User talk:JeffLoucks

Welcome
Hi,. This is NOT some automated message...it's from a real person. You can talk to me right now. Welcome to Wikipedia! I noticed you've just joined, and wanted to give you a few tips to get you started. If you have any questions, please talk to us. The tips below should help you to get started. Best of luck!  Chzz  ►  14:12, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Ontario Municipal Board
I am sorry, but the text you have proposed adding to the article does not even begin to meet Wikipedia's policies at WP:OR, WP:NPOV and WP:V. Text such as "rocked the community" is your own personal commentary, and the entire last paragraph (although it attempts to offer a balanced perspective) is simply an inappropriate opinion piece (the sort of thing we do not allow on Wikipedia). None of it, except the quote from the Ottawa Citizen, is adequately sourced. Also, you need to keep in mind, given your role as a party in the Port Dalhousie hearing, of WP:COI issues. I'm not saying that you can't add text about the Manotick and Port Dalhousie decisions, including critiques, but it all needs to be properly sourced (i.e. more than just links to the actual decisions) and completely neutral - in other words, it also needs to be balanced with other views of the decisions you wish to highlight (for example, that shouldn't be hard in the Port Dalhousie case, where the community was divided) and coverage of other decisions (such as the recent Eastern Avenue decision). In keeping with the policy at WP:CON, where there are objections to your proposed edits, you need to first work towards achieving consensus; in this case, you should first propose language on the article talk page, get the input of other editors, and hopefully reach some consensus language. I would be more than happy to help. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Skeezix1000, Please bring any edits to this talk page. I am warning you of vandalism. Stop censoring content. You have repeatedly deleted facts about the OMB and misrepresented their jurisdiction in your additions and removals of my posts such as: - jurisdiction over assessments is not valid - added by you after I removed it - removal of jusridiction over heritage appeals is valid - removed by you after I added it.

In regards to the criticism section.

First, you will have to disclose your identity and employer and any conflcit of interests you may have before you engage in any type of COI discussion with me. Since you have alledged it, I expect it under any further discussion or edits. Until you do so, you do not have any ethical leg to stand on with me and I will simply ignore such accusations. I have fully disclosed my identity and I have done nothing in conflict of interest. I am happy for your to raise your concerns as this is a part of the process however, I will not participate in such a discussion unless we are on level ground. Personally, I find it unethical to post without revealing your identity and I am very suspicious of your motives. If you do work for the goverment of ontario and you are editing criticisms of the one of their branches, you are in conflcit of interest and I suggest you remove yourself from any editing of government related sites as this could have consquences both for the government and your employment.

Second, regards to Port Dalhousie. This is a very neutral description of current events which form the basis of criticism. It is not the nature of criticism to be justified by references since they are by their nature opinions. Their should not be any requirement for the criticism to be valid or without conflict of interest since criticisms can be both invalid and in conflcit of interest yet still criticisms. Equally, this is the nature of criticism and the criticsim of criticism. They should be honestly held opinons. This is a three sentence paragraph which you object to one word and delete the whole paragraph. If you do not like the word rocked how do you feel about shocked? They are both words which are fairly neutral although I find shocked maybe less accurate. I am not sure what interpretation you have of the word rocked in order to find it conveys something more than a reaction to the decision on a controversial case.

Third in regards to Manitock, this is a case where outrage inspired Jim Watson to make the comments he made. Although there is no evidence that Jim Watson became interested in the OMB related to Port Dalhousie, it was the most controversial descsion in the previous sixty days. I did not put any of this in the article nor would I find that type of comment appropriate. However, inserting both with a neutral desrption is appropriate.

As for the tail related to rubber stamping. This is a widely held opinion of those who critisize the OMB. It is not my opinion. I beleive the board does weigh the evidence in very complex cases. As for the power balancing aspect, this is a less widely held and more thoughtfully considered criticism. It is one area that to some extent I think there is room for improvement. Again, none of these personal opinions are stated. Simply, the criticisms are listed. Finally a description of the delagtion of planning authority could be better referenced. Using the needs reference tag is an appropriate edit. Companrison with Maryland's centralized planning could also be referenced and a "needs reference" would be appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JeffLoucks (talk • contribs)


