Talk:Mark Weisbrot/Archive 2

Labelling
Weisbrot provides a left-of-center analysis of trade policy issues.

It seems to be User:Defender of torch's thing at the moment to go around labelling people and things using labels picked from whatever sources can be found (cf Economic Policy Institute first line for not at all going over board with that). I question the value of this approach; and I think it is probably incompatible with the philosophy of Words_to_avoid, which is basically "show, don't tell". If a source mentions a label as part of a description, that's (probably) OK; but to go around looking for labels that sources have used in order to insert them into articles without explanation or context is a highly unconstructive thing to do, I think. Rd232 talk 11:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Do not want to be personal, but since the above comment by is more focused on the editor rather than on the edit, I am compelled to say this is another example of drama-mongering by Rd232 who is clearly uncomfortable with edits which do not fit his POV. I have added a reliable source which has a brief description of the organization for which the person works and then mentions their POV. Removal of reliable source under excuses like the above is a highly unconstructive thing to do. If this was done by a new user, we could safely issue him/her a vandalism warning, I think. --Defender of torch (talk) 11:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Editors need to move away from the claim that I have a citation and I want it in the article so it goes in, anyone removing it is a vandal...The comment at first glance is not even attributed as opinion. It is someones opinion isn't it? Off2riorob (talk) 11:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not "focussed more on the editor than the edit". I merely noted what you were doing, in terms that did not imply bad faith, in order to clarify that I want to talk about the broader issue and not just this particular text. PS Removing content for discussion when there hasn't been any is the polar opposite of vandalism. Rd232 talk 11:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The reference for the information is,



Alfred E. Eckes, Jr. is a professor in contemporary history at the Ohio University and a former commissioner and chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission. He is also president of the International Trade and Finance Association. Thus, the reference I added is a scholarly reference by a significant person and expert in the field of trade policy. --Defender of torch (talk) 11:35, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This would be a lot more relevant if we were discussing a substantive opinion. But the whole point I'm making is that we're discussing an uninformative label. And there is policy which at least discourages such labelling: Words_to_avoid. Rd232 talk 11:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (ec) (reply to defender) It doesn't really add much to this article, and is just a brief and not very informative or clear description extracted from a capsule description of the CEPR, not really the ideal source for this article. Weisbrot's views on trade are given space here, included already in the lead. There's a better case for including it somewhere in Dean Baker which has little on trade, but since it is just a somewhat unclear passing mention in the source, it is hard for me to see what to do with it there.  That article could use more expansion as he is more prominent.  I agree that Rd232 could have phrased the above better, but this kind of tagging writing is not very good style, particularly for the lead. Adding 36 citations to support adjectives in the first sentence in Economic Policy Institute is a remarkable and uncommon style of editing. Readability and informativeness of articles for people who never heard of the topic before is very important.John Z (talk) 12:00, 22 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Have to agree with Torch; the "left-of-center" is clearly borne out, regardless of what sources we use, and keeping it out of the article appears partisan. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * But the label doesn't mean anything by itself. I would use more info from the source, but it hardly says that much more about Weisbrot. The entirety of the CEPR entry is

Established in 1999, the Center for Economic Policy and Research seeks to promote debate on economic and social issues. Its co-founders, economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot, hold Ph.D.'s from the University of Michigan, and they strive to communicate to policymakers and the general public through a variety of publications, including columns and blogs. One of the most popular is Baker's "Beat the Press," accessible on the Web site of the American Prospect. It critiques media coverage of economic issues. (paragraph break) Baker and Weisbrot offer a left-of-center analysis of trade policy issues, including the Doha negotiations. Baker, for example, is critical of so-called free trade agreements, viewing them primarily as investment agreements to lure manufacturers abroad to utilize low-cost labor in competition with U.S. workers. CEPR strives to address a variety of economic topics, and its advisory board includes Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz, two Nobel-prize winning economists. (para break) Publications: For literature related to trade and globalization, see CEPR's Web site."
 * It's hard to see how cherry-picking "left-of-center trade policy" from that is anything but an unhelpful exercise in labelling. Show, don't tell. What are the views/analysis, and what makes them "left-of-center"? Rd232 talk 15:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * One part of the views is a query that Kriswarner hasn't answered yet. If all of those far-left sites re-published him without copyright permission, as I interpret that she is saying (perhaps my interpretation is incorrect), why didn't he challenge the copyright violations?  Clearly, with or without his permission, his views are attractive to the radical left.  But that's original research ... that does back the far-left assertions in RS though.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * See above . -- Kriswarner (talk) 18:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, speaking of labelling, we should say "a liberal think tank" rather than "a progressive think tank". Google News: liberal, progressive (9 vs. 1; the 9 include Time Magazine and the LA Times). Any objection to my making the edit? Any countersources? -- JN 466  16:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * For a more detailed frequency analysis, see Talk:Center_for_Economic_and_Policy_Research. -- JN 466  16:53, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I still don't understand why we should be doing such labelling at all, using vague labels not used by the subject. Maybe I should start a broader policy discussion... Rd232 talk 16:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It might be an interesting discussion. Such labels do seem to be quite common in Wikipedia though, at both ends of the political spectrum. Cf. David Horowitz, FrontPage Magazine, etc. I don't mind them as long as they are representative labels, widely used by mainstream publications. -- JN 466  21:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but labels like "conservative", problematically vague as they are, are much more often self-identified; and where labels are self-identified, I guess that's fine, even when they are vague. But looking at the Horowitz article I spot an example of the problem: Students for Academic Freedom is there described as "right-leaning". Nothing in the (substub) linked article justifies that description. I can well imagine that it's the sort of organisation which justifies that label; but the label substitutes for actual knowledge about what's being labelled and why. If we banned all such labels, we'd be forced to source actual information. That, I think, is my point at its broadest. Rd232 talk 22:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm broadly with you on the show vs. tell. -- JN 466  23:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The hypocrisy becomes clear when Rd232 so strictly follows the policies when it comes to organizations like Center for Economic and Policy Research and opposes labels used without proper analysis, but he is perfectly ok with edits like this and prefers to ignore all wikipedia policies in these cases. The above argumentation by Rd232 has weightage and thought provoking, but his neutrality is questioned when he remains silent in cases like this. I have seen there are a lot of problematic labels in wikipedia staying for a long time without any single reference (or with cherry-picked one or two references), many of which are blatantly inaccurate, but nobody protesting. --Defender of torch (talk) 03:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * And I split coke all over my keyboard when I read the article CounterPunch. There is no mention in the lead of its left leaning stance for a hard left fringe website like CounterPunch. But, interestingly though, the article American Foreign Policy Council described the organization as conservative without using multiples sources, and it stayed without any objection for a long time. I smell a systematic bias here. --Defender of torch (talk) 03:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * More surprise. We know in case of widespread recognition, we should not use any reference. We don't need a reference for the claim that water is colorless. This is done in case of The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute. Heritage and AEE are widely recognized and known as conservative think tanks, so we don't need reference for the label, or Cato Institute is widely recognized as a libertarian think tank. But a shock came when I went through the article Brookings Institution. It is widely knows as a liberal (in American sense) think tank. But violating WP:UNDUE, some POV editors used two cherry-picked source in the lead to prove Brookings is not liberal, but centrist or conservative (blah blah blah). I don't have the time to fix all these articles. I have already wasted enough time trying to fix some articles, but I don't want to waste my time here anymore. Good bye. --Defender of torch (talk) 05:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know why you pick articles I've not been involved with (ok, CounterPunch a bit), especially as I'm trying to make a more general point. On that general point, if "widely recognized" is disputed, it needs to be sourced. On the labels, it is far better to explain someone's position and let the reader make up their own mind; this, as I've said before, is the essence of Words_to_avoid. But if we can't escape the Wikipedian tendency to label things, we should at least limit ourselves to labels supported by the person/organisation themselves - as I've just done for American Foreign Policy Council. We might agree to even do away with those labels and insist on informative description instead - but one step at a time, eh? Rd232 talk 19:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

