Talk:Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg

Working Draft of "Plagiarism scandal and resignation"
Based on the most recent version of the summary that I wrote, here is a working draft. I think it's about the right length for a summary, but it may benefit from modification. Please propose concrete changes to the summary:


 * Barcode zeilen.png


 * In February 2011, the first accusations of plagiarism in Guttenberg's dissertation were made public. Guttenberg's doctoral dissertation, "Verfassung und Verfassungsvertrag" ("Constitution and Constitutional Treaty"), had been the basis of his Doctorate from the University of Bayreuth, awarded in 2007. Guttenberg at first denied intentional plagiarism and insisted the dissertation was his own work, calling the accusations "absurd," but acknowledged that in 475 pages of writing, he may have made errors in his footnotes.  An online, crowd-sourced investigation soon found possible plagiarized fragments on nearly two-thirds of the dissertation's pages.  It also emerged that Guttenberg had requested a report from the Bundestag's research department, which he had then inserted into his thesis without attribution to the author. On 18 February 2011, Guttenberg acknowledged errors in the writing of his thesis and announced he would abstain from the use of the title "Doctor," pending the outcome of an investigation by the University of Bayreuth. Three days later, he announced that this abstention would be permanent. On 23 February 2011, Guttenberg apologized in parliament for flaws in his thesis, but denied intentional deception and denied the use of a ghostwriter.


 * On 23 February 2011, the University of Bayreuth withdrew Guttenberg's doctorate. Chancellor Angela Merkel and head of the CSU, Horst Seehofer, publicly declared their continued confidence in Guttenberg as Minister of Defense. The scandal continued evoke heavy criticism: from prominent academics, such as Oliver Lepsius at the University of Bayreuth; from legal scholars who accused Guttenberg of intentional plagiarism; from opposition politicians; and from prominent politicians within the governing coalition, such as Norbert Lammert, President of the Bundestag, and Günther Beckstein, former head of the CSU. On 1 March 2011, Guttenberg announced his resignation as Minister of Defense, from his seat in the Bundestag, and from all other political offices.


 * In May 2011, a commission convened by the University of Bayreuth to investigate Guttenberg's dissertation came to the conclusion that Guttenberg had engaged in intentional deception in the writing of his dissertation, and had violated standards of good academic practice. The commission found that he had included borrowed passages throughout his thesis, without citation, and had modified those passages in order to conceal their origin.


 * In November 2011, the public prosecutor in Hof ended their investigation into possible copyright violations by Guttenberg in his dissertation, without bringing charges. The prosecutor found 23 possible copyright violations in Guttenberg's dissertation, but judged that there had been little financial impact on the authors whose works were thought to be infringed.  As part of the deal, Guttenberg agreed to pay €20,000 to charity.

