User talk:Jjdavenport99

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Hello, Jjdavenport99, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or and a volunteer will visit you here shortly. Again, welcome! - 2/0 (cont.) 13:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
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Miliband, BLP
Statements like this do not show a neutral Point of View WP:NPOV that is required in Wikipedia articles:

But Edward Miliband, sensing a chance to embarrass Prime Minister Cameron and thus advance his own political career, decided to hijack the effort to unite a coalition to stop Assad. Chris 1834  Talk 03:35, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Allow me to be somewhat more forthright: the next time you violate the Biographies of living persons policy, you will be blocked from editing. - 2/0 (cont.) 13:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

A little confused
I think in the past I have only made minor technical amendments to a couple pages. I'm not sure how you would want to describe Miliband's actions of late August 2013 but they seem significant enough that something should be said about them on the page about him. Perhaps just a record that he worked to defeat this measure? It might be worth noting how various periodicals that I cited interpreted his motives; those are facts about interpretations at the time. I can review the policies in detail but it seems important to leave some room for including controversial actions that politicians have taken. I'm not some troll by the way. I'm a tenured professor at Fordham University -- and a liberal democrat as it happens, not that this is relevant. In other words, I'm not some right-wing hit man. I genuinely believe, on the merits, that something should be noted on Miliband's page about his role in the Syrian civil war. This man could be Prime Minister one day. Jjdavenport99 (talk) 06:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)John J. Davenport, Department of Philosophy, Fordham University.

This seems to be the relevant bit of policy in the Biographies of living persons guidelines: "Public figures. In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article – even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it."

I did make a serious effort to cite sources, though I can improve it!


 * You are definitely not a troll and it is very good that you cited your sources. Overall, your addition made it look like Miliband was responsible for a quarter million deaths - a pretty serious accusation. I am also an academic, so I feel your pain in the differences between editing for Wikipedia and writing for a scholarly audience (though fortunately physics tends to be less controversial). You are very much correct that biographies should not whitewash their subjects and should appropriately cover any controversies. The biggest issue to consider is how a biographer a century from now would treat the incident - is it something serious enough to show up in a few pages of summary of his life, or is it a minor incident that will disappear into the general noise of his voting record? Practically everything a major politician does is subject to some news coverage, so extent and depth are important considerations. I have no particular opinion on the matter, though the editors at Talk:Ed Miliband might. I think if you try adding a shorter segment that focuses more narrowly on Miliband himself and carefully avoids any value judgements, then there is a good chance the editors there would see its worth. Happy editing! - 2/0 (cont.) 13:20, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok I will have another go. However, I invite the Editors of Talk: Ed Miliband to watch this BBC piece just out: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28891307. It was no small thing; it was a history-changing set of events. John Davenport


 * I have just reverted your latest edit to the Ed Miliband page. The content you have added is entirely contrary to Wikipedia policy, in that you are engaging in synthesis - you are combining material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. In fact, only two of the sources you cite seem to even Miliband by name, and these pre-date later developments. As for the latest BBC piece, I note that it again says nothing about Miliband. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

This is utterly ridiculous! Everything I have stated here is purely factual. Are you actually denying that Miliband led an effort to defeat the resolution authorizing use of force?? What later developments? Is it "synthesis" to say that is person P caused X to happen, and the BBC later reports that X had effect Y, then person P has some causal relation to Y? Wow then a guess a simple logical inference is not allowed if it is politically unpopular with certain people. Would you like to compose a summary of the events of August - Sept. 2013 then? Don't you think the page is just a little out of date. May I ask Andy the Gump, what exactly is your relationship to the British Labour Party or to any group concerned with British politics? I would also like to know the appeal process here. I would in particular like to appeal to Chris1834 for some arbitration here of what has clearly become a political issue.

I have also added a smaller addition tonight. Perhaps it is best to take this one paragraph at a time. Every single source cited in this addition discusses Miliband explicitly. I really appeal to the "reasonable person" standard here in saying that accurate, factual information actions of such momentous importance (and factual reports about political opinions regarding these actions)cannot be kept off a Wikipedia page. I do not mind if you add a reference to a source reporting a different opinion about the events of late August 2013. But the idea that one person can keep these events from being reported on a page about a person centrally involved in these events smacks of Stalinism.