wrong quotation
The article says, He has said that he considers the IMF to be "in need of reform". This is wrongly quoted. The source does not say this is a verbatium quotation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisCopo (talk • contribs) 00:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It was marked as a quote from the cited article, where these words occurred verbatim, but in practice the quotation marks were misleading. Edited. -- JN 466  02:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Another direct quote: Commenting on international matters, Weisbrot argues that globalization, as understood by the United States government and American lending institutions, has not brought wealth to the world's poorer countries, stating that "no nation has ever pulled itself out of poverty under the conditions that Washington currently imposes on underdeveloped countries." Is it true that Weisbrot was quoted directly in Veseth, Michael (2002). The rise of the global economy. Taylor & Francis. p. 22. ISBN 9781579583699? Or is this another mistake in paraprhasing or indirect quoting? This article needs to be checked for this kind of mistake.
 * See as well as . -- JN  466  02:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Is the New York Times quoting the author from an interview or quoting a passage from his work? They make it sound like they interviewed him. I thought the New York Times was required to be clear as to their source, but it is not, accoring to the links you give.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by ChrisCopo (talk • contribs) 00:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The wording is on cepr.net: -- JN  466  21:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Moving forward
Right, I've archived a bunch of stuff (Talk:Mark Weisbrot/Archive 1) which is hopefully not needed any more; if anyone disagrees with any of that archiving, feel free to undo it.

Now, I think we need to try and figure out and summarise the issues, because we have threads all over the place with overlapping issues, and it's all getting rather confused. My main concern at the moment is that the breadth of coverage isn't reflected at all: aside from the mentions in the context of the Bank of the South, Venezuela and the US are the only countries mentioned. I will try and work on that. What are the other issues? Rd232 talk 21:31, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's what should be a non-controversial issue, from the second paragraph under the Economist section: "Commenting on international matters, Weisbrot argues that globalization, as understood by the United States government and American lending institutions, has not brought wealth to the world's poorer countries, stating that 'no nation has ever pulled itself out of poverty under the conditions that Washington currently imposes on underdeveloped countries.'"
 * The first part of this sentence is not an accurate representation of Weisbrot's economic research or writings on this subject. In the "Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress,"  which was published by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), Weisbrot, along with co-authors Dean Baker and David Rosnick, uses data from 175 countries to show that there was a sharp slowdown in economic growth affecting the vast majority of low and middle-income countries. The paper also shows a slowdown in progress on the most important social indicators, such as life expectancy, infant and child mortality. The paper shows that this diminished progress was not a result of "diminishing returns," and concludes that it was therefore likely the result of policy failures.
 * The paper does not say, nor does Weisbrot ever say or write, that "globalization" "has not brought wealth to the world's poorer countries." Wealth has been created in many of the world's poorer countries over the last three decades, including those who followed the advice of Washington policy-makers.  Weisbrot's argument is that in most of the world's low and middle-income countries it has been created at a much slower pace, with some important exceptions -- e.g. China -- that are discussed in the paper. Weisbrot argues that China succeeded because it did not adopt the neoliberal policies that Washington advocated for developing countries.
 * The paper has been widely cited and as far as I can tell no economists have challenged it or attempted to refute it. --Kriswarner (talk) 15:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The cited source is here: The text in the article is a pretty close paraphrase. -- JN  466  21:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't want to be contrary, but here is a paper by Mark where he says the following:
 * Is there really such a big difference between what he is saying there and what we are saying he says? -- JN 466  21:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I think there is a significant difference, the sentence about globalization not having brought wealth to developing countries is an over-simplification of Weisbrot's research. Also the passage cited here is refuting Larry Summers, who made a statement about "rapid growth" for 3 billion people that was simply not correct. How about just directly quoting the source? I think there's a bit of a difference between "has not brought wealth to the world's poorer countries" (wikipedia entry) and "has systemically failed to help poor countries grow wealthy" (source). To me, the former seems to imply that there has been absolutely no improvement (which isn't true), whereas the latter is a bit more clear in its meaning - that while there has been improvement, it's not what it should have been absent neoliberal policies.  -- Kriswarner (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The thing with quoting verbatim is that then you have to mark it as a verbatim quote – introducing ambiguity as to whether you're quoting Weisbrot or the author of the article – or else you're guilty of WP:Plagiarism. I'll see if I can find a better paraphrase that takes the distinction you are making into account. -- JN 466  18:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've had a go. Please let me know what you think: -- JN  466  18:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I see. I think that wording does the trick.  Sorry for the hassle.  -- Kriswarner (talk) 15:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No prob; pleasure. It's easy to miss a nuance if you're not deeply in the subject matter. -- JN 466  02:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The paper that Kris refers to has indeed been widely cited. Here are some examples: These are some potential sources for us; they would be better than a NYT quote. -- JN  466  21:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

