Jewish Americans" category described itself as being ethnicity based, even if people glancing over the name wouldn't necessarily notice) At the moment, I have removed him from "English Americans" (heck, I was the one who added that one in the first place, in my attempt to increase the English Americans category and give it some legitimacy). It's a disservice to list him under one ethnicity but not the other. But yeah, I think good names for the categories would be "Ethnic Jews" and "Religious Jews". We also have "Jewish American actors" hanging about (not to mention "Jewish film directors"). There used to be an "Ashkenazi Jews" category, maybe we should use that name for ethnic Jews? "Ashkenazi" signifies ethnicity, since it is a major ethnic difference but not really a religious difference. Whaddya think? -User 24...something...something
I know they're not. But frankly 80% of the world's Jewish population is Ashkenazi (according to Wikipedia's Ashkenazi page). It would make it a more interesting split if we made two Jewish ethnicity based categories (Ashkenazi and Sephardic). -User 24...something...something
I think so. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 07:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
You wouldn't believe some of the arguments I've been in. In and out of Wikipedia, that is. -User 24...something...something
According to this [1] JamesMLane thinks that calling a minor wound minor is editorializing. If so, then we can't call Katrina a large or powerful hurricane. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Merovingian removed [2] a wiki link to the word wound. I do not agree that his rationale as posited in his edit summary suffices for that unilateral, non-discussed deletion. I am asking for group comment about that here. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 07:12, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
James, are you saying that the wound is more severe than a "minor" wound or are you saying that based on the available facts, you are unable to conclude how severe (or minor) the wound was? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I object to your removal of the wiki link to the word wound which I had only recently added to the John Kerry article. Furthermore, I feel it's unfair of you to act unilaterally the way you did. I ask that you restore that wiki link, review the talk page for that article and better explain your action there ( Talk:John Kerry). Thanks. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 07:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I contend that without some clarification regarding Kerry's 1st "wound" we are publishing hagiographic material, not biographic material. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
The issue at hand is that the entire article is too hagiographic and ought to be toned down considerably. Adding a wiki link to the word wound is a good place to start. As is adding the clarifying term "minor" in front of "wound". As to a reader thinking something is deserved or not, the Purple Heart page has ample details to make clear that even minor wounds can qualify. The simple fact is that by omitting detail, we are distorting history in a pro-Kerry fashion. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that I have answered you both. In fact I know I have, so I will repeat: the entire article is too hagiographic. As to Kizzle specifically, that's not my concern. My concern is that "minor" is truthful, fair and accurate, which is the standard for journalism and it's no less a valid standard to reach NPOV, which this article currently does not. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:59, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Correct in what regard? Are you saying that the John Kerry article is not less harsh on Kerry than the George W. Bush article is on Bush? If that's what you are saying, give me until later tonight to post a comparison of some salient elements of both for your perusing. On the other hand, if there is (and there is) an un-evenhanded approach between those articles, that must not be allowed to stand. Now then, regarding Kerry, you might not agee that the entire article is too hagiographic, but I do. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Huh? - please go re-read the wound treatment guide. Specifically, re-read the section which is titled "TREATMENT FOR YOUR MINOR WOUNDS". Any plain reading of that section, when correlated to the known facts about Kerry's 1st wound, makes clear that the 1st wound can be accurately and fairly described as "minor" and that this can be done without "opinion" or "editorializing".
Also, if adjectives are so bad, then why is it that as of 10.19.05, the Kerry article tells us "he became deeply interested in politics.", we are also told that "Kerry and several other officers had an unusual meeting in Saigon with Admiral Elmo Zumwalt", that he had an "important role" (in VVAW). Also, we are told that Kerry "won convictions in both a high-profile rape case...", that "He won a narrow victory" and Kerry himself is quoted as saying the people of Massachusetts "emphatically reject the politics of selfishness..." and that "Kerry is also known as an avid cyclist". Finally, we are also told that he was "successfully treated for prostate cancer". Could it be that each of the adjectives which are currently in the article (as shown above) have a hagiographic effect? I contend that they do. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:05, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, if anyone wants to be part of the newly formed Liberal Editors Cabal, simply disagree with Rex on this or any other talk page and he'll add you to the group here: User talk:Rex071404/Liberal Editors Cabal. -- kizzle 00:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Hey, what is it about this guy? This page seems to have non-stop wars over content. Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam and Stalin combined on Wikipedia see less edit wars than this page? What is so special about this guy that makes people want to fight over him here day by day? FearÉIREANN \ (caint) 01:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Removed almost all adjectives from the article, then labled then as POV removal, also removed reference to John Kerry owning a dog, as a blatent POV issue along with Favorite Food, and reference to him being a cyclist.. I could be missing something, but those don't actually seem like POV issues, unless of course this editor's idea of NPOV, is to remove anything that isn't negative, including what seem like rather neutral statments like John Kerry Owns a Dog, I'm going to rv the whole thing to back before the edit war-- anon editor 02:46, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
According to the edit summary by Szyslak for this , which states "rv {NPOV} - the tag is for disputes that can't be resolved after discussion; also removed gratuitous "See also" link)", it is clear that the correct course of action, on a disputed page (when issues can't be resolved after discussion) is to add an NPOV tag. This being the case, I am adding a POV check to this page and am reminding the other editors here of important details from the wiki article on " Consensus decision-making", which are: "Rather than simply list known alternatives, debate for a short time, vote, and then accept or reject by some percentage of majority (ex. over 50%, over 2/3), a consensus decision-making process involves identifying and addressing concerns, generating new alternatives, combining elements of multiple alternatives and checking that people understand a proposal or an argument. This empowers minorities, those with objections that are hard to state quickly, and those who are less skilled in debate. Therefore, consensus decision-making can be seen as a form of grassroots democracy."
I ask the editors here to take note that "combining elements of multiple alternatives" is an essential part of consensus decision-making and yet, the editors here have been reverting and deleting every edit I make to John Kerry (and has been doing so for well over a year and again, many times in the last few days). For this reson, it cannot be said that there is any valid consensus among the active editors on this article. As with that as my justification, I am adding the POV check tag to the article.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Here are the 1st (5) sections of each outline from each article. It's clear that the Kerry article goes into much more personal detail, the net effect of which is to "sell" Kerry to people. It was forced on us by the pro-Kerry editors during election 2004 and it remains the same way today. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 21:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Contents section(s) | Bush | Kerry |
1.0 | Early life and education | Early life and education |
1.1 | Family background | |
1.1.1 | Maternal family background | |
1.1.2 | Paternal family background | |
1.2 | Childhood years | |
1.3 | Boarding school (1957-1962) | |
1.4 | Encounters with President Kennedy (1962) | |
1.5 | Yale University (1962-1966) | |
2.0 | Religious beliefs and practices | Military service (1966-1970) |
2.1 | Commission, training, and tour of duty on the USS Gridley | |
2.2 | Kerry's tour of duty as commander of a Swift boat | |
2.2.1 | First Purple Heart | |
2.2.2 | Meeting with Zumwalt and Abrams | |
2.2.3 | Second Purple Heart | |
2.2.4 | Silver Star | |
2.2.5 | Bronze Star and third Purple Heart | |
2.3 | Return from Vietnam | |
2.4 | Criticism of military service and awards | |
3.0 | Professional life | Anti-Vietnam War activism (1970-1971) |
3.1 | Business | Joining the Vietnam Veterans Against the War |
3.2 | Political Career | Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee |
3.3 | The protest at the U.S. Capitol | |
3.4 | Media appearances | |
4.0 | Presidential campaigns | Early career (1972-1985) |
4.1 | 2000 campaign | Campaigning for Congress (1970s) |
4.2 | 2004 campaign | Career in law and politics (1972-1985) |
5.0 | Important People in Bush's Life and Career | Service in the U.S. Senate (1985-present) |
5.1 | Meeting with Ortega | |
5.2 | Iran-Contra hearings | |
5.3 | Other investigations | |
5.4 | Kerry and the George H.W. Bush administration | |
5.5 | 2000 Presidential Election | |
5.6 | Kerry and Iraq | |
5.7 | Sponsorship of legislation | |
5.8 | Political chairmanship and presidential nomination | |
5.9 | Committee assignments | |
5.10 | Issues and voting record |
What does this have to do with anything? If you think the GWB article lacks information, go add it to that article.
Gamaliel 21:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Rex, John Kerry is a senator and a veteran while George W. Bush is a two-term president. Why do you expect their articles to be laid out in the same way? Rhobite 22:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The only excuse there ever was (and a poor one at that) for having so much Kerry details, is that he was a national candidate and was perhaps not then well known around the country. However, that election is over and frankly, you know as well as I do that the ArbComm has already had a finding that election 2004 did intrude into this article. I contend that there is simply no justification for such copious detail remaining in this article. Especially since such simple things as a wiki link on the word "wound", the actual number of bills which became law "11" and an acccurate adjective applied to the 1st wound "minor" are kept out. Now as for your characterization of my log as a "hit-list", you are free to think what you may, but again I will ask you to keep your comments and suppositions of that nature off the article talk pages. I am asking you nicely and I believe that you are causing trouble by refusing to stop. Also, I do indeed contend that there is Liberal bias here and yet, I have softened the name of my log page to address the fact that there are some (such as you apparantly) who will offend themselves by snooping into my personal pages. That being the case, I went to a new page name which has less potential to offend uninvited perusers. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:26, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
You miss the point - Kizzle is complaining about something that he alone has been advertising. I did not point anyone to those page(s). If he kept his complaints about them to himself, there would be no controversy. And Kizzle's ad-hominem criticisms about me/my logs do not belong on this page - they are detracting from the dialog here. Also, have you read the above points about "consensus decision-making"? What about the fact that every edit I make to John Kerry gets reverted? How this that anything but bias? And what about Kerry's 1st wound, was it "minor", yes or no? Rex071404 216.153.214.94
I intend to put details about this into the article. any comments? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 02:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Here is another link Rex071404 216.153.214.94 02:58, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
And another, here Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The fact that this is not even mentioned in Kerry's article is an example of the pro-Kerry bias I am talking about. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Here is another link Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I am interested in this article as part of bringing to it a sense of "parity" to the various articles which I see concerning Conservative Polticians on this wiki. Suffice it to say, your concession that you do not Google for critical items for Kerry makes my point for me, which is; the bulk of the editors who have opposed me in total on Kerry etc, for the most part do not put critical items into pages for Liberal politicians. However, from time to time, a subset of that group (the particular persons vary) go to great lengths to keep favorable edits in the Liberal articles - for example JamesMLane (and others) blocking me on the word "minor". The simple fact is that these editing patterns have the net effect of biasing the Kerry article in a favorable manner (and interestingly enough, the same basic edit forces array in a reciprocal manner at the Bush page - resulting unfavorable tone and text there). In case you have forgotten how this all started, let me bring you back to July 2004, when I joined. My research indicates that my 1st edit appears to be this [4]. This particular edit went right to the meat of the matter, which was that Kerry was then lying to the voters about whether or not he had released his full medical records. At the time, the biggest pro-Kerry editor was then, Neutrality. If I am not mistaken, it was his text which I modified to make my 1st edit. Now if you also recall, almost immediately after my 1st edit, I was emeshed in edit wars - one of the 1st was about Kerrry's medical records. Please go back and read the article and the talk page from those days - you'll see that I was knocked all over the place for trying to insist that Kerry had not actually released his full military/medical records. The pro-Kerry forces were adamant that I was wrong. Well then, guess what, look at this taunting left by Neutrality on my talk page this summer (when he certainly knew I could not respond due to 6 month hiatus). What does the edit say? It says that Kerry only finally signed his Form 180 (military service and military medical, records) release on May 20th, 2005! Har! Told you so. I was 100% right about that then and I am right about Kerry's minor wound now and I am also right that pro-Kerry Liberal editors are still up clucking their feathers and watching out for their champion. And if that's not true, then how would you explain the taunting edit Neutrality left for me (as linked above)? The bottom line is that the Kerry article portrays an excessively postive picture of him - positive to the point of falseness. That was true in July 2004 and it's true today. Final note, you may not care that Kerry has in the past done things like go around and falsely pretend to be Irish, so as to get the Boston ethnic Irish vote, (see Slate link - talk page). But I do, I am from Massachsuetts. I have followed his career for years and I feel it's important that when a local silver spoon hack politician tries to go for the brass ring, that everyone be afforded to have accurate information about him. The Liberal editors here have prevented that before and they still are trying to prevent it now. Kerry's an utter mediocrity - he's only gotten 11 bills passed in the US Senate in his ENTIRE CAREER. Why the pro-Kerry people are so intent on shunting those types of details under the rug or off to the side, is stunning to me. 11 bills - that's it and he wants to (still wants to!) be president! What kind of enyclopedia article keeps out such important details - while all the while telling me his favorite cookies are chocolate chip? In my mind, only a biased one does. Now, we might disagree on many things, but certainly we can agree that in order to evaluate a politician's effectivenes, bills signed into law is a more valuable data element than favorite cooke type, wouldn't you say? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 09:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
