Talk:John Michael Botean

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ohio Portal
John Michael Botean is part of WikiProject Ohio, which collaborates on Ohio-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to current discussions.
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

Please rate this article, and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
Suggested article edit guidelines:
Catholicism Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Catholicism, which collaborates on articles related to the Roman Catholic Church. To participate, edit this article or visit the project page for details.
Stub This article has been rated as stub-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the Project's importance scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article has been automatically assessed as Stub-Class by WikiProject Biography because it uses a stub template.
  • If you agree with the assessment, please remove {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page.
  • If you disagree with the assessment, please change it by editing the class parameter of the {{WPBiography}} template, removing {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page, and removing the stub template from the article.

I have received official permission from Fr. Ovidiu of the Chancery to use images and text from the official website (http://www.romaniancatholic.org) for use in Wikipedia. Sources are thus official and copyright permission predates publication. TMLutas 16:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] copyvio

As per the discussion on my and xyzzy's user pages, this article was tagged by an admin who explicitly stated that he was not following guidelines. This is strange, to say the least and I had just had a run in with the same admin on a completely unrelated post. What a coincidence!

I'm letting this run through the process as a test case to see how broken the process really is. TMLutas 14:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Please read Template:Copyvio; it explains the matter quite clearly. —Centrx→talk • 22:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
The entire episode as per here has been filled with people quoting various rules, templates, guidelines and misstating what they say. I don't know whether you came to the talk page directly or you came via the long discussion on the copyright violations page or from the two user pages that had sections of the discussion. The issue at hand certainly isn't covered by the template. The template a priori accepts the listing admin's determination, that determination is what was in dispute. The much quoted guidelines, policies, and rules all talk about good common sense and also exercising good faith assumptions that other people are not lying when they assert things including that they've got permission. Had anybody actually said "I sent an email" I would have been satisfied and let everybody in on the grand secret, that in this particular organization (for which I've been volunteering in various positions for well over a decade) the time to get something down in writing often takes months and that my own written request had flown out early in the process. Nobody did. Nobody followed the actual guideline and instead spent a great deal of time and effort explaining why they weren't obligated to, considering it important to preserve the option to act arbitrarily.
I learned a good deal about process, Wikipedia, and the community zeitgeist from this irregular permission. I've gained a great deal more appreciation for those who have always maintained that Wikipedia is doomed. They had more of a point than I thought. TMLutas 14:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I am not certain what you are disputing. The text was copied directly from the website indicated, which has no indication that the text is released into the public domain or is licensed under the GFDL. If the copyright holder wishes to license the text under the GFDL, they must send confirmation of that to the Wikimedia Foundation. Until such time as there is confirmation that the text has been explicitly licensed under the GFDL, it cannot remain on Wikipedia. —Centrx→talk • 17:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing

On the off chance that this page is on a few more watch lists than normal, I'm going to be a bit more complete than normal on sourcing on this page, at least for a bit and keep up a section for that purpose TMLutas 14:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Factual sources:

None of these are published third-party sources. Are there any books, magazines, academic journals, newspapers, or even reliable independent blogs? —Centrx→talk • 17:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Let's see, Item 4, 5, and 6 on the list are all 3rd parties. A quick check of the main pages on those servers should have made that clear. Of course, as a Catholic organization, the bio and organizational stuff is verifiable via the Catholic Directory but that's not online so far as I know. You'd most likely have to take the trek to your local catholic parish or library for that source of verification. The bare existence of the diocese and bishop can be verified via the USCCB (http://www.usccb.org/bishops.shtml) which also verifies that items 1 and 2 are from the official diocesan website and the monastic communities link there demonstrates that item 7 is also an official source of news on that community. Is there anything in particular you're uncomfortable with? TMLutas 16:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Some of them are somewhat independent sources but they are not reliable published sources; see also Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. There is not, for example, editorial review on any of these. The letter is written by Botean himself, the rumkatkilise.org site has a trivial mention of him and was written by a church now affiliated with him. The www.hrmonline.org source looks fairly legitimate, but it is a single trivial mention that only verifies that he exists. The tcrnews2.com also looks relatively legitimate, but it is simply an interview with someone of unknown reliability. —Centrx→talk • 18:49, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, perhaps I was not clear. Do you have any actual problems with the article as written? Without an actual challenge as to, well, anything, there's really no point to the discussion. Over time, the article will improve and there are no contentious issues of defamation or libel involved here. You were simply incorrect that there were no independent sources at first and now you are incorrect that rumkatkilise.org is in a church affiliated with Bishop John Michael (unless you have some rather nonstandard values for the definition of "affiliated"). You may wish to look up what a sui iuris church is. So far as I know, the byzantine catholics in Turkey are not associated with the US diocese at all and not even with the Romanian synod which only has a somewhat dotted line relationship with the US diocese. If you would like to improve sourcing, have at it but I confess that I don't get what you're trying to do with your, thus far, inaccurate assertions. TMLutas 20:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ethnicity