POV tag
I've POV-tagged this due to the white-washing currently underway by Rd and JN. Until and unless this stops, and legitimate, sourced material is restored, the tag stays on the article. Scott aka UnitAnode  22:17, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There are several outstanding concerns that I've raised above, but haven't yet been addressed. I think there's a misunderstanding here that the article was previously unbalanced because it had a lot of Venezuela material, but balance is achieved not by deleting relevant info, rather by expanding other content.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:25, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If there's any POV problems, I think they are in the opposite direction. --Kriswarner (talk) 22:38, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hardly. And since it's been confirmed that you have been, in fact, sockpuppeting, your comments should be taken with an appropriate grain of salt. Scott  aka UnitAnode  23:13, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's been confirmed that I have not been, in fact, sockpuppeting. --Kriswarner (talk) 00:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Please do not attack other editors, and in particular respect WP:BITE. The user was unblocked on the basis of a reasonable explanation of not being a sock. If you have issues with that, take it up in the appropriate manner. (And in any case, even if the sock allegations had been true, a look at the edit histories shows no advantage gained by their use.) Rd232 talk 23:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I was referring to the objective result of the SPI. It has been confirmed that KW=Markweisbrot=other accounts, so there's no need to "take it up" at any other venue. It's my experience that people caught sockpuppeting always have some kind of implausible explanation for having done so. It's also my experience that the opinions of people who do such things should be weighted far less than good-faith contributors.
 * For the record, I've been singularly unimpressed with the whitewashing that you have undertaken on this article. It needs to stop. Scott  aka UnitAnode  23:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to press the "reset" button on my relationship with Sandy - please do not continue the old themes of personal attacks and bad faith accusations. Focus on content. (As to the SPI - this remains disputed, and with good reason; and Kriswarner would not have been unblocked without an uninvolved admin accepting that reason. I've repeatedly explained why the SPI conclusion is wildly implausible; it's still a live thread at ANI ("SPI followup") at time of writing if you wish to engage there.) Finally, it is not necessary to weight vague claims of POV up or down - because they have zero value anyway. Evidence/argument is needed. Rd232 talk 23:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Scrubbing a ton of her well-sourced work from the article is certainly an odd way of "press[ing] the reset button" on your relationship with Sandy. If that's really what you want to do, why not work on ways to include the work she's done, instead of simply removing it wholesale? Scott aka UnitAnode  01:00, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The "reset" button reference relates to an exchange which began yesterday afternoon. I haven't removed anything "wholesale" before or since; it is comments and underlying attitude like this which led to the depth of animosity between me and Sandy. I ask you again to not pick up that theme, and instead work with the renewed attempt to work together in a way which is civil, content-focussed and AGFy. Rd232 talk 08:37, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It also bears pointing out that the unsupported assertion of "white-washing" made in the opening of this thread isn't sufficient to justify a tag. I understand that you're referring to issues in others sections, but the discussion has gone all over the place, and really it needs a concrete and specific and neutral summary of the outstanding disagreements in order to have a chance of making progress. Rd232 talk 15:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note that I think I made most of the changes you are unhappy with, UnitAnode, not Rd232. Most of the material removed was sourced to primary sources. That was discussed, above (14:48, 16 February 2010). -- JN 466  19:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Breadth of country coverage
I hope this will help shed some light on this subject. The statement “He has been broadly sympathetic to Hugo Chávez,” is misleading. It represents and outside opinion of questionable motivation, and it also ignores criticisms of the Venezuelan government. Mark has written that some Venezuelan policies are positive but that others are negative. For example, he criticizes some economic policies of the Chavez government in the paper “The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators” for which he was the lead author.

The vast majority of Mark’s work has nothing to do with Venezuela. Even more to the point, he has offered much more praise for the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and other countries, and examples abound in his op-eds and columns which I can point out to anyone interested. For example, there is nothing that Weisbrot has written on Chavez that compares to this piece on Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, in terms of a positive portrayal. Mark has also been cited in the media much more about other countries in Latin America than he has on Venezuela. So it seems strange that opinions about Mark’s alleged sympathy to Hugo Chavez would be given special attention, without any such speculation about his sympathies for the all the other governments that he has written much more about.

For example, the October 2007 paper, “Argentina's Economic Recovery: Policy Choices and Implications,” by Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval was cited by the Financial Times, USA Today and other major media outlets. Following the election of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by Mark Weisbrot, “How Argentina Jump-Started Its Economy,” which was translated into Spanish and published by the newspaper La Gaceta in Argentina. Mark’s analysis is well-known in Argentina, and exclusive interviews with him have been given prominence in Argentine newspapers.

Mark has written extensively about Brazil and offered praise for President Lula and his government that goes far beyond what he’s said about Chavez. His writings on Brazil have reached a very wide audience (perhaps larger than his writings on Venezuela have) considering the publishers: the Washington Post, the LA Times , The Nation , and Brazil’s largest newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo (linking to a repost, since Folha is subscription-only: ), among others. Mark is well-respected for his analysis in Brazil, which has been cited by Brazilian government officials in explaining policy decisions, and Mark recently presented a paper in a conference  as an invitee of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry.

Mark has authored or co-authored several papers on Bolivia, and has been cited by Time Magazine, Bloomberg , PBS , Reuters , and other major media on Bolivia. He’s written on Bolivia for The Nation, The Guardian, McClatchy Tribune, and other outlets, and has done numerous radio and TV interviews on Bolivia and various speaking events as well.

Mark likewise has written several papers on Ecuador, as well as columns and op-eds, done radio and TV interviews, and has been cited in the Financial Times, The Independent (UK) , UPI , EFE , and other media outlets on Ecuador. He’s done a number of speaking events on Ecuador also.

Outside of Latin America, for example, Mark’s recent work on Latvia has been cited widely in media around the world, including a feature Reuters article, Latvian , German , and Swedish outlets , and Nobel Laureate economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s blog. Latvia is another country that should be mentioned for which Mark has offered mixed opinions on policy.

It’s also notable that Mark has offered – many times – both praise and criticism of U.S. governmental policies. See, for example, his recent column, “Stimulus Time: The Fierce Urgency of Now”. Although most of Mark’s work has focused on other countries, he has had dozens of op-eds published on U.S. economic and political topics over the years, including economic policy, the justice system, trade policy, Social Security, health care, and foreign policy – its not hard to tell which these are by looking at his column/op-ed titles. It likewise would not be correct to say he is “broadly sympathetic” to the policies of Barack Obama, although he prefers Obama to the right, just as he generally prefers the left of center governments of Latin America to right-wing ones.

