Talk:Ben Meiklejohn

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[edit] Format

I rewrote this article, after initially encountering what appeared to be a resume for Miekeljohn. Feedback and changes are welcome.

Jules1236, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the article back to a previous one after viewing Jules1236's edits which 1) deleted relevant factual information about Ben Meiklejohn's political involvement and 2) inserted characterizations designed to reflect Ben Meiklejohn as a controversial politician, the sum of which these two editoral adjustments inaccurately portray a record of lifetime acheivements that unproportionately gives added weight and significance to incidents that are of relative minor importance in the context of his life and what he is known for. Also, the articles referenced as factual basis for Meiklejohn "defending" the controversial actions of his colleagues do not actually suggest any formal or public defense of such actions. The edits seem designed to associate Ben Meiklejohn and his work on the Portland School Committee as a legacy of defending controversial choices of other members. I like some of the formatting change and would encourage another attempt without deleting relevant factual information, or inserting select articles and statements that appear to come from a clear personal bias against Ben Meiklejohn as a politician.

This unsigned comment was added by user:130.111.18.135


Please date and sign your comments. Also, consider getting an account.

Here on wikipedia, we only revert in cases of vandalism. Please see the assume good faith guidelines. Please go through the article and make the changes you wish on a piece by piece manner, not by reverting the entire article.

While I am sympathetic to many of your points, I see we have different ideas of relevant factual information. This in itself is perfectly okay. However, in the spirit of wikipedia, I urge you to work with me here to find common ground.

In hopes of finding some common ground, here are some of my issues with the previous version of the page.

1) Not wikipedia format. Remember, this is an encyclopedia. Let's take this seriously and fix some silly mistakes like the faulty links.

2) Lets organize it. It currently has information all over the place in no discernable order. I think I did a pretty good job organizing it.

3) Electoral History. I added in after every mention of his political campaigns whether he won or lost. It previously only mentioned when he won, and there was no mention of a loss. I also eliminated mention of his write-in campaigns, since there is no way to verify that he actually campaigned in these elections.

4 Relevent info. This will be harder to agree on. Remember, this is an encyclopedia article, not something by and for Miekeljohn's friends. Excessive info about him and the oboe just isn't relevent enough to merit mention on wikipedia.

In general, I see it as unfair that while I spent a long time editing this article and adding citations to back up my recearch, it was reverted in a second to a messily typed disorganized page that I feel violates the NPOV guidelines.

While I may have been guilty of removing some useful information, you certainly seem to be more guilty of this. Lets have a civilized discussion, hopefully without mediation, and find a way to improve this article.

Thank you, and I look forward to working together.

Jules1236 04:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I also adressed some of your bias concerns. While the school committee section may not be what you'd like it to be, I hope you will make the changes you want, but in a constructive and nonconfrontational manner.

Jules1236 05:00, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


1:10 pm, 4 january 2007

The encyclopedia format is better. I changed the section titled Political Involvement because its content was duplicative of both the School Committee and Electoral History sections, and significant participation by Meiklejohn in the Green Independent Party had been completely eliminated. When it comes to relevancy, we should have more discussion on this because the encyclopedia article should likewise not be something used for and by opponents of Ben Meiklejohn's politics, in an attempt to characterize him as controversial and unpopular. Also, it is a matter of opinion as to what judgment should be made on content that merits inclusion in the article. While Jules considers Meiklejohn's oboe interest as not relevant, others could deem it appropriate, especially considering he has played oboe with a famed member of the Grateful Dead. Further edits at a later point.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Meiklejohn (talk • contribs) 18:16, 4 January 2007(UTC)


Thank you, Meiklejohn. While I agree that Mr. Meiklejohn's participation in the Maine Green Independent Party should be mentioned, I'm not sure about all the detail you put in. I trimmed down the info a little bit. I also added some info to the School commitee section.

To give you an idea about the unprecedented level of detail this article goes into, I encourage you to read the articles of other local politicians, most of whom are better known and more influential than Mr. Miekeljohn is.

