Talk:Ken Mattingly

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Additional information[edit]

At Auburn University, then Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Ken was both president of Epsilon Alpha Chapter, Delta Tau Delta Fraternity and president of the student body.

I know this because he was my roommate and an usher at my wedding.

68.88.207.176 (talk) 02:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)William Grant Carson, BSAE, AU '57, Captain, U.S. Navy (Retired)[reply]

Info now added ...albeit almost 9 years later.--Tdadamemd (talk) 14:03, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately we cannot cite information from Wikipedia on Wikipedia, so I am removing it. Kees08 (Talk) 17:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Unsourced information[edit]

@Tdadamemd 018:, per WP:BURDEN, when information that you add has been challenged on the grounds of verifiability, you are required to provide a source if you wish to re-add it. What you are adding appears to violate WP:SYNTH; if it is incumbent on editors to consult multiple sources to draw the conclusion you are adding, then it is inappropriate for inclusion. Based on your own claim that the information can easily be verified, it should then be equally easy to source. Thank you for your understanding. DonIago (talk) 13:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the edit that was removed on the grounds that it was unsourced Synth:

He and John Young, his commander from Apollo 16, are the only human beings to have flown to the Moon and also a Space Shuttle orbital mission (Fred Haise, his former training crewmate from Apollo 13, did atmospheric testing of the Space Shuttle).

The rebuttal presented at the time, and which holds still today, is that there are some facts that are so basic that they do not qualify as WP:Synth. There are only 24 human beings who have ever flown to the Moon. These astronauts are listed here: List_of_Apollo_astronauts#Apollo_astronauts_who_walked_on_the_Moon.
If a reader can simply look over a list of names and read the articles of these people and see quite clearly that Young & Mattingly are the only ones who went on to fly the shuttle, then that is a plain fact. The term "synthesis" refers to editorial synthesis, where certain facts are gathered and then combined to arrive at a conclusion that is altogether new. A conclusion that has been synthesized. WP:Synth does not apply to a simple fact that can be easily verified by anyone by simply reading what has long been established fact.
The proper action here is to re-add the statement back into the article.
Further argument was presented that if indeed WP:Synth applies to simple facts, then in order to be consistent, the edit would not merely remove the statement that I had added, but also remove the statement indicating that Mattingly was:

"...one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon."

That statement has a reference. But nowhere in that reference is it stated that he was one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.
This is the exact same type of situation. It is a very simple fact being presented that is easily verifiable by anyone willing to read the articles on astronauts who have flown to the Moon. My position is that this too does not require a reference. It is not "Synth" to count the names of all those who went, and see quite plainly that there were 24, and that Mattingly was among this group of 24.
This is not Synth. It is a simple fact.
My criticism was the lack of consistency shown in removing the statement I had added while keeping this other unreferenced fact.
I do not highlight the "24" out of any desire to have that fact removed as well. My point was that it is harmful to Wikipedia to misinterpret policies that are there for a good reason. Don't go making up facts. Don't synthesize things on your own and add them to Wikipedia.
The fundamental disconnect happening here is the understanding of what Synth is versus what Synth isn't.--Tdadamemd (talk) 11:18, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
TL;DR. But using another Wikipedia article to make a claim would fail on the face of it per WP:CIRCULAR. Also, that list is itself unsourced. The easiest option here would be, as it usually is, to provide a source that directly substantiates the information to be added. DonIago (talk) 17:15, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This rebuttal you have presented provides further reasons to remove the "one of only 24" fact out of the lede, if you were consistent.
And I should further point out that if you were consistent in this position you have taken and apply it across all of Wikipedia, you and those who follow your approach would decimate the project.
My rebuttal to your rebuttal is that it is not at all Circular. The very reason why that list is unsourced is because these facts are so basic that they can be checked in literally thousands of sources. There are thousands of books and articles and sites that will tell you who the astronauts who went to the Moon were.
I will repeat my assertion: You are misinterpreting, and misapplying Wikipedia Policy. You have damaged this article, to which I had improved. And if you do these kinds of edits across the board, you are damaging the encyclopedia as a whole.
There are times when your argument does apply. There are cases when editors fabricate synthesized info and insert it into articles to pass it off as verifiable info. But that is not what had happened here.--Tdadamemd (talk) 08:13, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore...
If you had taken the time to read what I actually posted, or even just fully read the part of my post which you were responding to, you would have seen that I never at any time suggested that anyone use a Wikipedia article as a cited reference for anything added to another Wikipedia article. So your WP:Circular criticism does not apply at all.
...with the point remaining that the WP:Synth criticism does not apply to my edit, as was added to the article, either.--Tdadamemd (talk) 08:22, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the pertinent quote from the example at WP:Synth explaining what Synthesis is:

"...both parts of the sentence may be reliably sourced, but they have been combined to imply that the UN has failed to maintain world peace."

