Talk:Michael Applebaum

Corruption scandal

Something should be mentioned and I am sure this man is corrupt as proverbial fuck.

You're free to think whatever you want about him on your own time. But as of right now, nobody's linked him to any evidence of corruption at all, and accordingly it's not Wikipedia's job to make unsubstantiated claims. Bearcat (talk) 15:41, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, well, looks like my thinking was correct after all... He is now under investigation for machinations and financial shenanigans.

I couldn't believe my ears when this obviously corrupt man was elected to replace another corrupt mayor in the middle of the biggest corruption scandal. How could it not be obvious to anyone else but myself that this man is also corrupt? Why didn't the cops notify politicos or leak to the media that he is under investigation when he was being considered for mayor position?

The whole thing makes me sick. And now he lies, saying he is "not under investigation"--Autismal (talk) 15:32, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I am the user who created this section back in 2012 when no one would dare accuse the obviously corrupt Mr. Applebaum. I was since banned on Wikipedia (user: Autismal).

I now accuse Denis Coderre of being one of the most corrupt. It is so damn OBVIOUS. Why no one investigates this pig of a fleshy human scum bag?

Denis Coderre is one of the most corrupt Quebec politicians. He needs to be prosecuted, pay restitution and put in prison. Ditto Dr. Philippe Couillard.

And while we're at it... practically the entire Quebec political establishment is corrupt to the core. This endless hypocrisy makes me sick. --184.161.146.190 (talk) 16:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

What you need to understand is that Wikipedia is not in the business of publishing original research or unsubstantiated allegations; our role here begins and ends at summarizing what other reliable sources have already published about the topic. That is, it is not our place to suggest anything about Michael Applebaum or Denis Coderre or Philippe Couillard being even possibly corrupt until such time as the media have published properly substantiated evidence of wrongdoing. It's the media's job to dig into allegations of corruption, not ours — once they've published something Wikipedia can reflect that, but until they do so it's not Wikipedia's job to beat them to the punch.

This situation has been handled entirely correctly all the way through, because until it could be properly sourced that he had actually been arrested and charged with a crime it was not our job to publish unsubstantiated assertions. Now that there is concrete evidence being published by the media, the article can address the matter (without stepping over the bounds of what can be properly verified, of course), but at the time of your original assertions there was nothing that Wikipedia could legitimately say due to the lack of properly sourced evidence of anything. And for the same reason, you can just hold your horses on Coderre and Couillard too until such time as a media outlet goes public with properly substantiated evidence of wrongdoing. Given the track record of most politicians, it's certainly not impossible that you are actually correct — but it simply isn't our job to allege anything on here that hasn't already been published by the media. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a crowdsourced investigative journalism project or a forum for discussing personal opinions; regardless of whether you're right or wrong about an allegation of corruption against a political figure, it's not our role to say anything either way until the media break a real, substantiated story. Bearcat (talk) 16:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree, just because the other user happened to be right about Applebaum in no way gives them any authority to accuse any other living people of criminal activity (one of which is the leader of a major political party).--70.49.82.84 (talk) 19:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

First Jewish mayor

Just for a little bit of clarification in case anybody needs it, the occasional editwarring that takes place over whether Applebaum was the "first" or "second" Jewish mayor of Montreal stems from the fact that Joseph Schubert, a city councillor in the 1920s, held the title of "acting mayor" for three months in 1927.

While it's true that an "acting mayor" can be the person who steps up to the top job when the previous mayor has resigned (as Jane Cowell-Poitras did both leading into and out of Applebaum's term in office), it can also be the person who just holds down the fort at city hall for a day or two while the real mayor is out of town. The sources about Schubert are quite clear that in his era, "acting mayor" was a title which was always held by a city councillor even while there was still a "real mayor" above him — and they're also quite clear that the real mayor, Médéric Martin, never resigned from office and never took an extended leave of absence from the job. Rather, the role of "acting mayor" was quite plainly that of a deputy mayor, filling in when Martin was absent but never formally replacing him in the long term. There is not, in fact, a single source on earth which considers Schubert to ever have actually been the mayor of Montreal. The title that he held is potentially ambiguous, admittedly — but the sources are quite clear about what the nature of his role actually was, and it wasn't that of an actual mayor. He filled in occasionally when Martin was unavailable, but he was never Martin's formal or functional replacement.

Accordingly, Applebaum is correctly described as the first Jewish mayor of the city, because Schubert was never the mayor. This is not a matter of anybody trying to "protect" Applebaum; it's a question of looking at what the sources actually say. Bearcat (talk) 18:37, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify for the uninitiated and the ADD folks - Michael Applebaum was a TEMPORARY, INTERIM mayor.

