Talk:Don Benton

Article issues
If the article looks like and advertisement, it's because it is copied and pasted from Don Burton's bio at his party's website and he is running for reelection. This will need a complete rewrite. • Gene93k (talk) 14:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Incompatible license
Content copied to this article from Ballotpedia has had to be removed, as we are not able (since 2009) to accept text licensed solely under GNU licenses. Please see WP:COMPLIC for more information on what licenses are compatible with our requirements for text. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Benton 2012 Resume Online
Potential source material at http://columbian.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/news/documents/2013/05/01/benton_cover_letter_resume.pdf

Employment History


 * 1997 - Present, Washington State Senator
 * 1988 - 2012: President, National Advertising Consultants, Vancouver WA
 * 2000 - 2001: Chairman, Washington State Republican Party
 * 1981 - 1988: District Manager, Farmers Insurance group, Los Angeles CA
 * 1981 - 1988: Board of Trustees, Santa Clarita Community College, Valencia CA
 * 1978 - 1988: Co-Founder/President, Santa Clarita Valley Temporaries, Valencia CA

Education


 * 1993 BS in business management, Concordia College, Portland OR
 * 1981 AA in general ed, College of the Canyons, Valencia CA

Other key data in the sidebar at http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/sep/01/bentons-ballyhooed-management-experience-is-hazy-c/, Stevie Mathieu and Erin Middlewood. "Benton's ballyhooed management experience is hazy: Company discloses little of its work beyond that for Benton campaign." The Columbian, Sunday 1 September 2013.


 * Founded National Consulting Services Inc. in 1989, according to public records. The company also does business as National Advertising Consultants and The Benton Group.
 * Investments: Benton and his wife, Mary, have 14 investment accounts, eight of which exceed $100,000, according to financial disclosure forms.
 * Benton’s eight houses have a combined assessed value of about $1.5 million.

Rorybowman (talk) 21:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Formatting Changes
I've made several substantial changes - mostly involving rearragnement of content - which I'm indexing here: BlueSalix (talk) 01:18, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Format - The previous entry had an introductory paragraph that was 4 paragraphs long. I have restructured the entry to be in the format for biographies with an Early Life/Education, Career and Personal Life section.
 * Education - I added that he has a B.S. under Education. It seems odd we call-out his A.S. but don't acknowledge his B.S. Also linked to the entries for College of the Canyons and Grand Canyon College.
 * Career - Added 2 sentences of information on his pre-political career from the book citation in references which I've added. This is under Early Life/Education.
 * Personal Life - Added one sentence regarding wife and four children.
 * Controversies as GOP Chairman - Previously this entry said he served for only 8 months due to various controversies. I'm not sure why these aren't spelled out or the manner in which he departed was not included. I added a new section for this and got into more detail regarding his requested resignation by the state board, controversies regarding the building he purchased, and his eventually being voted out of office.
 * Controversies in 2012 Election - Added information on the defamation lawsuit against his 2012 challenger.

Collecting Links toward Advert Tag Rewrite
Given what may be WP:COI issues with this article, I'll begin gathering external links toward a rewrite here, to address the WP:NOTADVERTISING issue of January 2014. This is not a comprehensive list, but in no particular order:


 * http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/04/24/3605160/a-surcharge-on-critics-of-government.html
 * http://crosscut.com/2014/01/14/politics-government/118223/how-tell-if-your-senator-wrote-his-own-wikipedia-e/
 * http://blogs.columbian.com/all-politics-is-local/when-your-powers-combine-don-bentons-wikipedia-page-is-a-battlefield/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jan/06/report-benton-rivers-both-fault-spats-legislature/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/07/clark-county-commissioners-madore-benton-mielke/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/07/county-job-means-pension-bonanza-for-benton/
 * http://www.theolympian.com/2013/05/08/2536845/cronyism-thriving-in-clark-county.html
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/05/benton-predecessor-forced-out/
 * http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2020918353_editdonbentonxml.html
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/03/benton-hire-environment-clark-columbian-editorial/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/02/barron-announces-early-retirement/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/02/don-benton-environment-clark-county-anger/
 * http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2013/05/clark_county_commission_mimics.html
 * http://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/index.ssf/2013/05/washington_state_sen_don_bento.html
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/01/benton-clark-county-environmental-services-job/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/01/madore-mielke-tap-benton-top-county-environmental-/
 * http://blogs.columbian.com/all-politics-is-local/brain-drain-at-clark-county/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/nov/19/don-benton-critic-ed-barnes-clark-county-meeting/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/nov/13/don-benton-threatens-lawsuit-ctitic-clark-county/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/jun/20/senators-benton-complaint-against-rivers/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/sep/01/bentons-ballyhooed-management-experience-is-hazy-c/
 * http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/dec/18/county-employee-sues-over-benton-hiring/
 * http://crosscut.com/2013/05/03/olympia-2013/114278/gop-senator-handed-top-environmental-job-clark-cou/

Rorybowman (talk) 00:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * FYI, Rorybowman there was substantial edits to this article by IP editors since I last visited it (in fact, within 3 days after I substantially rewrote sections of it). When I first found this article it read like a campaign pamphlet by Benton's opposition. In its most recent iteration it reads like a campaign pamphlet by Benton's supporters. I've undone the IP edits ... we should think about requesting page protection if this continues. BlueSalix (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia section in Don Benton
Because this is a super-lightly trafficked article I'm submitting this to immediate RfC. I hope no one minds. In November I substantially rewrote this article (see above), which was essentially a bunch of thinly disguised vitriol against Benton. Two days later, an IP editor came along and swung it the other direction, turning it - essentially - into a fan club letter for Benton. I've just fixed all that. The news website Crosscut - prior to me fixing it - published an article "How to tell if your Senator edited his own Wikipedia entry." I've created a sub-section sourced to that article specifically to address the questions it raised, however, I'm concerned I may unfairly be using this as a scarlet letter and it is in violation of WP:CRITS. Further, since I was most directly impacted by the IP editors WP:PROMOTIONAL changes (as I had to manually undo them), it may not be entirely NPOV. Thirdly, this section contains some original research by me, namely that a IP editor edited it in November. Should this section exist? If not, can the content be incorporated elsewhere? Should it be deleted entirely? BlueSalix (talk) 03:57, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * First and foremost, your edits are completely sound. The article is much better now compared to either of the prior competing versions. That said, I think the posting of the campaign bio is a very minor incident in the context of conflicted edits, and I don't really think it merits a mention per WP:SELFREF. We get similar edits to biographies and company articles all the time, and we always have. This is not like the sustained campaign of Washington edits that hit the news a while back, more a case of giving the standard BLP subject advice and move on. In fact this is so common that we even have a boileprlate reply in OTRS for it! I think it is enough that we have fixed the issue, we don't really need to document it in the article - though it should certainly be noted on this talk page so that if his staffers return they can see why thier edits were not acceptable. Guy (Help!) 07:28, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, good work on hacking this article into decent shape, and thank you! I concur the Wikipedia section may not be notable enough an incident in itself for the article - I'd like at least a second media source - David Gerard (talk) 09:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks to you both David Gerard, and JzG! I'm going to go ahead and remove this section in that case and will make a note of it here in the the Talk. BlueSalix (talk) 15:23, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Was it you added the "in the news" tag at the top? That is exactly the way to do it. Guy (Help!) 15:33, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a good idea but I don't think I know how to do it! Could I impose on you? BlueSalix (talk) 15:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100211150001/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com:80/html/localnews/2011011450_benton08m.html to http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011011450_benton08m.html

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