The singling out of Venezuela in this context is misleading, although it is an obsession of some right wing editors and journalists. They feel that it is a crime that Weisbrot treats Venezuela similarly to the other social democratic governments of Latin America, because the United States government has designated it to be an enemy state. The handful of reporters that have misrepresented Weisbrot in a few newspapers (all of which agreed never to do it again), are thinking in similar terms. --Kriswarner (talk) 15:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that, don't have time to read it properly now though. One point: it would be easier to read if you enclosed weblinks with square brackets [ ], which would take the bulk of the link out of the prose and turn it into a numbered link you can click on, eg [1] (see Help:Linking). You can still do this if you wish; editing your post in this way would be fine (whereas changing the prose substantively may cause confusion and is generally frowned on). Rd232 talk 16:41, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks - much more readable now. Rd232 talk 17:05, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem - sorry about the original being so messy. --Kriswarner (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Kris, helpful feedback, I also have much more to say re this content, but I also don't have time to catch up on Wiki today, IRL interference ... will catch up as soon as I'm able. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 17:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Two good sources (New York Times, USA Today) chose to describe Mark as broadly supportive of Chavez' policies. I don't think that is wrong. Mark appeared flanking Chavez' finance minister at the time to answer questions on the Bank of the South. I made a frequency analysis of news items containing Mark's name, combined with references to foreign countries. You can see the results above, at (the second post in that section), and verify them for yourself. Venezuela came out tops. Latvia preponderates in very recent coverage, but only due to current affairs. There is no long history of a sustained focus on Latvia. I think it is okay if Venezuela is the first country we address here. But I agree with you that the article should not become unbalanced by an undue focus on Venezuela. -- JN  466  19:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's important to bear in mind that the media is far from equally interested in all the countries Weisbrot has worked on. How much more does the US and world press report Venezuela than Latvia? A lot, it's safe to say. More too than Brazil or Argentina, for sure. I repeat the point I made above: evaluating "due weight" should flow at least as much from the work he's actually done as from how interested the media is in different parts of that work. As I noted above: "Out of about 300 [Weisbrot] op-eds, 27 mention Venezuela or Chavez in the headline. Out of 60+ publications, 12 have Venezuela in the headline." Rd232 talk 20:28, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Weisbrot has been in the news a lot of late in connection with Latvia, more so than Venezuela, but that is just a recent thing driven by current events. To some extent it is proper to follow preoccupations in reliable sources. If a scholar is particularly well known for a particular theory, it's okay to devote more space to that in his bio, even if most of his life he worked on something else. Given that we are an encyclopedia rather than a press review, we should look at scholarly sources, though, and whether his work on Argentina and Brazil, say, has attracted more academic comment than his work on Venezuela. Checking google scholar, it turns out that in fact his work on Argentina and Brazil is more prominently featured in academic sources than his work on Venezuela:
 * 303 google scholar matches for "Mark Weisbrot" + Brazil,
 * 301 google scholar matches for "Mark Weisbrot" + Argentina,
 * 230 google scholar matches for "Mark Weisbrot" + Venezuela
 * 156 google scholar matches for Mark Weisbrot" + Bolivia
 * Other countries:
 * 325 google scholar matches for "Mark Weisbrot" + China
 * 219 google scholar matches for "Mark Weisbrot" + Russia
 * 26 google scholar matches for "Mark Weisbrot" + Latvia  JN 466  13:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Back on POV
My apologies for falling behind (and this thread seems to have gone all over the place). We still have missing text:
 * 1) An important debate between Rodriguez and Weisbrot (Financial Times, De Paul University, and Foreign Affairs magazine) over the economy of Venezuela (which should not be left out just because my initial and very brief text was poorly written).
 * 2) The information about Weisbrot as a sometimes consultant to Chavez that was hosted on their own website and is well known.
 * 3) He has been broadly sympathetic Chavez, and that is borne out by numerous reliable sources and even more not included here.  That he may have also been sympathetic to other countries or leaders doesn't negate that, and that other text needs to be expanded, relative to Venezuela, doesn't either.

Attempts to downplay Weisbrot's involvement with Chavez/Venezuela should cease here so we can finish up this text and move on. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 22:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Sandy, this is really not what this is about. This is about producing a rounded biography that does this individual justice. Reducing his biography to a series of statements about Chavez does not do that. It is not reflective of his published work, and it does not reflect his reception in the wider world. Most reliable sources discussing or citing or written by Weisbrot do not even mention Venezuela:
 * 99 vs. 600+ in google books,
 * 230 vs. 721 in google scholar,
 * 517 vs. 2,000+ in google news.
 * To comply with NPOV (and BLP) policy, the weight we give to aspects of his biography must roughly match the weight these aspects have received in RS coverage. -- JN 466  00:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * And again, the fact that the rest of his article is underdeveloped doesn't mean we remove reliably sourced text that is developed, is relevant, and is given due weight according to info in several sections above this. If the CEPR folk think there's too much emphasis on Venezuela, perhaps they can begin to supply reliable secondary sources (not CEPR sources) to issues in other countries.  We shouldn't be removing relevant content simply because some don't want it here and other areas of the article are underdeveloped.  The google numbers above indicate that Brazil and Argentina are underrepresented here; they do not indicate that Venezuela isn't an important part of his writing.  Add Brazil and Argentina, sourced to independent reliable sources, not CEPR; don't delete Venezuela.  Wiki is not censored.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * We have a responsibility to get every BLP right, so that it is balanced and fairly reflects real-life coverage. I do not see the same focus on Weisbrot's connections with Chavez in reliable sources that adding this material would establish in this article. As for the argument that it is up to other editors to restore balance by adding material on other aspects of the subject's life and work, WP:BLP policy expressly states that eventualism does not apply to biographies of living persons. A biography of a living person must comply with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV at all times, and biographies that have become unbalanced by partisan editing are stubbed or deleted per BLP policy.
 * The topic of Venezuela is not censored. It is given ample (arguably excessive) weight in the present article, which contains a clear statement that Weisbrot is broadly sympathetic to Chavez, was the intellectual architect of the Bank of the South spearheaded by Chavez, and acted as a consultant to the governments concerned. -- JN 466  12:18, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * My broader point is that the bad faith assumptions by some CEPR editors could be better addressed by providing us secondary sources to his work in other countries, so the article can be properly expanded. Generally, I don't believe our current article gives due weight to the considerable publication Weisbrot has done on Venezuela/Chavez, as he is such a vociferous proponent of Chaves's policies, to the point of the disagreement with a former economist in the Chavez regime.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "vociferous proponent of Chaves's policies" is the sort of statement that requires some backing; and I don't think the sources bear it out. For instance the Rodriguez debate is basically two economists debating statistics; a cursory glance at least doesn't reveal active support for Chavez' policies, but merely a statistical critique of a statistically-based criticism of the policies. Rd232 talk 21:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So, in spite of all the sources, and all the discussion that led to this compromise, has now reverted the consensual text developed here; back to POV, even after review of the reverted text by CEPR representatives. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 05:13, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I generally don't like to present opinions as facts, if it can be avoided, and thought that this was yet another case of this being done (it's pervasive throughout Venezuela articles). I didn't know about the CEPR representatives approving it -- you said it, but it took me a while to find it. Since it does seem to be the case, I feel comfortable with including it, because then I would say that, in light of this, it is no longer a third-party opinion, but a fact. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 05:33, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Another unjustified deletion
JN, please explain this, and review discussions above. Misrepresenting the sources Weisbrot writes extensively for is further censorship of Wiki. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 18:39, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Researching the articles, I found that Weisbrot had not written them for these publications. Shall we go through them one by one? -- JN 466  18:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The first one was "Labor Day 2003: Nothing to Celebrate". According to, this appeared in the San-Bernardino Sun, August 30, 2003, as well as the Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) on September 1, 2003. This is borne out by its continued presence on the Sun Sentinel website: In addition, the article is currently present on a wide variety of websites: , including AlterNet and Socialist Viewpoint, where it appeared over a month after its publication in the Sun-Sentinel. To single out these two websites from all the dozens carrying the article, and then insert their copies of this article in this BLP as examples of sites "the author writes for" was improper. -- JN  466  20:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Now the evidence for "Solidarity": The interview on the socialist Solidarity site begins "Suzi Weissman: And Welcome back to BTS". It did not originate on the Solidarity site either but is a transcript of an episode of this radio show broadcast on KPFK radio. -- JN 466  20:46, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

