Talk:Bowling for Columbine/Archive 3

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Bushnell 2 Outside comments 3 Organization 4 Coming over per WP:RFC 5 Notable criticisms without a good source 6 Not exactly coherent 7 Mediation Cabal case 8 Taking this into single topics: the "Family Guy" article 9 Taking this into single topics: Kopel 10 Recap: Wikipedia Policies 11 Compromise Vote 11.1 Voting 11.1.1 Support 11.1.2 Oppose 11.1.3 Mixed 11.2 Compromise discussion 12 Concern over original research 13 "Controversy"? 14 Original research 15 Ignoring the Role of Municipal Governance 16 Taliban funding 17 Gun ownership

Bushnell

(This section was copied here from /Archive 2 because it is likely to be relevant to upcoming discussions. DJ Clayworth 16:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC))

Bushnell's website is not a credible source. I've removed as many references to it as I can find. DJ Clayworth 13:52, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I checked Bushnell's site web traffic. It doesn't even show up in the rankings. I've seen vanity sites with more traffic than this. DJ Clayworth 16:58, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

In case anyone is unclear about why Bushnell's site is not reliable:

1. It's basicly just some guy's website. He gets to write whatever he wants and nobody checks it. He is not affiliated with any organisation that would form any kind of review;
2. His web traffic is very low. See above;
3. What is written there reads like a rant. He only attacks Moore, never concedes a point or provides balance;
4. Some of the things he writes are demonstrably false, even according to his own premises.

This is not what we mean by a reliable source. DJ Clayworth 17:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There was previously an article on Bushnell on the Wiki: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Bushnell, but it was deleted as non-notable. Banno 21:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I remember once looking at Bushnell's website for Al Franken, where it basically said, "Al Franken claims the following about Bill O Reilly, and cites a Washington Post article. The problem is that the Washington Post article never actually says any of those things! Here's a link, see for yourself!" Then you click on the Washington Post article, and sure enough, every single claim that Al Franken made was clearly supported by the article. Bushnell knows that most of his readers are too much of sheep to actually check, so he doesn't even bother. In fact, when I showed some neocons this as an example's of Bushnell's credbility, they STILL went on to insist that Bushnell was legit, even when I had direct excerpts from the text showing otherwise. -Schrodinger82 20:27, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Outside comments

First, I'd like to suggest a formal request for comments on this article to get more opinions. Then I recommend removing footnote 14: Bushnell just doesn't meet Wikipedia's standard of a reliable source. I'm uncertain about Kopel and Hardy. Regarding my own potential biases: I'm a Navy war veteran who laughed out loud many times at this film (and watched it in my ship's gun mount). Durova 06:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Hardy can be mentioned briefly solely on the fact that an anti-Moore book exists, and the fact that the book exists can be independently verified. However, the claims themselves leaves much to be desired, such as the one where he's a criminal lawyer who apparently can't even disinguish between murder and homicide (The alternative is that he does understand the distinction, but is being dishonest for the sake of calling Moore a liar.). But most of the comments are completely superfluous to the material, or are based on claims that Moore never actually makes. -Schrodinger82 09:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Organization

I don't think criticisms should be mixed in with the summary of the movie. The reader is then prevented from getting a simple summary of what the movie says. Most articles keep keep summaries of the viewpoints of an organisation separate from summaries of peolle who disagree with it. We should do the same. DJ Clayworth 20:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, one thing we saw is that some things were being repeated (e.g., the Lockheed-Martin case.). The bank example also caused Moore to revise the movie in future edits, so I think it's relevant to the summary. Perhaps we could just revise the order. "He later added scenes where blah blah blah. This may have been in response to a WSJ article, which stated..." -Schrodinger82 22:03, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

OK. My concern is that someone will use this as an execuse to put 'criticism' into every section of the summary, thus braking up the flow completely. DJ Clayworth 22:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Simple solution is to keep it brief, and make sure that current standards for RS still apply. -Schrodinger82 23:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Now see what happened! People are filling the 'summary' section with criticism, despite the fact that there is a criticism section! It's as though some editors can't bear to see a paragraph without a criticism of Michael Moore in it. I'm going to separate out the two again. DJ Clayworth 14:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

That's better! DJ Clayworth 15:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Coming over per WP:RFC

I saw the RfC and thought I'd drop by ... holy cow, what a mess of edits this thing has had the last day or so! There's been so many reverts I think I should ask what the state of the argument is at this moment. Is this still only about one or two footnotes? --Aaron 22:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure an RFC is what was needed. Rather, it is simply the case that the items in the criticism section are remarkably feeble. Basically folk have dropped in a comment from their favorite pundit, or a paragraph from their local rag. What is needed is for someone to do some proper research into the criticisms - there must be some - of the film, and to write it up, Banno 22:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

This page is now up for mediation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-10-05_Bowling_for_Columbine

Aaron, to answer your question, basically the dispute is between people who think that the criticism section should be trimmed down according to RS standards, and people who don't think it should be trimmed down at all. Criticism can be included, but it should meet the current standards for including them. -Schrodinger82 23:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Since this has been escalated to the Mediation Cabal, I'll just make a few points as an uninvolved third party in the hope that they're of some help, and then leave it to the Cabal. (I'm going to pull the RfC after I post this, since having two separate dispute resolution procedures going at the same time isn't considered a very good idea. (Disclaimer: I've never seen Bowling for Columbine, and have no concern as to how this dispute is finally resolved other than that a readable, WP:V-adhering article is left standing when this is all over with.)

1) I think the Mediation Cabal request needs to be redone. It's written in a form that presumes the mediator has seen the movie and is already intimately familiar with every aspect of this dispute/revert war. In short, it's confusing to anyone coming in to this from outside.

2) Sadly, WP:RS is only a guideline, not a policy. (Believe me, I wish it was policy.) And it's probably the single most-ignored guideline on Wikipedia. So if enough people find a given citation to be okay with them, it's probably going to stay on the article no matter how flagrantly it violates WP:RS. Thus, I would suggest that those who have problems with any given citation argue against the verifiability of what the citation says, not where it's from.

3) Blanking of entire sections of articles out of nowhere is rarely a good idea, unless a very detailed explanation is given on the talk page (and in a case like this, I'm talking about a line-by-line listing of evidence why you think each sentence/paragraph needed to be removed). Regardless of how right or wrong one you may be, you're just going to piss people off and probably cause a revert war.

4) Regarding the Bushnell quote, I agree with Schrodinger82 that it does not adequately address the statement "No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl," at least not as presented in this article. As written here, they are only suggestions, hypotheses. Are the examples listed by Bushnell the reasons the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl? Perhaps they are; I would even argue they probably are. But "probably" isn't good enough here. Only a cold hard fact is going to be able to be an adequate response to that original line. (Now, perhaps the original Bushnell column does provide some cold hard facts, and this paragraph is just poorly written. But if so, it's up to someone else to rewrite it. As it stands, it doesn't deserve to be in the article.

5) I consider Schrodinger82's argument regarding movie critics and their judgment of editing to be spurious and, well, kind of odd to be honest. The editing of a movie isn't like a football game where the referee (or movie critic, as it were) looks at every action throughout the game, judges it to be either within or against "the rules", and that's the end of it. Even if there were some official set of "rules" for movie editing (which there isn't), that wouldn't change the fact that a lot of people consider the results of those edits to be far more important than their technical quality; if Moore's edits had the effect of making it look as if a given person said, did, or felt something that they didn't actually say, feel or do, it is absolutely legitimate criticism to point that out, regardless of the source of the criticism. (The source would, of course, still have to have some evidence, but if they do, it doesn't matter if they've never spliced a single inch of film in their lives.) It is also illogical to argue that just because a bunch of movie critics praised the film, that automatically means they believe all the edits were honest. The reality could just as easily be that they were so thrilled by the film's message that they couldn't care less about the (allegedly) moral shortcuts taken to get to the final product.

6) Given (5), The Kopel criticism (specifically, the "selective documentary" one) is legitimate. I have no idea whether he's even stepped foot inside a movie studio, but he is a longtime critic of Moore's who has put a lot of work into his criticisms, and he's a known author who writes for highly notable publications. Put a bit more simply: Bowling for Columbine is as much a piece of political work as it is an artistic one; Kopel has extensive credentials regarding politics; thus Kopel is qualified under WP:RS to question the contents of the movie. Now, if Kopel were to start complaining about how Moore handled his lighting design in the movie, I'd agree that his opinion isn't worth a dime and should be thrown out. But if he sticks to critiquing the political message of the movie and/or its factual allegations, he's quite qualified to do so.

7) I have no opinion on some of the other direct accusations made against specific allegations in the movie, such as what Kopel said about the bank incident, since I'd need to have seen the movie to be able to judge statements that narrow. I will say, though, that all the criticisms of this type need to be very clearly stated, with no WP:WEASEL violations. If anyone's going to say "Moore says X in the movie, but the truth is Y," your cite needs to show direct evidence that Y is true instead of X; "Others disagree" or "So-and-so finds this unlikely" isn't going to cut it. Given that there are entire websites out there devoted to debunking Moore's movies, appropriate citations shouldn't be hard to find.

8) Regardless of anything else, the criticisms of the movie and Moore's editing belong in the "Criticism" section, not within the summary itself in a "he said, she said" fashion. Nothing should be in the "Summary" section of the movie except for a straightforward detailing of what takes place in the movie. (I don't recall if this has actually taken place here; I'm just noting it for the record.)

I hope this is of some help. --Aaron 01:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for input.

2) Although stuff that doesn't fit RS standards sometimes gets through, how often does this apply to articles that need mediation? This isn't a matter of, "In the World of Warcraft of South Park, you write that Kenny's character dies, but where's your source on this?" It's a pointed accusation against actual people. Further, verifability is a policy, and the guidelines for verifiability state that "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader must be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, because Wikipedia does not publish original thought or original research." So basically we're back where we started. Further, even if the RS standards only are guidelines, Ken and PPGMD need to go further than simply stating, "Those guidelines have been ignored in the past." They should be able to say why we should continue ignoring them in this particular case.

3) The stuff I removed personally was already given detailed explainations.

5) Basically, what you're saying is that it's unfair to hold these statements to encyclopedic standards, because it isn't encyclopedic to begin with. If there are no "rules" in the case of movie editing, then how can you say he's doing anything wrong? You can't have it both ways. Your comment that "a lot of people consider the results of those edits to be far more important than their technical quality" falls under the standards of "weasal words." Which people? How many? What are their credentials? The NPOV policy has clear guidelines on formulating opinions: "The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognised authority." NPOV is policy, not a guideline, and it requires that the sources named be recognized authorities on the subject. In this case, we are only questioning the editing. Are any of the sources listed recognized authorities on editing?

6) "Bowling for Columbine is as much a piece of political work as it is an artistic one; Kopel has extensive credentials regarding politics." Even if we acepted that Kopel has extensive credentials regarding politics, that does not crossover to his ability to criticize Moore on artistic merits. Oedipus Rex dealt with political issues as well. Would that give Dave Kopel the authority to insist that it wasn't really a Greek Tragedy?

-Schrodinger82 01:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

We never said it was ignored, we said that criticism of an editorial political work, often do not find themselves under the exact working of WP:RS, Kopel and Harding are long time Moore critics with websites that are well referenced and both have published books. Harding in particular has an extensive website, that is well sourced to original sources, he in particular compared and contrasts the transcripts of the movie with original transcripts of the speeches showing how the speeches were changed. Also compare the criticism section now with what it was. The Anti-gun section simply says there is criticism, by who? of what? It completely lost it's bite with the exact examples cited by others. Both Kopel and Harding are considered to be the authority when it comes to criticizing Moore's movies, they basically are to Moore's movies to what factcheck.org is to political ads. PPGMD 14:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Kopell and Hardy are longtime Moore critics is meaningless, unless there's some sort of grandfather clause for NPOV that I am unaware of. Just because you have references doens't make your information reliable or relevant as shown in the Kayla Rolland example, and if your sources are relevant and reliable, then they should be cited directly. And just because you have a book published doesn't make each and every claim you make true, nor does it make you an expert in that particular field. Should we start including criticisms form Ann Coulter on the Islam page as true, since she's a published author as well? What about including criticisms from Bill O Reilly on the San Francisco page? Again, Hardy may compare transcripts, but that is not notable itself, unless either a) you would like to insist that every case of editing down is inherently misleading, or b) you have someone knowledgable in the field who says that this case was particularily misleading. AFAIK, Hardy's main complaint is that Moore didn't include the speech in full. Big whoop. Moore has to cut things down to keep his movie short. That's not newsworthy. You remind me of that of the episode of the Simpsons, where Homer proclaims "I accuse the telephone company of making that film on purpose!" and everyone gasps in shock and horror.

If you want to remove the anti-gun criticism because you can't find a notable source, that's fine with me, although I don't think it would be that hard. Heston, for example, would probably qualify. But complaints of how "It completely lost it's bite" have no sway over me. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to have "bite." They are not supposed to be used to express partisan agendas. Wikipedia articles are supposed to present verifiable information from reliable sources in a neutral point of view. Don't complain to me if the information that you would like to see on this site conflicts with those goals. If you want this article to have "bite," then please, stick to the facts. Or are you afraid that the facts alone won't paint the picture that you are trying to achieve?

And no, Hardy and Kopel are not to Moore what factcheck.org is to political ads. Not even close. Factcheck.org is non-partisan and part of an academic institution, in this case, "Annenberg Public Policy Center of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania." The organization because notable enough to the point where it was brought up in Presidential debates, thus proving that it's a known authority. In short, they fulfil the standards of RS and NPOV. OTOH, Hardy and Kopel are partisan sources of no academic authority who are only notable among the unidentifiable and unquantifiable population who dislike Moore to begin with. You might as well justify citing National Enquirer articles, because "The National Enquirer is to Celebrity gossip what the New York Times is to Current Events!" No, no it really isn't. -Schrodinger82 20:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

And what is Moore? He's a film maker with no clear educations in history, nor any of the other subjects he has filmed. He is simply a Liberal with a camera shooting a movie that he claims is a documentary. We aren't talking about Islam as established faith, we are talking about a pop culture movie that is unlikely to be studied by anyone of note because it itself is not a academic movie. Thus critics are less likely to be academic themselves.

Since both sides lack academic credentials the only way to test to see Hardy and such are notable are others means. hardylaw.net for example passed the google test with 903 non-wikipedia sites that link to it, and his book which went through at least two printings of the mass market paperback in addition to hardcover, along with 753 amazon reviews (the movie itself got 1122 on Amazon). For a site, and book that is simply a critic of a political critic, that is pretty notable.PPGMD 20:42, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Moore's awards and accolades within the film making industry speak for themselves, as well as the fact that he's an established professional in the field. He's also had several shows on TV, thus proving that he is a notable figure. And yes, there are people who study pop culture. Film professors, for instance. Go cite one of them.-Schrodinger82 21:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

In the film making industry, he isn't a noted historian (for the NRA/KKK cartoon, or It's a Wonderful World segment), nor a sociologist (for the Weapons of mass destruction interview) among other subjects he "studies" for his documentary. Hardy for example rarely strays in the opinion areas. Everything on his main page has more to do with editing and factual errors. If a editor on Wikipedia cites the source directly though we would get accused of Original Research. Hardy in particular is noted and respected. PPGMD 21:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

"In the film making industry, he isn't a noted historian" would be a valid point if people were citing Moore as an expert of film history. They aren't. They're only providing a summary of the notable facts of what a notable film includes, by sticking to the facts. It's not Moore's "opinion" that his movie has a "Wonderful World" sequence. It's a fact. Your claim "Hardy for example rarely strays in the opinion areas" is incredibly biased and unsubstantiated. Your justification for including it was, in your own words, "I readded the NRA rally content, they are all well sourced, and are blatent examples of the attempt to mislead viewers in the movie." Sorry, but claiming that something is a "blatent examples of the attempt to mislead viewers" is a completely subjective and a statement of opinion, and a very pointed accusation, which you have yet to substantiate according to NPOV standards. Your claim that "Everything on his main page has more to do with editing and factual errors" again proves my point about how Hardy is speaking outside his area of authority. You admit that his criticisms are over the editing, which Hardy is not an authority on. The fact that lots of people bought his book is irrelevant on this matter, unless you can substantiate the idea that they bought his book because of his l33t film editing tips, and not because they happened to agree with Hardy's politics. Your claim of "factual errors" is equally meaningless, because you didn't list any, except for the murder/homicide example, which is only a "factual error" if you use the incorrect definition of "homicide." You claim that Hardy in particular is noted and respected. By whom? Please name all the non-partisan institutions that have given him credence in this area. -Schrodinger82 22:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Frankly this isn't going to go anywhere, I'm going to wait for a 3rd party mediator, until such time I am going to tag it unbalanced until these issues are worked out. You are going to stick to your beliefs, and your opinion of how WP:RS should be applied to this article, and I am going to stick to mine. Until a 3rd party mediator gets invovled we are simply wasting each others bit, and Wikipedia's storage space and bandwidth. PPGMD 22:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Look, just because the page doesn't post your unsubstantiated claims that Moore is a liar doesn't make it unbalanced. The "unbalanced" tag links to the NPOV section. Here's what the NPOV section says on this matter:

NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well.

