Talk:Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis

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[edit] Mispronouncing Words: discussion copied from Jeremy Paxman discussion page

In the edit at 12:44, 12 June 2006, RupertMillard removed:

"as well as a propensity for mispronouncing words."

from the description of paxman's presentation of university challenge.

It was previously removed on 21:40, 21 February 2006 by Martin S Taylor and replaced a day later by Flapdragon, who originally addded it at 20:20, 26 January 2005.

Paxman DOES mispronounce word which are critical to the understanding of the question on a fairly regular basis. (eg: this week he pronounced Adonis as "ah-dough-nis"). This was pointed out to me by a friend and it has bugged me ever since.TomViza 11:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was pronounced "ah-dough-nis" (or perhaps "uh-doe-nis") (let's say, "Adōnis"). What is it? "Uh-don-is"? This is as in Lord Adonis? I think he is called "Adōnis". Unless I am mistaken the Greek is Αδωνις, which does indeed have a long "ō" sound. So I think Paxman is correct. Other opinions are welcome.--Oxonian2006 11:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invective?

POV: diluting invective re: blair arrogance charges. what with being an encylopedia etc.

[ -- Leonig Mig, 21:37, 9 May 2005 (UTC)]

answer: these are clearly marked and qouted as relevant opinons; since Adonis role in policy is very ambivalent, different opinons besides his remarkable career should be pinpointed.
[ -- 82.83.244.136, 09:41, 10 May 2005 (UTC) ]
just feel free to add, the article in fact collected mainly what is found in the media- and that is in fact not very favourable.
without discussion the following content is POV and was therefore removed:

"since 16 May 2005 he has rejoiced in the unlikely name of Baron Adonis of Camden Town. (As the conservative periodical The Spectator asked, "Who, or what, is 'Lord Adonis of Camden Town'? A Greek restaurant? A hairdresser? A dubious card pinned up in a telephone box?")"

but its still funny... especially regarding his appearance (see links to pictures). Public jokes about his name and reality (" more Andrew than Adonis") made his wife upset, as Lord Adonis himself put it in his maiden speech at the House of Lord, implicating that she – a little masculine looking Oxford eager beaver - might have married him at least partly because of his beauty, what a chap!

[edit] Amusingly spun wording

I find it entertaining to see how "On 16 May 2005, he was created a life peer as Baron Adonis, of Camden Town in the London Borough of Camden, elevation to membership of the House of Lords making possible his appointment as a government minister."

the author seems to want to imply you have to be a member of the aristocracy to become a minister, which would make britain seem positively medieval. While it's technically true that he needed some sort of office to be able to serve as minister, i'm not sure that saying he had to become an aristocrat in order to serve his country is entirely accurate or fair to the Great nation called Britain.

Boombaard 17:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Note: Kaihsu added the POV tag at on 15:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC), but didn't note this here. He was, however, quite correct - the article rambles too much and needs clean-up anyway, but there is too much POV here (we don't talk about the fact that Adonis' policies have greatly enhanced the results of children in exams in the past 8 years in the UK - or, at least, the appearance of this in the media - which would be a sensible thing to add). Please review our central policy of neutrality.

James F. (talk) 17:19, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

if you have more information on that, feel free to add with facts or at least qoutations. I have not read of anything what you are suggesting and no study is known to prove that vague argument anyway. Neutrality means not to conceal the annoying arguements, which are openly discussed in the media. But, you are totally right, the good things e.g. a collection of his publications and some good rumours should be added.
[ -- 82.83.244.136, 17:36, 10 May 2005 (UTC) ]
This is an encyclopædia, not a gossip board. Please remember to Wikipedia:Cite sources and keep the tone neutral and encylcopædic.
You might want to consider getting an account, which gives greater flexibility and ease of tracking changes that others make to articles you are interested to. Also, you can sign your name and the time (like I do) with four tildes (~~~~); this makes it easier to see who said what when reviewing.
James F. (talk) 23:13, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the main problem of this article is POV (though there is some of it), it's that it is written in rambling and disjointed form and much of it is more like a gossip column piece. There isn't much about his collaboration with Roy Jenkins and his work pre-1997. David | Talk 09:10, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tony Zoffis

Just in case anyone doesn't get the joke, "Tony Zoffis" is a Greek-sounding homophone for "Tony's office". David | Talk 15:25, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Without exception?

