Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-23/Pat Binns

Bias and NPOV
I hate to disagree with esteemed admin editor, but the article reflects bias on the part of the writer in both the facts, its portrayal of the facts and the pejorative personal comments made about me. "A word or phrase is pejorative if it implies contempt or disapproval. The adjective pejorative is synonymous with derogatory, derisive, and dyslogistic..."

The article reflects the writers POV and is not NPOV. I simply don’t have the time to correct them all but here are a few instances:

1. “This attracted the attention of Stephen Pate, a disability rights activist from the province…” Since this follows a paragraph with the comment “mid-March” one might believe my work started in mid-March. This history log shows I wrote the single paragraph on January 27th, 2007

2. “According to sources, Pate regularly pickets the PEI legislature regarding the issue, as well as running a blog on the topic.” – the statement is pejorative and reflects bias. Th correct NPOV term would be “social activist”

3. “Not a fan of various decisions made by Binns” – implies I am a critic of various issues. I am a critic of the cutbacks to the Disability Support Program and related issues.

4. “labeled as an advocacy organization representing 19,000 people.” – the article made no such statement. It said ….”an advocacy group, was formed to publicize the cutbacks.” That was true then and still true as I have pointed out to the writer three times. There are 19,000 disabled on PEI according to the government.

5. “Pate has since refused to offer the media any membership list, to prove any such organization even exists beyond his PC.” No PEI media, nor CanWest has ever asked us for our membership list which seems to be a fixation of the writer alone and detrators who attack me and Disability Alert. Please check again the Guardian article on our rally. All media quotes accept we are an organization. We are not going to release members to Zanimum or anyone. What is the fixation?

6. “Moreau has created Disability rights in Prince Edward Island for Pate, but the advocate has yet to edit the separate article he is free to expand” – that is a false claim. The article has grown from a 110 word paragraph to 345 words to about 1,400 in about 9 days. Why make such a false claim?

7. “After cowering at talk page warnings, he makes a vow on air to not edit the article again. He since has done so multiple times.” – That is a totally uncalled for and unprofessional statement to make. Again a pejorative comment. I don’t cower to anyone. I tried to read and learn from everything that was being told me to by the administrators.

Here is a quote from the Discussion page of Pate Binns as I tried to explain "I simply have no time to read through your extremely long winded comment, sdpate Zanimum" Down where I live we'd call that downright rude. It is again pejorative, which I told the article's writer on his page.

The couple of changes I made to the Binns page were all positive to Pat Binns but if you like I will remove the sentence about “affable and unassuming”

7. “As commented on a message board, "if you are an attention seeking troublemaker who loves nothing more than to see his face on the t.v. and read about himself in the media - it helps your own cause."[2]” To give any weight to the rantings of bulletin boards or comments on a website is to stoop to low level of argument. That reference would never pass the smell test in an article. Read those people ranting on and calling me everything the web admin will allow. Those things are so unreliable that people can impersonate others and leave terribly statements. There is very little control.

Again I believe the article reflects bias, is not NPOV and distorts easily proven facts. Sdpate 15:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * NPOV does not apply to the Signpost, and regardless, I believe that this article is fair. Ral315 » 06:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)