A distinction without a difference. An "interim mayor" is still a mayor; an "acting mayor" may or may not be depending on the context. Bearcat (talk) 21:06, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Michael Applebaum was not elected for mayor by the people of Montreal.

Which has exactly zero bearing on the matter at hand. Bearcat (talk) 21:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protection still necessary?

I noticed in my attempt to add the details of Applebaum's recent parole that this page is still semi-protected. My account lacks the minimum number of edits necessary to make this change. I was wondering if this status is still necessary for the article, considering that the dust has long since settled and most of the details are documented at this point. CForrester514 (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Corruption section

A few notes on the "Corruption" section. Since Applebaum's conviction, the line between alleged coprruptiuon and proven corruption has moved. Applebaum was arrest on charges involving a total of 10 real estate deals. He was tried and convicted of two. I have used the trial decision to document corruption as it contains the legally established facts of the case. Anything found there can be presented as truth, without any of this silly "alleged", "according to", "the witness said" weasel wording like you find in precondition literature. Unfortunately, this decision has not been translated into English, so I had to some translation. i've tried to link to both the French trial decision and an English news site for completeness. English sources link to pre verdict sources, so they may depict the crimes committed as alleged. Anyone wishing to edit this section should take care to check with the trial decision to if they can.

Also, I'll be adding sections on the two real estate cases that Mr. Greasypalms and a few of the 8alleged cases that are still being investigated.

Which reminds me, this case is far from over. This is an ongoing story. Please write "as of November 2017" instead of "currently" or "as of now" when describing Mr. Flingflang's current predicament. soulscanner (talk) 06:48, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)

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Sources vs. references

Removal of "Sources" section (see | link)

Please note that Wikipedia does not add contextless lists of offsite links to "sources" as a separate section from the footnoted references. If any of the following links enable you to properly reference a statement in the article body that doesn't have a reference on it yet, or to add important and valuable content to the article body that isn't there yet at all, then they can certainly be used as footnoted links — but they have no value as a linkfarm of "additional media coverage above and beyond the actual footnoted referencing". Either find a way to use them as footnotes, or they're not necessary at all.

• Arnold, Janet (4 May 2011). "Applebaum now No. 2 at City Hall". Canadian Jewish news. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
• Piritz, Ingrid (23 Nov 2012). "Michael Applebaum: Montreal's unconventional choice for mayor". Globe and Mail. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
• Scott, Marian (28 Nov 2012). "Borough divided over record". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
• Cousineau, Sophie; Ha, Tu Than; Giovannetti, Justin (June 17, 2013). "Behind the bribery allegations that have enveloped Montreal's mayor". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 7 January 2018.
• Bruemmer, Rene (14 April 2015). "Michael Applebaum resurfaces as N.D.G. real estate agent". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
• Bernstein, Jaela (13 Nov 2016). "Fall from grace: Michael Applebaum's ill-fated climb to power". CBC News Montreal. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
• Lee, Shuyee (14 Nov 2016). "Applebaum Trial: Former chief of staff testifies". CJAD 800AM. Montreal. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
• Bernstein, Jayla (26 Nov 2016). "In Depth: Who are key players in corruption trial of Montreal's former mayor?". CBC. CBC News. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
• Gazette Staff (27 Jan 2017). "Timeline: The rise and fall of Michael Applebaum". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 9 November 2017.

- Bearcat (talk) 20:21, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Could you please provide a reference for this policy? I based this format on my review of featured articles that use a lot of sources and where managing them becomes an issue; it appears that seperate sections are quite common on wikipedia's best articles. It appears to me that they use separate sections for citations that refer directly to points made in the text and "References" and "Sources" that provide a general overview of the topic and could be cited redundantly throughout the text. Indeed, checking today's featured article (Wiglaf), I've noted references listed under the heading "Notes" and the most commonly used "Sources" listed separately as "References". --soulscanner (talk) 18:50, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, Wiglaf is doing no such thing — it just has a references section, not a "notes" section. What you really meant to link to is Wiglaf of Mercia — but even it's not using Notes and References the way you claim. It's using what's called "Harvard format" referencing, where "references" is listing the complete publication details of each reference while the "footnotes" are only going "authorname page" without the full citation details, so that you have to crossreference both sections to figure out what content is referenced where. For example, footnote #1 just says "Blair, Roman Britain, p. 274.", so you have to consult the separate "references" list to find the actual publication details of "Blair, Roman Britain" because the footnote itself doesn't provide that information already.

