Talk:National Iranian American Council

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[edit] Creators

I am not sure Roy Coffee, Dave DiStefano, Bob Ney were among the creators of NIAC. At some point they were supporters of forming a political action committee of Iranian-Americans, which is now known as, Iranian American Political Action Committee(IAPAC). This is however different from NIAC as a civic entity. If we read the letter of Roy Coffee completely, we notice that at that time Iranian-Americans were not willing to participate in any political activities. Roy Coffee and Dave DiStefano later tried to encourage the NIAC officers to participate in the political activities. This was however after NIAC's formation.(Echopapa (talk) 05:05, 18 January 2008 (UTC))

The argument above is truley flawed. Some questions:

  1- if indeed Roy Coffee is talking about working with Dave DiStefano, Bob Ney and Trita Parsi to succesfully develope this  "other" lobbying group, where is it?  If it was never formed, why does he claim he was succesful

  2- Later in the same letter (same paragraph), Roy Coffee specifically mentions NIAC name.
  3- Was Trita Parsi at the same time working on developing two seperate organizations?

Omid.Biniaz (talk) 15:26, 19 January 2008 (UTC) Omid Also a study of (IAPAC) reveals that it had nothing to do with Coffee, Parsi or any thing that Coffee was talking about. http://www.iranianamericanpac.org/about/ms.shtml Omid

You mentioned " NIAC helped Ney organize public gatherings and discrete and exclusive fundraiser events (with $1,000 plates). They developed training manuals on lobbying" the reference that you provided apparently mentioned that the two involved gentlemen were “former” associates of Ney. I am not sure you are trying to reflect facts in this article or your own opinion. There is no controversy regarding the founders of this organization as the federal and public records agree that the founders were not Coffee or DiStefano. Even your link to the Coffee's letter does not support your claim that NIAC was founded by these people. It seems that this claim originates from deducing rather than facts that you can find on reliable records. The description of NIAC should precede what you try to educe as facts. If you want to mention such connection you may add a subtitle at the end of the article and address the probable allegations there.

Yes NIAC was mentioned in Coffee’s letter but where did he say that he founded NIAC? Are we deducing here?

Coffee and DiStefano was working to form a “political” action committee but for the reasons Coffee mentioned in the same letter they were not successful as he continues:

"...The 4 of us worked very hard for about 9 months to form this committee, but we found that most Iranians do not want to get involved in politics because of their experiences in Iran during and after the revolution. They have come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their children and don't want to get involved. Most have succeeded as many of the Iranian-Americans I have met have been very successful professionals. The few Iranians that are involved in politics seem to be strong supporters of the Shah who advocate the overthrow of the current government and the installation of the Shah's son as a new Monarch. The Shah's son lives in surburban Virginia and actively supports these groups. From everything I can tell, this is a pipe dream. In fact, if you google my name,..., you will see an article from November of 2002 where Dave and I addressed the National Iranian American Council (NAIC) on getting involved in the political process.."^[1]}}

NIAC was later formed by Trita Parsi and others as a “civic” organization.

Yes good point about your study on IAPAC. IAPAC is not affiliated with Coffee nor DiStefano. But what they wanted in 2002 as Coffee described in his letter was something similar to what we have now as IAPAC, not NIAC.(Echopapa (talk) 01:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC))

You can't just ignore what many reasonably belive about NIAC. We need to find a way to convey both sides.Omid.Biniaz (talk) 19:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC) Omid

I have added all the references you had requated above. Thanks for pointing it out. Omid.Biniaz (talk) 00:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Omid

Thank you Omid for adding more citations. Still large part of what you edited is not in accordance with WP:NPOV as it is a weighted representation prior to even mentioning the published description of activities and goals of NIAC as a 501(c). There are federal and state records indicating the founders of NIAC. It is not a matter of opinion and perhaps we can find a better structure for the article. Unfortunately, in using reference 1 you used incomplete quotes out of context and which opened that part to WP:FRINGE. I suggest we include the remaining parts of what Coffee had to say (if you still insist its inclusion). In general, we may write a separate subsection perhaps with a title of "Criticism to NIAC". It is a mechanical issue of presenting this article as an unbiased one with your citation(s) appropriately and exactly mentioned. We can discuss the controversies and the mechanical issues here and then we can incorporate them in the article. .Echopapa (talk) 07:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I agree. Let's do it section by setction. 69.177.251.95 (talk) 12:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Omid

[edit] Protected (c.f. OTRS #2008010410012838)

Uncle G, most of the material and sources you removed were from NIAC webpages (archived). There are no legal actions against anyone any where. When similar facts were broadcast form VOA (voice of America) the same talk of legal action was raised. But legal action against what? Qouting NIAC's own writting and doing? People have the right to know that there are concerns on this organization. Wikipedia is not an advertising platform for any person or organization. Omid.Biniaz (talk) 13:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Omid

Yes Omid, Wikipedia is not an advertising platform nor is it a blog nor a political forum. Given those, we may introduce the avenues of the blogs and political forums in the article for interested readers onthe controversies. Your references are good and could be mentioned but in an abstract manner. As I mentioned before, it is a mechanical problem. Thanks to Wiki, your edits are recorded and you can always return back and use your already generated materials, once we come up with the structure of the article. Echopapa (talk) 18:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The underlying issue is that there is an alternative argument that NIAC was created to influence the US American relations through influencing congress. The cloud around initiation of NIAC as well as the bulk of activities of NIAC all point to that. This alternative belief, considers the concern for the “civic life” of Iranian Americans a side show. Any fair and complete article on NIAC must be able to portray this alternative belief. The best form of doing this, we can work together to define. Omid.Biniaz (talk) 21:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC) Omid

I removed exactly 4 names, and removed no sources at all. If you want to introduce content, I suggest that you find and cite reliable sources to support it. The article is protected because of (a) the edit war, (b) the BLP concerns of unsourced material that states that named living people are felons, and (c) the OTRS ticket. You shall find and cite reliable supporting sources before you introduce material that states that living people are criminals. Find and cite good independent reliable sources for your content. Do not introduce novel syntheses of primary sources. Do not introduce content unsupported by any source. If something is not properly documented, it does not get into Wikipedia, irrespective of how "unfair" that is. If a belief held by people has not been documented or that documentation has not been published via some means that has a good provenance and a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, then that belief does not get into Wikipedia. So go and find independent reliable sources documenting what you want to cover. Uncle G (talk) 00:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] locked?

After a compromise is reached, will somebody please add in the interwiki link: fa:شورای ملی ایرانیان آمریکا at the bottom of the article? Thanks.--Zereshk (talk) 19:29, 17 April 2008 (UTC)