Talk:Philip K. Howard

Removal of COI banner
Formerly Argonne2016/CommonGood (lost password) regarding recent edits to this page by me: I was just trying to make good faith edits, but now know that COI must be declared. I have done that. The page has been edited by others a number of times since this COI happened in December—as everything is now properly sourced and not promotional in tone, could the warnings at the top be removed? WashDC20009 (talk) 18:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

New Content?
I’ve been advised by another editor on here that, if I want edits/additions to this page made, I should propose them on here, for others to make (if agreed to). With that, could I propose the following additions?: He presented at the 2010 TED conference with a talk titled “Four Ways to Fix a Broken Legal System.” Source: https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_howard Howard is former Chairman of the Municipal Art Society. In 2001, he organized a committee to fund the “Tribute in Light” memorial to honor the victims of the September 11 attacks. Sources: “former Chairman": http://www.mas.org/mas-names-david-m-childs-as-new-chairman/ “Tribute in Light”: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/nyregion/from-88-searchlights-an-ethereal-tribute.html

WashDC20009 (talk) 21:40, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I've added the TED Talk and will add the rest accordingly, unless anyone has any other issues? CKyle22 (talk) 20:50, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added the information about the Municipal Art Society, since nobody else seems to object. WashDC20009 (talk) 13:17, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
More than one major contributor to this article appears to have a close personal or professional connection to the topic, and thus to have a conflict of interest. Conflict-of-interest editors are strongly discouraged from editing the article directly, but are always welcome to propose changes on the talk page (i.e., here). You can attract the attention of other editors by putting request edit (exactly so, with the curly parentheses) at the beginning of your request, or by clicking the link on the lowest yellow notice above. Requests that are not supported by independent reliable sources are unlikely to be accepted.

Please also note that our Terms of Use state that "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." An editor who contributes as part of his or her paid employment is required to disclose that fact. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:52, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I have disclosed that fact. As I stated in the section above, we originally made good faith edits and weren't aware which is why we did so immediately with this account. While COI editors may be strongly discouraged from doing editing such pages, nothing I've edited was irrelevant to Mr. Howard's work. However, in an show of good faith, I have made a proper edit request below this one. I'd like to get all the banners removed, to be honest. If it means this account shouldn't be the one's doing the edits, that's fine. But this discussion of new content has been on the talk page for weeks and only one editor seemed to notice, which is why I edited in the first place.WashDC20009 (talk) 14:11, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * , that's probably because you didn't add a request edit (please see above). Why do you refer to yourself as "we"? Please be aware that Wikipedia user accounts are for individual use only; if there's more than one of you, each should have an account. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:33, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I am only one person! Using "we" is just a habit of the non-profit world. I have since made an edit request for the information that was removed. But I think by now, some of the bullet points in the banners can be discussed. Particularly 1, 2, and 4. Especially 2: "This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification." I haven't looked at the entire edit history of this article, but everything I've added (and everything that's currently there) is factual and verifiable.WashDC20009 (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Then that's OK. It tends to ring alarm bells here, though. As for the article, it still has a long way to go to become encyclopaedic, and the maintenance tags may help to make that happen. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:35, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Request edit on 23 March 2017
Can an editor add this information or some variation thereof?:

"Howard is former Chairman of the Municipal Art Society. In 2001, he organized a committee to fund the “Tribute in Light” memorial to honor the victims of the September 11 attacks."

It's relevant to his work, and his name is referenced on the MAS Wiki page itself. Sources: “Tribute in Light”: WashDC20009 (talk) 14:05, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll add them unless anyone has any objections.CKyle22 (talk) 21:28, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added them now. CKyle22 (talk) 13:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Request edit on 19 April 2017
I'd like to request some additions:

In the publication list, note that he wrote the intro to former Vice President Al Gore's book, Common Sense Government. The Amazon link was to show "proof" on the cover there.

Howard (and his NPO) cares deeply about infrastructure reform, so we can add his work on that.

He also joined President Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum this month.

