Talk:Alessandra Stanley

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[edit] RfC

I have placed a notice at RfC regarding this article. Perhaps that is premature, but I'm hoping that this different tactic will end this dispute quickly and satisfactorily.

The dispute involves a lengthy quote regarding the film Stolen Honor. My position is that this quote is not relevant to Stanley and does not belong in this article. This quote is one of many opinions Stanley has written in thousands of articles penned by her. There is nothing special or particularly important about this one. She is not a player in the controversy about Stolen Honor. If anything, this quote belongs in the SH article, not here. As I stated in my first edit summary: "Stanley's encyclopedic notability does not rest on her thoughts on Stolen Honor from one article among hundreds and thus is of no relevance here; add it to SH if you must". To which Rex replied "Gamaliel since when are you the expert on what makes her notable?" I am not, and neither is Rex, and that doesn't address the point at all.

He also wrote "Also, you contend SH/Sinclair scandal, therefor A.S. role in it is notable", which makes no sense to me, but perhaps is a reference to the ongoing dispute at Stolen Honor. Other articles should stand on their own, not be used to bolster a particular POV position at another article.

I would appreciate the thoughts of any third party on this matter. Gamaliel 18:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Omit the quotation. I think Rex left a couple words out of his comment, and that what he meant to write was: "Also, you contend SH/Sinclair scandal [is notable], therefor A.S. role in it is notable". By that logic, the Stanley article should include a quotation from her about every notable matter that she's written about. For example, the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse was certainly notable, so if Rex were being consistent he'd want to add this quotation to the Stanley article:
"The Torture Question" methodically makes the case that pressure to wring more information out of prisoners came from the highest echelons of the White House and the Pentagon, well before the 2003 invasion of Iraq with captives from Afghanistan held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and worked its way down to the lowliest, most ill-trained soldiers. [1]
Obviously, there'd be no justification for selecting only the quotations that put Democrats in a bad light. JamesMLane 00:00, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Include - Who said anything about "selecting"? I put in the material that interested me. That said, Gamaliel's suggestion is perfectly fine and very even handed. I have added the Abu Ghraib quote, verbatim as G posted in above, along with restoring the SH quote. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:08, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
It wasn't from Gamaliel and, more important, it wasn't a suggestion. It was an example to point out the untenability of your position. I just ran "Alessandra Stanley" on the Times website's search engine (restricting it to the "Author" field) and got 1,472 hits. Most of those columns would concern a notable subject. An article about a writer doesn't need to quote the writer's thoughts on a subject just because the subject itself is notable. That standard would allow absurdly long articles. In this instance, both quotations should be omitted from the article. JamesMLane 03:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
James, you know that I am waiting patiently for you to commit to a set of editing guidelines (see Talk:Stolen Honor). And you also know that you claim to already be following some of some sort, but won't list them. For these reasons and because I've already made clear that my main concern with you is my contention that you edit and argue one way on one article and another on others, with no set self-binding pattern, I see no reason to point out again and again and again: What you are saying now (about quotes, this example) conflicts with what you've said in the past. Your patent refusal to establish any benchmarks by whch other editors know what to expect from you, makes every edit you oppose an ad-hoc argument. Being a lawyer, you may enjoy that. I, on the other hand, am not and do not. Let me know when you are ready to try for true consensus. I will recognize and believe this to be true when you state on my talk page this text (verbatim) "I, JamesMLane, agree that avoiding conflict with other editors is important. I further state that I am interested to work towards consensus with Rex071404". In the meantime, I am not sure what else to say to you. Any suggestions? Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Little of this has anything to do with this article and really belongs on JML's user talk page. Let's confine our comments here to Alessandra Stanley, please, or we won't get anything done. Gamaliel 06:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

If 200 editor come along and each says, "I'll put in the material that interests me," and they have different in This incomplete sentence was here when I got here just now Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. The point is that I disagree with the generalization you impliedly suggest: "If Subject X is notable, then, in the article about Subject Y, anything that Subject Y has said about Subject X should be quoted." In the course of writing this comment embodying my disagreement, I thought of pointing out that 200 editors might have 200 different interests, resulting in a Stanley article with 200 different quotations, and that your theory would endorse this result. Partway through typing that, I decided not to include it, but then forgot to delete it.
In general, the principal standard that I apply for subjective decisions of this sort is service to the reader. Including 200 quotations from Stanley on 200 different subjects would convey some information that wouldn't otherwise be in the article, but it wouldn't be the best way to convey information to a reader who wants to read an encyclopedia article about Alessandra Stanley. I agree with Calton (below) that the Stolen Honor quotation is inserted solely for POV reasons. JamesMLane 10:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

What is the point of the two quotations? The second one seems to have been put in purely as a balancing justification rationalization for the first quote, and the first is not a notable, infamous, and/or typical example of Stanley's writing. It's apparently there for its propaganda value, nothing more. --Calton | Talk 06:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

How is the article better, with them removed? Please explain. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 06:38, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


--Added middle name. Source is Harvard and Radcliffe Class of 1977, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report. --Tkhorse (talk) 14:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photograph of Stanley

JML & G, please go here: Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg & help with the license question. Rex071404 216.153.214.94 00:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)