Talk:Jonathan David Brown

"sentenced to a Federal prison term for suspected activities"
One doesn't get sentenced for suspected activities, but for actually doing them (in JDB's case, this included aiding fugitives and perjury before a grand jury). The court convicts someone for whatever they are charged with, and then passes sentence. That isn't to say that for certain sure that one did such things, just that they were found guilty and did the time. Stop inserting the unnecessary and inaccurate word "suspected" into this phrase. - Foetusized (talk) 03:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks like we're good now, with a well-referenced expansion about the conviction. Binksternet (talk) 19:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

KKK references
The sources provided do not verify that Mr. Brown was a KKK member. The only relevant reference in the judgment is "Brown also challenges the seizure of his personal property indicating membership in the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups". It would require a highly creative interpretation to suggest that this means he is/was a KKK member, and I don't think we have anything that can support that and stand up to BLP-level verifiability. Stifle (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This source, the summary of the court case of the United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, says specifically that Brown's apartment was raided yielding "personal property indicating membership in the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups." What more than "indicating membership" do we need? Those words are not "suggesting membership"; the statement is made with certainty. In court, Brown challenged the legality of the raid, not the truth of the indicated memberships. In your edit summary you wrote that the KKK membership was "not verified in citation and not a secondary source anyway." I see it verified in the primary source, and it was published as well in secondary news reports of the court case, including the Dallas/Fort Worth Heritage newspaper which wrote that "Evidence confiscated from Brown's home included signed membership cards for the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations, and a picture of Brown saluting a Nazi flag." To me, these look like very strong support for KKK membership, which is why I bothered to put it in the lead section and the article and the category. Binksternet (talk) 22:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The legal part is all well beyond me, but it sure doesn't read well right now. I tried to fix the other additions/changes by new account Blendednoise, including blending a new "Present Day" section about his recent musical career into the section we already had about his musical career, but it still could use work. I'd need to look into the cited material before I could voice an opinion about his KKK membership -- Foetusized (talk) 03:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The new SPA editor appears to be closely connected with Brown in some manner, and new to WP, so no wonder that the additions aren't strongly written and blended into a cohesive flow. Perhaps in time... Meanwhile, I have returned a second sentence to the lead, one which mentions his conviction, per WP:LEAD. There's no reason to keep this information from the lead section. Binksternet (talk) 03:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * To me, that reads like "we seized some stuff from him that looks like it might belong to a KKK member". From there, it's original research to suggest "he's a KKK member". Quote the facts (which the article currently does), not your interpretation from them. Stifle (talk) 10:38, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The court papers don't say "suggested membership" and they don't say "belong to a KKK member [who is not Brown.]" Instead, they use the phrase "[Brown's] personal property indicating membership in the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups." The sentence is talking about Brown, the court says very plainly that they believe Brown was at the time of the raid holding membership cards showing that Brown himself was in the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups. It is too much of an extension to say that he is currently a member, I agree with you there, but it is solid fact that the court considered him a member at the time of the raid in 1990. As well, the now-defunct Dallas-Fort Worth Heritage, a Christian monthly newspaper, wrote that "Evidence confiscated from Brown's home included signed membership cards for the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations, and a picture of Brown saluting a Nazi flag." I don't have a scan of the newspaper, only a rec.music.christian post from October 1992, not enough to make it truly verifiable. Nevertheless, this was the one reference that preceded me into this article and it is still there. Tom Moellering posted about the Brown conviction in that online discussion group, quoting an October 1992 Christ Community Music (CCM) magazine article about Brown in which it was published that:
 * "Brown is a follower of the Christian Identity faith which claims that the white race, not the Jews, are the direct decendants [sic] of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
 * "During cross-examination, Brown calleld [sic] the Jewish holocaust of World War II ... a lie."
 * "As a result of a court petition from his ex-wife, Brown was ordered by a Davidson County Probate Judge earlier this year to refrain from mentioning his white supremacy view to his two young sons, ages 14 and nine."
 * I tried to get the CCM back issues to confirm this story but they sell their back issues rather than archive them digitally online. Furthermore, that particular issue is already sold out. It would be very useful to find verifiable copies of the CCM article and the Heritage article, especially with Moellering's misspellings. As well, this February 1998 webpage about JDB's family doesn't mention two sons by the former wife, just one. The sources don't seem reliable or verifiable enough. Binksternet (talk) 04:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The Christ. Community. Music. rebranding of CCM Magazine is pretty recent, searches using the old Contemporary Christian Music or CCM names may find you more. I just did an search on the database of my local libraries' combined collections, and only found a collection back to 1998.
