Talk:Joe Szwaja

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Good article Joe Szwaja was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
November 9, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed
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[edit] Reporting on the nature of Szwaja's views

In regards to this reversion, I wrote in the subject "rv - it's not a question of NPOV; it's reporting on outside views of the nature of the politician's own; let's discuss this on the talk page. I'll add a section there. See you there" I think that the source--which isn't labeled as an editorial on their news site--would be a fine source for an observation on the nature of Szwaja's views. The reference had stood for some time. Let's discuss this. • Lawrence Cohen 20:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a fair source for point of view - its a fairly well known seattle advocacy journal (not going to call it a fact based newspaper) that leans far left - if they want to call him progressive, I think it would be a reasonable thing to quote in the context you have. Seems fair and something that I highly doubt the subject would object to. Bevinbell 03:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Lawrence, Eat the State is an "anti-authoritarian" (their words) alt-weekly. Nothing is labeled as an "Editorial" because they don't have sections like a normal paper (i.e. news, local politics, sports, etc). Everything they write is an editorial. They are an advocacy alt-weekly. All that aside, the article in question is endorsing candidates, I do not see how this can be construed as anything but an editorial. If you are making endorsements, then by default the article is an editorial. It's my understanding that editorials are not fair game for wiki pages. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Hence, the quote / source deserved to be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.162.198.214 (talk) 19:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

And the article has been reviewed, and it does not violate NPOV. Your concern is noted, but there is no consensus for the omission. It's not negative, it's simply a reported view of Szwaja as a politician. It sounds like the claimed "nature" of the source devalues it somehow in your opinion. • Lawrence Cohen 19:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to disagree. It does violate NPOV. And I'm not sure what consensus you are referring, too. From NPOV - "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute... A reliable source supporting that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is. In addition, this source should be written by named authors who are considered reliable."
So if you want to include, "The anti-authoritarian alternative weekly Eat the State, with a very small circulation, characterized Joe in one of their editorials as..." go ahead. But without a pretty significant qualifier, the blanket statement "Joe is a progressive..." is completely disputable and Eat the State is not representative enough to make that claim. 216.162.198.214 20:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree, and I request that third party users review this. • Lawrence Cohen 20:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
By all means. Until then, keep it out. 216.162.198.214 20:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
And Lawrence, "In a recent editorial, the anti-authoritarian alternative weekly Eat the State called Joe progressive in regards to certain issues, including gentrification, police accountability, sustainability, and the Alaskan Way Viaduct problem.[5]" is a completely accurate summary. Eat the State is a self-proclaimed "FORUM FOR ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN POLITICAL OPINION, RESEARCH AND HUMOR." http://eatthestate.org/ I don't see where the controversy is. It also isn't even published weekly, so I take that back and will edit that section out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.162.198.214 (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
I fail to see why we need to so heavily "qualify" a lone source for readers. I have not see that done before. Can you show me what policy demands that we qualify and explain a source for such a simple, non-controversial statement?
Also, I will like you to reply here with your concerns per my noticeboard review request. Thanks! • Lawrence Cohen 20:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Per the review I've removed the Eat The State passage, but have re-added the appropriately sourced activism passage, clarifying that it was a primary source of Szwaja stating that participation. I think the article is functionally done now till the election or any new 'news'. • Lawrence Cohen 21:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed (I thought it was fine before)Bevinbell 03:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The high school course

I think that this might be over the top (yes, even I think somethings might go too far). Does it really add value or a new dimension, or is it a bit of a red hearing - especially when he states in the cited source that he does not actually believe or espouse the view that the 9/11 attacks were government planned. If he was advocating for a minority view (not going to touch merits) than it would be noteworthy, otherwise what is the point? I am going to edit that part out. Bevinbell 03:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

No objection here to it going it. • Lawrence Cohen 04:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't really care, as it is just wikipedia, but Mr. Szwaja is on record saying that the Osama Bin Laden was not involved in 9/11 and that the US govt probably was. This would certainly qualify as advocating a "minority viewpoint" IMO. You can hear it here: http://sea.bonnint.net/szwaja2.mp3

OK, I listed to that whole clip, and I think you have severely distorted the interview and Mr. Szwaja's opinion. Consistently through the interview he states that he does not believe the minority view of conspiracy theorists and that he brings in speakers from all sides of the "debate" in his class. He specifically states around 15:01 on the timestamp that he says he does not know if Osama was involved, and that he is a reprehensible person. So he teaches a high school class that tells kids to critical think about official government perspectives, that's hardly a looney notable thing. Bevinbell 04:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

So saying that you do not believe Osama Bin Laden was involved in 9/11 is "hardly a looney notable thing"? I respectfully disagree. What's next, he isn't sure if Hitler was involved in the Holocaust? Give me a break. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.166.214 (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
No Mr. User talk:75.92.166.214, he did not say that at any point in the cip that you posted. Maybe you have another clip that you are referring to? Bevinbell 20:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anything else missing?

There was lots of stuff being added in and out during the previous edit warring. Is anything clearly missing from this now? Asking as it seems stable for now. • Lawrence Cohen 07:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review

  • Try to avoid one-paragraph sections. Either combine two sections or expand them.
  • Make sure that all the information in the intro is repeated in greater detail in the article's main body. The intro is only supposed to summarize the main article.
  • Are there any other events in his political tenure that can be talked about, such as bills or initiatives that he has proposed that didn't go anywhere, or that were successfully passed?

