Talk:Michael Milken/Archives/2019

Another attempt to add bias
My name is Larry Weisenberg and I represent Mike Milken. A recent change has been made eliminating the descriptor of “philanthropist” to the lead sentence in his biography. This is not the first time in the recent past editors have tried to remove this descriptor. The editor justifies his change by writing that “every billionaire is a philanthropist.” First of all, this reeks of bias and an attempt to add NPOV. Secondly, it takes less than a minute to determine that the following people are listed as philanthropists in their lead paragraph: Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Boone Pickens, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Ted Turner. Given another 10 minutes, any Wiki editor could probably find 500 similar examples. This page has a long history of similar attempts to add a NPOV to this biography. I recommend reverting to “financier and philanthropist” as a fair, unbiased descriptor of a man with a documented four-decade commitment as a philanthropist.LarryWeisenberg (talk) 23:25, 22 April 2019 (UTC) :OK. Limit-theorem (talk) 10:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Continuing effort to bring biased NPOV
My name is Larry Weisenberg and I represent Mike Milken. Editors who wish to promote their own NPOV continue to vandalize the lead paragraph of this page. As I have noted in the past, I’m not interested in pasting over his legal troubles; there’s plenty of that on this page. I do, however, suggest two simple objectives: 1. Produce a fair and unbiased encyclopedic entry 2. Reflect the fullness of his career, including his financial innovations, U.S. securities violations and an impactful and documented four-decade commitment to philanthropy

Let’s take a look at the facts:

Both Jmayer and TonyFoolery have tried to add the following to the lead, calling Mike “the mastermind of one of the largest swindles in American history, a ‘junk bond’ scam that partially instigated the Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.” This statement is sourced to a 30-year-old opinion article – not a news story – in which the original author has a decidedly negative and biased point of view. Both editors betray their bais and NPOV in their edit comments. I don’t believe Wikipedia bases its entries on opinion pieces.

S&L Crisis Connecting Milken to the S&L crisis is inaccurate. According to an article by Burt Ely for the Library of Economics and Liberty, “junk bonds played a trivial role” in the S&L crisis. Ely cites a GAO report noting that only 5% of S&Ls owned junk bonds, and those investments totaled 1.2% of all S&L investments. I don’t believe Wikipedia bases its entries on demonstrably false information and supposition without sources.

Largest swindles I apologize for being so factual, but the judge in Southern District in Milken’s case determined that the total economic effect of the violations totaled $318,082 - about three ten-thousandths of a single day's trading. Now, I realize his case was a high-profile media circus, but facts are facts.

Philanthropist vs. Finance? Jmayer, TonyFoolery and Orange Mike (see Sept 29, 2017 edit) argue that Milken is known primarily for his finance career. That may have been true in 1990, but not today. In fact, there’s not enough room on this page to cite the impact of Milken’s philanthropic initiatives, so I’ll give just six highly prominent sourced references:
 * Ask the more than 2,700 public school educators who have received Milken Educator Awards over the past 32 years – each one given an unrestricted $25,000 check – if Mike is known as a philanthropist. Just one of 2,700+.
 * Or the hundreds of thousands of cancer survivors still living healthy lives today because many new FDA-approved prostate cancer treatments have been spurred by Mike’s Prostate Cancer Foundation, according to the Journal of Clinical Oncology. As noted in the article, PCF is the largest private funder of prostate cancer research. By the way, PCF was an early funder of recent Nobel Prize winner Jim Allison, PhD, who received “crucial funding” from Mike, according to the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
 * I’m also sure the thousands of graduates, students, scholarship recipients, educators and administrators at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University might consider Mike Milken a philanthropist before a financier, given that Mike arranged for a $50 million donation (largest gift in GW history) to the school, according to the Washington Post.
 * Esquire magazine included Mike as one of the 75 Most Important People of the 21st Century, focused specifically on his efforts in medical research. BTW, just one very brief reference to his financial career.
 * In a cover news article, Fortune magazine (2004) called Mike The Man Who Changed Medicine.
 * Forbes called Mike one of the greatest philanthropists in the history of education – not my words, theirs.

