Talk:Adam Clayton Powell IV

Letter from Geoffrey Garfield, campaign manager
January 31, 2010

From: Geoffrey L. Garfield

I just spoke with Assemblyman Powell about Nelson Antonio Denis's continued abuse of wiki policy by his re-editing of Powell's page with salacious, inaccurate and biased references to this page. Clearly Mr. Denis, whom Powell defeated at the polls in 2000, has a personal grudge that has no place in the pages of an encyclopedia.

Mr. Powell will once again insert his official biography. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.93.173 (talk) 00:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The "salacious, inaccurate and biased references" were provided by the New York Times, the New York Daily News, The New York Post, the Village Voice, Time Magazine, the New York State Board of Elections, and other news sources.
 * None of those news sources have a "personal grudge." In addition, 74 in-line references were provided.


 * The substitution of a deeply sourced article (with 74 in-line references) by a politician's own "official biography," is a clear effort to circumvent NPV.

MBernal615 (talk) 08:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Mr Garfield sent the following e-mail to the Help Desk today.

Greetings, Your bio of ADAM CLAYTON POWELL, 4TH contains many important inaccurancies. I am Geoffrey L. Garfield, and I was his campaign manager in 1991, 1994, and 1997. I am also the Producer of the film KEEP THE FAITH, BABY (2002 Showtime/Paramount), as well as a close friend of both Adams, III & IV (A3.0 is still alive). I have amended the article according to his suggestion and added references.

Capitalistroadster 00:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up
I cleaned up what appeared to be a hatchet job by Mr. Nelson, and added many cites. Bearian (talk) 19:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree 100% with User:Bearian. Wikipedia is not a political forum. I have also added citations and removed those of which there aren't any reliable verifiable sources. Tony the Marine (talk) 21:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Page Blanking -- VANDALISM
Wholesale BLANKING of the entire article has been corrected. This vandalism is being performed by an anonymous editor.

This editor is using the address of 76.169.93.173

76.169.93.173 blanked this page three times within the space of 24 hours.

If this persists, I recommend the suspension of this editor 76.169.93.173 and a PAGE PROTECTION for this article.

MBernal615 (talk) 03:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Blanking Corrected Again
The unexplained blanking of information was just corrected again.

This information was properly sourced, with an in-line reference to the New York Times.

The editor 76.169.93.173 continues to blank all or portions of this article, and engage in ad hominem attacks rather than constructive editing.

MBernal615 (talk) 04:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

BLP notice posted
I've posted a notice about the sorry state of this article and requested administrator involvement at Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard. --CliffC (talk) 05:07, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Page Blanking?
This article has been Blanked several times and I recently reverted it, so that it may receive proper administrative review.

Please inform as to any correct procedures to be followed...we don't want an edit war here, or improper reversion, just the most complete and accurate article possible.

Thanks again,

MBernal615 (talk) 06:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)


 * The editor 76.169.93.173 (Geoffrey Garfield) and the editor Sole Soul continue to blank all or portions of the Powell article rather than provide clear, line-by-line, sourced editing. This Page Blanking is not a constructive way to edit.


 * The effort by 76.169.93.173 (Geoffrey Garfield) to simply publish the politician's own biography, and eliminate an article with 74 in-line references from the New York Times, the New York Daily News, Time Magazine, the Village Voice, the New York Post, etc., is far from NPV.