Good start on the article. Cla68 00:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

The peer review above is right on the money. At the very least, the first two will need to be taken care of before this article can become a GA so I shall start my review by reiterating them:

  1. All one-two sentence paragraphs must either be expanded or merged with the surrounding paragraphs, as they cannot stand alone.
  2. The lead needs to conform to WP:LEAD. Specifically, it must touch upon ever major point covered in the article (for example, there's nothing on the earlier parts of his background or legal issues) and must not introduce facts that are not in the main body of the article (for example, "The seat has been held by Jean Godden, a Democrat, since 2003" is not stated in its entirety in the main body of the article)
  3. Except under very specific circumstances (and this is not one of them) a fair use photo of a living person cannot be used in their article. It needs to be removed, per WP:FAIRUSE#Unacceptable images
  4. In addition to the suggested expansion noted above, the article mentions "His parents played a role in desegregating Cleveland public schools" and yet this is not expanded upon. This is an interesting part of his background, and should be explained further.
  5. If "Educator at Nova Project" is to have its own Level 3 heading, then it needs to be expanded further. Otherwise, it should probably just become another part of "Activism"
  6. "Also challenging Jean Godden in the August primary were Lauren Briel and Robert Sondheim." (2007 Seattle City Council election) This needs a little context: who are they and why is this fact notable enough for inclusion in the Joe Szwaja article? If it's not, it should be removed.

To allow for these changes to be made, I am putting the article on hold for a period of up to seven days, after which the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work thus far. Cheers, CP 18:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Paul! I got a bit sidetracked working on other articles, but I'll start working on these changes this week. Thanks! • Lawrence Cohen 18:42, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Well it's been a week and, sadly, nothing has been done on this article. Also, since the election time has passed, this article will likely not meet the stability requirements on top of my above concerns. For these reasons, I am going to fail the article for now. I suggest that you address the above concerns, incorporate the new data now that he has lost the election and then renominate. Hopefully it will be passed quickly under these circumstances. Cheers, CP 03:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nominate for Deletion?

OK, this may be a radical proposal, but given that he has lost yet another election in Seattle by a very wide margin, is he really notable enough for a wikipedia article? He has not held office for some time, and even when he did in Madison he represented a very small district with small population. He does not active hold any elected or appointed position and is not the leader of any local or regional organization. Other than running in the election for Seattle City Council, he does not appear to meet wikipedia notability guidelines - third party sources all concern a temporary event, his election campaign for Seattle City Council or his past campaigns for Congress. I am not sure this is a fixable problem. Also, the failure for GA is another bad sign for this article.Bevinbell 18:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

GA only really failed because no one, myself included, had time to fix it up. It doesn't mean anything. When I have more time later this month I'll pick it up again and get it to GA (along with a few other articles I left pending). Also, notability certainly never degrades over time. If it were nominated for AfD the AfD would definitely end in an easy keep. Szwaja easily blows past all our notability standards. • Lawrence Cohen 20:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I am not so sure. In taking another look at WP:Notability and WP:BIO I am not sure that it does easily blow by.

"The person has been the subject of one of the following sources (which must be referenced in the article):

A credible independent biography. (NO)

Widespread coverage over time in the media such as the BBC, The Times or other reliable sources. (NO) If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography may be unwarranted. Demonstrable wide name recognition from reliable sources.

In depth, independent, coverage in multiple publications showing a widely recognized contribution to the enduring historical record in the person's specific field.(NO)

Politicians:

Politicians who have held international, national or statewide/provincewide office, and members and former members of a national, state or provincial legislatures. (NO)

Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. (Yes, but temporary related to election)

Just being an elected local official does not guarantee notability. (He does not even meet this)"

Really, how does he meet notability. He ran for congress and City council and lost both times by large margins. Does this mean every losing candadite that wants to be elected official in Seattle deserves their own wikipage? There would literally be hundreds of additions. Would it only be for people who lose in the general election, or would it be for people who enter the primary? Are there examples of other municipal minor political figures from other Cities who lose election after election who have their own wiki pages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bevinbell (talk • contribs) 14:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
We have multiple non-trivial sources in the article alone: Seattle Weekly x1; Seattle Times x2; Seattle PI x6; Real Change News x2; and The Capital Times x1; that is 12, and more than enough on their own. They don't need to be BBC or CNN level; local/regional is sufficient. He also was the most successful (albeit losing) Green canidate to launch a campaign for national office, giving him more notability. Additionally, he has even more references in more source as seen by this all dates Google News archive search. On that search we add more Seattle PI and Seattle Times stories, along with National Public Radio, the UW Daily, the Chronicle Telegram (multiple), Northwest Source (multiple), USA Today, the News Tribune, the Wisconsin State Journal, the National Journal, the WI State Journal, and The Nation. A few more Captital Times and at least one more Chronicle Telegram story come up by searching for "Joseph Szwaja", which he used to go by more often.
For comparison, take a look at Justine Ezarik. I recently worked on that article after people were frivilously nominating it for AfD on notability. Her notability is comparable to Szwaja's. See the recent AfD. You need to use that link as it was courtesy blanked. Szwaja's notability honestly isn't up for debate. If you want to AfD the nomination, this is exactly what I'll repost there, from the above. It would be a clean Keep and just burn up cycles for everyone to review it. • Lawrence Cohen 16:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)