Talk:Pat Binns

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Political parties and politicians in Canada
Prince Edward Island
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To-do list for Pat Binns: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:
  • Copyedit: Many sections have bulky, uninviting paragraphs.
  • Verify: Binns' time as a premier needs verification.
  • Expand: Are there any areas of his actions and that of his government that aren't given enough weight?
  • NPOV: This article once was NPOV. Is it still?

Contents

[edit] Legacy section?

Isn't having a section on his "legacy" a bit premature, since he's still in office? CaptainCanada 22:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Considering he has consistantly polled as the most popular leader on PEI, I have to seriously wonder who wrote this article. It seems like it came directly from the desk of the Liberal Party.
This is definately a very slanted, poorly written article about a man who is currently the longest serving premier in Canada and will likely be the longest serving premier in PEI history. Sailorman65 15:48, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Then by all means please help out! -- Zanimum 17:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conservative hijack?

In early March this page was given a thorough going over and now resembles Conservative Party literature, even the the point of removing the small section of Criticisms, which I re-instated. No politician is served by one-sided commentary except in a unitary state. -- sdpate 5:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

True, however criticisms can't be added without citations. -- Zanimum 17:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


The Progressive Conservatives are at it again. They are removing the criticism section, one paragraph at a time. It's like Donald Segretti and his team of dirty tricksters. The page is currently no more than public relations fluff. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sdpate 22:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)Sdpate (talk • contribs) 15:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

It's highly unlikely that the husband of the Lieutenant Governor is editing Wikipedia. If you cite the criticisms to the websites of significant organizations, or preferably to media reports, then they can stay. Otherwise, you simply cannot add non-factual, POV information. -- Zanimum 15:45, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed the comment on the Lieut Governor's husband as requested. Re above comment on citations re criticisms, the article has 4 citations which are removed on a regular basis. All facts are as reported in media or in government documents.Sdpate 15:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused... you added info, you didn't remove it. As per the LG's husband, I thought you originally meant they were editing the article. As for citations, what you need to do is add links after your sentences like this... "Write your sentence.<ref>[URL link name]</ref>" -- Zanimum 18:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
No info was added to article. Someone deleted the criticism par and I reverted it. There was no reference to the LG in the article, only in discussion. I tried your citations suggestion but it dead-ended the external links. What did I do wrong?Sdpate 20:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


I attempted to edit the criticisms section in a manner that meets wikipedia's criteria. For example, there was a line that said "a flurry of human rights complaints", but when you clicked on the link, you landed on every single human rights complaint decision ever given in the province. There was only ONE human rights complaint in that long list that had anything remotely to do with DSP - although it was a simply a complaint about whether it fell under the Human Rights Act. I removed the privacy commissioner citation because I failed to find any of those decisions had to do with disability support. I removed opinion that was not sourced. I tried to clarify that disability support is a blog, not a valid organization that has an actual membership. I also removed a line about the dsp being cut back because there was NO SOURCE. I also took out the word "abuse" in the Baker Report because abuse was not a word in the report. Criticisms are valid, but they MUST BE SOURCED!!!!