All this rant proves is your interest in dragging down a public figure you dislike and in rehashing old battles. If you want to make constructive edits, such as including information on the Sherwood lawsuit, go for it. But this article won't be served my removing information you dislike, however trivial that information may be, nor will it be served by you putting up a furious fight over insignificant issues where you are clearly in the wrong, such as wikilinking common words. Gamaliel 09:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I intend to add information about this to the article. any comments? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
More about this here Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
..just because some troll, wills it to be so, or do we??-- anon editor 03:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I answer Gamaliel as follows: 1) My exmple of outline sections in comparison is not meaningless. Rather it clearly points out that Kerry's personal history gets more hands on details - this can be confirmed by simply reading the sections referred to by the outlines, on each respective page. 2) It does matter that biographies ought to be similarly handled for similarly situated persons. During election 2004, those two persons each had a 50/50 chance of being the next president. Certainly that fact called for more balance than the editors here allowed. And it's long over due that Kerry's page reigned in. 3) Again, I do not feel the Bush lacks detail, I feel that Kerry has too much and it's hagiographic detail at that. G, Do you deny that Kerry's page tends towards the hagiographic? As for the wiki link, there is no argument, if others don't oppose me on that. Therefore, if I am being frivolous, how much more so are those who are trying to trump me on that? Also, the issue of Kerry's wounds goes right to the heart of how dishonest this article is. It is an established fact that Kerry's 1st injury was minor. If any editor on this page has been "hellbent" about anything, it's those who deny this fact and refuse to allow that word in. Even with links to wound page(s) which make clear that the the word "minor" is the correct descriptor for a wound of that type, not one inch is being given by the pro-Kerry crowd on that word. So who's being "hellbent"? And please, don't shift the argument to one about "common words". This is not about the common nature of the word wound, because common or not, there are clearly great variances in the severities of wounds. And this is more true that the point you push. Think about it; whenever you hear that a friend was injured, the 1st thing you as is "how bad was it?". Bt refusing to tell the readers how bad it was, we are in fact commiting the lie of ommission, "conincidentally" in favor of Kerry. I could go on, but I'll simply say that for an editor who claims disinterest in political articles, you sure do revert me often enough. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
If the consensus (among themselves) of "others" refuses to incorporate any of my ideas, by definition there is not consensus on this page, there is no consensus decision-making going on here and there is not any bona-fide negotiation. Suffice it to say, the closed-mided finality of Gamaliel's "that's how the cookie crumbles" jibe makes clear that he has zero intention of ever backing off from his instransigence against me. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I would like to add information to the article, that deals with the fact that John Kerry promised not to criticise the President when he went to war, and then did so on the same day as the war started. I know that this news was reported in the media at the time. ComfortFood 04:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm currently looking for links that will support these two assertions:
1. Democrat Primary Candidates agreed not to criticise the President during the actual war.
2. John Kerry criticises President on or right before March 20, 2003.
ComfortFood 05:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the first claim:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50D17F93F550C7B8DDDAA0894DB404482
March 18, 2003, Tuesday (By The New York Times); National Desk Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 14, Column 3, 373 words DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 373 WORDS -Congressional Republicans gave unconditional support tonight to President Bush's ultimatum to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Democratic leaders expressed dismay over the failure of diplomatic efforts, but many said that with war imminent, they would mute their criticism and stand behind American troops. Most major Democratic presidential candidates also... ComfortFood 05:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This is relevant for several reasons. The first reason is that he gave his word that he would not criticise the President, and then he immediately broke it aftewards. If it was done on purpose, it would make him a liar. The effect was that on the same day the war started, people were also reading his criticism, when they should have been focussing on the President's leadership during the start of a war. If Kerry had been a General and had criticised the President, he would surely have been fired. Remember the case of MacArthur, Truman and the Korean war. It's something that every good soldier knows. You don't criticise your commanding officer in public during a time of war. The President himself would have been distracted by these comments during a time when his attention was needed elsewhere. What we need to keep in mind here, is that Kerry was running as a Presidential candidate. If he had become President, would he have expected his subordinates not to criticise him in this way? There is an old saying, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I would argue that this event can be seen in one of two ways, either Kerry did not bother to think about what the events were leading up to, or he did this out of deliberate malice in a calculating way. Unfortunately, a lot of history depends on how you interpret it. But clearly what we know is that he criticised the President on the day the United States went to war in Iraq. I think it should be mentioned in his biography. This is especially true when opposition to the war was a large part of his campaign. This can be seen in the larger political context of the Democrats as a whole, not wanting to seem to be weak to the American public on foreign policy. It seems that politicians are willing to lie to people until whatever controversy is in the news, that week, has passed over.
I would ask that we come to some sort of agreement on this topic, Jpgordon, so that the addition of this fact in the article can be done without it being reverted back to a previous form.
ComfortFood 13:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I was hoping for a comment that was related to developing this article.
ComfortFood 16:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Read this Slate article here Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
A1sdf deleted the following paragraph:
One of the Bush administration figures criticized for his handling of BCCI was Robert Mueller who, in his then-role as Deputy Attorney General, was criticized about slow performance regarding the investigation. Kerry himself was criticized in some circles for not pressing harder against certain Democrats, and he was also criticized by some Democrats for pursuing his own party members, including former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford. The BCCI scandal was later turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
Kerry’s role in the BCCI matter actually deserves more attention in this article, not less. The Washington Monthly article stated:
By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.
As our article notes, several agencies in the Bush 41 administration were culpable in not pursuing BCCI properly. Mueller was sent to debate Kerry on Nightline about the investigation. Although he was thus a prominent spokesweasel for the Bush administration, he was only one of several officials who were at fault, and who were mentioned by name in the Kerry/Brown report. It's interesting to note his involvement because he's now the FBI Director, but I don't see that fact as having enough bearing on Kerry's role to merit inclusion here. The rest of the paragraph, however, is perfectly valid information, and I've restored it with some tweaking. JamesMLane 21:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, but statements such as that are indeed indicative of a mindset which is likely going to color your editorial decisions - including those aimed ay blocking my edits. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 21:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
As I've made clear, I don't agree that you constrain your bias - as it applies to gatekeeping against other's political article edits - to the degree and extent you ought to. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 22:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
A1sdf deleted a statement by Kerry on this basis: "using a website called 'peacecore' [sic] as a source, has got to be a joke, it's gone too". I can't see this as a sensible edit. Peace Corps Online is a public forum for returned Peace Corps volunteers. Does the word "peace" in the name mean that it must be completely ignored? Furthermore, the slightest research would show that this quotation isn't subject to any good-faith dispute. If you actually click on the link, you'll see that the Peace Corps Online post is quoting a Reuters dispatch. That should suggest that it's not some kind of left-wing propaganda lie. In fact, Googling the quotation turns up, as the fifth hit, a column by that well-known Bolshevik Ann Coulter, who cites the quotation exactly as it appeared in our article. [6] I've restored the quotation (giving Kerry's complete sentence), with a citation to CBS News to forestall further such sniping from people who regard "peace" as a suspicious word. I've also removed A1sdf's characterization of opponents of the war as "far left" and his later reference to "much of the American Left", words that serve no purpose except to convey the impression (probably a false impression) that these views are held only by a tiny minority. JamesMLane 21:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Speaking of sources, I think we should find a better one than National Review Online if this article is going to claim the wound was "superficial". I checked the source; it was an account by a doctor who treated his wound, as told by NRO columnist Byron York. (By the way, the link I removed is here. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 06:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC))
By the way, Rex, that was only ONE edit I reworked, out of the six or seven you made. If I were reverting you "out of spite", I'd revert all your edits. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 06:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
(copied here from User talk:Szyslak)
NRO is suffiently mainstream and Byron York is sufficently well regarded that when Byron quotes Dr. Louis Letson, you cannot simply reject this source out of hand as being invalid - and somehow not meriting discussion prior to your reverting my edit. Please dialog with me about this on Talk:John Kerry. I'll answer there promptly, as soon as you articulate a rationale for you rejecting the validity of Byron York's quoting of Dr. Letson. Thanks. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
(moved here from User Talk:Rex071404)
Hi there. I wish you'd please stop insisting that other editors follow your personal policy on reverts. All around Wikipedia, I've found that politically contentious edits to major articles tend to get reverted, with or without "discussion prior to reverting". I don't like being reverted any more than you do. Personally, I've been striving to explain reverts more, which is something most Wikipedia editors don't do nearly enough. However, few people are willing to accede to your list of demands about how they edit Wikipedia. It's tiresome to hear your demands that people follow your instructions, which have no basis in Wikipedia policy or common, everyday editing practice.
About my edit: I did discuss it—after I made the edit, instead of before as you demanded in your message on my talk page. Apparently that wasn't good enough for you, but if you continue to insist on things like that, nothing on Wikipedia is. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 07:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Sz, if you were not snooping on my private edits log, you would not be reading what are clearly chronological notes about suspect edits, notes which are clearly meant just for me. Regarding my log, not once have I ever told you to read that page, nor have I ever linked a comment to you to that page, nor have I ever directed the word "spite" to you. However, your edit summary [7] which caused me to make a note to myself does clearly accuse me of creating a "phony non-issue". Certainly, where I come from, it can be considered "spiteful" to call someone a "phony" or accuse them of being "phony" or doing "phony" things. Now, on to you and your assertion of "disputed"; the issue at hand between you and I right now is whether or not Byron York accurately quoted Dr. Louis Letson, not whether or the good Dr. was lying or not.
Q: Yes or no, are you willing to agree that the Dr. was quoted by York accurately? If not, what source can you point to which refutes York's quotations of the Dr. as being false quotes?
And FYI: the edit of mine, which you reverted, did not call the wound minor. Rather what it did was use terminology such as "small" and "superficially" [8] as presented in the Dr. Leston quote. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I recently made this which relied on this as my source. My source article is written by Byron York and directly quotes Dr. Louis Letson, the man who personally administered the medical treatment to Kerry's 1st injury. Mr. York, in the article, quotes the Dr. thusly;
As any plain reading of the York article makes clear, Mr. York, is directly quoting the Dr. and it is Dr. Letson himself who uses the words "small" and "superficially". Based on those direct quotes, I used the word "superficial" to describe the injury and "small" to describe the shrapnel. Frankly, I fail to se how anyone can claim that my version is POV or warrants the edit that Szyslak made here and which has in it this statement "which some of his conservative critics have called minor."
If you read above, you will see the enormous opposition that had gone against the use of the word "minor". So much so, that I took the time (as Kizzle wanted - see above) to get a direct source quotation. Yet, to top it off, Szyslak seems to be confusing York viewpoint with Leston's personal words. Arrgghhh.... I am going to sleep on this and let it sit for a few days. Perhaps by then Szyslak will see that my source is valid and he is confusing Letson (fact) for York (opinion).
