Talk:Manchester VA Medical Center

Full disclosure
Hi KDS4444. Would you please clarify if you were/are going to be paid for this article? If this is part of what Stewart Levenson (who is mentioned in this article) paid you for, this is something the reviewer should be aware of, so that they know to think carefully about any bias that might support Levenson. That is the whole purpose of disclosing the COI; so that reviewers do their work with the specifics in mind. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 05:50, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * User:KDS4444 thanks again for the partial disclosure at the top of this page. As I noted just above, you are obligated to disclose who paid the "client, employer, and affiliation".  As I also noted above, this is so that reviewers are aware of who the client is and what POV that might create in the content.  This is how COI disclosure and peer review works across the entire publishing enterprise, not just here in Wikipedia.  Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:53, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Jytdog: got your message (after you decided to tag me, in the second one), but please understand that my disclosure here is full. I was not paid by anyone to write the article, there is no employer, no affiliation.  I disclosed a COI because I was concerned that others (perhaps you) would pursue me for not saying anything at all, given that I have some interest in this hospital.  Please don't accuse me of failing to properly or fully disclose when there is simply nothing more to disclose here. It starts to feel a bit like harassment for you (in particular) to pursue me or lecture me on the matter for this article.  If you had asked me whether or not I was sure I had used the correct COI disclosure and had asked if there was any client-based relationship, I would have been glad to explain that there was not.  When I did not respond to that message (because you had not tagged me in it— why wouldn't you do that?), you assumed I was attempting to evade the disclosure requirements in bad faith.  The horse is dead, please back away from it.  And please remove the undisclosed paid COI tag from the article draft.  It is completely off the mark and feels vindictive.  Thanks.  KDS4444 (talk) 03:23, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't ping you the first time, because it is common sense that you would be have this draft watchlisted, since you created it. I don't bother people with pings when i am pretty certain that something is on their watchlist. I pinged you the 2nd time when you didn't respond to the first.
 * Thanks for clarifying that this article was not part of the paid work you did for Stewart Levenson. It apparently arose from that work and you were very correct to add the tag.  However what I wrote above, about explaining the nature of the COI, remains on point, and you didn't respond to that.  The purpose of a COI disclosure in institutions around the world, is so that the work product can be reviewed with the specific conflict in mind.  I have added the relevant context to the disclosure above.  Thanks for providing it. Jytdog (talk) 03:46, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Fine. Review my work.  Treat it as a PAID-COI piece.  And then consider that it has been sitting here for five weeks, that it finally was passed through AfC by your suggestion, and that you have now unpublished it and moved it back to draft space, contravening the actions of another editor who had decided it passed.  And then please move on.  I have already told you on your talk page that I am exhausted of your attention, and would like it if you could find someone else to focus on for awhile, yes?  If you want to call it "paid" and if that makes the article less neutral somehow, then I suppose it can sit here forever.  Maybe in a year or two someone will finally reject it, although any editor who acts either way is going to be heavily criticized for doing so. And again, you make my efforts towards disclosure something I increasingly want to regret.  Thanks, though!  For your encouragement, fairness, support, and willingness to accept responsibility.  Hey, maybe YOU should publish this piece.  Nothin' stopping you!  Actually, it would be a fantastic conciliation if you finally did: no one knows more about my COI here than you, and I think you will agree that the institution is notable and that the article is not promotional, nor is it a BLP.  It is the subject of non-trivial discussion in multiple independent secondary published sources.  I say, Go for it! KDS4444 (talk) 10:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)