In other words, the entire idea of the "unbalanced tag" is meant for the exact opposite of the purpose that you happen to be using it for. The NPOV article then goes on to list such policies as "Good Research," "Fairness of tone," "Characterizing opinions of people's work," "Let the facts speak for themselves," and "Attributing and substantiating biased statements." Your defense not only is unsupported by these policies, but they are also completely contradicted.

As for your complaints that I shouldn't remove these tags once they've been put up -- you shouldn't have bothered putting up these tags without adequate justification. Look at the actual guidelines for the "unbalanced" tag, and tell me where the article fails. Here is another Wiki article on the use of the unbalanced tag, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric_controversy#Unbalanced_citations :

I believe that one of the major sources of POV in wikipedia articles is what I call asymmetric controversy.

An asymmetric controversy is a controversy between two sides, one of which is particularly interested in the issue and fanatical in defending its POV, while the other doesn't care about the issue a whole lot. Articles on such issues will inevitably be biased in favor of the fanatical side, because they put most effort into writing about it.

Seems like a fair assessment of what you see from the Moore-bashers. An extremely fanatical side that's out to destroy him, and a not-so-fanatical side that just wants to enjoy his movies. Let's see what else this page says:

A related problem is unbalanced citations - creating a well-sourced article that only cites sources from one side of the controversy, under the excuse that "it's not my responsibility to write for the enemy". This is technically not against NPOV, though we believe it should be.

Sounds like exactly what you're trying to do, by only citing articles that are out to bash Moore. Note how there are very few people who are going out of their way to find articles that actively praise Moore, even though such articles would be readily available given the extremely high proportion of positive reviews. Your justification for including this tag is completely baseless and unjustified. You haven't cited any examples of genuine "unbalance" at all, your only argument is that you don't think the criticism fits to your arbitrary standards of how long it should be. -Schrodinger82 23:52, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

While you could find many articles that give general praise of Moore, you can't find many articles that mention the points referred to by critics and praise them for their accuracy, attempt to directly rebut the criticism, or otherwise say that Moore is correct *about the relevant subjects*. A criticism of Moore for a specific inaccuracy can't be balanced by a quote from an article saying "Moore is good", or even by one saying "Moore's movie contains no inaccuracies".

So it really isn't a case of unbalanced citations at all. Moore critics criticize many points about which he is inaccurate; Moore supporters do not, however, often claim these points to be accurate. The citations seem "unbalanced" because the criticism and support is unbalanced, not because the article is not accurately reflecting it.

(I'm also not convinced that articles that praise Moore are as common as you think. They are certainly common among film critics, but that doesn't make them common among political commentators.) Ken Arromdee 15:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The Unbalanace is that there is viewpoint that sees the movie as being edited in such a way that borders away from truthfulness. The articles don't "bash" Moore, they mostly compare and contrast what his movie shows, and what was actually said. Have you even read the page. The tag should stay until a mediator comes in and gives us a neutral third opinion. You have made you political beliefs quite clear so I don't think that you are in any position to decide what's NPOV in this article or not. PPGMD 00:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Ahem: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Claiming that these sites don't bash Moore is ludicrus considering the obvious slant. I notice how you don't actually justify the use of the unbalance tag, all you can say is "lets wait until the mediator." Sorry, but no justification means no tag, period. As for my political beliefs, where have I made them clear? Where have I ever defended Moore on the basis that I agree with his opinions? Answer: Never. Your claim that "there is viewpoint that sees the movie as being edited in such a way that borders away from truthfulness" is a statement of opinion, a serious and damaging opinion, with no one of authority to back it. NPOV already has clear policies on including minority views and opinions, which you have yet to meet. -Schrodinger82 00:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I have already made clear my reasons for the tag, this articles lacks the views points of his critics in particular. Once more and you are in violations of the 3RR rule. You can verify that Harding holds these opinions, you can verify that his opinions hold truth to them. Quoting this only makes my position stronger. About the only thing you can argue is that he isn't a film editor thus he isn't qualified to discuss film edits, that would be true in non-political movies. PPGMD 00:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It's amazing how you seem to be aware of the 3rr rule, but you seem to assume that it doesn't apply to you, having broken it repeatedly. CYour complaint that "this articles lacks the views points of his critics in particular" is complete bunk, since criticisms are being included, just not as many as you would like. You claim that "you can verify that his opinions hold truth to them." Again, just because you happen to believe something, doesn't make it true. Your claim that "that would be true in non-political movies" is completely unsubstantiated and worthless, since you present no reason why this would magically give Hardy the authority to be an expert on film editing. -Schrodinger82 01:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Attempting to misuse the 3RR to silence me, got news for you I'm not in violation currently, nor are you ATM, we are both on the edge. Expert in film editing, frankly we are going to have to agree to disagree, I don't believe that is a requirment for a political movies, so until a third party gets invovled we are simply wasting each others time. PPGMD 01:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Your comments that I am "Attempting to misuse the 3RR to silence me" is extremely ironic after you yourself did just that. Just so you know, Wikipedia guidelines don't exempt you, and attempting to abuse tags as you have done constitutes simple vandalism. -Schrodinger82 01:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Jeez, you just go on and on. Anyways I already replied on the page, let the administrators make their decisions rather then argue about it until they do. We have both provided our evidence. PPGMD 01:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, because that's so much easier than simply explaining your reasoning. Once again, explain your reason for the unbalance tag per Wikipedia guidelines. You can't, because there aren't any. If people included excessive, non-factual, non-notable praise from liberal websites, you might have a point. But you don't. -Schrodinger82 18:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Non-notable by your standards, and borderline by Wikipedia standards which is why it's my opinion you need to cool your heels until a mediator gets invovled because it's pretty clear that we aren't going to be able to work out of differences by ourselves. Leaving it tagged until a mediator gets invovled is better then getting in an edit war over the content. PPGMD 22:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I'm also comming over for the RFC. I have edited this article before, mostly in the capacity of attributing and referencing claims, and rephrasing some sentences, not really adding new claims. The notability of criticism from Richard Bushnell's "BowlingForTruth" site is debatable (I'm not sure about it), but the notability of critisism from Hardy and Kopel is almost unquestionable. Being published political commentators who have commented on this film, they don't need to be hired by Entertainment Weekly to comment on the suitability of the film's genre description, or describe deceptive editing techniques. If they were critisising a wrong choice shutter or film stock then perhaps they would be out of their league. As a tangent that may or may not have been brought up in this discussion: Editing and writing text has some similarities to editing movies, especially documentary ones. I would suggest that editors review WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV and Nineteen Eighty-Four, and add back notable critisism, no matter whether they agree with it or not. --GunnarRene 22:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Gunnar, even if Hardy and Kopel were notable in the field of political commentator, which I do actually question on notability, the problem is that they're making comments on the movies editing, e.g., by proclaiming that a standard act of juxtaposion or cutting down is an intentional attempt to mislead. There might be valid examples of political commentary, but this isn't it. For instance, the "Wonderful World" criticism doesn't focus on Moore's editing, claiming that it's spliced in such a way to subconsciously lead audiences to such and such conclusion. The "Wonderful World" criticism focuses on the claim that Moore made, and then it verifies the validity of the statement. That's political commentary, backed up by notable political commentators such as the 9/11 Commission Report, and not by random bloggers on the internet. And you'll notice that not one person in this latest discussion has asked for it's removal. Why? Because it's a noticeable source, on a subject within their own field, talking about something that is directly stated in the movie. You claim that "Editing and writing text has some similarities to editing movies." Well, I guess. In the same sense that painting fences has similarities to doing Karate blocks. But that doesn't mean I would add criticisms from the world's best fence painter and cite him as a notable authority on Karate, much less a fifth-rate fence painter like Hardy and Kopel. Just out of curiousity, when have Kopel and Hardy ever worked as professional pubication editors? At what point did they become authorities on the subject? Or are you saying that anyone who works with text (e.g., anyone who types) now qualifies as a notable authority on text editing, and therefore an authority in movie editing as well? Sorry, but that's a huge stretch. Even if true, what exactly gives Hardy and Kopel the authority to speak on behalf of all text editors, and therefore all movie editors as well? Oh, that's right, absolutely nothing.

BTW, I did review WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV. In fact, I cited several passages from these very articles while presenting my case. When do you plan to do the same? Or are you just going to cite those articles, with no concern on what they actually say? Your 1984 comment is a complete red herring. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with the criticisms, the fact is, they don't meet the established standards. If you think otherwise, then why don't you present other examples controversial mainstream movies where the criticism section had the same level of citation, where we include non-notable, non-expert minority opinions from people speaking from outside of their field? -Schrodinger82 12:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I've allready done it. And I suggest you do the same. We shouldn't be including non-notable opinions, so I won't be showing you examples of where we have them. Those should be removed, of course. You are also begging the question.

"Or are you saying that anyone who works with text (e.g., anyone who types) now qualifies as a notable authority on text editing, and therefore an authority in movie editing as well?" Michael Moore isn't an editor or movie executive either. I would say that anyone who writes nonfiction for peer-reviewed publications or professional publishing houses have a standing to criticize the non-fictionality of films, and the potential deceptiveness of their editing techniques, yes. But I'm not even sure this matter would take an expert of anything, as any otherwise notable person can make a judgement as to whether reality turned out to be different than what they were told. Again, we aren't discussing the optimal setting in the Avid editing station or managing a studio schedule.

For example, the editing and splicing of Heston's speeches works even better in text than on film.

By the way, since I have a MSc. in Computer Science, and can program in PHP (the language that Mediawiki is written in) shouldn't I be considered to be the authority on Wikipedia matters in this discussion?--GunnarRene 15:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Gunnar, I tried looking for examples where you cited actual passages from the Wiki guidelines. Couldn't find them. Don't tell me you've already done something unless you've already done it. how in the world am I begging the question? Do plan on substantiating any of your points whatsoever, or do you plan to rely entirely on soundbites and talking points? Your claim that "Michael Moore isn't an editor" is outright ridiculous. If Michael Moore wasn't the editor for this award winning movie, then why are so many people criticizing him on his editing? Sheesh.

So now you're saying that " I would say that anyone who writes nonfiction for peer-reviewed publications or professional publishing houses have a standing to criticize the non-fictionality of films." Great. So like if a writes a peer reviewewed paper on Migraine medication in "Neuroscience New Delhi," that would be enough to criticize Moore's editing techniques? Please. Just out of curiousity, when exactly have Hardy and kopel been peer reviewed? Was it on the subjects that the're talking about in the movie? Of course, that doesn't matter anyway, because "the non-fictionality of films" and "the potential deceptiveness of their editing techniques" are two completely separate subjects. For instance, I can non-fictionally verify, for instance, that the night that Mel Gibson didn't dress in Bravehart attire and scream at the top of the hill while surrounded by his calvary the night he had his DUI incident. That doesn't give me the authority to argue that the Today Show was being "potentially deceptive" by editing the Bravehart clip into their story. FYI, there are non-partisan academic institutions out there that specialize in checking the potential deceptiveness of claims. Hardy and Kopel don't qualify. The experts on this subject are out there. Your only excuse for not citing them is the fact that they don't support your claims. Your Heston example is meaningless, because you have done nothing to show that what Moore did was out of the ordinary by the standards of documentary film making. And if they aren't out of the ordinary, then why are we making a note of it? The fact that you happen to think that it's important is irrelevant. That's nothing more than your opinion, and Wikipedia already has guidelines on including opinion.

I can't tell whether or not your last comment is being sarcastic. If it is, then I can't tell who you'd be mocking, other than yourself. -Schrodinger82 19:29, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

"I can't tell whether or not your last comment is being sarcastic. If it is, then I can't tell who you'd be mocking, other than yourself. " Picture the following scenario: You write a book about your editing here on Wikipedia, and it's so brilliant that it gets picked up by the Oprah Book club and even wins a pulizer. But none of the critisism of Wikipedia in your book would go into Wikipedia because you aren't a PHP programmer. Would that be reasonable?

When you wrote "I did review WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV. In fact, I cited several passages from these very articles while presenting my case. When do you plan to do the same?" I thought "same" pointed back to reviewing policy, not to citing it. I'm sorry I parsed that incorrectly. I thought you were accusing me of not having read and reviewed the policies and guidlines. You could not find examples since I haven't come across people that needed me to quote policy for them in a while.

Moore isn't a "professional publication editor", though he used to be one. Since I found out that he used to be an editor at Mother Jones, I guess I should withdraw the statement, since he didn't magically lose that expertise when he quit — but since misleading though barely factual statements is a topic here, I guess I'll let it stand as a barely factual statement. Moore isn't a professional publication editor. Editing your own movies, articles or letters does not apply here, and is a red herring. There's a vast difference between editing an article or movie that appears with your byline, and that of a professional publication editor who edits other people's works. You are here using "editor" in the same sense that in that we are "editors" of our own emails and letters. In an earlier post of yours you marked this distinction between professional publication editors and those that edit their own work, but now you're saying "If Michael Moore wasn't the editor for this award winning movie, then why are so many people criticizing him on his editing" Sheesh indeed.

"So like if a writes a peer reviewewed paper on Migraine medication in "Neuroscience New Delhi," that would be enough to criticize Moore's editing techniques?" If the Moore criticism gets published by a professional publication, sure. If only the opinions of Americans should be included, that would not reflect a worldwide view. And you aren't implying that Indian medical journals are substandard? I could introduce you to a former professional publication editor that would disagree with you if you are.

"Just out of curiousity, when exactly have Hardy and kopel been peer reviewed?" I could take the dishonest route and call the debates they have engaged in "a form of peer review", but instead I'll just point out that I wrote "nonfiction for peer-reviewed publications or professional publishing houses". And they have been published by the latter (I haven't looked for any peer-review publications from them). --GunnarRene 22:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so Dave Kopel won a pulitzer and was listed on Opera's book club? That changes everything. What was it for? Or did you make up a completely irrelevant hypothetical scenario for the sake of proving a completely unsubstantiated point? And for the record, I never claimed that Moore was a "professional publication editor." I claimed that Moore was a professional movie editor. Which he is. As for your claim that " If the Moore criticism gets published by a professional publication, sure," I would like you to cite anywhere in Wikipedia policy that agrees. -Schrodinger82 00:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

"a standard act of juxtaposion or cutting down is an intentional attempt to mislead. There might be valid examples of political commentary, but this isn't it." If you need experts to confirm intent, you don't need documentary film makers, you need telepaths. Or lawyers. Whoops, isn't Hardy a lawyer? You are also begging the question here. Whether the editing is "standard" or not has not been determined. If viewers are mislead, it doesn't help that the technique is standard. And have you cited anybody who calls the technique standard?

