User talk:Jball65

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[edit] Terry Moran

I have placed the Duke lacrosse player portion of the bio back into Terry Moran's bio for several reasons. Despite Bigtimepeace's assertion to the contrary, Mr. Moran's article has caused controversy already. There are literally hundreds of blog postings responding to Mr. Moran's article. The substantial majority of these responses are disfavorable. Further, there are literally hundreds of articles dealing with this topic on the Web. The fact that CNN or ABC news has chosen not to cover it does not mean there is no controversy.

I apologize for having misspelled a word. I will be more mindful in the future.

As for the article being poorly written, that is purely a stylistic point of view on the part of Bigtimepeace. I will continue to place the Duke Lacrosse players portion of this article back up each time it is taken down. It is relevant and deals with current events. Further, this website is not controlled by one person based on one person's opinions of what may or may not be news (or of what constitutes poor writing). The purpose of allowing this website to be edited in real time is to allow for current events to be reported as they are happening. This portion of the article conforms with all wikipedia standards.

Hi Jball, I was just writing you a message here asking for a comment from you when you wrote this. Can you move this text over to Talk:Terry_Moran? It should be over there. Also be sure to sign your post at the end by using the signature button. I will post a reply.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

(I posted the below note on Talk:Terry_Moran but wanted to post it here too. Feel free to delete it obviously)

I'm not going to revert this again because I don't want to even approach violating 3RR. For Jball65, you should know that under this rule editors cannot revert one page more than three times in a 24 hour period. You have already reverted this page three times. The reason for this rule is to prevent edit wars. When you say "I will continue to place the Duke Lacrosse players portion of this article back up each time it is taken down" it suggests you will not abide by this policy. It also suggests you are not willing to work with other editors and listen to their opinions. You have only made a few edits on Wikipedia but I hope in the future you will be more open to other editors ideas about content, rather than insisting that your way is the right way.

Someone else will hopefully look at this, but in my opinion the section as written clearly violates Wikipedia's very strict rules about Neutral Point of View (see WP:NPOV). The entire section is quite negative toward Moran. It makes it seem as if everyone responded negatively to his post, when in fact some folks clearly agreed with him. Also you do not quote Moran in his own words, or fully explain his arguments in his blog post. As the criticism (little as their is) has only just developed, there has been no time for Moran to respond to his critics. Thus the paragraph reads like a hit piece on Moran. Also Moran is notable in this encyclopedia because he is a well-known journalist, yet the way the article is now this tiny, largely unknown controversy is given as much play as his entire journalistic career. It is completely disproportionate.

Despite Jball65's claim on his talk page, there are not "hundreds" of articles about this Moran blog post on the web. Hundreds of blog posts maybe, but a google news search on the words Terry Moran and Duke only turned up 15 articles. Most came from conservative news sites with a strong bias against Moran.

In short--this is not a big story yet and perhaps it never will be. Articles on well-known people would be really terrible if they included every minor controversy associated with that person. We try to decide what is notable, and just because you view this as notable and some bloggers have discussed it does not mean it belongs here.

Again, the best thing to do is to take this out for now and if the story becomes important in the next few days it's quite easy to put it back. With developing stories whose significance is unclear, there is no rush to put them in wikipedia (unless one has an axe to grind). So I think we should keep it out and see what happens with the story. Does this sound reasonable Jball65? If someone else wants to take this down right now I'm all for that, or I might do this in a day or two.

As for the paragraph itself, "ibid" appears in the middle which it should not, there is a link in the middle which there should not be, "site" is spelled "sight," and the extremely odd sentence "Many of the blog responses posted have made inevitable references ["inevitable?" why?] to shock jock Don Imus's statements regarding the Rutgers Womens Basketball Team" with no explanation as to what that means.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• • • I have removed the portion of the article dealing with the Duke Lacrosse players as per Bigtimepeace's suggestion. While I still believe it is a relevant topic, Bigtimepeace has a legitmate point that the size of the paragraph dealing with the lacrosse player flap makes it appear it is a bigger situation than it has become to date. I will follow Bigtimepeace's suggestion of waiting to see if this turns into a larger story before placing this portion back on the page. Otherwise, it could be read as being a hit piece. However, I disagree with the citing critiques about the article.Jball65 14:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jball65, I appreciate your willingness to hold off on this for awhile. We might well still disagree about it in the end (nothing wrong with that!) but hopefully we'll come to some kind of consensus if and when the story develops further.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Your welcome. I should have been less obstinate in the first place.Jball65 01:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)