User talk:Piquant

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[edit] Criticisms of Respect

Thanks for your work improving this section. Warofdreams talk 21:46, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of link from subprime article

I note that you have removed the external link to the Costas Lapavitsas interview from the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis article. You cite the reliability of the source as a problem.

The source in question is a senior lecturer in economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, one of London's most prestigious universities. He has also written two substantial books on finance.

I think he is at least as reliable a source as Yuliya Demyanyk, Otto Van Hemert, Paul Krugman, Michel Lazare, Allan Sloan, Fortune and the Economist. Please consider either removing their links or reinstating the one I added. Thanks.

Piquant (talk) 18:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It's problematic because Lapavitsas is described in the article as "a leading Marxist economist" and the article is from the International Socialism journal. Until your addition of this link, the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis article contained no alternative political view which required balancing per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, in fact it contained no political view. Your only edit was to add this link, so it was not prompted by a discussion on any political issue which may have made it valid. The external link itself was, imo, the least helpful and credible, written by a person of less credibility (a senior lecturer in economics, University of London), than the other contributors - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Princeton University (professor & noted scholar), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Fortune, Economist Intelligence Unit (The Economist Group). I believe that external links have to comply with the WP guideline on reliable sources, and I felt that it failed.

That covers the individual edit. As far as your other edits go, I noted that you do little other editing apart from adding links to articles in the International Socialism journal. It seems to me as if you are not interested in balanced editing but rather are pushing one particular point of view. My only question is the extent to which external links are covered by Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox. To this end I requested that admins examine the issue here Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Political_spam_links_.3F.

As Wikipedia:Verifiability states "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material."

I note that there are several conversation occuring about this issue, presumably as a result of my WP:ANI post, so to aid communication, I will copy this whole thread on to your talk page and would prefer to continue any discussion there. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 17:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

If you think that Yuliya Demyanyk, Otto Van Hemert, Paul Krugman, Michel Lazare and Allan Sloan do not have a POV then you are much mistaken. It is impossible to write on economics at this level without expressing a political POV, even if it is simply one of supporting the status quo.

The International Monetary Fund is a clearly political institution and there is a substantial body of academic writing demonstrating this. (The US government, which has very clear political views, controls 16.79 percent of the votes in its executive, for instance.) The Economist, which I read each week, is a magazine with a very clear political stance, which takes positions on a whole number of political questions. It also represents a particular POV in economic theory, namely a version of neoliberalism, which is widely rejected (indeed rejected by the majority of the population in large areas of the globe). If you prefer I could remove these external links also, until such a time as those who added them prove they do not represent a POV.

Regarding Lapavitsas's credibility. Why is a senior lecturer in economics in the university of London, with a couple of books to his name, less credible than a staff member at the Economist or a employee at a bank? Does wikipedia rank academics in some way? This seems counter to the logic of the whole project.

Anyway, I'd challenge you to find any claim in the interview that lacks credibility. Otherwise you are simply exposing your own narrow mindedness. As for the other editing, I'd point you to my work on Phantom voltage, the theory of the united front, Leon Trotsky's political views, corrections to Anglicanism and Respect, etc. Piquant (talk) 14:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] United front

You hve made some major edits to this article, and removed a lot, without first using the Talk page or even adding comments. Can you go back to the page and explain the rationale? In particular, I don't see a reason for your cuts. --Duncan (talk) 12:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. I was following the advice I was given to "be bold" in my edits. But see the talk page for detailed explanation. Piquant (talk) 13:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)