Talk:Mike Wooten (trooper)

Purpose of Split

(NOTE: I copied and paraphrased this discussion posted by John Broughton, just to get the main bullet points across. These are not exclusively my thoughts.)

This article should be primarily about Monegan's firing, about pressures (or not) on Monegan with regard to Wooten, and about the resulting investigations. Those are why the matter is news.

But in fact about half the article is about events that occurred before Monegan was dismissed -specifically, about the Wooten case. This is an WP:NPOV problem, because space/weight is so wrong, and distracts from the main topic. Yes, it's necessary to provide some background about Wooten, but that can be done in a living biography page.

This case is a nutshell is this:

(1) Wooten was disciplined; (2) Monegan reviewed the case and found that he could do nothing; (3) Palin was unhappy about Monegan's inaction; (4) Monegan was dismissed; and (5) it is unclear the extent to which (3) is related to (4). There is absolutely no one (except bloggers) saying that (2) was a mistake. So there is absolutely no reason to go into details about (1). By going into such details, readers are encouraged to think that it makes some sort of difference with regard to (4). It does not.' Regardless of how horribly Wooten might have acted, Monegan's hands were tied - if he had done anything other than (2), he could have been sued, fired for cause, etc. So the entire section needed to be spun off as a daughter article, per WP:SS, with just a brief summary in the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal article. Duuude007 (talk) 14:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Before anyone lists this for deletion, please see related discussions at Talk:Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal. Wooten is notable only for his indirect involvement in that controversy, but the problem with folding all his bio information into that article is that his involvement is indirect. He wasn't fired. Governor Sarah Palin criticized him, before and after becoming governor, and discussed him with her appointed Public Safety Commissioner, and then fired the Commissioner. Palin says the firing of the Commissioner had nothing to do with the Commissioner's failure to fire Wooten. That's why there's a problem with including all this information in the article about the incident. JamesMLane t c 17:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Duuude, I think you did a nice job with the split, but at this point I would suggest removing the article. This article is now out-of-sync with similar sections at the main article. The discussion at the main article seems to indicate a consensus that a separate article isn't needed. A lot of the detail in the spinoff article was originally posted by me, but grover did a nice job of slimming down that detail in the main article. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 11:01, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I tend to be in agreement, but it might be wierd if I were the one who submitted the AfD since I created it. Would you mind? Duuude007 (talk) 12:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Duuude, I'm kind of a novice at this. I think the best result is that this page remains, but just as a simple stub that points back to the main article. So that's not really an 'article deletion.' Make sense? I don't know the right way to accomplish that. Should I just delete most of this page? Should you? I'm not sure what method would be considered most 'proper.' Jukeboxgrad (talk) 14:35, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point. All we need to do is make this a redirect. Just replace the entire article content with "#REDIRECT Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal". If there is a consensus, anyone can do this. There is no need for an AfD and no delay. --agr (talk) 14:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw your followup suggestion after I had already filed for AfSD. I like it better. Redirect implemented. Duuude007 (talk) 14:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Jukeboxgrad suggested deletion at 11:01 UTC, and at 14:46 Duuude007 implemented the idea. That's not enough time to determine that there's a consensus. AfD is the way to go. A better way, however, is to wait a bit. The main article on the dismissal will probably grow quite a bit. There are now multiple investigations, at least one lawsuit, and an order from Palin's AG that state employees defy the Legislature's subpoenas. I think it likely that, as events continue to unfold, that article will get so big that a lot of the detail about Wooten will be trimmed, so this article will serve a valuable function. If the investigations all die down and the situation appears to be stable, we can consider consolidation then. JamesMLane t c 15:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• AfD has been added. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Wooten (trooper) is the discussion page. Duuude007 (talk) 16:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

James, I still lean in the direction that a redirect is the right solution. But your arguments are strong, and I see no great harm in waiting a while. A few days? Then we can reassess the situation.

I think no matter what happens, the basic events of 2003-2006 are crucial, legally and politically. It all comes back to the question of evaluating those events. That's why all of Palin's recent filings express strong views about those events, and make certain factual claims about those events. And I think that section of the article is pretty stable. I don't think a lot of new facts are going to emerge regarding the original events. So I don't think that section will get any bigger, but I also think it shouldn't get any smaller, because I think it's essential material that is at the heart of the matter. The rest of the article should just expand around it. Just my opinion. Jukeboxgrad (talk) 17:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

We shouldn't have essentially the same material in two places, particularly for a BLP, as doing so invites errors and POV forking and wastes everyone's time. A redirect preserves the edit history, so if there turns out to be a need for a separate article, it can easily be restored, though if that should happen it would probably be best to start from the material then in the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal article since it will be more up to date. I see no reason to delay redirecting this article.--agr (talk) 20:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I am redirecting the article per the above discussion.--agr (talk) 00:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Article title

Should this be moved to Mike Wooten? I didn't want to do it myself without checking, but generally a person's title isn't included in a wiki bio article.--Dawn Bard (talk) 15:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Some indication of occupation is included when necessary for disambiguation purposes. For example, that's how most of the Robert Jacksons are distinguished. Geography is also sometimes used. "Mike Wooten (Alaska)" would be acceptable but I think that "Mike Wooten (trooper)" is more in keeping with Wikipedia practice. I'll make the move. Certainly, the current "Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten" is a bad title. JamesMLane t c 16:47, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm still learning the ropes on etiquette for that sort of stuff. My apologies. Duuude007 (talk) 17:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)