 * Your evident inability to understand Wikipedia policy is what is at issue here: 'Is it "synthesis" to say that is person P caused X to happen, and the BBC later reports that X had effect Y, then person P has some causal relation to Y?' Yes, it is - that is almost word-for-word what WP:OR has to say on the subject. As for my relationship with the Labour party, I have never been a member of the organisation - though frankly it is none of your concern. And as for 'Stalinism', anyone who was remotely familiar with the history of the real thing would find your comparison beneath contempt. Your edits were rejected because you were combining sources to argue a position taken by none of them - something that Wikipedia policy forbids. Policy, incidentally, arrived at through consensus - something one rarely saw under Stalinism... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

And what is the appeal policy? Can Chris1834 weigh in? Frankly, living bios on Wikipedia are full of what you are calling synthesis. So is the rest of the content on this very page. I do indeed fail to understand how any coherent paragraph could be written as just a string of facts cited to sources without any connection between them. Meaning, you might notice, has a wholistic character.

I'm sorry if you felt offended, but what has happened here is so unusual that is it my concern. For it seems that you keep moving the goalpost. I began this series of edits almost by accident. I'm teaching a human rights course this semester and was putting together a document for students on the history of the Syrian civil war. I looked up something about Ed Miliband in the process. And then I noticed to my surprise that there was nothing on the page about him concerning the August.2013 vote. Now I happened to have been in Britain in late August and early Sept. 2013 and am very aware of what a firestorm of debate there was about this vote. It is OBVIOUSLY something that should figure somewhere on his page, and I found it curious that nothing was said about it. So I added something.

But now, what has happened since has changed the direction of my curiosity. It is not my life-mission to become an expert on your policies, but I can recognize something fishy going on when I see it, and I really don't like censorship. I respectfully request an appeal here, or I will take further steps. I think, for example, that the editorial pages of some major newspapers might be interested in what is going on with Wikipedia here. Please tell me the appeals process. I want to give Wikipedia every chance to do the right thing here first.

There is nothing about synthesis on the BLP. But I have found it on the other guideline pages. I found this passage most instructive: "If someone doesn't like what was said, and they therefore cry SYNTH, others almost certainly will be right to cry foul. Virtually anything can be shoehorned into a broad reading of SYNTH, but the vast majority of it shouldn't be."

And by the way, the edit you removed last night Andy did not contain the link to the BBC story about the effects of the 2013 vote. So I'm not sure what was left in it that would constitute synthesis in your way of interpreting the policy. I simply reported a connected series of facts, in much the same way as this paragraph which you have allowed to stand in the page on Ed Miliband: "Miliband represented the UK at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, from which emerged a global commitment to provide an additional US$10 billion a year to fight the effects of climate change, with an additional $100 billion a year provided by 2020.[39] The conference was not able to achieve a legally binding agreement. Miliband accused China of deliberately foiling attempts at a binding agreement; China explicitly denied this, accusing British politicians of engaging in a "political scheme".[40]"

Helmut Kohl - sources do not verify content
Hello Jjdavenport99, please make sure that additions - especially about controversial topics - are well-sourced and directly reflect the source information. While your recent addition at Helmut Kohl had 2 sources, none of these sources explicitly supported your added content. I have reverted these changes. If you disagree, please start a thread to discuss this aspect at the article's talkpage Talk:Helmut Kohl. Thank you for your consideration. GermanJoe (talk) 09:35, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Factual errors
Your edit to Vermont was straight up inaccurate - New Hampshire was the 9th state to enter the Untion, and Vermont the 14th, the first after the original 13 colonies, of which New Hampshire was one. Check your facts before making edits like this. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)


 * My apologies and thanks for the correction. I have been researching something lately focusing on ratification of the Constitution and misread one of my sources -- as I see on going back to check it! 2600:4041:4318:7200:4493:20EF:55:335 (talk) 23:02, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ps hopefully the minor edit I made to NH history is correct. 2600:4041:4318:7200:4493:20EF:55:335 (talk) 01:21, 23 October 2022 (UTC)