Talk:John H. Meier

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[edit] Problems with Alcarillo Edits

First of all, check the history, I didn’t write the article.

And I see you don’t seem to care about other writers’ opinions on here since you once again put your changes back. When I have time maybe I’ll have to go through all the work you have written and start making changes to all your sites to force my own opinions on you.

And just because you have been participating for several years on WP doesn’t mean you have been doing it right, which I can see from other complaints people have made about you on your personal discussion page.

The reason I feel qualified to edit this particular Wikipedia page on John H. Meier (as well as Age of Secrets), is that I have spent years studying political history, specifically events in the late 60’s and early 70’s. This has also lead to learning as much as possible about Nixon, Howard Hughes, and those that where involved with them, including Meier. I had read the Age of Secrets book, that was written about him from a distinguished reporter who had spent decades researching and reporting on Meier.

I have read many articles and books about him over the yeas, and in fact have some copies of articles that talk about him. When I saw this site, I quickly went and tracked down as many of the articles as I could find, and copies of some of the books I didn’t already have.

I was fine with your changes except for these ones:

1) you say there is tons of unsourced info. here and add a verify calling for addition citations, yet at the same time you remove the extensive newspaper source list and say its not needed because the article has references?

Those newspaper sources are needed because they are the sourced info. for the article! Which is how every WP page is. Otherwise every single sentence in the entire article would have to have a reference number attached to it.

WP pages need to be shown that they can be verified from reliable references. That is why all those newspaper articles need to be in there.

2) you deleted all the pictures. Again this is very important as it goes to establishing credibility of the source material.

3) you deleted him being mentioned as a former U.S. Senate Candidate (which he was, for New Mexico). This is very important as it ties in with his involved with the U.S. Government, etc.

4) you deleted most of info. about Gonzalez. It is important because the document wasn’t only about John Meier, but Meier and how corrupt the CIA can be. The reference to being used as a tool for the President was important as it tied into Watergate and John Meier, etc.

5) you changed it to say Meier claims to have paid a political price. Its not just Meier’s claims but books including ones written by veteran reporters, newspaper articles, and magazine articles.

6) you removed what was written about the Playboy article, which is an important source for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterx45678 (talk • contribs) 23:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)


My response, point by point:

1) That's not how you properly reference an article. Please see WP:Manual of style

2) Those images are non-free, and editors are highly discouraged from using them on Wikipedia articles. I've noticed that many images you've tried to upload before were deleted for just that reason, yet you keep resubmitting them. Moreover, the images come from a singe source (again, this Age of Secrets book, which makes the Meier article more about the book -- and the favorable account of Meier in it -- than the subject itself.

3) Why is him running for US Senate notable aside from the other accomplishments he's done? Seem like pretty small potatoes in comparision.

4) The Gonzales-related passages were edited because they were assertions made only in the book, and as such not independently verifiable. This is extremely important when making accusations of that kind, particularly because it involves living persons. See WP:OR.

5) See point 4 above. Same applies here, too.

6) That source was used in a manner that was too promotional. This WP article isn't supposed to trumpet what an amazing superman Meier is (or thinks he is, I don't particularly care).

Correction: That article is still listed in the references. What I edited was the more sensationalistic language that was clearly intended to promote the agenda of the Age of Secrets book (which Meier is the subject of), and its central arguments. I've said this several times, that's not the purpose of a Wikipedia article. Alcarillo (talk) 16:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Alcarillo (talk) 00:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


Response

1) making the comment about the U.S. Senate is like saying there is no point in writing anything about Richard Nixon accept that he was the only President to resign.

2) The Gonzales affidavit weren’t assertions from the book, but was made public, as well as one of the sources that showed the political and personal price he paid. I might have some articles about it, I will look through what I have.

3) The problem is, you seem to be looking at this site and Age of Secrets as the same site, they are very different sites that contain only some of the same information. There are endless sites on Wikipedia with similar subject matters that do the same thing. It can’t be assumed that because someone goes to one site they will go to the other. As well as you keep thinking all of this is some big conspiracy to promote Age of Secrets. That book came out a long time ago, the publisher wouldn’t be spending time trying to promote sales of it.