 * One more thing: I need to know how you think I should place the paid-user userbox on my userpage, since Dr. Levenson would strongly disagree that he paid me to write this piece on the hospital... Should it say, "This user was paid by Dr. Levenson to write the article on Dr. Levenson, and since Dr. Levenson used to work at this hospital, this user's contribution to it should be treated as a paid edit as well."?  Is there a Userbox I can use for that? That you know of?  Or maybe I should create one? KDS4444 (talk) 10:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The tag above is the "COI" tag, not the "paid" tag. They are different.  In my view the tag above (which has a link to the discussion here) makes it clear that you were not paid by Levonson to write this, but that through your paid advocacy for Levenson, you might have COI here.  Again the point of disclosing a COI is so that others can review with that in mind.  People with a COI often believe they are being neutral and are even trying to be neutral, but are not being neutral in the eyes of independent reviewers; this is what COI does to people.   This is why COI is managed throughout the world.  it is not a bad thing to have a COI; it is a bad thing to hide it (which you have not done) and it is a bad thing to fight management of it (which you are doing). Jytdog (talk) 15:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Review/move to main space
User:Onel5969 when you reviewed this, did you review with the COI of its creator in mind? (namely, they edited a prior article on behalf of Stewart Levenson, a whistleblower against this institution, as is described in this article). It seems kind of attack-article-ish to me with all the WEIGHT on Levenson's exposee. Do you see what I mean? I think this should be re-draftified and made NPOV before it gets moved to mainspace... Jytdog (talk) 17:32, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi - I don't believe their was a COI tag on the article when I looked at it (could be wrong, but didn't see one). While the article is weighted negatively against the institution, sometimes that simply happens, and isn't a matter of NPOV. Without doing extensive research, it is difficult to ascertain whether there is documented stuff which could be used to balance out the article. While unbalanced, the information is cited by reliable sources, and in my opinion, puts forth the information in an NPOV fashion.  It is the overall content which is unbalanced. But you know more of the history, and I won't squawk if you re-draftify. But if so, please let other editors know (via a comment on the article) what you think is needed in order to move it to mainspace. Take care.  Onel 5969  TT me 18:35, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I have re-draftified. This is all focused on recent events so we have a RECENTISM thing, along with the focus on specific recent events related to Levenson.


 * Before this is moved to mainspace there should be discussion about providing NPOV content that gives some reasonable overview of this institution's history which goes back to 1938 per the institution's history page (am not suggesting we use that a source). Jytdog (talk) 19:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Or maybe all of the easily-accessible information is pretty negative, and that shouldn't be a reason for not publishing the article. I have looked for other information, and I found nothing else via the Internet that did not reiterate what the existing sources here already said.  If you make the inclusion of non-existent counterbalancing information a requirement for its publication, then you have killed this article (as well).  KDS4444 (talk) 10:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Ways to improve this draft
This draft article is solely focused on the recent scandal and appears to be a vehicle for publicising the scandal and its whistleblowers from a particular point of view. Whether or not this was intentional, it has to be remedied before it would be acceptable.

To be an encyclopedia article it should have detailed "History" section which can be sourced from this extensive entry in Congressional Record of June 20, 2000 marking the 50th anniversary of the hospital. You might also want to briefly mention Smyth Tower, designated a National Historic Place and on the grounds if the current hospital.

It should have a "Services" section which briefly discusses the services offered there which can be adequately sourced from the list at manchester.va.gov with this Congressional Record entry from January 6, 2009 and this article from the Portland Press Herald (24 September 2017).

The "Boston Globe investigation" can have its own section, but it must be drastically shortened and summarised—not presented like campaigning journalism and not presented as the sole focus of the article. No adjectives like "deplorable" in Wikipedia's voice, please. Neutrally worded facts about the situation there in July 2017, are quite damning enough. And really, the burst pipe episode is of key encyclopedic value? There is not a hospital in the country that hasn't had burst pipes. Leave it out.

Voceditenore (talk) 14:44, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposed move back to article space
I have completely re-written, restructured, and expanded the article per my recommendations above. I also removed the COI tag as it is does not apply in draft space and in my view, the obvious POV issues no longer exist. If there are no objections, I propose to move it back to article space. Pinging Jytdog, Doc James, DGG, and Kudpung who have either vetted this draft or its erstwhile "companion piece", Draft:Stewart Levenson. Voceditenore (talk) 10:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I added a paragraph describing the problems with WLs to relevant pages like Veterans Health Administration scandal of 2014 so that the the paragraph about the whistleblowing has context.  This is so much better. I am fine with moving to mainspace. Jytdog (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2017 (UTC)


 * It is not likely that anything extensively worked on by would be unsatisfactory. But since he asked, I am about to accept it, tho I may remove the names from the  last sentence.    DGG ( talk ) 15:54, 7 October 2017 (UTC)