This attempt to misrepresent the publications that Weisbrot writes and interviews for, in order to mis-represent him as writing for socialist organizations, is more than "improper" as Jayen 466 notes above. It is strong evidence of a deliberate smear campaign on the part of SandyGeorgia. The link that she posted to Socialist Viewpoint says "Alternet" right at the bottom of the piece, which means that even if SandyGeorgia somehow missed all the other mainstream publications that printed it first, she had to know that it came from Alternet and did not originate with Socialist Viewpoint. The fact that she continues to defend this 1950s-style McCarthyist falsification is further evidence of bad intent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RegisMordor (talk • contribs) 23:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Not so surprising accusations of bad faith. JN, can you review the earlier thread at Talk:Mark_Weisbrot; I tried to wrap that up; that's where it came from.  I'll try to catch up on this tonight if I'm able, and I see at least one has come back since I posted (CommonDreams), but I added those where he had a profile listed as an editor, and I thought I had linked to those.  Silly me; since he writes so much for the radical left, I thought he would want that in his article and I was doing a good thing by finishing up that work.  At any rate, we seem to be missing some still, per the thread above.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link. I've readded AlterNet, per its listing on the CEPR website. -- JN  466  11:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added external links to Weisbrot's pages at CEPR, The Guardian, AlterNet and ZSpace. -- JN 466  15:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's better. It appears that my attempts to wrap up a previous section here, to which Rd232 and JRSP agreed, have earned me the wrath of CEPR supporters, who don't seem to have read that thread above or realized how I came to add that text.  Weisbrot clearly writes for those organizations, and a consensus discussion came to the conclusion the text should be added, and then the work was left undone.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is interesting. This is a serious misrepresentation of who Mark Weisbrot has written columns and op-eds for over the last decade (or maybe 14 years if you want to do a nexis search). And SandyGeorgia continues to insist (on Feb. 17), even after having been shown to be wrong about about an alleged contribution to "Socialist Viewpoint", that "he [weisbrot] writes so much for the radical left." But even a review of the columns posted  on the CEPR web site show that Weisbrot has written, over the last decade, overwhelmingly for mainstream sources: McClatchy-Tribune (formerly Knight-Ridder Tribune Information Services), and op-eds for various other mainstream newspapers. For a brief while he wrote perhaps a dozen columns for Alternet, which at that time published and mostly republished articles from a wide range of liberal and left-of-center writers. But the overwhelming majority, more than 90 percent of the opinion pieces written by Weisbrot were written for mainstream news outlets. This percentage would be even higher if one were to count the articles written for McClatchy-Tribune or KRT as represented by all of the mainstream newspapers that print them; i.e. many of Weisbrot's newspaper columns appear in dozens of papers. His opinion pieces have, in fact appeared in the almost every medium to large-size newspaper in the U.S., as well as dozens of smaller ones. This can be verified by going to the jump pages of his columns and op-eds on the CEPR web site and seeing where they are published. As noted previously, many columns are also reprinted freely all over the internet -- especially for an author like Weisbrot, who permits his work to be republished anywhere and does not care about copyrights.  Yet SandyGeorgia describes Weisbrot as writing "for the radical left."  Perhaps SandyGeorgia includes the Guardian in this category as well. The statistics linked to here are way off, incidentally -- which is not necessarily anyone’s fault, as, e.g. most of Weisbrot's TV appearances on places like BBC-TV don't appear on the internet. (Also, FYI, SandyGeorgia writes "I added those where he [Weisbrot] had a profile listed as an editor" – though Mark is not an editor anywhere.) Given these misrepresentations, the POV flag on this bio is appropriate, but it not a result of anyone connected to the subject, since the current version does not contain edits by anyone connected to the subject. --Kriswarner (talk) 04:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * You can tone it down now, Kriswarner; have a look at WP:AGF, and realize that we're all just trying to do our best here. As far as I know, I added those where he had a profile, in good faith.  At any rate, anything in the article now wasn't added by me anyway, so you can redirect your ire elsewhere.  I'm confused about part of your argument; you seem to be saying that we shouldn't count re-publications of his articles on radical left websites, as the same time you ask us to count re-publications in different newspapers of the print media.  Am I misunderstanding?  Fact is, he's highly represented in the radical left websites; they seem to like his writing.  How is that republication different than in the print media?  If they didn't have his permission to reprint, wouldn't he charge them with a copyright violation?  Hasn't he allowed them to carry them?  These are questions, not charges; you may find that collaboration in good faith will yield better results here.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Point taken. We have a Creative Commons License bug at the bottom of our site. Mark's columns fall under this category, as does most anything on our site other than books and maybe a few other things. --Kriswarner (talk) 18:24, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Economic debate with Rodriguez
Separetely, why have we lost the content about the debates between Weisbrot and Francisco Rodriguez? The two of them were featured by the Financial Times, and De Paul University included those debates as part of a course; it was clearly notable, and related to his economic defense of Chavez (in opposition to someone who "worked" for the Chavez administration). Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:17, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
 * De Paul University and the Financial Times have hosted a course and dialogue focusing on the debate over Chavez's economic policies between Weisbrot and Francisco Rodríguez, who was chief economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly from 2000 to 2004 in the Chavez administration.

First of all, the sentence De Paul University and the Financial Times have hosted a course and dialogue focusing on the debate over Chavez's economic policies between Weisbrot and Francisco Rodríguez is impossible to understand correctly. The reader (this reader, at least) gained the impression that De Paul University and the FT collaborated on hosting a course that included a dialogue between the two. (I visualised the two debating in front of a class of students.) That is not the case. Let's look at the documents cited for this. They were the following:
 * http://las.depaul.edu/psc/docs/syllabi300/349Spal08aLatAmer.pdf This is an outline of a university course. It is about South America, especially Brazil and Venezuela, and does not mention Weisbrot. His name only occurs as the author of a single work in the course's reading list, which comprises around a dozen publications altogether. One of these, incidentally, is venezuelanalysis.com. There are two works by Francisco Rodriguez in the reading list.
 * http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d47f5b8a-aa48-11db-83b0-0000779e2340.html A Financial Times "Ask the Expert" session with questions from the public and responses by three experts, Lapper, Rodriguez and Weisbrot.
 * http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63220/francisco-rodr%C3%83%C2%ADguez/an-empty-revolution Article by Rodriguez, critical of Chávez (An Empty Revolution -- The unfulfilled promises of Hugo Chávez). This article requires me to register an account with the site (or I can purchase a pdf). In the part that I can see, Weisbrot is not mentioned, nor is he mentioned in the abstract.
 * http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/an-empty-research-agenda-the-creation-of-myths-about-contemporary-venezuela/ This is a rebuttal by Weisbrot of Rodriguez's article, on Weisbrot's CEPR website.
 * http://frrodriguez.web.wesleyan.edu/docs/working_papers/How_Not_to_Defend.pdf Rodriguez' March 2008 response to Weisbrot's rebuttal, hosted on Rodriguez' University website. This at least is about Weisbrot, criticising his methods as used in the rebuttal.
 * http://ideas.repec.org/p/wes/weswpa/2006-025.html "Freed from Illiteracy? A Closer Look at Venezuela's Robinson Literacy Campaign, another article by Rodriguez critical of Chavez, which does not mention Weisbrot, except as the author of one reference.
 * http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/illiteracy-revisited-what-ortega-and-rodriguez-read-in-the-household-survey/ Weisbrot's May 2008 response to Rodríguez' article, hosted on his own website.

