Talk:Thad McIntosh Guyer

Untitled
I want to respond to a wiki comment suggesting deletion of the article posted about me, and which I then extensively edited, apparently in violation of the Wikipedia conflict rules. I think these rules are important for Wikipedia's integrity, and as a frequent wiki reader, I support them. I had never before this week been a wiki contributor. On the other hand, when someone posts a wiki article about you, you can't help but to want to give a more inclusive picture. The wiki article was posted by my law partner as a 60th birthday tribute to me on the eve of our celebration with wiki recognized whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg, Frank Serpico and Coleen Rowley in New York City on February 17th at the Paley Center for Media. I apologize for not being aware of the conflict rules, and the violation is my fault. In any event, I have to take issue with the following wiki comment, read by people who care about me, before you delete the entry about me:

"The notability of this article's subject is in question. While the subject has written a few legal articles, there is nothing significant. One book authored in 1977 that is in 33 libraries. Very limited hits in GScholar, nothing in GNews. According to Lexis, was attorney of record in 18 cases in U.S. Circuit Courts, no U.S. Supreme Court appearances."

While pursuing human rights as a volunteer in the context of locked up refugees, war crimes, and African bank aid may not be that notable, my 18 case in the U.S. courts of appeals is rare for any private attorney, even rarer when those cases are focused in his or her specialized field of civil rights/whistleblower law. Also, since my first appeal in Dungan v. Dungan, striking down an unconstitutional Tennessee practice denying court access to the poor, which I filed in my first year out of law school at age 28, Westlaw has listed me (as of last night) with 73 reported state and federal appellate cases, and federal district court cases. This does not include a handful of precedential cases in federal agency and international tribunals. As to "nothing in Gnews", as of last night Google News archives show 86 hits for "thad guyer" OR "thad m. guyer" OR "t.m. guyer", all but a few about my work in civil rights and whistleblower law since 1990. Finally, although I did not get to argue them, I am the attorney of record on two U.S. Supreme Court cases, Barthel v. Navarro being a published dissent by justices over the majority letting one of my police misconduct civil rights wins stand, and the other, Fielder v. United Airlines, effectively consolidated with Morgan v. Amtrak expanding the rights of discrimination victims. I was in the process of adding these facts and references, including a dozen or so third party published references about my work, when the wiki notice of proposed deletion was issued.


 * Thad, thank you for your forthright answer. I do not have a problem, per se, with an article about you, so long as notability can be established. Notability can be established with reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.  What I would recommend is to get someone else to post the remainder of the work on the article, and get them to pay attention to the Manual of Style. My main concern is maintaining the standards of Wikipedia.  Good luck. (GregJackP (talk) 18:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC))

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to respond before you remove the article.

Greg, thanks, it is a good learning experience for me. A colleague contacted me to help with this, he is going to handle the Manual of Style edits and third party references in the next couple of days, then I am going to invite two or three other whistleblower/civil rights lawyers to review and contribute in peer review fashion in the next week, if that is soon enough. I will ask them all, if they aren't already wiki reviewers, to familarize themselves with the wiki rules first, and to log their edits and contributions in the discussion page per the rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmguyer (talk • contribs) 19:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

advice
As reviewing administrator, I decided to fix the article myself, something I am well accustomed to doing for articles like this. In general,  editing is best done by someone not acquainted with the subject. The sort of peer-review you propose is not really appropriate here, for everyone who cares to edit is your peer--we do not give any special authority to professional expertise except insofar as it enables one to do good edits. The major problem is the extraordinary amount of self-promotion, done in this case by giving detailed descriptions of your cases, duplicate presentation of your lectures, and particularly by extensive sections on your philosophy of legal representation and  education. I have trimmed them down to a reasonable size or removed them. There was also a section on the background of current employment law; this is covered elsewhere in the encyclopedia, and has been removed from here. As for sources, the sources that would work best are newspaper and law review accounts of your cases, not merely a link to them.

The most useful thing you can do, if you think your key cases are notable enough, is write articles on them. That's the place for the details. When you do, mention the principal attorneys on each side, but do not emphasize your role, nor the parts of your pleadings in particular that were adopted by the court. Our usual practice is that all US Supreme court cases are notable, plus ones from Appellate courts that set major,  widely-reported precedents. It is well to show this by law review articles focussed on them (not merely citing them ), and also to show the general public interest by newspaper articles. I think at least some of your cases should have such accounts.

If you or your friends want to contribute further to Wikipedia, we consider appropriate to have an article on every present and past federal District and Appellate judge, plus every present and past judge of a state's highest level court of appeals; most of these articles remain to be written. You could make a real contribution here.

I know from experience that you might possibly be tempted to add back the material I have removed, but that sort of thing usually ends by getting the article deleted and the person blocked from contributing-- the relevant policy is WP:COI.  DGG ( talk ) 20:45, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Response to Advice

Thank you, I agree with your critique and will take all of this advice, and respect the cautions given.Your experience in fixing articles like these is readily apparent and appreciated --Tmguyer (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)tmguyer

Removing some of the article issues
Looking at this article after not having looked for some time, I think that a number of the article issues can be removed. Below I list the ones that seem most ready to be removed.
 * It needs sources or references that appear in third-party publications. Reason: There are 17 references to third party sources which seems quite sufficient)


 * The notability of this article's subject is in question. If notability cannot be established, it may be listed for deletion. Reason: Seeing that many links on important civil rights issues makes it seem that notability has been established. Mr. Guyer's remarks on the notability issue do put in perspective despite the conflict of interest.


 * It has few or no links to other articles. Reason: There seem to be quite a few.

Unless somebody objects I think I will remove at least these three from the issues box sometime in the near future. I think that the removal or serious condensing of the notable cases section should be done as well. Leeidiot008 (talk) 03:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)