Talk:Nick Dyer-Witheford

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I tried to begin the article, since I used to be his student and Graduate Teaching Assisstant for an undergraduate course at FIMS, and I think his talent merits inclusion in Wikipedia, but I don't subscribe to many of his political views, such that I think it would be difficult to represent them here adequately. Plus, I am pinched for time. Maybe another Wiki-ist can build upon this shell? --Mikerussell 16:44, 2005 Apr 9 (UTC)

An anonymous user has copy-paste moved this to Nick Dyer-Witheford... DopefishJustin (･∀･) 23:56, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 NPOV Tagging 2 NPOV Reasons 3 NPOV Debate 4 Removed NPOV tag Nov 39 2005

[edit] NPOV Tagging

Removed NPOV tag since the person who added it fails to comment on the TALK page their reasons for it. How can someone judge the complaint seriously without a TALK page comment?--Mikerussell 04:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Reasons

• "An extremely well liked teacher"
• "brings a rich multi-media presentation to the group, no matter its size"
• "He has great skill getting across his own ideas, as well as soliciting honest feedback from students."

I don't know Mr Dyer-Witheford, in fact I don't even remember how I stumbled on this particular wiki page - just the way the above lines are presented look more like self-PR than an objective encyclopaedic article. (clem 12:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC))

[edit] NPOV Debate

Well I started the article, and I state in the above discussion I worked for him as TA in an undergraduate course, and was his former student in a graduate seminar in Political Economy of Information; however, it would be a grotesque error to assume it is his personal PR campaign. I have not spoken with the guy for several years, and I can tell you we had very strong philosophical disagreements over politics.

Re: "An extremely well liked teacher"

I started the article after browsing through a Maclean’s magazine issue, the Universities 2004 issue, (Macleans being Canada’s national news and current affairs magazine) where he is ranked as one of Western’s best teachers by students. So it is not just my opinion. Plus the source is mentioned in the article.

Re: "brings a rich multi-media presentation to the group, no matter its size"

As far as multimedia- yes I saw it with my own eyes and ears- one might even say the guy thinks he is a bit of a DJ, but he is known for doing much more than just lecturing. Even in the class I took with him, a seminar of about 4 or 5 students he incorporated music, film and websites as well as print and lecture-discussion. Moreover, he encouraged his students to do the same for their seminars. Since you don’t know anything to the contrary, by your own omission, then I cannot say that you have a valid complaint. (Maybe this is a sign that he is good teacher since you seem to think it is almost unbelievable for a Prof to do it? Just a side thought.)

Re: "He has great skill getting across his own ideas, as well as soliciting honest feedback from students."

As I said, we had sharp disagreements and to be blunt I was quite critical of his views in email correspondence we had subsequent to the course. But in and out of class he was always open and forthright in his own views, and solicited mine at every occasion; something I do feel is unusual. If other people have info to the contrary- they are welcomed to edit the article.

Conclusion- you got a point

With this in mind- actually as the example he set when I knew him- I won’t object to the NPOV Tag and maybe others will comment on the article in the coming weeks. To be honest, I was hopeful this article would grow, others to add more fact to the somewhat personal info I relate, and I guess that hasn’t happened, so you are quite right when you say the article sounds a little too cozy, a little too like it is ‘fan appreciation’ page instead of an objective account of the guy and his thought. I cringe a little when I read the article now too- is it really good to have comments about his family and kids? Probably not, but as I said I thought others would add more meat. To be honest I just don’t have time to try to add or modify this article now, let alone any other on wikipedia, so I won’t touch it, see what happens. However- just to be absolutely clear- he has no part in it and for all I know, he might not like it. I just thought he deserved the time and attention.--Mikerussell 04:13, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed NPOV tag Nov 39 2005

I removed the tag after trying to make the article more 'objective'; although, I don't know how much better it sounds. The NPOV tag was on for over 1 month and nobody added/altered the article so I assume it is reasonable to take the tag off for now at least--Mikerussell 06:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)