Talk:Robert Morey

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on August 12, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.


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[edit] Patience

I'm v. busy IRL pls be patient I will be adding content. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I already asked for patience. •Jim62sch• 18:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Well be patient about it then! :P KillerChihuahua?!? 22:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] All criticism, no content

This article seems to be in opposition to the Wikipedia policies on undue weight and for biographies of living persons because practically the entire thing is criticizing Morey. I think this guy is wacky, too, but still the criticism should not be the entire content of the article. His ideas must be presented independently (preferably from primary sources, not from quotations lifted from critical articles about him). I don't know anything about this guy other than what I read here, but if no one is willing and able to make such changes, we'll need to significantly redact the criticism sections. --Flex 13:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

The best thing is to add his side not remove sourced opposition. You can add some data on his bio, beliefs, and works. Such as his beliefs on the Vatican Islam Conspiracy. Arbusto 02:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but if no one is willing to do that (I am not because I know nothing about him other than what I read here), then the criticism must be redacted as per wikipolicy. --Flex 16:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

"the criticism must be redacted as per wikipolicy"? I think you are confusing NPOV with false balance. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Precisely. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
While it may also have false balance, unreliable sources, etc., the article is certainly in violation of WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, and that needs to be corrected one way or another. --Flex (talk|contribs) 13:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
No, no, Flex. You do not understand. False balance is what you are proposing to bring to the page, when you say you will redact criticism of Morey not because there is anything inappropriate about the criticism, but simply because no one, including you, has balanced it with Morey's view. And by the way, when someone replies directly to you, it is rude and disgustingly dishonest to remove their comments from the place in the discussion where they were made and shove them down at the end of the page, as if they weren't directly answering you. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is not in violation of NPOV#Undue weight because no one seems to have said anything supporting Morey - which makes sense, because he is an ignorant bigot, and not notable enough to warrant attention or commentary by others. However, Undue weight would be if there were many sources, and most of them supported and agreed with Morey, but we had only the minority which disagreed, or had both on equal footing. If 99% of experts say one thing, and 1% say another thing, and an article treats them as though they were equally accepted and supported, that is undue weight. What we have here is a case of not enough sources to write much of anything. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I still say it violates undue weight because of the sheer volume of text criticizing Morey with next to nothing about what Morey actually says. KillerChihuahua is likely right about there not being enough independent reliable sources to give sufficient positive info to balance out the negative, but he has written a good bit that could be used as primary sources rather than interpreted through his detractors. Quoting him only enough to call him crazy is giving undue weight to his critics (though surely there are other problems such as false balance, unreliable sources, etc.). That being said, I think it should be deleted rather than redacted.
Regarding moving posts to their chronological position: I was not being "rude and disgustingly dishonest" as Antaeus Feldspar alledges, but rather was simply attempting to apply the guidelines on talk page layout, which I understood to mean posts should be in chronological order. I have requested clarification here. Please assume good faith and be more civil in discussing such matters. --Flex (talk|contribs) 20:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
I apologize if I jumped hastily to conclusions about your re-shuffling of talk posts. However, it was difficult for me to actually believe it was done in good faith since, as I said to you elsewhere, I have never seen anyone read the guidelines about talk page layout and come to the conclusion you do that they mean the newest posts go at the bottom, no matter what, even if this places them so far from what they are replying to that no one would ever make the connection between the two. If that was the intent, wouldn't the guidelines just simply read "newest posts go at the bottom, no exceptions" since that's a far clearer expression of that intent? -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
This is my last post here on the topic of posting (anything further should go one of our talk pages or here): The fact that you had never seen it done doesn't justify calling someone someone "rude and disgustingly dishonest" (emphasis mine) IMHO. That is not just jumping hastily (for which I accept your apology) but also quite uncivil rhetoric outside the bounds of proper wikiquette -- even if I were being intentionally rude (and I hope I've established that I wasn't). Again, as I read the guidelines, chronology, not spatial proximity to the post one is replying to, is the highest good, though I freely admit the text of the guideline is ambiguous and I may well be mistaken on this count (I'll wait for the clarification elsewhere). --Flex (talk|contribs) 02:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
This article could be disputed by Wiccans and Muslims. This charge of unfair is unjustified. --Sahih al bukhari

Please elaborate. --Flex 15:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

His bio needs to be expanded. Arbusto 16:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but if no one is in a position to do that (I'm not), the criticism must be redacted so as not to give it undue weight. I also wonder if this nutjob is even notable. --Flex 21:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I am in a position to add the necessay content and just did so. I hope this helps. Sahih al bukhari 02:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I have removed the content added pending discussion. Most of the added biography was already in the article; one statement was unsourced opinion "He is known for his defense of the Christian faith against such notables as Islamic apologist Shabir Ali.", one statement was incorrect, and the rest was also unsourced. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

