Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 09:39, 26 October 2005

Archive

additional material deleted

I removed this material just now with edit summary which explains reason for removal: "remove additional sherwood personal material - please repost this on sherwood personal article - Stolen Honor is article is not about Sherwood, per se but other article is". ] 17:34, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While Sherwood shared in a group Pulitzer for investigation of a fund-raising scandal involving a Vatican cover-up, the neutrality of his reportage has been questioned. In 1992 the PBS program Frontline examined Sherwood's book Inquisition, which claimed to be an independent investigation of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. During that investigation, a letter surfaced in which James Gavin, an aide to Reverend Moon, stated that he had reviewed the book before publication, and suggested revisions that Sherwood had promised he would incorporate before the final manuscript went to the publisher. Sherwood had previously worked for the Washington Times, owned by Moon and the Unification Church.

I don't have too much of a problem, except what is the criteria for removing content of a central figure on another page, i.e. Glenn Smith on TfT and John O'Neill on SBVT?? I would suggest looking at either or both criteria to set policy rather than on a case-by-case basis:

1. Person has a significant amount of information that would go beyond a mere stub.
2. Person is known for any significant reason beyond founding the group.

Just a thought. --kizzle 17:40, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Feel free to make John O'Neill and Glenn Smith pages. This in fact, is the right way to go. Also, the infor which should go in on the personal pages ias all the personal flaws and foibles. They must go there so that any tit-for-tat edits and rebutals do not glog up related pages. This is the rule that was intsituted at TfT and which get rebuttals off that page: TfT argumwents are about issues relating to GWBMSC and for that reason are shunted there. Same thing here. Sherwood persomnal issues are about Sherwood himself. Glogging SH is POV edits such as Gamaliel is demanding is farcical. ] 17:57, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If this stuff on Sherwood goes, all of the info on Sherwood should go, including the "decorated Vietnam veteran" and "pulitzer prize winner", as none of that relates to SH either. You can't keep the good Sherwood info and then ship off the Moonie stuff to another article. ] 17:44, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gamaliel, you are totally off base again. A limited about of personal detail is fine as it helps segue the atricle flow in a rational manner. You are simply trying to inject "moonie" accusations here to discredit Stolen Honor itself. Frankly, the more you edit, the more it;s clear that your bias is the soruce of conflict. ] 17:53, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No matter how many words you put in bold it won't change the fact that you are sugarcoating Sherwood's background by including only positive things about him like his pulitzer and his Vietnam service and excluding negative things about him like his moonie connections. ] 17:59, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The "Tom Ridge" connection is included at JML's insistance - as it tends to show Republican connections - a valid point to raise in a partisan race. The "moonie" accusation is a more generalized slur and belongs only on personal page -if anywhere. Also please note for the record that Gamaliel (see above) expressly calls the "moonie" connection a negative. This is precisely what I have said Gamaliel is up to: trying to insert POV material to drag down Sherwood and with him, the validity of the documentary itself. POV bias laid bare! ] 18:00, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Way to go Perry Mason. ] 18:12, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

By saying to exclude all the Information, Gamaliel is attempting to INCLUDE POV stuff? Lyellin 18:17, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

I thought the key point of the passage about Sherwood's book was not that he had ties to the Unification Church, but rather that, while purporting to produce an independent investigation, he was actually giving the subject of the investigation prior review of the text, and even making changes requested by the subject. This violation of normal journalistic procedure is relevant to his credibility. JamesMLane 18:53, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

JML, if (and only if) you can make a rational case for journalistic flaws, provided that there is a genuine - and reported on - issue there, then it would be enough to detail that issue on the personal page and have a one or two sentence pointer link to that page. Personal problems belong on the personal page. I am simply amazed at how you are disregarding the very principles you've previously insisted on regarding segregation of material. Frankly, you are simply trying to muck things up here. This is the lowest you have ever stooped. ] 18:58, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would like to share the following information which Rex just left on my talk page:

If you restore that text again, I am going to file an RfA against you. Rex071404 19:16, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

He is, of course, referring to the text discussed here, which he has currently reverted five times in about 2-3 hours. I assume that, if it comes to the RfA he threatens, I will have witnesses that the issue had not been "already been debated and resolved", as he claimed? -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:37, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rex just makes it up as he goes along. Let him file, there's already two open RfAs against him. It'll just save us the trouble of filing the third. ] 19:42, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sherwood information in Stolen Honor article

As the prior talk page (see archive ) and my edit summaries have made clear, the personal information for Sherwood belongs on his personal article, not in the Stolen Honor article. ] 20:36, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The article is about the documentary. The documentarian in question has been praised for past efforts, and he has also been criticized for violations of journalistic integrity. That is relevant to the documentary. The information which is personal, rather than professional, is the information you keep putting in about the documentarian being an executive vice-president of the WVC3 group and the like.

No matter how much you claim that "the prior talk page" and "my edit summaries" "made it clear", as much as you claim the issue "has already been debated and resolved", these claims are not true. Continuing to make false claims simply establishes further that you have either no intention or no capability to participate in Misplaced Pages in good faith. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:00, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Feldspar, your bad faith is evidenced by the title change you made here ] 21:20, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are coming late to this dialog. This core group of editors has already discussed this and as evidenced by the treatment of a number of articles - not just this one - the apporpriate place for the additional material is the personal article page for Sherwood himself. Frankly, I am beginning to think you hate "moonies" or something and are hoping to slander Sherwood by association. ] 21:18, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Either that, or you were acting in bad faith to call it "personal" information in the first place. I have changed it again, to something more accurate.

Yes, I am coming late to this dialog. This is presumably why you believed that if you falsely asserted that the issue had "already been discussed and resolved", that I would not know better. Now you are asserting that the "core group of editors" has already resolved that the place for "the additional material" is the personal article page for Sherwood.

Firstly, given your unwillingness or inability to represent others accurately, I feel no reason to accept your representation that the "core group" has settled the issue for all articles. Secondly, by grouping it all together as "the additional material", you are obscuring the fact that some of the material (mostly that which you yourself added) is purely about Sherwood the person, and some of the material (including everything that I have added) is about Sherwood's record as a documentarian. Falsely describing it all as "personal" information that should go in the personal article does not resolve the question.

Finally, your accusation that I "hate 'moonies'" is laughable. Do you have any evidence for this? Any particular reason you're ignoring the very logical reasons I've presented why the quality of a documentarian's work is relevant to a documentary, in favor of your unsupported theory of a prejudice against "moonies"? It doesn't matter if it's the Unification Church, the Roman Catholic Church, Citibank, the Oddfellows, the ACLU or the Flat Earth Society. If a journalist says he's doing an "independent investigation" and then it turns out that the topmost levels of the organization he's "investigating" had access to and any amount of editorial veto power over that "independent investigation", then it says something about that documentarian's work that is relevant to any future "independent investigations".

You saying this "given your unwillingness or inability to represent others accurately" shows that you are off base here. The article is about the documentary. There is no "others" (as in person) at issue in this article. ] 22:58, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Then what about John O'Neill on SBVT and Glenn Smith on TfT? Do we take off all personal info about them as well? --kizzle 23:29, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and Rex? There's a thing called the three revert rule. Please abide by it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:32, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Does not apply when reverting overt vandalism, which is what your repeated injection of inappropriate content is. ] 22:56, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, could you cite the exact text that states that more than three reverts are allowed to revert overt vandalism. AlistairMcMillan 23:12, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Firstly, Rex, I am sure you would like to believe that you are the sole determiner of what is relevant to this article and what is not. However, your merely wishing to believe it, pretending to believe it, or even actually believing it, does not make it fact: there are others such as myself, such as James M. Lane, such as Gamaliel, who do not agree with you about what is relevant to the article. These are the others whom you misrepresented when you asserted on my talk page that the issue "has already been debated and resolved".

Now even giving you the benefit of the doubt that you actually understood this, and were saying something along the lines of "We are not the issue here, and should not be under discussion; we should confine our debate to the article subject itself," well, I can only point out that you violated this yourself with your bizarre accusation that I must hate the Unification Church, since that is who Sherwood worked for and whom he chose to do an "independent investigation" of and whom he turned over some measure of editorial power to.

Finally, do you have some basis for classifying an edit made in good faith that you do not happen to like as "overt vandalism"? Besides, of course, your assertion that the page as it stands represents a group consensus, an assertion which we have already determined to be false. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:53, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The issue has been resolved. Fishboy tightened the offending section of text. I have tweaked Fishboy's edit. I am ok with this now, if the others are too. ] 23:38, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You do not have the authority to declare that the issue is "resolved". -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:04, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nor you, to dominate or inject POV edits. ] 00:15, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you can explain where I got the power to "dominate", I'd be interested to hear it. It'd be a bummer if I was omnipotent and everyone forgot to tell me. As for POV edits, very well. I'll continue my unbroken record of making only those edits to this article that add more relevant information. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:43, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While you may consider your POV vandalism "relevant" it does not belong here. Your anti-Sherwood information belongs on the article page that deals with Sherwood. This page deales with the Stolen Honor documentary and only slightly with Sherwood himself. ] 01:01, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, I like the Fishboy version. I don't mind a wording tweak to imply that no one has suggested the contract is improper, but I do think a whole sentence (as in Rex's) is a bit heavy stylistically. Wolfman 02:09, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, if someone found a way to integrate that information into the wording, I would not object. However, the idea that a sentence should be inserted to defend Sherwood against claims that no one has made, while sentences that describe claims that have been made about his journalistic work are not relevant because they are about Sherwood, is inconsistent on the face of it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:21, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sounds ok I guess, but if we don't stop the sockpuppet vandal Sahara then we won't have a stable base to build on. Will someone please inform Sahara that Fishboy, Wolfman and Rex071404 are in essential agreement which does not include the text which keeps getting injected (see edit history). ] 02:12, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Jam it up your ass. I'm not in agreement - and you expect anything from me while you're still calling me a "sockpuppet vandal". Yeah...right. Sahara 02:15, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sahara, any simple review of your edits reveals that you appear to be a sockpuppet. This edit by you makes it clear that you are well versed in proper formatting of wiki links. Such skill is not does not develop in just (7) edits, as yours appears to have. Also, you have only 13 edits total, all but one relating to this article and all in the last 45 minutes. Also, while you may think it's funny to tell people to "Jam it up your ass" or to call them a "nazi" in your edit summaries, I do not think it is. On the other hand, on the outside chance you actually are a bona fide new user, I am happy to start over with you. To start over, please join the in progress dialog here and stop the insertion of that text unless and until you get group consensus. ] 02:25, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I guess you could say I'm "well versed". I've made a handful of contributions as an anon, anyway, and I've been browsing pages for a few days. And my edits are all in the last 45 minutes because I only registered the account today. If you are actually willing to dialog with me and stop simply trying to censor opinions you don't agree with, then fine - I'm happy to talk. Sahara 02:29, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. Rex accuses many people of being a sockpuppet. --kizzle 04:09, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Kizzle don't stoke the flames. Gamaliel and I have reached a mutually acceptable version. Please see if you are ok with what's in there now. If not please comment here. ] 04:28, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Personal attacks by Sahara and Rex

Sahara has called Rex071404 "nazi boy". Rex has reciprocated by calling Sahara "sockpuppet vandal". All these comments are improper under the policy of no personal attacks. It's Sahara's first day on Misplaced Pages, but Rex, you've certainly been around enough to know better. A mere ability to wikilink is no proof that a user is experienced. In any event, Misplaced Pages allows the creation of multiple accounts as long as they're not used for improper purposes, e.g. voting more than once. For example, if some other user chose to set up a different account name for editing political articles, so as not to have you engaging in your ususal practice of namecalling, threatening, and leaving diatribes on other people's talk pages, that would be permitted. Although you frequently cry "sockpuppet", you toss around allegations of vandalism even more freely. You've been told already that the term "vandalism" means something other than "disagrees with Rex". As is stated on Misplaced Pages:Vandalism#What vandalism is not, even a violation of the NPOV policy doesn't render an edit vandalism. Your listing of Sahara on Misplaced Pages:Vandalism in progress is a blatant abuse. JamesMLane 02:35, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay. I'm sorry, I didn't know this was against policy. If he refrains from calling me "vandal" and "sockpuppet", I'll try to refrain from calling him other things. Sahara 02:37, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

