User talk:John Broughton/Archive 1

Note: this covers December 2005 through March 2006

A Compliment
Good edit on Arcadia Publishing! Gershwinrb 10:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks you for the edit on Dobie Gillis Williams. Nice job cleaning up some verbose language. Nolamgm 03:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Robert McNamara - eagle scout, scholar, athlete
(Note: I moved the following comment by  152.163.100.13 / 68.98.161.246 from my user page User:John_Broughton):

Less than 1% of college graduates are phi beta kappas; less than 4% of Boy Scouts attain Eagle Scout rank; less than 5% of the typical large student body at a a major division 1 institution are varsity athletes. Run the list of distinguished phi beta kappas against the list of distinguished eagle scouts at the other wikipedia sites and then review to see who was also a serious athlete too.

What McNamara did was truly extraordinary.

Please identify another significant figure(s) with the same profile to establish your claim that this is not rare.


 * We could get into an extended discussion of whether being an eagle scout and a varsity athlete, or an eagle scout and a scholar, are significantly correlated, and, if so, how much, and, for U.C. Berkeley, which graduates thousands of students each year, how many (back in the 1930s) were likely to be all three. BUT wikipedia is NOT supposed to be a place for contributors to make original claims. If you can cite a reference as to how unusual McNamara's accomplishments were, please do so, in the article.  Otherwise, I believe that governing wikipedia policy is to let the reader decide how extraordinary something was. John Broughton 02:47, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleting Free agent (band) article
Regarding the note you left on my user talk page, thank you for bringing it to my attention. The tag must have gotten lost in the editing shuffle somehow. –Sommers (Talk) 19:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Requests for page protection
...should be made on WP:RPP. Yours, Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 00:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

John Ashcroft
Hi! Thanks for your edits to this article. I'm wondering why you removed the information about Ashcroft belonging to the Assembly of God Church? There's been a lot of information about Ashcroft's religious views added and removed to the article. . .I think his religious views are an extremely important part of what "makes him tick" and are also part of what has made him such a controversial and polarizing figure. How can we include some of that in an NPOV manner? TMS63112 21:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't think it was that important; then realized it easily fit into the next section, and added it back. (The annointing with oil sentences vanished with edits by someone else.  I'm personally not going to get into an edit war about whether or not it's important enough to put back into the article.) John Broughton 21:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I think your edits are good. I'm not advocating restoring the oil sentences - I thought they were a bit absurd.  TMS63112 21:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Abramoff, Bob Ney
Hey, John. It appears that you were the one who left a love note on my talk page (it wasn't signed). And it appears you have been editing on the "article" that has been posted about the Honorable Robert Ney, Member of Congress.

In this country, we have certain standards of legal fairness. We also have certain standards of academic and editorial fairness. If you are going to edit an article in as highly charged an environment as this, I think you might review your understanding of these standards.

Wikipedia has of late suffered extreme public embarassment. This is sad. The Ney Article as written earlier this week has all the potential to again make Wikipedia a laughingstock. If you believe in Wikipedia, you might work to avoid this. (See also my response on my talk and the Ney Discussion page).

