Talk:Ralph Schoenman

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This article was nominated for deletion on 2007 March 30. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 Cleanup 2 Why??? 3 Finally! 4 References 5 1979 and after

[edit] Cleanup

The cleanup tags are really not appropriate. The only thing that could ever be "cleaned up" is adding section headers, which would make it look more like other articles, but is not necessary and could be meaningless. References other than the New York Times would be good, but there is probably not too much problem with the Times articles. —Centrx→talk • 23:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I considered section headings but decided not to add any because the way the text is constructed, I thought it would disrupt the connections across paragraphs more than it would add helpful information. I only used the New York Times because for articles that old, it's all I had access to for the time being. Naturally I'd be happy to see more sources, and maybe this would help fill out the article in such a way that section headings would come more naturally. I would add that I will be insisting on reputable sources, and anything added without providing a source should be summarily reverted. --Michael Snow 00:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why???

Ralph has given permission to use his offical bio from Taking Aim. Yet, this bio was taken down for two months, then this article, which is simply terrible and totally focuses on only one aspect of his life, all of sudden appears! What is going on. Schoenman is demanding that this be taken down immediatly. Why is this being protected???

DavidMIA 21:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)DavidMIA

We don't simply reprint self-serving official biographies. You're welcome to point out additional reputable sources that can be used to better cover other aspects of Schoenman's career. --Michael Snow 07:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It might be useful if you could point out one self-serving aspect of the biogrphary you object to. It is totally factual and, it covers the whole of his political life, not just te few sections you chose. The piece that is up there is now is totally useless. Even the old piece that was slanderous of Schoenman at least covered his whole life!

216.203.27.99 11:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)DavidMIA

If it's factual, please provide reliable independent sources to confirm those facts. --Michael Snow 17:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is there nothing about Schoenman's activities after 1979? Has he done nothing of consequence? - Marshall46 16:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly he's done nothing as consequential as his activities before then. I don't know whether there's anything newer worth mentioning, but it seems to have been too marginal for the professional media to pay much attention. So that mostly leaves, if anything is left at all, potential sources that are either blatantly self-serving or hit pieces. The information in such sources is commonly impossible to independently verify and sometimes difficult to recast in a neutral perspective. That makes it flatly unacceptable here for a controversial subject where high standards of referencing apply. --Michael Snow 17:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Finally!

Ralph Schoenman has some hyserical apologists out there, and it's nice to see that, finally, a real bio of the man has been posted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.65.116.205 (talk • contribs).

[edit] References

The references are listed at the bottom of the article, which is sufficient to support an article. If there is a specific statement for which you cannot find its source, tag it with {{fact}}, rather than putting a tag for the entire article, when it is not difficult to see which parts are referenced in which articles by the titles and dates and there are clearly statements in the article that do follow directly from the sources. —Centrx→talk • 18:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No, those references are not enough. There is simply a list of New York Times articles, none of which is easily available to the average Wikipedia reader, and there is no indication which article details which statement. So a reader who wishes to check something will have to find and check fourteen articles in order to verify and follow up the claim. This is simply not good enough; statements in Wikipedia need to be documented. RolandR 22:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

They are documented, to suggest that they are not is silly. New York Times archives are readily available through a number of libraries and databases, often for free, which is exactly how I obtained them. To dismiss such references is to suggest that we should limit ourselves to unreliable sources just because they can be found on the web. Instead, how about if you point out to us any statements whose accuracy you dispute? If there's nothing to dispute, there's no problem with the article. --Michael Snow 22:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Until I can read the sources, I cannot know whether I dispute any of the statements in the article. That is why I attached a "citation needed" tag to every sentence. I am not prepared to take it on trust that a source says what someone says it does; I have often (not only on Wikipedia) checked a source, and found it says something entirely different. Sometimes even in Ralph Shoenman's own work. So I would like the individual statements in the article to be properly referenced and authenticated, as is the practice in every other article I have been involved with. RolandR 23:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If the issue is that you need to read the sources, please do go ahead, they are all listed for you. The form of the citations does nothing to address your ability to trust "that a source says what someone says it does", since even the most meticulous footnoting still amounts to someone claiming a source says X. In the meantime, I would welcome suggested improvements on specific points in the article, and additional reputable sources if anyone has some. --Michael Snow 04:53, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

But the problem is that you do not indicate which source relates to which statements in the article. This makes it very difficult to confirm what is written. RolandR 16:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It is pretty clear based on dates and titles, which statements can be found in which article. —Centrx→talk • 19:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Then we're back to the matter of which statements you believe to be problematic. If the answer is "all of them", then the solution is quite simple, you're going to need to look up all the sources anyway, so the form of citations is not relevant. If that's not the answer, then you haven't given an answer yet. As Centrx points out also, it really shouldn't be hard for an intelligent reader to deduce, for most of the facts given, which article was probably the source. --Michael Snow 19:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why you see fit to be so offensive about a simple request. I have never seen another Wikipedia article referenced in the way rthis one is. You have the articles, you added the references, and there seems no reason why you should not fulfil the simple courtesy of providing inline references to the statements you derived from these articles so that readers interested in following up any statement are able to do so. Your reply suggests that we should view Wikipedia as a cross between a guessing game and an IQ test; I prefer to use it as a reference source. RolandR 20:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It would be better to have each sentence cited specifically. That does not mean the article has no references and that does not mean that the article warrants deletion. If you think the specifically citations are so urgently important, you are welcome to add them. —Centrx→talk • 20:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I am somewhat sympathetic to your position in that I certainly feel the article would be greatly improved with in-line citations, and I am also unsure as to why this would be a particularly difficult improvement for Mr. Snow to enact.