This article, however, is not Harvarding the references, it's using the simpler "each footnote contains the full publication details" format — so there's no need for a separate "sources" section to repeat the same references, because each citation in the footnotes is already providing the full citation details. We do not use a Harvard-format "list of references" to relist citation details that are already given in the footnotes themselves — you can use either Harvard format or citation-details-in-footnote format, but not a redundant hybrid of both formats. If you want to Harvard-format the references here, just relisting them as separate "sources" is only half the equation — what you would also need to do is cut each actual footnote back to the bare minimum detail necessary to identify it, such as just the journalist's name and not the article title or date or weblink. Harvard referencing, as a rule, is useful if the vast majority of the sources are books, because it simplifies the process of citing different pieces of information to different pages in the same book — it is not useful if the vast majority of the references are web-published news articles, because those don't have multiple pages. But Harvard referencing style does not just relist citation details that are already fully given in the footnotes themselves; it moves the citation details so that they're fully given only in the list, and then removes all but the most very basic identifying keywords from each individual footnote.

Articles are occasionally permitted to include "further reading" sections separately from the references, but such sections are also not used to repeat references that are already being used as footnotes, or to linkfarm additional media coverage that reverifies already-referenced content without adding anything new — if somebody published a full-on book-length biography of Applebaum, or a full book about the corruption case itself, then that would be an appropriate addition to a "further reading" section if it wasn't already being used as footnoting, but a "further reading" section does not just relist sources that the article is already using as it is, or linkfarm more newspaper articles: it lists books, and even then only books that aren't already being used as footnotes anyway. Which is why it's called "further reading". Bearcat (talk) 20:07, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Please provide a reference to confirm this. I put a lot of work into compiling those references. --soulscanner (talk) 21:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citing sources is quite clear that although we do not have a site-wide preference mandating one referencing style or another — depending on the needs of any given article, we can use either full footnotes or Harvard-style referencing — but we do have a site-wide requirement that each article has to be internally consistent in following one specific standard referencing style. We do not mix and match bits and pieces to create new referencing styles like "full footnotes + Harvard-style list repeating the same sources that have already been cited in full footnote style" — we can use either full-footnote style or Harvard style, but we do not create newfangled referencing styles that combine full-footnote style with Harvard style reference lists simultaneously with each other.

And by the way, it also specifies that "that other article is referenced a different way, so this one automatically has to be too" is not in and of itself a valid reason to change this article's established referencing style in the absence of a consensus to convert the referencing to Harvard style. But even as one of this article's main zookeepers, I'm not all that deeply invested in going to the ramparts for full-footnote style here — if it's really so critically important to you for some unfathomable reason that this article follow Harvard style referencing, I don't really care enough to fight you on that, but Harvard style requires shortened footnotes. Either convert the individual footnotes to Harvard-style short citations at the same time as creating the reference list, or let it go — just because you "put a lot of work" into doing something wrong doesn't mean the rest of us have an obligation to leave it wrong. Bearcat (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Again, yet another featured article for today (Grasshopper) uses a "hybrid" type referencing to great advantage, just as this article did until you deleted the "Sources" section. Most of the Grasshopper article uses single inline citations, but the most frequently-used sources are listed separately and referenced using short citations, offering a list of the most authoritative and comprehensive sources. this makes sense and make the article easier to verify and use. This presence in a featured article (and others) indicated that hybrid referencing is not "wrong" as you categorically state. If a mistake was made in this article, it was that I didn't figure out how to use the Harvard-style referencing for the reference section as I was writing it. I can certainly offer to clean this up so that it is consistent with other featured articles that use this hybrid style.

Be clear I'm not saying that this article MUST be in this hybrid format because others are, I'm saying it CAN be used because others DO use it if there is a good reason for it (i.e. clearer, more organized links to the most important and comprehensive sources), and that you need a much better reason for deleting valid, authoritative, properly sourced references from an article than you are giving here. --soulscanner (talk) 01:43, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

The only value in Harvard citation style is if you have several different citations to different pages of the same book, because it creates the ability to shorten the citations to "Jones p. 5" and "Jones p. 37" and "Jones p. 112" and "Jones p. 350" instead of having to do a full "John Jones, Cats and Their Sisters. Feline Publishing, 2012. ISBN + page number" each time. It's not a useful format to use if the citations are to newspaper or magazine articles, where you don't need to create multiple different citations to different parts of the same source. Out of 67 footnotes in this article, literally just one is to a book — and it's not a book where the content about Applebaum is split up onto many different pages, it's a book about many different mayors where all the content about Applebaum is combined in one place. The need for Harvard citation style only exists if there's a book about Applebaum to which you need to create many separate individual citations to individual pages — in the absence of a book specifically about Applebaum himself and nobody else, the need for Harvard style is nonexistent. Bearcat (talk) 03:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, short citation styles are not restricted to the Harvard style. There are even templates available in Wiki for the Chicago Style [1].