So we have
 * 3 articles by Rodriguez,
 * 1 article featuring both Rodriguez and Weisbrot,
 * 2 rebuttals of Rodriguez by Weisbrot
 * 1 university course outline that includes 2 papers by Rodriguez and 1 by Weisbrot in its reading list.

This content is more about Rodriguez (and Chavez) than it is about Weisbrot. I see no evidence that the scholarly debate between Rodriguez and Weisbrot is particularly prominent in RS coverage of Weisbrot. Sorry. -- JN 466  18:51, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

First, I'd like to apologize for not seeing this Riothero, I thought you made a new talk subject. Anyways, with the new reception section, we can add the criticisms and rebuttals by Weisbrot in order to make this more neutral.--Zfigueroa (talk) 03:09, 14 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Should we include the reception from Rodriguez since it is directed at Weisbrot and not Chavez?--Zfigueroa (talk) 21:31, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Reception section
If the article is going to contain any type of section with POV analysis, it can't represent only one side—otherwise it's a neutrality violation through undue weight. As the "Reception" section stands now, it's just criticism and needs to be balanced out with the opposing/positive POV.  Mbinebri  talk &larr; 11:36, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm working on it. I placed statements from Weisbrot which makes it a little bit more neutral.--Zfigueroa (talk) 02:29, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

How about this, as a more neutral formulation: Weisbrot has also sparred with Larry Rohter, the former South American bureau chief of The New York Times, over Rohter's criticisms of the film "South of the Border." In his review of the documentary for the New York Times, Rohter claimed that there were factual inaccuracies in the film.[47] Weisbrot, Tariq Ali (who co-wrote the film with Weisbrot) and the director of the film, Oliver Stone, contested each of Rohter's claims of inaccuracy and presented verification that each one of the alleged inaccuracies was in fact accurate, and that Rohter's other claims were not true.[48] Joefranks72 (talk) 21:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)joefranks72


 * Asacarny made some fairly good adjustments to the section.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 22:15, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2016
Please change first paragraph to text below to include information regarding subject's recently published book.

Mark Weisbrot is an American economist, columnist and co-director, with Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C. He regularly contributes to publications such as the New York Times, the UK's The Guardian, and Brazil's largest newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo. His latest book is “Failed: What the Experts Got Wrong About the Global Economy” (2015 Oxford University Press). In that book, he focuses on long-term economic failures, their causes and consequences: the 20-year economic failure (1980-2000) in Latin America that led to the election of many left governments in the 21st century; the macroeconomic failures of the Eurozone since the world recession; the economic growth failure of the vast majority of low-and-middle-income countries in the last two decades of the 20th century; and the failures of IMF policy that led to its loss of influence in middle income countries in the 21st century. The book covers most of the themes, research, and writing that appear in his work over the past two decades.

Arribalosmochis (talk) 05:40, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not concur as we are not here to shill his book. However, a mention of this work is absolutely acceptable within the article. Hammersbach (talk) 12:12, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

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Citation cleanup, general improvements to article
I wanted to add a note that I made significant edits to this Wikipedia entry, as the prior versions of the article seemed to be less neutral and balanced that it should be. If there are any concerns about this work to improve the article and make it more legible, please let me know. I cleaned up the citations and tried to organize the publications so they were collected more efficiently in the publications section. I have no investment in economics or Weisbrot personally, although I figured out after working on the article that we were at the University of Michigan at the same time. But I studied art history and film and did not take social sciences and economics courses. Just wanted to mention this. -- BrillLyle (talk) 03:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality
-- I removed the text in the Latin American section because of the concern that it is reflecting a lack of neutrality -- and an amount of synthesis that the citations don't support. This page should be fact driven as much as possible, which is what I've been trying to do to improve it. I am not an expert in and have very little knowledge of Latin American politics, but even to someone as uneducated on the issues as me, the statements seem to lack neutrality. I would like to see if there's a compromise here, a way to agree on what to have on the page, and not include political synthesis, unless it is stated by very solid citations. BrillLyle (talk) 01:30, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Sorry I didn't get the ping. I'm pretty sure one of the sources had an audio file of Weisbrot speaking in support of Venezuela and criticizing its detractors? I'm not sure how it lacks neutrality if it is Weisbrot expressing his own opinion, it's only not neutral if someone perceives his opinion to be not neutral. I would let the readers create their own opinion on his publicly expressed opinions.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 04:37, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It looks like the audio file was deleted (wonder why) but here is a video of Weisbrot criticizing the media at the event while the Embassy states that the event was to "celebrate" Chávez's life. You asked for things to be "fact driven" and all of what is mentioned in the article is a fact; he went there and celebrated his legacy, criticized the media as well as the opposition and defended the Bolivarian Revolution. I don't see how that's not neutral. Weisbrot openly chose to do those things. Us users making judgements on his opinions is the least neutral thing we can do. I'm just giving the facts and the citations were better before things were deleted, so sorry for that inconvenience. Hope this helps!-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 07:56, 28 April 2017 (UTC)


 * -- Well I listened to the audio file at the link that was in the citation I added there, and I didn't hear this at all. I think if you re-listen it's very clear there was a careful modulation of Chavez. I think it's really important that if you have a counter-perspective that for balance it is represented, but I also think it's really important that there are super solid, very well respected citations to back this perspective up. I don't see citations that support what you are saying, and it seems to be more of a personal attack than something encyclopedia. I guess that's my concern here. I would like to cooperatively address this and make it be as neutral and balanced as possible, but I don't agree with the current wording at all. It's not neutral and it's not reflective of the citations. If there's more information that could support this from good citations, maybe that would be a good solution. But I looked online and it looks like it's bloggers and people who are attacking Weisbrot personally -- not thoughtful, legit sources and citations. BrillLyle (talk) 01:46, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Weird because the audio was down for me. You listened to the part where he criticized the "English media" that covered the protests but didn't recognize Chávez's achievements and called Latin American media "even worse"? He calls Globovision "Fox News times 10". He then boasts about the achievements of the "Chavez and Maduro governments" and blamed the poor economy in the 2003-04 range on the opposition. He defended the achievements saying "(the media is) saying people are going to throw this all away over the last year (2014). I don't think that's going to happen". Also, the video I provided says from the Venezuelan embassy itself that Weisbrot explains that "Not all Americans make effective use of the media" calling for the public to recognize the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution. So, he criticized the media and praised the achievements of the revolution, that's pretty clear. I don't see how that's not neutral and how I would be attacking him if I placed this here. He wouldn't have said it publicly if it could be used as an attack.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 16:03, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * -- I did not hear what you heard, and I think you are extrapolating meaning that wasn't there. Also if this perspective is that comprehensive, I would like to see multiple supporting citations. It just seems imbalanced and weirdly personalized as an attack. I don't have a motivation here and as I said know nothing about politics in this region. It just seems to violate the basic rules of Wikipedia to have the Latin American section of the page so weirdly personal and aggressive. I want to revert your reversion of me cleaning up that section, but I don't want this to be a back and forth edit war. There needs to be some sort of compromise here. Honestly, if the audio and video is available here, I think that those citations suffice. People are smart and can take from the citations what they can. No need to add editorialized non-neutral descriptions. Thoughts on possible compromise? -- BrillLyle (talk) 18:44, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not trying to edit war, but what are "non-neutral descriptions" here? He states his opinion, is it up to us to determine if it's good or bad, neutral or POV? I'm not interpreting what he had said, he criticized the media and praised the achievements, pretty simple. I'm not saying it is a bad opinion either, I'm indifferent to the opinions of a lot of people discussing Venezuela or Latin America. We can discuss about this for a bit since it seems like you are the first user who has had interest in this article for awhile.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 19:52, 1 May 2017 (UTC)