After this UN example, a second case study is provided regarding authors/plagiarism.

It is very easy to observe that both of these examples are categorically distinct from the edit in question here. I had added a simple fact. There was no undue conclusion with me fabricating anything that cannot be easily verified from basic sources. I did not make up novel info. I simply added info that was already readily available.

The category of my edit falls perfectly into the same category of counting the number of astronauts who flew to the Moon, observing that it is a simple fact that there were 24 such people, and that Mattingly was one of the 24. Simple facts do not require references. Wikipedia would be overblown with pointless superscripts if everyone were to do that.

This would be like if Dictionary.com were to hyperlink absolutely every single word on a webpage that gave the definition of a word. The overlinking would be pointless and tedious, and the bigger reason why they don't do that is because it would take away from the importance of the words that were hyperlinked.--Tdadamemd (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And here is perhaps the most pertinent quote from WP:Synth:

"The second paragraph is original research because it expresses a Wikipedia editor's opinion..." (my emphasis)

Unless you can show how my edit introduced my own editorial opinion, it is now perfectly clear that you have misapplied Wikipedia Policy, and that the proper course of action for this article is to reinstate the edit that you had removed.--Tdadamemd (talk) 08:50, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If and when there is a consensus in favor of reinstating the edit I removed, I will not oppose its reinstatement. Cheers. DonIago (talk) 13:56, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Doniago: In this instance I agree with Tdadamemd. Please read WP:What SYNTH is not; specifically:
  • SYNTH is not a rigid rule
  • SYNTH is not summary: "even when the information being summarized comes from multiple sources. It's not necessary to find a source that summarizes the information."
  • SYNTH is not presumed: "If you want to revert something on the grounds that it's SYNTH, you should be able to explain what new thesis is being introduced and why it's not verified by the sources." Tdadamemd wrote: "Mattingly and John Young, his commander from Apollo 16, are the only human beings to have flown to the Moon and also a Space Shuttle orbital mission.", and: "Fred Haise, his former training crewmate from Apollo 13, did atmospheric testing of the Space Shuttle)." If you don't believe they are the only human beings who flew to the Moon and on the Shuttle, you should be able to explain why without just crying "synthesis". :It looks like he had some punctuation errors, for which the proper remedy is to fix them, not crying "synthesis". Also, since he put his edits in the introduction which should be a summary, citations aren't required there as long as they are more fully written out with citations in the body (which currently doesn't mention that Haise would have been Mattingly's crewmate on Apollo 13. Again, the proper remedy is to do a bit more work (or at least explaining this), rather than crying "synthesis".
Doniago, if you call yourself the "Henry Clay" (i.e. "Great Compromiser") of Wikipedia, I would suggest you stand down. Thank you for your understanding. JustinTime55 (talk) 14:36, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Okie-doke. DonIago (talk) 16:57, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am glad to see that convergence has apparently happened regarding our understanding of these highlighted WPs.
Thanks, Justin, for calling attention to some of the most salient points regarding that Policy. I will go ahead and re-add the original edit. My grammar was also criticized, so I will be interested to learn what improvements can be made on that aspect.
And if anyone comes up with any other criticism, or any reason why the info in this edit does not belong in our article, I will remain open to hearing that feedback.

