User talk:Bettyburns

November 2010
Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. A contribution you made to Don Farrell appears to carry a non-neutral point of view, and your edit may have been changed or reverted to correct the problem. Please remember to observe this important core policy. Thank you. -- Lear's Fool 03:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi Lear's Fool. It's a statement of fact, and therefore maintains neutrality and complies with Wikipedia's terms regarding Biographies of Living Persons Perhaps we can edit the second line? Remember it is a link to current comment by this individual, who is a public person commenting publicly on a matter of public interest, so unless he is disputing that he said it, it's on the public record and so is a fair contribution because it's important that people looking at Don Farrell's profile know that he is taking a public stance in relation to this matter. What do you say about the second line?  :) Betty


 * Hi Betty, and welcome to Wikipedia!
 * My concerns regarding the neutrality of the edit were related to the second line. Characterising Farrell's position on gay marriage as being in favour of discrimination is (right or wrong) a value judgement, and so is not from a neutral point of view, which we require.  I appreciate your effort to edit the second sentence, and I think your altered one ("an opponent of changing the Australian Labor Party's position to allow gay marriage") is actually quite good.  However, you will note that Timeshift9 has removed this addition as well, so I feel obliged to explain why he has done that, and why I probably agree with him.
 * Neutrality in articles is achieved not only through descriptive (rather than emotive) prose, but also through ensuring that negative (or positive) content receives due weight. This can be problematic with controversial figures like Farrell, because without close attention, what can happen is that (over the space of 12 months or so) a number of editors add a one-or-two sentence fact about their opinion on one issue or another, and we end up getting a whole bunch of negative, 2 sentence paragraphs (we call them "laundry lists", see Wilson Tuckey for a good example).  You can see how edits such as yours contribute to this.  In reality, Farrell's opinion on gay marriage is only a very small part of what makes him notable, and so should receive very little (if any) coverage.
 * This is certainly not to say we don't appreciate your efforts, and you should feel free to leave me a note on my talkpage if your looking for more help contributing. -- Lear's Fool 12:34, 28 November 2010 (UTC)