I have a hard time believing "the without exception negative public reactions about his appointment to the Lords" is true. I suspect an editor has confused "overwhelmingly" with "unanimously"; they are not the same thing! 86.132.139.49 03:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elloydda8 biased interference

Elloydda8 - you are certainly a friend or relative of Baron Adonis, aren't you?

However, please only delete information which is clearly untrue, not sourced or generally accepted as unfair. But to put a bright and clear light on one person is not the aim of any wikipedia biography!

And never delete 80% of an article especially if you are totally new to wikipedia. This article has 100 or more writers and lots of sources and reviewers - so if you dislike it start a dispute, please.

Elloydda8 = Wilber999 is after some constructive comments again deleting whole passage which she dislikes.

[edit] a valid quotation is missing: =

Elloydda8 and Wilber999 wrote: "Shirley Williams, a critic of Labour's public service reforms, described him as 'a brilliant, articulate and extremely helpful Minister' after his piloting of the 2006 Education Bill through Parliament (Hansard, 30 Oct 2006)" - Wikipedia needs here a proper quotation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:UK_Parliament

[edit] My reverts

I'm not really bothered about the citations, change them if you want. However the version you reverted to is a non-neutral hatchet job which offends against our core policy on biographies, and has been the subject of a complaint. If you want to change the method of references, I will not stop you, but do not revert to that version again.--Docg 08:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Every newspaper citation needs to be replaced with the <ref> style so you can include proper bibliographic details. If the servers get reconfigured or something and the link goes dead no one will ever be able to find where it went. If you have <ref>"Title of Article", ''Times (London)'' date, page number [optional link]</ref> then the citation is good forever, even if the Times goes out of business and the site is down forever (as unlikely as that might be). This is also preferred policy, by the way, but is really important even if it wasn't policy. Links go dead every day but microfilm in a real library is practically eternal. Thatcher131 14:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
It is fair to quote reputable sources that Adonis is seen as not pure Labour, gives rise to some contradictions towards elitism, is accused of being heavily involved in some severe undemocratic operations, is asked to dismiss from his post and is himself realising that he will not survive the change of leader - all facts you deleted. Bonding 19:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted to Doc's last revision, both to restore proper <ref> citations (and could someone please expand these into complete citations; mere URLs are not sufficient) and to deal with the fact that Wikipedia is not a scandal sheet. See also Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people. Kelly Martin (talk) 14:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


Embedded links are according to WP:MOS a proper citation method:
Quotation WP:MOS:
" Embedded links - External links can be embedded in the body of an article to provide specific references. These links have no description other than an automatically generated number. For example:
  : Sample text [http://www.example.org]
When wikified, the link will appear as:
   Sample text [1].
An embedded external link should be accompanied by a full citation in the article’s references "
According to Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people and to Wikipedia is not ... well sourced scandals - if there were any - are of course not excluded from Wikipedia articles and a fortiori important sourced information on the political background and attitudes of a political person.
There is no such thing as "Wikipedia is not a scandal sheet" because it would be arbitrarily to decide what is a scandal and what not.
Bonding 19:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Yup, but we recognise non-neutrality when we see it.--Docg 23:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Things left to do

I cut out a lot of the article and referenced as much as I could, but there are a few improvements that could still be made. I'm not really interested in researching this further, but the "Political background" section is lacking. Secondly, if someone could take a look at "Selected publications" that would be great. I had trimmed it since it was bigger than the article, but I don't know if some of the books and articles I took out were more "important" than others. The last thing is finding some good external links. Oh, and finding citations where I couldn't find any.--§hanel 06:02, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Shanel is right that "Political Background" needs further content. But we should not delete the clearly biased public opinion only in order to get a "neutral" but empty article. Instead the important aspects of any politician as his political background, his political attitude, his commitment and private involvement in his political fields as well as major accusations (and scandals) should be added and balanced, if any information on this can be found. So please, instead of deleting well sourced and pars pro toto statements study the media articles for a more balanced view and use them.
Bonding 10:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edited by Adonis himself

I was just surfing Wikipedia news and found this article in PC Pro, which quotes the Department for Children, Schools and Families in saying that "Lord Adonis corrected a page about himself on Wikipedia which was factually incorrect." I don't know if these edits have been identified or found to be POV. Joshdboz (talk) 17:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)