Talk:David J. Tholen

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Whoever has been deleting the Usenet reputation section (Tholen), please stop. This information is true and pains have been taken to make it NPOV. If you feel it is unfair, please edit it accordingly, but please do not delete it. Tholen's impact on Usenet history is an important part of his story. --67.52.158.62 20:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

-- I agree. It is inappropriate for someone to try to remove references to Tholen's notoriety on Usenet. I think it could be argued that more people are familiar with Dr. Tholen through his Usenet behavior than from his in astronomy. It doesn't take very much research to discover that Dr. Tholen spent immense *immense* amounts of time debating on Usenet on subjects most people would find highly unique to say the least. There are, afterall, reasons why people have asserted everything from him being a robot to being unbalanced. He may be an excellent astronomer but his Usenet history can't be ignored. It's part of what makes him infamous on the Internet for good or ill. -User:Draginol November 2006.



Comments about kook awards are irrelevant to anyone looking for information on astronomers or astronomy. This can be a good source of information, but its usefulness is diminished if it becomes a place to continue the silliness that has unfortunatly been taking up so much bandwidth on the newsgroups.

Is there not an article on usenet kooks that you could add a section to if you really think that it is necessary to post it somewhere? If people decide that it must be posted, perhaps you could include some of his positive contributions as well.


The title of this page is not "Astronomers or Astronomy" but "David J. Tholen". The information is true and is NPOV. Even if you could prove the information is objectively negative, it is not the obligation of Wikipedia editors to post positive information, only information that is true and NPOV. If you remove this information again, unless you can specifically cite Wikipedia policy that this information violates, this issue will be referred to arbitration.

I must abound in 67.52.158.62's favour. Us admins would also recommend you both sign your contributions on this talk page. Urhixidur 16:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Urhixidur. 66.167.162.151 01:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC) [sometimes posts from 67.52.158.62]

I restored the Usenet Reputation section, because I just had my first usenet discussion with Prof. Tholen, it took me a while to realize that something weird was happening, and that section would have been very helpful to me. I think Prof. Tholen is an exceptional individual both in its professional achievements and in in its usenet behavior, and both aspects deserve to be documented.

raoul