Talk:Omali Yeshitela

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1 Omali Yeshitela
2 ok seriously...
3 inline refernces
4 Merge

[edit] Omali Yeshitela

Hi, 172. We need to look more closely at the Yeshitela article. At the moment it is a very sunny portrayal of a very controversial figure, and does not include much of the very conspicuous criticism of the man-- and the criticism it did include was poorly written and unsourced. Let's work on this together to find something everyone can agree on. I have put up an NPOV notice in the mean time, hoping to stop any future edit wars between you and the anonymous editor.

As for your removal of my edit from yesterday, you will notice that it was hardly vandalism. I removed Secretary Cisneros' praise of Yeshitela for several reasons.

First, it was irrelevant. Yeshitela has indeed been a major figure in St. Petersburg politics for years. Cisneros' kind words about Yeshitela are interesting, but they hardly represent a major event in the man's life, or a significantly prominent or deep commentary on his leadership. It might be reasonable to mention Cisneros' praise as part of a sentence regarding the reaction to the riots, but it is not appropriate to include it as prominently as it has been.

Second, the source is unfortunately not credible. The St. Peterbsurg Times, as you have suggested is a great source when news is cited. Elijah Gosier, however, is an opinion columnist, not a reporter. His column is interesting, and should be included in external links. It is not, however, an encyclopedia-quality source for article text.

I think removal of these sentences would be a good first step. Let me know what you think-- and Happy New Year if you are among those celebrating today. Cheers. ALC Washington 23:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I agree that the article is a "very sunny portrayal" of "a very controversial figure." It is hardly revealing and informative enough for me to imagine readers getting a very "sunny" impression of him. Further, I'm not sure if Yeshitela is notable enough to be considered "very controversial," at least outside St. Petersburg. I do see that it is light on the "very conspicuous criticism of the man." Still, there is no outright praise of the man to be found in the article; and criticism cannot go in unless it is well written and sourced. Moving on to your removal, regarding your first point, I must disagree with you on the relevance of Cisneros' comments. Cisneros is by far the most notable person who has ever commented on Yeshitela, who is not a well-known figure outside the St. Petersburg-Tampa area. One could say that his meeting with the HUD Secretary was Yeshitela's "15 minutes of fame," so to speak, among the general national news-watching U.S. public. Regarding your second point, I happen to be certain myself that Cisneros made the comment. I've been reading the Times for local news for many years. I remember running across those quotations in articles at the time, not just columns. I was not aware earlier that the source for the information was a Gosier column. Personally, from what I know myself about Gosier, I would trust him on factual claims like quotations. Still, you are right that an article should be found as a source instead of a column. I'll go ahead and try to find a link to an article. 172 23:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ok seriously...

It would be great to even this article out with some slighlty less biased information- This article might as well have been handed out (by Yeshitela) during Yeshitela's mayoral run. The quote from Penny Hess and the personal section as a whole are especially hard to swallow.