One of the curses of dealing with Rex and his ilk is that even if he engages in personal attacks, you aren't allowed to respond in kind. Believe me, I know what a pain it is. I've been putting up with Rex's nonstop harassment for more than two months now. But we have a couple of arbitration proceedings pending against him already, and losing your cool in response to his outrageous provocations only gives him the opportunity to raise his favorite defense, namely that he's under constant attack by a cabal of people who hate him. Try not to use personal attacks to express your justifiable anger with him. Focus instead on the merits of the specific question at issue. JamesMLane 02:51, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The specific (question at) issue being the insertion of too much BIO information about Sherwood into this article. As JML's edits will show, he wanted something in so as to show the Republican/Sherwood nexus. And since JML's wishes are also part of a good Consensus decision making dialog, I agreed to that. With no objections from others, the text went in. Then after others such as Gamaliel demanded even more - basing their demand on the point that the little which was in, mandated more - and after many reverts back an forth, Fishboy stepped in with an edit, which until Antaeus Feldspar and then Sahara stepped in to attempt to re-inject Gamaliel's preferred addtional text, sufficed to meet (more or less) all stated complaints to date. Now Sahara is going against the general consensus of Fishboy, Wolfman and myself (Rex0717404) who more or less agree on Fishboy's last version. At best, Gamaliel's version is supported by himself, Feldspar and Sahara with JamesMLane seemingly sitting this out. Having said all that, I am going to keep reverting that revert edit of Sahara until he stops acting unilaterally and addresses the principle of personal criticisms belonging on the Sherwood personal article, not here. ] 03:23, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh, so you and two people is a consensus, and three people (perhaps four) against you is, well, irrelevant? I'm afraid I don't see how that works. Sahara 06:43, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was "sitting this out" only because I didn't have time to deal with this plus all the other things that called for my attention. I devoted a lot of time to putting together Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration#User:Rex071404 3, which I mention here because it arises primarily from Rex's conduct in the course of the dispute about this article. Contrary to Rex's comment below, the dispute cannot be considered "resolved" at this point. The "not up to par" language doesn't seem very good to me. JamesMLane 07:19, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

JML, please offer you concerns here ASAP. It is equally important that your concerns be heard and accomodated by the group as anyone else's. I am very interested in hearing your editorial concerns regarding this article. [[User

Rex071404|Rex071404 ]] 16:29, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Read this please

I have added this:

Some critics of Sherwood have contended that his journalistic methods are not up to par - see Carlton Sherwood for more information about him personally.

Hopefully, this will address the concerns of those who think negatives about Sherwood himself must get some ink in this article too. ] 03:32, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gamaliel's / Rex's edit just now

Please note, the dispute appears resolved. Also note, the previously mentioned .gov web site domain name does not bring up any site, nor did I find it in a .gov whois database. I have deleted that name as a result. ] 03:58, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Did a google search on the sitename. The name is accurate, it's just that they haven't launched; they are months behind schedule. But since they don't exist yet, I agree that the webname is not useful, it's just likely to make people try to access a non-existent site. Wolfman 14:08, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A suggestion for actual consensus

I have a suggestion for how we might get a better idea of where consensus really lies. I think we can all agree on two basic principles:

• Not all information about Carlton Sherwood is relevant to an article about the documentary Stolen Honor.

• Not all information about Carlton Sherwood is irrelevant to an article about the documentary Stolen Honor.

My suggestion is that we list out the information, in statement form, that any of us feel is relevant to the article, and discuss them individually. Proposed variations on statements already listed should be listed with their original statement.

Example:

• AA. Carlton Sherwood is a Vietnam veteran.
  • AB. Carlton Sherwood is a decorated Vietnam veteran.
• BA. Carlton Sherwood has won a Pulitzer prize.
  • BB. Carlton Sherwood was in a group that won a Pulitzer prize.

Once the consensus on which statements are actually relevant to this article is determined, it should be easier to come up with a text that represents that consensus. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:05, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Feldspar, you are beating a dead horse. There is nothing much terribly wrong with the most recent version which arose after Gamaliel's and my last edit. Please go find another article to fixate on. I'd like to suggest John Kerry. There's a plethora of minutia there for you to to hyper-analyze. ] 18:23, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:Civility. ] 18:26, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gamaliel, why don't you see Beating a dead horse? ] 21:04, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, Rex, but as we have seen numerous times, you are not an accurate judge of when actual consensus has been reached. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:11, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind word "Feldspar". ] 21:04, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, thank you for the helpful link, Rex. As Beating a dead horse makes clear, it is a retort used when "a particular request or line of conversation is already foreclosed, mooted or otherwise resolved." Since none of these are the case here, it's clear that no dead horse is being beaten. -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:50, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps, but thanks to your efforts to hide that information from others, this idiomatic usage may be lost to some. By the way, is "Feldspar" Latin for "vindictive"? Please advise. ] 01:02, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

STOP. seriously. both of you. --kizzle 01:10, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Also, Rex, please take away the ""... Alistair showed you Feldspar is not a sockpuppet... assume good faith! --kizzle 01:16, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Feldspar put my new page Beating a dead horse on the vote for deletion page here as a vindictive swipe at me. While it is true that pages which explain "idioms" verge on dictionary style information, I don't believe such pages are non-encyclopedic. Also, List of idioms in the English language has several other idioms such as Have one's cake and eat it too and Straw that broke the camel's back with their own pages which Feldspar did not see fit to attack as he did mine. Also, in addition to wanting it to be a good page for the Wiki, I created Beating a dead horse so as to have a link to prove to Gamaliel (see above) that I was referring to Feldspar's argument, not him personally. There was no personal attack - and Gamaliel was wrong to make the post he did. Even so, both Feldspar and Gamaliel compound the spite to utter vindictiveness when they try to get the rather nice page I created today, deleted. Frankly, I think they both burdened by warped, spiteful minds. ] 01:22, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:Civility. ] 03:33, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Feldspar, your Vfd may very well have merit, or maybe not, I haven't read it. Regardless, it just enhances Rex's sense of being set upon. While I still find him sometimes incredibly frustrating, I have also found him to be sometimes reasonable (though occasionally not) if he does not view you as an enemy. It is only natural that he takes your Vfd as evidence of hostility, even if you truly think the Vfd has merit. Obviously, do your own thing, I'm not trying to boss you. Just saying that cooling things down is sometimes a good strategy, as well as more pleasant for all. Wolfman 04:55, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I do not disagree that he takes the VfD as evidence of hostility, or purports to do so. But since he is equally capable of taking the sudden odd appearance of a question mark where an apostrophe appeared to be as "vandalism", or taking the fact that two people agree with each other as proof positive that they are in fact the same person, or taking the observation that only the abuse of multiple identities (and not the mere possession of multiple identities) is not prohibited on Misplaced Pages as an "admission" that the person pointing out this fact is guilty of possessing and abusing multiple identities, I see no reason to limit myself to only that narrow subset of behavior which Rex would not take as "evidence of hostility", or more likely, take as "permission to instigate hostility".

The VfD has merit. If the process is not subverted, it will eventually be decided -- on its merits. I ask for nothing else. In the meantime, I would like to know if anyone has opinions for my suggestion for finding out where actual consensus lies. I'm sure Rex would like us to get back to that subject, instead of discussing an unrelated VfD; after all, if Sherwood's "personal" information is irrelevant to the subject of Sherwood's documentary, the article on "Beating a dead horse" is sure as hell irrelevant to the subject of Sherwood's documentary. -- Antaeus Feldspar 06:39, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your suggestion is fine. But, it might be simpler to debate any changes you want. Things that are not currently in: Moon connection, Vietnam vet. Things that are currently in: Pulitzer, Republican connection. Which of these do you want to change (or anything else I missed)Wolfman 14:43, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think JML's latest version actually nails it pretty well, and I agree with his reasonings of what to keep and what to leave out and why.

The only concerns I still have are minor: it seems that we have created one paragraph whose theme is "factors that would affect Sherwood's likelihood to produce an unbiased documentary on the subject," both negative and positive. However, two factors are missing from that paragraph because they have been placed in the lead paragraph of the article to describe Sherwood:

• He is a decorated Vietnam veteran (up to reader interpretation whether this makes him an expert on the subject, or too close to the subject to be objective).
• He shared in a Pulitzer prize for investigative reporting (on the whole, definitely a factor in Sherwood's favor, though stating it this way instead of "Pulitzer prize-winning" leaves it unclear whether this means he did Pulitzer-worthy work, or the group did. Which is as it should be, since we have no firsthand knowledge of which it is.)

-- Antaeus Feldspar 17:17, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I see your point. In addition, the current structure introduces Sherwood before we've even described the video. We could change the introduction to: "Stolen Honor is a 45-minute video documentary that was released in September 2004. It features...." etc. Then, after the pro & con, "Stolen Honor was produced by Carlton Sherwood, ...." and then have the negative and positive "factors". JamesMLane 17:30, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

With Neoconned adding in more information about Sherwood to this article, perhaps it's time to make this change? I've also been looking for more detail on Sherwood's decorations from Vietnam, but I haven't found anything so far. -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:59, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On TfT, both Gamaliel and JamsMLane supported the exclusion of links I wanted included, yet on Stolen Honor some turn around and demanded the Media Matters link be included - even though it fails the TfT test - in that it's not about the documentary, but about Sherwood himself. And that "moonie" stuff others kept trying to jam in - that's about Carlton Sherwood himself, not about Stolen Honor, the documentary. It's one thing to mention "he also wrote a book about Unification Church" as a snippet of his background on the documentary page, it's entirely something else to try to bring controversy about that onto a page for a topic for which it has no bearing. ] 15:44, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think Rex, that people want to exclude all the unrelated sherwood information. If that doesn't happen, the second option would be to have a rebuttal of the "good" information with the inclusion of all the bad stuff. So let's try to remove all of it, eh? Lyellin 15:52, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

We should include important Sherwood information (pro and con) that's reasonably related to the subject of the article. My explanations for my edits:

• Restore his status as a veteran (which usually wouldn't belong but is OK given that the video is so closely related to veterans).
• "Documentary" is borderline here, but there's certainly no justification for repeating it.
• As I said before, the vague "not up to par" language is inadequate. I think we should specify that the issue was the prior review. The point isn't to pound away at any Moonie connection. It just seems unbearably coy to try to report that the subject had access to the text without mentioning who the subject was. I agree that all the details (the Gavin letter, etc.) can be left for the Carlton Sherwood article. I don't see a need for a duplicate wikilink to that article; the reader who wants to go there should be able to find the link in the first sentence.
• I didn't understand the point of this sentence: "Some observers note that Sherwood has longstanding Republican ties." It adds absolutely nothing to what follows, which gives the reader the facts about the ties. I certainly think those ties are important but I don't believe in trying to editorialize for that importance by adding a sentence that serves only to call the reader's attention to them.

I didn't make any edit about "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush". It's silly that we don't explain the reference, but Rex deleted my completely NPOV addition ("Nevins was making a derisive referen to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" or some such) so apparently we can't improve this minor point without another edit war. JamesMLane 16:25, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That edit ("Nevins was making ") was rejected on the basis of it being "spoon feeding". Frankly, I am not willing to cut you any more slack than you have cut me. And in any case, it is "spoon feeding" ] 19:43, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Rex, you seem not to understand what the word 'spoonfeeding' means. Imagine you are are a reader a year from now who has never heard of SBVT. You get here from the GSBMSC page. You see this SBVW reference. You have no idea at all what Nevins is talking about. Having an internal link to SBVT is not spoonfeeding, it is adding information that is not already available to an intelligent reader. Spoonfeeding means adding leading wording to emphasize information that is already clear to an intelligent reader. Can you see the difference? Wolfman 04:41, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this obviously isn't spoonfeeding. Nevertheless, a piped link to SBVT would also be confusing. I think it's suitably informative and NPOV to state parenthetically that Nevins was making a derisive or derogatory reference to SBVT. JamesMLane 04:47, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agree, your wording seems to me the best solution. Wolfman 05:57, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is consensus finally reached?

Just now, I have tweaked JML's most recent edit . I am willing to declare "consensus" with this revision, subject to group agreement. And as a show of good faith, I will acquiesce to the deletion of one link. I offer this as the deleted one:

"POW Featured in Documentary Labels Kerry as 'Traitor' " Agapepress.org - Sept. 17, 2004,

in that it is arguably the most POV in it's title. ] 19:52, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

addition for accuracy?

