Talk:David J. Tholen

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Whoever has been deleting the Usenet reputation section (Tholen), please stop. This information is true and pains have been taken to make it NPOV. If you feel it is unfair, please edit it accordingly, but please do not delete it. Tholen's impact on Usenet history is an important part of his story. --67.52.158.62 20:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

-- I agree. It is inappropriate for someone to try to remove references to Tholen's notoriety on Usenet. I think it could be argued that more people are familiar with Dr. Tholen through his Usenet behavior than from his in astronomy. It doesn't take very much research to discover that Dr. Tholen spent immense *immense* amounts of time debating on Usenet on subjects most people would find highly unique to say the least. There are, afterall, reasons why people have asserted everything from him being a robot to being unbalanced. He may be an excellent astronomer but his Usenet history can't be ignored. It's part of what makes him infamous on the Internet for good or ill. -User:Draginol November 2006.

Comments about kook awards are irrelevant to anyone looking for information on astronomers or astronomy. This can be a good source of information, but its usefulness is diminished if it becomes a place to continue the silliness that has unfortunatly been taking up so much bandwidth on the newsgroups.

Is there not an article on usenet kooks that you could add a section to if you really think that it is necessary to post it somewhere? If people decide that it must be posted, perhaps you could include some of his positive contributions as well.

The title of this page is not "Astronomers or Astronomy" but "David J. Tholen". The information is true and is NPOV. Even if you could prove the information is objectively negative, it is not the obligation of Wikipedia editors to post positive information, only information that is true and NPOV. If you remove this information again, unless you can specifically cite Wikipedia policy that this information violates, this issue will be referred to arbitration.


 * I must abound in 67.52.158.62's favour. Us admins would also recommend you both sign your contributions on this talk page. Urhixidur 16:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Urhixidur. 66.167.162.151 01:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC) [sometimes posts from 67.52.158.62]

I restored the Usenet Reputation section, because I just had my first usenet discussion with Prof. Tholen, it took me a while to realize that something weird was happening, and that section would have been very helpful to me. I think Prof. Tholen is an exceptional individual both in its professional achievements and in in its usenet behavior, and both aspects deserve to be documented.

raoul

The article and its history of constant revision reflects very badly on WikiPedia and its ability to maintain an accurate encyclopedia on line at all. If anyone with a grudge is able to edit at will, who is to say if anything is correct? Any article with a virtually daily history of additions and deletions of the same material is approaching the bounds of comedy, and slapstick comedy of the Three Stooges variety, at that.

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Please read WP:BLP before making revisions to this article.

Seriously, quit doing your moronic deletions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.197.249.26 (talk) 11:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

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From WP:BLP:

"Material about living persons available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all in biographies of living people, either as sources or via external links ... Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to an encyclopedia article about the subject."

"Content should be sourced to reliable sources and should be about the subject of the article specifically."

Looking up the content guideline for "reliable sources" I find the following:

"A reliable source is a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Evaluation of reliability will depend on the credibility of the author and the publication, along with consideration of the context. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight."

From WP:V:

"Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."

"Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources."

Again, from WP:BLP:

"Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research). The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals if the information is derogatory."

The usenet section *is* sourced, but the google usenet archive, and websites like www.netcabal.com cannot be considered reliable. The information is certainly derogatory, and also irrelevant to Tholen's scientific work.

Nightingale0 12:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Uh, Nightingale, as you know, yourself being one of Tholen's more amusing Usenet targets way back when, Tholen made HIMSELF notorious on Usenet. His notoriety stems from his 170,000 obsessive/compulsive posts, replete with his catchphrases, on Usenet, nothing more.

- And umm.. why can't google groups and various usenet archives ben considered reliable? Is there any proof of their content being compromised? This section is about a man and his reputation. It's not his biography. That belongs somewhere else. If he has created a presence for himself via usenet, then why is this not factual fair game? He chose to make those posts, and he still does. You can't say someone so aware of the internet for so many years wasn't keenly aware that his words would be preserved. The guy is famous world wide for his usenet antics in the OS/2 newsgroups. I think he's the #2 most discussed author of all time on that board ( number one being "The OS/2 Guy" Tim Martin and all his fake personas ) It seems some of you people would censor Michelangelo's David because it doesn't fit with your definition of proper sculpting values, or change the Mona Lisa because her smile didn't fit her profile. LIfe is life. I'd rather see a balanced presentation of his usenet antics than nothing at all. Get over yourself, overzealous censors 99.14.103.236 (talk) 01:37, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Tholen classification
Anyone got any information on Tholen's asteroid classification scheme? It's the reason I came here. Its his main notability in the book "Asteroids II" edited by Binzel Gehrels and Matthews (ISBN 0-8165-1123-3) - GraL (talk) 19:29, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah-ha! found something at Asteroid spectral types - GraL (talk) 19:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)