Talk:Moneybomb

Concerns

I have pointed out, many times, that when an editor deletes (or advocates deleting) entire sections of information purely because he claims some technical or partial factual error exists -- rather than simply fix it or mark it with some tag like or whatever -- it usually means he has some specific, POV motivation, and actually just wishes to censor the information in question.

If the objection is simply that this footnoted article on a heavily-used[1] term seemed to be worded to make it sound like it had expanded to other candidacies beside Ron Paul, why not just fix the article? Why nominate it for deletion? The latter is far more involved...and makes no sense, whatsoever. The Neologism protest does not apply when a word is incredibly well-documented, producing 32,000 references on Google.

Ironically, by the time the AFD countdown finishes, money bomb may well be in the world record books, which will certainly render this censorship effort quite comical. --Kaz 16:13, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Your remarks are grossly incivil. This is a nomination made in good faith by a fiercely anti-censorship editor who has labored to keep the Ron Paul article free from vandalism and POV pushers. Wikipedia has a policy against creating articles for neologisms (32K googlehits or not); and "it's gonna be famous some day" is not a valid argument. Please remember that (to paraphrase and quote)Wikipedia:Notability#Notability is not temporary; a short burst of present news coverage about a topic is not objective evidence of long-term notability. While topics that do not meet the notability guidelines at one point in time may meet them as time passes, articles should not be written based on speculation that the topic may receive additional coverage in the future.--Orange Mike 16:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Orange Mike, please tone down the rhetoric a bit? I don't find Kazvorpal's remarks "grossly uncivil." If you think that's uncivil, you need to go hang out on WP:ANI more.  ;) I think it's better to try to assume good faith. However, I do agree that this article, as it stands, doesn't look like it's currently meeting Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion. Aside from the primary sources and the information that's circulating in the blogosphere, are there any actual mentions of this in mainstream press? If not, I'd support either deleting the article, or perhaps merging the information elsewhere. If more sources become available later, the article can easily be re-created. --Elonka 16:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

How about ABC News as a primary source...including the use of the term "money bomb" in a way that could imply they are assuming it exists outside of the Ron Paul campaign. --Kaz 01:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

As the son of a (libertarian) newspaperman, and a writer myself, I consider the accusation of "censorship" to be one of the most uncivil accusations that can be made against an editor. I'll cheerfully agree, however, that the article should be the focus of all our efforts. (Please examine my latest edits.) --Orange Mike 16:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

As I started to say before my power went out, your changes seem fine to me, although I'd have thought you'd want the article to focus more on Ron Paul, whereas instead you actually removed the change I made specifically to address your objection. Since today's money bomb is on track to raise about 4.5 million dollars, making it one of the top single days for any candidate and THE top grassroots fundraising day, I suspect that the worst that could need to happen would be for the article's focus to become the historic facts of the money bombs, at least until the plans I've heard for other candidates to immitate the process proves that the name has entered the broader vernacular.--Kaz 20:22, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

If the article is ever going to be appropriate here (I think the term will end up in the dustbin of neologisms, myself) it will be because it passes into general currency. To focus the article's lede on Ron Paul is to say that it's merely a fadword among Paulistas: which I don't think you want, Kaz. --Orange Mike 15:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

News coverage does appear to be expanding today. When I search on "Money bomb" at Google News, I'm getting a lot of hits. The term seems to be more in use at political "agenda" sites than mainstream press, but the mainstream press is starting to pick it up (ABC News). I've gone ahead and done a major rewrite of the article, moving the primary source (personal website) links down to the bottom. I recommend that we focus on including reputable secondary source (major news sites) links in the body of the text, and then the article should be quite a bit stronger. --Elonka 17:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Too Legit to Quit

I think that the Associated Press and ABC News links count as primary, and setting the single-day presidential fundraising record, plus leaping into third place for overall fundraising in a single day probably counts as significant enough as a historic event, whether or not it'll enter the permanant common vernacular, to justify the existence of the article. As per the AFD box's own suggestion, I'm going to remove the tag. --Kaz 04:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean secondary sources. I do agree that the ABC News story uses the term, but I'm not seeing it in the AP story. And we still don't have any source that says "the term was coined in 2007". That appears to be original research unless you can find a source that says, "the term was coined in 2007." --Elonka 05:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