"what exactly gives Hardy and Kopel the authority to speak on behalf of all text editors, and therefore all movie editors as well?" They don't need to speak for all of them. Actually there aren't even any organizations that speak for all of them. There's no requirement for a unanimous vote from all peers before including a notable opinion.--GunnarRene 22:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

So far, Hardy's evidence that viewers were mislead comes from such "damning, impossible to counter" sources as a socialist webpage on geocities and a user comment on blogcritics.com. That's hardly substantial evidence for such a lofty claim, and the fact that Hardy relies on such evidence to support his points shows extremely dubious reliability. And sources of dubious reliability should not be use, especially for comments that are defametory in nature. Since Ken supports the inclusions of these comments on the basis that they are "damning, and impossible to counter," it's pretty hard to argue that these comments aren't defametory, or that they aren't presented as fact. -Schrodinger82 00:01, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

On a side note, I do believe the rifles gotten from the Michigan bank, would be sent to an FFL dealer, considering gun laws in the United States. Under BATFE (or ATF) regulation, you cannot receive firearms in the mail (note: BATFE doesn't consider black powder muzzle-loading rifles firearms) - they must be sent to an FFL dealer, so unless the bank had an FFL license, it could not, technically, give the firearms out. Furthermore, Brady laws require that once the firearm is at the FFL dealer, you must wait 3-5 days (not counting shipping time) to pick the firearm up. You then must fill out paperwork, namely documentation so the firearm can be tracked. -Amerikaner 16:50, November 7, 2006 (USET)

Notable criticisms without a good source

I'm trying to find a way to expand the criticisms section without having to go to dubious sources. Unfortunately that seems to be a really hard thing to do. The only sources I can find online for some of these are from personal websites with really no credibility. However since I've heard of these criticisms I'm assuming it's notable. What we need is people to come up with good source for these things. Books or other movies would be good ones. Please help. DJ Clayworth 13:48, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Start with re-adding the notable sources first. Then make a to-do list in this talk space or in your user space with those claims that are hard to source, and help keep those claims out of the article untill a source is found.--GunnarRene 14:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The question is what is considered notable? Schrodinger for example considers none of them notable unless they are in the film industry. We need to come to a consensus on what is notable, I for example consider both Kopel and Hardy notable, but I honestly don't consider Bushnell notable (note that I removed him from my edits). I also disagree with the placement, I think that criticism of specific scenes should be in that section or at the very least we should have the scene fully described with a link to the section describing it so we don't have criticisms that are pages long because they have to describe the scene again. PPGMD 15:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

One would think that for matters of fact the normal news sources would be considered authoritative, and the film industry would be irrelevant. And, well, for the filmic aspect, wouldn't movie critics be cited? One can start at IMDB and find reviews at the NYT [1] and Slate [2] which are pretty negative about the way the movie puts together certain conclusions. I don't think documentary makers are the only authorities here on the filmic aspect. Mangoe 16:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want an example, you can check out the "Criticism of Family Guy" article on Wikipedia. On there, you have criticisms from people like Matt Groening, Kevin Smith, John Kricfalusi (The creator of Ren & Stimpy), Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan), Mad Magazine, and Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Even though Family Guy is pop culture incarnate, the criticism is still limitted to experts and notable figures within the industry. What you don't see is are random bloggers on the internet, or people proclaiming, "Well, Family Guy is a comedy show, and this guy is an aspiring comedian. So he should be able to comment on the show's animation techniques, even though he doesn't actually know anything about animation." Again, you don't need peer review, but standards for reliable sources still apply. Movie reviews are closer to getting there, but the problem is, 96% of movie reviews for this movie were positive. NPOV standards state that you let 4% of the reviewers be presented as the bulk of the reception. Right now, we don't really have any positive reviews for this movie on here, so what's the hurry to include the negative one?

Now, if you can find notable sources like that for a show like Family Guy, then why can't you find equally or notable sources for a documentary like BFC? Are you guys telling me that Family Guy is more controversial within its own field than BFC? The fact of the matter is, Bushnell, Kopel, and Hardy do not represent mainstream viewpoints, certainly not to the extent where they would warrant 90% of the article for an incredibly successful film. The problem is, you guys want to report a non-notable, non-authorative minority viewpoint as being the notable, authoritive, majority viewpoint. Which would be fine, if there was anything to substantiate it. Unfortuantely, there just isn't. You could dominant the article with bad reviewers if that's what most reviewers genuinely thought, but that's not what happened, and nothing you say or do is going to change that. Don't act like it's my fault that PPGMD and Ken can't find reputable sources that support their claims. -Schrodinger82 04:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

That article is terrible! There is a very long section on the way the various shows parody each other, where of course Groening at al. are relevant and cited-- as interested parties, not as expert commentators. But the body of the controversy section itself (which is pretty short) is limited to factual information about how the program has been consistently scheduled into late-night "adult" slots. The first graf is full of "some say" claims that aren't really backed up. And in any case there's little comparison between the two, as criticism of a comedy for being stupid and tasteless is hardly an analogy for criticism of a documentary for playing fast and loose with the facts and drawing specious conclusions.

A much better example would be 9/11 conspiracy theories and its companion article, researchers questioning the official account of 9/11. But again, the parallel breaks down on a some points. The 9/11 conspiracy theories article does an effective job of showing how the various claims of official misrepresentation and fraud are unfounded. In this case, there is clearly a mainstream and a non-mainstream. It's hardly clear that for BFC there is such a simple division. In the reviews I cited above, one sees a desire to be on Moore's side, and yet a criticism of the coherence of his presentation. I also came across (through a Salon article, if I remember correctly) someone criticizing BFC for largely ignoring the importance of black-on-black homicide in the murder statistics.

Also, we're stumbling into a problem I came across a while ago on a different topic. There is apparently a scene where Moore stands in front of a B-52 memorial and says "The plaque underneath it proudly proclaims that this plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve 1972." Well, a variety of sites that I can trace, including Kopel's NRO article, relate the actual inscription of the memorial, which of course says nothing of the kind. Now, I can take their word for the actual text of the inscription, or not. I personally am inclined to take it, but it sounds as though some here would not. That beings us to a problem: how does one verify the inscription, without doing original research (that is, reading the memorial itself)?

Bushnell's site doesn't seem to me to be very good, but Kopel's notability is beyond dispute. He is cited as an opponent to Moore in a story from WAVE TV in Louisville, Kentucky from February 11, 2005 [3]. His publication at the National Review site is sufficient anyway [4]. I personally would view him as a sufficiently good source for the B-52 inscription. Mangoe 12:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

You might argue that that the FG article doesn't have "expert commentators," but they're a heck of a lot closer on the subject than Hardy or Kopel. I'm sure that most people who know of FG have heard of "Ren & Stimpy." I seriously doubt that most people who have heard of "Bowling for Columbine" have heard of "WAVE TV." Again, I have no problem with the B-52 criticism, because that was a direct statement made by Moore, and could be verified using non-partisan sources. Wow, so Hardy was once mentioned on a local TV station? I don't see how that magically gives him the credence to question the films editing. Direct statements, sure, editing, no. (BTW, "direct statements" is only in theory, as established by Hardy's homicide/murder confusion.).

In WP:V, it states, "In the In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight." Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." I consider Hardy to be very dubious on his fact checking, given that he's a lawyer who doesn't understand the difference between murder and homicide, and given the fact that he attempted to call Moore a liar because he couldn't find an exact match of a number that Moore cited in 2002 in a collection of statistics that only went up to 1995. Sorry, but that is not good fact checking, by any count. Further, Hardy has no real editorial oversight. Kopel might be better and he might not, but I do know that most of his complaints on F-9/11 are on claims that Moore never actually made.

The other problem is that not only are the sources here highly dubious, but they also fail under "relatively unimportant." If you removed all non-expert subject opinion from the entries, then all you're really left with is, "Moore edits his films for effect." That might technically be true, but I fail to see why it's particularily noteworthy. In this case, it's your burden of proof to show that it is, without having to rely on subjective, non-expert opinion. Since the information is not important, and since the sources here are dubious and/or self-published, it therefore does not fit Wikipedia policy. -Schrodinger82 21:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

We have sources, it's you using WP:RS in a way that myself and others feel is improper to remove them, any addition to anything from Kopel or Hardy results in an edit war with you. I asked Cakeprophet (a mediator) to take a look at the NRA Meeting edits, and citations he felt that they were notable and proper for the article. He said that opinion based criticism is ok as long as it's presented in a NPOV manner without giving undue weight on one viewpoint. Mangoe feels that both Hardy and Kopel are notable. And then we have an editor from the Fact and Reference check project where I posed the question of what determines notability for political opinion. Here is exactly what he responded with:

There is no hard and fast rule, except that an article should strive not to give any one view undue weight.

Books from major presses are generally citable, but there are limits (e.g. on most political topics, it would probably not be appropriate to cite Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh, who are clearly gadflies rather than scholars). Organizations focused on an issue are usually citable as examples of their side's arguments: again, on most controversial issues, balance is important. Major journals of opinion are certainly citable (in the U.S., for example, National Review, Commentary, New Republic, The Nation, to give a right-to-left spectrum).

I personally wouldn't say that showing up on TV counts for much, but others might disagree. - Jmabel | Talk 00:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Kopel's been published by National Review on articles about Moore, and Hardy has a book about Moore out by HarperCollins. Those two make a bulk of the Pro-gun criticism. Bowling for Columbine is a political work, this it's natural that most of the criticism would come from other political sources. PPGMD 15:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... "as it's presented in a NPOV manner." Well, therein lies the problem. NPOV guidelines state "The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognised authority)." Hardy and Kopel are making comments on the film's editing. They might be "notable" in one field or another (Which I doubt), but they are not known authorities on film editing. The undue weight section states that "Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all." We have absolutely nothing to suggest that Hardy's views on Moore's editing reflect the majority opinion.

Here's my response to your question to Jmabel: First off, I'm going to say that your question is greatly misleading. You ask for the requirements to cite "a political opinion," with no mention of the actual context in your original post (e.g., commenting on a documentary filmmaking techniques.). Moore stating that he likes universal healthcare, and Bushnell saying that he disagrees is an example of political opinion (although Bushnell is not an authority on the subject, and such criticism is better left to the universal health care article.). Stating that Moore blatantly attempts to mislead viewers or that he's been caught in an outright lie due is not a political opinion. That's a direct attack on the filmmaker's character, using subjective opinions on his filmmaking techique to support you. Secondly, your comment that "I believe is incorrectly using WP:RS to remove critics stating their opinions of a work because he disagrees with them" is an attack on me. I am not removing critics because they disagree with me, I am removing critics because they don't meet established standards. If you had examples where I defended equally non-notable defenders, then you could accuse me of bias. You haven't done this.

Would you explain to us how Hardy and Kopel don't qualify as "gadflies," as Jmabel put it, seeing as how Michael Moore himself would quualify under this standard? And if Hardy and Kopel are notable for being pro-gun authors, then you should try placing their views on the gun control page. After all, if the sole reason that Hardy and Kopel are relevant is due to their politics, then why not leave them to the political discussion, and keep them out of discussions on filmmaking? Jmabel also mentions the issue of balance. One of the big problems is, there is absolutely no balance in these criticisms, specifically because most major publications don't find this issue notable to begin with (Again, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric_controversy), thus making balance impossible. You're not going to find many people who are going to dedicate entire websites and publish entire books dedicated to debunking Hardy's claims. However, that does not mean that we should give David Hardy undue weight. The problem is, these incidents were never really "news" to begin with, thus preventing balance from ever occuring. -Schrodinger82 21:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

You seem to like to cite that page alot, it's not a policy, it has little chance of being a policy, or a guideline. Bowling for Columbine is a political movie, it's not a documentary in the scene that he literally just followed because around, he had his own script, and he went for particular shots and responses. Thus it's only natural that the critics of the movie be political in nature themselves. Hardy and Kopel and more then notable enough to be considered Pro-Gun critics of the movie.

Also I was not being misleading on asking him what is consider notable for political opinion because there is no official policy or guideline, WP:RS was written primarily as a guideline for citing factual information. It really was never meant for political articles such as this one. PPGMD 05:11, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

1) Really? Not a policy, you say? From WP:NPOV: This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

2) Even if it was only a guideline, so what? You've presented no reason why the standard guidelines should be ignored in this case, other than the fact that you personally don't like them. Which, unfortunately, is not enough.

3) You keep pointing out that it's a political movie. So what? Please tell us where Wikipedia guidelines gives exemptions for political movies.

4) You claim that it's not a documentary. Unfortunately, the documentary film community tends to disagree. I would take their word on the subject over yours. Are you honestly telling me that Michael Moore is the first documentary filmmaker to have what he wanted in mind before starting out? Are you telling me that this was the first documentary of all time to have a political slant? Please. You know absolutely nothing about documentary filmmaking, and you're just making up arbitrary standards to suit your agenda. Watching non-film people insist that BFC wasn't a documentary because it has an opinion is like watching ID advocates insist that evolution isn't real science, because it's "only a theory."

5) Please explain to me how "Moore uses misleading editing" is a political opinion, and not an artistic one. Oh wait, it's not. Moore makes no direct political statement here. The entire criticism is based on what one particularily non-notable critic personally infers.

6) "WP:RS was written primarily as a guideline for citing factual information. It really was never meant for political articles such as this one." Yes, because I'm absolutley sure that this is the first time in all of history that the subject of politics has ever come up on Wikipedia. Clearly, the people who run this site have never thought to address them before. Not even in the excerpt of RS where it refers to "Partisan, religious and extremist websites". Nope, no one on Wikipedia has ever thought to address the pissue of political opinions in the past, thus giving you free reign to make up the rules arbitrarily to push your own agendas as you go along. -Schrodinger82 10:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

First I was talking about the Asymmetric controversy, it was the only site you linked in your last post. That has neither of the 3 tags which would be put on pages that are endorsed by a large part of the Wikipedia community. Second I never said that it wasn't a documentary, I said that it's deviated from the norm when it comes to documentaries, most documentaries just go out and film what happens, they don't have scripts (at least for before filming). Most documentaries wouldn't have a cartoon that tries to frame that the NRA was formed by Klan members after the KKK was declared illegal. The movie itself is a political commentary, it's for the most part Moore's opinion of why Columbine happened. Moore is in position to draw those conclusions and he doesn't openly cite more "Reliable Source" as being the researcher of the opinion thus it's in the realm of political opinion from Moore. It's not the first to do that, and it won't be the last, but it doesn't make it exclusively a documentary. Misleading edits to make the views more easily draw into Moore's opinion that the NRA rushed to Denver so soon after the shooting.

That being said, WP:RS was written to cite facts, (ie the Earth is X kms wide, and here's where it's written), opinion falls under the policy of WP:V, WP:NPOV, and often WP:NOTE is applied though that guideline is written that way. The partisan and religious websites is meant to prevent for example cite abortion "facts" from a Pro-life website. Or for example citing what the Bush administration has done for the last 8 years from the DNC website. PPGMD 15:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Look, you were the one who placed the unbalance tag. As a result, I decided to see what the guidelines for the unbalance tag were. That led me to the page on asymetric controversy. To this day, you still have yet to cite a single legitimate reason why this article warrants an unbalance tag consistent with Wikipedia guidelines, the only thing you've done is a "wait and see."