(Nevins was making a derisive reference to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an organization critical of Kerry's Vietnam war record, anti-war activist record, and presidential campaign.)

No offense, 165.247.204.20, but does this really add to the accuracy of the article? I'm trying to decide. It's more detail about Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but SBVT aren't literally involved here (at least so far as has been uncovered yet.) SBVT presumably don't like Kerry's anti-war activist record or his presidential campaign any more than they like his Vietnam war record, but what they're noted for, and surely the reason Nevins invoked the comparison, is their claims to have served with Kerry on the swift boats and to be uniquely positioned to criticize his record of service in the war. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:56, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

we have a wikilink for a reason. the interested reader can click there. Wolfman 06:10, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm inclined to give at least a capsule summary, like: "...reference to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an anti-Kerry organization." Some readers might want to know at least that much without the bother of clicking. I agree that, with the link, we don't need to go into a lot of detail about SBVT. JamesMLane 02:27, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ok. Wolfman 02:45, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Refactoring?

It seems that, as the Sinclair plan to air Stolen Honor causes more controversy, we might be well-served to divide the article into sections, perhaps the following:

• The documentary itself
• Sherwood's qualifications and record
• Reactions to the documentary
• The Sinclair controversy

thoughts on such a plan? -- Antaeus Feldspar 21:38, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm for it, except for Sherwood's qualifications and records, unless it specifically applies to Stolen Honor... all that Frontline stuff convolutes the article if we bring it into here in detail. But I would like to see a fleshed out article about Stolen Honor... MSNBC has some good stuff on it on hardblogger, not sure what the actual link is. --kizzle 22:14, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

I already did the refactoring, demoting the first mention of Sherwood so that it comes after the material about the content of and reactions to the video. The Frontline information is relevant to Sherwood's credibility. I don't think we need to name the Unification Church official who wrote the letter about what Sherwood was doing -- that's in the article on Sherwood -- but I think one sentence about the point is reasonable here. JamesMLane 22:34, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

JML I meant to phrase that according to what you said before, I am in complete agreement, state that his previous purportedly independent work was subject to prior review, just don't go into detail in this article. --kizzle 18:04, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think any time you have a journalist who says "Here you go, look at this independent investigation I did" and then it's shown that his investigation wasn't independent, it's information relevant to any other reporting they've done. If Michael Moore came out with a new documentary, I definitely think it wouldn't be right to omit mention of how deceptively Moore has edited in the past. But yeah, I'd like to see more meat about Stolen Honor itself. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:42, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It depends. From the unofficial transcript link, Stolen Honor challenges one of the conventional wisdom about the entire Vietnam War; it asserts that there were hardly any war crimes or atrocities committed by American forces--or at least much much less than is currently believed.

If Sherwood is right, then this constitutes a major story about the public perception of the Vietnam war. But even in this case, Kerry's role in the misconception doesn't seem important, and there are thousands of other questions that are raised, which Sherwood ignores to zero in and smear Kerry. Even if he's right in his basic assertion, it's still an unbalanced smear job judging from this transcript.

However, given the timing of this release, the partisanship of Sherwood, and the general consensus that the Americans did fight a bit dirty, I think it's safe to just call the thing a smear that has some tiny bit of theory which one might try to take seriously, the bait by which it is able to push the slander into the public forum. If Sherwood cares so much about the truth of American war crimes in Vietnam, and correcting 30 years of mistaken public perception, he could have easily made such a documentary without making John Kerry the center of it. The fact that he did shows what he's truly after, and what Stolen Honor really is: an hour-long campaign ad for the Bush Campaign. And I think it indicates that Sherwood doesn't really believe what he's pushing. He would have us believe that a gross public misconception about Vietnam for years and years implies--above all other implications!--that John Kerry is a traitor.

Who is cynically using the vets for political and professional gain, exactly?

I don't see any reason to give Sherwood's ideas an airing.

Thus, I object to a treatment which grants it the status of critical documentary first then raises questions about its integrity. There is a line beneath which a critical documentary is nothing more than an attack with some wild assertions that will no doubt turn out to be grossly exaggerated if anyone bothers to look at it. Stolen Honor doesn't qualify as a controversial critical documentary treatment any more than LBJ's Daisy ad.

So I would think the refactoring needs to treat this video as a notable smear rather than a controversial documentary.

You raise many good points, but in doing so, you seem to misunderstand the aims of Misplaced Pages. We are trying to compile the information on the subject which a consensus can agree is factual, even when to do so we must report in the form of "this side claims this interpretation; the other side claims that interpretation."

It may be that when the information is compiled, the facts are such that it seems any reasonable person must come to a certain conclusion based on them. But even if we come to such a conclusion, Misplaced Pages isn't the place for it. We need to stick with those facts that are verifiable and relevant. It's honestly hard enough to get people to agree sometimes on which facts are actually verifiable and relevant; we'd never get a consensus on any subject anywhere near controversial on what conclusion to draw from those facts. (And would you really want us to be able to say "Obviously, Stolen Honor is no documentary, but a big smear" if it meant that over at Killian memos someone could draw the 'obvious' conclusion, obvious to them, that CBS is biased towards Kerry and therefore every conspiracy theory about 'the liberal media' is thereby proven?)

I think you've made some valuable contributions to the article already -- finding the link to the transcript, adding the information about Jon Lieberman -- and I hope that you'll continue to contribute. Just remember that it has to be in the right form in order to have the effect you want: a lawyer can win the case for their client, but they can't do it by keeping the other lawyer from putting forth a case, and they can't do it by stepping into the jury box themselves. If you want to convince people, bring out the facts that will convince them. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:45, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Feldspar makes a good point, we must merely present the facts about a subject and refrain from making conclusions for the readers. --kizzle 18:09, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

(Re Killian: I think it's bad to say the Killian memos or even F9/11 somehow allow Stolen Honor.)

My point was that when the question of "is this a flimsy attack or real journalism?" has been answered satisfactorily--and I think all signs are pointing to flimsy attack--leaving around the arguments and presenting it as still a reasonable debatable issue is actually misleading, and in fact is not a responsible way to present the facts. The way facts are presented creates an implication that is often stronger than the facts themselves. I guess this is close to the definition of spin. That is why I objected to the proposed refactoring; the refactoring you proposed seems to imply Stolen Honor is a real documentary with important content that just happens to have a political controversy attached. I doubt this will be a reasonable way of presenting Stolen Honor. --64.174.158.42 21:26, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We can give evidence that supports Stolen Honor not being a true documentary but we cannot conclude this for the reader. Your analysis that Stolen Honor is an unfounded partisan attack would fit with my intuitions, yet neither one of us can conclude that for the reader. Ask yourself, why do you believe it is a flimsy attack? To answer that question, you would provide me with certain facts or evidence that supports your conclusion. These facts and descriptive sentences are welcome, and the more in each direction, the better informed decision the reader can make for themself. Mainly, we cannot "spoon feed" the readers. --kizzle 21:43, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with kizzle that we just give the facts. If one fact about the video is that it quotes a selected group of veterans but doesn't include any independent investigation of their allegations, then that fact could reasonably be reported. It would be better still if we could quote someone notable as criticizing the video on that basis, and attribut the quotation to the source. We don't adopt any POV but quoting a POV with proper attribution is fine. JamesMLane 22:25, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The point I was making, 64.174.158.42 (BTW, you might want to consider registering) is that what you have said Misplaced Pages should do, which is to characterize Stolen Honor as a "smear" instead of as a documentary, would in fact require a change in Misplaced Pages policy -- and that same policy change would allow other people who claim they are drawing equally "obvious" conclusions about the unmeritedness of John Kerry's military service or about collusion between Dan Rather and the Kerry campaign to place those characterizations directly into the articles.

You say it is not a "reasonable debatable issue" anymore, but the problem is that that's opinion, not fact. We need to stick to the facts, that which even those who want to draw the opposite conclusions from ours can agree are established facts. Obviously, if someone is biased to believe that John Kerry's participation in the Winter Soldier investigation was anti-American treachery, then if Misplaced Pages were to assert "there is no debate; Stolen Honor is no documentary but an anti-Kerry smear" then not only will it not change that person's mind, it will decrease their trust of Misplaced Pages as a repository of factual information. On the other hand, if Stolen Honor contains any repetitions of the claims Sherwood has made that have been found to be untrue, such as that the Winter Soldier investigation had been "utterly discredited", that would be an example of information that could go in the article.

There's an old saying in the law that "when the facts are on your side, pound the facts, if the facts aren't on your side, pound the law, if the law isn't on your side, pound the table." Well, if you really do believe the facts are on your side, then help us pound the facts. -- Antaeus Feldspar 22:58, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Registered. And I think I've been pounding the facts plenty. I guess I am fine with your proposed refactoring, but I think the reader shouldn't have to get to section 4 before a mention is made that Stolen Honor, to many people, looks a whole lot like a 45 minute attack ad for Bush, masquerading as a documentary, run for free by Sinclair on the eve of a close and dirty election. That's almost all you need to know about it. -- Fleacircus 00:16, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Taking the Fahrenheit 9/11 article as an example of an article about a controversial film: The first paragraph talks about its release, not applicable here because Stolen Honor isn't a theatrical film. The second paragraph says it's controversial and says what it's about; the third paragraph summarizes the praise and condemnation. On that analogy, what if, before giving the information that's now in the second paragraph here (about the production company), we insert a brief reference to the controversy? As with Fahrenheit 9/11, the details would be left for development later in the article. JamesMLane 01:37, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, as I said, I think you've made a lot of valuable contributions of fact to this article, and at the risk of letting my personal politics show, I hope you keep up that good work, because I think SH is a partisan smear attack on Kerry too, and I hope that the evidence which will convince people that it is gets out to them.

On the refactoring, I was suggesting one plan -- I'm not super-emotionally-tied to the one I proposed, or anything, and I guess I also didn't make it clear that I was thinking it might be time to give each thematic section a descriptive header. That would put a table of contents at the top of the entry, so people would actually be alerted to the fact that there was a "Sinclair broadcasting controversy" much earlier than they are now. -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:46, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gerow and Quantum Communications

I'm a little concerned about the terms in the article right now about the links between Red, White and Blue Productions, Quantum Communications, and Charles Gerow. Charles Gerow is called a "Republican operative", and that strikes me as going a bit far -- his record says he's a Republican, but that doesn't make him necessarily an "operative". The other thing is that RW&B is said to be "apparently owned by" Quantum Communications, based on this address information -- but Charles Gerow, head of Quantum, is openly listed as the publicist for the film. Isn't it possible (playing devil's advocate here) that that explains why the address listed for queries about Stolen Honor is Red, White and Blue Productions C/O Quantum Communications? -- Antaeus Feldspar 02:09, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute - Daily Kos

Daily Kos is a very VERY left pov site, as stated on their wiki's main page (found when searched stolen honor wikipedia, as for some reason it didnt show up when i typed in Stolen Honor, but that's where it is). It may have a transcript, but it's not impossible that it was creatively "edited for brevity". I'm for removing the link until a more NPOV source for a transcript (preferably wikisource) can be added. Anyone with me here? --TIB (talk) 06:11, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

The real problem is that is a link to a copyvio. Quotes are fine, but a transcript is not. Removing link & the tag disputing link. Wolfman 06:34, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yikes. I didn't think about the problems in linking to a transcript -- I had thought that, like Michael Moore and F9/11, they wanted it out there as widely as possible. (I could have sworn I read somewhere that RW&B were offering the movie itself as a download over the Internet, like Moore said he wanted people to do with F9/11...) -- Antaeus Feldspar 07:16, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I haven't bought the Stolen Honor video and don't intend to. Whether or not it's offered as a download, does it perhaps say that anyone who wants to circulate the text is free to do so? That would be quite plausible, since the goal is obviously to hurt Kerry, not to make money. The point is that I don't think we have enough information to be confident we were linking to a copyvio. I don't favor the approach of leaving a copyvio on Misplaced Pages unless and until we get a DMCA takedown notice, but I think a link to someone else's site is another matter. This link should be restored. As for the bias, we have lots and lots and lots of places where we link to Free Republic or National Review or similar right-wing sources. Here, we're not citing one of Kos's opinions as Revealed Truth. We're linking to his report about a matter of fact. I don't think it's enough for someone to sit around and say, "Well, Kos is a Democrat, so he might be misrepresenting the facts." Is there any evidentiary basis for questioning the accuracy of his transcript? He notes at the beginning that it was rushed, so the reader is warned that there might be errors. The reader of our article is still better off if we include this link. Furthermore, I haven't read the whole transcript, but even in skimming it I found plenty of vicious lies about Kerry. Just what sort of stuff are you speculating Kos might have "creatively" edited out that was worse than what he reported? JamesMLane 07:22, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I imagine that the producers would themselves supply a transcript if they approved of one circulating. Why not just include some illustrative quotes in the article? That's fair use for sure. Wolfman 15:07, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

True, it's fair use, but to make it NPOV we'd have to include the rebuttals and criticisms. Again see the Fahrenheit 9/11 article as an example. The back-and-forth about the attacks on the film's accuracy got so extensive that it had to be spun off into a separate article. As an alternative, I'll see if I can find any policy about linking to a possible copyvio site. JamesMLane 16:44, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A humorous note

I just got a spam email trying to sell me a copy of Stolen Honor. Touting Sherwood's credentials, it says that he served in Vietnam "before forging a journalistic career."