4) When I have time I will look through the articles I have to see if I can add to those citations, but since I didn’t write this article I am not going to spend too much more time on this.

Peterx45678 (talk) 18:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Please do, because there are major holes in this article, as you can see by the empty citation tags. Then there's the question of balance, which you seem to be completely dismissive of. For instance, where is there record that Meier was imprisoned and accused of murder? Or where is information regarding Meier's legal status? One bit of info I found says that he fled to Canada after being accused of fraud and embezzlement[1], which is certainly the other side of the coin to Meier's assertions that he was a victim of "CIA dirty tricks". Alcarillo (talk) 19:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
For the record, I never even heard of John Meier before I stumbled upon this page and ones related to him. That it was originally written in such a obviously biased manner raised all sorts of flags with me; they usually indicate a distortion of the full story. I've seen it time and again on WP, and it begged the question, "what's NOT being said here?" So I embarked upon a basic investigation and it turns out there's a lot more to John Meier than what was initially written. For instance, there's the entire Hughes mining scandal that's given considerable attention in two books I included in the sources section. There's also the tax evasion issue -- several sources state that Meier is now living in Vancouver in tax exile. A search of info through the Dept. of Justice or IRS didn't reveal anything yet.
Other aspects just don't mesh, or are played to greater effect than they really warrant. Case in point, Meier's film production experience. I found nothing on IMDB, but a search of the AMPAS resulted in two films. But as the passage was initially written, you'd think Meier was another "Meyer", as in Louis B.
In sum, I believe the article about Meier is much improved in terms of balance, NPOV and verifiability, but like most things here, it's still a work in progress. Alcarillo (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] US Senate run

I found somewhere that Meier came in 15th in that nomination race. So I don't think his candidacy was all that notable (note that in just about every instance where his name is mentioned in WP, his Senate run is mentioned). I'll keep trying to find that info. Alcarillo (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Follow up: I found it here (PDF) [2] Alcarillo (talk) 22:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Correction: He came in tenth, which still is of questionable notability. Alcarillo (talk) 22:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing

While I appreciate anyone wanting to make a Wikipedia page better, and conforming to WP policies, it should be people who are familiar with the subject matter who make the changes and, as per WP Policies, any controversial changes that someone wants to make must be debated in the discussion area before those changes can be qualified.

The creators of Wikipedia pages put a lot of time, energy, and research into creating pages in WP and they deserve consideration towards any major changes to their work. Especially when many others have looked at a WP page and made their own edits to it, that you are then not only changing the original page, but eliminating everyone else’s edits, which no one, previously to you, had a problem with.

Your suggested changes are noted but as they are controversial lets discuss which ones should or shouldn’t be made.

I am reverting your changes again until we can discuss this. Please wait until myself and/or anyone else has had a chance to speak and discuss this matter before making any changes.

I will go through your changes in details and post another message with my thoughts on which changes I think are fine and which I don’t agree with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterx45678 (talk • contribs) 22:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that's not how things work around here. Again, I highly suggest you familiarize yourself with the writing -- and editing -- of articles to make them better. What you had before was a mess, plain and simple. It talked up Meier's background in a manner that was not consistent with WP:NPOV; moreover, it was overly detailed on matters that are beyond a wikipedia biography page, particularly someone like John Meier who isn't exactly a household name. Alcarillo (talk) 23:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing and quality of article

I made extensive revisions to this article to make it conform to wikipedia style and policy. The previous versions were too heavily weighted with non-neutral points of view, and hyperbolic and unsourced superlatives. If any factual errors arose they can easily be fixed -- simply reverting those edits does not address the shortcomings of the article. I advise anyone wishing to make edits to this familiarize themselves with WP policies on articles about living persons and the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Alcarillo (talk) 21:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)