If there's doubt, then we should remove that statement, or qualify it...certainly, the term was used in a completely different way in reference to Clinton's corruption, or the predicted economic failure of the British Pound, in the nineties and eighties. But I think it can be pretty easily verified that the guy who set up the Guy Fawkes thing did so in 2007, and he was referrring to Guy Fawkes day in choosing the phrase "money bomb", so that's the origin of the usage in this article. --Kaz 14:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

This usage was coined in October 2007 per WP:RS FreeMarketNews.com and confirmed by WP:SPS RPMB.com as registered to Nordstrom. However, besides the Stuart and Clinton applications, I have also found it used for commercial googlebombing and for what Helicopter Ben wishes to do by printing new fiat money. It's easy to put two words like that together, but it's not easy to get 250,000 Google hits. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Truth about Democratic Fund Raising

All the Establishment media is making sure to mention that Hillary raised more money -- they keep repeating each other that it was 6.2 million on June 30th -- but I can't find any reference to that amount, or a fundraiser on that date, anywhere else. I can't find any reliable mention of any 2008 candidate raising ore than 4.2 million. Can anyone else? --Kaz 17:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

? Where does that claim appear in this article? --Orange Mike 17:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It's there now. But see the PDF from the Paul campaign I also linked. -- John J. Bulten (talk) 22:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Money bomb or moneybomb

I just overhauled the article (have fun). I saw that moneybomb (closed form) redirects to money bomb (open form). I would argue for the reverse on the following grounds: 1. Since the single-word form is taking root (17K google hits today on a previously nonexistent word), it seems it should be preferred over the phrase, which can have other applications. 2. Dictionaries prefer closed forms to open when both are current. 3. Over time the tendency will be toward favoring the closed form, given typical folk etymology. 4. The closed form is the true neologism, not the phrase. Since the redirect has already been done, I will not make the change until I'm sure that I can do it cleanly and have fielded any objections. -- John J. Bulten (talk) 22:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Yay, it's done, thanks admins. John J. Bulten (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Bloat

I trimmed the article back very slightly, and wish somebody would take a more vigorous machete to the thickets. There's just way too much trivial detail crammed into the article now, and I suspect it's less useful than it would be without so much trivia. Could somebody else have a look at it with an eye to some judicious pruning? --Orange Mike | Talk 23:33, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and have trimmed the article back considerably. I do appreciate the amount of work that went into gathering the information here, but I must insist that Wikipedia is not the place for this kind of data-gathering. If someone wants to collate the charts and timelines of this term, a better place is on a personal website or blog, not on a Wikipedia page. Wikipedia should only be used to summarize data after it has been published in major reliable sources such as books and newspapers. It should not be used to aggregate information from campaign websites, and it should especially not be used to try and make a case that a term was "coined" on such and such a date, when the only source is someone's blog. Please, let's keep the article pared down to RS information only. --Elonka 15:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Elonka, I respect those concerns. As you review my edits, which I have attempted to base entirely on WP:RS, keep in mind:

• Registrations at NetworkSolutions, Yahoo, and YouTube are reliable sources for early use of a word; these are experts in the field of tracking registrations of words as identities.
• Per WP:SPS, the RPMB.com material (with site registrant Nordstrom) is acceptable since Elder's and Nordstrom's expertise in moneybomb history has been published by other reliable sources. The policy cautions us to determine whether other sources would be preferred; but the site material is only used for the explicit statement of purpose, which has been otherwise published but is best expressed in the site's own words. Same is true for Sugra data (added).
• Date of coinage is confirmed by FMNN (which we've treated as WP:RS forever at Ron Paul) and backed up by the admission on RPMB, registered to Nordstrom-- not a blog.
• RonPaulGraphs is a published synthesis of information published by Paul's and Huckabee's campaigns, info which is also required to be reported to the FEC in due time.
• The table is the single most effective way to present a great deal of desired info with the least fuss. Much of it I have deleted from the inline text where that text did not add much, and I have dropped the table to article's end. The newsfeed is still growing virally and interest in this topic is not ::::::vanishing, and having the historical table of actual results is important to capture as it happens so it can be polished later (i.e. comparing with FEC official results in Jan).
• Digressive prediction: I think one can be certain that TeaParty07 will be another $10 million in media coverage.
• I have not restored everything when I did not see a good WP:RS argument. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