You have to wonder whether the marketing weasels cleared that language with Sherwood. JamesMLane 22:43, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

heh. sounds like an underpaid intern having a laugh at the boss's expense. Wolfman 00:40, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I didn't even think of that explanation. I was just applying Hanlon's Razor, but maybe you're right. JamesMLane 01:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

JamesMLane, I am not convinced. Please supply more proof. 216.153.214.94 04:00, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proof of what? he got the e-mail, you want him to forward it to you? --kizzle 09:01, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

I am not convinced. 216.153.214.94 22:50, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proof of what? he got the e-mail, you want him to forward it to you?--kizzle 01:47, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

SH accuses Kerry of personal commission of atrocities

I find the unofficial transcript confirmed here: Sherwood does in fact accuse John Kerry of having personally committed the atrocities that he described in his Winter Solder testimony. My Editor-Sense is telling me it should go into the article but it's not telling me where. Perhaps a "claims made by the video" section? Such a section could also include Sherwood's assertion that the My Lai massacre was "an isolated incident". (Interestingly, Sherwood's spin is that "Were not the cruelties of My Lai exposed by the soldiers there - American soldiers, who refused to participate - whose revulsion compelled them to tell of the horrors they've witnessed?" Glossing over, among other things, that those three soldiers who stopped the massacre and evacuated the rest of the citizens were reviled as traitors by fellow soldiers and branded as liars by the Army -- exactly what Sherwood is doing now to Kerry for claiming that any other atrocities were committed by American troops in Vietnam.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:41, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I listened to the show link and compared it to the transcript as I went; the transcript has some minor errors (all similar to "manaculls" for "manacles") but no additions or deletions or changes in meaning. I can't really speak to the accuracy of what the transcript describes as being onscreen but it was never wrong in the few times I had the SH video window visible.

As far as opening up the contents of SH to discussion, a resource might be fact check's Swift Boat Vet article where it lists some other well-known atrocities. Another point is that a lot of what Kerry is talking about is free-fire zones which he argues are violations of the Geneva Convention; so to participate in one is a war crime, and to plan them out amounts to a policy of criminality. Here is where Kerry describes the sort of war crimes he was asked to commit. That plus encouraging body counts is what Kerry meant when he talked about the policy and tactics making war criminals of the soldiers, and fomenting the atrocities. SH cuts up Kerry's statements trying to present something else entirely. The number of logical fallacies in Sherwood's presentation is dizzying.

There's a quote somewhere where Sherwood himself says that he served in a trench area where he never had to be in free-fire zones, but says that he knows Vietnam was "100 wars" and he admits guys in other areas probably had to do bad things. Here.

Going Upriver and Stolen Honor

Currently, there is dialog ongoing at John Kerry regarding SH. I am interested to make this article more "wikified" along the lines of the GU article. Speficically, I intend to list the facts about run time, actors, release details, etc., such as is seen on the GU page. Please dialog here if you have questions. I will wait several says before proceeding, so as to invite comment. Rex071404 21:36, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Carlton Sherwood, again

How exactly is personal information on Carlton Sherwood, presented in the way it is, relevant to this article? He already has his own article, and as far as I can tell, the addition of this material is nothing more than an attempt to skew the article.

Perhaps if someone particularly notable, commented on the relation ship between the two it might warrant a mention in the article, but as this is phrased now its just a transparent attempt to kill the messenger.

And just as a side commentary: GIVE IT UP, THE ELECTION IS OVER! The time for playing these bullshit games on these articles is long gone. TDC 14:21, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

touchy touchy. --kizzle 15:59, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Touchy? I aint the one still carrying the torch for a loser. TDC 16:09, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Your response proves my point :) --kizzle 16:17, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

So, did you just come here to pick a fight, or do you have anything substantive to add? TDC 16:44, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

No, just thought I'd remark on your "give it up" comment, just seemed like you were a little worked up, that's all. --kizzle 16:55, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

As documented by Frontline Sherwood previously published what he claimed was an "independent investigation" which turned out not to be so independent. That is relevant to anything else he publishes which he claims to be an independent investigation. Period. What is irrelevant is whether the election is upcoming or past; it's not as if what was true then became false once the election occurred or vice-versa. Sherwood lied to the public, telling them "Here, read my book! It's a no-holds-barred look at the Rev. Moon!" and meanwhile telling Moon "Please read this in advance and tell me what you want to be taken out before it goes to print." To claim that is not relevant to his other projects, or somehow less relevant because the election's passed, is ludicrous. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:55, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry, but once again, how is that related to the article? Dozens of "documentaries" are nothing more that baseless hit pieces against their subjects, and the articles on them are not nearly as loaded as this one is. An article currently exists on Carlton Sherwood, and although his critics may deserve a line or two here, they certainly should not dominate the article. TDC 23:41, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

From discussions literally almost a year ago, I think it was stated that it is important to note on this page that the creator of the documentary was implicated in wrongdoings in the very last documentary he made. Also, considering the timing of the release and his partisan connections, those should be mentioned as well in this page. It's not like Sherwood is notable enough to spawn his own article besides being the creator of this movie. --kizzle 00:54, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

TDC, I notice that, here on the talk page, you inveigh against inclusion of "personal information on Carlton Sherwood". In your actual edit, however, you removed personal information that tended to show his bias and his journalistic failings, but you left in personal information (Vietnam vet, Pulitzer prize team) that was favorable to him. Was this perhaps an oversight on your part? JamesMLane 01:45, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: After I wrote the above comment, you made an edit you described as a "compromise attempt", including in part "remove strictly personal info about Sherman" -- yet, somehow, the strictly personal information that bolsters Sherwood's credibility on this subject, such as his Vietnam service and association with a Pulitzer award, stays in, while the strictly personal information that undercuts his credibility, such as his history as a bought-and-paid-for Republican flunky, gets removed. I don't see this as a compromise. By the way, although for some reason the right wing has adopted the practice of using "Democrat" as an adjective, the correct form is "Democratic". JamesMLane 19:43, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, the information about his Pulitzer award and service are arguable more relevant to the article than allegations of him being a republican "flunky". TDC 20:09, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

That's a decidedly POV conclusion. Facts that many readers would take as showing his bias, and facts that many readers would take as showing his departure from journalistic ethics, are relevant to assessing a "documentary" he produced. JamesMLane 20:25, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I would suspect that we should keep "on topic" as much as possible and try and limit criticisms to the film and not the maker. Would you consider it appropriate to include material on Moore’s activities within Democratic circles, relevant to the farenheight 9/11 article, or should those be specifically addressed in his bio? TDC 20:40, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

If I caught someone trying to remove such material (assuming that it is well-documented in the first place, like the information about Sherwood) from the Fahrenheit 9/11 article, I would fight that removal. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The article on Fahrenheit 9/11 quotes Moore's own statement that his film is an "op-ed piece". I think that's sufficient to establish that it addresses its subject matter from a particular point of view. If Sherwood has made a similarly honest admission about the bias of his film, then we could consider quoting that, instead of providing the reader with facts relevant to assessing the bias. JamesMLane 10:19, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

So, here we are again. TDC writes "rv, when did this happen" as he again removes personal information about Sherwood that shows Sherwood's bias, while leaving in personal information about Sherwood that might tend to bolster his credibility. TDC, you think the right-wing information is "arguably" relevant, but deciding to highlight the arguments of one side (your side) is clearly POV. JamesMLane 04:20, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Laundry list

In TDC's preferred version almost the first thing presented to the reader after the intro, before any discussion of the controversy over the video, is a laundry list of the veterans interviewed in it. This list is not very informative; the only individual there who seems to be independently notable is Kenneth Cordier, whose notability is already discussed in the article body. I think it would suffice to include, in the "External Links" section, a link to the sub-page of the Stolen Honor website where the list was evidently taken from in the first place. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:59, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

recent rex edit

While the wording of what Rex is trying to put into the article may be disputed, I think its proper to include where the status is of these complaints. --kizzle 19:21, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Not only is the wording biased, but the scrambling of the chronological order creates a false impression -- an impression, as Gamaliel says, that the complaints went nowhere because they were frivolous. The actual order of events was: Sinclair announces plans to broadcast the film; Democrats complain that the broadcast would violate various rules; Sinclair back-pedals and claims it never contemplated any such thing; Sinclair ends up not taking the action that Democrats said would violate the rules. So, uh, yeah, there's nothing to indicate that these complaints went anywhere. They were mooted when Sinclair backed down. Given that Sinclair didn't broadcast the film, there was pretty clearly no violation. Duh!

Maybe we should rewrite the passage to put it in chrono order. Then no one would expect there to be any action on complaints about a broadcast that didn't occur. JamesMLane 20:23, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think if the situation was put into chronological order it would make more sense. --kizzle 21:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

We ought not to leave this article dangling as if the "complaints" are actually active in any sense. Nor should we leave the reader with the sense that the mere making of a complaint, infers that the government body to which the complaint was sent, actually acts on complaints such as these. If I send a complaint about the quality of my McDonalds hamburger to the White House, rather than as a letter to the store manager, it doesn't make my complaint any more viable or important. Dangling inferences are not an effective way to let a novice reader of this topic become fully informed. Each trail of logic in a story needs to be moved along to it's current place in the scheme of things from time to time. This is why hard-copy encyclopedias would issue annual updates. Likewise, while it may have been enough a year ago to say 'such and such, or so and so complained about this or that'; regarding these specific complaints, it no longer is enough to leave them dangling. Rex071404 04:31, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Fall 2004 controversy

This article isn't about Sinclair, true; it's about the movie. That's why the article doesn't present corporate information about Sinclair. The material that Rex keeps removing concerns the possible airing of this particular movie, and the controversy attendant upon the content of this particular movie. This article is obviously the appropriate place for full detail about that subject (with only a summary in the Sinclair Broadcast Group article). This is elementary logic. It's not the sinister doings of the many-tentacled Liberal Editors Cabal; similar information about Fahrenheit 9/11 is included in that article. Furthermore, there's no reason to capitalize the word "Ticket" except that Rex was, not for the first time, blindly reverting without even paying much attention to what other editors have done. JamesMLane

Suffice it to say, JML has many times fought and prevented the inclusion of far more relevant material elsewhere, such as at John Kerry. In this instance, there is no question that a) Sinclair did not make this documentary b) Sinclair did not finance this documentary and c) the history of Sinclair is simply not relevant to an encyclopedic (as opposed to smear piece) article about Stolen Honor. There is no excuse - other than partisan bias / POV - to try to muck up this article with controversial information about Sinclair. JML, I disagree with you and am reverting you. Rex071404 01:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

By characterizing the suppressed material as "information about Sinclair", you are begging the question. The information concerns the possible airing of Stolen Honor shortly before the election. That is, manifestly, information about Stolen Honor. You don't suggest any other article where this information would be more relevant -- because, of course, you can't. If you were to succeed in censoring the information here, then it wouldn't be available anywhere on Misplaced Pages. I realize that the right wingers would find it convenient if this incident were to vanish down the memory hole. Such suppression would be a disservice to our readers, however, and their interests come first. JamesMLane 03:19, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

The complaints were about Sinclair. The stock price issues were about Sinclair. The information JML insists on inserting pertains to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. While it might be ok in the Sinclair Broadcast Group article, it simple does not belong in Stolen Honor. JML's edit serves no purpose other than trying to inject tangental Election 2004 issues into this article. Stolen Honor is an encylopedia article that is supposed to be about the Stolen Honor documentary itself. This set of auxillary detail which he insists on inserting here, has the effect of turning this page into a big circus tent of tangental accusations (and defenses).

