Talk:Carol Rosin/Archive1

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Neutrality of "Career at Fairchild Industries"

This section commits two offenses against NPOV. First, the phrasing of the relationship between Rosin and von Braun seems designed to provoke emotional reaction: "... Von Braun was dying of cancer. Von Braun spent the last years of his life, his dying years ..." Second, it presents Rosin's POV as fact, rather than as a belief that may have been shared by Rosin and von Braun: "... educating and mentoring Dr. Rosin about why space-based weapons are dangerous, destabilizing, too costly, unnecessary, unworkable and about the available alternatives." The band-aid fix would be to insert "he believed" after "why" but since what follows is really an elaboration of what Rosin believes, I think that its proper place is probably somewhere else in the article. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:01, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

And I am more convinced than ever after reading this interview with Rosen that we cannot take at face value her statements of what von Braun said to her, since she claims he assured her of the existence of friendly extraterrestrials and of a government conspiracy to hush it up. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:27, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Isn't your so called "band-aid fix" stating what is obvious to the average reader and meaningless? Why do you even mention it as an option, only to turn it down in the same sentence? It's ironic that you are disputing creditiblity on a statement about two people who are not yourself, one being dead, the other making a claim about the deceased when you write above, "since what follows is really an elaboration of what Rosin believes...." Where is the source for YOUR comment? You have less creditability still. And why would you send anyone to the Nancy Red Star website? It gave little insight into the creditablity question -only raising more questions, and was horribly designed. Perhaps you hoped to create some false creditability knowing that no one would want to read such a tidious interview on the below average quality, low creditability website.

-- c. e. mcPhee, 26 September 2005

Your questions indicate that you are fairly new here, fairly careless, unfairly biased or all three. To address your "concerns" in order:

• "Isn't your so called "band-aid fix" stating what is obvious to the average reader and meaningless? Why do you even mention it as an option, only to turn it down in the same sentence?"
  • No, it is not meaningless, but it does not go far enough. Wikipedia tries to describe people's beliefs and opinions without endorsing them. There is a big difference between "A explained to B how Major Political Party became corrupt" and "A explained to B his theories that Major Political Party had become corrupt and of how it happened." The first literally states it as a fact that Major Political Party is corrupt; even if an "average reader" might be trusted to realize that Wikipedia is in fact describing A's beliefs and opinions, not intending them to be read as facts, there is no guarantee that Wikipedia will only be read by readers who are average or above-average.
• "It's ironic that you are disputing creditiblity on a statement about two people who are not yourself, one being dead, the other making a claim about the deceased when you write above, "since what follows is really an elaboration of what Rosin believes...." Where is the source for YOUR comment? You have less creditability still."
  • Credibility does not depend solely on the identity of the person, though that is a factor. It also depends greatly on the claims one is making. If I claim that I spoke with Isaac Asimov before he died and he told me to keep writing, that's a fair mild claim to be making, and does not demand much in the way of credibility. If I claim that I spoke with Asimov and he told me that I was a much better writer than he ever was, that's a much less credible claim. If I claim that I spoke with Asimov and he told me that my book on "Super Health Panacea -- How Baker's Yeast And Pop-Tarts Can Cure Anything" needed to be published in order to break the stranglehold of Big Medicine and their Vatican/Mafia backing -- that claim is so outrageous, it does not have much credibility, even if I can prove that at some point I at least met Asimov.
• "And why would you send anyone to the Nancy Red Star website? It gave little insight into the creditablity question -only raising more questions, and was horribly designed. Perhaps you hoped to create some false creditability knowing that no one would want to read such a tidious interview on the below average quality, low creditability website."
  • I would send them to the Nancy Red Star website because it is where I found the interview, and a revealing interview it is. For instance, the article as it currently stands makes it sound as if Rosin was an aerospace executive who already worked at Fairchild Industries prior to meeting Wernher von Braun -- rather than a 6th grade teacher who was only hired at Fairchild after meeting von Braun. As explained previously, credibility can be altered by the claims one makes, and while it is not impossible (especially in light of the fact that he was old, ill, and within a few years of death) that von Braun claimed to know for a fact that space aliens existed and that there was a massive government cover-up of the fact, the fact that Rosin is claiming von Braun said this affects the credibility of everything else for which we have only Rosin's word that von Braun said it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)