Talk:George Soros

Ethnicity

Hi all. I'm a bit suspicious about the identification of Soros's ethnicity. This is not to say that he's not Jewish, nor that his religion/ethnicity shouldn't be mentioned. Rather, I feel that the positioning of that identification in the infobox is a subtle way to play into anti-semitic tropes (i.e., the Jewish businessman controlling the world). Glancing at other world leaders and businessmen, ethnicity/religion is never featured so high, if mentioned at all (i.e. George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller, John Davison Rockefeller). I recommend moving that line lower down, if not erasing it. Thoughts? Sailingfanblues (talk) 23:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Roughly speaking - if a person self-identifies with a religion then it should be mentioned. The ethnic identification is usually clearer, but I don't think it has to be included. I always forget how this is supposed to work with Jews, which can be seen as either a religious or ethnic identification. A rule of thumb that was used at the Bernard Madoff article was that "jewish" didn't need to appear more than 3 times, no matter how long the article got. (He identifies as both religious and ethnic Jew).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Soros doesn't self-identify as a religious Jew, but is clearly an ethnic Jew. So maybe once or twice in the article and it doesn't need to be high up. Smallbones (talk) 01:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

This is a good answer, I think. Soros is, of course, an ethnic Jew, but he is not religious and does not describe himself as Jewish, just his background. I greatly prefer that the information is kept from the infobox and explained in full in the article body. Binksternet (talk) 02:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I would agree, rmv it from the infobox and place it in the body if its supported by secondary sources.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 22:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

done. Sailingfanblues (talk) 02:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Climate Change - Question

May a description be provided on what is required to add Climate Change.Jamesmilligan (talk) 06:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Current member of the CFR

Citation is the CFR official web site. http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=S You cannot deny. You cannot get a more reliable source than the official membership of the organization.

I'm adding this back in and adding Category:Council on Foreign Relations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WizarDave (talk • contribs) 06:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The issue is one of WP:Undue. People like Soros participate in organizations like the CFR. Why does it deserve its own tag? If it's so important it should be worked into the main body itself with actual citations alluding to relevance. This is all to say that from your broader set of contributions it appears as though your only interest in editing Wikipedia is tagging people to the CFR. To what end? I'll believe that these are good faith edits, but per Wikipedia guidelines, they are not appropriate. Sailingfanblues (talk) 17:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

How exactly are they not appropriate? What purpose are any of the Wikipedia categories? "Categories are groups of articles on related topics.". Here is a list of all current categories for George Soros: 1930 births, Alumni of the London School of Economics, American billionaires, American currency traders, American Esperantists, American financiers, American hedge fund managers, American investors, American money managers, American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent, American philanthropists, American stock traders, Central European University, Drug policy reform activists, Framing theorists, George Soros, Hungarian emigrants to the United States, Hungarian people of Jewish descent, Living people, Native Esperanto speakers, Naturalized citizens of the United States, People convicted of insider trading, People from Budapest, Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class, Stock and commodity market managers, Progressivism in the United States Shall we do away with all categories, since you claim they are not important and the information should be worked into the main body itself?

Your contributions are only for George Soros and David Rockefeller. Are you speaking for them? Is George now ashamed of being categorized as a CFR member? I think not. He was the Director of the CFR. He should be proud of that status.

???The issue is one of WP:Undue??? The fact that George Soros is a member of the CFR has nothing to do with viewpoints. WizarDave (talk) 19:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

WizarDave, you're taking this too personally. The fact is that soros is a figure often implicated in one world conspiracy theories. His role in the CFR is often mentioned in relation to those conspiracy theories. As such, it's essential that such identifications are carefully deployed. My suggestion is to highlight soros's participation in the main body. The worry (and the reason why I invoked undue weight) is that someone (not you necessarily) might come across this essay about soros, read nothing substantive about his work with the CFR, merely see the tag, and intuit wrongdoing. This is how conspiracy theorists bias Wikipedia! (not that you're a conspiracy theorist, just explaining my fear.) I'm going to undo your edit. Let's have a real conversation here and bring in some outside opinions. You can of course undo my edit, but I hope you won't until we figure out the right way forward. (let's not edit war!)Sailingfanblues (talk) 20:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAD, the lead section should be reserved for text that summarizes facts found in the article body. The CFR is not presently in the article body, so it should not be in the lead section. If there are interesting, reliably sourced and verifiable facts that can be said about Soros's involvement in CFR then those facts should be put into the article body. If not, CFR should be removed from the lead section.

