Talk:Joseph J. Romm

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on September 29, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.


Contents

[edit] Significance

The article doesn't establish why the author is notable Wikipedia notability criteria. Alot of people can claim they've written a few books and have been a PI on a Federal grant.--PotomacFever 13:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The article notes that he was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy of the U.S., in charge of the renewable energy and energy efficiency research programs at the U.S. Dept. of Energy. He has written a half dozen books on global warming, energy efficiency and energy technologies, and he is a frequently quoted expert for major news outlets. Plus he has written dozens of articles for respected jounals, like Science and Atlantic Monthly. -- Ssilvers 16:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
Hundreds of people have been acting a/s of some DOE office. You give no cites for Science articles by Romm. Hundreds of persons have written Atlantic articles and they're not peer reviewed anyway. Most important, we are playing by Wikipedia's rules--or I am, at least. You have not addressed whether this article passes or fails Wikipedia's notability criteria. If you want to follow your own rules, instead, set up a web site of your own. Maybe you have?--PotomacFever 16:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
True, and even if we accept notability to the point of having a Wiki article, the length of this particular entry certainly seems to exceed the importance of the subject. It's also riddled with trivia and minor points the average reader isn't interested in (a bio of Romm's brother? The fact that Fox interviewed him twice?). —Preceding unsigned comment added by FellGleaming (talk • contribs) 13:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Publications

It is correct to discuss a person's most important and notable works both in the body of the narrative biography section and in a list of works or publications. Please see Bernard Williams, which is a Featured Article, for an excellent example of a biography article where this is done. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It is correct to *discuss* those works, but merely duplicating a list twice is poor literary form. Also, given other editors concerns over the notability of this subject, there are many concerns over the article length.FellGleaming (talk) 01:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Not other editors, just one. All editors except PotomcFever found the article highly notable. Read the discussion. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia, Tangential, and Duplicate Information

There is a trememdous amount of such material in this article that has no place in an encyclopedia entry, such as what Romm's brother does for a living, entire paragraphs on projects he mere "assisted with" at the US DOE, and unverifiable peacock phrases like "world's leading expert". I have tried to remove the most egregious of these, over the objections of a POV-pushing editor.

Additionally, the namecalling and Meat Puppetry by user:Ssilvers, as well his misuse of terms such as vandalism for edits which are clearly not is an abuse of Wikipedia policy. I urge him to moderate his actions and work with other editors to make this a better entry. FellGleaming (talk) 17:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The only POV-pushing editor is you – you're a global warming denyer, so you are attacking the bio aricle of a strong advocate for government action to control global warming. A review of your edits shows that you have been edit warring on numerous other articles to push your POV there. When Romm was the acting Assistant Secretary of Energy, he was in charge of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. When he was Deputy AS, he "helped" run the office, but he was the #2 guy for those periods. This office is the DOE's billion-dollar energy efficiency and renewables research and applications program. Since this is Romm's bio, describing his activities at this important government job would seem to be worth a paragraph. I'm not sure what the basis would be for excluding it. If you have any reasonable suggestions about editing this article, I am happy to work with you, but you just want do delete information that is appropriate for this biography article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The word is spelled "denier", and I would appreciate you stop namecalling, especially without evidence. The mere fact I don't think a reader wants to know the name of Romm's brother's dog in Romm's article doesn't make me a "denier". The reasonable suggestions I made in article edits. Instead of looking at them, you and your Meatpuppet preferred to label them "vandalism" and perform mass rollbacks. FellGleaming (talk) 19:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Controversy" section

I think removing it was the right thing to do (diff here) - the first cited reference is to a rather sarcastic opinion piece on what appears to an advocacy organization website; the second is to an offhand comment from a blog of unknown reliability, and the third assertion is unsourced. If these are valid criticisms then there should be better sources for any and all. I also think it would be helpful for editors - particularly relatives of the article's subject - to lay out these observations in Talk pages rather than reverting with unenlightening edit summary comments. JohnInDC (talk) 14:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I replaced the first criticism but tried to make it less POV and also included a cite to Romm's response. I also moved the section down to a more appropriate position in the article, although I think perhaps it should go after publications. The second statement was false. Romm has no connection to any commercial seller including any seller of Photo-voltaic technology. The third statement was silly. Romm has published many peer-reviewed articles, and his books have been widely reviewed by professional and industry reviewers (see the bluelinked book articles). I added citations to Romm's peer-reviewed articles and added more references to the publications named in the publications section. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought the re-write was good. It captured the dispute and left the reader to decide what to think. I had the same thought re placement (i.e., after publications) but didn't and don't feel strongly enough about it to move it. JohnInDC (talk) 15:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I deleted it in the first place because this is a wiki of Dr. Romm, not of his blog and not of anyone's political agenda. It is an inappropriate addition. While the edit is certainly a better researched contribution than the first one, if anyone wishes to discuss specific blog entries they should do so in the blog. I'll let Ssilvers delete his own addition. Baron Dave Romm (talk) 19:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Baron Dave. The article cited is criticism of Romm, not discussion of his "blog". It appears that the criticism of Romm on this issue got some press, and so it is notable to discuss it here. I contacted Dr. Romm, and he confirmed that it was an appropriate discussion. Ironically, the discussion of this criticism makes this article stronger, because it illustrates how Romm's critics take positions that are not credible and shows balance in the article. I think that experienced Wikipedia editors would confirm that this section is helpful in this article. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I live about three miles from the collapsed bridge and pointed Dr. Romm to the issue and to several articles in the local press that hadn't gotten national attention. I don't think one blog subject that "gets some press" should be part of a wiki bio, but I'll defer to you and him. Adding links to articles and interviews strengthens te article, so thanks for that. I fixed the link to my interview with him, so you can put that back. Baron Dave Romm (talk) 20:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, done. Thanks for fixing the link. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be stated plainly that Dr. Romm's viewpoint on this really hasn't got much bearing on the issue of whether a particular edit is properly included or not. It is good that everyone seems to agree here (more or less), but if they did not, the matter would be resolved by reference to principles of Wikipedia and not the subject's opinion. JohnInDC (talk) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, John. Of course you are right. However, see WP:BLP, which says "While Wikipedia discourages people from writing new articles about themselves or expanding existing ones significantly, subjects of articles are welcome to remove unsourced or poorly sourced material." Romm was able to point me to a reference that is cited now in the Criticism section. WP:BLP has a lot of excellent information about how to proceed with this article with respect to the criticism section and other content. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)