John, I very much appreciate the work that you're doing here, but we need to make a clear distinction between primary sources and secondary sources. I also strongly recommend that you review Wikipedia's policy on No original research. You cannot use a "NetworkSolutions registration" as a reliable source. Ditto with Yahoo and YouTube. Please remove any information which is sourced to unreliable sources. Please also remove any claims of notability that are sourced only to Paul's own website. --Elonka 23:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I have to concur with Elonka: there's a heck of a lot of current news coverage here, John: more suited for WikiNews than for Wikipedia. You are pushing the envelope both with regard to reliable sources and with regard to synthesis/Original Research. Newsfeeds are no substitute for the judgment of history. "I'm gonna want this stuff later" (for another article entirely?) is no excuse for letting it bloat up the current article now. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I have trimmed or resourced some further material which I can see as not WP:RS, or as notable only due to Paul's PR. I have retained Paul's campaign's comment on Hillary's fundraising as a balancing POV in that section. Please indicate specifically whether or what items still constitute OR or synthesis and what guideline or policy they break (as I am having a hard time following exactly what concerns you two), or else please remove one or both tags. John J. Bulten (talk) 03:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

John, I don't mean to be rude, but let me very direct: Currently, this article reads like an advertisement for Paul's campaign. Wikipedia gets thousands of attempts at spam each day, most of which is deleted on sight. You've gotten a bit lucky here, since Orange Mike and I are a bit more forgiving than most, and we're trying to work with you to improve the article rather than just delete it, but the more that this article looks like spam, the more I'm leaning towards outright deletion. I already tried editing the article once, and you just basically reverted my changes and put the information back in.[2]

To repeat: If you want this information to be on the web, you can move it to a personal webpage, but Wikipedia really isn't the place for it. Please remove everything that is sourced to unreliable sources. That means removing the information that is sourced to Paul's site, to blogs, to YouTube videos, to Network Solutions registration info, to Paul "fansites", etc. The only information that should be in the Wikipedia article is information that has already been published by secondary sources such as major news sites. A certain small amount of info can still come from Paul's site, but his site should definitely not be used to source anything such as specific dollar amounts or anything that implies a claim of notability. The Wikipedia article should be used only as a brief encyclopedic synopsis of the term "moneybomb", meaning information about the specific term that has already been published in secondary sources such as CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, etc. The article is not to be used for campaign purposes, nor should it be used to provide a comprehensive database of amounts raised. We can definitely include a link to some other site where this information is provided, but we shouldn't use the Wikipedia article as the collection point. See also What Wikipedia is not. --Elonka 03:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I have been the primary provider of non-Paul info for this article IMHO. There is no info sourced to blogs, videos, or fansites. There is the one Clinton-response sourced only to Paul which you seem to permit. There are the links to NetSol et al., which are primary sources, which policy also permits somewhat, which is the degree to which I've used them. Everything that seems sourceworthy has been sourced. You could make an argument that some dollar amounts are notable and some not, but that's like saying some cricket games are notable and some not (and my how WP loves cricket), and I think a tabular presentation is not untoward. A brief synopsis of a term is proper to a dictionary, which (as you remind me) WP is not. My encyclopedic presentation proceeds along the same lines as coverage of debates, straw and phone polls, in/out horserace announcements, and other campaign events I've been editing.