You claim that the movie "deviated from the norm when it comes to documentaries." Oh really? And who are your expert documentary filmmakers to back you up on this one? It's amazing that the documentary filmmaking community would nominate BFC for an academy award considering that it deviates from the norm so much. The same goes for the International Documentary Association. Gee, you don't think that they might have watched more documentaries than you have, and have a different standard for what the norm is, do you? I think they have. Most documentaries don't have cartoons, but they would have "dramatic re-enactments." A lot of the times, these re-enactments would be heavy distortions of reality. Moore just takes the idea one step further. And yes, a lot of documentaries are political commentary. For instance, if you watch a documentary on the Holocausts, then chances are the filmmaker will have a stance of being against them, and edit his film in such a way to make them look as bad as possible. If you wanted, you could try to cite notable Holocaust deniers like David Irving who insist that they never happened. But you probably wouldn't cite Irving on the editing, for proclaiming, "This documentary guys included two different speeches of Adolph Hitler from two different events and edits them together, in an attempt to mislead audiences into thinking they took place at the same speech! That's an outright lie, and believe me, as a Holocaust denier, I would know a lie when I see one!" In fact, documentary filmmakers scrap together raw stock footage and edit it together all the time. This is standard practice. Usually, the audience is smart enough to subconsciously realize that these clips are from different scenes, but I guess that the same can't be said for people who read David Hardy.

You claim that "Moore is in position to draw those conclusions and he doesn't openly cite more "Reliable Source" as being the researcher of the opinion thus it's in the realm of political opinion from Moore." Now, explain something to me. Why in the world should Moore have to cite a "reliable source" for claims that he never actually made? For instance, you want to include the Kopel bank comment on how Moore makes it look like the bank bypasses standard legality. Moore never makes that claim, nor does he imply it, so why should he have to back it up? If Moore never expresses his opinion that the bank bypasses legality, then why should we include a non-notable opinion from someone saying that it doesn't, other than to make it look like Moore has made claims that he actually hasn't? The same goes for the NRA meeting. What specific statements are you referring to?

You claim that "That being said, WP:RS was written to cite facts, (ie the Earth is X kms wide, and here's where it's written), opinion falls under the policy of WP:V, WP:NPOV, and often WP:NOTE is applied though that guideline is written that way." The problem is, those cited policies don't agree with you. Again, I've cited specific passages showing so. And your excuses as to why the guidelines on partisan websites don't apply here is incredibly silly. They're meant to regulate political opinion on abortion and the DNC, so that somehow means that they aren't supposed to regulate any other type of political opinion? Utter nonsense, and you know it. The last time I checked, that page didn't make any such distinction. Once again, you're making up rules to suit your agenda. "Oh, this movie doesn't fall under documentary, because it has a political slant!" and "Oh, this political opinion doesn't fall under partisan website, because it doesn't bring up abortion!" Please. -Schrodinger82 19:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Just checked out the NYT review. On Rottentomatoes, Scott still gives this movie a fresh rating, so I think that focusing on the bad comments goes against undue weight. -Schrodinger82 23:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly coherent

Having wandered over here along a round-about path, and not having seen the movie, I have to say that this is pretty much impossible to follow. The mixture of plot outline and rejoinder is too choppy, and the writing is often poor.

It would make a lot more sense if the basic outline of the movie were presented first, followed by the criticism/discussion of particular points and some history of the film as a whole. Mangoe 14:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to do that. Feel free to help. DJ Clayworth 22:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, not having seen the movie I really don't think I can edit the article itself much. Mangoe 12:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the same goes for a lot of Moore's harshest critics. -Schrodinger82 20:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal case

A case has been filed with the Mediation Cabal regarding this article. If you are a neutral party and interested in mediating, please review Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal and Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Suggestions for mediators before starting mediation, then feel free to dive in! If you have any questions, please contact me on my talk page. Thanks! ~Kylu (u|t) 21:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Taking this into single topics: the "Family Guy" article

The comment nesting has gotten too smeared, so I'm going to pick this into separate threads.

Above, it was said that 'You might argue that that the FG article doesn't have "expert commentators," but they're a heck of a lot closer on the subject than Hardy or Kopel."

Well, I disagree on that, but in any case the reason why (and for that matter, how) Groening et al. are in that article is because their shows and FG are parodying each other. They are not cited there as experts on comedy, and for that matter I don't know that anyone without an axe to grind would even recognize the existence of such expertize, for humor is in the eye of the beholder.

In any case, it's a lousy article. Mangoe 12:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The point is, these guys all have established themselves as national celebrities speaking with their own TV shows, with the exception of Chris Ware, who is simply regarded as one of the top in his field and spoke in a magazine widely available on newstands. They aren't just random guys with self-published websites. The same cannot be said of Hardy or Kopel. It's amazing how you insist that the sources on that site aren't notable, and then you hold the standards for BFC far, far lower. You think that the FG article is lousy? Imagine how bad it would be if you included comments from every random blogger who hated that show, and then you would have a good idea of what people are trying to turn this page into. -Schrodinger82 19:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Taking this into single topics: Kopel

Again from above: "I seriously doubt that most people who have heard of "Bowling for Columbine" have heard of "WAVE TV.""

So what? Probably most of them have not heard of many things. The general ignorance of the populace isn't a justification for anything. A TV station is a major media news outlet, and the fact that they put him on the air indicates that they view him as notable. Their opinion outranks yours. National Review is, within the realm of political commentary (which BFC most certainly is) one of the major players; if they say that Kopel is notable (by publishing him), then ipso facto he is.

As it stands, you are not presenting yourself as a good authority on this. I haven't even mentioned Hardy (at this point I don't even know who he is), yet you say "Wow, so Hardy was once mentioned on a local TV station?". Well, nobody said that. Indeed, it appears you didn't go to the site and read the reference. Kopel, however, is clearly a party to what is a mainstream-published dispute, and therefore must appear as such, without regard to the accuracy of his statements. Mangoe 13:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Hardy has also been published by the main stream media, his book on Moore was published by a division of HarperCollins. PPGMD 15:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

To Mangoe: According to the guy that PPGMD cited from the Fact and Reference Check page, "I personally wouldn't say that showing up on TV counts for much, but others might disagree." How many people get on local TV every years? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Is every single one of those people now a notable authority on something? Their opinion might outrank mine, but you'll notice that I never put my opinion in the article. Further, their opinion does not outrank the folks at the Academy Awards, the International Documentary Association, the film critics community, etc. Sorry, but you can't let a single segment from a single TV station represent the majority opinion. That is not NPOV. As for Kopel, is National Review a notable film publication? Is Dave Kopel a notable film critic? No? Then what basis does he have for comments saying that BFC is not a documentary? Oh, that's right, none. How many professional journalists are there in the world right now? Tens of thousands, maybe? You can't assume that each and every thing that each and every one of them says on each and every field is now notable. That's why you stick with the experts, and the people at the top. If Michael Moore fell dead tommorow, you can bet he would get coverage in the national press. Could the same be said for Kopel and Hardy? Would anyone in the press really miss them as "experts" at all? What about WAVE TV? I seriously doubt it. Because no one would really care. FYI, the Daily Show is far more known and influential than WAVE-TV is. Do we start looking at all their segments where they interview "experts," and consider those people notable authorities as well? For instance, if they interview some random guy who insists that smokers are being discriminated against, do we now add that guys comments to the smoking section of Wikipedia? No. Being on TV does not magically make you an authority on any given subject. It might make you a notable figure in itself if there's a national controversy surrounding you (e.g., Jennifer Willbanks), but that doesn't make you a reliable source. If you disagree, don't just sya, "well, he was on WAVE-TV, and that makes him notable!" Cite the specific guidelines or policies that support you.

To PPGMD: HarperCollins publishes 1500 books per year. Do we really need to include every single claim made by every single author on every single subject, regardless of its notability? I don't think so. -Schrodinger82 19:12, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Being published by a major publishing house establishes notabillity, so does being on the New York Times Best Seller list for 6 weeks. Hardy is notable, and so is Kopel because he got published in a notable mainstream magizine a number of times, and at least once on this subject. Also notable experts rarely get coverage when they die, about 90% of the people cited on Wikipedia as reliable sources would unlikely get a mention when they die beyond journals that are specfic to their field. PPGMD 20:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

You point out that "about 90% of the people cited on Wikipedia as reliable sources would unlikely get a mention when they die beyond journals that are specfic to their field." Yet we cite them anyway. You know why? Because those people are regarded authorities. They have Ph.D's in the field, and who have written academic papers on the subject. The same is not true for Dave and David. Again, they might have been published, but that does not make them credible in this field. 96% of movie reviewers give this movie a good review. Most of them have been published as well. Have we included everything that they have to say? No, we haven't. I think a lot more people have heard of Roger Ebert than have heard of D&D, yet Roger's comments aren't found on here. What about produced filmmakers? The academy awards has each person nominated by their peers. Hence, Michael Moore was nominated by other documentary filmmakers. Do their opinions matter more than D&D in the field of film editing? I think they do. Again, it is not NPOV to include D&D as the majority opinion in the field, when they clearly aren't. Especially when their criticisms fall outside their field of authority.

D&D have been published. Great. In what field? Read by which academic circles? If it's anything other than film, than their comments on their BFC's artistic merits are worthless. The fact that Hardy wrote a book might be notable, though probably not on this page. The individual claims are not notable, unless they either come from a) a recognized authority in the field, or b) were widely published by the mainstream media. Let me put it this way: If the Bible made it to the best seller's list, does that mean that people could freely cite passages from the Bible on every page of Wikipedia that they deemed relevant, citing Job and Daniel as a notable source? Probably not, unless Job and Daniel were recognized authorities on the specific subject at hand. For instance, you would not go to the whale page of wikipedia and add, "While scientists insist that whales are mammals, the Bible insists that whales are fish." You would not add that, because even though the Bible is notable, it is not a recognized authority on the subject of marine biology. You also couldn't justify it because, "In addition to being a marine biology subject, whales are also a creation subject, and thus we should include notable authorities on the subject of creation." The way that you're trying to do with D&D. And you certainly can't do things like insist, "The theory that whales evolved from land animals compares separate fossil records and places them together, which misleads people that they came from the exact same animal and into believing that God does not exist. The bible happens otherwise. Here are a bunch of citations from the bible saying that he does." Which is pretty much what you're doing by insisting that Moore edits his films to mislead his audiences into believing X. Attacking him on positions that he never actually made. -Schrodinger82 20:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Recap: Wikipedia Policies

Just so we're clear here, can the Moore critics cite any specific passages from Wikipedia Guidelines/Policies that clearly support them? Or do such passages not exist? Because I keep asking for them, and I keep getting nothing. The only thing people say is, "Well, this guy was once published!" or "This guy was mentioned on the news!" with no mention of how simply being published automatically warrants being included as a notable critic. Just so we're clear here, I am only looking for Wikipedia policy/guidelines, and not your personal opinion. If you want to rewrite said poliicies/guidelines, take it up on the talk pages there, and come back when you have the matter resolved. -Schrodinger82 20:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

There are no specfic passages that prohibit it, only your view of the passages on require expertise, and notabillity. No where in the guidelines does it say that you have to be an expert and film editing to have an opinion on a political film. Nor does it say that a person has to be published in X number places to be notable. As a political commentator both Hardy and Kopel are experts on Moore films and Notable, you are one of the few that disagree. I don't see anyone else taking up the argument. PPGMD 21:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

So that's a no. You have absolutely no policies and guidelines saying that D&D belong here. Thank you for your clarification. BTW, the burden of proof is on you here, since you're the one who wants the information to be included. -Schrodinger82 21:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

No the burden for me is to make sure it's verifiable and that it's stated in a NPOV way, Hardy and Kopel holding the opinion is verifiable, and it can easily be stated in a NPOV way like those of other critics that you didn't remove. Also concensus can over ride the opinion of one editor. PPGMD 21:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Really? And where does it say in Wikipedia guidelines does it say that that's all you need? Oh wait, it doesn't! Stop making up rules to support you that don't actually exist.

WP:V:

1. "The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain. Editors should therefore provide references. If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." In this case, the specific claims are 0 for 3.

2. "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." Dubious? Check. Unimportant? Check.

3. "As a rule of thumb, sources of dubious reliability should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) However, even those articles should not – on the grounds of needing to give examples of the source's track record – repeat any potentially libellous claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by more credible sources."

4. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field." Hmm... check. "For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. Are D&D well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field? Nope. Are either of them well-known professional journalist? Well, they might be well known among Anti-Moore circles, but not to the mainstream community. If you made a list of the 100 most well known journalists in the country, would Hardy and Kopel fall anywhere on it? I seriously doubt it.

5. The fact that some information is verifiable doesn't mean that Wikipedia is the right place to publish it. Verifiability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for an article. See what Wikipedia is not. The fact that information is true doesn't mean that it meets our verifiability requirements — information has to be sourced from reliable sources if it is to have a place in Wikipedia (although, of course, if information is true, you should be able to find a ready reputable source for it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel:

1. "The goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedic information source adhering to a neutral point-of-view style of prose, with all information being referenced through the citation of reliable published sources, so as to maintain a standard of verifiability. For this reason, all contributors should recognize that it is their responsibility to ensure that material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory." BTW, this is official Wikipedia policy. Accusing the Michael Moore (a person) of intentionally misleading audiences to believe X is defamatory. The fact that that these claims are dubious are potentially libelous.

WP:NPOV:

1. "This page, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, is one of Wikipedia's three content policies. The other two are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these three policies are based are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to improve the application and explanation of the principles."

2. "Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band," we can say, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or "The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100," which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we "convert" that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. It is important to note this formulation is substantially different from the "some people believe..." formulation popular in political debates. The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognised authority)." Can you find an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population that believes that Moore's editing is misleading? Are D&D recognized authorities on film editing? No. Hence, they do not meet the standard.

3. "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well."

4. "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Again, every filmmaker edits. Why are we giving undue weight to these particular examples, in reference to claims that Moore never actually makes? THere's absolutely no reason for that.

5. "In other words, views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all."

6. Disagreements over whether something is approached the Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) way can usually be avoided through the practice of good research. Facts (as defined in the A simple formulation section above) are not Points Of View (POV, here used in the meaning of "opposite of NPOV") in and of themselves. A good way to build a neutral point of view is to find a reputable source for the piece of information you want to add to Wikipedia, and then cite that source. This is an easy way to characterize a side of a debate without excluding that the debate has other sides. The trick is to find the best and most reputable sources you can. Try the library for good books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little bit of ground work can save a lot of time in trying to justify a point later.

7. Remember that readers will probably not take kindly to moralising. If you do not allow the facts to speak for themselves you may alienate readers and turn them against your position. Remember how you kept trying to re-add the segment about how Kopel says that Moore makes it look like the bank is bypassing legal measures? If the Moore really makes it look like that, then why not let the facts speak for themselves? Why not present Moore's actual statements, and have the readers make up their own mind?

8. For instance, "John Doe is the best baseball player" is, by itself, merely an expression of opinion. One way to make it suitable for Wikipedia is to change it into a statement about someone whose opinion it is: "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre," as long as those statements are correct and can be verified. The goal here is to attribute the opinion to some subject-matter expert, rather than to merely state it as true. D&D are not subject matter experts in the field of film editings. You claim they're experts on Moore-bashing, but that's like saying the Joe Smith is an expert on John Doe being the worlds best baseball player, even though Joe is not an authority on baseball in general. That might be the most notable within their own subject matter, but then the subject-matter itself is non-notable.

WP:RS

1. What follows is a description of Wikipedia's best practices. Many articles may fall short of this standard until editors devote time and effort to fact-checking and reference-running. (See efforts to identify reliable sources.) In the meantime, readers can still benefit from your contributions, bearing in mind that unsourced edits, or edits relying on inappropriate sources, may be challenged and removed at any time. Sometimes it is better to have no information at all than to have information without sources[1].

2. It is always appropriate to ask other editors to produce their sources. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit in question, and any unsourced material may be removed by any editor. Hmm... looks pretty clear to me. The burden of proof is on you to prove that your sources meet the standards of Wikipedia. It's not on me to prove that they don't, although I will anyway.

3. Look out for false claims of authority. Web sites that have numerous footnotes may be entirely unreliable. The first question to ask yourself is, "What are the credentials and expertise of the people taking responsibility for a website?" Anyone can post anything on the web. Use sources who have postgraduate degrees or demonstrable published expertise in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with academic institutions. The most reputable have written textbooks in their field: these authors can be expected to have a broad, authoritative grasp of their subject. In general, higher education textbooks are frequently revised and try to be authoritative. Textbooks aimed at secondary-school students, however, do not try to be authoritative and are subject to political approval. Key phrase is "in the field they are discussing."

