Talk:Paul Coverdell

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Senator Coverdell had been fairly prominent already at the time of his passing. Otherwise, some great improvements lately!

[edit] Sources

This article needs sources...however, since I'm not really that good at gathering data off the Internet, this is just an advisory to someone else. Generic Politician 02:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of changes made to the Section "Controversy over Trips to Georgia"

Thunderdawg2007 has expanded and made extensive changes to the section on "Controversy over Trips to Georgia". I am reverting to the original version of the section for the following reasons:

• Off-topic: I think the changes are way off track. The purpose of the section is to discuss Coverdell's trips to Georgia. Thunderdawg2007 has added a long discussion on the renaming of Peace Corps Headquarters after Paul Coverdell's death. These changes need to go into a separate section under "Legacy and Honors."
• Violates NPOV: The original section is fair and balanced - it presents Ferris's case that Coverdell was making political trips to Georgia and it presents Heston's case that being Peace Corps Director didn't help but hindered Coverdell in his race for the Senate. Thunderdawg2007's changes especially regarding Barbara Ferris and her supposed motives are highly POV.
• No citations: The original section contains citations for every statement made. Most of the new material added to the section is unsupported by citations. A lot of effort has recently gone into rewriting the Coverdell article to address the issues that were raised above in the post on "Sources" by including citations for every statement in the article. The new material that Thunderdawg2007 has added on Wyche Fowler, Barbara Ferris, the Coverdell building, Henry Hyde, and Nancy Pelosi are unsupported by citations. The lack of relevant citations is a step backwards and really impacts the quality of the Coverdell article.

I suggest that if the controversy over the renaming of Peace Corps Headquarters is considered an important issue in Paul Coverdell's life then a new section be created in the article to address it. Since the renaming occurred after Coverdell's death, the new section needs to go under "Legacy and Honors" where the naming of Peace Corps Headquarters in Coverdell's honor is already mentioned. Keep in mind that the new section needs to be:

• NPOV: The new section needs to present both sides of the story on the renaming including the fact that the National Peace Corps Association, the membership organization representing 180,000 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, opposed renaming the building[1]; that Chris Dodd, the only returned Peace Corps Volunteer serving in the United States Senate opposed renaming the building and offered a speech on the floor of the Senate to that effect.[2]; and that the vote in the House was not unanimous [3] which is extremely unusual for a measure that was brought to the floor and voted under a suspension of the rules as a non-controversial bill. [4] Although there were many members of Congress who supported the renaming, notably Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, [5] the implication that the measure was unanimously supported in Congress is false and misleading.
• The new section needs to include citations that support statements made about Barbara Ferris, Wyche Fowler, Henry Hyde, Nancy Pelosi and the renaming of Peace Corps Headquarters.

I don't think a discussion of the controversy over the renaming of Peace Corps Headquarters merits a big portion of an article about Paul Coverdell and his life and accomplishments. The controversy has never been mentioned before in any version of the article, but if someone wants to create a new section to address the controversy, there are five citations above on material that should be included in the new section. The new section should be NPOV, on-topic, and contains citations to support any statements made. Reservoirhill 14:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Rewrite

Frankly, I feel like the changes -- including Reservoirhill's -- are one step forward, two steps backward. The new version is far weaker stylistically, and despite the use of section headings, more chaotic in its structure. In its favor, we now have source citations for most of the key facts. I'm also a bit concerned about some of the citations used. Many appear to come from Reservoirhill's own website (I'd like some clarification from Reservoirhill on this point; I haven't investigated in detail yet and for all I know it may be syndicated content or a larger site he's simply administering). If this content was self-published, it would be a violation of verifiability guidelines (WP:SPS). I'm not saying that there's anything specific here that is a problem from an NPOV perspective, just that there are still some issues and the overhaul seems to have thrown out the baby with the bath water.

Wellspring 03:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions. I have added the original sources for all of the citations. In the few cases where the original citations are now dead links I have clarified that the links to "Peace Corps Online" are archival copies of the original content and that there is no self-published content in the article. I have eliminated many of the short subsections and combined sentences into longer paragraphs to get a better flow to the article. I think the article reads a lot better now. Of course, the main defect of the original article is that there was only one citation in the entire article. Every statement in the article as it stands today has a citation. I think we've made "one step forward" here. Best regards, Reservoirhill 14:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Vast vast improvement. Thanks so much!

Wellspring 15:00, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. Reservoirhill 15:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)