In short, please indicate specifically whether or what items still constitute OR or synthesis and what guideline or policy they break (as I am having a hard time following exactly what concerns you two), or else please remove one or both tags. For a hypothetical example of what I mean by "specifically", you could say, "The statement 'the term has also been seized by several other 2008 presidential candidates' relies on a article which has been withdrawn from its site, so is now OR"; or you could say, "Policy WP:NONESUCH says, 'Info from Ron Paul requires twice as much verification'". You have not given me these kinds of specific answers to my request. Thank you for your consideration. John J. Bulten (talk) 04:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure how you can say in good faith "there is no info sourced to blogs or fansites". The article is full of info that's sourced to blogs and personal sites. Right in the lead, the "coined" claim is sourced to http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/017091.html That is not a reliable source for such a major claim as when a term was first used. Other sources that should be removed from the article:

• Anything with "blog" in the URL
• ronpaul2008.com
• ronpaul2008.typepad.com
• ronpaulforpresident2008.com
• networksolutions.com
• youtube.com
• ronpaulmoneybomb.com
• craigslist.org
• slact.net
• fredsgivingday.com
• nov20forthechildren.com
• barackobama.com
• thisnovember11th.com
• thisnovember5th.com
• rudysreadinglist.com
• december7thformitt.com
• teaparty07.com

Sites that can be used as sources:

• nytimes.com
• washingtonpost.com

Sites that should be used with care:

• Baltimore Sun political blog
• Washington Post political blog

Anything else that I haven't mentioned specifically, does not mean that I think it's okay, it just means that it didn't jump out at me on a first pass. Hope that helps, Elonka 04:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:OR (which also covers synthesis), "If there is a source, but the source or claim is disputed, that is not original research but rather of a question of reliable sourcing or undue weight." Since this echoes your area of concern, I am accordingly changing the tag to "refimprove" which refers to RS rather than OR. Reviewing your list, I am still upholding my statement in good faith, but I intend to address the details tomorrow. John J. Bulten (talk) 05:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

You might also want to explain what you mean by "padded in preparation for another fundraising effort" on your talk page, so I know what other behavior to avoid. Thanks. John J. Bulten (talk) 05:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed several of the sections that I had concerns about. Let's try to avoid adding any further information unless we have a solid source for it. --Elonka 06:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The seemingly endless rows of non-encyclopedic "This is next week's/last week's moneybomb" tabulated figures seemed to carry a breathless tone similar to a United Way drive or similar "Can we top the last one?" challenge. It is my strong belief that this is not deliberate on your part or that of other Paulistas, John; but that's what it was getting to look like, with seried ranks of tabular data taken from Paul's and his supporters' websites (or, occasionally, those of his opponents; this is about the tone, not about Ron). I think folks were just getting carried away by how much data can be mined nowadays online. This is not supposed to be an article about how much money Ron Paul or Fred Thompson or whoever raised last week; this is supposed to be about a particular style of fundraising drive. (I'd also advise you to lose or trim the Rollins quote, which has been selected for the best quote about Paul supporters, not the best description by an outsider of the moneybomb phenomenon. (The cited article, unlike the quote, is in significant part about the moneybomb; but you couldn't tell that from the extract chosen.)--Orange Mike | Talk 06:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, I am still failing to understand your objections. For the third time, my request is that you both please indicate specifically whether or what items still constitute OR or synthesis and what guideline or policy they break (as I am having a hard time following exactly what concerns you two), or else please remove one or both tags. You have not done so.

Here's what I've heard. (1) Elonka's long list constitutes unreliable sources in her opinion. (2) The table is OR to Elonka (without elaboration) and breathless to Mike (thereby "not supposed to be" in the article). (I have no problem with your objecting to Rollins, I thought you'd like him.) But that's all I'm hearing as objections and rationale for deletion.