Bishop John Michael is 3rd generation american (no, not sourced but that's irrelevant for this conversation). Putting a romanian bio stub may or may not be appropriate but I've left it in because in the 38 years I've been on this planet I haven't gotten a straight answer as to what *is* a romanian; that is, what makes someone in or out of the group? Identity can be a tricky thing so anybody answering should remember to be gentle TMLutas 22:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iraq war condemnation

Bishop John Michael is the only US bishop to have directly condemned the Iraq war, period, end of story. There is no evidence of any other bishop in the US ever condemning this war and if necessary I could put in half a dozen footnotes to document the Bishop's uniqueness. That would be improper technique because there's no evidence to challenge the statement. "Some have said" is only proper when others have challenged it. If the evidence is all one way, it's not correct usage. TMLutas 13:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

One needs to find references indicating that this is the case. Not being familiar with the topic, i needed to find a reference that would back up that claim: the only one I was able to find in a rather quick search was the one presently in the text. The wording is not meant to place doubt on the fact, but it is unacceptable for an article to introduce an unsourced assessment - it has to be attributed. Dahn 14:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
It *is* attributed to the already included citation and anyway only has to be attributed if you're challenging the truthfulness of the statement. Are you? You say that you're not familiar with this topic. I suggest that randomly changing things with which you admit you are not familiar is not a high return tactic. In any case, perhaps this list of refs that mention Bishop John Michael as the only opposing bishops or which explicitly state he was the only condemning US bishop would be sufficient:

1. Just Peace
2. Just Peace
3. Lew Rockwell
4. Envoy Magazine
5. [1]
6. [2]

There are over 65k Google hits for Botean Iraq War. My blog postings on the subject are on the 1st page. To get 6 decent links I didn't have to beyond page 2.
I am one of the few US Catholics who seriously have to worry about this pastoral letter. Bishop John Michael is my bishop. He personally knows me and personally knows we are on the opposite sides of the Iraq war and remain so because I've told this to his face within the past year. I have, in other words, paid attention, because I have to. TMLutas 21:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Please see WP:NOT, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. We certainly don't come up with explanation of how things are "plain fact", because that is POV and weasel-wording. As I have said before, opinions need to be attributed, no matter how sure you are that the assessments are right. They belong to the sources, not to the users. And, as a rule, blogs are not reliable sources. Dahn 01:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
1st, it is not original research to cite others works. That I also know from my own personal experience was a start towards getting WP acceptable sources. 2nd if you have an NPOV problem with the statement as written, improve the wording and don't weasel it into "some have said" when nobody (including you) are saying otherwise. Some say that water is wet, I say it's dry. Yeah, that's patent nonsense. But without a scintilla of evidence to the contrary you're forcefully insisting on a change on a subject you admit you know little about. Finally, blogs are some of but certainly not all of the evidence presented. Provide 1 bit of counter-evidence, please, or drop it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TMLutas (talk • contribs) 18:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Came back after some thought and I'd like to propose a way to resolve this in an orderly fashion. I'd like you to let me know if you have any doubts as to the underlying truth of the assertion that John Michael Botean is the most outspoken anti Iraq war bishop in the US. If you don't, this is an issue about presentation. If you do, you should say why you have doubts. If this is about presentation, I'd like to see an alternative candidate that adequately communicates our shared view of reality. If this is about substance, you need to provide at least *some* evidence that points to why what I put in was wrong. TMLutas 21:25, 14 November 2007 (UTC)