Again, concrete, specific proposals are welcome. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411 As for your working draft, the text still violates several policies (WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:BALASP, WP:BALANCE, WP:RS, WP:CORRECTSPLIT and WP:BLP). This had been discussed in great detail at Talk:Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Although your text was opposed and did not reach consensus at all, you've added it several times to the article causing reverts.
 * At the end of the previous discussion you admitted that your text was based on your translation of some German text and had not been the result of own research. Writing a summary without knowing all aspects of the topic in great detail might be the wrong approach. But it can explain your repeated request for information and references already given in Causa Guttenberg.
 * For now, your working draft does not address the given concerns and only iterates the text that previously did not reach consensus. As you rely too heavily on your foreign language text, I would like to suggest a different approach: take some time to study this topic in greater detail, read Causa Guttenberg, and then propose concrete changes to the existing summary of the topic. Happy to discuss your future proposals.-- Dewritech (talk)  11:51, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Dewritech, I've never said that I did not research the subject. I said that I began the summary as a translation of the German summary, which I think is an entirely legitimate approach to take. After all, they've tried hard on the German page to write a concise, neutral, and well-balanced summary. So why not bootstrap off of their work?
 * I posted the working draft here specifically so that you, and other editors, may propose changes. You previously wrote that you consider the summary POV because it does not cover certain aspects of the scandal. Can you propose changes to the draft that would address your concerns? If you're "happy to discuss [my] future proposals," then please consider the above text my proposal. As I've said, I'm open to your suggestions for improvement. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I've also asked the editors who responded to the earlier RfC to comment on the working draft. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:00, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Since there are no specific comments from any involved editors on the working draft, I'm applying it to the article. Suggestions for improvement are still welcome. If Dewritech has concerns about any policies, then please propose concrete changes in order to address those concerns, rather than reverting the text in full. As I said earlier, I'm willing to make changes to the text, as long as specific changes are proposed. Wide-ranging, general complaints about WP:RS, WP:NPOV, WP:BALANCE, etc. are not helpful, but specific proposals are. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:55, 16 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411 There had been many comments on your working draft before at Talk:Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg addressing specific policy violations in great detail. Your proposal was declined by several editors and didn't reach consensus. Instead of accepting this result you've reverted six times(!!) in order to replace the existing summary with your text. You may want to read WP:IDHT.
 * As for consensus, you might want to follow earlier suggestions and propose changes to the existing summary.-- Dewritech (talk)  15:28, 16 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Dewritech, the basic problem here is that your approach is to raise a mass of objections to the summary (most of which I think are spurious), and then to delete it entirely. What I propose is that you say explicitly what you would add to, remove from, or modify about the summary, and what your rationale for those changes is. I am genuinely willing to work with you to improve the summary. Above, when you criticized the summary, I answered each point in detail, but I also said that I was willing to make some changes based on your criticisms. Unfortunately, you didn't take me up on my offer. Even though you didn't take up my offer to work on the text of the summary with me, I actually myself made some changes based on your criticism (adding info on legal proceedings in Hof and Guttenberg's announcement that he would permanently abstain from the "Doctor" title).
 * Some of your criticisms are really baffling to me: for example, you say that the summary violates WP:RS, despite the fact that literally every sentence in the summary cites at least one reliable source (including the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the FAZ, der Spiegel, Reuters, the BBC, the Guardian), and most sentences cite multiple sources. You say that the summary violates WP:WEIGHT because it deals too much with the first few weeks of the scandal, even though the first few weeks received the most intensive coverage, and are, after all, when most of the major elements of the scandal played out. You say that the summary violates WP:NPOV because it doesn't mention certain criticisms that were made of the University of Bayreuth or of the founder of the Guttenplag Wiki. I've asked you to show that either of these criticisms were prominent enough in the scandal to merit inclusion in a short summary, but you haven't felt the need to do so. I've even said that I'd be willing to include mention of criticism of the University in the summary, and asked you how you would like to frame it, but instead of taking me up on that offer, you've chosen instead to ignore it and delete the entire summary.
 * This is the crux of the problem. While I'm willing to work with you on the summary, your approach is to delete it entirely, and then to refuse to give actual suggestions for improvement to the summary. After I posted the summary above as a working draft, your response boiled down to, "Nope, try again - and by the way, you don't know what you're talking about." You didn't propose any changes. You just flat-out rejected the draft, without attempting to work with me on it. When you complain that I've reverted several times, you should look at your own behavior here: you've also reverted several times. But whereas I've shown that I'm willing to make changes to the text based on your concerns, you've shown no willingness to work on the text or compromise.
