Talk:Mark Ames

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I've edited the section for the eXile to make it less pov and less vague. I'm moving the random factiod about Johnson's list to the eXile page. Ideally the links to war, sex, drugs etc. should be made into external links to his articles.

Contents 1 An attempt to restore NPOV 2 Information in various versions of the article that needs to be sourced 3 edit by slimvirgin 4 Klebnikov 5 Calling for consensus votes 6 NPOV dispute 7 Peter Ekman Returns 8 article 9 Brother of Jonathan Ames?

[edit] An attempt to restore NPOV

I've taken out a bunch of things from this article in an attempt to make it less self-aggrandizing and blatantly propagandical. My deletions and reasons for them are as follows:

• Removed links to eXile articles except in the part of the article talking about the paper -- the articles add no encyclopedic information about Ames, and their inclusing makes the entry read like a personal advertising profile.
• Removed information about Ames' 'attack' on Chuck Klosterman -- Google for "mark ames" "spin magazine" gives only 64 hits, and "mark ames" "Chuck Klosterman" 210. Incidentally, Klosterman seems far more notable than Ames, but without a spin machine working for him his entry here is only a stub.
• Removed back-patting such as 'Ames earned praise for being the first American journalist to predict Russia's debt default as well as Russia's 1998 financial crisis.' -- I can find no independent evidence for any such praise.
• Removed extensive of the eXile -- it's covered in the entry for the eXile, and it reads like pure advertising.
• I think that's it.

I also condensed the description into a couple paragraphs under one heading, which seems more appropriate to the amount of information presented in the article.

--Squibix 17:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Obviously if the article were blank it would be NPOV, but removing information is usually not an improvement. If an article is unbalanced in its coverage, the solution is to add information to fill in the holes, and not to remove the parts that are covered "too well." Reactions to individual points above:

• Ames is notable primarily (only?) as an eXile writer/publisher. Therefore the style and content of his eXile articles is quite relevant to any article about him. The somewhat vague question of the "encyclopedicness" of this information is a question of presentation style, and anyone should feel free to rewrite, but not to needlessly remove.
• There seems to be no reason given for the removal of information about Ames' peice on Klosterman. Lack of google hits is no reason at all: while I believe wikipedia policy allows google hits as one possibly criterion among many for justifying the creation of an article, I have never heard of anyone removing information because a search engine provided too few hits about it. If Klosterman's article is too small, perhaps someone should expand it. The remark about a "spin machine" is not really worth adressing.
• Here I agree...the article has too much vague stuff like "received praise for," and has had this as long as I've been working on it. Here it is more appropriate to state and cite facts, and maybe provide links to such "praise" if any.
• Again I mostly agree.

There have been a lot of edits lately and some vandalism lately, but I'm going to try to put together a complete version, and compile a list of unsourced information that can't be included. Dsol 12:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Information in various versions of the article that needs to be sourced

• "...where by his own admission he was a reactionary Republican punk in opposition to Berkeley's Left-wing politically-correct hegemony, before turning to the Left in the neo-liberal 1990s." There is no source that he was a "reactionary Republican punk" (which should be in quotes so as not to be POV), and the link about turning to the left only shows he might be called somehow leftist now, nothing about turning to the left in the 1990s. The statement that the 1990s were neoliberal, and the implied connection, don't belong either.
• can someone find the appropriate (scientific) citation for the article about Ames' scabies case in the New England Medical Journal? It should be 1991, and about the history of modern itching medicine (историю современной медицины чесоткой). Or was it just a joke?
• "Ames earned praise for being the first American journalist to predict Russia's debt default as well as Russia's 1998 financial crisis." Obviously the "earned praise" needs another citation, and the links given only show that he predicted it, not that he was first. One alternative would be to show that many others still had rosy outlooks on the situation when he foresaw what was going to happen.

Dsol 17:43, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] edit by slimvirgin

Excuse me, but I don't understand much about this edit at all.

• editing in comment "what books," when there is a bibliography, which is complete with ISBN numbers
• removing lots of content from the biography

He is a published and read author and journalist who has written a lot about his life. His migration from the US to Russia, and subsequent "exile" there is a central point in his world view, as he makes clear in his writing. Calling it "Amescruft" doesn't make it self notable, you can equally apply the cruft label to any notable author and delete info. Everything in that bio touches on the shaping of his political, social, and literary views, which are what make him notable. Unless you are familiar with him, if you don't think he's notable enough for a detailed bio perhaps you should ask for consensus comments on the talk page before deleting information. The article was not running long, and there was no reason to make it less detailed about its subject. Dsol 17:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence you can show that Ames is more notable than any other journalist? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, though I don't believe wikipedia has a cite-sources requirement for notability, but rather a consensus requirement. I'm also not sure how I'm supposed to compare him to "any other journalist," obviously his journalism is more notable than that of some guy who's published one article in a local paper in Kansas city, and less notable than say Emil Zole's writing on the Dreyfus affair. But in general I would point out that

• He has been the editor of a newspaper for 5 years.
• He has written 3 books in 2 languages..
• He has celebrity status in Moscow
• He has "internet celebrity" status elsewhere, although this is obviously less notable. He gets a lot of fanmail each month, some of which is published in his newspaper
• he has appeared on numerous talk shows in Russia as a special guest