Of course, there would still remain the point of whether or not Szyslak will subsequently accept the Letson facts as true facts. Because even if he does come to admit that Letson said those words (in writing, which York re-printed, verbatim), there will still be the issue of Szyslak (and others) perhaps faulting Letson's recollection or calling Letson a liar.
Even so, to my knowledge Letson is the only medical staffer who treated Kerry's 1st injury, so he is the only trained authority on what the treatment was and what size/type injury he saw. So then, I guess what I am saying is, why are we so quick to refuse the accept Letson's statement as valid? We have many other sources, in many articles who do not have a 35 year unblemished medical career vouching for them, as Letson does. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
This page is 80 KB long, and should be shortened or split as per Wikipedia:Article size. In a similar way as George W. Bush, this article, too, is extremely long, and could use much shortening, for a variety of reasons, such as fact checking and general ease of readability, making it viable for FA status. Thanks, [[ User:Mys e kurity| Mysekurity]] [[ additions | e-mail]] 02:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
The cookie tidbit is one of dozens of excess sentences in this article. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
If you have done about 5 seconds of work on google and found the sources yourself, you could have found several sites which would have corroborated John Kerry's favorite food and his pets, rather than removing them and making other people find sources (which is ridiculous in the first place, is this passage really that controversial?). Please don't remove any more info citing lack of source unless you spend at least 5 minutes on google trying to find one. -- kizzle 18:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll wait for Kizzle's answer on that, thank you. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Umm, because its common courtesy. If you are here truly to build a better encyclopedia, than if you're unsure about the veracity of a statement, just spend 5 minutes on google trying to see if you can corroborate it. If a superficial search turns up nothing, then feel free to delete the info, otherwise add the sources you find. It took me about 5 seconds on the first page to find a good source for your info. It's not your job to prove the veracity, but you're setting a bad example that anyone can come in and delete any info they feel suspect without actually investigating themselves whether or not it is truly suspect. As for the "timeliness" of the info, they're mainly written around the 2004 election, but I really don't think we need to say "At the time", just put his pets and his favorite food as mentioned, then if a news report comes out saying that he's changed his favorite food or one of his pets dies or he gets a new one, we'll use that. I still can't believe I'm having this argument. -- kizzle 20:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I hear the Onion reports that the White House denies the existance of anyone named Karl Rove. Also, I hear it was a blue Fitzmas this year - no Karl Rove's head under the Fitzmas tree. JML's dreaming of a Rove Fitzmas... Just like the ones he used to know... Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Uh, there's no "tirade" [9] as I was not venturing any opinions or making a speech, nor am I angry. This was pure Dragnet: "Just the facts, ma'am". Now as to Kizzle's "Or put national security at risk for pure political retribution". This is nothing but absurd conjecture which doesn't even allow for the possibility that Wilson, as the partisan he is, provoked the inquiries about himself by making the profoundly false pronouncements that he made. After a lengthy investigation, we have learned so far a) There is no charge or official allegation that anyone disclosed the indentity of a covert CIA employee b) there is no charge or official allegation that anyone, other than "Scooter" did anything but state to reporters that Mrs. Wilson (not, "Plame" - he did NOT say "Plame" to anyone) worked at CIA (not "is an agent", etc.) Frankly, I think Wilson is a pimp for using his wife this way. He went on that trip with every intention of stirring up trouble and to a certain extent, he succeded. However, if either of you bothered to do any real reading on this topic, you'd quickly find out that Wilson is an established LIAR, so far as reporting the actual facts regarding what he did and did not do in regards to his trip. Now then, this edit could possibly be a "tirade" except again for the fact that I am not angry. Angry at whom? Wilson? He's a nobody - a pimple on the ass of history. This time next year, people will have forgotten all about him. Unless of course Wilson himself gets charged at some point - which for spreading the lies that he has about his "trip" he should be. He needs only to be questioned by a Federal Agent and repeat the same lies he's told so far. In addition to lying under oath or to a Grand jury, lying to a Federal Agent in the course of an investigation is a Felony. Wilson should be questioned and charged. He's the traitor, not Bush, who Kizzle speciously and falsely accuses. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 13:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Kizzle, you are really losing it. Unless you stop bandying about such scurrilous nonsense as "Bush's retarded response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush's re-emergence of his drinking problems", I'm not going to bother dialogging with you regarding anything but a specific edit under discussion. FYI: I note that you do not deny that Ted Kennedy killed a woman and Byrd was a KKK leader - or how about the fact that Byrd not too long ago used the term "white nigger" on TV? Question: If, as I expect he will be, Delay is fully exonerated, will you admit that your broadbrush hysteria regarding him was overwrought? As for Libby, I do not claim to understand why he mis-spoke and/or lied regarding his discussions with reporters concerning Mr. & Mrs Wilson. However, the closest recent parallel was Martha Stewart and it that case - as in this case - the original accusation proved to not have suffcient foundation to proceed, only charges of lying went forward. Why did Libby lie? I dunno, why did Marthe lie? Personally, I don't think she did - she had nothing to hide and interviewed with investigators voluntarily. Suffice it to say, I don't think she rememebered the sequence of events correctly. I also don't think she should have been charged. As for Libby, from where I sit, the charges are more flummoxing. He could easily have hid behind White House lawyers and refused to answer questions based on assertions of Executive Priviledge - if what you are saying is true - that he was acting on instructions of Bush/Cheney. Had that been the case, they would still be litigating whether he even had to answer questions. Then, after he was forced to answer by the courts, he could have taken the 5th. In fact he could have taken the 5th even under the current circumstances. That he did not, would tend to indicate that his statements were not - in his mind as he said them - false or needing to be concealed. Kizzle, these points having been made, will you please stop with the wacky anti-Bush yammering, it demeans our discussions. And regarding your claims that "we're on the same page about manipulated intel", I don't see where you get that as I did not comment about "intel" and I certainly do not agree with the thesis that a) Bush et, al "lied" to bring war, b) Wilson "uncovered" truth c) White House "retaliates" against Wilson. There are so many flaws with that erroneous and myopic theory, that I don't even discuss it beyond saying, it's crap and only partisan zealots think it's true, IMHO.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:54, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Kizzle, you are way off base here, I feel. My comment to JML did not concern you as it was not directed to you. Too bad the Onion Rove spoof is now deleted from the web - it was a hoot. And surely, in light of JML's jab about Laura bush, mentioning it was valid. As for Fitzmas - go to that page and you will see how emotionally invested JML is in all of that. For that reason, I do feel Fitzmas is coloring his views and was worth mentioning. Sorry it got you so hysterical. By they way, did Mary Jo Kopechne ("Kopechne died in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts when a car driven by Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, in which she was the passenger, went off a bridge and overturned into a pond") die because of Ted Kennedy, yes or no? At least when GWB used to drink and drive, he was careful enough to drive slowly and not kill anyone. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Sounds super, except that the White House is NOT "under serious investigation as to whether they breached national security for political retribution". The investigation has been held, NO charges were brought contending what you allege. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 22:29, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps it's because both you and he were not listening closely enough during the press conference? Or perhaps McClellan has another agenda that you did not consider.
Here is the operative Q & A regarding whether or not we ought to expect futher indictments:
Find full transcript here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801340_pf.html
I read that answer by Fitzgerald to mean that there is a slim to none chance any more indictments will come of this.
Personally, I feel that McClellan is simply using the "ongoing investigation" as an excuse to avoid answering questions. A crude, but effective tactic.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 01:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
A direct quote by the Dr. who treated Kerry uses the same three words I use: "injury", "superficial" and "small". Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Read Letson's statement again:
What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.
I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.
The wound was covered with a bandaid."
He uses the word "injury" 1st and "wound" last - so do I.
Now, as to the use of "superficial", I use that as I did because Letson said:
He is clealry stating that the injury was superficial.
Using the FACTS providd by Letson, I have assembled a non-POV sentence which uses all four key words and does not distort their meaning:
"Kerry suffered a superficial injury from a small piece of shrapnel in the left arm above the elbow [12]. The shrapnel was removed and the wounded area was treated with bacitracin antibiotic and bandaged."
Other than to re-tweak it as:
"Kerry suffered a superficial injury from a small piece of shrapnel in the left arm above the elbow [13]. The shrapnel was removed and the wound was treated with bacitracin antibiotic and bandaged."
I see no justifications for changing these two sentences. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:26, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
The quote from Dr. Leston and the words he used, are in not and of themselves "controversial". Rather, the "controversy" attaches to those words by various editors here who insist on inserting sentences such as "Kerry's opponents, including the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, have contended that this wound was too minor to merit a Purple Heart and that Kerry used this injury as his first of three to game the system and obtain early release from his Vietnam service. However, Kerry's wound did qualify him for consideration under Naval guidelines for a purple heart, and a subsequent Naval review reiterated their position that the purple heart was correctly given".
Owing to the fact that this text which I edited in...
...uses the EXACT WORDS that Dr. Letson used and because it's also carefully written, it's not in and of itself a controversy. If you insist on calling it such, we'll end up at the point where no text referring to the 1st injury/wound is allowed in, as every variant could be deemed "controversy". See Talk:Stolen_Honor#Per se controversy articles and associate sections on that talk page for related explanations. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 04:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with James's inferrence that the article has an enforced stasis regarding this section of text. I came up with phrasing which I think is NPOV towards both sides and is in fact, more accurate than what it replaces. Also, there is no credible evidence that Letson is lying about having treated Kerry or is to be disbeleived out of hand due to alleged bias. Also, as I have copiously explained previously, I feel the evidence clearly would support explicitly calling the injury "minor" as in "minor wound", but I am not trying to force that here.
James, other than arguing your point, you have supplied no data or evidence about wounds per se, but I have (see previous talk, above). That evidence, in the form of a wound treatment guide, can now be found here (URL changed recently). The treatment Kerry received (by all accounts) makes clear that he received treatment for a "minor wound". And yet, the text I editing in recently has softened but is still is correct, more accurate (than what you now lobby for), is NPOV and fair to both sides:
James, you are again focusing unduly on the past edit war -won by your side by default, when I got booted for 3rr violations ("we should stick to the language that emerged from last year's wrangling"). This is espcially true, considering that the ArbComm made a specific finding about issues of the campaign intruding into this article. Need I remind you, that it was you (one whom the ArbComm addressed) and your cohorts that made the final decsion about the language you now insist on sticking with.
Plain and simply, I have compromised here and you have not. You need to do better than that or rightly speaking, you are not enagaging in Wikipedia:Negotiation or Consensus decision-making.
Suffice it to say, I contend that there is residual POV bias in this article and I further contend that you are arguing against various changes that would remedy this. For these reasons, I am not persuaded by your plea to "stick to the language that emerged".
Again I will repeat: JamesMLane and others here do not have authority to enforce stasis or otherwise "freeze" any section of this article. As for "false impression(s)", the copious amounts of personal minutiae about Kerry detailed in this article do indeed give the false impression that we as readers really ought to be sweet on Kerry, our patootie [16]. The entire article is too hagiographic and is way POV balanced in favor of Kerry.
James's ceaseless efforts to screen out all non-flattering facts, regardless of how tactfully conveyed, does not improve the article. On the other hand, this edit of mine does and I am going to do my best to see to it that the true words of "superficial" and "small" stay in. You are welcome to try incorporating those words into a sentence you'd prefer, but you have not made the case for keeping them out. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
James, thank you for your well reasoned and polite response. Though I disagree with some of your points, I appreciate that you are dialogging. As for the section under discussion, as of today, here is how it reads:
As it stands now, this section is fair to both points of view and there is no need to chop this apart towards shunting details to any subsidiary "controversy page". In brief, it outlines the core of this issue in a NPOV manner, with details that are accurate enough to be fair to both views.