4. "Exceptional claims have a much higher burden of proof, and must be supported by exceptional evidence. Certain red flags should prompt editors to closely and skeptically examine the sources for a given claim." ... "Claims not supported or claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view in the relevant academic community. Be particularly careful when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them." You keep claiming that BFC is outside the norm for documentaries. Where is your academic basis for this? What institutions back you up?

5. Exceptional claims should be suported by multiple credible and verifiable sources. In circumstances where exceptional claims are made respecting historical events or politically-charged issues, exceptional claims should be supported with as many credible and verifiable sources as possible: sources which are mainstream and peer-reviewed. Well, there goes your "it's a political movie, so all I need is a political commentator" argument. In the case of political commentators, the standard is higher, not less. When have D&D's opinions on the movie been peer reviewed?

6. Editors have to evaluate sources and decide which are the most reliable and authoritative. For academic topics, every field has an established system of reviews and evaluations that can be found in scholarly journals associated with that field. In history, for example, the American Historical Review reviews around 1,000 books each year. The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature (1995) summarizes the evaluations of 27,000 books and articles in all fields of history. Editors should seek out and take advantage of these publications to help find authoritative sources. Disagreements between the authoritative sources should be indicated in the article.

7. "Issues to look out for" ... "Do they have an agenda, conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report? Remember that conflicts of interest are not always explicitly exposed and bias is not always self-evident. Sources like these may be used as primary sources only, i.e. as sources about themselves and their own activities or viewpoints. Even then, use them sparingly and with caution."

8. Have the sources reported other facts reliably, including on different subjects? Cross-check with what you already know. Already done in the murder/homicide example.

9. What is an independent secondary source? Independent secondary sources: Have separate editorial oversight and fact-checking processes; Have not collaborated; May have taken their own look at the available primary sources and used their own judgment in evaluating them." Do D&D have separate editorial oversight and fact-checking processes?

10. Evaluate the reliability of online sources just as you would print or other more traditional sources. Neither online nor print sources deserve an automatic assumption of reliability by virtue of the medium they are printed in. All reports must be evaluated according to the processes and people that created them. Again, just because you get published doesn't make you reliable.

11. Partisan, religious and extremist websites The websites and publications of political parties and religious groups should be treated with caution, although neither political affiliation nor religious belief is in itself a reason not to use a source. Widely acknowledged extremist or even terrorist organizations or individuals, whether of a political, religious, racist, or other character, should never be used as sources for Wikipedia, except as primary sources, that is to say they may be used in articles discussing the opinions of those organizations or individuals. Even then they should be used with great caution, and should be supported by other sources.

12. Unverified material that could be construed as critical, negative or harmful in articles about living persons should be removed immediately, and should not be moved to the talk page. The same applies to sections dealing with living persons in other articles. Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalists, we are an encyclopedia. Claiming that Moore intentionally misleads audiences to certain conclusions is harmful to a living person. The existence of such claims might be verifiable, but that is not enough to meet Wikipedia standards.

13. Articles related to popular culture and fiction must be backed up by reliable sources like all other articles. However, due to the subject matter, many may not be discussed in the same academic contexts as science, law, philosophy and so on. Personal websites, wikis, and posts on bulletin boards, Usenet and blogs should still not be used as secondary sources.

WP:NOR

1. For non-academic subjects, it is impossible to pin down a clear definition of "reputable." In general, most of us have a good intuition about the meaning of the word. A magazine or press release self-published by a very extreme political or religious group would often not be regarded as "reputable", as it has a biased agenda to advance. In contrast, The New York Times is generally accepted as a trustworthy source: Wikipedia could refer to the article (and to the sources quoted in the article). D&D are very partisan, and while they may be published, that does not qualify them as "reputable."

2. Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication. Is it openly partisan? Does it have a large or very small readership? Is it a vanity publisher? Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it "shoots from the hip"? If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable." We already have concrete examples that Hardy does an extremely poor job at fact checking, as shown in the mediation page, where he cites Australian homicide statistics in 1995 in order to dispute the numbers that Moore provided from a completely different organization in 2002. We also know that Hardy apparently hasn't corrected or updated his assertions since that time. Hence, he does not meet the standards for reputability, no matter how much you would like to believe that he does.

Those are my citations on this matter that show that D&D don't belong. Where are yours that say they do? Gunnar, I'm very interested to see what you have to say on the matter. -Schrodinger82 22:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Your numerous references to source verification are trivially disposed of, at least as far as Kopel is concerned. The NRO website can be taken as a reliable source for his statements, and I see no reason to doubt that his eponymous website is genuine.

As far as sources naming him as a party to the controversy, I've found the following:

• The WAVE segment cited earlier
• "Michael Moore's Oscar targeted" from worldnetdaily.com [5]

He is also notable as an opponent to Moore:

*speaker in WBUR On Point segment "The Influence of Michael Moore" [6]

So I don't see any problem with referring to anything he has written as germane.

I have come upon Hardy's "not a documentary" remark, but while I personally would question it as a exercise in film criticism it is part of the controversy and needs to be recorded. And it can surely be recorded as a statement rather than as an expert opinion cited by the article.

Your reference to Moore "critics" evinces a tendentious program. Right now you are pitting your expertise in notability against an array of clearly more authoritative sources. Mangoe 02:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait, you're actually citing WorldNetDaily as an "authoritative source"? Wow. You haven't even watched the film, but you do read WorldnetDaily, and apparently that's all you need to know. Again, all of those things are small potatoes, and giving them a disproportionately large amount of attention would violate point #3 of NPOV. Furthermore, focusing on nitpicking details, which focus on claims that Moore never actually made, violates point #4 of NPOV. You claim that "Hardy's "not a documentary" remark," is "part of the controversy and needs to be recorded". Just out of curiosuity, what controversy are you referring to? Between who and who? Is it a controversy within the documentary filmmaking community? Or does it only come from people from outside the documentary filmmaking community? If it's a controversy from outside the documentary filmmaking community, then who cares? Again, undue weight. You can't treat people who don't know anything about documentary filmmaking on equal or greater ground than people who do. That is not NPOV.

The answer, as anyone can Google, is that lots and lots of people find Michael Moore controversial as a political and social commentator who uses the medium of documentary films. Other people who are also such commentators are clearly peers who may be cited as passing judgement on this aspect of Moore's work. It is crankish to pretend that he isn't making such commentary. Therefore I hold that anyone within the politico-social commentary arena has standing to be quoted in presonding to him, if they have made such comments. Mangoe 04:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

And no, I am not"pitting my expertise in notability against an array of clearly more authoritative sources." I might be pitting my expertise in notability against yours, someone who has yet to even see the movie, and who refuses to cite specific passages from wikipedia that support him, but that is not the same thing. Against the sources that you provided, I am pitting the vast majority of professional film critics, the Academy Awards, and the International Documentary Association. Once again, undue weight. The International Documentary Association and WorldNetDaily are not on equal ground here. -Schrodinger82 03:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It is simply common sense that in political commentary, the actors are other commentators. Your citations of wiki rules have thus far seemed utterly irrelevant to me. I know absolutely nothing about the International Documentary Association, but it is at best simply another actor in the controversy over Moore's depictions. Indeed, as to content I would tend to assume it an inferior authority, since I doubt that it is fact-checking its member's works.

On the only fact I've attempted to verify independently (the B-52 memorial inscription) it seems quite clear that Moore's words are accurately rendered, and that Kopel's statement of what it actually says is also accurate. The conclusion may be left to the reader, but personally I would call Moore's words a misrepresentation intended to give the viewer a false impression of what the B-52 was specifically remembered for. I do not think that my personal conclusion needs to appear in the article, but I do think that both Moore's words and Kopel's testimony need to appear. Mangoe 04:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Have you even read the policy that you are quoting, shutting them out like you are is in direct violation of the policy. The viewpoint that the movie uses tricky editing to draw users to conclusion by twisting the truth is held my a significant minority, Hardy and Kopel are two of the biggest proponents of this viewpoint. To contrast that viewpoint you can always quote the award it gets, oh wait those are already in the article, which is why the unbalanced tag is there because you give Undue Weight on people who think favorably about the film with little mention of the largest group of critics, the pro-gun group. PPGMD 03:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

If it's in direct violation, then you should be able to cite the specific passage. Please do so. And yes, the awards are already mention. Look at how much space they've gotten. Why in the world should we give an equal or greater amount of space to a minority opinion from non-experts about an insignificant segment of the film? Blatant violation of NPOV. The fact that the movie won an academy award at a live show seen by millions is reduced to half a sentence, but the fact that the NRA event was scheduled 11 days after Columbine, when Moore never even suggests anything to the contrary, apparently warrants an entire paragraph. Yeah, sure sounds balanced to me. Let's just give the academy awards half a sentence, and David Hardy ten paraphraphs to insist he disagrees. He's at least that influential, right? -Schrodinger82 03:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I already cited the passage, the article gives Undue Weight without mention to his critics. If you feel it's too long then we can trim it down.

Pro-gun critics such as David T Hardy and Dave Kopel believe that the movie "makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer." In a recent book Hardy says "speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which were not sentences he uttered." As an example of this Hardy compares BFC with the transcripts of the speeches given highlighting the differences.

I feel that paragraph with a link to the exact page would help even it out tremendously. It's stated in a NPOV matter and would be in the section that is already there. It is verifiable both on his website, and in his book, which I picked up this weekend for this debate. It does not give Undue weight because it would be within an article about the movie. Thus it follows all the guidelines. PPGMD 04:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Stating "makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer" is a defamatory opinion. In this case, the sources are highly dubious. See point #3 of WP:V. Saying that it's undue weight not to include defamation is stretching it. However, is is an undue weight violation to give one specific example of editing such high attention, when there are no notable authorities to back Hardy up on this. See my comment below from the article cited by Mangoe. -Schrodinger82 04:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I checked out Mangoe's tendentious article. Here's another one: Wikipedia policy is quite clear here: the responsibility for justifying inclusion of any content rests firmly with the editor seeking to include it. This applies most especially to biographies of living individuals, where uncited or poorly cited critical material must be removed immediately from both the article and the Talk page, and by extension any related Project pages. One defamation case could bankrupt the Foundation and see us shut down. So, recap: The burden of proof is on you guys to explain why you want to include the inclusion, not on me to explain why it shouldn't be included. This applies most especially to living persons, e.g., Michael Moore. And yes, when you accuse someone of being a liar aand intentionally misleading audiences rather than simply addressing specific claims, then that's an attack on the person. This not only goes for uncited material, but poorly material as well. Most likely, material that doesn't fit the above standards for being reputable and reliable. All good to know.

Here's something else from the same page: A particular problem is assigning undue weight to a single aspect of a subject. For example, you might know that there is some controversy surrounding a particular politician’s behaviour with regard to a property dispute. You may be very interested in that dispute, and be keen to document the politician’s role in it. So you would create an article on the politician which goes into detail about that, but includes little or no other data. This is unacceptable because it gives undue weight to the controversy. Similarly, if one single person says that a particular country is a state supporter of terrorism, then adding that country to the article state-sponsored terrorism would be undue weight. It is very important to place all critical material in the proper context, and ensure that an overall balanced view is provided. A balanced view does not need to be a sympathetic view—our article on Adolf Hitler does not portray him as a sensitive and misunderstood individual who was kind to his mother—but it does need to reflect the balance of opinion among reputable authorities. Wow, sounds just like the NRA rally example. Again, this is a re-iteration of NPOV. Your whole argument that we have to represent the "controversy" is completely dismissed in this passage.

More: First and foremost, however bad you believe the faults of your accusers are, think long and hard about your own behaviour. Is there not at least a germ of truth in what they say? Have you perhaps been less civil than you might have been? Have you provided high quality citations from reliable secondary sources to back your edits? Well? Have you? And no, saying, WorldNetDaily does not count as "high quality." -Schrodinger82 04:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

First defamation does not count for a critical review of the movie. Second BLP doesn't count when it comes to a movie. None of the quotes selected accuse him of being a lair. The way it's written is NPOV and consistent on how other critical quotes are done not only on issue articles but on other biographies. Frankly I am going to quit replying to you this is a waste of my time, I write something that no one on Wikipedia that I have dealt with would think it defamation, and you claim it's so. You even go as far to make claims that aren't even there. I will OTOH continue to work with other editors that are willing to talk and compromise. PPGMD 04:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A partial reply on this section. More might follow.

On defamation: There's an author with a book out on the subject, published by a reputable publisher. If you want to sue somebody it's them, not the Foundation.

On whose authority do you call it "defamation" by the way? I though you said that Moore's use of editing was a standard technique of documentary filmmaking. If that is the case then why would pointing out its capacity to mislead defame Moore?

"The burden of proof is on you guys to explain why you want to include the inclusion, not on me to explain why it shouldn't be included." Wrong. The burden of providing a reliable source falls on those who wish to include information, but the burden of debating suitability for inclusion falls equally. Since some of your arguments run contrary to policies and guidelines, in those instances the burden is on you to get those policies and guidelines changed by consensus.--GunnarRene 02:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Just so we're clear here, can the Moore critics cite any specific passages from Wikipedia Guidelines/Policies that clearly support them?" Are you calling me a Moore critic? --GunnarRene 02:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

2. "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." Dubious? Check. Unimportant? Check." WP:V is here talking cheifly about reporting news, science, research, biographical information and the like. You know, facts. Regarding opinions this is relavant to whether the source accurately reflects the opinions of Hardy or Kopel. There isn't any doubt about that is there? Mate. --GunnarRene 02:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Are either of them well-known professional journalist? Well, they might be well known among Anti-Moore circles, but not to the mainstream community. If you made a list of the 100 most well known journalists in the country, would Hardy and Kopel fall anywhere on it? I seriously doubt it." Again, this is about reporting. Kopel's website has notability enough to be a source of his opinions. Does it have enough notablility to be the only source for a breaking news story? That might be a stretch. --GunnarRene 02:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:V point 5 is not relevant unless you can cite something from WP:NOT or somewhere else that would preclude the information from inclusion. So I guess the information passed the test for verifiability. On to the next policy. --GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)--GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Libel already answered. (Search for defamatory). --GunnarRene 03:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 1: Exactly. My advice that you work to change consensus should be taken with this caveat. --GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 2: Are D&D recognized authorities on film editing? No. Hence, they do not meet the standard. They are noted critics and don't need to be authorities on film editing. Again, this is not about the suitability of the Avid editing station, the legality of distribution contracts or something else that needs an expert on film making. The statement that this is "standard practice" would need citation of an expert or peer reviewed researcher.

WP:NPOV 3: The article indeed used to give too much room for negative criticism.

WP:NPOV 4: Again, every filmmaker edits. Why are we giving undue weight to these particular examples, in reference to claims that Moore never actually makes? THere's absolutely no reason for that. It's been published, and we have to reflect it neutrally without regard to whether or not we agree. There used to be too much, but now it's too little.

WP:NPOV 5: Kopel and Hardy don't represent a "tiny minority". If you take them as pro-gun representatives, they represent quite a few people. Of course, they don't represent all pro-gun people.

WP:NPOV 6: Good advice. What is its relevance to this dispute? That other editors should have collected anti-Moore books, films and articles and cited them in the article? I did help by citing claims in it, which hopefully helped separating non-notable from notable criticism. But I wasn't intending to start collecting materials and doing research for it. I'll leave that for those that actually watched this movie.

WP:NPOV 7: Remember how you kept trying to re-add the segment about how Kopel says that Moore makes it look like the bank is bypassing legal measures? If the Moore really makes it look like that, then why not let the facts speak for themselves? Why not present Moore's actual statements, and have the readers make up their own mind? Remember how this point talks about editors' own opinions, and not those opinions that are referenced from others? Moralising opinions can certainly be included, as long as they are attributed. "Kopel thinks that More's editing technique is deceiving" and "The Catholic church considers extramarital sex a sin" are not moralising statments, they are statements about somebody else's moralising. Including the first one in an article about this movie and the second in an article about sex is not moralising. It would, however, be moralising to dump the second in the middle of an article about a non-Catholic's extramarital affair.