MBernal615 (talk) 07:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The pics
These two and another small one appear to be missing photographic details and the copyright owner and source is unclear, they could be copy vio and should really be removed from the article until copyright confirmation is looked at.Off2riorob (talk) 10:02, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Copyright violation
picture appears to be the same as this. . Sole Soul (talk) 10:10, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Clearly copy vio. They have all been uploaded by the sme editor. Off2riorob (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

This article is over the top non-POV
The non-POV tone of this article is indefensible. Mentioning a DUI in the intro paragraph? It doesn't matter if it is a fact or not. It isn't a fundamentally defining characteristic of a person. Clean it up or settle for nothing. NeutralOrNothing (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I did think about removing it but was a bit careful not to take the article too far the other way as I did remove a fair bit of the negative commentary, I thought you would appreciate that, but hey no worries, the thing about the lede is it also should cover the main aspects of the article as well and so I thought to leave it there but I am easy about it also as he has not been convicted he still might be not guilty so I will replace what I had improved the article to and remove that from the lede, please feel free to help improve the article with discussion here, we will not however be able to simply replace the content with the subjects personal bio. Have a good look at it and let me know one at a time what is wrong and we will see what we can do, the other option I have thought of is to stub the article back to almost nothing just a line saying who he is and allow the article to be slowly recreated by uninvolved editors but for now that is just an idea. Off2riorob (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Off2riorob, you did a fine job with the article. There was too much mud-slinging and now it seems as a well balanced article as it should have been in the first place. Tony the Marine (talk) 23:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I appreciate that, I just did the best job I could considering I had never heard of him a few days ago and it was hard for me to evaluate the citations and things. I just left it as clean as I could and we can move on from there, regards. Off2riorob (talk) 00:05, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I came to this article today after reading of Powell's announcement that he's challenging Rangel and was surprised to find that it seems to have been stripped of anything remotely negative about him, other than the recent DUI issue. While I understand through the edit history that the article was formerly full of poorly-sourced rumors, I think the fact that he was twice accused of sexual assault, and later admitted to having consensual sex with both women (one of whom was a 19 year old legislative aide that he got drunk and took to a motel room) is notable. Just because he wasn't convicted of sexual assault in either case doesn't mean it's not notable that the cases were brought against him, right? Also why was the fact that he was absent for 10% of the legislative session and didn't introduce any bills for 3 years spun into a positive-sounding note that he attended 90% of the time and introduced 1 bill at some point? Is 90% a high attendance rate? From the way it sounds now one would assume that it's a good thing. How about "90%, which is below average"? These details don't need to go in the lede or written in some salacious tone, but they should be included. Passdoubt | Talk
 * Its that old half full half empty issue and consensual sex is quite common. Allegations as such are conrroversial and we should take great care with living people when no convictions follow. Off2riorob (talk) 23:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

A thought
In the section "Campaign funds" it is stated:"'Powell also paid out a substantial legal bill to his criminal defense lawyer Murray Richman, Esq. and Stacey Richman, Esq.'" As I read the sentence, the thought of "Who cares what he paid?" and "Why is this there in the first place?" went through my mind. Now, if he paid his lawyers using public funds, then it is a different story and should be stated as such, otherwise it should be removed. Just my opinion. Tony the Marine (talk) 20:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree, its relevancy is unclear. However, I notice that he was accused of rape, and perhaps that needs to be mentioned, along with any adjudication. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Seemed like the rape claim was just that and there was no support for it and mentioning it under such circumstances is undue. Off2riorob (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, then it shouldn't be mentioned. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