Are you willing to accept this section as it is now, or not? If not, then please tell me line by line, why not. Thanks. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:19, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh and since Gamaliel want to stuff the past ArbComm issues in my face, let's not forget what one of the key ArbComm findings was "User Rex071404 and others including the complaining witnesses, Neutrality, Wolfman, and JamesMLane have in the heat of the US Presidential election focused on the article John Kerry and carried the issues of the campaign into the encyclopedia article in detail.". [18]
During the night of December 2, 1968 and early morning of December 3, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating in and around a peninsula north of Cam Ranh Bay together with a Swift boat (PCF-60). Kerry's boat surprised a group of men unloading sampans at a river crossing, who began to run. When the men refused to obey an order to stop running, Kerry and his crew of two enlisted men opened fire, destroyed the sampans, and took off. During this encounter, Kerry suffered a shrapnel wound in the left arm above the elbow. The shrapnel was removed and the wound was treated with bacitracin antibiotic and bandaged. Kerry returned to duty the next day on a regular Swift boat patrol. Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart for this injury.
You have got to be kidding. I have been trying to trim this article for weeks and have been blocke at every turn. Even the smallest minutiae is re-inserted (ie: "favorite cookies"). The spin-off I did makes perfect sense. This discussion regarding 1st injury/Letson needs to move to: Talk:John Kerry's military service and I am copying it there now. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 09:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
do photos count as original research? I think as long as there isn't a copyvio problem, you can use original photos. -- kizzle 01:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
All quotes below are verbatim from: Wikipedia:No original research
Kizzle, please don't fight the obvious here, the image in question is indisputably original research - read the Summary for it:
File:Private support for JK election.jpg
That image is an NOR violation and must be deleted (from the John Kerry article).
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 01:48, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Ed, of course it can stay on the talk page but not in the article. In the article itself, it is an NOR violation. Do you agree with this contention, yes or no? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 02:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Not so, here again are the definitions and rules, quoted verbatim from Wikipedia:No original research:
That photograph most certainly a) was created by the editor who published it and b) [has] not been [previously] published in a reputable publication and c) it most certainly contains data and a statement, re: "support John Kerry".
Other than the fact some here would find it objectionable; talking exclusively from from a definition standpoint, how would it differ if I took a photo of a pile of dog poop with a John Kerry button stuck in it and a label on that button which said "Oppose John Kerry"? The answer is, with the reasoning being offered here, it would not.
Are you saying such an absurd turd photo would be allowed in? Well, what if it was boxer shorts?
How does that differ from this photo under dispute? What about a photo of a cartoon drawing of the corpse with a sign?
The photo is a primary source created by whoever took it, period. It has not been elsewhere published in a reputable publication.
The tableau represented by the photo cannot be allowed to leap into the wiki via the creating of that primary source by the wiki editor, period.
Repeat after me:
If you allow this photo, this creates precendent for people who want to seed the wiki with self-created "loaded" photos. Such a policy would be folly and would open up a non-stop can of worms.
On the other hand, if any final ruling says OK to the photo, I absolutely will post a "bra and Kerry message" photo, which says "oppose John Kerry". With the logic being offered here, it will have to be allowed in.
I'll wait until I see how this turns out.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 04:02, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Uh, there is a TEXT MESSAGE in this photo, which is information, data and a statement or hadn't you noticed? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 04:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I absolutely made no such threat. Rather, what I said was, if any final ruling says OK to the photo, I absolutely will post a "bra and Kerry message" photo, which says "oppose John Kerry". Posting a reciprocal photo of the exact model and type, with an opposing message, is not any kind of "threat". It's axiomatic that pledging an opposing edit is not problematic, if the nature of the edit posted is allowable. Simply put, I most certainly am free to post a like, but opposing photo, if this type of photo is deemed allowable. There is no "point" to such an intention, other than to not let photos that imbalance an article remain in with no opposing balance. The mistake James makes is to interpret that kind of edit as a retaliation rather than what it would be which is, an editor waiting for confirmation that particluar photo types are acceptable, before using one. James's panic about "threats" is ill founded. Retaliators do not wait for permission. The operative phrase here is "if any final ruling says OK". If there were an official ruling stating that these types of photos are allowable (personally created political photos with embedded text messages), why should I not be allowed to post one myself? If that type of photo is legitimate, then my posting one is also legitimate. Legitimate edits by editors who wait for permission can not in any rational way, be characterized as having been made to "make a point". Frankly, this is semantic tongue twisting - if I had instead said: "If this photo is allowed, then I get to use one of the same type too, or it's not fair", James would not even be complaining. Suffice it to say, if James and others are that sensitive, I'll try to be more careful. Frankly, I find that responding to various editors on these pages is fraught with risks pertaining to complaints. Such extreme sensitivity is challenging to me, but I'll see what I can do.
Rex071404
216.153.214.94 05:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Rex has something of a point here. It's one thing for a Wikipedia to photograph an example of grassroots Kerry support, it's quite another for someone to set up a display in their yard and photograph that as an example of grassroots Kerry support. This is a legitimate concern. However, Rex takes it too far. He has a tendency to be what we called in my RPG days a "rules lawyer", someone who attempted to use the rules to argue and manipulate the outcome of the game, as opposed to just role-playing and going with the flow of the game. In this instance, he takes his legitimate concern and twists it into an intepretation of the rules that is so absurd that it would disallow all user created pictures. (User created pictures are, of course, something that is actively encouraged here by everyone from Jimbo on down.) He is unwilling or unable simply to advocate his position, he insists that the rules demand his desired outcome. I think he should take Ed's wise advise: "Try to stop concerning yourself so much with rules". His legitimate concern aside, the photo is (in my opinion) pretty lame and should be excluded on those grounds. But whatever is decided with the photo, it should be decided by consensus and agreement and not by rules lawyering. After consensus emerges, at that point we should all let it go and not post retaliatory photos created solely to make a point, which I would consider a blockable offense under the "disruption" clause of Wikipedia:Blocking policy. Gamaliel 05:50, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Really? Then why is that photo not right out on the basis of being non-encyclopedic? Are "pun" photos about sitting Senators the right grist for otherwise straight-forward articles? Also, "support John Kerry" would, I feel, be more accurately conveyed by writing it on a jockstrap because he is (as I see it) a d*ck. He he, I made a "pun"... Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:21, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Ok, here is a new way of explaining:
This photo of the "support Kerry" sign shown in a tableau with some bras, can rightly be interepted (as a I've contended above) that it's been created to prove that Kerry is desirable. Gamaliel (above) said that it's a "pun", but if it's a pun, then the only rational reason for including it is to prove that Kerry supporters can make cool puns, hence Kerry must be "cool", which is still a form of proving something.
Because the photo in intended to make a point and is not just a photo of a butterfly or a tree, etc., the point this photo tries to make (whatever that point is) transforms this photo from being a "stock" photo into a form of argumentation - towards a point. That argumentation is what makes this photo "original research".
Indeed, the original caption for this photo was "Support for John Kerry, seen in Arizona". Quite apart from the fact that it appears more true the caption should have read "staged in Arizona" instead of "seen in Arizona", the operative word "support" argues that we, the readers, ought to interprept the photo as evidence of support for Kerry. Of course, since the photo's Summary details give every indication that the photo was staged, then this photo is indeed "original research" because it was staged, by a wiki editor, to prove a "novel narrative", eg: "there are women hanging their bras out for Kerry in AZ".
The reason photos need to be watched for Wikipedia:No original research violations is that the subject matter can be easily manipulated, prior to the shot being taken and then "surprise!", we have "proof" of something. This is called "creating a primary source" and it's why the NOR policy specifically states "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed".
And, if you don't think this is true, think about this:
Candidate A and Canddidate B are in close battle in a heavily minority district. Supporters of A, take signs for B, bring them to a field, dress themselves up like KKK and burn a cross, while holding B's signs. This, they take a photo of and then post it into B's bio page on the wiki with a caption of "Supporters of B hold a rally". Too impossible you say?
What if supporters of A take B's signs and make a big mess in a parking lot with them and leave also a lot of trash like water bottles and sandwich wrappers.... the caption for this reads, "trash left behind after local rally for B". More subtle - and how do we prove it's not true?
Suffice it to say, regardless of whether or not editors here may feel "the photo is cute", the reason that there is an Official Policy regarding Wikipedia:No original research which does indeed control the use of photos, is so editors cannot game the system by hitting other editors in their "the photo is cute" blind spots.
It may just be that no other editors here recognize that photo as Original Research - but I do and I think it would be informative if we could get an opinion regarding it from ArbComm or Jimbo, etc. - someone that this group of editors concedes has expert capabilties in interpreting Wikipedia:No original research as it pertains to photos.
As of this moment, the photo is still in the article and I have been reverted three times for deleting it. And at least two of those rverters do claim they want the photo out (see comments above and match names with revert Edit Summaries) - even though they themsleves reverted it right back into the article.
As of my last edit regarding this photo, since I keep getting reverted for deleting it, I have changed the caption to read "A home photo taken by photographer Nils Fretwurst, in Arizona, October 2004". This caption is factually correct and is based on the Summary data for the photo istself.
Still, as to why John Kerry should have "a home photo [of bras and a sign] taken by photographer Nils Fretwurst" in it, has not been made clear by those who reverted me and restored the photo.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
This just gets more and more bizarre. Apparently now your argument is that it's "original research" because the photographer just might have removed some beer bottles or because it's a pun?! This would be soooooo much easier if you just took Ed's advice and forgot about the rules for a little while. It's not enough for you to simply advocate your position, you wrongly insist that the rules demand your desired outcome. So instead of persuading people to support your position, you are essentially recruiting people to oppose you, since people who would otherwise support your desired outcome (removal of the picture) oppose your tortured and incorrect interpretation of the rules. Gamaliel 19:26, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Gamliel, I am going to ask you yet again; please stop intentionally insulting me. I consider comments such as "bizarre" and "alienating" to be intentional insults and I am explicitly asking to you stop making such comments to me. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:04, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
What the heck was that ridiculous photograph doing on the page? It has no artistic value, no communicative value, nothing remotely of relevance to an encyclopædia. Frankly the picture should be deleted as waste of space. I've deleted it from the page. It belongs in the bin. FearÉIREANN \ (caint) 19:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
John Kerry's discharge from the Navy deserves more discussing and correcting. He was technically discharged from the Navy on February 16, 1978. John Kerry's own website reveals he was in the Navy Reserves from 1970 until 1978.
This means Kerrys anti-war activities, protest, and negotiations with foreign powers in foreign states took place while he was an officer of the United States military. The affects of this action is very serious and one cannot deny these facts.
I respectfully submit that unless John Kerry identifies himself as a Jewish American, then he not be categorized as a Jewish American. John Kerry's grandparents were Jewish converts to Catholicism; I presume that after their conversion they no longer identified themselves as Jewish. That means his most recent Jewish ancestors were three generations back.
By that standard, I myself am an "ethnic" "German American," since my great-grandfather came from Germany. Hopefully anyone who knows me agrees that is nonsense. I'm an all-American mutt.
Even by most standards of Judaism Kerry would not be Jewish since this is on his paternal line.
IMO, this has only been inserted by someone trying to make trouble and stir up the idea that the whole world is run by Jews or some such nonsense. No sense humoring it; just revert.
I take all of this back if Kerry actually identifies himself as Jewish.
Jdavidb 23:09, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Look at the description of the category: Americans of Jewish ethnic descent. Kerry certainly qualifies; his great-uncle Otto Löwe died in Theresienstadt; his great-aunt Jenni Löwe died at Treblinka. - Nunh-huh 00:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The category "Jewish Americans" says exactly that - "people of ethnic Jewish descent". I find it silly to keep Kerry under "English Americans" but not "Jewish Americans". Both are ethnic backgrounds that he shares equally. Madonna would not be listed since she has no ethnic Jewish descent, and she never formally converted to Judaism. You made a mistake about Sean Penn (check his Wiki entry). His father was Jewish and his mother Irish/Italian (Catholic). He was raised secularly, and he does not practice any religion. He never converted into Judaism and was never raised Catholic (you can see the "Jewish Americans" and "irish-Italian Americans" categories on Penn's page. Madonna is not included under "Jewish Americans", only under Italian and French Americans, par her ethnic heritage. As for "Jewish" meaning "Jewish mother", that is a Jewish RELIGIOUS law and we would be taking a religious Jewish POV in following it, rather than a non-POV ethnic-based view.