I have been rereading and quoting and alluding to the policies regularly and have failed to find your concerns therein, even after asking for them repeatedly. Here are (mostly repetitions of) my specific reliances on policy; I'm not quoting, due to length and trusting you to follow. (1a) Nine of your links are moneybomb sites, which it is perfectly appropriate to mention and/or link (especially buried in the table rather than explicitly "External links"), due to WP:SELFPUB. (1b) You yourself break your own rule "anything with 'blog'" immediately. The proper use of blogs is "with care", and, of course, if they meet the classic description of WP:SOURCES. (1c) RonPaul2008.com is cited only for the Paul campaign's opinion of Clinton, per WP:UNDUE. Typepad.com is not cited at all now except to back up other sources. (1d) RPFP (like RPMB) is cited as a self-published source (Sugra) whose work (the 10/15 YouTube video, via screenshots and clips) has been displayed several times in reliable media coverage, and mentioned many more times. WP:SPS. Both his involvement and his purpose are sourceable elsewhere, but his quote is better retained as a more direct statement of purpose than those sourced elsewhere. (I said the same about RPMB. However, I let go of Nordstrom's longer statement of purpose because it was from a blog where proof of his authorship is not reliable.) (1e) NetSol and YouTube are primary sources, which may be used sparingly per WP:PSTS; they are cited for their expertise in registering identities, which is singularly helpful in tracking down neologism use. CraigsList is a primary source provided for exactly parallel reasons. (1f) Slact provides exactly the same kind of reporting as RonPaulGraphs and the FEC's nictusa.com, to which you haven't objected on first pass. (To single out Slact as unreliable when it agrees with the others is to say that the campaign is providing unreliable numbers against FEC regulations, which violates WP:BLP.)

Now your identities suggest you both can handle a little humor, which seems useful in fielding your second objection. What exactly are the "unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories" in the table? Everything in that table appeared in a reliable or self-published source. To be sure I didn't cite RonPaulGraphs.com or another site every time because there is no controversy about the bare figures, but I suppose I could lard the table up with more sources! And what exactly carried a "breathless tone similar to a United Way drive"? Was it the title, "Chronology"? Was it the enumeration of which candidates had done which moneybombs? Maybe the reference to Pearl Harbor was breathless. Whatever the answers are to these questions, can you see how I'm having trouble discerning your policy objection in their midst, that would specifically warrant double-tagging this article? There is no difference between this table and the list of every opinion poll or debate or personal event any candidate has appeared in. I believe you will discover that your true concerns lie elsewhere than what you've been able to state here so far.

Since you have not made any OR or synthesis arguments, and are continuing to argue RS, I am undoing the tag revert and restoring the "refimprove" RS tag as the most appropriate description of this debate. If you can tell me what appeals process or policy you are relying on as authoritative for settling this, it would be very helpful. I also have a couple new bits, and will continue to justify all my adds with reliable sources per policy, as near as I am able to. Please have the courtesy to justify your deletions by policy (which are so much easier to make). Thank you. John J. Bulten (talk) 15:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

And Elonka, this second time, I really must call attention to how your deletion without reflowing the original text again destroys much prior continuity and does not appear an improvement. This time, beginning "Origin" with Hiler and jumping disconnectedly into 11/5 results, and "see below" for other nonexistent efforts, particularly jumped out at me. Further, since you are open with your suspicions, let me point out that, even if well-intended, removing every reference to any other candidate's moneybombs (as you have apparently done) is not distinguishable from a malevolent first-phase approach where the second phase is to mark AFD due to it being only about Paul. This strikes me as POV for obvious reasons and the thoroughness of deleting my non-Paul adds does not seem consonant with your original objections. In good faith, it would help me much more if you would take your pruning shears to I Got a Crush... on Obama and Amber Lee Ettinger, for which I will next make a merge request. John J. Bulten (talk) 15:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

In terms of text flow, you have a point. I did notice that some of my deletions left the text a bit disjointed in places. Feel free to copyedit to try and improve the flow, but please don't add any other information unless it comes from reliable sources.