Secondly, I think we agree that the advantage of short citation is that it removes clutter[2], which s precisely my motivation in shortening the references (which I admittedly did improperly and incompletely). I think we can also agree that the references in this article are causing clutter and making editing almost impossible. Henve by converting the most used articles into short citation style, you are making a heavily cited topic easier to edit and verify.

Thirdly, your justification for deleting the reference to Applebaum in Mayors Gone Bad is absurd. This is the most authoratative source on Applebaum's corruption (next to to the court decision, which you also deleted). The "Sources" in the Grasshopper aren't about Grasshoppers specifically, they are about Insects and written by Etymologists, just like the book is about corrupt mayors and written by one of Canada's foremost legal scholars. What makes sense is to short cite the most cited sources because they are the most authoratiative. --soulscanner (talk) 05:19, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, I did not "delete" the reference to Applebaum in Mayors Gone Bad. It isn't Harvarded in the article's current format, but it is still present in the article's citation pool as footnote #14. You're not going to get anywhere by falsely accusing me of doing something I didn't do — Mayors Gone Bad is still there as a reference, precisely as it always was, and has not been deleted at all.

Secondly, Harvard style is not always less cluttered than full-footnote citation style — as I've pointed out previously, it only reduces clutter in certain circumstances, namely if most of the sources are books to which the footnotes need to make many partially redundant citations to different pages in the same books over and over again. If the preponderance of the sources are newspaper or magazine articles or web copies of a radio or television news report, where the content being referenced is all on one page so there's no need to create distinct footnotes for different parts of it, then Harvard style is more cluttered than the existing style. Harvard style simplifies clutter if most of the sources are books, but makes for worse clutter if most of the sources are news coverage — it reduces clutter if it enables you to cut the size of the references section down, because there are many partially redundant references to different pages of the same books, but it does not reduce clutter if the sources are nearly all single-page articles in news media, so that the number of items to be included in the list just stays virtually equal to the number of footnotes that the article has. Bearcat (talk) 01:26, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Sources vs. references II: Mixed citation styles

Here is a list of the most recent featured articles that use both inline and short (i.e. hybrid) referencing with separate reference and bibliography sections. It shows that Wikipedia DOES use mixed citation styles and that they are not necessarily wrong (Wiki's best articles use them to better track the most important and authoritative sources when inline reference sections become unwieldy). They represent ovwr 40% of featured articles published in Nov. 2018.

1. Nov 02 God of War: Ghost of Sparta (References (inline references) + Works cited (seperate list of sources)
2. Nov 04 Eurasian tree sparrow (References (inline references) + Works cited (seperate list of sources)
3. Nov 09 Turning Point (2008 wrestling) Separate Footnotes + bibliography section
4. Nov 11 Mesopropithecus References + books cited
5. Nov 15 Portrait of Maria Portinari Inline + short citations in "Notes" section.
6. Nov 18 Rhode Island Tercentenary half dollar Inline + short citation in reference section.
7. Nov 19 Life's Shop Window Inline and short citations in references
8. Nov 22 Triangle (The X-Files) Inline and short citations in "Footnotes" section.
9. Nov 24 SECR N class Inline and short citations in references
10. Nov 25 Wiglaf of Mercia Inline and short citations in notes
11. Nov 26 Grasshopper Inline and short citations in notes

Can we have consensus that mixed citation styles ARE widely used in Wikipedia's best articles and are not necessarily wrong? --soulscanner (talk) 03:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Is there some part of the word books you're having trouble understanding? Every last one of those articles Harvardizes the books and only the books in the sourcing pool, and none of them Harvardizes the newspaper or magazine sourcing at all. This is not in conflict with anything I told you above, because they are Harvarding the books, and only the books, which is not what you were trying to do here. The value in Harvard citation style only exists if you're citing books — it does not exist if you're citing web-published sources in which all of the content being cited is contained within one page, and none of those articles relists any of their non-book sources as a separate Harvard-style list of repeated citations the way you did here. Bearcat (talk) 03:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

