Talk:Howard Rich/Archive 1

Edit

I added the content of the political section back into the page, these are the facts, I took out the content that I could see being perceived as political. If you feel the need to offer non-opinionated opposition I welcome it but the research I did yielded opinionated results. If you were to Google his name 2 of the results are the public pages Wikipedia and Source Watch, 2 of them are blogs 2 are special interest groups, 1 isn’t relative to him, and the others are his personal website, and his twitter account. Of these first 10 results the blog and special interests are by nature opinionated. I invite more information so long as the source is reliable.

re-write

I have re-written the biography for Howard Rich. I have maintained a majority of the information already on the page just reworded it. I have also made it into what I call a "real" biography, meaning it is not just a political resume of him anymore. Provided no one expresses their objection to my complete restructuring of this biography by February 5th 2009 I will post the new biography at 5pm on February 5th 2009

Here is portion of the re-write:

...Howard Rich more commonly known as Howie Rich grew up in Brooklyn New York where he attended George W. Wingate High School. His senior year of high school he earned the New York State Regents scholarship. After graduation he went to the Baruch College a local New York City college, where he enrolled in night school earning him a bachelor's degree in economics. He moved on to graduate school, at New York University Graduate School of Business; here he studied investments.

Howie Rich's professional career got started at his first full time job with a Manhattan Residential Real Estate Developer...
(OrangeStaple (talk) 21:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC))

NPOV tag

I'm tagging this NPOV because of weasel words, negative coloration caused by overreliance on political opponents for information (lack of balance), and external citations to negative attacks on subject that are promulgated by organizations who are active political players, in some cases giving money to ballot initiative campaigns that run counter to the campaigns supported by Rich.

Example of weasel words/lack of balance:

"In at least five cases, state courts (or elections officials) have disqualified or modified initiatives (or declared thousands of signatures invalid) due to fraudulent signature-gathering techniques or constitutional problems."

"at least?" Doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.

 Done

"declared thousands of signatures invalid" Lack of context/balance. How does this compare to the general rule for initiative petitions?

I believe the context is there in the newspaper articles cited; how to sum it up is a challenge, but I'll work on it.

"constitutional problems" lack of context/balance. Non-encyclopedic. What constitutional problems? What were they? And how does having a "constitutional problem" compare to other initiative petitions?

similar to above.

In general, this article is an NPOV mess. Whoever thought that the external references/links meets Wikipedia standards needs to carefully review what those standards are.Jkought (talk) 13:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed a citation to a blog that shouldn't have been there. (It was redundant anyway, the facts cited were also cited in a the newspaper articles.)

I agree there's much room for improvement here. I'll work on it. -Pete (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Sources for expansion

• California/Prop. 93 of 2007: [1]
• State judge criticizes Rich's "a pervasive and general pattern of fraud": [2]
• U.S. Term Limits an "Astroturf" group: [3]

-Pete (talk)

The use of "‘Astroturf’ group thinks it can walk over Missourians," should not be allowed while it comes from a reliable printed source, it is a column, that expresses the opinion the author

Also the "CATO Launches Politically Motivated Assault on Ballot Measure Donor Disclosure System." should not allowed because the author, Oliver Griswold is a bias source, his employment with Ballot Initiative Strategy Center clearly effects the neutrality of the source, I.E one of his sources is [Howie Rich Exposed, www.Hoewierichexposed.org], and "However, BISC believes that universal donor disclosure protects both the voters and the process of direct democracy..." is just promotion of his organization.(98.172.31.195 (talk) 17:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC))

We definitely need to exercise caution in using sources like this, but they're perfectly legitimate for factual information. Newspapers fact-check opinion pieces as well as reporting. So, for instance, the "Astroturf" article would be a good source for the following data:

“ In 2006, Rich was able to get nearly 35 ballot measures before voters in states all over the nation.

There still seems to be a problem, however. Despite spending nearly $15 million of his New York money to influence how people live in some 14 other states, only one of the ballot initiatives passed.

”

-Pete (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Lets Talk

Dougweller, If you look at the history of this page you will notice that the dicussion forum hasn't been used on this article since February,even with a number of editors making changes. When I first came to this page It was nothing more than a slanderous piece of political hate. I am trying to work with the others to make this page neutral but because I have something that disagrees with the previous POV's of this page,my edits get challenged or reverted. The Term "Extremist" was left alone for two months from September 30th to November 19th until I took it out of Mr. Rich's description, I ask you how is that not and I quote you Mr. Weller "an extremely POV statement" As an Administrator where were you or your colleagues while Mr Rich was put through the meat grinder.

And now while I have your attention the Wall Street journal Article citation should be deleted Wikipedia is a "free" encyclopedia by if I want to verify the source of the article I have to subscribe to the journal at a cost to me. the citation is not accessible and there for not valid. It is not necessary source and does not effect the status of the article why have it? (OrangeStaple (talk) 15:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC))

OrangeStaple, thanks for bringing up your concerns. I have worked extensively on this article in the past, but I agree with you that at certain times, it has been inappropriately negative towards Mr. Rich. Your removal of the word "extremist" from the lead section was entirely appropriate -- and even though I reverted your change a while back, I did leave the word extremist out. You were absolutely right on that count, and I'm glad you pointed it out.

You ask about administrative intervention -- I should point out that I am also an administrator, but also that Wikipedia makes a strong distinction between the role of an administrator (which is much more like a janitor than anything else) and an editor -- which may be anyone at all, including yourself. To put it simply, administrators are not tasked with making determinations about the content of articles -- at least, not any more than anyone else. So again, the word "extremist" was wrong, and some of the other aspects of the article were also in violation of Wikipedia policy; but it's not any administrator's individual responsibility to police all those things. We catch them as we can; and we do that in our role as Wikipedia editors, like yourself, not as administrators.

Your final point is about the suitability of sources. Wikipedia takes this very seriously; there is an entire detailed guideline about what qualifies as a reliable source. Many of the sources previously used in the article -- such as howierichexposed.com -- are not acceptable as reliable sources. (I believe I was responsible for including that one, a long time ago -- I'm sorry for the error. That was in my earlier days of editing, and I wasn't as clear on what did and didn't qualify as a reliable source.) So I can understand your frustration in that regard. Those blog posts, etc., have all been removed now.

But the guideline does not rule out material that is published only in print. In fact, lots of Wikipedia articles rely heavily on print publications as their sole sources. The guideline is not there to ensure that every reader can easily verify every fact without leaving their computer; rather, it's to provide a framework for meeting the policy on verifiability.

So the fact that an article was published at one time is sufficient, as long as it qualifies as a reliable source. For a motivated reader, or someone with a need to be absolutely sure, it's generally possible to find such articles at a library or bookstore, or to pay for access to the site. But we don't require that every source be viewable online; to do so would be to exclude a vast number of resources that make our project possible.

So the Wall Street Journal article is fine; and similarly, so are the Oregonian and Register Guard articles that have recently been removed. I'm glad you brought it up though, because I was having a hard time understanding what motivated your removing them. -Pete (talk) 22:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Needs picture

Please anybody with a picture of Howard Rich please upload it to Wikimedia Commons, click upload file, choose "took picture myself" and "public domain" and give it a filename. Tell us the exact filename HERE on the talk page and a Wikipedian will try to include it in the article. Thanx.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Article revamped

Much more information, strove for wp:npov, kept original stuff (occasionally edited if redundant. Added infobox plus more categories. External links were moved to the bottom as per a WP policy I read somewhere. Needs picture.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)