Talk:Priscilla Painton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.
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.

Contents

[edit] Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Controversy tag

Priscilla Painton pulled one mother of a stunt with one Joe Klein -- there are a lot of people who are pissed off with her (and justifiably so, at least in my opinion). I've never tried to edit a Wikipedia entry, but some very pissed off liberals might decide that some editing is in order (not entirely without some justification, at least in my opinion). Nbahn (talk) 04:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello NBahn! I'm Redvers, an uninvolved (and completely ignorant of the subject) editor. Your comment above has been controversial, for reasons I don't understand.
Do you have a specific problem with the article? If you can give me specific edits that are a problem, or quote lines you believe are incorrect, I'll try to help. If you want information removing, please give a reason; if you want information adding, please provide a source.
I'm here to help! ➔ REDVEЯS likes kittens... and you 20:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Here is a little background: Joe Klein had caused an uproar among the liberals by writing patently false information about the "Restore America Act" law which is currently being reviewed by Congress for renewal. As the uproar continued, people began pointing out that Klein was facilitated by his immediate Editor (Painton) and by the Managing Editor (Stengal). At least one person bragged about vandalizing Stengal's article, so I thought it best to put up warnings on Stengal's, Klein's, and Painton's respective discussion pages about what was going on.
My reason for entering the "controversy" section is that the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe that Painton should not be given a pass about her editing (or lack thereof) on Klein's article..... So I took the liberty of adding the section -- and I made a point of providing a lot of citations (although I must admit that most of the citations were from one website). I felt that the "controversy" tag on the top of the article, however, would cause people to doubt the veracity of my "controversy" section. That is why I removed the "controversy" tag. I hope that this answers all of your questions.
--Nbahn (talk) 04:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible bias in this article, and the removal of the {{POV}} tag by the person whose edits are in question, are being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Controversy tag. EdJohnston (talk) 03:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Which vs In Which

Please, if you're going to remove the word "in" for reasons unknown and unexplained, please ensure the resulting sentence still makes sense. The alterations under "controversy" to change "Painton edited a controversial November 21st 2007 column by Joe Klein in which Klein published false information regarding legislation that amends the F.I.S.A. law, based upon claims by Republican opponent of the bill Pete Hoekstra" to "Painton edited a controversial November 21st 2007 column by Joe Klein which Klein published false information regarding legislation that amends the F.I.S.A. law, based upon claims by Republican opponent of the bill Pete Hoekstra" replace a sentence with meaning with one that doesn't.

"(someone) (did something to) (an article) by Joe Klein which Klein published false (information)" does not parse. It simply doesn't. Note also the discussion at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#Regarding_the_phrase_.22in_which.22. --Squiggleslash (talk) 21:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Controversy" section

The more that I think about it, the more I become convinced that this section can be tightened up a bit. Specifically, I believe that the below is a bit superfluous insofar as that this article is primarily about Painton and secondarily about Klein and his article.

Klein reported that the Democratic version of the FISA bill "would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court" and that it therefore "would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans."[5]. The proposed bill actually says:

IN GENERAL - Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a court order is not required for electronic surveillance directed at the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not known to be United States persons and are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.

Yes, it is true that she edited it, but I believe that a convincing -- and valid -- argument can be made that the emphasis should be less on the text of said column and more on her defense of said column that even Klein himself has stopped defending. Besides, the citations should be sufficient for those desiring more information. Yes, I think that I am going to remove it.
--NBahn (talk) 09:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the above should be removed as it gives key context to what happened. If the problem is her subsequent behavior is not emphasized enough, then that needs to be emphasized, the text above shouldn't be removed. One of the points made on the Administrator's noticeboard discussion of this article is that it wasn't clear that Klein had published false information, despite actual references in the article to Time's retraction.
Also note I have undone (again) your edit where the the actual source who told Klein what Klein supposedly wrote was replaced by a generic "a Republican opponent" with the name of the person put in parens. The latter is bad style anyway, the former gives undue emphasis unless you can find evidence that the Republicans as a group collaborated to try to ensure Klein reported on FISA incorrectly. --Squiggleslash (talk) 13:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not like cutting out information; however, since I am working right now on an article -- that could well be lengthy -- and that is mostly focused on the brouhaha in question, I do believe that my editing is (barely) justifiable and proper. The article that I am working on should be ready for posting by Monday.
--NBahn (talk) 10:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Firedoglake as a source

Can anyone explain how an apparently self-published site like http://www.firedoglake.com gets to be quoted as a source about the remarks of Priscilla Painton? Per WP:SPS and WP:BLP, unflattering things attested only from blogs are usually not credited in our articles. I don't object to having an article on Jane Hamsher since she herself has mainstream media recognition and her own web site can be used as a source for uncontroversial facts about herself. When she testifies as to what Painton said, I'm not convinced. EdJohnston (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If you like, the sourcing can be changed to a Glenn Greenwald column.
--NBahn (talk) 15:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)