Talk:Susan L. Burke

Notability
Burke was the lead prosecutor on the Abtan v. Blackwater case and one filed on behalf of detainees in Abu Ghraib. She seems to be more relevant than many with wiki articles. RetroLady64 (talk) 16:09, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, being a leading member of a criminal prosecution is not, in and of itself, an indication of notability. Tere are thousands of prosecutors in the US alone, and not all of them belong in an encyclopedia. The criteria that need to be met are in this guideline: WP:BIO.    Will Beback    talk   

Unsourced
I took out some stuff without sources, but wanted to see if there were any to go with it: CapBasics359 (talk) 02:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * For the past ten years, Burke has received an AV rating, the highest possible peer rating available.
 * Burke received the Faculty Award for Highest Academic Average.

I cited Burke's Martindale Hubell profile showing her present AV-Rated status and list of academic accomplishments. Juniorjackjlc (talk) 19:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Reversions
I have been reverting additions by Susan Burke to a prior revisions. I wanted to start this here so we can constructively bring up content to discuss. Susan Burke commented on my talk page about Judge Urbina and mentioned the U.S. Training Center (formerly Blackwater Lodge) case, so I brought in some sources for those to add to the revision which I was bringing back. CapBasics359 (talk) 22:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * OK sorry if its poor form to reply to my own thing, but this is getting a little ridiculous... CapBasics359 (talk) 23:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Personal Opinions Don't Belong in a Wikipedia Article
Many statements in this article are arguably or clearly expressions of personal opinions rather than substantiated neutral statements. I'm deleting material I feel clearly falls into that category.

Please respond on the talk page if you disagree with my revisions. Juniorjackjlc (talk) 19:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Given the long history of WP:COI edits by numerous accounts, the many reparations made by objective users, and the good faith supposition that you're a new editor, it might be better if you discussed the content here first before removal. 99.136.254.88 (talk) 20:12, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * So much for that suggestion. It seems to be that what's been added is more shaded than what was already in place. Again, given the article's history I'd appreciate more eyes on this, and will refer this to the BLP noticeboard. 99.136.254.88 (talk) 20:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the first comment, I concur with your logic yet am unsure why it wasn't applied to the editor who erased information pertaining to the subject's academic and professional qualifications knowing that a 30-second Google search would prove they were valid.

Regarding the second comment, I welcome eyes on this article as I think it has a lot of problems, too. Yet I am not sure how anyone can address the concerns of someone who is vaguely alleging"shady practices" in lieu of politely and logically explaining why they object to the revisions of an editor.

Juniorjackjlc (talk) 21:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The article has now been reverted to the last version before the subject and people affiliated with the subject started pumping it up. Wikipedia is not your personal advertising and promotion platform. Please limit your activities to pointing out any errors in the article on this talk page so that neutral editors can correct them. Yworo (talk) 21:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * (To Junior) Please. Nobody was 'vaguely alleging "shady practices"'; the quote was 'what's been added is more shaded than what was already in place', which is a respectful and restrained characterization. 99.136.254.88 (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Notability, revisited
With the dust resettled, I've had a look at the article's sources. Many of them mention Ms. Burke peripherally, some not at all. Some are not reliable sources, and several are primary. At bottom, most of the sources and content refer to court cases, and not one focuses on Ms. Burke. The link that comes nearest to establishing notability is to an NPR talk program, in which Ms. Burke was one of several interviewees. A lot of energy has been expended on spin, when it's not clear that WP:NOTABILITY has been met. 99.136.254.88 (talk) 04:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, there's also an individual interview on Democracy Now, which helps. 99.136.254.88 (talk) 04:32, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

COI
It has come to my attention that Ms. Burke has edited the article on at least one occasion (see here. As a precaution, I think that the article should be double-checked for neutrality, again, just as a precaution. Inanygivenhole (talk) 19:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Ms. Burke should make the errors known on the talk page with a cite. Other editors can peer review and make the changes.Geraldshields11 (talk) 12:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Case differentiation
Please see my edit summary for my most recent edit; there's no point in keeping up something we know is false at this point. Reading the New York Times piece shows clearly that the two cases mentioned here are different. So to avoid more COI tampering, I've just made the change and added the defamation suit against the Wikipedia editors. Jeremy112233 (talk) 14:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Case listing
As some of the cases listed and described do not have reliable sources outside of court documents that mention Burke specifically, is it appropriate to be using so much information? I think this smells of WP:OR, and would like to consider removing much of the material in those sections due to the fact that Burke doesn't factor directly into the coverage. Jeremy112233 (talk) 14:59, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The ABA Journal artlcle is |here.

Please review and comment. Geraldshields11 (talk) 12:39, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Deliberately Leaving Out Pertinent Information About Burke's Lawsuit Involving Wikipedia Editors
Jeremy, is there some reason you didn't note that the ABA article you cited said that Burke is suing the Wikipedia editors in question because she believes, as this article still indicates based on its content (there's nothing here but misleading info about Blackwater stuff even though Burke has litigated many cases about different issues), that they were paid to malign her on Wikipedia by Blackwater and/or other corporations she's sued? And that if she's wrong she'll consider dropping the suit.

Was that just a harmless mistake, too, or do you have a COI issue regarding the subject of this article?

It's interesting how much info on this talk page Wikipedia has removed since Burke sued. I'm sure this comment will be removed too. Until it is, folks, please do a Google search on Susan L. Burke as saying she's not notable is just making you or whomever you work for look silly. She's on major news stations like Fox and CNN almost daily, due to her defense of alleged abuse victims in the military, and she has done interviews with Christiane Amanpour, Bill Maher, Katie Couric, and many other big name media folks. She's also been the subject of an HBO documentary about rape in the military, been featured in/on NPR, the Washington Post, and just about any other major news outlet you can think of. She's indisputably one of the most famous lawyers in the world who does not need to promote herself on Wikipedia. If Wikipedia wants to claim non-profit status and keep asking tax-payers to subsidize its bills, it can't let big corporations, with an ax to grind about a lawyer who pointed out their less-than-wonderful business practices to the world, control its content the way the content of this article is still being controlled. End of story. 173.79.73.161 (talk) 19:49, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * If you have content you feel should be here, feel free to add it with the sources you've pointed out. Looks like you've done the research, now you just need to take that extra step and write the actual material into the page. Jeremy112233 (talk) 19:56, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If you need any help as to how to format Wikipedia content properly feel free to contact me. I've added some information to the page, but am not entirely sure what you feel is relevant from the article, so do feel free to add to the page yourself to better clarify the case or make a specific edit request. Jeremy112233 (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * 173.79.73.161 said, "It's interesting how much info on this talk page Wikipedia has removed since Burke sued."
 * I think we all can read the talk page history and see that the answer to this is that nothing has actually been removed from the talk page except a legal threat back in May. You're full of it. And that's interesting... Yworo (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The ABA Journal artlcle is |here.

Please review and comment. Geraldshields11 (talk) 12:39, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Strange citation
It does seem strange given that wikipedia policy requires clean up of articles subject of legal suits, that this concluding comment "Citing Burke's frequent presentation of evidence that relied solely on "hearsay and innuendo", the Court went so far as to say that "this is the most abysmally prepared case I have ever run across in 25 years." remains with a citation to the 'Defendants' memorandum in support of their motion for attorneys' fees, costs and expenses'. The latter is not a document which can operate as a primary source material for a judicial utterance of such damaging import.NimbusWeb (talk) 12:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed and removed. Yworo (talk) 16:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Nor is it sufficiently notable, as evidenced by the lack of news sources reporting it. Judges make these sorts of statements all the time. --Dr. Fleischman (talk)