Talk:David Paul Kuhn

Promotional content in article

I've reverted this recent round of changes [1] because I do not believe the edits adhere to our WP:NPOV policy. The website of the article subject's speaker's bureau is not a WP:RS for promotional content per WP:SPS. The article should be neutral, verifiable, and encyclopedic in tone and should not read like a biography from a speaker's bureau or publisher. Thanks. Safehaven86 (talk) 16:50, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm responding via an inquiry on Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. The above diff contains a lot of movement of material and citations. Which source do you think is the troublesome one? - Location (talk) 23:13, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. It was this source [2] that I found particularly troubling--it is the article subject's biography at his speaker's bureau, so I think it fails WP:SPS as being unduly promotional. Thanks. Safehaven86 (talk) 00:34, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Reiterating a statement used for promoting the book could be considered self-serving. Stating that Carville and Clark provided promotional reviews for the book is not necessarily self-serving, so I have altered the citation and wording accordingly. - Location (talk) 02:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused about this revert [3] of my edit. The cited Economist article [4] is not a book review, and it does not verify the adjacent statement that the book received wide praise, including in the Economist. The link is to a news article that mentions the book, but doesn't offer a review or praise of it. Safehaven86 (talk) 19:19, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, this Time link has nothing to do with Kuhn or his book--it's about Merle Haggard. [5] Safehaven86 (talk) 19:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

A link [6] to one of this author's Amazon books does not meet WP:SPS. It is unduly promotional, as it is a sales link. This is not a WP:RS for this article. Please see the relevant guidelines linked above. Safehaven86 (talk) 19:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

NPOV and Edit-Warring between Users Safehaven86 and PolNewsReaderWiki

I am posting this in response to this NPOV request.

I am requesting previous editors to comment on this section, though I understand that they may not.

@Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Ground Zero, Xaosflux, KConWiki, 88guy88, Tpbradbury, and Waacstats: @Bearcat, Arjayay, Crusoe8181, Suffusion of Yellow, Jivecat, MDB86, and Fyddlestix:

Thank you,

Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 01:38, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

NPOV Concerns discussion

@Safehaven86: has expressed concerns about NPOV about this article, on the NPOV Noticeboard. @PolNewsReaderWiki: however has opposed this. This is outside of my expertise and I would like to ask if you, as previous editors, could comment on the NPOV concerns as well as new and neutral editors. Dr Crazy 102 (talk)

In response to the RfC on the WP:NPOVN, I offer my 2 cent...

Safehaven's edits seem reasonable and PolNewsReaderWiki's aspersions do not. In one of Pol's most recent edit descriptions he says "Cut Safehaven insertion of personal views" yet SH had not inserted any. I can only guess that he thinks SH's added "failed verification" tag amounts to an insertion of personal views, a rather ridiculous claim. I agree with the tag btw. The economist article refers to the views of the author as proffered in his book but isn't a review of the book and does not praise it. Oh, and "language [being] there for years" is not a reason to undo an edit either. The fact that the words "stood for years" does not reveal a consensus any more than it reveals how little interest the article has garnered. Wikipedia encourages change, see: WP:DONTREVERT

I generally prefer that articles stick to the facts and leave out opinion, whether it's endorsement or criticism, unless the subject is particularly controversial or newsworthy. That may mean some articles have less "life" to them but I consider NPOV to be of upmost importance. Boring and neutral is always better than lively and biased. Btw, the part of NPOV policy that applies most here is WP:SUBJECTIVE

At first I found it puzzling that PolNewsReaderWiki had often claimed to have explained himself on the Talk page when he has actually never made an edit to the article Talk page. It turns out that most of the discussion has been taking place on his own user Talk page. Reading this discussion it seems Pol has been removing factual information in retaliation for SH's removal of praise (which Pol considers to be more notable than the facts). I strongly disagree with Pol's stance and his actions. His complaints about the time he is having to spend to correct corrections is highly disrespectful too. And Pol's accusation of bullying is also highly inappropriate and unfounded.