I don't really see how you can have a problem with his article being too detailed about his life. It's not runnign over length, and I think a solution would be to spend time improving articles of other journalists with relevant biographical info, rather than removing it from this one. But I do recognize that you're editing in good faith, and if you want to pare it down a bit or make the style more terse, I have no objection. Sometime if I can get a copy of his Russian work, though, I may add some info from that. Dsol 18:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

It's a question of editing within our polices. Both the exile article and this one (and I suspect the other pages about exile columnists) look like vanity pieces. Notability isn't a matter of consensus. We need credible published sources, and preferably third-party published sources, for everything we publish i.e. we're not allowed to publish original research. Do you have a published source for every claim in this article?

Also, regarding publishing his thoughts about himself: he's definitely not notable enough for those to be of any interest. Please familiarize yourself with our policies and with the biographies of other journalists. You could look at Nick Cohen, John Cooley, David Aaronovitch, and Christopher Hitchens as examples. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:15, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I have read a few of these articles (I've seen Hitchen's before) as per your request. I agree that they contain less information about the early years and life experiences of their subjects. However, their subjects do not write about their early years or life experiences the way Ames does. I don't know what you mean about familiarizing myself with out policies. If there is a policy about which and how much biographical info to put in articles about journalists, editors, and writers, please let me know, as it is news to me.

I should also point out that Ames' passage from America to Russia is a particulary important part of his life. The subtitle of his Russian book, for example, is "Notes from an American Exile." He writes about why he left, and what was going on in his life at the time. This is part of what makes him notable as an author. I think it would be fine to pare down his bio a bit, but since you blanked the whole thing, I'm going to revert a second time and let you pare down as you will.

19:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:No original research. We need third-party sources for everything in these articles. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

There's nothing in the no original research article about not using autobiographical writing. Is there a prohibition of such writing on some other policy page, perhaps?

I've left a note for you on your talk page listing the relevant policies. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:19, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Klebnikov

An Anonymous IP insists on putting an article Mark Ames wrote on Klebnikov into the main section of the article. While the information is pretty much accurate (if exaggerated) but I don't see how its any more relevant than the thousands of other opinion Ames has offered up over the years. Unless the user can justify why this factoid deserves primacy, I'm going to ask him to rethink his contribution.

[edit] Calling for consensus votes

as to whether to remove the material that 82.141.187.170 is calling "vanity." vote here, give your justification

• Oppose vague and subjective complaint calling for removal of info by an anonymous ip with essentially no unrelated edits. Dsol 21:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose In addition to the comments made by Dsol, I would like to point out that the IP keeps trying to insert non-biographical details about a comment Mark Ames once made regarding Paul Klebnikov into the biography under the guise of citing "vanity". I have asked for justification of this action on this page (scroll up one section) but my request has been ignored.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ryan Utt (talk • contribs) 06:24, 11 January 2006.
• Oppose The information is factual and sourced. This page is in no danger of being too long right now, and it's not seriously in question that Ames is an encyclopedic subject (right?), so what's the deal here? Brighterorange 18:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose--Urthogie 15:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV dispute

Autohagiograpy not neutral point of view

This is a meaningless comment and a non-argument. There's nothing inherently recognized about autobiographical (much less authagiographical) sources as inherently POV by wp's policies. Removing tag. If this doesn't stop, and serious discussion doesn't begin, I'll request protection for this page shortly.. Dsol 13:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

See problems with autohagiography at: WP:NPOV WP:NOT WP:Verifiabilty

I suggest you first read the pages on writing better prose before you move on to the NPOV policies :)--Urthogie 12:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Ekman Returns

I looked up the IPs of the addresses that have been blanking this page and violating 3RR. They both point to Central European University. Based on the vandal's behavior, I got a hunch. Turns out I wuz right: [1][2]. Doctor Ekman is a Associate Professor at CEU in the Department of "Finance, Economics, and Quantitative Studies" teaching classes like "Company Valuation". In retrospect, I should have guessed earlier based on the IPs obtuse reasoning, obnoxiousness, as well as the disappearance of Ekman's former IP, (his obsession with Mark Ames, his deference towards SlimVirgin, etc). Again I am floored at how much time Dr. Ekman is spending in feeble pursuit of an ancient vendetta against an entirely indifferent opponent. Honestly Dude:

Move On With Your Life

Anyway, now we know what this is all about. Dr. Ekman, why don't you explicitly delineate your specific areas of concern about the article. Engaging in a revert war isn't going to get us anywhere. Please be specific.

--Ryan Utt 04:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Good eye. I noticed budapest also, but didn't make the connection. Use of multiple IPs to help circumvent 3RR is a relatively serious offence, especially for someone with so many edits and a previous 3RR block. This need to be added to the RfC. Dsol 14:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] article

interview in kp. interesting stuff in there. for example "Я мог бы вернуться в Штаты. Но не хочу. Я сюда приехал не ради денег, как одни. Не ради секса, как другие. Я приехал сюда жить. А жизнь здесь интересная." Dsol 09:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brother of Jonathan Ames?

Or otherwise a relative?