Talk:David Sirota

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the David Sirota article.
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[edit] Anon edit War

It appears that we have an edit war between two anons. Anon 68.175.95.30 and Anon 69.144.65.132. The former is either a good friend of Sirota (or Sirota himself), while the latter is a Sirota critic. Please use this talk page to discuss your concerns. --Asbl 04:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

From the City Paper article that Sirota or his surrogate keeps removing:

"A bogus John White Jr. Web site was floating around in cyberspace, which, for the most part, contained glowing articles about White, but also played up racial remarks the candidate made to the Spanish-language newspaper Al Dia.

Sirota, it was discovered, was friends with the site's creator.

Evans reacted quickly, firing deputy campaign manager Sirota and accepting the resignation of longtime friend and campaign manager Jack Fugett. The whole flap spoke volumes about Evans as a leader."

3 points:

1. Sirota did not go to college with the webmaster. he was friends with him
2. Sirota did not "fall on his sword", he was fired.
3. According to the local Philadelphia newspaper, the scandal played at least some role in Evans losing the race.

Sirota's efforts to whitewash the record should be unacceptable for wikipedia. At the very least, the Citypaper article should be linked to so that readers can draw their own conclusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.84.161.108 (talk • contribs)

Note: the user Heartland22 is doing a lot of pro-Sirota edits, and has not edited any other page. Brianski 10:06, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warning: Whitewashing

The following paragraph has been stripped at least twice from this article. It does show some POV, and could be cleaned up, but it happened and cannot be striken from the record. Please check that the current revision includes some information on this subject.

Sirota was also involved in a major scandal in 1999 when he worked for mayoral candidate Dwight Evans in Philadelphia. He was caught employing dirty tricks, specifically a misleading website, and was fired by Evans. Evans ended up losing the race because of Sirota's ethical lapse. Some argue that his criticism of conservatives for ethical violations is thus hypocritical.

Brianski

Update: here's the link (added in the paragraph as well): [1]

I am not the guy stripping the paragraph out, but I don't think that paragraph really belongs in the article (especially not how it is written). My reasons are as follows:

• "He was caught" is clearly POV
• "Employing dirty tricks" is not accurate. The article does not say he was using dirty tricks. That is a phrase created by the wiki editor. Again, clearly POV.
• The article quoted says Sirota's friend set up a bogus website for Evan's opponent. The article does not say Sirota was responsible for this.
• The wiki article refers to this as a major scandal; whereas, the article quoted says "In early March, a minor scandal knocked the wind out of his campaign." major vs minor. This source is being used to back up something that it doesn't.
• The source itself. If this was such a big deal, why is it only in a publication that claims to cover alternative news? Philadelphia City Paper is not a mainstream publication.
• "Some argue..." is clearly Weasel Words.
• Since the "Some aruge..." sentence is not quoted in the article, and aside from being weasel words, it is Original Research.
• "Evans ended up losing the race because of Sirota's ethical lapse" is not stated in the source. In fact, the article implies the opposite with this quote "Evans was already lagging behind in the polls and in fundraising," so if he was already losing, how can you blame the loss on Sirota?

I would be fine with allowing the paragraph to be changed to "In 1999 Sirota worked for Dwight Evans Philadelphia mayoral campaign; however he was removed from the campaign when it became known that a friend of Sirota's created a false website about his opponent." IF there is a better source for this (and the source says that the website was false). It is also important to note that we have free-speech in the United States, and anyone can make a website about anyone else, highlighting true statements they have made, even somewhat misleading. Normal laws of libel do apply, but was anyone charged for this with respect to the website? It could be that Sirota removed for a strictly PR reason. In the mean time, I am going to remove this entire paragraph because it is not NPOV, the source may not qualify as a Reliable Source, the paragraph states things that are not in the source, it uses Weasel Words, etc, etc. This paragraph is honestly beyond repair. If this paragraph continues to be added to the article, I will put out a Request for Comment to resolve this issue, which I'm almost certain will result in the paragraph being removed from the article. Bbrown8370 17:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, this is already removed, so I don't have to remove it (this time). Instead, I am adding the link to his syndicator's website thing... which is what I originally came here to do anyway... Bbrown8370 17:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)