It would be one sided to list Kerry under "Jewish Americans" ONLY. BUT! He is also listed under "English Americans", meaning his ethnic heritage is mixed, which is the case. In a country as multi-cultural as America there are plenty of people who can fall under a large number of ethnic-based categories. As long as all of them are listed I don't see a problem. He is Catholic by religion, and Jewish and English (with mebbe a little Scottish and Irish) by ethnicity. Seems pretty simple, doesn't seem like there's a need to exclude any category, especially since he is 50/50 when it comes to his ethnicities. A reader can obviously see the whole thing explained under his "Family Background" paragraphs. -User 24...something...something
Yes JamesMLane, and it's an annoying difference, isn't it? And yes, I agree on who would be included if we split the categories. Makes perfect sense to me. I think they should be split. Where do we go and who do we talk to about splitting them? (thought I think you missed one of my points, which was at the moment the "Jewish Americans" category described itself as being ethnicity based, even if people glancing over the name wouldn't necessarily notice) At the moment, I have removed him from "English Americans" (heck, I was the one who added that one in the first place, in my attempt to increase the English Americans category and give it some legitimacy). It's a disservice to list him under one ethnicity but not the other. But yeah, I think good names for the categories would be "Ethnic Jews" and "Religious Jews". We also have "Jewish American actors" hanging about (not to mention "Jewish film directors"). There used to be an "Ashkenazi Jews" category, maybe we should use that name for ethnic Jews? "Ashkenazi" signifies ethnicity, since it is a major ethnic difference but not really a religious difference. Whaddya think? -User 24...something...something
I know they're not. But frankly 80% of the world's Jewish population is Ashkenazi (according to Wikipedia's Ashkenazi page). It would make it a more interesting split if we made two Jewish ethnicity based categories (Ashkenazi and Sephardic). -User 24...something...something
I think so. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 07:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
You wouldn't believe some of the arguments I've been in. In and out of Wikipedia, that is. -User 24...something...something
According to this [1] JamesMLane thinks that calling a minor wound minor is editorializing. If so, then we can't call Katrina a large or powerful hurricane. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Merovingian removed [2] a wiki link to the word wound. I do not agree that his rationale as posited in his edit summary suffices for that unilateral, non-discussed deletion. I am asking for group comment about that here. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 07:12, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
James, are you saying that the wound is more severe than a "minor" wound or are you saying that based on the available facts, you are unable to conclude how severe (or minor) the wound was? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I object to your removal of the wiki link to the word wound which I had only recently added to the John Kerry article. Furthermore, I feel it's unfair of you to act unilaterally the way you did. I ask that you restore that wiki link, review the talk page for that article and better explain your action there ( Talk:John Kerry). Thanks. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 07:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I contend that without some clarification regarding Kerry's 1st "wound" we are publishing hagiographic material, not biographic material. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
The issue at hand is that the entire article is too hagiographic and ought to be toned down considerably. Adding a wiki link to the word wound is a good place to start. As is adding the clarifying term "minor" in front of "wound". As to a reader thinking something is deserved or not, the Purple Heart page has ample details to make clear that even minor wounds can qualify. The simple fact is that by omitting detail, we are distorting history in a pro-Kerry fashion. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:08, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that I have answered you both. In fact I know I have, so I will repeat: the entire article is too hagiographic. As to Kizzle specifically, that's not my concern. My concern is that "minor" is truthful, fair and accurate, which is the standard for journalism and it's no less a valid standard to reach NPOV, which this article currently does not. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:59, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Correct in what regard? Are you saying that the John Kerry article is not less harsh on Kerry than the George W. Bush article is on Bush? If that's what you are saying, give me until later tonight to post a comparison of some salient elements of both for your perusing. On the other hand, if there is (and there is) an un-evenhanded approach between those articles, that must not be allowed to stand. Now then, regarding Kerry, you might not agee that the entire article is too hagiographic, but I do. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Huh? - please go re-read the wound treatment guide. Specifically, re-read the section which is titled "TREATMENT FOR YOUR MINOR WOUNDS". Any plain reading of that section, when correlated to the known facts about Kerry's 1st wound, makes clear that the 1st wound can be accurately and fairly described as "minor" and that this can be done without "opinion" or "editorializing".
Also, if adjectives are so bad, then why is it that as of 10.19.05, the Kerry article tells us "he became deeply interested in politics.", we are also told that "Kerry and several other officers had an unusual meeting in Saigon with Admiral Elmo Zumwalt", that he had an "important role" (in VVAW). Also, we are told that Kerry "won convictions in both a high-profile rape case...", that "He won a narrow victory" and Kerry himself is quoted as saying the people of Massachusetts "emphatically reject the politics of selfishness..." and that "Kerry is also known as an avid cyclist". Finally, we are also told that he was "successfully treated for prostate cancer". Could it be that each of the adjectives which are currently in the article (as shown above) have a hagiographic effect? I contend that they do. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:05, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, if anyone wants to be part of the newly formed Liberal Editors Cabal, simply disagree with Rex on this or any other talk page and he'll add you to the group here: User talk:Rex071404/Liberal Editors Cabal. -- kizzle 00:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Hey, what is it about this guy? This page seems to have non-stop wars over content. Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam and Stalin combined on Wikipedia see less edit wars than this page? What is so special about this guy that makes people want to fight over him here day by day? FearÉIREANN \ (caint) 01:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Removed almost all adjectives from the article, then labled then as POV removal, also removed reference to John Kerry owning a dog, as a blatent POV issue along with Favorite Food, and reference to him being a cyclist.. I could be missing something, but those don't actually seem like POV issues, unless of course this editor's idea of NPOV, is to remove anything that isn't negative, including what seem like rather neutral statments like John Kerry Owns a Dog, I'm going to rv the whole thing to back before the edit war-- anon editor 02:46, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
According to the edit summary by Szyslak for this , which states "rv {NPOV} - the tag is for disputes that can't be resolved after discussion; also removed gratuitous "See also" link)", it is clear that the correct course of action, on a disputed page (when issues can't be resolved after discussion) is to add an NPOV tag. This being the case, I am adding a POV check to this page and am reminding the other editors here of important details from the wiki article on " Consensus decision-making", which are: "Rather than simply list known alternatives, debate for a short time, vote, and then accept or reject by some percentage of majority (ex. over 50%, over 2/3), a consensus decision-making process involves identifying and addressing concerns, generating new alternatives, combining elements of multiple alternatives and checking that people understand a proposal or an argument. This empowers minorities, those with objections that are hard to state quickly, and those who are less skilled in debate. Therefore, consensus decision-making can be seen as a form of grassroots democracy."
I ask the editors here to take note that "combining elements of multiple alternatives" is an essential part of consensus decision-making and yet, the editors here have been reverting and deleting every edit I make to John Kerry (and has been doing so for well over a year and again, many times in the last few days). For this reson, it cannot be said that there is any valid consensus among the active editors on this article. As with that as my justification, I am adding the POV check tag to the article.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Here are the 1st (5) sections of each outline from each article. It's clear that the Kerry article goes into much more personal detail, the net effect of which is to "sell" Kerry to people. It was forced on us by the pro-Kerry editors during election 2004 and it remains the same way today. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 21:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Contents section(s) | Bush | Kerry |
1.0 | Early life and education | Early life and education |
1.1 | Family background | |
1.1.1 | Maternal family background | |
1.1.2 | Paternal family background | |
1.2 | Childhood years | |
1.3 | Boarding school (1957-1962) | |
1.4 | Encounters with President Kennedy (1962) | |
1.5 | Yale University (1962-1966) | |
2.0 | Religious beliefs and practices | Military service (1966-1970) |
2.1 | Commission, training, and tour of duty on the USS Gridley | |
2.2 | Kerry's tour of duty as commander of a Swift boat | |
2.2.1 | First Purple Heart | |
2.2.2 | Meeting with Zumwalt and Abrams | |
2.2.3 | Second Purple Heart | |
2.2.4 | Silver Star | |
2.2.5 | Bronze Star and third Purple Heart | |
2.3 | Return from Vietnam | |
2.4 | Criticism of military service and awards | |
3.0 | Professional life | Anti-Vietnam War activism (1970-1971) |
3.1 | Business | Joining the Vietnam Veterans Against the War |
3.2 | Political Career | Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee |
3.3 | The protest at the U.S. Capitol | |
3.4 | Media appearances | |
4.0 | Presidential campaigns | Early career (1972-1985) |
4.1 | 2000 campaign | Campaigning for Congress (1970s) |
4.2 | 2004 campaign | Career in law and politics (1972-1985) |
5.0 | Important People in Bush's Life and Career | Service in the U.S. Senate (1985-present) |
5.1 | Meeting with Ortega | |
5.2 | Iran-Contra hearings | |
5.3 | Other investigations | |
5.4 | Kerry and the George H.W. Bush administration | |
5.5 | 2000 Presidential Election | |
5.6 | Kerry and Iraq | |
5.7 | Sponsorship of legislation | |
5.8 | Political chairmanship and presidential nomination | |
5.9 | Committee assignments | |
5.10 | Issues and voting record |
What does this have to do with anything? If you think the GWB article lacks information, go add it to that article.
