Talk:John Key

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Contents

[edit] trivia & tone

Is John Key's use of the postal system noteworthy because he's the leader of the National Party? I don't know why him sending a rosette to his mother is much deserving of posterity. And is putting his address up less noteworthy and more an invasion of his privacy? And perhaps, more than anything, public figures, leaders of political parties and members of the House of Representatives don't need trivia sections, because they don't need to be trivialised - if it have to be included as loose change at the end of the article, was it noteworthy to begin with? This article needs to be fleshed out some more, and focused less on JK the private citizen and more on JK the public official. It's a bit directionless, is all. Kripto 21:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, there is too much mindless trivia. What has his birthday presents to his mother got to do with anything? I added a fansite template to the trivia section.

NZ forever 02:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citations and Sources

"John Key is believed to be NZ's richest..." is not fact, nor is there any proof of this. It is not Neutral POV. Stevee2 04:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Chill Palooka

  • Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I shall pass. Stevee2 11:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Also the NBR Rich list has Bob Clarkson, MP for Tauranga, at $30 million, and no mention of Key. The NBR rich list is notoriously unreliable, but equally it is the best measure we have - especially compared to speculation. Ham21 13:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


There are numerous instances in this article where the citation either does not directly support the text or the cited news story lacks credibility. The allegation about John Key's wealth, for example, is an unsupported throw-away in a Scoop press release. Shouldn't an editor go through this article and remove a lot of this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.43.2 (talk) 02:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citecheck template removed

The citecheck template flags a specific type of problem: inappropriate or misleading citations, such as quotations taken out of context. That does not appear to be the problem here. Please see Wikipedia:Cleanup resources if some other template is needed. Durova 03:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Role clarification

The articles needs to make clear that key will/is head the parlimentary cacus. Not the Whole National party. - SimonLyall 09:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I changed it to "Parliamentary leader". Dcxf (talk) 07:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Views

Could anyone tell me whether he is a republican or a monarchist.

I'd say republican. I don't think he's a hard-core one though, like most tories. --Lholden 22:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Since he's leader of the CONSERVATIVE party, it's safe to assume he's a conservative. Conservative doesn't equal republican.--202.74.203.122 16:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you explain Jim Bolger then? --Lholden 20:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ancestry

Under Trivia he would (if National won) be the THIRD Prime Minister of Jewish descent - after Julius Vogel & who else? Hugo999 13:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Francis Bell's mother was Jewish, which makes him Jewish under the traditional Jewish rules. However, I'm not certain whether he considered himself to be Jewish — I think his father was Anglican, and he apparently attended an Anglican school. So he was of partial Jewish descent, but may not have been practicing (unlike Vogel). -- Vardion 19:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Much like Key himself - he's Jewish by traditional (although not Israeli) rules. --Lholden 20:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

Should a section be added for criticism on John Key? Perhaps a bit about his credibility or political inexperience. Some say he plans on privatizing NZ public schools, perhaps a bit about the problems that will cause etc. He seems to have been given too much of a "dream ride" here. 203.173.137.174 09:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer that any criticism be incorporated in the body of the article rather than put in a separate section. Criticism, even more than other material, must be cited to a reliable source - it is not acceptable to add "Some say...". Care must also be taken that no one incident is blown out of proportion. See WP:BLP for some of the rules.-gadfium 19:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

How about his political inexperience? That doesn't even need to be cited.203.173.137.174 11:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You would still need to refer to some well-respected political commentator writing about this. However, I see little point in doing so. Calling someone inexperienced is about the weakest criticism you can make. Key has as much experience as Brash, and more than Brash did when he became Leader of the Opposition. Adding such a criticism would seem to be looking for points to criticise for their own sake. You are welcome to add referenced material about any foot-in-mouth incidents, policy flip-flops, or similar genuinely political criticism.-gadfium 20:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copy

Some of the Early Life and Family is a direct copy from http://johnkey.co.nz/index.php?/pages/profile.html

I've removed the one paragraph that was a copy. The rest looks fine to me. As the deleted paragraph was the only part which dealt with his family, I've changed the section heading.-gadfium 00:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] your country needs you

This article is pure angora. It's loose, and fluffy and a little too warm. It looks a bit like a fanbio in places, and there's no order or flow. It goes from the s.59 thing straight into how JK isn't religious. And it's full of junk clauses like 'is seen by many to' - probably is also 'not seen by many to' as well. And we tripped into the hole that says political polls are noteworthy. It's just a mess, and if this is the best we can do, then we should all just give up now and get myspace pages and talk about our favourite My Chemical Romance songs, because we're just so freakin' lightweight. Are we? Kripto 02:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}-gadfium 05:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I'll do some of it, but not all of it. But this comment is as much about articles not yet written as it is about this page. 06:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Polls aren't mentioned anywhere in this article, save for the 2005 election results. --Lholden 07:15, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

That's because I deleted them. Maybe I should have amended the above comments. Kripto 07:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh good. There was a minor edit war (well, skirmish) over that. All polls should be on the New Zealand general election 2008 article. --Lholden 09:10, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] my neck hurts.

