Talk:Neil Steinberg

Untitled

If there is a reason that sourced and cited factual information should be deleted from this entry, I would hope that advocates of that position make their case on this talk page rather than removing the material that they consider "superfluous" and "malicious".

I would consider any reasoned argument, but vandalizing this entry to bury unpleasant facts is a violation of Wikipedia's dispute resolution policy. Austinmayor 14:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Just because something is cited and factual doesn't mean it belongs at the end of a man's bio. You are not the final arbitrator. The facts are not "unpleasant," they are irrelevant, and it is your addition which is the vandalism. If the facts are cited, where are your citations? What are your motivations?

"Just because something is cited and factual doesn't mean it belongs at the end of a man's bio. You are not the final arbitrator."

Certainly not, and I do not claim to be. But when an author's next book is entitled "Drunkard" his history of alcohol use and arrests arising therefrom do seem self-evidently relevant. --Austinmayor 17:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

"The facts are not "unpleasant," they are irrelevant, and it is your addition which is the vandalism."

As noted above, those facts are relevant to the subjects career as an author, columnist and former member of the Sun-Times editorial board. --Austinmayor 17:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

In addition, Wikipedia defines "vandalism" as "addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia," so my use of the word "vandalism" may have been intemperate. But the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is "verifiablity". "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. In this case, the source is the subject's newspaper employer. The facts under dispute clearly meet the threshold of "verifiability" and are not vandalism. --Austinmayor 17:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

"If the facts are cited, where are your citations?"

The citations, as noted above, were to the Sun-Times coverage of the subjects arrest: [1] and [2]. A cursory review of the entry prior to deleting the section on the subject's arrest would have revealed that those citations were properly included. --Austinmayor 17:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

"What are your motivations?"

Simply to make this article as comprehensive and accurate as possible, i.e. to make it encyclopedic. The subject of this article has not hidden from his problems with alcohol -- he has addressed them repeatedly in his writings and elsewhere -- I don't see any reason to attempt to hide those problems on Wikipedia.

As a side note, I have great respect for Mr. Steinberg's clever writing and the courage he has displayed while dealing with his problems. That respect is much of the reason that I don't feel a need to protect him from his recent past. --Austinmayor 17:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Perceived flaw?

The central flaw of Wikipedia is the ability of peeved individuals to heap scorn on figures they don't like -- monitoring needs to be improved so that biographies of controversial figures do not become bathroom walls for the airing of biases and the settling of scores.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.238.5.75 (talk • contribs).

What's so offensive about a request for additional references and a message about an upcoming book? Zagalejo 03:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

For future reference, my comment is in response to edits like this. I do think it's very, very important that the article avoid the undue weight problems that have recently plagued it. Zagalejo^^^ 23:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

A central flaw of Wikipedia is members removing content without explaining why. In this case, no edit summary, vindictive, and especially vandalism does not describe it. Joe Chill (talk) 23:31, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Please look at this in context. There were legitimate undue weight issues here. Even if something is verifiable, it can still be problematic if it's presented without any tact. Most people don't know much about the internal workings of Wikipedia, and edit warring can be the only way for them to call attention to certain things. Zagalejo^^^ 23:41, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I still don't like it. I had an IP complain to me recently for reverting one of their edits that removed content that has existed since 2007. The IP had no edit summary. Not only was there no edit summary, the IP demanded (literally demanded) that I should thus (literally thus) revert my revert because the IP said that the creator of the article was their account. I'm pretty sure that there is no way that I could have automatically guessed that the IP didn't even bother to sign into their account to remove content put in by their account that has been around since 2009. Joe Chill (talk) 23:49, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's annoying when people remove things without edit summaries, but you should look at things on a case by case basis. In this situation, it should be pretty obvious why he was removing the information. Zagalejo^^^ 00:05, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Because he has a conflict of interest and thought it looked bad for him? Falcon8765 ^(TALK) 00:14, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it was undue. The facts were well sourced, and presented in brief, consistent with the construction of the article. If not tacked on the end, where does it fit? Again, I'm not a big fan of this kind of content in bios, but it was the subject of a lengthy article in Chicago Magazine, and I'm uncomfortable with Wikipedia bending to the will and vanities of its subjects. 99.155.206.229 (talk) 00:15, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, sometimes you need to restructure an article to make something fit. Sometimes you need to add additional information to create a more balanced picture of the subject. Zagalejo^^^ 00:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