JML, need I remind you that there has already been an ArbComm finding that you "...carried the issues of the campaign into the encyclopedia article in detail" last year at John Kerry? Is this is what your edit here is all about - partisan POV pushing?

JML's rationale is wanting, this particular edit of his does not belong here and is being reverted.

However, I see no problem with a much more modest pointer regarding "Singclair" and linking to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. JML would, at that page, be in the right location to insert his various and sundry facts about Sinclair. Provided of course, they are not too POV.

Now, as to JML's assertion claiming "suppressed material" - he is simply wrong , once again.

This time, he is making another false statement; JML is asserting that there is "suppressed material". But the truth is far from that. Rather, the issue at hand is that the material at issue here, is being edited in on the wrong page. The "material" JML claims is being "surpressed" can go where is belongs - elsewhere it the wiki.

Lastly JML, I am simply amazed that you would howl about "supressed material" at Stolen Honor. Looking at your actions against my edits at John Kerry, a reasonable person might conclude that you are the one who goes around "surpressing" information. Do you deny that? And if you do deny it, does that mean you are going to stop reverting me so much there (and at other articles?) Rex071404 04:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I have made the good faith edit which I feel addresses JML's concerns. I'd be interested to hear on this page, if he is satisfied and if not, why not. Rex071404 04:39, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Your most recent edit does seem like a good faith effort. However, I still think all of the material you removed is directly relevant since the controversy revolved around Sinclair's proposed airing of this documentary. Gamaliel 09:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Rex, the dispute didn't arise based on whether the movie would air on Sinclair as opposed to some other network. The dispute arose over whether the movie would air at all, soon before the election. That dispute arose because of the content of the movie. Therefore it goes in the article about the movie. The dispute about the movie had an effect on Sinclair, lowering its stock price; the dispute about the movie had an effect on Ted Kennedy, causing him to file a complaint; but neither of these facts means that the narration of the dispute about the movie must be banished from the article about the movie and relegated to the articles about Sinclair or Kennedy.

The complaints were not about Stolen Honor they were about the possible actions that perhaps were going to be taken (but were not) by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Your refusal to distinguish between the two, is I feel, the major problem we are having here. Rex071404 23:29, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

In passing, I'm amused at your ES comment "turns out there already is a section there". If you had actually read my first comment in this thread, you would have noticed my recognition and approval of the longstanding setup: full detail in this article, summary in the Sinclair article. So, yes, "turns out" I was right.

JMl's idea is, I feel, backwards. The bulk of Sinclair text belongs on the Sinclair page. It is JML who insists on making the Stolen Honor article into a contested political football and at this point, it's not even in the news (nor was "Stolen Honor impacted Sinclair adversely" ever much of a news item to begin with). All that extra detail simply does not belong on this particular page. Rex071404 23:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Finally, with regard to your question about the ArbCom: No, you need not remind me of it, given that you have already done so more than once in the brief time since your return. In any event, I'm confident that, regardless of anything I say, you will continue to repeat that cherished theme of yours incessantly for quite some time to come. No one has ever accused you of lacking perseverance. I'm also confident that you'll continue to cite it without noting the context: I asked the ArbCom to provide one single solitary example of an edit of mine that would justify any criticism. The ArbCom, not having provided any such example, instead did not subject me to any restrictions, as had initially been considered. Compare "Enforcement" item 1.5 of the proposed decision with the "Enforcement" secction of the final decision, in which all the enforcement provisions are directed solely at you and your sockpuppet. JamesMLane 09:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with G an JML, but unable to reply today at length other than to say, if they trump me on this point, I would like to hold them on this 'editorial standard of inclusion' on some other political articles from which, they have blocked me from inserting various details. Frankly, I urge you both to reconsider. I have made an edit which speaks to your concerns, why don't the both of you trying being flexible on this point for a change? Rex071404 19:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

You've made this plea before and it still doesn't make any sense. Because you perceive that you lose many editorial disputes, we should let you win one for a change? As I've said to you before, edits should be judged on a case by case basis, not compared to other articles like apples and oranges or allowed to slide because the user is due this time. Perhaps if you try to avoid controversy instead of tackling issues in a way you know will be contentious or refighting battles you lost a year ago, you would find your edits acceptable by a consensus of your fellow editors. Gamaliel 20:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

And take note that Gamaliel uses the word lose regarding the end result of past edit disagreements. The fact is, we are supposed to be aiming for win-win, not win-lose. This is more evidence supporting my contention that Gamaliel fundamentally misunderstands his duties and role regarding Consensus decision-making and Misplaced Pages:Negotiation. Rex071404

Regarding Gamaliel's comment, he seems to think that when I ask him to be flexible once and a while, I am asking him to "capitulate" rather than "negotiate". Which, according to Misplaced Pages:Negotiation, is a "cooperative process whereby participants try to find a solution which meets the legitimate interests of both parties"'. And yet, it would appear that Gamaliel interprets a request to be "flexible" as some obtuse or alien idea.

Or, perhaps he simply cannot get out of an adversarial mindset (see Gamaliel comment above "...refighting battles you lost a year ago..."], wherein every attempt at negotiation with him, is viewed as a "battle".

Frankly, I feel that Gamaliel's utter refusal to accept anything that varies from what he (and a few like minded editors) seem to think is the apogee of perfection - as manifested in their edits - is at the crux of the problem, which as I see it that Gamaliel's idea of "consensus" is to out-vote (or ignore and revert) other editors (such as me) who posit alternative ideas.

Once again, I will point out that what I am asking for is "flexibility" in how Gamaliel's and my desired views are advanced when they conflict. It should not always have to result in me yielding.

As a matter of fact, according to Consensus decision-making the role of proper "consensus" is that "Consensus decision-making is intended to deemphasize the role of factions or parties and promote the expression of individual voices". How much more plainly can I say it? My individual voice is not allowed to be expressed. Rather, it is the faction (currently comprised generally of Gamaliel, Szyslak and JameMLane) which hound, block, revert and delete my edits to virtually any political page.

Suffice it to say, I am not persuaded that Gamaliel is making any good-faith effort to have a meeting of the minds with me. Indeed, he recently referred to a patient explanation of mine as a "rant" .

Where is Gamaliel's true good faith approach in that attitude? Rex071404 23:18, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I originally composed a lengthy reply to this, but then I realized that it was pointless and decided not to post it. Every argument and disagreement with Rex always becomes about Rex, about his feelings and his behavior and how he feels left out of our reindeer games. None of that matters. The point is not Rex and whether or not he gets to play, but whether or not Rex's edits improve the article. I do not feel Rex's edits improve the article. End of story. If Rex wishes to discuss alternative edits, I will participate in the discussion. We should all refrain if at all possible from continuing to discuss Rex's feelings as this is not the proper forum for that discussion. Gamaliel 00:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Well then, there you have it "I do not feel Rex's edits improve the article", period. It's precisely as I've stated in prior dialogs with Gamaliel; I am convinced, based on the talk page evidence, that Gamaliel simply will not engage in true Consensus decision-making - his mind is closed regarding my edits and he will not adjust his thinking based on any of my requests, explanations or logic. For this reason, all dealings regarding content disagreements with Gamaliel end up being adversarial, for the simple reason that he insists that they end up that way. Rex071404 01:59, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Above you accused me of viewing this as an adversarial "battle", but one of the things that makes discussion with you so infuriating is that you wrench quotes out of context (like "I realized that it was pointless") and wave them around triumphantly. That is pretty much the definition of adversarial. As it's pretty clear to anyone except you, "I realized that it was pointless" refers to my long reply discussing your personal feelings about your interactions on wikipedia and my refusal to further discuss that topic and my wish to restrict discussion to edits. I also clearly said "I will participate in the discussion" about edits. This is not, as your spurious edit summary claims, someone who "refuses to dialog", this is exactly the opposite. What you are doing is immature, ridiculous, and the cause of everyone's negative reactions towards you. This is not dialog. This is not discussion. This is not consensus building. This is not mature. This is not anything except you purposely being contentious and offensive and adversarial while you are trying to claim you are doing the opposite. Gamaliel 02:31, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

When you are done insulting me (re: "immature", "ridiculous", "the cause of everyone's negative reactions") we should try to agree on edits we will both accept, don't you think? In the meantime, I am sorry you are upset. Ps: You were the one who characterized my efforts as "refighting battles you lost" (see above). That being the case, I think it unfair that you lashed out with insults because I addressed your claims with a response (see above). Rex071404 04:57, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

You claim to be sorry that I was upset, and yet you repeated the exact same lie in your latest edit summary that pissed me off in the first place. I can only conclude you are being deliberately provocative to provoke a response so you can claim to be a victim. I'm sorry I fell for that tactic. Gamaliel 05:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Your reasoning on this matter makes no sense to me. Indeed I am sorry that you are upset, in that I'd prefer you to not be. However, since when are your emotions the basis of what edits I agree to or not? And even if that could be a basis, you've not earned it with me, for the simple reason that you ignore basically all my well reasoned and talk page supported edit ideas. Suffice it to say, we are now at the end-game of reversions without additional dialog, because 'you quit the dialog - and not for any other reason (except perhaps that leaving talk page comments for JamesMLane here is also not fruitful). Rex071404 15:53, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how or why you insist on reading "I will participate in the discussion" as "you quit the dialog". Gamaliel 18:36, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Uh, if you don't respond to the points I've made (see above), then it's pretty clear to me, you have quit the dialog. Indeed, the fact that you left a reply (above), which is not a response (does not address the points I raised), shows that you have indeed "quit the dialog", regardles of your claims of "I will participate in the discussion". Q: If you are not making a distinction between "discussion" (your word) and "dialog" (my word), are you going to respond the points I've made above, yes or no? And if yes, when? Rex071404 18:58, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I will only particpate in discussion or dialog or whatever about edits to Stolen Honor. I have already stated my opinion that your edits do not improve the article and that the information you wish to remove is directly relevant to this article. I do not know what more needs to be said on this matter at this time. Gamaliel 19:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Gamaliel, as I have stated above, the finality of your position is evidence that you are not meeting your burden to engage in Consensus decision-making. By refusing to attempt a solution where my views and your views are both represented in the article, you have clearly quit the dialog. It is simply not enough to state your "opinion" that " edits do not improve the article" and try to leave it at that.

Again I will point out that your repeated efforts to impose your opinion and/or that of others such as JamesMLane via "out-voting" or "out-reverting" me, rather than actually incoporating my perspective as well, is in violation of the basic tenent of Consensus decision-making (see above) and for that reason, trying to conclude your participation with a final opinion pertaining to how you "feel" or don't "feel" not acceptable. I reject your conclusionary opinion (re: " I have already stated my opinion that your edits do not improve the article") as being invalid in regards to your duty to meet your burden to dialog towards the aim of reaching true consensus - and I again point out to you that regarding this edit in dispute, you have already conceded that my version was a "good-faith" edit . For these reasons, the combined efforts of you and JML to impose your version on myself is nothing more than imperious opinion pushing - with you you forcing your opinion about my edit down in my face. Please, for once, have enough flexibility to put your opinions aside and try working with me towards a mutually acceptable solution. Thanks. Rex071404 20:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Rex, you accuse Gamaliel of "refusing to attempt a solution where my views and your views are both represented in the article". You are wrong. Although one of your edit summaries links to Misplaced Pages:Negotiation, you ignore the key point -- that the version of this artice that Gamaliel and I favor complies with the standard that negotiation "usually involves appropriate mention of all points of view in an article". The article reports the point of view critical of Kerry (the charge that he caused increased maltreatment of POWs). It reports Powell's POV that a broadcast of Stolen Honor wouldn't violate the FCC rule. It reports Sinclair's POV about Lieberman's firing. You haven't identified any notable view that's missing. If there is one, please add it. Please stop removing information that doesn't happen to suit your agenda. JamesMLane 04:21, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Not so - JML's and Gamaliel's view is that ther article - sans my edits - is basically fine. Therefore, their view is represented by the totality of the article. If they are able to keep all my edits out, then 100% of the article comports with their view. Suffice it to say, I am of the view that there is too much Sinclair details in Stolen Honor - whereas, JamesMLane and Gamaliel want more in than I do. Perhaps if I was saying there should be no Sinclair material, then a case could be made that I am not hearing their view. However, even more to the point, is why JML and G want to trumpet controversial facts about Sinclair Broadcast Group in a totally distinct article (Stolen Honor)? I suggest it's because neither of them have it straight yet that the Stolen Honor article is not titled "The Stolen Honor Documentary Controversy". Now, if they want to start a page by that name, then they are welcome to dump all the excess Sinclair controversy items there. I repeat, JML and G are going off-topic with various textual insertions and that's what this edit disagreement is about. Rex071404 05:24, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Rex’s unauthorized alteration of my comment

I began a thread under the heading "Rex's attempted suppression of accurate and relevant information". Rex unilaterally replaced that with a heading of his choice, "Sinclair Broadcast Group", interpolating his chosen heading immediately before my comment that began, "This article isn't about Sinclair...." Obviously, his heading put my comment in a false light. The next day, he noted that the real heading had no content under it (although he didn’t point out that this was because of his own finagling). He removed the heading I had written, giving the deceptive ES "refractor this page by removing ad-hominem attack section title that has no associated talk".