 * If you have constructive proposals for improving the summary, I'm still open to working with you. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:31, 16 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411 Your text is no summary of this topic. In addtion it violates many important policies as described above multiple times in great detail. Also, you requested many information and references which are contained in Causa Guttenberg, the existing-sister article on this topic. Obviously you're no expert on this topic but rely heavily on some German text. In my opinion, your translation is not a basis for a better summary of this topic. As described in great detail at Talk:Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, your translation missed out many aspects contained in the sister-article. I will be happy to work with you on a summary that will be result of your own work and research.
 * But asking for other editors' guidance and then ignoring their input is not productive.
 * As this article is a biography of a living person, every edit requires a high degree of sensitivity. Your approach is to simply delete a summary that was the result of WP:CORRECTSPLIT in 2014 and replace it with some text that had been opposed by several editors. Your edit behavior lacks sensitivity!
 * If you want to change the summary present a working draft that reach consensus. There is no consensus for this working draft!
 * Adding some text that lacks consensus multiple times by reverting (seven times by now) might appear disruptive.-- Dewritech (talk)  12:40, 17 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Dewritech, I think it's pretty clear who's been disruptive here, and who's been constructive. I've written a well-sourced summary of the topic, using neutral language and reliable sources, that goes over the aspects of the scandal that received the most media coverage. You think my summary is flawed, so I've asked you what you would change in it. I've even gone ahead myself and added in material you seem to want included. But instead of proposing changes, you simply delete the entire summary. When I post the summary to the talk page as a draft, you don't propose changes, but rather reject it entirely. To top it all off, you won't even acknowledge that my summary is a summary.
 * As I've said over and over again, if you have concrete changes to propose to the summary, I would be more than happy to work with you on them. But your position here seems to be that you simply want the plagiarism scandal not to be covered by this article.
 * I agree with you on one point: there is a serious BLP issue here. The plagiarism scandal is one of the most notable aspects of Guttenberg's career. As I noted when I first started editing this article, a LexisNexis search of English-language coverage of Guttenberg shows that the plagiarism scandal is mentioned in fully one third of all English-language newspaper articles on Guttenberg. This is in contrast to some issues that the Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg Wikipedia article covers at great length, such as the "No Disconnect" strategy, which have received virtually no coverage in English-language newspapers. Biographies of living people have to try very hard to present a balanced view of their subject, and consistently deleting one of the most notable aspects of someone's biography from their article is a serious BLP issue. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:29, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
 * You're constantly ignoring clear and unambiguous comments made by other editors. No consensus for your text.--Polmandc (talk) 23:43, 18 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411: You may want to take into account that with Causa Guttenberg there is a very detailed sister-article article on the plagiarism issue. Wikipedia currently contains about 9,300 words on Guttenberg of which more than 4,600 words speak about plagiarism. Therefore, this issue is well covered in Wikipedia, which even outweighs your LexisNexis ratio by far. Again, this article requires a good summary, which points to the sister article. According to thousands of page views, this article definitely points to its sister-article Causa Guttenberg with great success.-- Dewritech (talk)  12:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Dewritech, I'm aware of the existence of Causa Guttenberg. The existence of a sister article, however, does not mean that the summary of the plagiarism scandal in this article should be minimal. WP:BALASP applies within this article, and balance is not satisfied by the existence of a different article. The plagiarism scandal is one of the most notable aspects of Guttenberg's biography (as I showed earlier, it has been mentioned in approximately one third of English-language news articles on Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg). Other subsections of this article, such as the "No Disconnect Strategy" subsection, have received almost no coverage in reliable sources, yet receive far more space in this article. That clearly violates WP:BALASP. Above, I've drafted a summary of the plagiarism scandal that satisfies WP:BALASP by treating the scandal with about the correct length. Since you've rejected it outright, and don't want to suggest any changes to it, I'm asking you what you would include in a summary. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:20, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411: As mentioned before, with its siter-article Causa Guttenberg this article definitely meets WP:BALASP.-- Dewritech (talk)  15:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
 * We had an RfC on this, and the result was that the "Plagiarism scandal and resignation" section is too short, and needs expansion. Also, WP:BALASP applies within an individual article. The existence of a separate article does not fulfill WP:BALASP. Within this individual article, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, we need to give each subject its appropriate weight. The existence of a separate article does not fulfill the weight requirement. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Dewritech and Polmandc, since you both reject my draft in its entirety, and don't have any suggestions for how it could be changed in order to be acceptable to you, let's try a different tack: if you had four paragraphs to summarize the plagiarism scandal and resignation, what would you write? What aspects of it would you cover?

