Talk:Anders Hallberg

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[edit] Removal of material under the provisions of the Biographies of living persons policy

I've removed quite a big swathe of poorly sourced material from this article. Please contact me by email to discuss this removal, which should not be reverted without discussing first. --Tony Sidaway 20:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Please argue on the 'poorly sourced'. You have several national newspapers presenting all sides of the case (in swedish, though), radio emissions, audio records of the conversations on the two professors webpages and official letters from highly respected mathematicians and from the European Mathematical Society. It seems more than convincing to me. I'll revert your change by tomorrow if you don't explain why this is 'poorly sourced'. --Nattfodd (talk) 23:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Please email me as I asked. tonysidaway@gmail.com --Tony Sidaway 23:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the point, since you can read me here as well, and this way the debate is public. --Nattfodd (talk) 23:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Nattfodd. Please do not revert. If you revert an article and replace BLP violating material, you may even be blocked. While the suitability of material is being discussed, in the case of living person biographies it must remain off the article until we've resolved the issues. In this case, the removed material was entirely unsourced, and the links at the bottom of the page were very dubious sources indeed. Further, the relevance of this incident to the biography of this individual is dubious. Even if this could be sourced properly, it probably belongs on the article on the institution rather than on the biography of the guy who was chairing the faculty at the time. Please set your sources, and argument for relevance down here and we can discuss it.--Doc^g 23:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I have looked up the history of this dispute and I strongly agree with Nattfodd and strongly disagree with Tony Sidaway and with Doc. First of all, it is completely inappropriate to ask for the discussion of a WP article to be conducted by e-mail. The discussion must be conducted in public here, on the article's talk page. Second, the arguments that the references were "poorly sourced" are too general and blanket and need to be made specific. I have looked up the old version of this page and some references there were poor while some others were OK. It is certainly incorrect to state, as Doc did, that the removed material "was entirely unsourced". For example, one of the references was to "The European Mathematical Information Service" site, that contained a number of letters by prominent mathematicians on the controversy [1]. I don't see a problem with using the European Mathematical Society site as a primary source here. There were also references to several Swedish newsarticles about the case, [2], [3].

I also disagree with Doc's assertion that the controversy is only marginally relevant to the subject of this article. I have looked up the references provided and it appears that it was precisely the actions of Anders Hallberg as the university Rector that are at the center of this controversy. Here is another reference (that was not contained in the previous edits) about this controversy where the role of Anders Hallberg in the matter is discussed"Swedish University, Alleging Culture Clash, Forces Out 2 Tenured Foreign Professors", The Chronicle of Higher Education, Volume 53, Issue 38 (May 25, 2007), page A49.

While I do think that the removed section was too long and should have been better sourced, I believe that some mention of the controversy in question certainly belongs in the main article. Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 15:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)