Rex, I'm not going to get in an edit war over something this small. Once again, your utter relentlessness in pursuing your POV, without regard for Misplaced Pages rules or for anyone else’s opinion, will enable you to get your way on a point. Congratulations.

For your information, an ad hominem attack "consists of asserting that someone's argument is wrong . . . purely because of something discreditable/not-authoritative about the person . . . rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself." An example in this case would have been something like, "revert deletion made by known disrupter". I didn’t say that or anything close to it. I didn't criticize your deletion on the basis that it was yours. If you had actually read my edit, you would have discovered that I had addressed the specific edits I was reverting, and that I had explained why the heading I wrote was accurate. In other words, I addressed the soundness of your argument, rather than hiding behind any of the discreditable/not-authoritative things about you that I could have pointed out.

If you disagree with something I write, you have demonstrated on scores of occasions that you are perfectly capable of expressing your disagreement. Your disagreement, however, is no basis for removing or altering my comments. Do not do so again. JamesMLane 16:27, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

JML, in your above demand, you assert that I ought not to be "removing or altering comments". Suffice it to say, if the purpose of this page is to reach consensus, via discussion, then the section titles ought to be focused on an edits based discussion, not a person based discussion - particularly if the reference to the person is loaded, as in your section title's attempt to frame the discussion with a presumption that I am attempting "surpression".

Following up on this, since you have made it clear that you accuse me of removing your "comments" it is also clear that your choice of words for that section title was not made on the basis of organizing this page for edits discussion, but rather, your choice of words was made so you could, as you state, make "comments" about me personally. The fact that you are so fixated on me and will not stay focused on the edits, is taxing. Even so, I'm am still trying to help you get back on track here.

Therefore, once again, I will point out that you are trying to transform Stolen Honor from an article about that documentary itself, to a politicized one about what you contend is a supposedly notable controversy related to what a separate and distinct article subject Sinclair Broadcast Group was maybe, at one time, going to do regarding its own broadcasting schedule. Suffice it to say, there is no evidence of a generally held public perception that complaints against Sinclair are in any way wedded to the public views about Stolen Honor. It is only your POV that makes this very strained connection. And yet, in good faith, I even made an edit that gives you a highly viable link from Stolen Honor to Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is where your anti-Sinclair material belongs (if anywhere). I am trying my best to reach consensus with you. I ask that you try your best also. Rex071404 21:08, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I've concluded that we'll need to go to RfC. I was going to leave in your biased section heading, but because I'll now be linking to it, for the benefit of people who haven't been following the dispute, I've reconsidered. It needs to be changed to something that doesn't convey a false impression that the disputed material concerns Sinclair. We can all agree that the disputed material concerns a controversy that arose last fall. I've retitled the section on that basis, without mentioning your name, which is what seemed to upset you the most. JamesMLane 07:38, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

JamesMLane's repeated efforts at person-based argumentation

Based on the information from JML (see above) it appears that such titles as I have now chosen for this section are acceptable to him. So be it. As for JML and his person-based argumentation, I believe he is engaging in ad hominem attacks. He is welcome to disagree. Also, as to JML's statement above, a careful review of his pattern of constantly reverting me either by himself and/or closely on the heels of Gamaliel and/or closely in other patterns, could reasonably lead to the conclusion that his sole objection to my edits, is that I am making them. Certainly, that is an ad hominem pattern of reverts - so far as I see it. Additionally, when he goes ahead and makes the section heading about the fact that I have opposed his edit rather than what the edit is about, he is again focusing his argument on me, the implicit message being that somehow it's wrong because I did it. After all, he did characterize my edit as "attempted surpression". And, since he does not support his charge of "supression" it's clear that he derisively calls my edit "supression" as a means of making it appear faulty - simply because I made it. Yet, by his own statement (see above), JamesMLane is confirms that he is indeed engaging in ad hominem attacks and mis-focusing his argruments on me, rather than the edit under discussion. For the record, the issue at hand here is that JML wrongly insists on inserting details regarding Sinclair Broadcast Group into the article about Stolen Honor. And, he is doing so to make a point about SH, which is 'SH is bad', which he has already made clear (via the many reverts and edits he's helped with on this article since inception, various comments of his and his general edit pattern), is what he thinks. I contend that JML's insistance on putting the excess Sinclair details here does nothing but push his POV Rex071404 18:25, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

RfC re scope of this article

The subject of the article, Stolen Honor, is a film that was made during the 2004 U.S. presidential election campaign, attacking one of the candidates, John Kerry. One editor has repeatedly removed several different passages from the article. The other editors who are currently active in the article disagree with the deletions, but have not convinced the dissident editor.

This information for people responding to the RfC has been prepared by JamesMLane. I’ve tried to be fair, but be warned that I’m one of the editors most involved in the dispute.

There are two main subjects: (1) the film producer’s journalistic record, and (2) the controversy over a planned broadcast of the film (which, ultimately, didn't occur).

(1) Film producer’s journalistic record

One issue concerns information about the journalistic background of the film’s producer, Carlton Sherwood. There is no dispute that the article should mention that he was part of a Gannett News Service team that won a Pulitzer Prize. The dispute is about including this sentence:

In 1992, the PBS television series Frontline reported that Inquisition, Sherwood's "purportedly independent investigation" of the Unification Church, had been subject to prior review and revision by its subject.

There has been some discussion above.

Summarized argument for inclusion

The Carlton Sherwood article has detailed information about Sherwood, but, because he produced this film, it’s reasonable for this article to note major points about him that bear on his journalistic credibility. Both the Pulitzer (positive) and the Unification Church incident (negative) are relevant. The source is the transcript of the Frontline broadcast.

Summarized argument for removal

In removing the sentence, Rex071404 has given these edit summaries:

• “remove this information - this belonggs on sherwood's page, not here”
• “delete this item - the only ‘reference’ is a transcript of an ‘attack ad’ - needs better source

In August, TDC removed this sentence, saying, “Is this article about the movie, or Sherwood? Considering he already has an artilce, relevent info should go there”.

Comments about Sherwood sentence

• Include. For reasons stated in the summary above. JamesMLane 11:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Modify. Responding to the RFC. Here are the key paragraphs from the transcript:

Narrator: One week after talking to Regnery, FRONTLINE obtained a copy of a letter addressed to Sun Myung Moon. The letter was written by James Gavin, a Moon aide. Gavin tells Moon he reviewed the "overall tone and factual contents" of Inquisition before publication and suggested revisions. Gavin adds that the author "Mr. Sherwood has assured me that all this will be done when the manuscript is sent to the publisher." Gavin concludes by telling Moon, "When all of our suggestions have been incorporated, the book will be complete and in my opinion will make a significant impact.... In addition to silencing our critics now, the book should be invaluable in persuading others of our legitimacy for many years to come."

Narrator: Although he refused an on-camera interview, Carlton Sherwood told Frontline that the Unification Movement exerted no editorial control over his book.

It seems to me, then, that what Frontline did was report finding a memo in which one of Moon's employees claimed to have reviewed the book, but that Sherwood denied it. If you're going to use this incident for insight into Sherwood, his denial should be included, imho. Brandon39 12:17, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Include with denial. It's as relevant as the Pulitzer, but if there are two sides to the Frontline story, both should be included. -- FRCP11 12:26, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Exclude - The "Moonie" allegation does nothing but attempt to bring ill-reput to Mr. Sherwood, and by association, Stolen Honor. As for the Pulitzer, it's part of his accomplishments, part of his resume and reasonably makes sense, but the "Moonie" allegation is not part of his resume, but rather, is a poorly sourced (the link I deleted went to a partisan web page - which did no more than post the transcript from a paid political attack ad) 3rd person, POV, personal attack against the Stolen Honor producer for prior work (13 years ago!) which had nothing to do with the topic of Stolen Honor and is too old - 13 years - to be relevant. This is especially true due to the poorly sourced and partisan nature of the link. Also, this Rfc is an attempted end-run around Misplaced Pages:Negotiation because the notifying party JamesMLane has not addresed these points by justifying them on the Stolen Honor talk page. Now, JML may want to argue that Stolen Honor was at one point castigated as possibly going to have an effect along the lines of a paid political attack ad, but even so, I am absolutely certain - based on my many dealings with him, that he would oppose me quoting the transcript of Stolen Honor at say John Kerry and yet, this is the precise equivalent of what he is trying to force into Stolen Honor. JamesMLane is proposing that as a source, we use a paid poltical attack ad. James is once again, attempting to utilize a procedure which essentially boils down to him trying to "out-vote" me, rather than try for a bona-fide meeting of the minds on the proper associated talk page. Regardless of the outcome of this Rfc, if true Misplaced Pages:Negotiation were occuring at Stolen Honor James would not have resorted to this Rfc. Sufice it to say, if the "Moonie" allegation goes anywhere, it ought to go on Sherwood's personal page - but only if its better sourced. Rex071404 14:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Include. Let's see, the creator of a politicially charged documentary which is accused of bias previously made a politically charged documentary which was accused of bias. I don't see how this isn't clearly and directly relevant. It is certainly a lot more relevant than Sherwood's work with the WVC3 Group and Homeland Security. Efforts to remove only Sherwood info perceived as negative and not this irrelevant personal information smacks of partisan bias.

Arguments about the link are a straw man. The allegation is perfectly well sourced by referencing Frontline, a respected documentary series.

This has all been discussed over a year ago. Now that his ArbCom ban has expired, Rex is bringing up the same issues that had been settled way back then, with no new information or arguments. Gamaliel 17:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Include with denial as per FRCP11. --kizzle 19:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

(2) Controversy about planned broadcast

During the 2004 campaign, the Sinclair Broadcast Group announced plans to air the film shortly before the election. This occasioned a controversy about whether, in light of the film’s anti-Kerry content, such a broadcast would violate Federal Communications Commission rules or would otherwise be illegal or unfair. Rex071404 made multiple reverts to remove a passage discussing various aspects of the controversy about the possible broadcast of the film. (, , etc.) Other editors restored the passage.

In Rex071404’s most recent edits, he has reworded the passage. There is no agreement on his new wording, which has not yet been discussed. His version still omits any form of these sentences, which other editors had restored:

More than 100 advertisers pulled out their ads. The public controversy caused Sinclair stock to drop considerably.

There has been some discussion above.

Summarized argument for inclusion

The planned broadcast of this film was one incident in the history of Sinclair. The appropriate way to present the information about the controversy is with a detailed account in the article about the film and a brief summary in Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Summarized argument for removal

Rex071404 wrote in edit summary: “rv - Remove excess text specific to Sinclair- this article is about the documnetary itself. Excess Sincliar details belong on a Sinclair page”. In a later ES, he reiterated: “rv - restore my previous edt - as stated, this article is not about Sinclair”. On this talk page, he added, “I even made an edit that gives you a highly viable link from Stolen Honor to Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is where your anti-Sinclair material belongs (if anywhere).”