Thanks for your comments and for the time you are spending sorting this out. To set the record straight, I am not the writer of the other material under Criticism and take no ownership of it. When the page was being subverted, I added back the orginal material from the mid-Jan to Feb period.
On the DSP, I added references and comments/notations so the references make sense to the reader . I edited the material to remove words like "flurry" with actual counts for HR and Privacy complaints along with information on their open closed stutus. The references now take you to each complaint to the extent possible. The 12 complaints settled and documented in the CBC story are not on the government site. A Freedom of Information request would likely be required to resurrect them and they still have no requirement to list them on their site. Not all documentation is internet in any event. Everything else should be documented but if there are omissions I will fix them asap.
Disability Alert is not a just a blog, although we do have an active blog,since a blog is an instance of social media. I am individual, a human being and not a blog - I have two blogs which are places for me to put my writing. When Disability Alert started I was the founder. At that point DA was an organization of one Director, perfectly normal and legal on PEI. Since then other people have joined Disability Alert in advocating on behalf of Islanders with Disabilities. We have relationships with other disability groups.
The reference to Disability Alert in Wiki said we were a "advocacy group". Webster’s New World Dictionary 2nd College Edition defines Group: "a number or persons or things gathered closely together and forming a recognizable unit…3. a number of persons or things classified together because of common characteristics, community of interests.” If there were only two people in Disability Alert we would be a group and we are larger than that. The adjective “advocacy” is obvious from what we do. Publication of a membership list is not required to be a group and highly unlikey in a group that is proposing societal change.
There are numerous third party media references on PEI to Disability Alert as an Advocacy Group. The referenced article on April 11, 2007 Guardian says "Stephen Pate, the group’s founder, was flanked by supporters as he handed fact sheets to MLAs outlining the needs of disabled Islanders." It didn't say the "alleged group" or refer to a Blog. We were actual live people on the street in the cold. On the same day CBC reported "The director of P.E.I. Disability Alert hopes increases in disability funding included in Tuesday's budget will be enough to provide Islanders the assistance they need and deserve." There is no indication they considered our group a mere Blog. What would be your reasoning in wanting to consider us “invalid”. We are certainly considered valid by the local media and by the Province of PEI. Thank you. Sdpate 14:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sdpate 23:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disability issues in Prince Edward Island

I simply have no time to read through your extremely long winded comment, sdpate.

These issues you insist on raising regularly in the article deal more with the provincial government as a whole, not just Mr. Binns. If you wish to write about disability/human rights issues, do it in the new Disability issues in Prince Edward Island article. Anything more than a single paragraph per term gives undue weight to one issue, while that issue has not been a positive or negative defining issue in Binn's government.

It is undue weight, and against WP:BLP.

To everyone, no matter their issue: I hope to dismantled the legacy and criticism section as soon as possible. Neither is an appropriate section to include. To include a legacy for a still serving politician is "crystal balling", and criticism should be discussed in the section for the relevant term of office. -- Zanimum 13:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Note that I have just renamed the article to "Disability rights in Prince Edward Island". -- Zanimum 13:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The "long winded" comment is a pejorative and personal comment. I will be more concise.
The Disability Support Program was an iniative of the Pat Binns' government like every other program that he is given credit for in the article. There are 19,000 Islanders with disabilities, 14.4% of the population. A complete discussion may be for a separate page but it deserves proper mention in the article.
This page continues to get highjacked.
The whole page is full of unsubstatiated material.
First Term, Second Term and Third Term are narrative with no citations. Example "Unpredictability in federal equalization, coupled with rising health care and energy costs and weakness in the primary and tourism sectors, played havoc with provincial finances." No independant citations. This is an opinion piece.
The Criticism's section is POV and contains personal attacks on me, namely "Recently, a Charlottetown political activist has attacked Binns,the Disability Support Program and various public servants with several blogs and other websites. The activist has also attempted to alter Binns' Wiki." None of that has anything to do with Pat Binns. The same people also removed the link to "Disability rights in Prince Edward Island". -- Sdpate 23:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
If this page is full of unsubstantiated material, start to find references for those things that are true, and delete the rest with explaination in your edit summary. The only edits I have seen you do are simply to add more content to the article, content of little relevance in the grand scheme of his personal career.
I have reverted the personal attack and other removals of content, to restore the article to my last revision. I have warned the two anons who recently messed with this article. -- Zanimum 12:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you Sdpate 16:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Warning