I am way unhappy about the s.59 paragraph. I don't know how to broach politcal contrasts between Key and Dr B, and there's a source missing about the drinking age bill, and mention of hopes of co-operation with Labour. But I feel better about this article. Kripto 11:52, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interesting Fact

He claims to be reading "From Third World to First World" by Lee Kuan Yew. He mentioned this in May of 2006 and mentioned in June of 2007 that this was the book he was currently reading. Slow reader perhaps? This is obviously a piece of political spin (the title of the book conveying a false message National are trying to push) but shouldn't it be included as some sort of "fun fact"? Bacta 13:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

what would be better if he cited Lee Kuan Yew as an influence, we could use that (somehow). Of course, that would be a bad idea for JK politically, it just wouldn't go down well - in politics, inference is as good as fact. But, trivia is really, really frowned on. People look down their noses, right down at it. But keep your eyes open anyway, he must have done some more stuff, and the page will always need updating. Kripto 23:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My edits

Why was my controversies section deleted? Helen Clark has a controversies section. I think there is some biased editing going on here! Bactoid 11:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't delete the content, just merged it into the previous section. I do suspect that the material you added is mostly too minor and will later be refactored out of the article, but I have no intention of doing that at the moment. I'm happy to let the article grow organically, and at this point it needs shaping rather than more drastic pruning.
In general, having a separate controversies section is not considered good for articles. I'd like to get rid of the controversies section in the Clark article as well, not by deleting the content but by merging it into various more balanced sections. This would be far more work, which is why I haven't done it yet.-gadfium 19:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah I see. My apologies. Thank you for the work. Bactoid 13:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Israel

Does anyone know his position on Zionism and the existence of Israel? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.74.203.76 (talk) 10:03, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

good luck on finding his position on anything. 218.101.69.237 22:42, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Political Views

This section isn't neutral. It is a list of criticisms of Key, which are valid, but not a list of his political views by any measure. It's simply not correct that Key describes himself as a "centrist", when he leads a centre-right political party. The section then continues to attack Key on some fairly flimsy stuff that has little to do with whether Key's a centrist. I don't want to spark an edit war, because some of it is valid, but it's hardly balanced in context, but the tone does at least need to be neutral and wikified. Randomkiwi 08:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with these points, and you are welcome to edit the section. I have been resisting the attempts of anons to remove it without explanation however.-gadfium 09:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I've had a go at it, and will add references shortly. Randomkiwi 10:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Quality

I think this article should be re-rated as "start class" at least, with a view to upgrading it to B class over time. Any thoughts on that? It's clearly no longer a stub. Randomkiwi 05:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I've seen a lot of start class articles and this is a fine example of one. Richard001 11:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

I'm nominating religion in New Zealand for Did you know. Is it fair to describe Key as agnostic? I'm not sure if he even knows the word - he seems to me to be somewhat of an agnostic apatheist that would rather play golf than have a serious discussion about religion. He doesn't seem to want to say what he is though. We have a reference for Clark being agnostic, and Key has more or less said he is in less clear words, but is it acceptable to make a generalization like that? Would a footnote giving a more detailed quote be okay? Richard001 11:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

"Not stated" would be more correct than agnostic- if you follow the reference you'll see that his position is fairly complex (vis afterlife). --Lholden 20:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've added a footnote explaining his position in the article if you take a look. He's more or less agnostic since he does say he's not really a big believer, and seems to limit his use of 'religion' to morality only, but it's necessary to point out the specifics as well. Trying to do that without interrupting the flow of the text is very difficult though. Richard001 01:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

I emailed the National Party about using one of the images from their flickr account, where they are licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND. Unfortunately they are not willing to make it available under a derivatives allowed license. This means we need someone to track down John Key and photograph him ourselves. Evil Monkey - Hello 03:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Family?

I wouldn't mind seeing something about John Key's family, at the very least just some bio information about his partner and children? --Logiboy123 (talk) 02:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added a little more. Too much/not enough? Dcxf (talk) 23:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Query: What is the point of naming his children? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.43.2 (talk) 11:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The names people give their children can reveal a bit about their character and background, and it was in one of the articles I cited so it's in the public record anyway. But if people find it objectionable please take it out. Dcxf (talk) 20:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
The point of talking about John Key's family is that it reveals where he is at in life. Does he have young children; will this influence his policy towards lower level educational facilities? Information about John Key's family can give us insight into who he is as a person, not just as a political figure. --Logiboy123 (talk) 21:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)