POV/BLP issue?
I notice that three sections (on fundraising, campaign funds and DUI) that are essentially negative. Now, I realize that this is a well known politician who has has his share of controversy, but I wonder if this is overemphasis. Do we need a separate section on the DUI? This article apparently was subject to COI editing in the past, much of it removed, but I wonder if perhaps more needs to be done. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello? Would anyone mind if I reduced the size of the DUI section or combined it with another? What troubles me is that it didn't amount to anything, and yet it seems disproportionate in size. ScottyBerg (talk) 18:00, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I know that I wouldn't mind as long as it is done in accordance to policy. Go ahead. Tony the Marine (talk) 21:17, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Took a shot at it. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:15, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, reading it through I think it's OK now. The article is still weighted toward controversy, but that seems to be the weight of the reliable sourcing I guess. My only substantial reduction was in the DUI section. Given how it ended up, it seemed too long but now is about right. It definitely got publicity. I certainly remember it, and I don't follow these things too closely. ScottyBerg (talk) 19:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Position of birth name in article
The vast majority of articles in wikipedia have the subject's birth name in the first sentence of the the article. A good case study would be articles created by different users. I specifically wanted to look at articles that were created by different users to get an idea of what most users use as a format. So I broke down the names used as examples in the pen names or stage names articles along with people that have legally changed their names. I found that Chaz Bono, Tiger Woods, Ron Artest, Madonna, Cher, Sinbad (entertainer), Tom Cruise, Jon Stewart, Chad Ochocinco, E. B. White, Paul McCartney, Mike McGear, Nancy Reagan, Angelina Jolie, Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen, Lon Chaney, Jr., Luka Bloom, Joan Fontaine, Carla Laemmle, Crystal Gayle, Peggy Sue (singer), Loretta Lynn, David Tennant, Michael Keaton, Diane Keaton, Albert Brooks, Katy Perry, Barbara Eden, Joan Rivers, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Freddie Mercury, Steven Tyler, Kal Penn, Jason Alexander, Brad Garrett, Jonah Hill, Winona Ryder, Natalie Portman, Anthony Quinn, Michael Caine, Davey Havok, Slash (musician), Sting (musician), Darby Crash, Marilyn Manson, Sid Vicious, John Lydon, Zakk Wylde, Necrobutcher, Rune Eriksen, Nivek Ogre, Rob Zombie, Dimebag Darrell, Trey Azagthoth, Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, All members Avenged Sevenfold, Ramones, Marx Brothers and all but 2 member of Kiss (band), Lady Gaga, Prince (musician), Pink (singer), Alicia Keys, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Jay-Z, Eminem, Queen Latifah, Patrick Stump, Andy Warhol, Yves Saint Laurent (designer), George Michael, Khaled (musician), Alvin Stardust, Black Francis, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Miley Cyrus, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Nicki Minaj, T.I., Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Nora Roberts, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, George Orwell, George Eliot all have their birth name in the first line of the article. I felt that another good case study would be professional wrestlers, since they are rarely known by their birth name. I could not find one professional wrestler that didn't have the individual's birth name in the first sentence of the article. The only articles that I could find during my search were in which the birth name was not in the opening sentence were Nathan Lane, Stewart Granger, Rudolph Valentino, Hal Linden, and Ralph Lauren that were not consistent with this were. And I'm sure there are plenty that I didn't find. This does not indicate the content of 100% of wikipedia's articles nor is scientific but it is a solid sample of wikipedia content. I'm sure there are other articles that have the birth name later in the article but most wikipedia users(in my experience), when creating an article, indicate the birth name within the very first sentence of the article as opposed to the early life paragraph.Racingstripes (talk) 04:53, 23 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I think either way is fine, but I lean in favor of the first line as argued above. ScottyBerg (talk) 14:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, either way is fine, I on the other hand favor the paragraph. Tony the Marine (talk) 14:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure placement matters that much. More importantly, do we have any independent verification that that was his birth name? The note describes Hispanic naming conventions, but I'm not sure that is enough. Ordinarily, a birth name is the name actually given to a person at birth, on the birth certificate and/or used by that person. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I found a Times City Room blog that explains his birth name and describes the Spanish naming convention, so that settles that. I've taken out the note as it is now duplicative of the Times blog. ScottyBerg (talk) 16:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Attendance record
Is it fair to single out his attendance record? A line in the article reads, "In 2007, Powell was in Albany for 90% of the legislative session.[8] In 2009, he attended 78.3% of the legislative sessions.[9][10]" That's still a high number. It seems nitpicky and overweighted, and I wonder if this might be a legacy of the COI editing we used to see in this article. What's the sentiment on this? ScottyBerg (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I had the same reaction, especially as one source of the record had quotes by colleagues talking about his contributions at the Assembly. Such positive information should also be included.Parkwells (talk) 16:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)