 * First, in response to your comment on my talk page, yes topics should be presented fairly. That means a balanced portrayal, with everything properly sourced.  Where there are objections to new text, you need to achieve consensus through the talk page.  WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:CON are three of the main policies here on Wikipedia, and they are not negotiable.  Everything needs to be sourced -- it is not sufficient for you to claim that opinions by their nature can't be sourced, or that you deem opinions to be widely held.  Quite strangely, you have reverted my attempts to properly format, wikilink and reference the one element of your proposed text with which I have no issue -- the quote by Minister Watson.  As for the ARB and heritage matters, I did initially inadvertently reinsert the old reference to assessment cases, but you then proceeded to revert my subsequent deletion of the text.  Your addition of external links to the lead paragraph is unnecessary and not in keeping with Wikipedia practice (see WP:MOS for more details). Finally, please stop making silly accusations of bias or conflict -- I am not the one seeking to add text to the article.  I don't work for the government nor am I involved in the situations your are referring to in the proposed text.  I have no issues with a criticism section, and have attempted to assist you to craft one that it is in keeping with Wikipedia policies and guidelines.  I referred you to WP:COI because your direct involvement in one of the matters that you want to cover in the article means that you need to keep that guideline in mind.  --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This is fair. I accept that you intend improve the quality. However I feel you need to reveal your identity so that I can confirm you do not have a COI. I agree with your edit and thank you for your assitance with the jim watson quote. I will make the edits to reflect your better formatting. I simply state about Port Dalhousie that it was controversal and that there was a reaction from communities across the province. The request for review of that case is still under way and due to the confidential nature of the review, it is not possible to source who might have been involved at this point. If there is better formatting, we can go there. Criticisms should have a reference to the source material so that people can make their own determination. I find criticisms can be invalid yet form the basis of opinions which are commonly held. This is an area where the speed of Wikipedia might mean information is valid before proper references exist. Consider if Wikipedia exisited at the time of the american revolution and in order for a criticism of the king to be considered valid it had to be published. Publishing was an act of treason. In today's world legal consequqnces still exist yet so do the criticisms. Sometimes issues are evolving. How about this compromise. We leave it as is but I suggest that it be referenced by a certain date or else removed. Let's say 3 months form its orignal posting, in order for published references to be developed. Since these are ground breaking legal matters, the nautre of criticism exists before the writen reference. Again, consider criticsim of Roe v. Wade. It took some time before the cricisms were published yet the existed before they were published.
 * Nobody is required to produce personal information to other editors. That's not how it works around here.  You certainly were not required to choose a user name that identified you as a party to one of the matters identified in the article -- since you did, however, I thought it best to make sure you knew about WP:COI.  Even then, all editors are required to assume good faith in respect of your edits, as you are in respect of the work of other editors.  As for the sources, I understand your frustration, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news outlet.  Everything must be sourced.  Other editors, including myself, will be more than happy to work on the text with you on the article talk page.  Another editors has already initiated a discussion there.  Best regards, and hopefully we can resolve these issues and achieve some consensus language.  --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The way to present a fair and balanced portrayal of conflicting opinions about a topic is not to simply state various opinions as fact, but to cite specific sources that have published or stated that opinion. It's perfectly valid, for example, to say that a prominent figure criticized an organization for being corrupt, and then source that to a news report that directly quotes the public figure's comment — what isn't acceptable is for our article to simply assert that the organization is corrupt. Can you understand the difference between those two things? Bearcat (talk) 18:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Towards consensus
Hi - I got your message. Please note that it's not my intention, or anyone else's, to drive you away from Wikipedia. We welcome all contributions, but we need to ensure that they fairly represent the situation. Regarding your dispute with the OMB, it is certainly valid, but Wikipedia has defined policies for content because we've had to deal with a lot of questionable material (especially when dealing with religion, politics, and pseudoscience). If you're willing to work within these constraints, as all Wikipedia editors should, then perhaps you can help integrating some information from this Ontario Nature study, as well as the University of Waterloo paper I've already added as a reference to the article. We have no interest in censoring information, only in making sure that it is valid, verifiable and well-sourced.

Regarding anonymity, that's a personal preference for editors. It shouldn't invalidate a user's opinions - we discuss ideas here, not those who express them. You're right that there's potential for WP:COI with such a system, but that usually comes out as discussions about an issue progress (WP has caught quite a few cases, and external entities have caught others). Again, don't let this discourage you from editing.

One final note - although we reverted your contributions, it does not imply that some of that content cannot be re-introduced into the article; we'll have to work on wording and finding sources. It may be better to start with general information about criticisms, such as from the UW and Ontario Nature papers, and work down from there. Mind matrix  14:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry but I find that people who are unwilling to identify themselves have something to hide. Wikipedia will never be a referencable site as long as contributions are allowed to be anonymous. JeffLoucks (talk) 15:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has ways to track down the identities of problem users when it needs to. The fact that editors aren't obligated to make all their personal information freely available on their user page doesn't reflect on the site's credibility — we don't need that information to adequately evaluate the quality of a person's actual edits, and we have ways to get that information in the rare event that things get serious enough to warrant it. Bearcat (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)