I think I covered the most important aspects of the scandal, and I used neutral language and heavily cited reliable sources. But since you don't think my summary is even a basis to work from, I'd like to hear what it is you would write. The summary will eventually have to be about four paragraphs, given its notability, so the question is what issues you would cover, and how. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:59, 19 December 2016 (UTC)


 * No need to comment on your text again. The summary now lists the highlights up to Guttenberg's resignation. Maybe we can add another paragraph on the publication of the university's report and the court ruling.--Polmandc (talk) 04:37, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, so you want one paragraph on the university's report and the court ruling (or do you want one paragraph for each?). Since the summary should be about four paragraphs, and we already have one paragraph, that leaves two more paragraphs. What would you like the other two paragraphs to cover? -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:47, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411: Consequences for German academia might be another notable aspect as after Guttenberg several other politicians faced plagiarism charges, and universities improved their standards. Therefore, you may want to draft a few paragraphs on this for Causa Guttenberg first as this aspect isn't covered in detail yet, followed by a summary for this article.-- Dewritech (talk)  12:45, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Dewritech, I'm working on this article right now, not on Causa Guttenberg. In the future, I may also work on the latter article, but right now, I'm asking about your opinion of this article.
 * I wonder, would you include the following topics in a summary?
 * The political reaction to the plagiarism accusations, including the reactions by Merkel, Seehofer, Lammert and Beckstein. This seems highly notable, given the extensive coverage it received and the notability of the people involved.
 * The way in which the plagiarism accusations surfaced (including the crowd-sourced nature of the investigation) and the extent of the accusations? Again, this received a huge amount of coverage, and is highly notable.
 * Polmandc has suggested including the university commission's report and the deal with the court/prosecutor. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thucydides411: As there were many different reactions, please give more details.-- Dewritech (talk)  16:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

External input
I've posted at both WP:NPOVN and WP:BLPN, asking about neutral point of view, weight/balance and BLP issues. Again, I'd appreciate any concrete, constructive suggestions about my proposed text. A simple, "try again from scratch" isn't helpful, because I don't know what it is, specifically, that should be changed in the summary. I've written what I think is a neutral, extremely well-sourced summary of the subject. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:23, 29 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This is not really my field, I came here from Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Thucydides is right: he is trying to cooperate but is simply blocked. There have never been any constructive suggestions for improving his text, only "no" in a repetitive handful of repetitive variations surrounded by repetitive, polite but empty repetitive phrases. Nagging about all sorts of details missing from the summary is silly because excluding details is what makes it a summary. I suggest that a number of items are given in form of a list, such as Lammert's opinion or the University's comments, and prioritized according to importance. Discussion has to be restricted to concrete lining up of items according to their importance (no broken-record wikilawyering "your suggestion does not conform to WP:ALPHABETSOUP", that is just a waste of time). Then the top ten (or whatever) items are included in the summary.


 * It seems to me (I could be wrong) that Dewritech and Polmandc are not interested in constructive cooperation, so they are excused for not contributing, but then they cannot complain afterwards. I myself don't really want to stay here because the lawyer-like behaviour of the users on this page is extremely tedious (I admire Thucydides's patience), just wanted to drop two cents. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:40, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hob Gadling What top ten items of Causa Guttenberg do you want to cover here? As for patience, to reinstate a challenged summary without consensus multiple times appears different (including editor's recent block for similar behaiviour). In addition, my last question still waits for an answer.-- Dewritech (talk)  13:48, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I have no idea which ten items to cover. As I said before, this article is not my area of interest, and I do not want to waste a lot of time by repeating things I said before because you did not read them the first time or chose to ignore them. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Since I've already written a summary of the plagiarism scandal, I think it would be best for editors to propose specific changes to my proposed summary. I tried hard to give balanced coverage and to write neutrally, and the proposed summary is well sourced. Rather than attempting again from scratch, how about we begin from what we already have? -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm arriving here from BLPN. The article as it currently stands is a violation of WP:WEIGHT by failing to give sufficient weight to this matter and by omitting important details. Thucydides's proposed text strikes me as quite moderate and measured. If necessary, it can be adjusted in the details -- but the objections I've seen on the article talk page should not stand in the way of adding material along these lines.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:05, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Nomoskedasticity As there is a sister-article Causa Guttenberg, how do you interpret WP:CORRECTSPLIT #6?-- Dewritech (talk)  13:48, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't interpret it as implying that the summary must be stripped down in the way you appear to favour. This is a matter for discussion and negotiation -- not wholesale reversion and persistent obstruction. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:55, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Hob Gadling, Nomoskedasticity You may want to study both(!) discussions (1 and 2) related to the text proposed by Thucydides411 and find many of my suggestions to improve their draft. Therefore, any accusations of missing interest in constructive cooperation are misleading here.


 * But most of my suggestions (which went along with the content of related sister article Causa Guttenberg) were declined by the author, who instead reinstated the text without consensus multiple times leading to multiple reverts. Another editor denied the text qualifying for summary in total. I instead asked for improvements.