However . . . with all of that said, the fact is that you didn't make a "simple request". You unjustifiably slapped an {{Unreferenced}} tag on a very much referenced article, and then failing to find satisfication there, nominated the article (in my opinion, quite frivolously) for deletion. These are not particularly courteous acts from someone who is supposedly requesting a "simple courtesy".

Had the method of approach here instead been to come to this talk page, or to Mr. Snow's talk page, and say something like, "I think the Ralph Schoenman article for which you have provided sources would be improved and made more clear if you were to in-line the citations. I might try to do it myself, but it would be somewhat inconvenient, as I cannot access the full text articles from home without paying for The New York Times archives access. If you still have the full text of the articles handy, would it be too much trouble for you to in-line the references to them? It would be very much appreciated. Thanks!" (or if even you had just put the correct tag — {{nofootnote}} — on the article, rather than going the {{Unreferenced}}, then AfD route) then perhaps the end result here would have been more satisfactory to all.

In any event, to Mr. Snow, if the reason you are resistant to in-lining the citations is that you feel disinclined to provided a courtesy to RolandR, I'd request that you consider that such a courtesy would not be limited to him alone. The courtesy would actually be done for all Wikipedia readers who read this article. Perhaps you might consider whether that good might outweigh the distaste of "giving in", as it were, to RolandR? No disputing, however, that the final decision is entirely yours.

Cheers. Mwelch 21:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I looked for, but couldn't find, a tag like the footmotes one, which I agree is much better than the unreferenced tag which I placed. It does not seem to be mentioned at Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles, which is where I looked, and I couldn't find a more appropriate one than the one I used. Where is it listed?

Once I had placed the tag, however inappropriate, I felt that Michael Snow's response (deleting the tag, with an edit summary "lots of references, thank you very much") was dismissive and less than helpful. I recognise that my response was exaggerated; but at least it had the effect of initiating a serious discussion, in which most editors appear to accept my initial criticism, though not the way I raised this. In the hope and expectation that this issue will now be addressed, I have posted a request on the AfD page to withdraw the deletion proposal. RolandR 23:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The long list of Wikipedia cleanup templates is at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Now that you bring it up, however, perhaps an addition to "Sources of articles" would be in order. I'm going to look into that next.

In any event, I appreciate that you acknowledge the {{Unreferenced}} tag was unwarranted, I understand that your error was due in part by your not finding the correct tag where you expected something like that would be, and I appreciate that you acknowledge the article should not have been nominated for deletion. thank you for taking the initiative of withdrawing the nomination. (I can relate especially in this regard, since recently, showing undue haste, I made the brilliant move of nominationg two different articles for deletion that I really had no business so nominating — yikes!) 8-)

Understood also that a contributing factor may have been that you felt "dismissed" by the edit summary. Just as I'm sure that Mr. Snow felt annoyed to see an {{Unreferenced}} tag on an article he'd made sure was referenced, which may have led to the tone of that summary. All just goes to underscore the importance of WP:AGF for all of us, I think. Even when we don't like what another editor has said, it's best to try to consider that the possibility that what they said might have come off more harshly, or rubbed us the wrong way more so, than perhaps they really intended. Sometimes they really didn't mean it like that. And even on those other occasions where our initial suspicion was correct, and they really were intentionally being more acerbic than was necessary, still a response that has in it more honey than vinegar can often serve to tone the situation down, rather than to escalate the hard feelings.

Cheers! Mwelch 09:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: In checking it out, I see that Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles#Requesting sources actually does direct the user to see also Wikipedia:Cleanup Resources#Verifiability and sources, where the {{nofootnote}} tag will then be found. So I don't think any changes on those pagers are necessary. You probably just overlooked the "See also" line. Mwelch 09:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm puzzled that RolandR says he's never seen an article referenced this way. There are plenty of examples amid the many that are simply not sourced at all. To quickly pick out a diverse set: Erich von Manstein, Franz Josef Land, and Book of Kells, the last a featured article, no less.

I appreciate Mwelch's input, but I disagree on one point, the decision about inlining citations is not entirely mine. Anyone else is welcome to make the effort. Somehow I did have the impression that Wikipedia was supposed to be a collaborative project.

I may work on it myself when I have time to access the sources again, but I don't think it makes sense to do absolutely every sentence. For example, the opening paragraph is primarily a synopsis of the content that follows, so it's not as amenable to inline citations as the discrete facts presented below. So specific feedback would be more helpful than blanket criticism. Inline citations are more usual for potentially controversial assertions about disputed subjects, which is why I keep asking which statements in particular people consider problematic. --Michael Snow 03:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Forgive the lack of clarity in my wording. Since I was specifically addressing the idea of you (the person who seems to have a more convenient access to the sources than do the others in this discussion) making the effort, I meant that it's entirely your decision whether you wish to go ahead and make that effort. Exactly because the encyclopedia is a community effort, there's certainly nothing wrong if you decide that you would rather put your time elsewhere and let someone else handle the in-lining, if it's important to them. That's the decision I was referring to that is entirely yours.

In any event, speaking solely for myself, I'm not claiming that there are particular statements that I find problematic. I just think that in-lining would be helpful overall, just given the number of different articles that are cited. Just my opinion. (And no, I did not mean every single sentence.) Mwelch 09:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1979 and after

Somebody added some material about this period, albeit with poor spelling. Unfortunately, no references were provided to support the statements whatsoever. This biography has seen enough controversy for that kind of addition to be removed on sight. I would still welcome anybody that can provide additional reputable sources on Schoenman besides what is already in the article. --Michael Snow (talk) 23:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)