 * This is not a neutral or representative article. I'll be going through it methodically over time, removing unsourced information and making it more representative, like a biography of a living person should be. Any issues, please bring them up on the talk page first. Per WP:BLP, I'll remind previous editors that there is a need for a Neutral point of view (NPOV) and Verifiability (V). If you want to make political statements, this is not the place. Gunshippolitico (talk) 00:09, 19 June 2017 (UTC)


 * -- please do not revert my edits without a reason, or accuse me of anything. If you would like to talk to me about my edits, here is the place. Multiple editors have approached you and asked you to refrain from pushing a POV on this article, which is not neutral or representative; please take that into consideration with further contributions. Gunshippolitico (talk) 02:25, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be good now. Didn't mean to remove your additions.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 03:52, 22 June 2017 (UTC)


 * You have again reverted my additions without reason. If you have general issues with what I add, please bring them to the talk page. Your Bank of the South stuff was completely unsourced -- one link was dead and the other did not say even close to what was in the article, which was unsupported commentary. Gunshippolitico (talk) 12:59, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The Bank of the South stuff was here before I started editing this article. I'll look for more sources for all of this since that dead link might have been necessary. As for the image, I think the general work such as CEPR's findings and text is covered by the license but not files such as images.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 19:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Recent edits - June 2017
Here is what I found in the edits going back and forth recently.

For the Media representation of Hugo Chavez edits, Weisbrot states:[1 ]
 * "Venezuela is a democracy, which you do not hear much here"
 * Weisbrot defending Venezuela saying it was not "Anyone who calls the Venezuelan Government authoritarian is in need of a dictionary"
 * "It is also difficult to conceive of a media like Venezuela's, if you have never seen it. Imagine ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and the cable channels, USA Today and most major newspapers, as well as most radio--all controlled, in terms of their daily content, by the most fiercely partisan opponents of the government. They have also abandoned the norms of modern journalism, becoming organs of a movement to de-legitimize the government"
 * "arguments have been put forth to portray the Chavez government as anti-democratic, but they are not very convincing"
 * Weisbrot also cites many of his own articles surrounding Chávez's media representation
 * Overall, he states that the US taxpayers should not be funding those opposed to Chávez and that the media is misrepresenting him.

For the Bank of the South edits:[1 ][2 ][3 ]
 * "Mark Weisbrot, intellectual architect of the Bank of the South"
 * "Mark Weisbrot, intellectual author of the proposal of the Bank of the South"
 * "It seems evident that the birth of the Banco del Sur is exclusively a response to the hegemonic and expansionist delusions of the President of Venezuela ... its promoters - Mark Weisbrot, intellectual architect of the proposal"
 * Quite a few sources stating that he is the "architect".

So Gunship, I will try to keep most of what you put, but some of the original wording will be placed back. Hope this helps!-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 22:08, 30 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Also, it looks like someone more experienced with files has kept the photo. After trying to find one for so long, it was right in front of me! Thanks for that Gunship.-- ZiaLater  ( talk  ) 00:08, 10 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The "media" comments in the testimony are about the media generally in Venezuela and not Chavez specifically. So, the link to the other page and the commentary don't really work. It's also a small part of what the testimony is. I updated the line to more accurately summarize the testimony. Will move on to the BOS next. Gunshippolitico (talk) 14:32, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

History of meat puppetry
There has been a history of WP:MEAT on this article (and CEPR), so I suggest all participants read the policy. WP:NOT might also be helpful. There is too much puffery based on primary sources, and too little use of secondary sources. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  15:08, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:NOT
Regarding this, please review WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a webhost, not a means of promotion, not a repository for links and not an indiscriminate collection of links. Listing Weisbrot's published books is fine; he can list everything he has ever written on his own website. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  13:22, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Please refer to the above talk section where this is covered in depth. Selected bibliographies are standard in articles of American economists. -DenizenGene (talk) 13:49, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You don't seem to have read WP:NOT or WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Please address the issue, because referring me to things you have already written on the page is not helpful.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  14:00, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you would like to know how an article about an economist might be best written, I suggest Featured_article_star.svg Featured article Richard Cantillon. The over-citing to self relative to what third-party, independent sources have to say about Weisbrot is an issue on this page. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:23, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I'd very much like to address this issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you have made the following claim: Weisbrot's selected bibliography is "an indiscriminate collection of links" as per WP:NOT. I challenge that argument, stating that a selected biography is not an indiscriminate collection of links, but rather an introduction to an author's work for interested readers. Since Weisbrot founded the CEPR 20 years ago, and was likely active before that, I would imagine his oeuvre is orders of magnitude larger than that provided in the selected bibliography. -DenizenGene (talk) 14:42, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for providing an example. I'm reading Cantillon's article and it says this "Essai [Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General)] remains Cantillon's only surviving contribution to economics." Naturally, if an author only has one piece of surviving work, there won't be many citations to it in an article. Weisbrot, on the other hand, likely has hundreds if not thousands of pieces written. Also, Weisbrot is a living person, and therefore modeling his article off a historical figure doesn't seem to be the best fit. Again, I submit articles of prominent, living American Economists (a group to which Weisbrot belongs) as the best model for this article. n.b. I will respond to your other posts asap. -DenizenGene (talk) 14:53, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Substantial part of career?
If this were a noteworthy and substantial part of his career, there would be third-party, independent, reliable mentions of it. There is a CEPR article, it is a CEPR publication, and if it is somehow significant to the individual, please provide a third-party, independent source that explains why. There is too much Weisbrot sourcing Weisbrot primary sources in this article (and CEPR's). (I would appreciate if your "hiya Sandy" boundary issues stopped.) Sandy Georgia (Talk)  11:54, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Here's one of the series' papers published by the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs: https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/working-paper/scorecard-on-development-1960-2010. I think this fits our criteria quite well. I'd assume with some confidence that being published by one of the world's largest international bodies in the area of your specialty would be a significant event. I'd love to dig down into this sourcing issue. Could I suggest that rather than deleting primary sources, we expand on secondary sources? To get a sense of how this page could look, I googled "American Economists" and have looked at some of the more fleshed out pages. I notice that on all of them, without exception, there is heavy usage of the economist's primary source material. The editors seem to have come to the conclusion that explicating what is known about the economist's work is central to providing an accurate understanding of the economist's themselves. I agree with this conclusion, and hope we can come to a consensus. Here are a few examples, although to avoid selection bias, I'll say that I've looked at quite a few more, and the trend is constant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tobin.