 * On my side, there is no opposition to a modest expansion of the summary in the plagiarism section as long as it is in line with existing policies and standards. And simply taking a translation from a foreign Wikipedia definitely doesn't work – especially if the text misses out important facts of the topic. Any summary here has to be in line with the sister article on this topic.


 * Just imagine a similar working method for other controversial issues like Middle East or Crimea, where related information provided by Wikipedia certainly differs strongly between different language versions (same is true for political figures). It would become easy to push biased text by refering to certain language versions, but also cause ongoing controversies about the language version to choose.


 * Thanks to K.e.coffman, now there is a summary to work with.-- Dewritech (talk)  15:10, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This is a very inaccurate depiction of the previous discussions. I'm glad you find 's proposed summary a good basis to work off of. But I am a bit confused, because it's nearly identical, word-for-word, to the one that you told me was "not a basis for a better summary of this topic". Back when I proposed the draft that adapted the new draft (below) from, I asked you if you had any specific suggestions for improvement. You told me that it violated an alphabet soup of policies ("As for your working draft, the text still violates several policies (WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT, WP:BALASP, WP:BALANCE, WP:RS, WP:CORRECTSPLIT and WP:BLP)"), and that I should go back to the drawing board and write an entirely new draft from scratch: "I will be happy to work with you on a summary that will be result of your own work and research". I actually worked pretty hard on the above draft, which is why I was disappointed when your response was that it should be rewritten in its entirety (You also threw in a little jab at me for good measure, which I'm willing to overlook now in interest of moving forward: "Obviously you're no expert on this topic but rely heavily on some German text").
 * "But most of my suggestions [...] were declined by the author." I don't actually recall any concrete textual changes you suggested. I translated some of your general criticisms into specific changes to the text, and I asked you to propose specific, concrete changes to the text. Moving forward from 's draft, I think that any criticisms should come along with a concrete proposed change in wording. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:30, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I did study both. That's how I got the impression above. Stop trying to pull me back into this. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:43, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Proposed draft
How about this? I trimmed the copy for concision, and also attempted to remove over-citations, which could still be improved upon: The first accusations of plagiarism in Guttenberg's dissertation were made public in February 2011. Guttenberg's doctoral dissertation, "Verfassung und Verfassungsvertrag" ("Constitution and Constitutional Treaty"), had been the basis of his 2007 Doctorate from the University of Bayreuth. Guttenberg at first denied intentional plagiarism, calling the accusations "absurd," but acknowledged that he may have made errors in his footnotes. In addition, it has emerged that Guttenberg had requested a report from the Bundestag's research department, which he had then inserted into his thesis without attribution. On 23 February 2011, Guttenberg apologized in parliament for flaws in his thesis, but denied intentional deception and denied the use of a ghostwriter.

On 23 February 2011, the University of Bayreuth withdrew Guttenberg's doctorate. The scandal continued to evoke heavy criticism from prominent academics, legal scholars (who accused Guttenberg of intentional plagiarism), and politicians both in the opposition and in the governing coalition. On 1 March 2011, Guttenberg announced his resignation as Minister of Defense, from his seat in the Bundestag, and from all other political offices.

In May 2011, a University of Bayreuth commission tasked with investigating Guttenberg's dissertation came to the conclusion that Guttenberg had engaged in intentional deception in the writing of his dissertation, and had violated standards of good academic practice. The commission found that he had included borrowed passages throughout his thesis, without citation, and had modified those passages in order to conceal their origin.

In November 2011, the public prosecutor in Hof ended their investigation into possible copyright violations by Guttenberg, without bringing charges. The prosecutor found 23 possible copyright violations in Guttenberg's dissertation, but judged that there had been little financial impact on the authors whose works were thought to be infringed. As part of the deal, Guttenberg agreed to pay €20,000 to charity.