Gamaliel 21:53, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Rex, John Kerry is a senator and a veteran while George W. Bush is a two-term president. Why do you expect their articles to be laid out in the same way? Rhobite 22:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
The only excuse there ever was (and a poor one at that) for having so much Kerry details, is that he was a national candidate and was perhaps not then well known around the country. However, that election is over and frankly, you know as well as I do that the ArbComm has already had a finding that election 2004 did intrude into this article. I contend that there is simply no justification for such copious detail remaining in this article. Especially since such simple things as a wiki link on the word "wound", the actual number of bills which became law "11" and an acccurate adjective applied to the 1st wound "minor" are kept out. Now as for your characterization of my log as a "hit-list", you are free to think what you may, but again I will ask you to keep your comments and suppositions of that nature off the article talk pages. I am asking you nicely and I believe that you are causing trouble by refusing to stop. Also, I do indeed contend that there is Liberal bias here and yet, I have softened the name of my log page to address the fact that there are some (such as you apparantly) who will offend themselves by snooping into my personal pages. That being the case, I went to a new page name which has less potential to offend uninvited perusers. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:26, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
You miss the point - Kizzle is complaining about something that he alone has been advertising. I did not point anyone to those page(s). If he kept his complaints about them to himself, there would be no controversy. And Kizzle's ad-hominem criticisms about me/my logs do not belong on this page - they are detracting from the dialog here. Also, have you read the above points about "consensus decision-making"? What about the fact that every edit I make to John Kerry gets reverted? How this that anything but bias? And what about Kerry's 1st wound, was it "minor", yes or no? Rex071404 216.153.214.94
I intend to put details about this into the article. any comments? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 02:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Here is another link Rex071404 216.153.214.94 02:58, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
And another, here Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The fact that this is not even mentioned in Kerry's article is an example of the pro-Kerry bias I am talking about. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:00, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Here is another link Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I am interested in this article as part of bringing to it a sense of "parity" to the various articles which I see concerning Conservative Polticians on this wiki. Suffice it to say, your concession that you do not Google for critical items for Kerry makes my point for me, which is; the bulk of the editors who have opposed me in total on Kerry etc, for the most part do not put critical items into pages for Liberal politicians. However, from time to time, a subset of that group (the particular persons vary) go to great lengths to keep favorable edits in the Liberal articles - for example JamesMLane (and others) blocking me on the word "minor". The simple fact is that these editing patterns have the net effect of biasing the Kerry article in a favorable manner (and interestingly enough, the same basic edit forces array in a reciprocal manner at the Bush page - resulting unfavorable tone and text there). In case you have forgotten how this all started, let me bring you back to July 2004, when I joined. My research indicates that my 1st edit appears to be this [4]. This particular edit went right to the meat of the matter, which was that Kerry was then lying to the voters about whether or not he had released his full medical records. At the time, the biggest pro-Kerry editor was then, Neutrality. If I am not mistaken, it was his text which I modified to make my 1st edit. Now if you also recall, almost immediately after my 1st edit, I was emeshed in edit wars - one of the 1st was about Kerrry's medical records. Please go back and read the article and the talk page from those days - you'll see that I was knocked all over the place for trying to insist that Kerry had not actually released his full military/medical records. The pro-Kerry forces were adamant that I was wrong. Well then, guess what, look at this taunting left by Neutrality on my talk page this summer (when he certainly knew I could not respond due to 6 month hiatus). What does the edit say? It says that Kerry only finally signed his Form 180 (military service and military medical, records) release on May 20th, 2005! Har! Told you so. I was 100% right about that then and I am right about Kerry's minor wound now and I am also right that pro-Kerry Liberal editors are still up clucking their feathers and watching out for their champion. And if that's not true, then how would you explain the taunting edit Neutrality left for me (as linked above)? The bottom line is that the Kerry article portrays an excessively postive picture of him - positive to the point of falseness. That was true in July 2004 and it's true today. Final note, you may not care that Kerry has in the past done things like go around and falsely pretend to be Irish, so as to get the Boston ethnic Irish vote, (see Slate link - talk page). But I do, I am from Massachsuetts. I have followed his career for years and I feel it's important that when a local silver spoon hack politician tries to go for the brass ring, that everyone be afforded to have accurate information about him. The Liberal editors here have prevented that before and they still are trying to prevent it now. Kerry's an utter mediocrity - he's only gotten 11 bills passed in the US Senate in his ENTIRE CAREER. Why the pro-Kerry people are so intent on shunting those types of details under the rug or off to the side, is stunning to me. 11 bills - that's it and he wants to (still wants to!) be president! What kind of enyclopedia article keeps out such important details - while all the while telling me his favorite cookies are chocolate chip? In my mind, only a biased one does. Now, we might disagree on many things, but certainly we can agree that in order to evaluate a politician's effectivenes, bills signed into law is a more valuable data element than favorite cooke type, wouldn't you say? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 09:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
All this rant proves is your interest in dragging down a public figure you dislike and in rehashing old battles. If you want to make constructive edits, such as including information on the Sherwood lawsuit, go for it. But this article won't be served my removing information you dislike, however trivial that information may be, nor will it be served by you putting up a furious fight over insignificant issues where you are clearly in the wrong, such as wikilinking common words. Gamaliel 09:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I intend to add information about this to the article. any comments? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
More about this here Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
..just because some troll, wills it to be so, or do we??-- anon editor 03:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I answer Gamaliel as follows: 1) My exmple of outline sections in comparison is not meaningless. Rather it clearly points out that Kerry's personal history gets more hands on details - this can be confirmed by simply reading the sections referred to by the outlines, on each respective page. 2) It does matter that biographies ought to be similarly handled for similarly situated persons. During election 2004, those two persons each had a 50/50 chance of being the next president. Certainly that fact called for more balance than the editors here allowed. And it's long over due that Kerry's page reigned in. 3) Again, I do not feel the Bush lacks detail, I feel that Kerry has too much and it's hagiographic detail at that. G, Do you deny that Kerry's page tends towards the hagiographic? As for the wiki link, there is no argument, if others don't oppose me on that. Therefore, if I am being frivolous, how much more so are those who are trying to trump me on that? Also, the issue of Kerry's wounds goes right to the heart of how dishonest this article is. It is an established fact that Kerry's 1st injury was minor. If any editor on this page has been "hellbent" about anything, it's those who deny this fact and refuse to allow that word in. Even with links to wound page(s) which make clear that the the word "minor" is the correct descriptor for a wound of that type, not one inch is being given by the pro-Kerry crowd on that word. So who's being "hellbent"? And please, don't shift the argument to one about "common words". This is not about the common nature of the word wound, because common or not, there are clearly great variances in the severities of wounds. And this is more true that the point you push. Think about it; whenever you hear that a friend was injured, the 1st thing you as is "how bad was it?". Bt refusing to tell the readers how bad it was, we are in fact commiting the lie of ommission, "conincidentally" in favor of Kerry. I could go on, but I'll simply say that for an editor who claims disinterest in political articles, you sure do revert me often enough. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
If the consensus (among themselves) of "others" refuses to incorporate any of my ideas, by definition there is not consensus on this page, there is no consensus decision-making going on here and there is not any bona-fide negotiation. Suffice it to say, the closed-mided finality of Gamaliel's "that's how the cookie crumbles" jibe makes clear that he has zero intention of ever backing off from his instransigence against me. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I would like to add information to the article, that deals with the fact that John Kerry promised not to criticise the President when he went to war, and then did so on the same day as the war started. I know that this news was reported in the media at the time. ComfortFood 04:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm currently looking for links that will support these two assertions:
1. Democrat Primary Candidates agreed not to criticise the President during the actual war.
2. John Kerry criticises President on or right before March 20, 2003.
ComfortFood 05:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the first claim:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50D17F93F550C7B8DDDAA0894DB404482
March 18, 2003, Tuesday (By The New York Times); National Desk Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 14, Column 3, 373 words DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 373 WORDS -Congressional Republicans gave unconditional support tonight to President Bush's ultimatum to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Democratic leaders expressed dismay over the failure of diplomatic efforts, but many said that with war imminent, they would mute their criticism and stand behind American troops. Most major Democratic presidential candidates also... ComfortFood 05:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
This is relevant for several reasons. The first reason is that he gave his word that he would not criticise the President, and then he immediately broke it aftewards. If it was done on purpose, it would make him a liar. The effect was that on the same day the war started, people were also reading his criticism, when they should have been focussing on the President's leadership during the start of a war. If Kerry had been a General and had criticised the President, he would surely have been fired. Remember the case of MacArthur, Truman and the Korean war. It's something that every good soldier knows. You don't criticise your commanding officer in public during a time of war. The President himself would have been distracted by these comments during a time when his attention was needed elsewhere. What we need to keep in mind here, is that Kerry was running as a Presidential candidate. If he had become President, would he have expected his subordinates not to criticise him in this way? There is an old saying, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I would argue that this event can be seen in one of two ways, either Kerry did not bother to think about what the events were leading up to, or he did this out of deliberate malice in a calculating way. Unfortunately, a lot of history depends on how you interpret it. But clearly what we know is that he criticised the President on the day the United States went to war in Iraq. I think it should be mentioned in his biography. This is especially true when opposition to the war was a large part of his campaign. This can be seen in the larger political context of the Democrats as a whole, not wanting to seem to be weak to the American public on foreign policy. It seems that politicians are willing to lie to people until whatever controversy is in the news, that week, has passed over.
I would ask that we come to some sort of agreement on this topic, Jpgordon, so that the addition of this fact in the article can be done without it being reverted back to a previous form.
ComfortFood 13:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I was hoping for a comment that was related to developing this article.
ComfortFood 16:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Read this Slate article here Rex071404 216.153.214.94 05:38, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
A1sdf deleted the following paragraph:
One of the Bush administration figures criticized for his handling of BCCI was Robert Mueller who, in his then-role as Deputy Attorney General, was criticized about slow performance regarding the investigation. Kerry himself was criticized in some circles for not pressing harder against certain Democrats, and he was also criticized by some Democrats for pursuing his own party members, including former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford. The BCCI scandal was later turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
Kerry’s role in the BCCI matter actually deserves more attention in this article, not less. The Washington Monthly article stated:
By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.
As our article notes, several agencies in the Bush 41 administration were culpable in not pursuing BCCI properly. Mueller was sent to debate Kerry on Nightline about the investigation. Although he was thus a prominent spokesweasel for the Bush administration, he was only one of several officials who were at fault, and who were mentioned by name in the Kerry/Brown report. It's interesting to note his involvement because he's now the FBI Director, but I don't see that fact as having enough bearing on Kerry's role to merit inclusion here. The rest of the paragraph, however, is perfectly valid information, and I've restored it with some tweaking. JamesMLane 21:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, but statements such as that are indeed indicative of a mindset which is likely going to color your editorial decisions - including those aimed ay blocking my edits. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 21:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
As I've made clear, I don't agree that you constrain your bias - as it applies to gatekeeping against other's political article edits - to the degree and extent you ought to. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 22:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
A1sdf deleted a statement by Kerry on this basis: "using a website called 'peacecore' [sic] as a source, has got to be a joke, it's gone too". I can't see this as a sensible edit. Peace Corps Online is a public forum for returned Peace Corps volunteers. Does the word "peace" in the name mean that it must be completely ignored? Furthermore, the slightest research would show that this quotation isn't subject to any good-faith dispute. If you actually click on the link, you'll see that the Peace Corps Online post is quoting a Reuters dispatch. That should suggest that it's not some kind of left-wing propaganda lie. In fact, Googling the quotation turns up, as the fifth hit, a column by that well-known Bolshevik Ann Coulter, who cites the quotation exactly as it appeared in our article. [6] I've restored the quotation (giving Kerry's complete sentence), with a citation to CBS News to forestall further such sniping from people who regard "peace" as a suspicious word. I've also removed A1sdf's characterization of opponents of the war as "far left" and his later reference to "much of the American Left", words that serve no purpose except to convey the impression (probably a false impression) that these views are held only by a tiny minority. JamesMLane 21:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Speaking of sources, I think we should find a better one than National Review Online if this article is going to claim the wound was "superficial". I checked the source; it was an account by a doctor who treated his wound, as told by NRO columnist Byron York. (By the way, the link I removed is here. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 06:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC))
By the way, Rex, that was only ONE edit I reworked, out of the six or seven you made. If I were reverting you "out of spite", I'd revert all your edits. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 06:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
(copied here from User talk:Szyslak)
NRO is suffiently mainstream and Byron York is sufficently well regarded that when Byron quotes Dr. Louis Letson, you cannot simply reject this source out of hand as being invalid - and somehow not meriting discussion prior to your reverting my edit. Please dialog with me about this on Talk:John Kerry. I'll answer there promptly, as soon as you articulate a rationale for you rejecting the validity of Byron York's quoting of Dr. Letson. Thanks. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
(moved here from User Talk:Rex071404)
Hi there. I wish you'd please stop insisting that other editors follow your personal policy on reverts. All around Wikipedia, I've found that politically contentious edits to major articles tend to get reverted, with or without "discussion prior to reverting". I don't like being reverted any more than you do. Personally, I've been striving to explain reverts more, which is something most Wikipedia editors don't do nearly enough. However, few people are willing to accede to your list of demands about how they edit Wikipedia. It's tiresome to hear your demands that people follow your instructions, which have no basis in Wikipedia policy or common, everyday editing practice.
About my edit: I did discuss it—after I made the edit, instead of before as you demanded in your message on my talk page. Apparently that wasn't good enough for you, but if you continue to insist on things like that, nothing on Wikipedia is. sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 07:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Sz, if you were not snooping on my private edits log, you would not be reading what are clearly chronological notes about suspect edits, notes which are clearly meant just for me. Regarding my log, not once have I ever told you to read that page, nor have I ever linked a comment to you to that page, nor have I ever directed the word "spite" to you. However, your edit summary [7] which caused me to make a note to myself does clearly accuse me of creating a "phony non-issue". Certainly, where I come from, it can be considered "spiteful" to call someone a "phony" or accuse them of being "phony" or doing "phony" things. Now, on to you and your assertion of "disputed"; the issue at hand between you and I right now is whether or not Byron York accurately quoted Dr. Louis Letson, not whether or the good Dr. was lying or not.