 * This brings me to my next question about finding great secondary sources moving forward. I've noticed that many of the additions to this page (and the Center for Economic and Policy Research's for that matter) take the form of an individual or organization praising or criticizing (in quite strong language) the individual or organization. This is in stark contrast to the pages I've linked to above, which focus on what the article's subjects have done, rather than people's opinion about their actions. I think this style reads much more like a neutral article than an article which is a list of praise and criticism. I hope we can move this page towards that more neutral model.


 * Next, I'd like to address the issue of a 'works and publications' section. This page used to have a robust Works and Publications sections, but I believe you deleted it recently. Since that deletion was a major change, I'm going to revert it as well until we've sorted the issue out. In my research, every prominent economist had a 'selected bibliography' or similar type section in their article. You can see the examples above, but again this is something that seems to be pretty standard for academic economists' pages.


 * Finally, I'd like to deeply apologize about the boundary issue. I hope that you can assume good intent. I'm still learning the etiquette of editor-to-editor communication, and I assure you it will not happen again. -DenizenGene (talk) 13:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I hope that you will shorten your posts. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  13:16, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Please review WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; do you have third-party, independent mentions of the significance of CEPR's work on the Scorecards? The page is FULL of Weisbrot sourcing Weisbrot; please provide reliably-sourced discussions of the significance of the work. The Scorecard is a CEPR publication; there is a CEPR article.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  13:26, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I will try to shorten my posts. I will note that in our discussion I am presenting and defending arguments and you are challenging them. Naturally, my responses to your queries are going to be a bit longer. Thank you for directing me to WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I think it is an excellent lens through which to have this discussion. I have presented an argument for modeling this article after robust articles of a similar type. Re: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS we should engage in a discussion about this. Again, the Scorecard was published by the United Nations. It is not strictly a 'CEPR publication.' I think we need to have a discussion about academic papers as well. There is a vast amount of academic work published in the United States. However, because of its often technical/difficult-to-understand nature it may not be reviewed widely as other work. I don't think this fact takes away from the importance to the author of publishing the work. Regardless, by being published by a highly regarded international body, the Scorecard fits the bill for a significant piece of work. -DenizenGene (talk) 14:13, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Scorecard is a CEPR publication; you will get no argument from me if you want to considerably trim the entry and add it at CEPR, but unless you have reliable third-party independent coverage, you are over-emphasizing its significance.  We have no indication in any source you have provided of its significance to this bio.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  14:18, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Scorecard is a UN and a CEPR publication. As I've argued publication by a significant source (UN) gives the Scorecard significance due to its status as a scholarly work. I understand that you would like to see coverage of its publication. I'm happy to take a look for coverage to further bolster its significance. -DenizenGene (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Focus of Weisbrot publications
It is not hard to see where Weisbrot's work and publications are focused. Considering that Venezuela is where his work is consistently focused, we would expect to see more discussion of his work in that area on his page. Note that Scorecard is quite far down the list, as are a number of other items self-sourced on this page. DenizenGene, if you would like to see more coverage of other areas of his work, please provide independent, third-party, reliable sources covering his work in other areas. There is plenty of coverage of Venezuela because that is where his work has been focused and cited. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:09, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * "Mark Weisbrot" ghits overall

"Mark Weisbrot" ghits site:huffingtonpost.com

'"Mark Weisbrot" ghits site:thenation.com

"Mark Weisbrot" ghits site:thehill.com

"Mark Weisbrot" ghits site:theguardian.com

Discussion of focus

 * I enjoyed reading this analysis. Let me first respond within the logic of the argument you have provided, that is, the argument that the content of Weisbrot's page should be based on raw, unweighted search hits from a single search engine. As you know, the Scorecard series examines the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) role in global growth over the past 50 years. This is all in the text about the Scorecard paper provided in the article. Knowing that, we should sum topics related to what the Scorecard covers to get a better sense of its role. Summing, Scorecard, Globalization, Global Economy, and IMF in the tables above moves the Scorecard to the first place position in all lists but two. Now, obviously all of those articles aren't about the Scorecard per se, but the fact that the Scorecard shows up by itself in the list at all shows its prominence within those debates. The other topics are countries and demographic/economic trends, which would obviously pick up a much wider array of hits than something narrowly titled "Scorecard."


 * Now I would like to respond to the merits of the argument's methodology (using search hits as a relevant metric for Balancing aspects). I think something you and I agree on is the importance of reliability, and there is no way to tell from the data presented which of those hits are reliable and which are not. For example, if someone writes ten million articles of fake news about United States President Donald Trump saying he is an alien, I don't think the raw volume of those articles makes for a strong argument about including those claims in his article. -DenizenGene (talk) 15:13, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Re "the logic of the argument you have provided, that is, the argument that the content of Weisbrot's page should be based on raw, unweighted search hits from a single search engine", pls reread and note that I said no such thing. I have explained to you why there are more independent, third-party analyses of the areas in which his work is clearly focused.  If you hope to make changes to this page, please come back with independent, third-party reliable sources, if you can find them.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  18:22, 13 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification. I'm challenging that analysis, based on the credibility of the data (raw search engine results). Let me provide an example of something I'm worried about re: the data vis-a-vis Balancing Aspects. Say, hypothetically, Weisbrot had in his entire career written one piece on Brazil. Say that this piece didn't have much impact on anything, but third-party sources loved it, so they wrote tens of thousands of articles about it. It would simply not be correct for us to dedicate space in the article proportionate to how many hits it received. That's my worry about the data provided. We simply don't know if it's reliable coverage, unreliable coverage, or false positives. After taking the structural integrity of the data into account, I come to the conclusion that this data cannot be used to affect the page's Balancing Aspects. I hear you about reliable sources. --DenizenGene (talk) 20:16, 13 April 2018 (UTC) 18:56, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * , I believe you get the point. I repeat: no one has suggested anywhere that we base space in the article proportionate to ghits.  The point is we have sources on Venezuela because that is a large focus of Weisbrot's work and publications in news columns. There are third-party sources discussing Weisbrot and Venezuela for a reason. If you would like to broaden the article, please provide reliable, independent, third-party sources.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  19:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Excellent, and as long as those sources aren't overly represented when taking into account Weisbrot's body of work, then this article will be golden. Aside: would you mind removing my IP address from your previous comment? It wasn't your fault at all, but it feels a bit exposing to have it so publicly listed. Sorry about the poor signatures. I got logged out after leaving the computer for a bit >< -DenizenGene (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)