This article even rivals John Baldacci's article. A little excessive? Jules1236 23:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


The previous comments about bias in the School Committee section deserve notice. The School Committee votes on thousands of motions. Proposals he has sponsored and authored, which received significant media attention, should be included as substantive work. Policies which he incidentally supported don't rise to the level of inclusion in the encyclopedia article. The Columbus Day proposal was made by Jason Toothaker with no involvement by Meiklejohn other than a vote. The boy scouts issue was put forward by the Policy Committee when Stephen Spring chaired it and Meiklejohn was not a member, and his participation was as a voting School Committee member. The inclusion of these "supports" for issues which he did not pioneer do seem designed to portray his service in a certain opinionated light. Also, Jules1236 continues to insist that Meiklejohn "defends" actions of his colleagues received negatively by the public, however neither of the references supports that Meiklejohn defended either. In the footnote for Spring's incident, Meiklejohn is not even noted, and in the footnote for Toothaker's incident, Meiklejohn is quoted making positive statements about Toothaker's service but not defending his actions. These references however, do indicate that the partisan perceptions of the Portland School Committee, including of Meiklejohn as a Green and member, are real, and that dynamic warrants inclusion in the article.

The quantity of an article in relation to other entries need not be an issue-- only that the article be factual and non-biased in nature. John —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.111.18.150 (talk • contribs) 00:25, 5 January 2007

This article seems reasonable as is. Meiklejohn 03:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC) I conformed the election result and descriptors choosing elected/not elected over won/lost considering he was elected to the school committee in 2001 and 2004 but did not entirely win, coming in second to Kim Matthews in 2001 and Ellen Alcorn in 2004.Meiklejohn 04:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I still feel there should be some mention of the controversies of the past two or three years invlolving Meikeljohn and the Greens. It is possible (and sometimes neccesary) to discuss a controversy without being biased, and I don't think we should be afraid to do so. The fact is, the school committee almost never made the news before Meikeljohn came along and now (indigious peopes' day, boy scouts, military recruiters, the revolt over weighted grades, stephen spring, jason toothaker, etc.) they can't stay out of the news. Meikeljohn clearly is a "team captain" of the Greens, and these actions deserve some mention. 74.69.225.35 07:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Longest serving Green

Removed incorrect information. Antonio Blasi was elected to the Hancock planning board in 2000 and continues to serve, making him the longest serving elected Green in Maine.

[edit] Arrest

Cleaned up information about the arrest. Also, it seemed irrelevant under "School Committee" as the arrest was not school committee related and was a minor offense. In fact, it had nothing to do with the School Committee, except that he being a member is the only reason at all that the incident even received any attention whatsoever. I don't agree that it is even significant enough to be included, but Jules disagrees. At any rate, "Miscellaneous" seems the more appropriate heading for this incident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.111.18.131 (talk • contribs)

Thank you, 130.111.18.131. On a side note, please sign your comments, as it allows users to track your contributions to the encyclopedia, and possibly comment on your talk page.

I agree that information about the arrest is not directly related to the School Committee, and belongs somewhere else. However, I changed the name of the section (which only contains information about the arrest) from "miscellaneous" to "arrest" to more accurately describe the section's contents.

I also revised the description of the arrest to make it clear that Mr. Meiklejohn recanted his initial story of having to wait too long at the jail after being confronted by information from the jail showing otherwise. Your edit merely rehashes Mr. Meiklejohn's initial story.

Finally I put back information saying that the Finance Committee is one of two subcommittees on the School Committee, the other being Policy, led by Robert O'Brien. I'm not sure why this was removed. Jules1236 02:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Jules1236 clearly has a bias against Ben Meiklejohn, continuing to use language designed to portray him negatively. Personally I don't even see the information he has added to be relevant to the article. That it "drew significant media attention" is a matter of opinion. The arrest was covered in local news for three days. Over the years, Meiklejohn has received far greater coverage for his activities on the School Committee, including work on a joint finance committee consolidation task force, 3x3 elementary facilities task force, and finance, policy and legislative committees. Jules1236 however, does not seem invested to put entire sections of content related to positive work Ben Meiklejohn has done that have received significantly more media attention. Jules' bias is clear.

Meiklejohn stated he would not file the complaint, but did not "recant" the story as Jules suggests. Also, while the Portland Press Herald reported average times in waiting at jail, it did not produce evidence against Meiklejohn's complaint, clarified further in an interview with WGAN, that the bail commissioner avoided accepting bail money from his girlfriend who tried to pay it to bail commissioner Will Gorham for several hours, the same duration in which dozens of others arrived to pay bail and were given immediate service.

