Talk:Scott McAdams

- I didn't edit the page but my comment is that this page relies almost solely on McAdams' biography on his website and some assumptions have been made to fill in the page statistics that aren't confirmed by the website cited. For instance, the page says McAdams was born in Peterburg, AK and cites his campaign website. The website doesn't say he was born in Alaska. The website says he "spent his elementary years" in Peterburg. This means he could have moved to Peterburg at the age of 6, in time to start elementary school. It is not confirmed that McAdams was actually born in Alaska. It is important to get this right because many people are making a campaign issue of the opponent Joe Miller not being a native Alaskan, even though this is not a requirement to run for US Senate. Misstory (talk) 13:25, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest
User:Heather Handyside's edits seemed much like a campaign page, so I googled the name and it turns out Heather Handyside is the campaign spokersperson for McAdams. I reverted her edits, many of which were either unhelpful red-links or simply campaign material.--TM 00:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Can you please comment on how you thought the edits seemed like a "campaign page"? As opposed to what was listed before and in an attempt to answer the questions of User:Misstory, I brought in sources that were separate from McAdams' biography in his campaign website, which, I agree, are not really substantiated.  In fact, I removed articles that seemed obviously biased, like the one from the DailyKos. I can say that although the posts go up under Heather Handyside -- who is, as you note, the campaign spokesperson for McAdams -- she is not the person who drafts the posts. She simply adds them.  If this is the only reason why the revisions and additions were deleted from the Wiki, it is easy to have another person submit the posts using their own Wiki account.  It seemed like better judgment to have Heather listed so that if there are questions, people could contact her directly about McAdams. The material provided in the revisions were substantial, relied on outside commentary by journalists, and linked to Alaska websites that verified claims.  This information needs to be made available on the Wiki as it is the most accurate info available about McAdams' biography -- including his political career and personal life.--Heather Handyside (talk) 21:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that political campaigns should not be editing their own articles on Wikipedia. It is a major conflict of interest. If you want to suggest the sources for the article on this talk page, I am sure another editor would happily expand it properly.--TM 22:52, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what specific problems there were in the removed edit (maybe some WP:SELFPUB and WP:SOAP problems?), but I agree that the best way to work around a coi is to edit very conservatively and focus your energy on proposing changes (especially sources) on the article talk page. --Ronz (talk) 00:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * (Referred here from COI Noticeboard) In a nutshell, if you have a close connection to a topic (which you do in this case), you are strongly discouraged from making direct edits to the article. I realize this seems counter-intuitive, as you would naturally assume to have the most direct knowledge of the topic. While this is often true, over time we have found that many such editors have a tendency, even unconsciously, to not maintain a Neutral Point of View in their edits. This doesn't mean we don't want the benefits of your knowledge (quote the contrary, we welcome it!), but just that you need to take special steps to ensure it gets added according to our policy. The best way to do this is to make edits to this page (the article's Talk Page) and describe the nature of the edits you want to make. Discussion then happens, and the agreed-upon text gets added to the article by an uninvolved editor, which keeps everything nice and neutral.
 * As to the promotional question, remember that this is an encyclopedia article, and as such must be neutral in tone as much as it is in information. Much of the text you initially added was what we call Peacock words: "McAdams is quickly rising in prominence", "McAdams continues to appeal to a grass-roots audience", "McAdams’ tenure was marked with collaboration and bipartisan efforts", "McAdams believes that his hands-on, local experience will enable him effectively to serve the citizens of Alaska", and so on. While these may all be factual, the tone of the sentences and how they are placed seem to want to slant the reader's opinion of Mr. McAdams. The rule of thumb for tone is: You should not be able to tell from reading the article whether the writer loves or hates the topic. In this case, the tone of the edits is clearly slanted in one direction, and thus are not appropriate for inclusion. Arakunem Talk 15:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed a large chunk of the article because it was a copyright violation of the reference. Any content added in the future should be from independent, reliable sources rather than his own website. Smartse (talk) 18:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh and I've removed the COI tag now as well as the article is neutral. Smartse (talk) 18:51, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

TM, good job on the revert. I read the edits, and it sounded like campaign talking points. Clear conflict of interest. Good job. America69 (talk) 14:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

More info?
I understand that in this day and age, political campaigns are sensitive to revealing detailed personal information on their candidates. I would hope that this is due to concerns over identity theft, rather than the Pavlovian aspects of the campaign expecting people to be fixated on a manufactured image of the person.

It's true that the campaign biography doesn't explicitly state that he was born in Petersburg. It also lists him as "an adopted member" of a Tlingit clan. That doesn't answer whether he has Alaska Native blood or not, even though I would say yes just by looking at him. In summary, the campaign bio doesn't really say anything important, but that's becoming typical for any politician nowadays.

I would question the date listed for him assuming the office of mayor. People elected to municipal offices in Alaska usually aren't sworn in 3 days after the election is held. It takes more time than that to collect and tabulate absentee ballots, disqualify any invalid absentee and questioned ballots, and certify the election.

Speaking of that October 10 date, I received an e-mail from the McAdams campaign stating that October 10 is his birthday. That isn't reflected anywhere on the page, but someone added the Category:1970 births to the page. RadioKAOS (talk) 23:21, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, BTW
If anyone really was looking for more information, it appears that the Daily Sitka Sentinel has archives online, even if it appears to be one of those pay deals. RadioKAOS (talk) 23:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Dleit Ḵaa (talk) 08:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)