Bottom line, the point is not whether Milken is better known for philanthropy or his legal issues: at this point in history, an unbiased overview of his life demands he be recognized as a philanthropist, as a financier, and as someone who pleaded guilty to violating U.S. security laws. By continuing to try to dismiss his impact as one of the most influential philanthropists of the last 50 years, certain editors are aggressively pushing a NPOV with sensational and biased language on this biography page. It has to stop.LarryWeisenberg (talk) 20:37, 14 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Not sure what your asking for here. I see a paragraph on Milken's philanthropic activities in the lead and a section detailing those activities below. Definitely, the philanthropy is well recognized in the article. --regentspark (comment) 23:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm asking for a return to a previous version of this biography that has essentially existed for many years, and remove Reference #2, which is a histrionic opinion article referenced above that has nothing to do with the development of the high-yield (junk bond) market. The long-used description below is factual, straight-forward and does not feature any overblown sensational language, NPOV or opinionated judgment. Nothing has changed to warrant the recent changes except that certain editors wish to promote a biased NPOV. The one thing you can argue is that his philanthropy continues to become even more impactful and more prominent, but let's not go there for now.

SUGGESTED OLDER VERSION: Michael Robert Milken (born July 4, 1946) is an American financier and philanthropist. He is noted for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds ("junk bonds"),[2], his conviction following a guilty plea on felony charges for violating U.S. securities laws, and his charitable giving.[3] Thank you. LarryWeisenberg (talk) 22:03, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
 * I see it is back there so, I guess, all is good. --regentspark (comment) 12:46, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Salacious, negative POV added to lead paragraph
My name is Larry Weisenberg and I represent Michael Milken. Once again, the lead paragraph of Mike Milken's page has been vandalized. This time, Jmayer demonstrates his strongly biased POV in his edit remarks by noting that "Milken's philanthropy is incidental compared to his broader historical impact and is not worth noting." Wow. He just erased four decades of demonstrated major philanthropic efforts across a broad spectrum, including medical research, public health and education. In the article, he adds that Milken was "the mastermind of one of the largest swindles in American history, a "junk bond" scam that partially instigated the Savings and loan crisis of the 1980s." In addition to being inaccurate on several counts, it's salaciously worded with an extremely negative POV that has no place in this biography. I recommend returning to the previous version.LarryWeisenberg (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Salacious -- You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -- I. Montoya
 * -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  04:43, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Should LarryWeisenberg be editing this page?
I am pretty surprised the community allows ( Larry Weisenberg) to make any edits to this article, with his clear and stated conflict of interest. Editing your own page or hiring someone else to do so is extremely frowned upon. Wikipedia is not an advertisement. It is not an engine for image reconstruction. As an admitted novice when it comes to Wikipedia, I ask the community, am I off base on this? Epachamo (talk) 02:24, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * He has not been allowed to do so. I have blocked him in the past when he got too aggressive, but he really doesn't seem to understand what's wrong with what he's trying to do here.
 * "Experience has unfortunately shown that most (but not all) people with experience in PR cannot be taught to write a proper article, because they are so completely oriented to writing advertisements or quasi-advertisements that they honestly cannot see the difference between that and a proper encyclopedia article." -- User:DGG
 * -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  04:16, 27 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Certainly he should not be editing the article. But ,even so, there is no reason why he shouldn't edit the talk p., he might find errors, or excessive statements  . I don't think he's being a nuisance. As long as he declares the COI, we can judge the comments appropriately. The real danger is of course the people who don't declare.
 * The only other route available for an article subject is OTRS. I work there somewhat, and the usual course is not to make corrections, but to tell the subject or their representatives to ask at the talk page. Personally,. I think that the OTRS volunteers, who are  experienced and sensible volunteer editors here  -- and, if anyone does not realize -- are quite independent of  the wmf staff -- should take responsibility for fixing simple errors and updates themselves, but some of the problems here regarding tone and emphasis  would still need to be discussed on-wiki . There needs to be more harmonization between OTRS and the rest of WP, but the individual OTRS volunteers do tend to be fiercely independent.  DGG ( talk ) 06:05, 27 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I also don't have a problem with him editing the talk page. The problem is that he IS editing the actual article,


 * 13:57, 29 May 2019‎
 * 16:23, 21 April 2019‎
 * 14:19, 25 September 2018‎
 * 17:54, 26 June 2018‎
 * etc.


 * If I were to agnosticly revert any edit he makes in the future and direct him to the talk page, would it be inappropriate?Epachamo (talk) 15:22, 27 July 2019 (UTC)