Comments about 2004 controversy

• Include. This article is the proper place for the full exposition of the controversy occasioned by the plan to broadcast the film, including the effects of that controversy on Sinclair. The disputed sentences merit inclusion. Furthermore, even if Rex071404 goes back to trying to remove the other information, it should also be included. JamesMLane 11:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Modify. I'd say the information about advertisers pulling their spots is relevant. The fact that their stock dropped at the same time causes one to suspect that this was also related to the controversy, but the passage as worded seems more conclusive than is warranted. On the whole, I'd suggest rewording it so that it is less conclusive, or providing evidence of a direct link between the controversy and the stock decline. Brandon39 12:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Modify. Unless a large-scale investor said they were pulling out of the stock over the controversy, the cause of the stock drop is speculative. (It's not even clear to me that a meaningful stock drop occurred--anyone investing in SBGI when they announced the documentary was coming out and selling in late December 2004 would've made a substantial short-term profit.) The only reason the documentary is notable is because of the controversy, so the advertisers pulling their spots is relevant and should be included. -- FRCP11 12:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Modify The cause of the stock price drop was added by myself a few months ago (look towards the end), it along with other information was continually reverted. Re-add this and any other information, in this version, not currently in the present article ‘’ Large Democrat union pension funds sold off shares in Sinclair broadcasting causing Sinclair stock to drop nearly 25% in three weeks, and over 100 advertisers pulled out their ads . In response, Sinclair announced that it had never intended to air Stolen Honor in the hour slot in the first place, indicating that they might instead show clips of the video in a discussion panel format. TDC 14:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The stock price drop was then politically motivated. That Democratic union pension funds would violate their fiduciary duty to pension-holders to make a political point is interesting, but if the stock drop is to be included, that context should be included, as well as the fact that the stock more than rebounded by December. -- FRCP11 15:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Exclude excess details about Sinclair Broadcast Group from Stolen Honor. I contend that JamesMLane is trying to stuff excess amounts of controversial details about Sinclair, into the Stolen Honor article so as to push a POV, that being: Aha!, those who complained about Stolen Honor were "right" - look at the bad things which happened to Sinclair for even thinking about going near it - Stolen Honor must be junk. All of James's legitimate editorial goals about the Sinclair details, can be met by includng those details at Sinclair Broadcast Group and linking to that page - as I did (and which was rightly described by another editor as a good faith edit). Now however, James seeks to overule my good faith edit, so he can resume inserting harsh material about Sinclair Broadcast Group into Stolen Honor. I ask, other than try to make the merits of Stolen Honor as a documentary seem less worthwhile, what editorial goal of informing the readers is so much better met by including this Sinclair stuff at Stolen Honor? I say nothing but "guilt by association" is accomplished and that's POV and JamesMLane is pushing it here. Rex071404 14:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Include. Once again, I don't see how this isn't clearly and directly relevant. The Sinclair controversy didn't involve the movie, it was about the movie, and to omit this information is to leave out perhaps the most important chapter in the history of the movie, and is information that the reader will expect to see here. It seems from the above comments that Rex is motivated by fear that JML is supposedly trying to "stuff excess amounts of controversial details" in the article, but this is not a sound reason to exclude directly relevant information. Gamaliel 17:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

• Include just as we include the controversy surrounding F9/11's release at Fahrenheit_9/11#Film_release_and_box_office --kizzle 19:59, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I do agree with the crux of Rex’s argument that the article is about the film, not about Sherwood. The article seems to me like more of a smear piece from Disinfopedia than an encyclopedia entry. There should be plenty of room allotted to discussing and documenting the controversies that came about from this film, but anything not directly related to the film, “Sherwood is a Moonie hack and the like”, should be given a disproportionate amount of attention. TDC 14:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Are you saying include "moonie" or exclude it? Rex071404 15:00, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, exclude Moonie. Sherwood article currently contains information, only purpose here is to interject POV.

Please sign your post - it's a vote Rex071404 15:15, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Other views

Extremely long comments, and responses, and replies, and rejoinders, etc., would make the primary "Comments" sections hard to follow. Because this talk page doesn't have a talk page, I'll use this space for any of my responses that have to be long.

1. The references to "Moonie" by Rex and TDC are utterly out of place. No one is saying Sherwood is a "Moonie hack", no one is trying to use the term "Moonie" in the article, and no one is trying to smear Sherwood by saying that he wrote a book about a controversial church. The issue, rather, is what kind of journalist has produced this so-called "documentary" film. Part of the answer is that the film's producer is someone who allegedly departed from journalistic standards by failing to maintain proper independence from the subject of one of his earlier works. That the subject of that work happened to be a controversial church is beside the point. It could just as easily have been the Girl Scouts. The crux of the dispute is the prior review.

2. It's clear that the article is about the film, but that doesn't mean it's barred from touching on other subjects. The film doesn't come from a major filmmaker. Therefore, the reader could legitimately want to know something about who's responsible for the film. TDC continues to be inconsistent -- the article isn't about Sherwood when there's information undermining his credibility, but the article suddenly is about Sherwood when his Vietnam service and his Pulitzer Prize are at issue.

3. Rex is misrepresenting the facts about Inquisition. Rex argues that Sherwood's Pulitzer is part of his resume but that the 13-year-old dispute about Inquisition is "too old to be relevant". This attempts to convey the impression that the Pulitzer is more recent. If the 1992 dispute about the 1991 book is too old to be relevant, then so is the 1980 Pulitzer, as well as the even earlier Vietnam service. As for the source, Rex keeps talking about "a paid political attack ad". Say what? Our article on Frontline notes that it's a public-affairs program produced at WGBH, the public television station in Boston, Massachusetts, and distributed through PBS. The material cited here is on the second page of the transcript. If you look at the first page, you'll see that it's presented with permission from WGBH. I see no evidence that this transcript was ever used in a "paid political attack ada", but even if it was, is there any basis for questioning the accuracy of the transcript as supplied by WGBH? (I mean accurate in the sense that it reflects what the program said. If the program certainly said something but the truth of what it said isn't certain, then the remedy is to NPOV the text of our article, not to delete the subject entirely.)

4. Rex makes his usual charge that there are no negotiations occurring. When I restored the information he'd deleted, my edit summary cited no fewer than five threads on this talk page in which this and related issues had been discussed at great length. In those threads, I said what I had to say. Unlike Rex, I see no virtue in saying the same things over and over and over, so I simply referenced them. It was disingenuous for Rex to revert me with an edit summary reading "rv - restore edit as per request for genuine Misplaced Pages:Negotiation", acting as if those lengthy prior discussions had never happened.

5. Rex adds another of his favorite themes, that I am "trying to 'out-vote'" him. This charge is ridiculous. Rex is already outvoted. In the recent editing of this article, no one else has agreed with him. I didn't call for votes, I called for comments -- that's what the C in RfC means. This is not a vote. The attempts of other editors to convey their ideas to Rex were meeting with their usual success (none whatsoever), so I hoped that getting fresh input would be more productive than for the rest of us to just keep reverting Rex.

6. Rex purports to read my mind and discover that I'm thinking, "look at the bad things which happened to Sinclair for even thinking about going near it - Stolen Honor must be junk". This charge imputes to me motives that I don't have and that don't make sense. I'm not saying that advertisers' decisions or the Sinclair stock price movements prove that the content of the film is erroneous. That would be a complete non sequitur. (Almost no one had even seen the film at that time.) Rather, the point is that the article is about the film, and one notable fact about the film is that the controversy about it affected a publicly traded company's stock. Not every film does that. That a film had that effect is worth reporting in the article about the film, even though it doesn't shed any light on whether people should have voted for Kerry or for Bush, which seems to be the prism through which Rex views everything. I'm not trying to refight the 2004 election; I'm trying to give the reader of this article interesting and useful information about the film that's the subject of the article. JamesMLane 19:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I think James has done an excellent job summarizing the issues and makes a good case for why the info is relevant and should be included. I have some side questions, is this "film" still an issue nowadays, is there an on going FCC or other investigation, and what have Sinclair et al been up to recently? zen master T 21:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Who is the "el al" you refer to when you say "Sinclair et al". Seems to me, there is none. Unless of course, you are contending that Sherwood was co-ordinating his efforts in a co-plan with Sinclair or something like that. Indeed, such insinuations are the basis for trying to excessively link SH with Sinclair and vice versa. That said, I reject the notion that they are linked. They are only linked in the mind of a few partisans who edit here, nowhere else.Rex071404 02:55, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I simply do not agree. James is shifting his basis for what's acceptable in an article. Literally dozens of times, him and Gamaliel etc, have reverted me at articles over far more relevant details. Likewise, I have been reverted by James and his ilk over far better sourced, more current material. The page he wants to link to is called "moontranscript.shtml", so this is certainly a "moonie" link.

James's inability to distinquish between a resume and a "rap sheet" is basically why he is confusing criticisms of one of Sherwood's past endeveavors with a factual recitation of of an element of his CV. Typically, one puts their accomplishments on their resume, not 3rd party person's criticisms.

To me it is simply laughable how Gamaliel and James vehemently insist that all controversial stuff relating to their icon John Kerry go on subsidiary pages there. But here, they insist on inserting tons of controversial material at Stolen Honor which rightly has a better home at Carlton Sherwood and Sinclair Broadcast Group. And even with links (in SH) pointing to those pages, which make clear there is "controversy" that can be read about there, this group is simply not satisfied. Basically, with them, the controversies must be in an article when they want them to be (rather than linked to on another page) and they must not be included when they don't want them to be.

Suffice it to say, I've tried my best with them again and again, but it's plain to see that the confederation of Kizzle, Gamaliel and JamesMLane simply do not care to allow my views to be incorporated in or help shape any political article we jointly edit.

Perhaps we are speaking diferent dialects or something, but when I read Misplaced Pages:Negotiation, it says to me "Objective criteria such as accuracy, reliability, and fair representation of all significant points of view can be used as participants in a dispute to work toward solutions".

I don't see that happening here and frankly, "outvoting" is in the forefront of JML's mind (he basically said so above) and also, check his edit history - he ran around leaving messages for his cohorts Gamaliel and Kizzle to do just that - out vote.

When my edits continually get blocked by these editors acting in concert/harmony as they do, there simply is no fair representation of all significant points of view, period.

Rex071404 23:29, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I voted for George Bush, and I don't regret it. That said, it seems to me that allegations of misconduct on other, unrelated articles are irrelevant to discussion of this article. If Rex has issues with edits made by these users on other articles, he should follow JML's example, and create a fair, balanced RfC addressing those issues. If he feels there is an ongong personal conflict between himself and JML (and/or others), he should create an RfC directed at those particular users. He should not clutter up discussion of how to improve this article by references to edits made to other, unrelated article; that does not in any way go to the merits of the case at hand. Brandon39 23:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Part and parcel of the stumbling block here is that JML et al, use one argument on one talk page and then contradict themselves on another. They do, I feel, shift their editing guidlines to suit themsleves. I also feel that they are doing that here now and that it's part of the problem on this page now. That's what it's "relevant". Rex071404 00:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Rex, if you feel that way, by all means file an RfC concerning their behavior, and let your fellow editors evaluate the larger issue. But the thing we should be focussing on here is the quality of this particular article. Brandon39 03:28, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The various administraive preocedures tend to be ineffective against anyhting that's not explicit and obvious. And since the actions by JML and G tend towards the subtle (though still insidious, I feel), I've found it's most effective to keep the spotlight on whatever they are up to, by making notes and observations, as needed. Rex071404 06:03, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, when you forego the officially available remedies for the situation as you perceive it to be, you risk giving the appearance of being unreasonable and uncooperative. Misplaced Pages is not a place to debate and "win" arguments; it's a place where people are supposed to act in good will to produce the best articles we can. Brandon39 06:51, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Uh, who said anything about "forego"? In no way have I sworn off official remedies. If and/or when circumstances present themselves that 3rr complaints or Arbitration can be invoked to reign in certain self-centric, non-negotiating editors who revert too much and in round-robin, team oriented fashion, well of course I'd be interested in looking at that. However, my current assesment is that I am dealing with well practiced behind-the-scenes, up the sleeve types, who are not about to easily expose themselves to any official sanctions. No, the only viable path here now, is to keep talking till I'm blue in the face - explaining each and every point that needs be - and maybe some of it will finally sink in. Rex071404 08:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Here's my response to Zen-master's questions:

Rex removed language I wrote that would have answered your first question:

In response , Sinclair announced that it had never intended to air Stolen Honor in the hour slot in the first place, indicating that it might instead show clips of the video in a discussion panel format. It did not broadcast any such show before the election, however, so the Democrats' complaints about the proposed airing became moot.