WP:NPOV 8: Amply covered elsewhere. So then we've passed WP:NPOV. The old version of the article didn't pass this, but the current version where Kopel's and Hardy's criticism is removed is even worse.--GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS is a guideline derivative of the three content policies, so I'll address WP:OR first. My response is getting a bit long, so the RS part might be delayed a couple of days more.

WP:OR 1: Again, this is mostly referring to news, science, and other primary facts. For example, if Democratic Underground reports that Joe Lieberman has conspired with Martians to reverse the direction of gravity, that would not be a reliable source for it. But if Democratic Underground selects Joe Lieberman as the worst sentor ever or something, that might be relevant in an article about him. Perhaps not in the main article, but rather in the article about the event that made them angry enough to do it. National Review is not an extemist group either. And I haven't seen anybody describe Hardy as an extremist outside Wikipedia.

WP:OR 2: I'll handle this by point if you don't mind.

Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication.

• Is it openly partisan?: National Review is predominantly conservative, but far from extremist. The book publisher does not appear to be partisan, right?
• Does it have a large or very small readership? Large, for both
• Is it a vanity publisher? Definitely not
• Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? The latter.
• Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it "shoots from the hip"? They don't have external academic peer review, but they have the same kind of editorial and legal review that reputable newspapers, opinion journals and magazines have.
• If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? (b)
• If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable."

I guess we have an aswer then. All four cited policies passed, except for NPOV for which the article was allready conceded as having problems and in the process of being rectified.--GunnarRene 03:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

On whose authority do you call it "defamation" by the way? I though you said that Moore's use of editing was a standard technique of documentary filmmaking. If that is the case then why would pointing out its capacity to mislead defame Moore?

"The burden of proof is on you guys to explain why you want to include the inclusion, not on me to explain why it shouldn't be included." Wrong. The burden of providing a reliable source falls on those who wish to include information, but the burden of debating suitability for inclusion falls equally. Since some of your arguments run contrary to policies and guidelines, in those instances the burden is on you to get those policies and guidelines changed by consensus.--GunnarRene 02:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Just so we're clear here, can the Moore critics cite any specific passages from Wikipedia Guidelines/Policies that clearly support them?" Are you calling me a Moore critic? --GunnarRene 02:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

2. "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." Dubious? Check. Unimportant? Check." WP:V is here talking cheifly about reporting news, science, research, biographical information and the like. You know, facts. Regarding opinions this is relavant to whether the source accurately reflects the opinions of Hardy or Kopel. There isn't any doubt about that is there? Mate. --GunnarRene 02:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Are either of them well-known professional journalist? Well, they might be well known among Anti-Moore circles, but not to the mainstream community. If you made a list of the 100 most well known journalists in the country, would Hardy and Kopel fall anywhere on it? I seriously doubt it." Again, this is about reporting. Kopel's website has notability enough to be a source of his opinions. Does it have enough notablility to be the only source for a breaking news story? That might be a stretch. --GunnarRene 02:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:V point 5 is not relevant unless you can cite something from WP:NOT or somewhere else that would preclude the information from inclusion. So I guess the information passed the test for verifiability. On to the next policy. --GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)--GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Libel already answered. (Search for defamatory). --GunnarRene 03:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 1: Exactly. My advice that you work to change consensus should be taken with this caveat. --GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 2: Are D&D recognized authorities on film editing? No. Hence, they do not meet the standard. They are noted critics and don't need to be authorities on film editing. Again, this is not about the suitability of the Avid editing station, the legality of distribution contracts or something else that needs an expert on film making. The statement that this is "standard practice" would need citation of an expert or peer reviewed researcher.

WP:NPOV 3: The article indeed used to give too much room for negative criticism.

WP:NPOV 4: Again, every filmmaker edits. Why are we giving undue weight to these particular examples, in reference to claims that Moore never actually makes? THere's absolutely no reason for that. It's been published, and we have to reflect it neutrally without regard to whether or not we agree. There used to be too much, but now it's too little.

WP:NPOV 5: Kopel and Hardy don't represent a "tiny minority". If you take them as pro-gun representatives, they represent quite a few people. Of course, they don't represent all pro-gun people.

WP:NPOV 6: Good advice. What is its relevance to this dispute? That other editors should have collected anti-Moore books, films and articles and cited them in the article? I did help by citing claims in it, which hopefully helped separating non-notable from notable criticism. But I wasn't intending to start collecting materials and doing research for it. I'll leave that for those that actually watched this movie.

WP:NPOV 7: Remember how you kept trying to re-add the segment about how Kopel says that Moore makes it look like the bank is bypassing legal measures? If the Moore really makes it look like that, then why not let the facts speak for themselves? Why not present Moore's actual statements, and have the readers make up their own mind? Remember how this point talks about editors' own opinions, and not those opinions that are referenced from others? Moralising opinions can certainly be included, as long as they are attributed. "Kopel thinks that More's editing technique is deceiving" and "The Catholic church considers extramarital sex a sin" are not moralising statments, they are statements about somebody else's moralising. Including the first one in an article about this movie and the second in an article about sex is not moralising. It would, however, be moralising to dump the second in the middle of an article about a non-Catholic's extramarital affair.

WP:NPOV 8: Amply covered elsewhere. So then we've passed WP:NPOV. The old version of the article didn't pass this, but the current version where Kopel's and Hardy's criticism is removed is even worse.--GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS is a guideline derivative of the three content policies, so I'll address WP:OR first. My response is getting a bit long, so the RS part might be delayed a couple of days more.

WP:OR 1: Again, this is mostly referring to news, science, and other primary facts. For example, if Democratic Underground reports that Joe Lieberman has conspired with Martians to reverse the direction of gravity, that would not be a reliable source for it. But if Democratic Underground selects Joe Lieberman as the worst sentor ever or something, that might be relevant in an article about him. Perhaps not in the main article, but rather in the article about the event that made them angry enough to do it. National Review is not an extemist group either. And I haven't seen anybody describe Hardy as an extremist outside Wikipedia.

WP:OR 2: I'll handle this by point if you don't mind.

Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication.

• Is it openly partisan?: National Review is predominantly conservative, but far from extremist. The book publisher does not appear to be partisan, right?
• Does it have a large or very small readership? Large, for both
• Is it a vanity publisher? Definitely not
• Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? The latter.
• Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it "shoots from the hip"? They don't have external academic peer review, but they have the same kind of editorial and legal review that reputable newspapers, opinion journals and magazines have.
• If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? (b)
• If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable."

I guess we have an aswer then. All four cited policies passed, except for NPOV for which the article was allready conceded as having problems and in the process of being rectified.--GunnarRene 03:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Defamation is saying that Moore is being misleading, and that his film is not a documentary. Neither of those comments have an adequate source.

The question is whether D&D are reputable. Logically impossible to prove a negative. Ergo, the burden is on you.

If you don't want to fall back on the standards of WP:V for dubious sources, then you have to fall back on the WikiProjects Film standards, which state that you need to look at professional film critics.

V:5, see above. D&D don't meet any current standards.

WP:NPOV 2: They are noted critics? Really? What experience do they have in film review?

WP:NPOV 4: "It's been published, and we have to reflect it." Wrong. State one policy that says that we have to report anything so long as it's been published. You can't.

WP:NPOV 5: So how many pro-gun people do they represent? Can you name any other non-Moore pro-gun pages on Wikipedia where they're mentioned?

WP:NPOV 6: Good advice. Filmmaking is an academic subject. Moore bashing is not. Since Moore bashing is not an academic subject, the act of Moore bashing in itself is not notable.

WP:NPOV 7: The Catholic Church is notable, not only because they have their views, but because their views have a direct impact on US policy. The problem is, D&D don't really have much of an impact on anything. The most impact they've had is cause Moore to add an outtake to the bank scene in later outtake. But what of their protests that the film isn't a documentary? What's the most they've accomplished with their views, other than selling a few books? Have they gotten the Academy to reconsider their decision? Have they convinced their readers to boycott any movie studio that does business with Moore? What? Be specific.

WP:NPOV 8: Wrong. See above.

WP:RS is a guideline derivative of the three content policies, so I'll address WP:OR first. My response is getting a bit long, so the RS part might be delayed a couple of days more.

WP:OR Hardy doesn't do basic fact checking. This is proven in the homicide/murder example, and the fact that to this day, the page still insists that Moore is lying about his numbers several years after Moore has listed his sources. If he doesn't do basic fact checking, then he doesn't meet the basic standards for reputability. Period. Kopel is another matter. -Schrodinger82 06:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Neither of those comments have an adequate source." No, you. You neither have a reliable source that calls those statements defaming, nor have you been able to convince anybody to follow your very special interpretation of policy.

"The question is whether D&D are reputable. Logically impossible to prove a negative. Ergo, the burden is on you." Yes, to prove that the publishers of the book and articles are reputable, which has allready been done without you questioning it. You are only questioning Kopel's website. The burden is now on you to explain why we should violate NPOV by removing relevant and sourced criticism from this article. And I can't see you addressing the standing of entertainment journalists regarding polemics and reporting.

"If you don't want to fall back on the standards of WP:V for dubious sources, then you have to fall back on the WikiProjects Film standards, which state that you need to look at professional film critics." If there's a disagreement between the content policies and the wikiproject's guideline the policy takes precedece: WP:NPOV: "The principles upon which these three policies are based are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to improve the application and explanation of the principles."

WP:NPOV 2: "They are noted critics? Really? What experience do they have in film review?" This is again your view that only entertainment journalists can criticise a polemic or work of non-fiction just because it's a popular film. That's like saying that only literary critics can comment on the news, because it's written in English and journalists aren't experts in English literature.

WP:NPOV 4: ""It's been published, and we have to reflect it." Wrong. State one policy that says that we have to report anything so long as it's been published. You can't." Actually, I can do that with a header from WP:V: "Verifiability, not truth", and a quotation from WP:NPOV: "Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in."

WP:NPOV 5: "So how many pro-gun people do they represent? Can you name any other non-Moore pro-gun pages on Wikipedia where they're mentioned?" Do you here mean "represent" as in being representatives of a commonly held opinion, or "represent" as in being elected representatives of somebody?

WP:NPOV 6: "Filmmaking is an academic subject. Moore bashing is not. Since Moore bashing is not an academic subject, the act of Moore bashing in itself is not notable." Moore bashing is actually a whole host of academic subjects. They're called journalism, political science, film science, etc.

WP:NPOV 7: A whole lot of questions but no withdrawal of your contention that a Kopel quote would violate the point about moralising to our readers. If you don't address that, I'll consider it one more point stricken from your smörgåsbord of arguments.

WP:NPOV 8: Where above?

WP:OR: Hardy doesn't do basic fact checking. Says you. You might be right or wrong. But Hardy isn't the *publisher* of his own book. WP:OR is talking about the *publisher*. If you find something wrong with his data(*1), you need to find a reliable source that says "Hardy is not correct". For this purpose, if Michael Moore has said this, then you don't need to go looking too hard. Citing the statistics and saying "homocide and murder is not the same" even when a reliable source says it, can not be included without the source saying "Hardy is wrong to confuse homocide with murder" or "Moore talked about homocide, which is not the same as murder". You have to find a reliable source that says something like that. Everything else is original research, even when backed up with primary sources. --GunnarRene 16:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

On the last point, I'd just like to offer an observation of mine: If a criticism is considered to be invalid by the opinion of a reliable source, and many editors agree, that would tempt editors to remove it as "irrelevant". I do agree that such points should be reduced in prominence, but I don't agree on their removal. That is first because somebody might have heard that criticism without hearing 1 answer to it, second because to accurately describe a debate, we should also include points that were mistaken, pure lies, matters of interpretation, or whatever. Just keeping the "valid" points up there would also be unfair to the article's subject as it could be made to appear that all the criticism was valid. --GunnarRene 16:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

(*1): How long did it take from the release of the movie untill Moore provided references for the gun deaths numbers? If it happened after Hardy wrote his book, then it would be harder to criticise him, unless there were painfully obvious sources that he overlooked. --GunnarRene 16:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"You neither have a reliable source that calls those statements defaming" Ken admits that they're defaming when he says that they "are damning, and impossible to counter." You claim that it has already been proven that the book is reputable. Where? As for proving NPOV, I have already cited specific passages, and explained my reasoning, but that is not my burden in the first place, it's yours.

WP:NPOV #2: Wrong, this isn't just my view, it's the view established in WikiProjects film, as well as in WP:RS. Your counter example is a false analogy. The only way it would be an apt analogy would be if you said, "Only literature experts should be able to criticize the article for literary merits." Which is true, just like only film critics should be able to criticize the film for it's use of film technique.

WP:NPOV #4: Way to dodge the point completely. "It's been published, and we have to reflect it." is not even close to being justified by ""Verifiability, not truth." Particularily when you look at WP:V point #5, and the fact that the sources cited are aalready excluded in accordance with WP:V #1-4, and WP:RS.

WP:NPOV #5: I mean "represent" as in, "If CNN was doing a news story on gun rights that had absolutely nothing to do with Michael Moore, would they contact either of these guys as being notable pro-gun experts? Or are they non-notable in that cited field?"

WP:NPOV #6: And even if I accepted that as true, that doesn't justify so-called "experts" speaking outside their field. e.g., film people speaking about politics, and political people speaking about film.

WP:NPOV #7: Claiming that Moore misleads audiences by making it look like the bank bypasses legal checks, rather than sticking to the facts, is moralization. Period.

WP:NPOV #8: Kopel & Hardy are not subject-matter expert in any way, shape, or form, and thus, do not meet current standards. Hardy can't even distinguish between murder stats and homicide stats, much less good editing from bad editing

WP:OR: Complete non-sequitor. Being published does not automatically entail good fact checking. Further, your claim that "WP:OR is talking about the *publisher*" is false, since the actual question it asks is, "Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication." Publication, e.g., the actual work. We have good evidence that David Hardy as a researcher has incredibly poor fact checking (e.g., citing a user review from blogcritics.com as a source), and you have no evidence that his book was any different. You expect us to accept on faith that every word printed by HyperColins is authorative and reputable. I'm sorry, but I can't agree with that, and nothing in Wikipedia standards would compel me to.

To your point that people might have heard the arguments that Hardy presented without hearing the response, I agree, that would be a problem. However, that's what the external links at the bottom at for. I don't see any point to represent the debate, when there hasn't been much notable debate outside of the blog sphere to begin with. To answer your question on when Moore posted his sources, there's no date on the website itself. However, I can easily find postings of people quoting the relevant excerpts from that page as early as 10/23/03. Hardy's book was released in June, 2004. Just out of curiosuity, did Hardy update his book accordingly? We know he apparently hasn't updated his website. Again, this points to poor fact checking. Hardy continues to call Moore a liar, even though Moore has posted his sources nearly three years ago. Either Hardy hasn't bothered to check them yet despite making a virtual career out of Moore bashing and a great opprotunity to prove Moore as a liar yet again, or he has bothered to check them and found the results not to his liking. So it's a choice between being lazy, and being dishonest. Either way, Hardy clearly isn't even reputable on the subject of gun deaths, despite being a gun advocate. Why would I assume that he would be reputable in film criticism? -Schrodinger82 08:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Compromise Vote

One thing I think most of us agree on is that Bushnell's should go, and the section needs to be cut down. Thus I am proposing the following compromise:

1. The Pro-gun section would be cut down to this:

"Pro-gun critics such as David T Hardy and Dave Kopel believe that the movie "makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the
viewer." In a recent book Hardy says "speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's
voice, but which were not sentences he uttered." As an example of this Hardy compares BFC with the transcripts of the speeches given
highlighting the differences." plus a quote of Kopel's exact viewpoint.