Finally, I'll remind you that Bob Ney, and all of these Congressmen, are persons. They have families and feelings and hopes and dreams just as you do. Most work very hard for those ideals. Most could find much easier ways to get fancy dinners and trips than this. And I suspect that stumping the back roads of Appalachia every weekend, year after year, wouldn't be your idea of fun either. --Ej0c 14:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi John. I do appreciate your continued following the discussions on Bob Ney.  As you noted, I did do a re-write, which, imho, removed as much inuendo (and POV) as I could.  I attempted to source everything that I touched/added.  Thanks for following the discussion (and I urge you to continue!) Sholom 03:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Daniel Lapin
Nice job catching those links on Daniel Lapin. After seeing your edits, I took a closer look at the article. Much of it, frankly, seems to be a hatchet job, stocked with quotes from blogs and/or secondary sourced quotes (from blogs). Would you mind keeping an eye on the changes that I *hope* to get to in the next day or so? Thanks -- Sholom 23:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Sure, the article is on my watch list, and I'm always interested in how others edit an article about an unusual person with controversial opinions.  John Broughton 02:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, well I'll start small, and I'll announce my intentions on Talk:Daniel Lapin first. I hope you "got by back", so to speak.  Thanks! --Sholom 02:59, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Whites only prom
I'm going to propose that this article be deleted. Note posted to Chifumbe's talk page. 21:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit new at this, but have a question for you. First of all, I would agree that Whites only prom doesn't seem like a good encyclopediac entry.  OTOH, I do tend to side with the inclusionists, and am wondering if incidents like this can be included _anywhere_ in WP.  E.g., what if there were an article on that high school and it was included there?  Or some other place?  Please note: I am asking a neutral question.  I support the general inclusionist idea that WP can be much more than an encyclopedia, although I'm not sure how/if that applies here.  Again, I would like to see this article deleted, too -- but it'd be great if the incident could be reported somewhere.  Thanks for your work Sholom 22:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Point taken. I've moved the text to a new section in the article on Taylor County, Georgia, which, with a population of 8,000 or so, doesn't have a lot happen that's of national significance. And make the nomination for deletion.  John Broughton 22:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent -- that's just the type of solution I had in mind. Well done! -- Sholom 00:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that there should be an article for the school that this occurred in and that the article should be moved there. If there is no school article, it should be created. -- ʀ6ʍ  ɑ  ʏ89  01:37, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have no objections, but also no interest in doing this myself. (I believe there is a single high school for the entire county, but I could be wrong.)  John Broughton 04:00, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Encounter with BlueGoose regarding George W. Bush military service controversy
I have moved the following from my user page. It's (hopefully) the last in an exchange about process and who said what; I want to keep it here as a reminder in case the matter resurfaces. John Broughton 18:03, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * And I'll gladly remove your idiotic nonsense on my talkpage. BlueGoose 06:05, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Whites only prom
I'm going to propose that this article be deleted. Note posted to Chifumbe's talk page. 21:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit new at this, but have a question for you. First of all, I would agree that Whites only prom doesn't seem like a good encyclopediac entry.  OTOH, I do tend to side with the inclusionists, and am wondering if incidents like this can be included _anywhere_ in WP.  E.g., what if there were an article on that high school and it was included there?  Or some other place?  Please note: I am asking a neutral question.  I support the general inclusionist idea that WP can be much more than an encyclopedia, although I'm not sure how/if that applies here.  Again, I would like to see this article deleted, too -- but it'd be great if the incident could be reported somewhere.  Thanks for your work Sholom 22:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Point taken. I've moved the text to a new section in the article on Taylor County, Georgia, which, with a population of 8,000 or so, doesn't have a lot happen that's of national significance. John Broughton 22:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent -- that's just the kind of solution I had in mind. Well done! -- 68.100.96.124 00:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

tags for public domain and/or fair use text
Hey there. I copied some text from a federal site, and therefore is public domain. I'm having a heckuva time, however, trying to find the appropriate tag. The closest I've dome up with is Image copyright tags, but I've copied text, not an image. I'm looking for something like that doesn't specifically talk about images. Can you help me out and tell me where to look? Thanks. Sholom 20:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Am I making it more complicated than it needs to be? Perhaps -- but I'm trying to learn which/when tags are appropriate, etc.  The article in question is Federal Bureau of Prisons, and about 95% of it is directly from their web site.  Rather than putting it in quotes with a cite, I thought there might be a standard tag, analogous to the image ones, indicating such.  And/or give credit to where it came from, such as "much of the above material is from URL-xxx, as, as a US Govt publication, is available for free use" or some such thing.  Or I could just ignore it.  Just trying to learn (and to give credit where credit is due) Sholom 21:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that you want to avoid lots of quotation marks - messy, and isn't in the wikipedia spirt of continuous improvement through multiple edits. Regarding a tag, I'm not an expert, but I believe that it's adequate to give credit through a "References" section.  (I also note that a wikipedia article, discussing whether "References" AND "External links" sections are both needed, said that there is no standard that requires (or prohibits) a "References" section. John Broughton 21:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Frankly -- it seems like a template ought to be made. Maybe I'll try my hand at it.  And, I guess, raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags.  Time permitting, of course ;) -- Sholom 21:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Military intelligence
Hi John, in re "process" in "military intelligence". Please change as needed. If the text I wrote is more profitable elsewhere, feel free to move it. My personal bias is against narrowly construed articles (people reading encyclopedias often don't know exactly what they want!), but please edit to your own taste. 65.171.255.181 20:58, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

PA political articles
Hi John, i have noticed that you have eddit several articals on PA politics in the past couple of months, espically in the aspect of POV issues. I dont know how well you are up on pov, but i have ran into a major POV article, at least as i see it, on the subject of Frank Rizzo. The majority of the pov edits recently have come from a user in which you have had interaction with on the articles User:Thesmedman (talk • contribs), who has also edited the Ed Rendell article. I am not sure how much you know on Rizzo, but your review of the article would be welcomed. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 08:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Well what ever you can do, and if you know anywone that might have some knowledge on the subject feel free to have them have a look at it to. I would have asked others, but looking at the edit history on the article most of the major content was added by annons. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 04:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

More ADSC (Brent Wilkes) stuff
It seems you and I focus on many of the same articles. In any event, I wanted to call your attention to this, and if that information were to be included in WP, it seems that the following articles would need to be edited Brent Wilkes, Larry Craig, Duncan Hunter). (I'm letting you know, because I can't get to it for a while). -- Sholom 16:32, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a vandal!!
Somebody edited the military intelligence page and made it say someone was a faggot. Just wanted to make sure it was fixed.

Scooter Libby
John, thanks for the back-up on Doolittle. Would you mind taking at look at Talk:Scooter Libby at my most recent entry? Thanks. -- Sholom 13:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)