But even if we could put that paragraph in corrected and sourced, it would be inadequate to balance out the large amount of negative material already present. The article must be expanded positively (e.g., be expanding the bio, by describing his thought from primary sources, etc.) or significantly redacted to remove the undue weight. But again, while I see that this page survived an RfD, I question whether this guy is even deserving of all the attention. --Flex 13:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

the issue is that Morey is on the threshold of notability - there simply isn't much there. This article survived afd, after two previous versions were deleted, partially due to my efforts. At the time I was hopeful that I could locate enough sources to write a reasonable article on Morey, however I am beginning to despair of locating such resources and am contemplating putting the article back on Afd. There doesn't seem to be much chance of this being much more of an article than it already is. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favor of posing an AfD, if only to get more opinions about this. --Flex (talk|contribs) 15:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

We could post it in Article Rfc for more opinions. IMHO we are likely to get "needs more balanced content, needs sourcing" which we already know. However, I am more than willing to go Rfc and if that is unhelpful then Afd. Moving directly to Afd would be less drawn out. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Feel free to nominate it for deletion. I don't think the subject is very important anyway, it has been deleted once by AfD, once under WP:CSD due to lack of credible content and twice as a repost, so it's certainly marginal. Guy (Help!) 15:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you could e-mail some of the people on his website for his side. Maybe that would help?

[edit] Non-compliant

The OC weekly is not a reliable source. The article reads as a piece of advocacy journalism, rather than an encyclopedic article, and is not in compliance with the policy of WP:BLP ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

See my comments in the section immediately above. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
How does the OC Weekly fail as a WP:RS? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FGT2 (talk • contribs) 03:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

ʂ===Continued non-compliance=== Could someone please elaborate on why this article isn't encyclopedic? We should be working towards rewriting this article in a way that leads to the "Unencyclopedic" tag being removed. It's not good to have an article be tagged like this for the long term. If no reasoning is given, the tag should be removed in a few days. Kla'quot 15:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

See the rest of the talk page. In short, it is all criticism and no positive content, and the OC Weekly is not considered a reliable source. It seems like this article exists, not to give a fair summary about him, but merely to collect all the negative press Morey has received. His views (whacked though they may be) are not given a neutral presentation, but are only given through the eyes of his critics. I agree that the article should be improved (or failing that, redacted, or perhaps failing that, deleted), but if it is not, we cannot declare it to then be compliant and remove the tag. It should remain tagged as long as it is non-compliant. --Flex (talk|contribs) 16:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I've seen the rest of the talk page, and I don't see anyone explaining why the OC weekly is not a reliable source. What's wrong with it? Kla'quot 16:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
It's classified as a tabloid, and, as Jossi already said, the articles cited are advocacy journalism rather than attempts at journalistic objectivity like you'd find in a more reliable source. --Flex (talk|contribs) 17:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Neither the Wikipedia article for OC Weekly, nor its website, indicates that it is a tabloid in the usual "sensationalist gossip and UFO stories" sense of the word. Again, what, exactly, is wrong with the OC Weekly article as a source? I also think you've misread which article Jossi was referring to as advocacy journalism. Kla'quot 05:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The WP article does say it is in tabloid format, which I now see refers to the size of the paper and not necessarily the content, though the proper classification for the OCW, viz. alternative weekly, does still seem less reliable as a format than an ordinary newspaper. However, I'll let Jossi respond as to why he thinks it is not a WP:RS. In any case, the other reasons given above for non-compliance still remain. --Flex (talk|contribs) 12:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Flex. I still don't get the arguments of non-compliance though. If the article accurately reflects how the available reliable sources describe Morey, we are doing our job. The article does include some quotes from Morey. In particular, the entire "Dirty bombs in the United States" section is all his, with no criticism. In the spirit of Wikipedia:NPOV dispute, I will remove the tag: "Drive-by tagging is not permitted. The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Attribution, and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort." If anyone chooses to re-add it, please describe why. Kla'quot 09:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RfC

I'm here in response to the RfC, where the question was, Robert Morey - requesting advice on whether this article, which is nearly all criticism and has almost no positive content, should be nominated for deletion or improved. (Compare the discussion at Talk:Robert Morey.) --Flex (talk|contribs) 20:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC). My answer is: I do not see a basis for an AfD, given that the sources in the article demonstrate notability. Improving an article is always a good idea. Cheers, Kla'quot 05:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

There are more sources in the Google News Archives. I don't think it would have much of a chance at AfD. I do think the article could use cleanup. In particular, quotes make up too much of the text. Quotes should be used to support a neutrally-written narrative. Kla'quot 05:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment While the article does seem to be present Morey in a less than flattering light, he seems a pretty offensive person - there is no need for "positive content" if there is nothing positive to be said. Nothing in the article appears to have been flagged as untrue, so I see no reason to delete any text as is, although new text which sheds a better light on Morey can obviously be added if possible. StuartDouglas 15:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)