All of this said, there are still aspects of this process that has happened here that are cause for concern.
Going back to that very first revert, an alternative way to assert that position is the one that Wikipedia is perhaps the most famous for. Flag the questioned info with a Citation needed tag. Instead, the edit was deleted without a visible trace left either at the article, nor here, at the article's Talk page.
(There is clearly a history of this kind of action, such as this very old edit here. I'm glad to see that this info too has found its way back into the article.)
I understand not wanting to use the "citation needed" tag. I have never added this tag anywhere myself. But there are other ways to assert this removal position that are far more constructive. One recommended method is to note that here in the Talk page.
Yet instead, what happened for the edit I introduced was that the info was removed, and a comment was left on the UserTalk page. This does absolutely no good for anyone else who might be interested in the info being questioned. They would have to do exceptional detective work in order to reconstruct the arguments made behind the decisions of how the edit conflict was resolved, explaining why. And it is COMPLETELY non-constructive for a third editor to jump into that, when two editors are having a rational exchange, with both sides presenting well-reasoned, logical arguments, for that third person to jump in and levy THREATS. And to do so after a mere 2-Reverts, which had happened over a period of 34 hours and 45 minutes (undo of rev870714574 to undo of rev870872664). That came nowhere close to the guideline of 3-Reverts in 24 hours. Moreover, if that uninterested editor had taken the effort of looking into the merits of both arguments, then they would have clearly seen who was conforming to WP. (And I call this person "uninterested", because there is no record of a single edit made by this person to this article, nor to this Talk page.)
It appeared to me that this 3rd editor had been called in to do a "hit job". That person just jumped in and took a Twinkle all over our exchange.
Very strange, especially when it is perfectly clear that the two editors who were experiencing the disagreement were both acting in good faith. Now a further irony is that this third editor posted this terroristic threat while simultaneously suggesting that the discussion be taken up here, on the article's Talk page. The exact canned quote was:
"Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors."
And that statement was posted hours after I had just posted this, right above:
"In short, this discussion belongs on the Talk page of that article. Unless your goal is to not only uphold WP, but also to suppress valuable info."
And then, Donlago, you replied:
"I've started a discussion at the article's Talk page. I find it a little confusing that you say you feel there should be a discussion there, but did not initiate one."
Now this brings me to the last point of feedback on the process that has happened here, to which I would like to highlight...
I'd like to thank you for having opened this Talk section. And if you are still puzzled as to why I had not done so myself, I'd be glad to give you my exact reasons. But the aspect that I'd like to call your attention to is how utterly useless the section heading "Unsourced information" is. Now I have no plan to change it myself. But I do suggest that you consider tweaking it to something that might be of more use to other editors who care about this article, and scan those section titles in their effort to garner what topics have been discussed, and what topics have not been.
It is quite possible that this info about TK and old crewmates of his being the only lunar astronauts to go on to fly Shuttle will at some point be removed from the article. And anyone interested in this info would have to look extra hard to find the discussion we had here.

Ok, I expect that my post here has exceeded the length of what most people are interested in reading. And my reason for bolding previous comments above was not to give the appearance of yelling, but rather to have a few statements stand out after it had been expressed that interest is limited in following stuff that has been offered in this exchange. I'll close here by repeating my thanks to you both.--Tdadamemd (talk) 13:07, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]


One more plug for useful titles being used here on Talk pages...
Way back when I had first raised the point about "one of only 24" being an unsourced fact, that had dawned on me from just me scanning the lede of the article. Today I see that here on the Talk page there were discussions on this very topic, and those discussions are headed by the very useful titles of "Number of people to fly to the Moon - information incorrect" and also "24 Men".

So I'd offer that as further support for consolidating discussion at the Talk page of the article in question, as opposed to scattering such discussion across the project over at the separate Talk pages of individual editors. That, and also giving these sections titles that are informative toward the core of what is being discussed.--Tdadamemd (talk) 13:25, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

...And:
Upon looking even further at what has been recorded here, I now see what I'd offer as an example of a "less-than-most-useful" title to a Talk page section: "Additional information". Since April of 2010, there has been this info provided that TK was president of these various school organization. It is quite possible that one reason why no action appears to have been taken on improving the article with this info is because of this utterly ambiguous section title. And if instead a salient title such as "President for various school organizations" had been selected, this info might have gotten proper attention, and today we could have an even better quality article.--Tdadamemd (talk) 13:34, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sick people![edit]

To the user who uploaded that obscene photo in the infobox: you are worse than scum. 9toedfreak (talk) 04:05, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mattingly's Main Page Link Bad Photo[edit]

While not logged in I hovered over Ken Mattingly's name under recent deaths. A dick pic photo popped up. I don't know where it came from or where it is stored but it needs to be removed immediately. Guillaime (talk) 04:39, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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