2. We cite a who in the What a Wonderful World Section, right now it sounds too ORish, it's need a citation of someone saying they have an issue with that section. I believe it was Kopel that brings it up.

3. Citations will be to Kopel and Hardy's published work in nationally published periodical sources, and books that have been published by major houses.

This compromise would mention that a significant minority has an issue with the movie, it meets the NPOV standards as it states their opinion nothing else, and we can easily verify (by our citations) that those two hold that opinion. By using the sources mentioned above they would qualify as reliable sources that Kopel and Hardy hold that opinion. PPGMD 23:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Voting

Please vote Support or Oppose and give a reason why, please keep the reason why to under 30 words.

Support

1. Support per nom. PPGMD 23:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose for now. Does not give weight in proportion to the nature of controversies. See discussion.GunnarRene 02:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Schrodinger82 opposes. "pro-gun criticism should stick to the facts, and what's within their field of authority" continues below.

Mixed

1. I tend support except that I would hold that their websites are adequate for reference as to their views. Mangoe 01:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Compromise discussion

1. T1. he pro-gun criticism should stick to the facts, and what's within their field of authority. Their complaints on Moore's portrayal of the NRA/KKK in his cartoon can be considered something factual (e.g., Moore depicts these two as parallel groups), and would be within their field of authority (NRA history.). General comments on editing, such as the Heston speech, violates undue weight. Hardy does not meet the basic standards for fact checking, period. This is proven. Furthermore, he has no major academic credentials or positions that would compel me to ignore this. Political commentators should be limited to times when this movie has become an actual political issue (e.g., an actual decision in policy.). -Schrodinger82 07:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The proposed section (as of now) does not give weight to controveries in proportion to their notability. Much of the ensuing debate revolved around the pro-gun issue. For example, I would hold that at least those criticisms that Moore characterize on his "Wacko attacko" page should be included. As for the section itself, I think it should be centered on gun issues, while other issues noted by Hardy or Kopel are cited in their relevant sections. The "Pro gun" section was too large before, and also included information irrelevant to guns.
Regarding websites:
Kopel is a professional opinion journalist, and he is one of the most well-known critics of Bowling for Columbine. Thus whatever opinions offered by Kopel on Kopel's website should be includable. Reason: Wikipedia:Verifiability (also repeated by Wikipedia:Reliable sources): "self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." (WP:V's emphasis) Note also that WP:V here is talking about information about events, biographical facts about people, etc. that is "worth reporting". Ones own opinions, which are the bread and butter of opinion journalists, are not "reported" in the same fashion, point being that if a well-known journalist's self-published work is reliable enough for original reporting about controversial subjects or living persons, it is more than reliable enough for publishing their own opinions about a film.
Although Hardy has a book published, I'm not sure about including opinions from his website. A tricky case would arise if he modifies or corrects information already published in the book. As long as the website isn't a reliable source, perhaps the best way in those cases is to remove any such information?
"This compromise would mention that a significant minority has an issue with the movie" Are you sure that it's a minority? A minority of whom? A minority of critics? Of all people that saw the film? Of all Americans? Instead of saying that they represent any kind of minority, why not factually note how they were vocal critics, but also counting in positive criticism? I'm not quite sure about this point.
If Kopel and Hardy are NRA members and that is to be mentioned, that fact also has to be cited from a reliable source.--GunnarRene 02:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What changes do you suggest to conform to a version that would be agreeable most of the parties involved. Suggestions overall are better then quoting policy, because if we get in a policy war we will simply not go anywhere. As far as a minority or not, we simply have no stats on it, I am inclined to believe that most NRA members hold this position, but outside of that, there is no reasonable way to measure how many hold this opinion as no agency that I know of has attempted to measure it. PPGMD 02:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm too fatigued from reading all this discussion to write anything coherent in article space. Perhaps I'll have time tomorrow, but I have to prepare some patient trials and process workshops, so I hope you'll get some more help from somebody else. Just refrain from calling them a minority without a basis for it, add Kopel's website as a potential source, and you'll have my permission to move my "vote" to support. My other concerns I can address at a later date, and I might assess the article too. --GunnarRene 04:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not enough to be a journalist. The key word is well known. The phrase "well known" is a necessary qualifier for a reason. Has Kopel ever had his own radio or TV show? Has he won any prestigious journalism awards? Further, even then, WP:V still recomends that you exercise caution. How many opinions journalists are their in the country? What makes Kopel so special, other than the fact that he's one of the ones with a vendetta against Moore (practically the definition of minority view.). Currently, Moore is many magnitudes more notable than Hardy and Kopel combined. So would that justify giving Moore's rebutall many magnitudes more space?

To answer your question of "A minority of whom?", WikiProjects Films guidelines stating that that the reception information must deal with box office numbers and professional film critics, since a) you can be relatively certain that they actually saw the film, and b) critics have to review films regardless of whether they look interesting (For instance, the user reviews for "Kangaroo Jack" will be higher than the critical reviews of "Kangaroo Jack," because the "user reviews" are composed entirely of people who were willing to pay to see it in the first palce). Right now, Mangoe is one of the biggest advocates against Moore, and he hasn't even seen the movie. In terms of rating whether or not the film qualifies as a documentary, the majority view can be established in the academy awards, where individuals are nominated by their peers in their own category (Hence, when an actor says "it's an honor just to be nominated," they really mean it, because it means that their follow actors highly respect them." There are going to be vocal critics to just about anything. That doesn't make their individual claims inherently notable. -Schrodinger82 07:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that I haven't seen the movie either, and I'm mainly here to ensure that policies and consensus as I understand it is guiding the development of this article, as I'm supposed to think that you are too. Again, the more exceptional the news, the more "well known" the journalist needs to be to have a self-published source relied on "Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence" (WP:RS). His website is more than enough to verify his opinions on something, but if he reports the next Watergate on his website we should indeed ask why it hasn't been reported in the news media. If that scenario DOES happen, and he gets a report published in the news media about it, then his website could be relied as a source of additional details.

And by the way, if Michael Moore himself says that it isn't a documentary, does that count? Of course it doesn't remove the film from the documentary category, but that would be something that should be noted rather prominently in the article. If a other critics say the same thing, then it should also be noted but with lesser prominence, in proportion to the prominence of their criticism. And there lies the dispute.

Since Kopel and Hardy are not entertainment journalists, they have little standing to be cited on the entertainment value of a film. And entertainment journalists, almost by totality, have little standing to evaluate the movie's value as a factual representation or as a polemic since films like Kangaroo Jack is mostly what they write about. Political journalists, like Kopel, have a better standing in that regard. Hardy, as a lawyer, also has some expertise on the issue of factual representation of controversial issues (like in lawsuits) but less of a standing on the political scene before this controversy. But since he's had a book published by a reputable publisher and he's been covered by multiple media outlets, that makes him notable in this debate with no regard to Schrodinger82's opinion on his fact checking. --GunnarRene 15:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Just out of curiousity, where has Moore ever claimed that his film isn't a documentary? I would like to see the exact quote + source. The fact is, D&D aren't well known. You would never, for instance, see them on a late night talk show as the featured guest, because no one in the audience would know who they were, and mor importantly, no one in the audience would care what they would have to say. Just out of curiousity, where exactly would you draw the line between verifying the "entertainment value," and the "factual representation" of the film? Personally, I would limit it to statements of fact that the film actually makes. As opposed to statements of fact that the film doesn't make. For instance, Ken (Have you seen the movie, Ken) claims that "one criticism is that Moore blames the NRA for not cancelling uncancellable events." The problem is, 1) The criticism is not well known, and has yet to get any major media attention. 2) Moore never actually blames the NRA for that. 3) The event in question was never "uncancellable." At what point did this statement meet the threshhold for "factual representation"? What exactly made Hardy an expert on whether or not the event could be cancelled to begin with?

I should also point out that Hardy himself attempts to cite entertainment journalists in an atempt to show that deception occured. Why? Because that's the best way of finding out whether or not the editing was misleading. The problem is, not a single citation he listed qualifies as a reputable entertainment source. One comes from the "Willamette Freethinker," a publication of the "Corvallis Secular Society" who doesn't normally review movies, one is a self-published political website on geocities that also doesn't normally review movies, one is a user review at popcornmonsters.com, and one is a user comment from blogcritics.com . Be honest. Does that sound like good research and fact checking to you, to substantiate such an "exceptional claim" (e.g., that Moore's movie is fiction and intentionally misleads its audience.)? I don't think so. Hardy himself frequently attempts to cite film critics in order to prove deception. So why is that a good enough standard for Hardy, but not one for us?

You claim that "Hardy, as a lawyer, also has some expertise on the issue of factual representation." Hardy, as a lawyer, can't even tell the legal distinction between murder and homicide, and claims that Moore is being deceptive for using an accurate definition of the latter (Of course, he never actually points that Moore's definition is accurate, even though it is, thus misleading readers into believing that Moore's statistic is deceptive). Since Hardy is not a recognized expert on murder and homicide, I have a hard time taking his word for it that Moore is wrong, when there are much more authorative sources out there that say he isn't. If there are really factual disputes regarding this film, then it shouldn't be hard to find a more credible source on the matter. You claim that he has been published be a "reputable publisher." Where's your evidence that Hardy meets the standards of reputability (e.g., independent fact checker + oversight)? The claims on his website are ones that he wrote long before his HyperCollins book deal, and there is absolutely no evidence that he has undergone any sort of independent fact checking since. Sorry, but if all you needed to be listed as a reputbale source was to have a book published by a major press, then that's what the guidelines would say. Of course, they don't say that, because no one actually believes it. -Schrodinger82 21:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

1) It has received media attention, 2) Actually he did he said during the Flint part "Just like after Columbine, the NRA rushes to Flint to hold a big rally..." 3) Ok so no event is uncancelable, it would just be against the law to cancel it, the only way for the NRA to legally cancel the event is within 24 hours find another location that can host the event within 6 weeks, and then send out 4 million mailers all within 24 hours. I don't know if you have ever book a convention all, but that's damn near impossible, but not only that the NRA would have likely lost their money for the planned convention hall, have to spend over a million dollars send 4 million mailers out at the last minute (assuming that is even possible which it is most likely not), and then the NRA would have had to divert all it's shipments, bring back it's Go Team (which is likely already in Denver or on it's way to begin setup), and 22,000 people would have had do the same. Your talking about spending millions of dollars on something that is unlikely to be legally possible.

Frankly this is simply POV pushing using nuances of the rules that are incorrectly applied, and I am likely wasting my time writing this because I think nothing short of us giving up and going to solve this unless someone steps in and gives a final ruling. PPGMD 13:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

You: Actually he did he said during the Flint part "Just like after Columbine, the NRA rushes to Flint to hold a big rally..." Actual Statement: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally"

If you can't represent the movie accurately, then don't complain when it gets removed. Even if your quotatation wasn't grossly inaccurate, it still doesn't depict Moore "blames the NRA for not cancelling uncancellable events," as Ken claims. And the event was not uncancellable, period. Either something is cancellable, it it's not. According to the law, it was. The law says they needed 10 days, they had 11. Everything else is just yours and Hardy's non-expert opinion, which has no relevance here to begin with, because Moore never even blames them for what you claim he does. As for your claims that it got media attention, from who? WAVE-TV? Big whoop. Yes, let's put WAVE-TV on the same level as Michael Moore. Despite his prominent awards and magazine covers and talk show appearences, Michael Moore only wishes he could be on WAVE-TV, right? Please. As for your claim that this is simply POV pushing, that's exactly right. Thank you for finally admitting that this is all that you've been doing all along. -Schrodinger82 22:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh I don't have a transcript in front of me to quote it word for word I don't spend an hour going through transcripts, reading policies word for word to do my response on talk for a single article as I have quite a few others that I work on.

You simply don't get it anything is cancelable as long as you don't care about the consequences. The 10 days is the deadline to get all the mailers out, not how long it would take to get the notices out. Sure they could have canceled the event, likely been broken two New York laws (not huge offenses, but if there is someone with a grudge against the NRA could have used it against them), waste millions of dollars.

The POV pushing isn't on our side, it's on yours, you interpretation of Wikipedia policies is sketchy at best. PPGMD 02:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want ot quote it word for word, then you should put it in quotation marks and insist that it's what Moore said. Especially when you're quoting him for the sake of pushing an argument. You claim you claim that "You simply don't get it anything is cancelable as long as you don't care about the consequences." Please feel free to list the actual consequences that the NRA was threatened with, using a reliable source. What exactly would New York have done to the National Rifle Association if they hadn't complied? You claim that "The 10 days is the deadline to get all the mailers out." According to who? Is David Hardy your only source on this matter? Sorry, but after all his other inaccuracies and dubious source, I have a hard time taking his word for it on this. You claim that "if there is someone with a grudge against the NRA could have used it against them." Just "who" are you referring to here? Can you substantiate this? Moreover, what does this have to do with Moore's actual statement? And you can accuse me of POV all you want, but whether you can back that up with anything other than personal opinion is another matter entirely. Obviously, you haven't done so, and likely never will. -Schrodinger82 04:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Concern over original research

My concern relates to original research: the editors that have created this article are reporting directly about a primary source (the documentary). As such, the choice of quotes and commentary is original research of the editors of the article. For this article to be compliant with WP content policies, the article needs to report just basic information about what the documentary is itself, and leave it at that. If there are reports by reliable sources that describe this documentary or the controversy surrounding it, these can be used in the article, if properly attributed. For more details see WP:NOR. Wikipedia is not an investigative journalism site, or an advocay site. It is an encyclopedia that reports what secondary, reliable sources have said about a subject. It is not the role of editors to describe primary sources, in particular when the subject is controversial. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There were some instances of editors reporting their opinions about the movie, but that was not the biggest problem about this article. (That kind of original research is easily removed, and you'll notice that editors participating on both sidesof the above debate also have been removing that kind of original research.) So your concern in that regard is allready taken care of. The problem was that non-original controversy and criticism was included from third party sources that did not meet Wikipedia's demand for verifiability. The current dispute is about the verifiability, notability and relevancy of non-original research, and we'd like to hear your opinion on that issue. In your view, are the only persons that are allowed to call a movie "deceptive" other documentary film makers and entertainment journalists, or are the opinions of political journalists and authors published by reputable publishers also relevant, as you understand Wikipedia's content policies? --GunnarRene 15:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

To me, there do not appear to be any such policies. And indications in other policies contradict the idea, for instance the notion that according to WP:V a self-published document by a professional journalist would be an acceptable source. If the status of being a professional journalist is enough to sidestep this restriction, I'm sure it also covers their professionally-published opinions on what is, in essence, somebody else's journalism. Indeed, I'd say WP:NPOV almost requires their input to be shown: it is a significant POV; the fact that these journalists are popular suggests a significant number of people agree with them. Looking back at this article's history, I can see that a lot of good information, established by reference to what appear to be good sources (to my eyes, although note I am British and therefore not thoroughly familiar with the biases of the people involved), seems to have been deleted. And that's a shame. JulesH 15:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Let me do an exercise in active listening. By "To me, there do not appear to be any such policies." you don't mean that "Wikipedia has no content policies" but you meant that "there are no policies that would support the view that only entertainment journalists get to comment on a movie's truthfulness and potential deceptiveness"? --GunnarRene 16:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Jules, it is not enough to be a professional journalist, you also have to be well known. Even then, you still have to exercise caution, meaning that simply being a prefessional journalist in itself does not constitute a "free pass" or "sidestep" to overcoming Wikipedia standards. For instance, Tom Brokaw would be a well known journalist. Walter Cronkite would be a well known journalist. Edward R. Murrow would be a well known journalist. Bob Woodward would be a well known journal. Even Maureen Dowd and Judith Miller might qualify as well known journalists. Dave Kopel, however, is not in that league. He is not a hoursehold name, he is not well recognized in the field. Is the man even a reporter who has to do his own investigations, or is he simply an op-ed guy? I checked his bio on Wikipedia, and it specifies no awards, no notable accomplishments, nothing that would ever warrant being on the national news.