Thanks --WashDC20009 (talk) 16:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I can add it!CKyle22 (talk) 16:03, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added them now, except for the lines on infrastructure. The sources you provided were self-sourced (ie, Howard wrote them). CKyle22 (talk) 12:34, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for adding them. Would it be okay to provide a different source for the infrastructure info if they aren't self-sourced? WashDC20009 (talk) 12:45, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Here are some more sources for infrastructure. It's okay to put these under the same edit request, right?,, . WashDC20009 (talk) 12:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it wouldn't be ok, but someone who knows more than me can clarify. Otherwise I have no problem adding those edits. CKyle22 (talk) 12:25, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Request edit on 19 December 2017
Remove some of the banners on top of the article. They are over a year old at this point and were put up when I didn't know the Wikipedia rules nor anything about your conflict of interest policies. I've made this request here, but the discussion has died down. Particularly the second bullet point about sources needing to be cited. There's nothing currently in the article that needs citing. The third bullet point is also no longer true, as the edits I made back in 2016 were undone, and I publicly disclosed my CoI and never edited the page again without making a request here.

I think we should at least remove those. WashDC20009 (talk) 14:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid the article has problems which are properly delineated by the use of the templates. I reviewed each template and found examples for them still prevalent in the article:
 * 1) This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral.  The article is mostly reviews of books the subject has written. In a way, the information coming from those reviews is based on information placed there by the subject. The reviewers, being given this information directly from the subject's book, are then quoted about the subject. The distance between reviewer and subject is not very far. To put it another way, if the reviewer was reading a book that a third party had written about the subject, that would increase the distance between the reviewer and the subject. That is what is meant by "too closely".
 * 2) This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. There are instances where information is not cited (i.e., "Trial lawyers and consumer groups are Howard's most vocal critics." and " He has also been accused of offering a vision of American society that is too narrow." as this is not what the source Dahlia Lithwick wrote).
 * 3) A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. Res ipsa loquitur.
 * 4) This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Book reviews can tell you only so much about a person, especially book reviews that all appear to be mostly positive in tone.
 * 5) This article contains too many or too-lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. There are no less than 8 quotations used throughout the article, far too many for an article of this size.
 *  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ   13:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
 * So what can I do, specifically, to remove those bullet points? I realize I shouldn't edit this page directly and have no intention of doing so. However I'd like to get this article up to Wikipedia standards in any way I can. WashDC20009 (talk) 15:26, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Cleaning up
I'm working to clean up some of the many warnings at the top of this article.


 * I replaced some self-cites to Howard's own work with secondary sources that discuss him. FloridaSammi (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I tried to verify the article sentence by sentence. FloridaSammi (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * While doing this verification, I found a few other tidbits (more connections with Trump, small Tribute in Light role, NRDC criticism, etc.) that I've been adding as I go. FloridaSammi (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I moved his TED talk into external links. But maybe it should just be deleted? Presumably, from the tags and discussion above, this was put here promotionally. FloridaSammi (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

So I removed the "3rd party" template and will work next on the BLP sources one. These seem to overlap so it shouldn't take much more. FloridaSammi (talk) 17:09, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Further improvements:


 * I greatly condensed the reviews, and attributed the criticisms to specific people.
 * I have removed a sentence I couldn't verify (the "trial lawyers" one flagged above) and made sure every other sentence had a source.
 * I tried to check language for neutrality. I believe the article now contains more quotations of criticism than praise, so it's possible I went too far the other way. But with things like the prize mentions, I think it balances out.
 * I've rewritten almost everything, so the content from the COI contributor should be either gone or overwritten. FloridaSammi (talk) 17:59, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I removed several quotations, and combined with the additional material I've added, I think this will address the "quote farm" concern.
 * The "peacock" warning also seemed to stem from those quotations (particularly the (self-)citation of one of the book's blurbs). With those gone, I think the article is okay for that. FloridaSammi (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

New Book
A new book by Philip – Not Accountable – was published by Rodin in January. Could someone update his page to reflect that? I know him personally, so understand that I cannot. Thank you. 67.249.151.251 (talk) 20:46, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

New Book
A new book by Philip – Everyday Freedom – was published by Rodin in January 2024. Could someone update his page to reflect that? I know him personally, so understand that I cannot. Thank you. 69.207.116.158 (talk) 01:14, 21 March 2024 (UTC)