I find PolNewsReaderWiki's behaviour and language rather suspect generally and I feel this is just as much an editor behaviour issue as an NPOV issue to be frank. I think this article would be improved most of all by PolNewsReaderWiki stepping down from this article, and hopefully he will hold to the values of NPOV and respect to other users more strongly in any future wikipedia editing. I fear that he may not do this voluntarily though. His arguments suggest he is too much of an advocate of Paul Kuhn's work and seeks to "spread the word". Wikipedia is not the place for this.Scowie (talk) 16:20, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

^{Moved after gaining agreement from Scowie on my talk page, to allow for discussion to remain in single area and not creep. Please do not revert. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 01:35, 25 August 2015 (UTC)}

Edit-War between Safehaven86 and PolNewsWikiReader

There has been an editing war occurring between these two users, @Safehaven86 and PolNewsReaderWiki:. This is in relation to the NPOV concerns and to open dialogue between the two users. Dr Crazy 102 (talk)

There has been some dialogue on PolNewsReaderWiki's talk page under "Note" thread. I was unaware of this before. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 01:35, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Full explanation on deletion

I agree with the deletion of this addition by an earlier editor. I'll explain. The addition cherry picks negative and ideological views. It concurrently enters a slippery slope of academic back-and-forth to an atypical extent for a Wiki entry about a person and not a book (see most other authors on this NY Times top books list in recent years who have Wiki entries). More problematic is the bias. This entry stresses the most negative possible comments from anywhere attainable. After all, left out of this paragraph about “academic reviewers” are more acclaimed academics than those critics cited. It disregards probably the most influential historian in the U.S, Harvard’s Jill Lepore, who praised the book in the New Yorker (note how she is left to the media paragraph, when we should note her Harvard affiliation if we are going to go this prof view route, yet I don't think Wiki should go down this road because it will make every entry exceedingly academic and boring!). But to reinforce the bias point: this addition also ignores academic journals that had glowing reviews about the book. To name one: historian John Campbell Mcmillian in the journal “The Sixties” (Vol 14, Issue 1), who called it a “terrific book”, among more scholarly praise. (I read all these before I edit or do an entry, and wish all did.) Other praise from the ivy tower is ignored here as well, such as by Yale historian Beverly Gage. Moreover, one can take most praised nonfiction and still find plenty of random profs who offer negative comments (which any of us in this profession regularly experience), especially for books that challenge conventional liberal arts orthodoxies as this book did. I can also deconstruct the faults, from a scholarly standpoint, in the detractors’ points randomly cited by this addition as well, but that will again be far too much detail for this entry. Let’s not seek targets and cherry pick based on our personal views in an attempt to skew Wiki to any ideologically strict outlook. That is what already undermines the public’s view of academia and its bias (ergo “woke” bias debate and accompanied blowback). Hopefully Wiki, this amazing site, will not experience the same bias that poisons credibility and trust in institutions from the MSM to higher ed. 69.116.131.249 (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused by this deletion, and then your subsequent lengthy defense of it. The Lepore review you mention is still mentioned in the body of the article text, so my previous edit wasn't 'ignoring' a positive review at all: it was adding more information about other scholars' positions on the text. Hence the 'mixed' reception I referred to. I should add that reviews in the New Yorker aren't scholarly and that they aren't subject to the same standards as peer-reviewed journals. This is why Wikipedia encourages editors to use academic journals when making edits, as their content is held to a high standard and is therefore especially credible. New Yorker reviews are credible too, but it's important not to conflate the two kinds of sources, or try to denigrate the quality of academic discourse as a basis for evidence on this site. One can complain about 'wokeness' all they want, but you have to face the fact that academic research and opinion is central to creating this collective resource.

The claims you're making about cherry picking aren't meaningful. Look at the page presently; there's no negative reviews at all. By not adding more positive reviews to the page that already contains several, I'm not ignoring anything. Furthermore, by removing my content that drew attention to critical reviews the book received, the editor who deleted my content is effectively cherry picking by deletion. If you'd like to also include a positive review for the book as written in an academic journal, then add it by signing up for an account and doing the difficult work of editing the Wikipedia. Don't simply delete critical reviews of a book because you don't like them. That's equivalent to vandalism. I think that you're claiming my addition was entering a 'slippery slope' of academic back-and-forth only because I added something critical about the book. To be clear, academic debate and multiple perspectives on a topic are not uncommon for the Wikipedia.

Moreover, I find it suspicious that both you and the user that initially deleted my addition are IP users with fewer than five edits at the time of this posting. From the looks of this talk page, it seems like editors of this article have struggled with not violating Wikipedia's NPOV principle in the past. This deletion of content critical of an author's book seems like a continuation of this troubling trend.

I'm going to reinstate my addition of that text to this article, and if it gets deleted again I suggest we take this to the moderators for dispute resolution. Joeyvandernaald (talk) 00:21, 19 December 2022 (UTC)