Any further edits to this page leading up to and over the course of the PEI provincial election that do not comply with the WP:NPOV policies will be removed immediately, and the page will be recommended to be locked by administrators. Enough is enough especially when the edit war over this page has become national news in the media. [1] And yes, Mr. Stephen Pate, that means you especially. Either source your statements using verifiable sources, not your own website or blog, as Wikipedia is meant to an encyclopedia, not an political commentary page or a place for personal rants about politicians and their policies. If you have any questions as to whenever or not what your add to the article is NPOV, put it here and have it reviewed by everyone here. The continued edit war must stop HERE. Oh, and please remember to sign your posts on talk pages! ThePointblank 13:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Good lord, I never expected to hear about an NPOV dispute from CBC! Anyway, it's a week and a heck of lot of edits later. Have the grounds for the NPOV tag introduced by here by User:Dppowell been resolved? If not, can we discuss which sections need to be changed? --Saforrest 15:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Frankly haven't the foggiest. These are the changes, but most seem to be my addition of refs, and removals etc. I think Powell reverted the article to a stable version, and then put the tags on the stable, to indicate it would likely degenerate in the edits after. -- Zanimum 16:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Zanimum is correct about my intent in placing the tags, and I'm glad to yield to editors who are more knowledgeable about Pat Binns in deciding when it's time to remove them. I'll continue to keep the page on my watchlist and to revert any obvious stumping. Dppowell 20:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
If someone could go through the article and add as many refs as possible to news items, especially in the last two terms, where all the battling likely was. -- Zanimum 16:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I am quite contented to leave the article as is.Sdpate 16:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CBC News

This article has been linked to be this CBC News article. I know there's a template for it somewhere, but I have no idea where. I also agree with prior suggestions for a lock, given the circumstances. -b 13:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I made an request for external intervention regarding the edit war at the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard I am commending Mr. Pate for his intentions in trying to draw attention to disability issues, but Wikipedia according to its guidelines, is not the place to do it. I am not too pleased with the situation here, and how it degenerated. ThePointblank 14:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
The story has ran today on CBC Radio One Charlottetown during the morning show, and then just a couple minutes ago. It's a ten minute segment. -- Zanimum 15:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] lack of sources

I am tired of hearing in the papers and on the radio about this, "edit war." There is a simple way to fix this disagreement between all of the groups involved, everyone needs to stick to the facts. Everyone who edits this article needs to cite their sources. If there are no credible sources for an item of information, then the information needs to be left out. J Dogg 21:33, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Concur. If I see any more edits that introduce information without sources, I will revert it immediately, and slap warnings immediately. There is a reason why the article is on the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Let everyone who edits this article be warned; for the immediate future, this article will be closely watched to insure that all edits that introduce new information complies with all Wikipedia policies. If you make an assertion, back it up with facts and show sources, under the No Original Research policy. The scrutiny will be much higher for this article due to the media circus that has developed around it. Then again, Wikipedia has always been under a media circus, but we as a collective whole as editors and contributors have to demonstrate we can produce articles that are excellent sources of information, that are reliable, non-biased, and ones as a whole, the community can be proud of. ThePointblank 13:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windsor Star

Congratulations, wikipedians!

This article's made it into the April 19, 2007 edition of the Windsor Star newspaper (a CanWest Global Communications property). RingtailedFox • Talk • Stalk 21:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gerrymandering, etc.

I am not being partisan about Mr. Binns or any other politician on PEI but this article reads like campaign literature and is hardly a balanced account. There should be some mention in the Term 3 section about the electoral reform commission and Mr. Binns demand of a "super majority" in the subsequent plebescite for it to be implemented, nor is there much mention of the electoral boundaries commission scandal and the gerrymandering allegations against him. I also feel that Polar Foods, one of the largest losses of public money in PEI's history, has been glossed over, as has the running up of record debt levels since the late 1990s.142.177.241.27 02:43, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If you have the 'varifiable sources' to back those proposed additions, then by all means adds them. GoodDay 18:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Still the premier

Pat Binns will be the premier until he resigns, which has not happened yet.--Ibagli (Talk) 03:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

He's resigned, June 12, 2007. GoodDay 20:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)