User talk:AdamC387

Conflict of Interest
Hi, since I tried to give reasons for the edits I made and you disregarded them and assumed vindictiveness on my part, I'll give it one last shot and try to be calm and reasonable. First, I'm most certainly not a conservative and can't stand Bill Kristol. I only keep an eye on his page because I made a casual edit a couple months back regarding Straussianism and noticed the page was attracting a ton of vandalism, a lot of it antisemetic. Having reviewed your edits, it appears that most of your edits are links to what appears to be your own website. Regarding this, you might consult, Conflict of interest and WP:SPAM. Even if it is not your intention to cook up links to your own work, you'll find that both WP:EL and WP:RS both explicitly disallow blog links as sources. The reason is quite simple. Anyone can accuse X of Y on their blog, and then post "many accused X of Y" on Wikipedia with a link to the blog. That's not how it's supposed to work. My edits were motivated by nothing more than a desire to uphold the integrity of Wikipedia. If my edits offended you I apologize. I came down hard on you after reviewing your edits and discovering what appeared to be systematic self-promotion. As per WP:AGF, which requires that we assume good faith in other editors, I'll assume you simply weren't aware of these policies and were not engaged in anything sinister. I hope you assume the same good faith in my actions.--Beaker342 15:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Beaker342, thank you for posting this. I'm definitely new to Wikipedia and perhaps some of the ways I was making edits was not appropriate, and upon reading this above I'm comfortable with making edits to many of my entries to bring them into compliance with standard practice. With respect to the Kristol Fresh Air quote, would you be amenable to leaving the quote but removing the link to my blog and replacing it with links to multiple sources (or perhaps some arguably authoritative source?) as evidence for the fact that Kristol has been criticized for what he said? Also perhaps balancing it with a quote where he was accurate in what he said? As for my other entries, I'd have to think about them. Personally, even after reading what you've suggested I do think that my Barbara Bush edits are appropriate. I didn't want to call her a name on the site, but I wanted to make an argument that one would be justified in thinking negative things about her, bringing the more partisan elements of the argument outside Wikipedia. Finally, I'm not sure why the link on the Lillian Verner website was inappropriate... can you help me understand that? AdamC387 15:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarification: Instead of saying "some have said that Kristol was wrong..." how about just saying that he was wrong, and then citing articles or something like that about the suni and shia at the brink of civil war, etc? AdamC387 16:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm really glad I could clear things up. I reverted all your edits that linked to your blog because blogs are not valid sources or links in Wikipedia policy. Nothing more nothing less. As for the Kristol quote, I didn't find it all that shocking that a talking head made a bad prediction. That's why I don't really see why the quote should be there. If you can find a nonblog source that cites controversy and criticism surrounding that quote, I'd be more amenable.--Beaker342 16:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I will be more cautious with my edits in the future. HOwever, I disagree with you strongly about removing an actual (sourced) quotation of Bill Kristol. The audio of the quote is available on the Fresh Air cite and it is accurate. With all due respect, I think the Kristol quote is appropriate and should be left in, even if it is not cited as "controversial" in any source (blog, newspaper, or otherwise). I should not have to show that a quote is considered controversial by others in order to justify adding it to this site. Wikipedia, as you pointed out, does not need to be a repository of what other sources say, but can be a source on it's own. The fact that the quote is accurate, but not widely known, makes it all the more ideal for Wikipedia. Kristol was instrumental in building support for the war, and was also one of the first conservatives to come out against the way it was being run. In that context, the fact that he made such a statement before the war started is very relevant in understanding those two positions. NB: I'm still not sure I undesrtand the removal of the link on the Lillian Verner entry... why remove the reference which is to a blog page that contains the very video that is being discussed in the Wikipedia entry? I'm not sure how the fact that the video rests on a blog makes it less useful to the reader. If it disturbs you, then maybe send the reader directly to the youtube source? AdamC387 07:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll take up the last question first because it's the easiest. The video is copyrighted material, and linking to it is most certianly a violation of copyright, as is its hosting on youtube. As for your others, it's more complicated. I'll take them in order of difficulty. The first is no original research, WP:NOR We aren't allowed to say anything about anything unless it has been reported elsewhere in a reliable source. This means no assembling of facts and then interpreting them ourselves. Any interpretations must come from outseide sources. Second, you might read WP:NPOV to get a sense of what we are going for in terms of fairness of tone. Someone else already complained that the article is overly critical of him, so adding more attack material will not help this. Lastly, is consensus. If there isn't consensus about what material goes in, then it doesn't go in. When there are disputes, we refer to Wikipedia policies. There is no cut and dry rule here, the hope is that discussion will hash it out. As for my personal taste, I don't find the quote itself very interesting. I certinaly find his advocacy of the war and the criticism he has receieved for it interesting, but the quote just doesn't do it for me, and I'm having trouble putting my finger on why. What would you say to a quick seciton on the war controversy that doesn't mention the quote and just says he underestimated the potential for ethnic conflict and was criticized for it? At the very least, the way it is presented now, set off from the rest of the text, draws too much attention to it. Certainly this quote alone does not define who he is. This kind of typesetting should be reserved for quotes that do define people.--Beaker342 00:03, 18 November 2006 (UTC)