Regarding the related category, if the article does not mention it, the category should not be present. Binksternet (talk) 21:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Facts do not cause conspiracy theories. Fact George Soros is a current member and past Director of the CFR, thus he should be included in the Category:CFR. You cannot pick and choose which facts to include in Wikipedia based on some fear it may cause a conspiracy theory. With all the various Occupy this or that city ranting about the 1%, are you not concerned of his billionaire status causing those conspiracy theorists to assume him of wrongdoing simply because he is a billionaire? Where do you plan on drawing your line of what facts can be included and what facts cannot? WizarDave (talk) 09:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The CFR's membership list is a primary source. Many secondary sources discuss him being a billionaire; what reliable secondary sources discuss membership in the CFR as being a significant part of Soros' biography? Fat&Happy (talk) 16:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I was preparing to argue that membership in such a prominent group is noteworthy and worthy of inclusion per se, but after searching the sources I found no reliable sources that deemed this worth mentioning directly. There's an indirect minor reference on a brief Forbes article.[1] Another indirect mention is a Reuters article on Occupy Wall Street, mentioning that Soros has long backed CFR, among others.[2] Here's an article mentioning that he was planning to start a European version.[3] The partisans and conspiracy theorists do talk about it sometimes but compared to other partisanship and conspiracy theorizing it's just a blip. We're writing a brief biography of the guy, his life and times, and career, not a compendium of every single fact we can source. In that light this is not something to include if we only have a few pages worth of space. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I was pretty favorable to including a sentence or so on CFR - after all it is a well-known established organization with no serious claims of wrong doing against it. But looking through possible secondary sources on the web, it really looks like only kooks ever mention a connection between Soros and CFR, e.g. "alleging that was part of a plot by George Soros and some cabal inside the Council on Foreign Relations who are working to create Marxist, one world government and that the [2008 financial] collapse itself was intentionally triggered in order to help Barack Obama win the election." If anything like that were to be included, it would have to be taken out immediately. There is an article about George Soros conspiracy theories, so maybe it could fly over there - but the key to that article is that the mentioned theories have to be identified clearly as unproven conspiracy theories. So I think WizarDave should come up with a truly reliable secondary source that clearly mentions the connection between Soros and CFR, and we can include a short sentence or so on it. The worst that can happen is that we bore our readers for one sentence. Smallbones (talk) 18:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Smallbones and anyone else insisting on an RS (not WP:OR) to include CFR. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 01:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like a consensus that we should spend our time checking all Wikipedia pages that link to memberships in any think tanks? Stating membership in the Cato Institute or Brookings Institute tells a lot about the core beliefs of a person without having to cite secondary sources. The secondary source is the link to the Wikipedia page telling about the think tank. Shall we remove all references of membership to ALL think tanks, or is your concern only with the CFR? To trivialize membership in the CFR is to trivialize the CFR. From their about page [4] CFR members, including Brian Williams, Fareed Zakaria, Angelina Jolie, Chuck Hagel, and Erin Burnett claim the CFR to be an "indispensable resource in a complex world." You do not want to include membership in an indispensable resource simply because of a few conspiracy theorists who cannot Cite their beliefs, so of course could not state them here?WizarDave (talk) 06:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a straw dog. The primary issues is RSs, notability can't be addresses without them. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 18:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

No, what we should do is not conduct original research by trying to play biographer. If a serious journalist, academic or biographer, as opposed to one of the kooks, hacks, or partisans, decides to cover Soros' membership in the CFR as being biographically relevant, either a significant part of his life, a significant influence on the world, or an exemplary illustration of his beliefs, then we can weight that for inclusion. As a tertiary source we reflect what the best sources out there in the world have to say. It's simply not our place to make the judgments ourselves, and if we did make that call, then by all appearances it is not significant either to his life or the organization. Rich influential people are members of dozens, sometimes hundreds of organizations. Every time they give money, or an up-and-coming organization wants a big name on its list, they court these people. If we wanted to include every organization everyone belonged to, we'd have to clear out other content to make way, and Wikipedia would become a who-belongs-to-what list. Those sites do exist, you know, and we're not set up like they are to keep that information current. Occasionally some trivial membership stuff gets into the encyclopedia and it's mostly harmless. For the most part it doesn't matter what somebody's childhood dog was named, but it gets into a few articles. Nobody zealously removes it for the most part, but if you proposed to include it and people gave it a thought, particularly if the name were exclusively the fodder for detractors, it wouldn't be appropriate article content. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The dispute here is a tempest in a teapot. WizarDave, you have not yet attempted to write about Soros's involvement in CFR in the article body, with a summary in the lead section and a category to match. If you will stop going on about memberships across Wikipedia and instead focus tightly on Soros and CFR, you will be able to establish the category. Otherwise, if you can find no good supporting cite to describe the connection, then leave it be. This is not about conspiracy or censorship but about good encyclopedic writing. Binksternet (talk) 16:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Controversies

I think the controversies mentioned in this article need to be dealt with on this page

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/27/george-soros-rich-man-who-is-hated-around-world/

173.73.17.241 (talk) 04:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that most of them are, though not in the same tone. Fox is clearly editorializing, we have to have a neutral tone. Among the incidents mentioned there that might be mentioned here (or get more weight here): role in bringing down Communism, OTP investment, Brazilian mistress. Anything else? Smallbones (talk) 11:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)