Please let me know of any feedback. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:35, 30 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing this. I have two suggestions:
 * I think GuttenPlag is worth mentioning, since it was heavily commented upon at the time. The fact that the alleged plagiarism was uncovered in a crowd-sourced investigation was viewed as interesting and newsworthy. I also think some mention of the scale of the alleged plagiarism is warranted.
 * Merkel and Seehofer's initial support for Guttenberg is also worth mentioning. One of the reasons for the continued heavy criticism the scandal received was that Guttenberg remained in office, with the confidence of the Chancellor. It's a noteworthy part of the scandal, in my opinion, partly because it received a lot of coverage.
 * -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I also think this is a good draft. Nice work. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:34, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 * K.e.coffman Thanks for your good draft. In order to keep the summary in line with the sister article I will make a few suggestions soon. As I'll be away during weekend I have to ask for some patience here. Thank you!-- Dewritech (talk)  15:16, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Since there's rough consensus in support of the proposed draft, and no strong objections, I will go ahead and add it to the article. Specific to crowdsourcing, I'm of two minds on it. It's definitely a "human interest detail" that adds to the story, but I feel that the fact of the discovery was more important, rather than how it was discovered. I'll add Merkel back in, as it explains why the criticism continued. Hope this work for now! Looking forward to further discussion. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Criminal case for copyright violations
There wasn't enough room in the edit summary, so here's the explanation for my edit. The charges weren’t dismissed, according to the source (SZ, Nov 23). The prosecution discontinued the proceedings on condition of Guttenberg paying 20,000 Euros to a charity, which is possible under German law when both the court and the accused agree to an "Auflage", a condition to be met by the accused (often money to be paid to a charity). The defendant doesn't admit guilt and doesn't have a criminal record, but there's a big difference to charges being dismissed which doesn't come with strings attached. Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 06:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC) Space4Time3Continuum2x (talk) 06:22, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia and Der Spiegel in 2009, regarding Karl-Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.[6]
It's important for wikipedia's reliability to have a disclaimer about the citogenesis incident, rather than neglecting it entirely, which comes off as sweeping it under the rug.

Honestly, any page that has been involved in a citogenesis incident should have such a a disclaimer, whether it's on the main or talk article.52.119.105.14 (talk) 18:45, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Intricate detail
Preserving the material here by providing this link. Pls see edit summary for rationale. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I further combined sections on "Family" & "Personal life" as talking about the same thing; reduced intricate detail. Pls see diff. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Memberships reduced: diff; pls see edit summary for rationale. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * These reductions look fine to me. I'm going to try to shorten the NSA and Russia sections as well. That level of detail isn't really warranted, relative to more important aspects of Guttenberg's career (e.g., Minister of Defense). -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Notice of move discussion for Causa Guttenberg
Please see:
 * Talk:Causa_Guttenberg

K.e.coffman (talk) 22:47, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Post-resignation career
This strikes me as excessive intricate detail, "crystal ball" & speculations:


 * In October 2012, after political resistance from Berlin led to the failure of the planned pan-European aerospace and defense merger of EADS and BAE, Guttenberg sharply criticized the German government's handling of this matter. In an op-ed published in the Financial Times, Guttenberg described the failed merger talks as a "missed opportunity of historic proportions" and emphasized the necessity of European cooperation as well as the industrial logic, synergies and cost savings associated with the proposed EADS-BAE link-up.
 * A few days later, CSU chairman Horst Seehofer also criticized the German government's handling of the merger negotiations. Shortly afterward, speaking on the margins of a CSU party convention in Munich, Seehofer declared that he would try to bring Guttenberg back into German politics after the 2013 election cycle and said that Guttenberg should play a "significant" role.

Would there be any objections if this is removed from the article? Separately, I also removed the detail on Ghent initiative; preserving it here by providing this link. K.e.coffman (talk) 22:53, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't object to removing the above two paragraphs. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:20, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The post-resignation career sections seem undue, see for example Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg, given that the resignation scandal gets only four paragraphs. Feedback? K.e.coffman (talk) 23:09, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * This entire section could go: Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg. He was commenting as a private citizen, which Wikipedia does not necessarily need to report on. Same applies to Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg; the article describes that the subject had published several op-eds. I don't think this is at all relevant, or could be drastically condensed instead.

K.e.coffman (talk) 23:11, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't think Guttenberg's statements on the NSA scandal or Russia need their own sections. I'll look at the news coverage to try to figure out how much mention, if any, they should have. In my opinion, the post-resignation career sections should be condensed significantly. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Edits
I've implemented several reductions. I'm preserving the material here by providing this link. Here's another one: diff. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Some more reductions diff. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)