 * The Usenet (Google Groups) post as a reference is a problem. It has no business being used in a BLP article, and I'm going to remove it.  Even if we could track down the EP news service in the byline of the third-hand article and get a reliable/verifiable copy, the sentence before the one you quote starts with "Prosecutors said...." and there's a good chance that the description and characterization of the evidence seized was also from the prosecutors.  I doubt that the anonymous author of the slug had access to the documents.
 * Does anyone have access to the full article from the Tennesseee Law Review? The only cite to it seems to be from the excerpt available to everyone at, and not the full article that requires a LexisNexis password.  Some reviewed-and-published analysis of the case/trial/appeal would be an improvement over the original research analysis of the appeal decision currently in the article.
 * Incidentally, the article seems to be citing two online copies of the same appeal decision source document, and .  Perhaps we should simplify down to refrencing just one of the two -- Foetusized (talk) 21:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, the two URLs refer to the same thing. I think the Justia one is sufficient. I, too, searched my local libraries for Contemporary Christian Music, vol. 15, no. 4, October 1992 and came up empty. Binksternet (talk) 16:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Steve Taylor interview
Just re-discovered this interview with Steve Taylor, but I'm not quite sure how to work material from it into this article. Taylor does say some good things about JDB's production skills, and the part about JDB singing backing vocals on the anti-racism song "We Don't Need No Colour Code" is interesting: go to and search for "Brown" -- Foetusized (talk) 05:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Focusing on the incident
Folks, the continued harping on about the crime/KKK issue violates WP:UNDUE. We can't be summing up Brown's entire life during which he did many notable things as "hate criminal". Please discuss before restoring to the lead. Stifle (talk) 10:30, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In looking at the article again, I'd like to delete the third paragraph of the Federal prison section. All the detail about his appeal (including the dissenting opinion) really gives the section more heft than it deserves.  I understand using the online decision as a source document to get some detail about his conviction, but the detailed summary of that document is out-of-place in an article about a man who is notable as a musician and producer.  That would leave the first paragraph about the case (with one new sentence about the appeal?), the second paragraph about the incident, and the line about his "federal sabbatical."  Any other opinions? -- Foetusized (talk) 12:06, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have an "other" opinion: I would like to see the musician and producer parts of Brown's life expanded in the article rather than one iota taken from the court case description, which I thought was a jewel of summary, and interesting legally. Binksternet (talk) 12:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It may be interesting legally, but is more about civil rights law than JDB. I would suggest that paragraph fails WP:COATRACK.
 * I will also be working on expanding the musician/producer section of the article. I just found a good print source with information about JDB's "Jesus Music" group Seth.  In that light, I think that perhaps the first paragraph of the Recording career section of the article, as a summary of his engineering/production career, could move to the lede, making more room for detail in the following section -- 14:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It would take only one good source for the paragraph about Brown's legal defense to go from a description of things happening beyond Brown, of gears turning and clashing among those debating his future, to Brown's involvement in his own defense. We don't have such a source, so we don't know how intimately Brown worked with his defense team.
 * I'm not seeing how you arrived at COATRACK. We all agree the article is about the man, and I have no agenda to insert a biased section about civil rights or the KKK or about how the U.S. Court of Appeals works. All I am here to do is make certain this significant event is represented neatly and accurately, and not soft-pedaled or swept under the rug. In telling the story of the court case, as represented in the Justia URL source, it seemed interesting to me that some major arguments made by Brown's defense team scored hits with one of the three judges. Binksternet (talk) 22:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * But we don't have "one good" reliable source. All we have is your original research, your analysis of a primary source document, wandering off on a tangent to the real subject of the article -- Foetusized (talk) 02:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The real subject of the article is Jonathan David Brown, the whole man. The court case was his court case, with his former conduct and his future freedom at the root of it. Binksternet (talk) 14:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Marriages and children
Why does this article not mention Brown's family life? There's this February 1998 webpage, for a start. Binksternet (talk) 04:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps because we don't have a more up-to-date source? -- Foetusized (talk) 02:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)


 * We don't even say he was married once, a union resulting in one son, then married again with more children. Binksternet (talk) 04:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

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