Q: Yes or no, are you willing to agree that the Dr. was quoted by York accurately? If not, what source can you point to which refutes York's quotations of the Dr. as being false quotes?
And FYI: the edit of mine, which you reverted, did not call the wound minor. Rather what it did was use terminology such as "small" and "superficially" [8] as presented in the Dr. Leston quote. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I recently made this which relied on this as my source. My source article is written by Byron York and directly quotes Dr. Louis Letson, the man who personally administered the medical treatment to Kerry's 1st injury. Mr. York, in the article, quotes the Dr. thusly;
As any plain reading of the York article makes clear, Mr. York, is directly quoting the Dr. and it is Dr. Letson himself who uses the words "small" and "superficially". Based on those direct quotes, I used the word "superficial" to describe the injury and "small" to describe the shrapnel. Frankly, I fail to se how anyone can claim that my version is POV or warrants the edit that Szyslak made here and which has in it this statement "which some of his conservative critics have called minor."
If you read above, you will see the enormous opposition that had gone against the use of the word "minor". So much so, that I took the time (as Kizzle wanted - see above) to get a direct source quotation. Yet, to top it off, Szyslak seems to be confusing York viewpoint with Leston's personal words. Arrgghhh.... I am going to sleep on this and let it sit for a few days. Perhaps by then Szyslak will see that my source is valid and he is confusing Letson (fact) for York (opinion).
Of course, there would still remain the point of whether or not Szyslak will subsequently accept the Letson facts as true facts. Because even if he does come to admit that Letson said those words (in writing, which York re-printed, verbatim), there will still be the issue of Szyslak (and others) perhaps faulting Letson's recollection or calling Letson a liar.
Even so, to my knowledge Letson is the only medical staffer who treated Kerry's 1st injury, so he is the only trained authority on what the treatment was and what size/type injury he saw. So then, I guess what I am saying is, why are we so quick to refuse the accept Letson's statement as valid? We have many other sources, in many articles who do not have a 35 year unblemished medical career vouching for them, as Letson does. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 08:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
This page is 80 KB long, and should be shortened or split as per Wikipedia:Article size. In a similar way as George W. Bush, this article, too, is extremely long, and could use much shortening, for a variety of reasons, such as fact checking and general ease of readability, making it viable for FA status. Thanks, [[ User:Mys e kurity| Mysekurity]] [[ additions | e-mail]] 02:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
The cookie tidbit is one of dozens of excess sentences in this article. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
If you have done about 5 seconds of work on google and found the sources yourself, you could have found several sites which would have corroborated John Kerry's favorite food and his pets, rather than removing them and making other people find sources (which is ridiculous in the first place, is this passage really that controversial?). Please don't remove any more info citing lack of source unless you spend at least 5 minutes on google trying to find one. -- kizzle 18:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll wait for Kizzle's answer on that, thank you. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Umm, because its common courtesy. If you are here truly to build a better encyclopedia, than if you're unsure about the veracity of a statement, just spend 5 minutes on google trying to see if you can corroborate it. If a superficial search turns up nothing, then feel free to delete the info, otherwise add the sources you find. It took me about 5 seconds on the first page to find a good source for your info. It's not your job to prove the veracity, but you're setting a bad example that anyone can come in and delete any info they feel suspect without actually investigating themselves whether or not it is truly suspect. As for the "timeliness" of the info, they're mainly written around the 2004 election, but I really don't think we need to say "At the time", just put his pets and his favorite food as mentioned, then if a news report comes out saying that he's changed his favorite food or one of his pets dies or he gets a new one, we'll use that. I still can't believe I'm having this argument. -- kizzle 20:58, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I hear the Onion reports that the White House denies the existance of anyone named Karl Rove. Also, I hear it was a blue Fitzmas this year - no Karl Rove's head under the Fitzmas tree. JML's dreaming of a Rove Fitzmas... Just like the ones he used to know... Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Uh, there's no "tirade" [9] as I was not venturing any opinions or making a speech, nor am I angry. This was pure Dragnet: "Just the facts, ma'am". Now as to Kizzle's "Or put national security at risk for pure political retribution". This is nothing but absurd conjecture which doesn't even allow for the possibility that Wilson, as the partisan he is, provoked the inquiries about himself by making the profoundly false pronouncements that he made. After a lengthy investigation, we have learned so far a) There is no charge or official allegation that anyone disclosed the indentity of a covert CIA employee b) there is no charge or official allegation that anyone, other than "Scooter" did anything but state to reporters that Mrs. Wilson (not, "Plame" - he did NOT say "Plame" to anyone) worked at CIA (not "is an agent", etc.) Frankly, I think Wilson is a pimp for using his wife this way. He went on that trip with every intention of stirring up trouble and to a certain extent, he succeded. However, if either of you bothered to do any real reading on this topic, you'd quickly find out that Wilson is an established LIAR, so far as reporting the actual facts regarding what he did and did not do in regards to his trip. Now then, this edit could possibly be a "tirade" except again for the fact that I am not angry. Angry at whom? Wilson? He's a nobody - a pimple on the ass of history. This time next year, people will have forgotten all about him. Unless of course Wilson himself gets charged at some point - which for spreading the lies that he has about his "trip" he should be. He needs only to be questioned by a Federal Agent and repeat the same lies he's told so far. In addition to lying under oath or to a Grand jury, lying to a Federal Agent in the course of an investigation is a Felony. Wilson should be questioned and charged. He's the traitor, not Bush, who Kizzle speciously and falsely accuses. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 13:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Kizzle, you are really losing it. Unless you stop bandying about such scurrilous nonsense as "Bush's retarded response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush's re-emergence of his drinking problems", I'm not going to bother dialogging with you regarding anything but a specific edit under discussion. FYI: I note that you do not deny that Ted Kennedy killed a woman and Byrd was a KKK leader - or how about the fact that Byrd not too long ago used the term "white nigger" on TV? Question: If, as I expect he will be, Delay is fully exonerated, will you admit that your broadbrush hysteria regarding him was overwrought? As for Libby, I do not claim to understand why he mis-spoke and/or lied regarding his discussions with reporters concerning Mr. & Mrs Wilson. However, the closest recent parallel was Martha Stewart and it that case - as in this case - the original accusation proved to not have suffcient foundation to proceed, only charges of lying went forward. Why did Libby lie? I dunno, why did Marthe lie? Personally, I don't think she did - she had nothing to hide and interviewed with investigators voluntarily. Suffice it to say, I don't think she rememebered the sequence of events correctly. I also don't think she should have been charged. As for Libby, from where I sit, the charges are more flummoxing. He could easily have hid behind White House lawyers and refused to answer questions based on assertions of Executive Priviledge - if what you are saying is true - that he was acting on instructions of Bush/Cheney. Had that been the case, they would still be litigating whether he even had to answer questions. Then, after he was forced to answer by the courts, he could have taken the 5th. In fact he could have taken the 5th even under the current circumstances. That he did not, would tend to indicate that his statements were not - in his mind as he said them - false or needing to be concealed. Kizzle, these points having been made, will you please stop with the wacky anti-Bush yammering, it demeans our discussions. And regarding your claims that "we're on the same page about manipulated intel", I don't see where you get that as I did not comment about "intel" and I certainly do not agree with the thesis that a) Bush et, al "lied" to bring war, b) Wilson "uncovered" truth c) White House "retaliates" against Wilson. There are so many flaws with that erroneous and myopic theory, that I don't even discuss it beyond saying, it's crap and only partisan zealots think it's true, IMHO.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 19:54, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Kizzle, you are way off base here, I feel. My comment to JML did not concern you as it was not directed to you. Too bad the Onion Rove spoof is now deleted from the web - it was a hoot. And surely, in light of JML's jab about Laura bush, mentioning it was valid. As for Fitzmas - go to that page and you will see how emotionally invested JML is in all of that. For that reason, I do feel Fitzmas is coloring his views and was worth mentioning. Sorry it got you so hysterical. By they way, did Mary Jo Kopechne ("Kopechne died in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts when a car driven by Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, in which she was the passenger, went off a bridge and overturned into a pond") die because of Ted Kennedy, yes or no? At least when GWB used to drink and drive, he was careful enough to drive slowly and not kill anyone. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:23, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Sounds super, except that the White House is NOT "under serious investigation as to whether they breached national security for political retribution". The investigation has been held, NO charges were brought contending what you allege. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 22:29, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps it's because both you and he were not listening closely enough during the press conference? Or perhaps McClellan has another agenda that you did not consider.
Here is the operative Q & A regarding whether or not we ought to expect futher indictments:
Find full transcript here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801340_pf.html
I read that answer by Fitzgerald to mean that there is a slim to none chance any more indictments will come of this.
Personally, I feel that McClellan is simply using the "ongoing investigation" as an excuse to avoid answering questions. A crude, but effective tactic.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 01:45, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
A direct quote by the Dr. who treated Kerry uses the same three words I use: "injury", "superficial" and "small". Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Read Letson's statement again:
What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.
I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.
The wound was covered with a bandaid."
He uses the word "injury" 1st and "wound" last - so do I.
Now, as to the use of "superficial", I use that as I did because Letson said:
He is clealry stating that the injury was superficial.
Using the FACTS providd by Letson, I have assembled a non-POV sentence which uses all four key words and does not distort their meaning:
"Kerry suffered a superficial injury from a small piece of shrapnel in the left arm above the elbow [12]. The shrapnel was removed and the wounded area was treated with bacitracin antibiotic and bandaged."
Other than to re-tweak it as:
"Kerry suffered a superficial injury from a small piece of shrapnel in the left arm above the elbow [13]. The shrapnel was removed and the wound was treated with bacitracin antibiotic and bandaged."
I see no justifications for changing these two sentences. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:26, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
The quote from Dr. Leston and the words he used, are in not and of themselves "controversial". Rather, the "controversy" attaches to those words by various editors here who insist on inserting sentences such as "Kerry's opponents, including the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, have contended that this wound was too minor to merit a Purple Heart and that Kerry used this injury as his first of three to game the system and obtain early release from his Vietnam service. However, Kerry's wound did qualify him for consideration under Naval guidelines for a purple heart, and a subsequent Naval review reiterated their position that the purple heart was correctly given".
Owing to the fact that this text which I edited in...
...uses the EXACT WORDS that Dr. Letson used and because it's also carefully written, it's not in and of itself a controversy. If you insist on calling it such, we'll end up at the point where no text referring to the 1st injury/wound is allowed in, as every variant could be deemed "controversy". See Talk:Stolen_Honor#Per se controversy articles and associate sections on that talk page for related explanations. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 04:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with James's inferrence that the article has an enforced stasis regarding this section of text. I came up with phrasing which I think is NPOV towards both sides and is in fact, more accurate than what it replaces. Also, there is no credible evidence that Letson is lying about having treated Kerry or is to be disbeleived out of hand due to alleged bias. Also, as I have copiously explained previously, I feel the evidence clearly would support explicitly calling the injury "minor" as in "minor wound", but I am not trying to force that here.
James, other than arguing your point, you have supplied no data or evidence about wounds per se, but I have (see previous talk, above). That evidence, in the form of a wound treatment guide, can now be found here (URL changed recently). The treatment Kerry received (by all accounts) makes clear that he received treatment for a "minor wound". And yet, the text I editing in recently has softened but is still is correct, more accurate (than what you now lobby for), is NPOV and fair to both sides:
James, you are again focusing unduly on the past edit war -won by your side by default, when I got booted for 3rr violations ("we should stick to the language that emerged from last year's wrangling"). This is espcially true, considering that the ArbComm made a specific finding about issues of the campaign intruding into this article. Need I remind you, that it was you (one whom the ArbComm addressed) and your cohorts that made the final decsion about the language you now insist on sticking with.