If we want to get into all the details, Sinclair didn't show the film as such, but used a few parts of it in another program, a use that the Federal Elections Commission ruled wasn't illegal. Nothing is ongoing. AFAIK the film is still available online.

As to your second question, Sinclair Broadcast Group had been accused of misusing its media power to aid right-wing causes even before the Stolen Honor incident, and there've been other such incidents since then. Note that Sinclair didn't produce this film; it merely planned to air the film on all its member stations just before the election. JamesMLane 23:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

And my responses to the later comments: Brandon, thanks for pitching in to try to keep Rex focused. Perhaps, as an unrepentant Bush voter, you can get him to pay attention to your good advice; he seems to tune the rest of us out. As for Rex's comment above, I wholeheartedly agree with his suggestion that anyone concerned about my conduct should check out my edit history. I did indeed leave messages about this RfC for Gamaliel and kizzle. I also left one for TDC, with whom, as best I can remember offhand, I've never agreed on anything (and who, as I noted in my presentation of the RfC, had previously deleted some of the material that I think should stay). In fact, I notified Rex himself and TDC before I notified Gamaliel and kizzle. I simply tried to notify everyone who'd edited this talk page in the past year or so. If I missed anyone, it was because I'd already spent far too much time on the RfC and I was getting bleary. Rex's insinuation that I deliberately tried to stack the discussion is false, and can be seen to be false by anyone who actually looks at the source that Rex himself recommends (my edit history). JamesMLane 00:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Right here, "Sinclair Broadcast Group had been accused of misusing its media power to aid right-wing causes even before the Stolen Honor incident, and there've been other such incidents since then. Note that Sinclair didn't produce this film; it merely planned to air the film on all its member stations just before the election", James admits: 1) he sees his edit as highlighting an accusation against Sinclair itself (not SH) and 2) the accusation concerns Sinclair's plans, not Sherwood's and not the SH production company's plans.

This material plain and simply, belongs on the Sinclair page only. Period. If JML keeps up this kind of argumentation, I am going to go back and find his talk page comments to me from last year where is absolutely insisted on not having the same information show up twice in two somewhat related/linked articles.

Note that James is not saying the Sinclair information should not be in the Sinclair page at all - rather he is saying that it ought to be redundantly edited into both Sinclair and SH. This contravenes various times he's insisted to me in the past that a link from one article to another must suffice.

As it stands now, James is trying to put more anti-Sinclair material into SH than actually is even in Sinclair - where it's more relevant.

Is JML actually saying that Sinclair related material - complaints about Sinclair itself - is less relevant on the Sinclair specific page than at SH? He's a lawyer, he knows the best evidence rule. To me there is a corollary to that here - the best location rule - but JML appears to be telling us that we must accept only his/his pals rationales regarding placement here.

JML; are you contending that the end result (if you get your way here) is that the article will then be at the apogee of perfection, never being able to get any better than it is?

And final note; by sweeping SH into a very broad "been accused.....before" allegation about Sinclair, JML lumps Stolen Honor into a group of "right-wing causes", it's quite clear that JML simply is unable to grasp that Conservatives (Sherwood - Stolen Honor) as well as Liberals (Samuels, et al - Going Upriver) are able to make a genuine documentary.

It is simply amazing to me that the pro-Kerry hagiographic documentary article (Going Upriver) is so nice and polite, with not one adverse tidbit about any of the persons listed on that page, but here at Stolen Honor, if Sherwood was accused of doing so much as pinching a Snickers bar in the 3rd grade, we are going to here about it. If the other editors won't concede that there is disparate treatment to articles (relating to politics) that have like subject matter, then I think I don't know what else to tell them. Rex071404 00:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

In the foregoing comment, Rex has misrepresented my views. No one who wants to know what I think should rely on Rex for a report. JamesMLane 00:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Ad hominem insults by JamesMLane

Read the edit summary by JML for the above "foregoing" comment "not going to be baited by Rex, he's wasted enough of my time today". It's yet another personal attack by JML. When someone does not agree with him and shows his rationales to be wanting, he sometimes attacks them. This is one of those times. Rex071404 02:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

WVC3 info

Should this info be on James' list for reinclusion too, why was it removed? I think it's highly relevant.

Sherwood is Executive Vice President and Director of Communications of the WVC3 Group, Inc., a security and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Sherwood previously worked for Republican Tom Ridge when he was governor of Pennsylvania. Some time later, with Ridge serving as Secretary of Homeland Security for George W. Bush's administration, that agency awarded Sherwood a federal contract to create a government anti-terrorism website.

zen master T 23:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless there is some evidence of a quid pro quo for having made this film, or at least an allegation of such from a notable person or organization, I don't think it's relevant to this article. It might be appropriate on the Sherwood article. You have to draw the line somewhere. Brandon39 23:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Something doesn't have to be an allegation to be relevant and worthy of inclusion, background info and a pattern of behavior of the people involved is highly relevant on its own. A synopsis of the info should be here and more detail should be put in the Sherwood article. It's not an encyclopedia's fault the apparent quid pro quo is implicit after connecting the dots. zen master T 23:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

More of the the same: Misplaced here. Place in other article and link if you must, but keep it out of this article. Rex071404

I agree with Zen-master, except that I don't think there needs to be a quid pro quo, express or implied. The paragraph is informative as to the circles Sherwood moves in and which side thinks highly of him. By analogy, you'll notice that, when there's an important decision from a U.S. federal court, the media will often report which President appointed the judge(s). There's no implication that Carter or Reagan was seeking to influence a particular case twenty years down the road, but the identity of the appointing President is thought to give the reader some information about where this judge is coming from.

Brandon, if you think we have to draw the line somewhere, though, one alternative would be to draw it at the wikilink. This article would identify the producer as Carlton Sherwood and say nothing more about him -- no Republican appointments, no Vietnam service, no Moonie book, no Pulitzer, just leave it all to his article. I'm against that solution because it would withhold good information from many readers (the ones who didn't click through). That approach, though, would be better than leaving in only the praise of Sherwood. JamesMLane 00:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

JML, how about a compromise? I'm not one to leave out important information, but I've seen how an article can get larded up with ever-increasing charges, counter-charges and qualifiers as everyone seems to feel a need to stick his oar in the water. How about something like:

Although Carlton Sherwood won a Pulitzer Prize early in his career, some critics have charged that his later work has been tainted by conservative political bias. Details on these controversies can be found here.

Does that float anyone's boat? Brandon39 03:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Notice how James wants to keep Sherwood bio information out of an article about Sherwood's work, but wants to include even less closely related commentary about a 3rd party company - Sinclair. The fact they he would even consider offsetting one for the other, shows that this entire dialog is in his mind polarized into two camps - those things which make Sherwood/SH look "good" and those that make Sherwood/SH look "bad". Yet, if the relevance of the material were analogized to geographic distance, Sherwood's BIO and SH are next door neighbors, but the Sinclair stuff is from the next town over - too far removed to belong here regardless of whether it makes Sherwood/SH look good or bad.

JML did after all characterize the non-critical/laudatory Sherwood/SH facts as "good" and he did juxtapose that "goodness" against the other items which he wants in. So it's clear that what he wants in is, in his mind, "bad" about Sherwood/SH.

Suffice it to say, that's is not how POV is reached - driving across town to get trash to dump on Sherwood/SH's lawn simply because his yard looks too "good" to you and there's no locally available trash. Rex071404 00:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Credentials of Carlton Sherwood

If you disagree with Sherwood's premises in Stolen Honor, the most effective way to demolish his credibility is NOT to rebut his documentary point by point - that would take too long, and it might fail because people would have to watch the video to find out whether you were right or wrong. It's better to trash his reputation by linking him with someone who is already despised by the public.

The WP article on Carlton Sherwood insinuates that he changed his book to make its object look good - which of course casts suspicion on the whole rest of book. If you disagree with Sherwood's conclusions in Inquisition (book), the last thing you want is anyone actually reading the book. They might learn something you hope to keep hidden. So you trash his reputation in the hopes that people WON'T read the book.

How should Misplaced Pages handle this? Merely by reporting accurately that Sherwood's critics have cast suspicion on (or expressed doubts about) his credibility. Go into as much detail as you like, about WHY they think he's not credible. But also allow the same article to have balancing detail by Sherwood fans, explaining why they do regard him as credible.

I'm trying to state this in general terms that all can accept, but I realize some of you will cast doubt on my objectivity since I am a long-time and devoted follower of Sun Myung Moon, the object of Sherwood's lengthy Inquisition. Uncle Ed 02:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

First, Ed, I don't see that you're any less objective than the rest of us. Opinions on specifics about this article tend to correlate with opinions about the 2004 election. We're all human (FSVOH, as a recently deceased friend of mine would have said). As to the specifics here, I can't prove to you that I'd feel exactly the same way if Sherwood's book had been about the Girl Scouts, but I assure you I would. I addressed this point on September 29 -- that's September 29, 2004, to give you an idea of how long we've been discussing a subject about which Rex accuses us of failing to negotiate. I wrote: "I think we should specify that the issue was the prior review. The point isn't to pound away at any Moonie connection. It just seems unbearably coy to try to report that the subject had access to the text without mentioning who the subject was." In fact, I'd think that to omit the name could be considered offensive to the Unification Church, as if it would be unfair to poor Sherwood to cite any connection with so disreputable a subject. JamesMLane 08:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Media Matters quotation

Media Matters for America wrote:

One week after talking to Regnery, FRONTLINE obtained a copy of a letter addressed to Sun Myung Moon. The letter was written by James Gavin, a Moon aide. Gavin tells Moon he reviewed the "overall tone and factual contents" of Inquisition before publication and suggested revisions. Gavin adds that the author "Mr. Sherwood has assured me that all this will be done when the manuscript is sent to the publisher." Gavin concludes by telling Moon, "When all of our suggestions have been incorporated, the book will be complete and in my opinion will make a significant impact. ... In addition to silencing our critics now, the book should be invaluable in persuading others of our legitimacy for many years to come."

Although he refused an on-camera interview, Carlton Sherwood told FRONTLINE that the Unification Movement exerted no editorial control over his book.

The Carlton Sherwood article hacks up this quote to make Misplaced Pages lend credence to it. I'm not complaining that it's a copyvio, because that's easily fixed. Uncle Ed 02:43, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Bad faith revert

(copied from User_talk:Gamaliel#Bad_faith_revert) 09:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I contend that this revert of yours , due to the (12) discrete edits of mine it wiped out at once (and your lack of notation regarding them at Talk:Stolen Honor) has the appearance of bad faith editing on your part.

Q: Have you quit the dialog at Stolen Honor? If not, please state for the record and individually, at Talk:Stolen Honor what your problem was with each of my (12) edits which you macro reverted in one swoop. I thank you in advance.

Rex071404 09:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you asked. My problem is that you have heavily altered or eliminated my recent edits (which were an attempt to compromise and satisfy all parties involved) without any discussion or dialog, while expecting others to do so for before changing your edits and acting like no one else is attempting to dialog or compromise. I suggest you follow your own advice and dialog before making these changes or our dispute will most likely continue. Gamaliel

That's a hoot - I have been dialogging, it's you who swooped in and wiped out my edits with a revert. And it was edits which you reverted, not a revert. I never agreed that an article goes to a posture of stasis after each time you edit it. I've made clear my views - it's up to you to justify your revert - I have justified my edits. Rex071404 09:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Blanket reversions not helpful

I came here as a result of JML's RFC, and while I have an opinion about Stolen Honor, I don't have much emotional attachment to the article. Tonight I watched as two editors engaged in a reversion war, and it's not a pretty sight. The most recent action (as I write this) was a blanket reversion by Gamaliel, which swept away not only some of the controverted material, but also a number of changes that were (or should have been) completely uncontroversial, such as breaking up a run-on sentence.

Folks, if you're going to work on this article, may I gently suggest that you at least take the time to do surgery, rather than hacking away at the entire product of the person you disagree with? This is not directed strictly at Gamaliel; there seems to be plenty of bad feeling amongst all concerned. Maybe it would help if you all stepped back and left the article alone for, say, two or three days, and then approached it with fresh minds and hearts? Brandon39 09:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)