User talk:An unattributed source/Archive 1

Cheney
Is it really necessary to have so much detail about events that Cheney had little direct involvement with? (Like loud rock music played outside of Noriega's house). If it isn't directly relevant to a biography of Dick Cheney, then it's going to get removed. Is this information not presented in detail elsewhere on WP? Can't you just wikilink to it in a more summarized way? - Crockspot 15:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Arguably, Cheney was involved in it, as the U.S. military tactics employed during the so-called Noriega "siege" inside the Papal Nuncio is frequently cited as an example of a so-called "psy op" or "psychological operation," which are very much a part of the repertoire the military trains for on a regular basis. It would be disingenuous at best to claim that Defense Secretary Cheney in Washington had no involvement in the decision to employ those sorts of tactics in Panama City at the time.


 * But are the sources you are citing naming Cheney as responsible? If not, you are verging into original research. Are these subjects not covered in minute detail in other articles, like the article on the invasion of Panama? Couldn't you trim it down a bit, and put a "see main article" dab into this one? It's helpful for a number of reasons, like for one, it keeps the Cheney article from becoming unreadable due to the huge pile of information in it, which is only marginally relevant to his biography. Another reason is that, imagine that some new information about Noriega comes out, and the Noriega article is changed quite a bit, but no one thinks to track down the Cheney article to change the same info. Now we have conflicting information about the same incident in different articles. It's just not a great idea to duplicate large amounts of content in different articles. - Crockspot 18:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Points well taken. The Cheney Wiki entry is already 80K long, and is only likely to become more detail-rich as time and future events take their course. The only reason the quote which I have now removed was originally included is because I was only able to find it within a New York Times "Select" archival news article, which are not available free-of-charge to the general public.
 * Most NYTimes, and WaPo articles are usually available in full form somewhere. There are a few search links in the quick ref section of my user page that may help you find the full article. Also try using whatever quote you have in a google search in quotes, it may spit out another version of the article. You can also manipulate what google news returns in the hit by using different keywords, it will grab whatever sentence contains those words for the summary. Also, if you have an old dead link of the original article that has been moved into an archive, you might find it at web.archive.org - Crockspot 19:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It is generally frowned upon to blank conversations from your Talk page
Hi there! I just wanted to let you know that it is generally frowned upon to remove conversations from your Talk page, except in the case of someone who is being blatantly abusive. It makes it look like you have something to hide (which is pointless, because the conversations can still be found in the revision history.

If you feel your talk page is being cluttered, consider archiving the old conversations instead. Although it is not a strict policy, this is vastly preferred over blanking the conversations entirely.

Thanks, and happy Wikiing! --Jaysweet 21:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the polite Wikipedia etiquette lesson, it is appreciated. I try to give other people the benefit of the proverbial doubt myself.