User talk:DaveApter

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Welcome!

Hello, DaveApter, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! , SqueakBox 17:10, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Regarding mediation

Hi Dave, Redwolf24 forwarded your request to me. Looking at it, I'm not sure if it really falls under mediation -- we don't ordinarily handle content disputes so much as interpersonal problems. I would suggest you start a straw poll, and proceed to RfC if the parties involved are unwilling to listen to the poll. I am willing to take the case in mediation if you can get other parties involved to agree to it, but understand that mediation cannot be about content -- it is about how you interact with them. If you can interest the other parties in mediation, and are willing to accept what mediation is about, let me know. --Improv 21:08, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Financial Sourced Information

User Alex Jackl, who I believe is a Landmark Education seminar leader, and I had come to an amiable consensus RE: the blockquoted citations about the Financial Ties section. We had communicated via email. Perhaps this would be a good idea for us as well, so as to have a more civil discussion? You could also talk to AJackl if you like. He was such a pleasure to work with: even though we have/had very disparate POV, we worked it out in such an enjoyable and courteous manner.Smeelgova 14:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pending Landmark edits...

Hi DaveApter, I just wanted to let you know that I intend to make the Landmark Education article slightly less pro-Landmark. I am guessing you may disagree with me, so rather than getting into a massive edit-war, I welcome your reply to my comments on the Landmark talk page. Ckerr 10:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppetry case

You have been accused of sockpuppetry. Please refer to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/DaveApter for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with notes for the suspect before editing the evidence page. Smeelgova 17:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

This is complete nonsense. Feel free to read my comments by following the link above if you haven't got anything better to do. DaveApter 12:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re "Orchestrated Campaign"

Dave: Regarding your message at User talk:Aaron#Orchestrated campaign?, I'd say you have three options. You could do a mass AfD for all the articles which you feel they've messed up beyond repair, but whether you'd get the desired result is questionable, since a lot of editors will vote only on what they feel is the subject's inherent value, not how bad the article is. (Here's a recent mass AfD I did (purely because I thought the articles were spam); as you can see, I only had about 50-50 success, though it was the worst articles that were deleted.) Second, you could find an admin you have a good working relationship with and post to their user talk page, laying out the entire problem with both editors in detail. Make sure you list what they're doing that's against the rules and against policy; arguments about content generally don't count for much. If you can't think of an admin you're close to, you could post the same thing to WP:AN or WP:AN/I. Your third option is to go to either WP:PAIN or WP:AIV, and fill out the forms there. (Keep in mind that falsely accusing an editor of vandalism, as seems to have been done to you, is a personal attack violation, and is more than enough to get that editor blocked if they do it continuously. Smeelgova accusing you of being a sock seems to be an egregious WP:NPA violation in and of itself. Good luck, --Aaron 16:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evaluating books as Reliable Sources

Hi, DaveApter
While editing the family of talk pages about cult references, I crossed paths with your requests to other editors for assistance with evaluating the reliability of books (Usertalk:Ed Poor, question #1). I don't disagree with what you were told, but I don't think it gets to the heart of your concerns about Steven Pressman's book "Outrageous Betrayal", which is a bit of a special case.
• It is not true that any published book is a reliable source. What makes a book reliable (with ifs/ands/buts), is the adequate experience and good reputation of the author in the subject field of which the book informs. See WP:RS for the exact wording which changes occasionally.
• Both professional and reader book reviews are excellent sources to smoke out whether an author substantively got his/her facts wrong. In this case (Amazon.com: Outrageous-Betrayal-Story-Werner-Erhard) there is no shortage of polarized opinions - but - no one laid a glove on the book's asserted facts, other than maybe whether the course subjectively "works". One course veteran said the story rang true.
• You objected to the book's style, but a sensational style is also a money-maker, so that does no more than raise suspicions among cautious researchers.
• Off-the-record conversations (I think you mean unattributed sources) have caused plenty of trouble for major newspapers, yet there is general agreement among major newspaper editors that unattributed sources are a necessary tool. Typically the editor must also know who the sources are, and try to check the facts through a second source.
• If the book is entirely unattributed interviews, it's original research and there is no mandatory reason for footnotes, references or bibiography. (A reviewer with your same objection claimed there were at least a few footnotes.) Since LE attempted to unnecessarily and unsuccessfully squeeze Pressman for his sources, at least that confirms Pressman's need for unattributed sources.
• It all comes down to whether the readers can trust Pressman. I found this quote at WP:RS#Law "The journalist who wrote the paper may not be trained as a lawyer, although s/he may have access to a wider variety of legal experts than many lawyers do, so judge the quality of the report according to how well that journalist, or that newspaper, has covered legal issues in the past." From Steven Pressman#Legal Journalist "Pressman has worked as an editor at the California Lawyer Magazine, ... and has written for the Columbia Journalism Review." IIRC, CJR is a prestigious organization.
• You objected to things written by Pressman as "potentially defamatory". From Steven_Pressman#Articles he has written "Libel Law: Finding the Right Balance [cite]". This suggests that Pressman knew exactly how far he could go. Furthermore, he was not sued over the content of the book, and not successfully sued by anyone, so he must have judged correctly. As well, tell-all books are thoroughly vetted by publisher lawyers.
-- I hope this helps. Milo 08:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

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