Plain and simply, I have compromised here and you have not. You need to do better than that or rightly speaking, you are not enagaging in Wikipedia:Negotiation or Consensus decision-making.
Suffice it to say, I contend that there is residual POV bias in this article and I further contend that you are arguing against various changes that would remedy this. For these reasons, I am not persuaded by your plea to "stick to the language that emerged".
Again I will repeat: JamesMLane and others here do not have authority to enforce stasis or otherwise "freeze" any section of this article. As for "false impression(s)", the copious amounts of personal minutiae about Kerry detailed in this article do indeed give the false impression that we as readers really ought to be sweet on Kerry, our patootie [16]. The entire article is too hagiographic and is way POV balanced in favor of Kerry.
James's ceaseless efforts to screen out all non-flattering facts, regardless of how tactfully conveyed, does not improve the article. On the other hand, this edit of mine does and I am going to do my best to see to it that the true words of "superficial" and "small" stay in. You are welcome to try incorporating those words into a sentence you'd prefer, but you have not made the case for keeping them out. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 23:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
James, thank you for your well reasoned and polite response. Though I disagree with some of your points, I appreciate that you are dialogging. As for the section under discussion, as of today, here is how it reads:
As it stands now, this section is fair to both points of view and there is no need to chop this apart towards shunting details to any subsidiary "controversy page". In brief, it outlines the core of this issue in a NPOV manner, with details that are accurate enough to be fair to both views.
Are you willing to accept this section as it is now, or not? If not, then please tell me line by line, why not. Thanks. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 03:19, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh and since Gamaliel want to stuff the past ArbComm issues in my face, let's not forget what one of the key ArbComm findings was "User Rex071404 and others including the complaining witnesses, Neutrality, Wolfman, and JamesMLane have in the heat of the US Presidential election focused on the article John Kerry and carried the issues of the campaign into the encyclopedia article in detail.". [18]
During the night of December 2, 1968 and early morning of December 3, Kerry was in charge of a small boat operating in and around a peninsula north of Cam Ranh Bay together with a Swift boat (PCF-60). Kerry's boat surprised a group of men unloading sampans at a river crossing, who began to run. When the men refused to obey an order to stop running, Kerry and his crew of two enlisted men opened fire, destroyed the sampans, and took off. During this encounter, Kerry suffered a shrapnel wound in the left arm above the elbow. The shrapnel was removed and the wound was treated with bacitracin antibiotic and bandaged. Kerry returned to duty the next day on a regular Swift boat patrol. Kerry was awarded his first Purple Heart for this injury.
You have got to be kidding. I have been trying to trim this article for weeks and have been blocke at every turn. Even the smallest minutiae is re-inserted (ie: "favorite cookies"). The spin-off I did makes perfect sense. This discussion regarding 1st injury/Letson needs to move to: Talk:John Kerry's military service and I am copying it there now. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 09:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
do photos count as original research? I think as long as there isn't a copyvio problem, you can use original photos. -- kizzle 01:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
All quotes below are verbatim from: Wikipedia:No original research
Kizzle, please don't fight the obvious here, the image in question is indisputably original research - read the Summary for it:
File:Private support for JK election.jpg
That image is an NOR violation and must be deleted (from the John Kerry article).
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 01:48, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Ed, of course it can stay on the talk page but not in the article. In the article itself, it is an NOR violation. Do you agree with this contention, yes or no? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 02:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Not so, here again are the definitions and rules, quoted verbatim from Wikipedia:No original research:
That photograph most certainly a) was created by the editor who published it and b) [has] not been [previously] published in a reputable publication and c) it most certainly contains data and a statement, re: "support John Kerry".
Other than the fact some here would find it objectionable; talking exclusively from from a definition standpoint, how would it differ if I took a photo of a pile of dog poop with a John Kerry button stuck in it and a label on that button which said "Oppose John Kerry"? The answer is, with the reasoning being offered here, it would not.
Are you saying such an absurd turd photo would be allowed in? Well, what if it was boxer shorts?
How does that differ from this photo under dispute? What about a photo of a cartoon drawing of the corpse with a sign?
The photo is a primary source created by whoever took it, period. It has not been elsewhere published in a reputable publication.
The tableau represented by the photo cannot be allowed to leap into the wiki via the creating of that primary source by the wiki editor, period.
Repeat after me:
If you allow this photo, this creates precendent for people who want to seed the wiki with self-created "loaded" photos. Such a policy would be folly and would open up a non-stop can of worms.
On the other hand, if any final ruling says OK to the photo, I absolutely will post a "bra and Kerry message" photo, which says "oppose John Kerry". With the logic being offered here, it will have to be allowed in.
I'll wait until I see how this turns out.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 04:02, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Uh, there is a TEXT MESSAGE in this photo, which is information, data and a statement or hadn't you noticed? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 04:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I absolutely made no such threat. Rather, what I said was, if any final ruling says OK to the photo, I absolutely will post a "bra and Kerry message" photo, which says "oppose John Kerry". Posting a reciprocal photo of the exact model and type, with an opposing message, is not any kind of "threat". It's axiomatic that pledging an opposing edit is not problematic, if the nature of the edit posted is allowable. Simply put, I most certainly am free to post a like, but opposing photo, if this type of photo is deemed allowable. There is no "point" to such an intention, other than to not let photos that imbalance an article remain in with no opposing balance. The mistake James makes is to interpret that kind of edit as a retaliation rather than what it would be which is, an editor waiting for confirmation that particluar photo types are acceptable, before using one. James's panic about "threats" is ill founded. Retaliators do not wait for permission. The operative phrase here is "if any final ruling says OK". If there were an official ruling stating that these types of photos are allowable (personally created political photos with embedded text messages), why should I not be allowed to post one myself? If that type of photo is legitimate, then my posting one is also legitimate. Legitimate edits by editors who wait for permission can not in any rational way, be characterized as having been made to "make a point". Frankly, this is semantic tongue twisting - if I had instead said: "If this photo is allowed, then I get to use one of the same type too, or it's not fair", James would not even be complaining. Suffice it to say, if James and others are that sensitive, I'll try to be more careful. Frankly, I find that responding to various editors on these pages is fraught with risks pertaining to complaints. Such extreme sensitivity is challenging to me, but I'll see what I can do.
Rex071404
216.153.214.94 05:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Rex has something of a point here. It's one thing for a Wikipedia to photograph an example of grassroots Kerry support, it's quite another for someone to set up a display in their yard and photograph that as an example of grassroots Kerry support. This is a legitimate concern. However, Rex takes it too far. He has a tendency to be what we called in my RPG days a "rules lawyer", someone who attempted to use the rules to argue and manipulate the outcome of the game, as opposed to just role-playing and going with the flow of the game. In this instance, he takes his legitimate concern and twists it into an intepretation of the rules that is so absurd that it would disallow all user created pictures. (User created pictures are, of course, something that is actively encouraged here by everyone from Jimbo on down.) He is unwilling or unable simply to advocate his position, he insists that the rules demand his desired outcome. I think he should take Ed's wise advise: "Try to stop concerning yourself so much with rules". His legitimate concern aside, the photo is (in my opinion) pretty lame and should be excluded on those grounds. But whatever is decided with the photo, it should be decided by consensus and agreement and not by rules lawyering. After consensus emerges, at that point we should all let it go and not post retaliatory photos created solely to make a point, which I would consider a blockable offense under the "disruption" clause of Wikipedia:Blocking policy. Gamaliel 05:50, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Really? Then why is that photo not right out on the basis of being non-encyclopedic? Are "pun" photos about sitting Senators the right grist for otherwise straight-forward articles? Also, "support John Kerry" would, I feel, be more accurately conveyed by writing it on a jockstrap because he is (as I see it) a d*ck. He he, I made a "pun"... Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:21, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Ok, here is a new way of explaining:
This photo of the "support Kerry" sign shown in a tableau with some bras, can rightly be interepted (as a I've contended above) that it's been created to prove that Kerry is desirable. Gamaliel (above) said that it's a "pun", but if it's a pun, then the only rational reason for including it is to prove that Kerry supporters can make cool puns, hence Kerry must be "cool", which is still a form of proving something.
Because the photo in intended to make a point and is not just a photo of a butterfly or a tree, etc., the point this photo tries to make (whatever that point is) transforms this photo from being a "stock" photo into a form of argumentation - towards a point. That argumentation is what makes this photo "original research".
Indeed, the original caption for this photo was "Support for John Kerry, seen in Arizona". Quite apart from the fact that it appears more true the caption should have read "staged in Arizona" instead of "seen in Arizona", the operative word "support" argues that we, the readers, ought to interprept the photo as evidence of support for Kerry. Of course, since the photo's Summary details give every indication that the photo was staged, then this photo is indeed "original research" because it was staged, by a wiki editor, to prove a "novel narrative", eg: "there are women hanging their bras out for Kerry in AZ".
The reason photos need to be watched for Wikipedia:No original research violations is that the subject matter can be easily manipulated, prior to the shot being taken and then "surprise!", we have "proof" of something. This is called "creating a primary source" and it's why the NOR policy specifically states "Original research that creates primary sources is not allowed".
And, if you don't think this is true, think about this:
Candidate A and Canddidate B are in close battle in a heavily minority district. Supporters of A, take signs for B, bring them to a field, dress themselves up like KKK and burn a cross, while holding B's signs. This, they take a photo of and then post it into B's bio page on the wiki with a caption of "Supporters of B hold a rally". Too impossible you say?
What if supporters of A take B's signs and make a big mess in a parking lot with them and leave also a lot of trash like water bottles and sandwich wrappers.... the caption for this reads, "trash left behind after local rally for B". More subtle - and how do we prove it's not true?
Suffice it to say, regardless of whether or not editors here may feel "the photo is cute", the reason that there is an Official Policy regarding Wikipedia:No original research which does indeed control the use of photos, is so editors cannot game the system by hitting other editors in their "the photo is cute" blind spots.
It may just be that no other editors here recognize that photo as Original Research - but I do and I think it would be informative if we could get an opinion regarding it from ArbComm or Jimbo, etc. - someone that this group of editors concedes has expert capabilties in interpreting Wikipedia:No original research as it pertains to photos.
As of this moment, the photo is still in the article and I have been reverted three times for deleting it. And at least two of those rverters do claim they want the photo out (see comments above and match names with revert Edit Summaries) - even though they themsleves reverted it right back into the article.
As of my last edit regarding this photo, since I keep getting reverted for deleting it, I have changed the caption to read "A home photo taken by photographer Nils Fretwurst, in Arizona, October 2004". This caption is factually correct and is based on the Summary data for the photo istself.
Still, as to why John Kerry should have "a home photo [of bras and a sign] taken by photographer Nils Fretwurst" in it, has not been made clear by those who reverted me and restored the photo.
Rex071404 216.153.214.94 18:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
This just gets more and more bizarre. Apparently now your argument is that it's "original research" because the photographer just might have removed some beer bottles or because it's a pun?! This would be soooooo much easier if you just took Ed's advice and forgot about the rules for a little while. It's not enough for you to simply advocate your position, you wrongly insist that the rules demand your desired outcome. So instead of persuading people to support your position, you are essentially recruiting people to oppose you, since people who would otherwise support your desired outcome (removal of the picture) oppose your tortured and incorrect interpretation of the rules. Gamaliel 19:26, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Gamliel, I am going to ask you yet again; please stop intentionally insulting me. I consider comments such as "bizarre" and "alienating" to be intentional insults and I am explicitly asking to you stop making such comments to me. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 20:04, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
What the heck was that ridiculous photograph doing on the page? It has no artistic value, no communicative value, nothing remotely of relevance to an encyclopædia. Frankly the picture should be deleted as waste of space. I've deleted it from the page. It belongs in the bin. FearÉIREANN \ (caint) 19:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)