[WikiEN-l] Re: Challenge to Sheldon Rampton re: global warming

Mon Feb 3 18:47:18 UTC 2003

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Everyone take a deep breath.  It was pretty out of character for Ed to
>post a sharp remark like that, and I think he'll quickly make things
>right with Sheldon.

He hasn't done anything yet to make it right. The guy clearly has an 
axe to grind about me. He's gone out of his way on more than one 
occasion to insult me, without any provocation on my part. On this 
occasion, he called me a liar on completely spurious grounds. I don't 
think I should be expected to tolerate that without responding.

I wrote:

>  > It's clearly POV and a violation of Wikipedia policy to inject
>>  first-person commentary based on church gossip into the actual text
>  > of articles.

And Jimbo responded:

>Maybe, unless this gossip is documented somewhere as having actually
>happened.  I mean, asserting the content of the gossip as fact isn't
>good, but reporting on the gossip is fine, if it was important and
>widespread.

Take a look at it yourself. Here's the verbatim passage from Ed's 
article on "Sun Myung Moon/tax case":

>The government offered to drop all the charges if Rev. Moon would 
>give up his green card (permanent resident visa) and agree never to 
>visit the US again. Rev. Moon preferred to go to trial, professing 
>his belief in the fairness of American justice but saying that he 
>would not have been prosecuted if "his skin had been white or his 
>religion Episcopalian."
>
>Reference, please, for the government's offer and the quote (Sorry, 
>I could not find documentation; it's a story circulated among us UC 
>members -- Ed Poor .)

It's clear from this that Ed could *not* find any documentation to 
support the assertions he made in the first paragraph. And since when 
is it proper form for Wikipedians to insert themselves directly into 
articles with first-person, signed asides? I thought that sort of 
thing belonged on the Talk page.

If I were editing the above passage, I would write something along 
the following lines:

>According to a version of events popular with members of Moon's 
>church, the government offered to drop the charges against him if he 
>would give up his permanent resident visa and leave the United 
>States permanently. Rev. Moon preferred to go to trial but said that 
>he would not have been prosecuted if his skin had been white or his 
>religion Episcopalian.

I'm not going to make these edits, because I'm not interested in 
working on articles about Rev. Moon or the Unification Church. The 
point I'm making is simply that I find it hypocritical for Ed to 
accuse *me* of dishonesty and bias over an article on global warming 
that I had barely touched, when Ed himself has made no effort to 
apply NPOV in his articles about his own church.

Jimbo also wrote:

>But I think this is a misreading.  I think that his idea is a very
>good one.  All of us, if we are writing in an area where we know we
>have some strong feelings, should try *hard* to formulate the
>arguments of the opponents as best we can.

I don't think I've misread Ed's intent. I think he went out of his 
way to needle me and call me a liar. Ed stated that I was 
"disingenuous" because I haven't written *his* beliefs into an 
article on global warming -- an article that I didn't create and to 
which I had only contributed a single minor edit. I agree with the 
general principle that we should try to respect the arguments of 
people whose viewpoints differ from our own. However, Ed's comments 
about me did not arise from a discussion about those general 
principles. They were gratuitous comments that had nothing to do with 
anything I've contributed to Wikipedia or posted to this listserv. He 
didn't make those comments in the spirit of educating us all about an 
important general principle. He made them in the spirit of looking 
for an excuse to attack me and call me a liar, based on any pretext 
he could find, no matter how flimsy.

>There are at least two views of how wikipedia articles should be
>written -- the competitive view and the co-operative view.  Ed
>is merely (and correctly, I think) advocating for the co-operative
>view.

Actions speak louder than words. How is it "co-operative" for Ed to 
look for pretexts with which to publicly impugn my character?
-- 
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------