Even if you didn't consider that, however, I should point out that most professional film critics are also professional journalist. And unlike Kopel, they meet the WikiProjects style guidelines, stating Expanding on the second paragraph of the lead section, you should analyse how the film was received by critics, meaning professional or well-known film reviewers, and not comments from members of the public. Now, if Dave Kopel is a professional journalist who hates the movie and Roger Ebert is a professional journalist who likes the movie, then why are we quoting Kopel but not Ebert? Are you telling me that it's because Kopel is more well known than Ebert? Is it because because Kopel's knowledge is more relevant to the field? Is it because Kopel's view is more in line with the majority among professional journalists? No, no, and no. Vastly on all three. Gunnar states that Kopel is a "professional opinion journalist," so you can't even cite him on "factual representation," since that's not what he's known for. He's known for his opinions, just like film critics are known for their opinions, and the vast majority of film critics support this film. NPOV is clear that while you should represent opinions fairly, you should not give undue weight to minority views. BFC has a 96% rating on Rottentomatoes, meaning that 96% of professional film critics enjoy this movie. It would be a clear violation of NPOV to give the majority of the article to the 4% that disagrees. It would especially be a a violation to give that majority to an opinion writer who isn't even involved in the film industry. Has a lot of information been deleted? Sure, because it didn't meet the basic standards. If you would still like to see the information, then you are more than free to check out the external links. -Schrodinger82 22:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand that there are ongoing disputes about the article and an ArbCom case being presented. My concern does not relate to the specifics of the current dispute, but to the problem I see with the article as it stands now: most of the article is a description of the documentary. Question is who's description? Unless the description of this documentary is sourced from reliable, secondary published sources, that content is original research. The "Film content" section is most, if not all, original research. That section needs to be paired down substantially. The analysis of the documentary section, should describe the significant/competing viewpoints published in reputable sources, without being tempted to assert any specific viewpoint. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Note also that the section Bowling_for_Columbine#What_a_Wonderful_World, is an example of what WP:NOR warns us about (my highlight): Articles may not contain [...] any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published arguments, ideas, data, or theories that serves to advance a position'.. The argumentation (i.e. the use of "however", "critics say", "Large factions critical of American Foreign policy", etc.) all points out to original research, maybe well meaning, but OR nontheless. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

You are correct on that, the person making the claim was removed by the Schrodinger (I think, not sure might have been done by DJ_Clayworth, or Banno), claiming that the who (I think it was Kopel) was not notable. PPGMD 17:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that those sentences are unsupported. I've added some tags. if no support is forthcoming I think removal is in order. DJ Clayworth 18:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Film pages have their own guidelines, and can include plot descriptions (e.g., content.). Look up the pages for any major movie for an example. Occasionally, this is done even for episodes of TV show. In a documentary, you would basically outline the major points. This is covered under the NPOV section of Wikipedia dealing with facts. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. No one seriously disputes the plot outline as it is. The only tricky thing is the balancing act of which details to include and which details to leave out, but the best rule of thumb is that the level of detail is consistent. It should be noted that the synopsis for the pilot episode of "Heroes" is still much longer than the entire plot summary for BFC, and no one disputes that either.

BTW, on that note, I should point out that there is a difference between facts and opinion. That the film grossed X dollars and got a Y rating on rottentomatoes is a fact. That it received a 13 minute standing ovation is a fact. That fact that Moore walks out of the bank with a rifle is a fact. OTOH, the idea that Moore makes it look like the bank is doing something illegal is merely an opinion. Right now, the criticisms have maybe 50% of the article, but they also have 100% of the opinions. We have cited absolutely no one who praises the film, even though they consistute the majority view among industry insiders and professional film critics. How in the world is having 100% of the views opinions unbalanced against the anti-Moore crowd? -Schrodinger82 22:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) I am unconcerned that editors take it upon themselves to recount the plots of movies, or in this case transcribe part of it. It is one of the rare cases where a secondary source is less desirable, because in any case consideration of that secondary source must inevitably be based on having actually seen the movie. If we cannot trust editors to recount the movie, we cannot trust them to relate another's account. Mangoe 00:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Major disagreement here, Mangoe. Think of the reader: he/she does not give a hoot for what you and other respected editors think of the movie or if they have watched it or not. Readers expect we give them sources that they can feel comfortable with as it pertains to reliability. They can only trust what we tell them we found, so as editors we provide the reader with sources which they can verify if in doubt. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You've expanded my point well beyond what I said. I spoke only of the plot summary, not "what editors think of the movie". Anything beyond the plot summary is (in essence) a news piece documenting the world's reaction to the movie, and clearly this all has to be conventionally sourced. Within Wikipedia, however, we are in the curious situation that (presuming that the movie has been widely seen) plot summaries are peer-reviewed. I do not think we get better reviewing by relying on a third party to review a secondary source, precisely because our own review is going to rely on our own memory of the movie.

In any case this is a red herring. There is no controversy over the depiction of this movie's content, though there has been objection that the summary and the evaluation are too commixed. Mangoe 03:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

As for a comment somewhere above that there are special guidelines fo films, note that there is only some suggestions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines, but that is not an official guideline although it provides some good info). ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"Controversy"?

The critics defend their stance because they feel we should represent the controversy. My question is this: What controversy? The dictionary defines controversy as "a prolonged public dispute, debate, or contention; disputation concerning a matter of opinion" and "A dispute, especially a public one, between sides holding opposing views." Can anyone name any specific acts of controversy (e.g., prolonged debate and discussions of actual consequence) that have occured as a result of this movie? For instance, if we were writing about the Intelligent Design controversy, that would be notable because there have been actual court cases on whether or not intelligent design belongs in schools, with the future curriculum of public classrooms at stake (e.g., policy decision of actual consequence). There have also been surveys done showing that a identifiable and quantifiable population believes in it. Hence, we can report it, even if the main proponents have yet to write peer reviewed and are not recognized authorities on the subject.

For instance, IMO, An Inconvenient Truth generated far more controversy than BFC did. Furthermore, given the fact that Gore was nearly president and makes frequent references to how he attempted to address global warming while in office and what we need to do in the future, it is also far more political than BFC. There are lobbyists and scientists out there, a few of them peer reviewed, who are paid good money to debunk Gore's claims. Yet, look at the criticisms section of that page. Very, very short, and very, very concise. It's not because there aren't websites out there from published writers nitpicking Gore's arguments, it's because those nitpicks aren't notable. They do mention that Gore has critics, but the article keeps these criticisms in context of their views, and no one speaks outside of their field. Further, each critic posted is in some way notable in their field. In the "Political response" section, you see statements from George Bush, the DCI Group, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley. These are important figures in the field of politics. David Hardy and Dave Kopel are not. The fact is, there is no "real" controversy for BFC. There are no court cases, no public debates, nothing. Not even a call to boycott. All we have is a is an incredibly successful movie on one side, and a small handful of detractors with no real authority or influence on the other. As far as I can tell, the only thing that Hardy really seems to be advocating for is for people to buy his book and listen to his views, and Wikipedia is not a website for advertisements. Yet there is absolutely nothing of note he hopes to accomplish from there. -Schrodinger82 02:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

An interesting summation of the problem. All that those who disagree with you need do, in order to demonstrate the existence of a controversy, is to provide links to notable critics. But it is more fun, and easier, to whinge than to do proper research. Banno 03:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It's like Ed Helms on the Daily Show, discussing gay marriage. "Yeah! Why take the time to do the research, when saying it is so much faster?" -Schrodinger82 04:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Original research

Notwithstanding that this version is much better than previous ones, I am still concerned that several sections of the article are in violation of WP:NOR. For example, the section "What a Wonderful World" contains synthesis of published arguments. For the article not to violate WP:NOR material sourced to a reliable publication needs to be found that present the contradictions described in these sections. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Like I said before that criticism came from a source that was removed by a previous user under WP:RS, until we get a ruling on how WP:RS applies it's unlikely that anyone would be able to cite the source. PPGMD 21:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to take as hard a stance against this one since it can be factually verified. -Schrodinger82 21:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Schrodinger: I just wanted to say "good improvement" on the critics section. DJ Clayworth 22:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

This has been taken to arbitration, which means that continuing to edit the article is a really bad idea. Ken Arromdee 06:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Did you mean mediation? In which case, continued editing is not a problem. Banno 07:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I mean what I say. Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Bowling_for_Columbine. Three arbitrators have accepted it so far (And no, I was not the person who took it there.) Ken Arromdee 16:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm nonplussed. What a waste of arbitration's time. Banno 20:53, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even sure of what they're accusing me of exactly. I get that they don't appreciate my actions, but I have yet to see anything to show why they are out of line. -Schrodinger82 00:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should look at the five points raised by User:Ken Arromdee and myself over in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Bowling for Columbine. Mangoe 15:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

And not one of those is in any way against Wikipedia guidelines/policies, except for Ken's, which isn't even true. -Schrodinger82 21:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring the Role of Municipal Governance

I've removed this piece to talk:

The American Prospect published a piece by Garance Franke-Ruta criticizing the movie for ignoring the role that municipal governance plays in crime in America, and ignoring African-American urban victims of crime to focus on the unusual events of Columbine. "A decline in murders in New York City alone—from 1,927 in 1993 to 643 in 2001 — had, for example, a considerable impact on the declining national rate. Not a lot of those killers or victims were the sort of sports-hunters or militiamen Moore goes out of his way to interview and make fun of."^[1]

It simply does not do justice to the comments by Garance (whoever he/she is). The cited article is more about black urban violence than it is about municipal governance. But Moore does interview several black folk in the course of the film; so perhaps again this is not a good piece of criticism to choose for the Wiki article... Banno 20:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again you are missing the point, Wikipedia is about Verifiabillity. We can verify that she said these comments. She's a borderline notable jouralist. PPGMD 00:13, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

So the comments were easy to find; but that Moore ignored the role of municipal governance is only a very small part of the overall criticism she presents. Why choose one aspect, and present it with such a feeble backing? Banno 04:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Sure it may only be a small part of her comments, but we also have the Undue weight concern, you were so worried about the Kopel and Hardy comments being too big, this is the right size for each critic IMO. If you want to expand it go ahead, but the removal for this reason has no place and I am going to add this section back also. PPGMD 04:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

So there is really not much point in attempting to move this article along. Criticism is to be rejected, revision reverted. Then the article is doomed to remain in the start classification. Banno 05:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

But the really silly thing is that the re-introduction of the piece completely misses the criticism that is actually offered by Garance - that Moore Focuses on "uneducated rednecks" and "big corporations" when the main problem is Black and urban. The Garance article talks about municipal governance only incidentally; yet that is what is focused on, presumably to support the heading... Really silly. Banno 08:06, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Taliban funding

Cut from the article:

Critics point ^[who?] to a statement in this sequence saying that the US gave $245 million to "Taliban-ruled Afghanistan" (see above). Although literally correct in the sense that the US did give the aid, its placement in a list of evil acts by the US and its careful wording suggest that the US gave the aid to the Taliban, when in fact this was humanitarian aid that was sent through the UN and nongovernmental organizations, and was intended to bypass the Taliban.^[2]

Not only are the critics not named, but the link provided accounts for only a small portion of the funds provided to Afghanistan. That is, the second sentence presents an unreferenced POV - that the wording gives a particular impression; and the link provided is insufficient to support the conclusion reached. Banno 21:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Gun ownership

From the page:

Moore argues that high gun ownership is not responsible for violence in America, and instead argues that there must be something about the American psyche and the media that makes the nation uniquely prone to high rates of murder and shootings. In support of his claims, Moore argues that Canadian gun ownership levels are as high as the U.S. Ben Fritz in Spinsanity said in this respect that "Moore ignores the fact that Canada has significantly fewer handguns and a much stricter gun licensing system."^[3]

Yes, Fritz does make that assertion. But he does not support it with any citations; can someone locate a primary source that can verify this? Why is Fritz a notable commentator? Banno 21:44, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

We aren't here to verify that the facts are true. Simply that they said them. Spinsanity and Fritz are notable, and have a long history. Long enough that they can be considered a reliable source. I readded the section. PPGMD 22:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Then why doesn't Fritz deserve his own Wiki article? I wouldn't know him from a bar of soap. But you miss the point entirely. Consider two articles. The first shows that Ben Fritz claims Canadians have fewer handguns; the other points to official statistics showing that Canadians have fewer handguns. Which presents the better criticism of Moore's claim? Banno 22:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Except that linking to the stats directly is Original Research. Wikipedia makes no claims, it simply cites knowledge that others have found or interpreted. As far as a Wikipedia article, not every columnist, journalist, or researcher needs their own articles. That doesn't mean that they aren't citeable or a Reliable Source. PPGMD 22:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

"linking to the stats directly is Original Research" - what an extraordinary claim! Either there are more handguns per capita in the US or in Canada; why can't the Wiki say which is true? A link and a bit of re-wording is all that is needed. But even taking your statement as true, can't you find anyone else who actually makes use of the statistics? If you are content with such a poor criticism, then let it be. But it again shows how poor the research is on this article. Banno 23:02, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's true, linking to the stats and claiming that he is wrong violates WP:V and WP:OR. Spinsanity was the precursor to sites like Factcheck, they don't hold a bias and research the facts behind political rhetoric. Check the site out, they have articles on most major figures on the political scene. Spinsanity easily researches the threshold for WP:RS. PPGMD 23:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

So, as I said, you find someone who says Moore is wrong, and who cites the statistics. Or you say "Fritz claims such-and-such. Statistics show such-and-such" with appropriate links. Banno 23:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't have a problem with it, but there are others that might. Many take a more strict view then I do on how WP:OR is applied. It may get deleted later by someone how has a stricter view then I do because we are only supposed to link to Secondary sources when their is interpretation involved. PPGMD 23:51, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's leave that. Banno

In any case, there are other problems with the paragraph. If the topic is Gun Ownership, then there should be more about Moore's own comments, as well as discussion from other commentators - there must be something out there that is better than a parenthetic comment by a web hack. A better approach might be to delete this section, and instead create a section on the whole Fritz article, setting his criticisms out one by one. Banno 00:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

"web hack" must you and Schrodinger attack anyone that doesn't say that Moore's movie is the best movie ever made. Ben Fritz is a respected journalist (Spinsanity is only a side project for him), Spinsanity was very well regarded until they stopped updating it in 2005, and not only that the editors of Spin Sanity including Fritz are progressive democrats. PPGMD 00:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, this is not evident in the article. As I said, he does not have a Wiki page; there is no Wiki page for Spinsanity; there is no mention of his background, no explanation of the justification for citing him as the critic of choice in this context. Sure, he might be a prominent journalist - but the article doesn't tell me this, or provide a way for me to find out. He appears to be a web hack. I also think you might better assume good will on my part; my point is only that the criticism presented in the article are rather poor. I would like to see a better critique of the film. Banno 04:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Not every article is a me me me article about the author. Nor does every source have to have a Wikipedia article, personally I think that at the very least Spinsanity needs it's own article on Wikipedia. Now if you want to know about Ben Fritz the easiest way to is visit the site and click the about link. It's not an in depth bio but it provides you the basics that you need to know about him and the other contributors to the site. I am sorry AGF doesn't stops when you start insult sources, perhaps you need to choose you words a bit wisely. PPGMD 04:38, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The question remains, in a section about gun ownership, why use Fritz? It would be better to replace this section with a section on the criticisms in the Fritz article. Banno 20:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Because at the time it was added it was likely the only Internet available Reliable Source on the subject. As with the above section, if you want to expand it, and rename it, go ahead. But based on your past actions when a section gets removed by you, you make no attempts of making the fixes and reading the information. PPGMD 23:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll put it on my to-do list. The idea of putting things on the talk page was to draw attention to their inadequacy in the hope that someone will improve them. But your idea of leaving junk on the main article might work just as well. Banno 02:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)