In his book Steinberg discusses the page 2 coverage of the charges in the Sun-Times [3]; the story received prominent coverage in Chicago. 99.155.206.229 (talk) 00:21, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

That's true. I've read Steinberg's columns for a while, so I know about his story. I think he's a reasonable guy, and would be satisfied if we wrote about his life in a thoughtful manner. But the way things were, we were making it more likely that readers skimming through the article would leave with a skewed understanding of the man. Tacking a negative claim (even if sourced) to the end of the article does make a difference. Zagalejo^^^ 00:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Neil Steinberg/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The central flaw of Wikipedia is the ability of peeved individuals to heap scorn on figures they don't like -- monitoring needs to be improved so that biographies of controversial figures do not become bathroom walls for the airing of biases and the settling of scores.

Last edited at 11:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 01:02, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Attempted Gun Purchase

Steinberg's column about his attempted gun purchase is notable. He was rejected because of his, "admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife." This should be mentioned on his page. Omegapimp (talk) 08:59, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

(1) Why is an attempted gun purchase notable to the biography of this individual? (2) Brietbart is not a reliable source, especially for negative information about a living person. See WP:BLP as well. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 09:03, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Is Steinberg a reliable source? His column says the same thing as the Brietbart article. So do these sources: Omegapimp (talk) 09:23, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Steinberg would be a reliable source regarding information about himself (WP:SPS, WP:ABOUTSELF). The Blaze article's quotes of Steinberg mention his attempts to buy a gun, but nothing about why he was denied it (that information is in the Blaze's voice). Steinberg's article (and those that quote it) quotes Maxon as saying he's all those terrible things. He does not admit to being that. We cannot say that he's an abuser, etc. just because a gun store claims he is. Moreover, I can't think of a reason why we'd add such information to a short BLP article like this without context. I could see a paragraph about the reporting, the attempted purchase, and the response, but is this really what he's best known for (i.e., is it WP:DUE to have that info)? It seems like people are very eager to shoehorn information about him being an abuser without any context. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 09:40, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

References

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Controversy and outrage

Should a controversy section be added? Recently Steinberg made waves with calls for him to lose his assignment at the Sun Times after the Sun Times featured Sen Tammy Duckworth on it's July 2,2018 cover returning to work after maternity leave. Steinberg tweeted "Duckworth is one of the least inspiring senators ever to luck her way into higher office. A nice enough person, but weak-tea and tepid and likely to drift out of the Senate on the same sort of accidental breeze that floated her in." Duckworth, who carried a baby to term, is the US Senator, the first female double amputee from the Iraq war, losing both her legs.

I also think the AR-15 purchase attempt should be added to the controversy section instead of personal life. P37307 (talk) 00:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Honestly seems like more smoke than fire. Any impression this has lasting notability? EvergreenFir (talk) 01:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Probably so right now. It's fairly new and just getting traction. I'll keep an eye out and if the paper takes action or something other happens in regards to this, I'll talk back here. P37307 (talk) 01:26, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Bibliography

I have commenced a tidy-up of the Bibliography section using cite templates. Capitalization and punctuation follow standard cataloguing rules in AACR2 and RDA, as much as Wikipedia templates allow it. ISBNs and other persistent identifiers, where available, are commented out, but still available for reference. This is a work in progress; feel free to continue. Sunwin1960 (talk) 01:55, 4 October 2019 (UTC)