Jules' relies on the Portland Press Herald as the only media source on the incident, and chooses to eliminate the radio interview that clarifies that Meiklejohn's complaints were not about waiting in jail, but that his girlfriend was left to wait to pay while others were not.

Jules also incorrectly lists the Finance Committee as one of two subcommittees of the School Committee, when there is also a Legislative Committee with equal standing. Jules is clearly a Robert O'Brien fan, and continues to believe it necessary to insert his name into the article with information of little relevance to Ben Meiklejohn's overall contributions to government. The subcommittees of the Portland School Committee and memberships could are more appropriately listed under Portland Schools: Maine, not under Ben Meiklejohn

Additionally, Jules continues to use language negatively to state that Meiklejohn "resisted calls for his resignation" as if to suggest that there was a large community swell of opinion for him to resign, yet he has publicly stated that he did not receive any calls or e-mails from the public requesting him to resign, and therefore did not "resist" anything. Just one in a whole series of ways that Jules intends to manipulate language and facts into a negative portrayal. The newspaper article simply states that Meiklejohn told the reporter he had no intention of resigning, and does not confirm or address any swell of public opinion suggesting that citizens were "calling" for him to resign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.111.18.166 (talk • contribs)



130.111.18.166, In the interest of preventing this conflict from turning into an edit war, I have found a list of the wikipedia policies you appear to have violated. Please read them over before you continue to edit this page.

First of all

Also

  • everything you say has to be veritable. It doesn't matter what source you use to verify your edit, as long as it is generally well respected. For example, it doesn't matter if all my sources were the Press Herald, as long as the stories I quoted are still accepted as true (e.g. the paper hasn't corrected them.) If you feel you can add more cited research, then by all means do, but don't remove my information.
  • be polite. Don't psychoanalyze someone you have a disagreement with (e.g. decide that they are a "Robert O'Brien fan.") Its annoying and makes you look immature.

Instead of constantly deleting my information, I hope you decide to add on your information in a way beneficial to the encyclopedia. Thank you. Jules1236 01:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Jules1236: your contributions to this site are intended solely to make Ben Meiklejohn look bad. The role you play here violates Wikipedia's expectation for a neutral point of view, and appropriate and contextual use of news sources. These three points, articulated under What Wikipedia is not demonstrate how selectively using media sources to portray a particular bias out of the larger context, is not appropriate use of Wikipedia. It is not, simply as Jules suggests a matter of compiling whatever information you want into a Wikipedia article. It is more about the Wikipedia entry being balanced and neutrally portrayed, however much or little is contained within.


1. Opinions on current affairs is a particular case of the previous item. Although current affairs may stir passions and tempt people to "climb soapboxes" (i.e. passionately advocate their pet point of view), Wikipedia is not the medium for this. Articles must be balanced so as to put entries for current affairs in a reasonable perspective. Furthermore, Wikipedia authors should strive to write articles that will not quickly become obsolete.

2. Journalism. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories.

3. News reports. Wikipedia properly considers the long-term historical notability of persons and events, keeping in mind the harm our work might cause. The fact that someone or something has been in the news for a brief period of time does not automatically justify an encyclopedia article. While Wikipedia strives to be comprehensive, the policies on biographies of living persons and neutral point of view should lead us to appropriately contextualize events. The briefer the appearance of a subject in the news the less likely it is to create an acceptably comprehensive encyclopedic biography. Even when news events themselves merit an encyclopedia article of their own, additional biographies of person(s) involved may not be necessary as they could largely duplicate relevant information. Timely news articles, however, are welcome on our sister project Wikinews.

Earlier, Jules deleted much detail from this article saying that such detail is unprecedented. When it comes to Meiklejohn's arrest however, Jules takes quite an interest in providing as much detail as possible. I don't think his arrest for a driving infraction has much relevance to Meiklejohn's overall biography, and Jules won't answer the points made above--especially that not all news items merit inclusion in a Wikipedia article. The arrest isn't any more noteworthy than Meiklejohn's work as Finance Committee Chair during one of the most difficult budget years.

