Talk:Ed Blakely

Controversy

hello,

reading this article today i found it reeking of a personal resume, a copy-and-paste. therefore, i have added a "Controversy" section that takes a brief look into the political controversy surrounding Blakely. the points mentioned are quotes 100% backed up by sources and a major metro newspaper.

the result is an entry that is less "press release" and more accurate.

-matt, 1/27/10

204.63.38.15 (talk) 23:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

somebody (probably Blakely) is trying to "spin" this page by removing the controversy details and instead injecting praise. how does one prevent this?

-mdelvecchio

Mdelvecchio99 (talk) 19:44, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

...Pcb02144 is continuing to remove anything unflattering of Blakely. this editor has never edited other than the Blakely page. this editor does not respond to talk requests. it appears to me this editor is an agent of Blakely.Mdelvecchio99 (talk) 16:28, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

Greetings! I'm responding to a request for a third opinion regarding a content dispute here. I'm just posting to let you know that I've begun assessing the concerns of involved editors and reviewing the section in question. I'll post an opinion shortly. --K10wnsta (talk) 19:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)—K10wnsta (talk) 19:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Alright. I have quite a bit of input and a radical solution to offer here. I would like to first suggest that mdelvecchio99 refrain from openly assuming the specific identity of a contributor. Wikipedia policy strictly prohibits doing so. Even if Blakely does want to edit this article, there is no policy against him doing so while being afforded the same expectation of privacy that any other editor receives. That being said, I don't think mdelvecchio99's latter assessment of Pcb02144 working as an 'agent of Blakely' is unreasonable at all. If the account's single purpose focus on this article weren't enough, this diff in particular would be a pretty big red flag. In fact, I'm astonished that change was even allowed to persist, as it essentially took an almost encyclopedically written, relatively neutral article and turned it into, as matt put it, a personal resume (and a long-winded, uncited one at that). Reviewing all the sources of reference and content in the Controversy section, I believe sufficient grounds exist for such a section's inclusion in the article (atleast in the article's current form). However, as it is written now, it is as blatantly inappropriate as the rest of the article (ie. the basis for the entire opening passage is a cherry-picked statement from an op-ed column and much of the later controversies are synthesized). I understand how, when faced with biased information, it can be tempting to shoehorn equally biased information from the other end of the spectrum in to balance things out, but the results can be a collective detriment. These things considered, I think the best course of action here would be to revert the article to its pre-'resume' state and reassess it from there, incorporating any well-sourced, appropriately neutral information from there. In fact, I'll go ahead and initiate this process by making the reversion and inviting all editors who have contributed to it recently to assist in building it up more appropriately. --K10wnsta (talk) 21:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

greetings. thank you for the 3O. i agree that the reverted entry is a more neutral version than the later incarnation (resume). had i researched all the revisions i probably would have reverted to Bayou's version as well, rather than create a new Controversy section. however, im not sure i agree w/ the charge of synthesis for the Controversy section -- this section was a collection of cited criticism about Blakely's performance and his controversial-causing quotes. true some of these were op-ed pieces by the local paper, but what better source to represent the controversy Blakely was & remains in the New Orleans metro area? his quotes caused quite a stir, as evidenced by the op-eds.

i will refrain from guessing at the identify of the SPA editor responsible for the resume-like changes. thanks.

Mdelvecchio99 (talk) 21:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Please don't take the synthesis assessment personally. I understand how, after immersing yourself in material on a specific issue, it can be easy to simply lump it all together as all pertaining to that specific topic. An example of what I considered a synthesized statement would have been:

Other controversies include a speech in Sydney when he alleged that the actual population of New Orleans pre-Katrina was known to be lower than the official number reported by the U.S. Census Bureau but that local politicians blocked an update of the figures because of the potential downward effect on federal grants.

Now, looking at the reference for that statement, we see the transcript of the interview where Mr. Blakely did in fact say:

ED BLAKELY: ...New Orleans had slightly under 400,000 people. It now has 230,000 and 250,000 people. That 400,000 person number I think was one that was kept on the books in order for New Orleans to get certain benefits...I think the actual number is closer to 300,000 and some thousand, maybe 325,000 and we're at 230,000 now...

It's important to note that, while it is his assertion, the article does not question its accuracy, nor does it imply that any sort of controversy was generated as a result of it. So without a source documenting as much, inferring that it resulted in controversy qualifies as synthesis. Of course, it's entirely possible that one of the other sources you were working with specifically addressed it as leading to or resulting in controversy, so it may have been more a case of improper citation than synthesis. But in my cursory analysis, I had to take it at face value and label it for what was.

Regardless of the situation, it was certainly not intended to denegrate your contribution. In fact, your efforts in compiling those sources and attempting to bring some balance back to the article were commendable.
--K10wnsta (talk) 22:59, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

ah. yeah i see what you mean. (tho in that particular case that was a section recovered from a prior version and not part of my original Controversy content). makes sense, since the cited ref didnt address there being actual controversy over that assertion. thus placing it w/i the Controversy section could be seen as synthesis..gotcha. thanks, -m Mdelvecchio99 (talk) 00:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)