We can deal with the books vs. journals issue below. I'm working towards consensus on some points you've raised. You originally said " — you can use either Harvard format or citation-details-in-footnote format, but not a redundant hybrid of both formats." I agree that redundancy should be removed. I am asking if we have consensus that Wikipedia's best articles use mixed/hybrid (i.e. both inline and short) citation styles in the same article. We COULKD use these. They are not banned on Wikipedia. Do we agree on this? --soulscanner (talk) 04:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Again, a completely inaccurate summary of what you tried to do in the first place. And consensus is not established by two people arguing back and forth in a one-on-one discussion, either. We'll have a consensus one way or the other if and when a variety of people have expressed preferences one way or the other, which hasn't happened yet. Bearcat (talk) 23:45, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

You've removed links to sources and references because they were redundant. I've explicitly acknowledged the removal of redundancy as a legitimate concern of yours, so there is no need to revisit that. You've made other claims (see quote above, which is copied and pasted verbatim)) that are inaccurate and would make further discussion futile and require clarification from third parties unless you acknowledge them as such.

In this section, I'm not talking about preference or opinon, I'm simply asking you if you agree that Wikipedia uses non-redundant hybrid referencing (i.e. some sources quoted using inline referencing, other sources using sort-citation academic styles i.e Harvard, Chicago, Oxford, etc.) in articles. If you disagree, we'll get a third party reference on that. Then we can continue to discuss whether and where it is appropriate in this article. If you wish to open another parentheses and to discuss what constitutes a consensus on this topic in the section below. I'd like to handle this one point at a time so we don't go around in circles. --soulscanner (talk) 16:56, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Short citation for books only?

We'll pick up this discussion here. The link shows a sample WP rendering of shortened notes followed by a reference list. [3]. You'll note that BBC News and New York Times articles, scientific journal articles, information pamphlets, and books (both popular and scientific) are used in this example. So do we have consensus that shortened notes can be used for more than books only and newspaper articles as well? --soulscanner (talk) 04:28, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Consensus on mixed citation styles.

"We'll have a consensus one way or the other if and when a variety of people have expressed preferences one way or the other, which hasn't happened yet." I don't think a lot of people are going to care about this one way or another, as model wikipedia articles use a number of citation styles, sometimes mixed, sometimes not. I think if we both agree to allow a given change, we'll likely have a consensus for this article. --soulscanner (talk) 17:01, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, then we're at a permanent stalemate, because under no circumstances are you ever going to get me to agree that Harvard style citation is necessary here — the only substantive argument in favour of it here is that you want it, not that it actually improves the article at all. Bearcat (talk) 23:48, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

No style is ever necessary, so your criteria poison the wells from the start. I asked under what conditions you consider it permissible. You won't say, and you state that you simply won't agree to it no matter what. In otherwords, rational discussion here is pointless. --soulscanner (talk) 17:14, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

@Soulscanner, @Bearcat: The sources section seems a bit unecessary to me, especially if the Books, Documents, and News items are not used in the article. Perhaps we can work these into the article and add them as <ref>s so the effort put into compiling these is not wasted. Another option is to add some of these as External links, but instead of 4 separate Court Document links a single link to a search results page would suffice. // sikander { talk } 14:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Sikander, @Bearcat Two reference/source/bibliography sections are preferable when you consider the reliability and authoritativeness of sources once large number of citations make them difficult to manage. The article cites some references multiple times (court documents, books, feature articles) because they more reliable and comprehensive than the less reliable primary sources (newspaper articles, opinion pieces). I believe that readers and editors checking sources will be more interested in starting their research with the more comprehensive/authoritative sources than, for example, the short news items that simple announce his arrest. I think that distinction is especially important when it pertains to the proven criminal activity of a living person in a biography.soulscanner (talk) 18:16, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

This article is cited almost entirely to web-published content, where the entire content of the reference is published entirely to a single one-page web document that has no distinct page numbers to cite. There is only one single solitary citation, anywhere in the entire referencing pool, that is to a print-only source with multiple pages — and even that source is not a book about Applebaum himself that needs to cite many distinct pages in different places, but a book about many different people in which all of the content about Applebaum is published continuously with each other in a single spot. So there is no need to create a series of distinct citations to get that book, Mayors Gone Bad, Harvarded into nine distinct citations — all of the content about him in the entire book is contained in one chapter, so we just require one citation that goes "pp. 13-20" (or whatever the page numbers involved are) instead of eight different citations for Slayton p. 13, Slayton p. 14, Slayton p. 15 and on and so forth. Of the 66 other footnotes here, not a single one of them is to a source that has distinct page numbers — every single one is a single-page web document with no distinct page numbering at all. Bearcat (talk) 21:17, 24 March 2019 (UTC)