I support deleting the "Arrest" section altogether, but in the spirit of compromise--Jules editorializes in assuming that Meiklejohn recanted his complaint because of the Newspaper, when he actually recanted the complaint before the newspaper article and explained on a radio interview that he recanted the complaint because he wanted to move on. His argument was never about waiting too long in the jail, but that his girlfriend was made to wait three hours in the lobby before being able to pay--an uncommon practice at the jail according to Meiklejohn. To be fair, I too out the editorial presumptions to make the sentence factual only, with the references intact.

Also, Jules editorializes his interpretation of two people as "many". This version is more accurate and factual, without room for argument over interpretation over what constitutes "many." Certainly, Jules would be a third to criticize Meiklejohn for driving without a license by mistake, but even still, does three people constitutue "many"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prtlndgrnlntrn (talk • contribs)

You are correct that I had once argued that the page should be shortened or outright deleted, and now I insist on covering a piece of media coverage that Mr. Mieklejohn apparently doesn't find flattering.

For the record, I still think the entire page (arrest information and all) should be deleted. As I stated earlier, no other school committee member has or deserves a wikipedia entry. Since his college years, Mr. Mieklejohn has won a grand total of two elections, both on a local school committee. Until he recieves some formal recognition for his oboe playing, that doesn't merit him an article either.

However, I realize the challenge in getting minor articles like this deleted, and I defer to my fellow editors who seem to feel that Mr. Mieklejohn's school committee service is noteworthy.

I also believe that the pro-Mieklejohn-article supporters can't have it both ways. Either Mieklejohn is a notable figure and his entire media coverage should be included, or he is not and none of it should be.

Wikipedia is not a fan site. In this encyclopedia, we cover all sides of our subjects.

Thank you, and I hope to continue working with you on this page. Jules1236 02:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Changed the article back to previous language. The Greens in Maine are referred to as "Green Independent Party" not "Green Party," so the reference of "Cumberland County Green Party" was not accurate. "Cumberland County party" is sufficient because the heading title is "Green Independent Party," so the party in question is self-evident and doesn't need to be repeated. Relevant information about Cumberland County was returned to the article. Prtlndgrnlntrn 02:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


I re-formatted the arrest section into the School Committee as a summary of the event absent the dramatic minutia that accompanied the entry. Meiklejohn's arrest for a driving infraction would not be newsworthy were he not an elected school committee member, and this kind of event is not the type that rises to the level defining a person's identity or life accomplishments. It is worth noting however, in the context of his service on the school committee, but much of the details and drama included in this entry seems less relevant to Meiklejohn's life as a whole and more designed to portray Meiklejohn in a certain political light, and unnecessary.

The detail could be included, but then also, there should be lengthy detailed entries and sections on the work he did as Finance Committee Chair, or Policy Committee Chair during his tenure on the school committee. This kind of elaboration of detail, of both the positive and negative attributes of his service, seems a bit overboard for somebody who has simply served a couple terms on a school board. The summary I have provided at the end of school committee adequately recognizes his arrest as an event during his service, but without shining it in the spotlight out of proportion to other aspects of his service which also don't need to be documented in elaborate detail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prtlndgrnlntrn (talk • contribs) 16:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


This entry continues to be manipulated by those who are avidly not supporters of Ben Meiklejohn, to include as much minutia and detail as can be possibly found to characterize Meiklejohn as controversial, unpopular and in a negative light. Meiklejohn was recently creamed in a race for re-election to the school committee. The insistence that Jules and Higherground have demonstrated in this entry, in including as much detail as humanly possible about things such as an arrest for a driving infraction, or the fact that a high-powered Democratic operative spent $3,000 campaigning against Meiklejohn, are unnecessary and irrelevant to the overall accomplishments for which Meiklejohn is known for, and the reasons for his entry here.

To include this level of detail in absence of equally specific information about his positive work in leading the school finances towards recovery through declaring a hiring freeze, proposing new financial management policies, and helping to develop a plan for educatioal sustainability; is clearly an attempt to use this entry as much as possible as an Anti-Meiklejohn advertisement.

I don't think any of this kind of detail, of either these positive or negative attributes of ben Meiklejohn are necessary or appropriate. We are talking about a School board member in Maine, not a presidential candidate. Let old dogs sleep. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prtlndgrnlntrn (talk • contribs) 20:27, 8 November 2007 (UTC)