In terms of your argument about other articles being poorly-sourced, see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Or in other words, it's not effective to ask me to edit other articles before editing this one. Right now my attention is on this one article (and several dozen others that I am working on simultaneously, especially in relation to the Crusades, the Mongol Empire, and a Featured Article nom at Pauline Fowler). I'm not here at this article because I have any interest in politics, I'm just doing my volunteer "helping out as an uninvolved editor" routine. If there are other articles that need similar cleanup, I may or may not have time to go work on them, but if it turns out that they are poorly-sourced, you are also free to clean them up yourself. If you find yourself disputing with someone about whether or not a source is a reliable one, you can post about it at WP:RSN.

In terms of appeals process, see WP:DR.

Lastly, please rest assured that I have zero interest in promoting any particular candidate, so there is nothing "malevolent" about my edits. My #1 priorities here are just keeping Wikipedia clear of spam, ensuring that any claims of notability are sourced reliably, and that theories are not given undue weight. If you'll look at my contribs: Elonka (talk · contribs), you can see that I work on a wide variety of subjects and have been on Wikipedia for years. Whereas your contribs: John J. Bulten (talk · contribs) show that you've only been around for a couple months, and that you're very focused on political topics, particularly related to Ron Paul. In other words, you're not doing yourself any favors by fingerpointing at me about having an agenda.

Bottom line: If you want to further expand this article, please only use information from reliable sources. If it hasn't been printed in a reliable source, don't put it on Wikipedia. If you still want to get it on the web, I recommend creating a webpage. You can make a free one quickly and easily at http://geocities.yahoo.com . --Elonka 16:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I have consulted WP:DR as Elonka asks and selected WP:3O. As a third party, you should also consult Talk:Moneybomb#Source question, Talk:Moneybomb#Comment from E. Nordstrom, the edit history, User_talk:John J. Bulten#Communication, User_talk:John J. Bulten#Unreliable sources, and [3]. I don't want to describe either the old dispute (again) or new issues at length yet, but so far I see de-facto edit war, serious distortion in Elonka's latest edit set, danger to Wikimedia, edits nearly inexplicable by good faith, and various repeated behaviors that dance the border of disruptive editing. I am finding myself unable to reply dispassionately to Elonka directly at any length. Beyond that guidance, please make your own call. John J. Bulten (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Third opinion

Hey. I'm sorry, but Elonka is right on this one. Her latest string of edits seem okay to me, as they were skewing this page away from WP:SOAP. Furthermore, I don't believe that freemarketnews.com is a reliable source. While it may not be a campaign site, they're certainly pulling for Ron Paul. To this end, I'm a bit annoyed by the image here, as it doesn't really explain the topic from a neutral standpoint. John, it's not that Elonka last few edits were distorting, but rather bringing the article back into focus. The article is about the concept of moneybombing, not about Ron Paul specifically. If you'd like, go over to the Paul page and make a section there about moneybombing, and deal with the editors there; on this page, though, the concept needs to remain neutral. It's fine to mention the fact that this concept worked well for Ron Paul's campaign, but the page needs to give even time to other moneybombing occurrences. — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 22:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick response (may I call you Ann?), and I see that you've been helpful to others. Now in the form of asking you to help me understand, I'm going to ask you a set of subtle questions which are intended to suggest there is more to this dispute. For instance, I have deliberately let her last edits stand so as not to bias you. However, in the interests of civility I'm not supplying my own answers yet-- but I am getting ever closer to unleashing a full-bore assumption of bad faith against Ms. Dunin. I am using the WP resolution methods and am getting consistently angrier (no fault of yours, of course). But for now, in the interests of mediation, please help me understand:

1. In relation to your comments: Specifically what edits of mine, reverted by Elonka, were not NPOV objective reporting about this topic (which may have a recruitment component that should not be echoed by unobjective reporting)?
2. Why is FMNN relevant, since I did not source from it after Elonka objected (except to verify one date)?
3. What would you say to my preferred caption for the photo here and based on this?
4. When you say it's about "the concept of moneybombing", do you believe this article is about the concept of short notable fundraising spikes, or about uses of the phrase "money bombing"? Wouldn't you agree that the latter would be more suitable for a disambiguation page?
5. In relation to "even time to other moneybombing occurrences", presuming you mean fundraising occurrences, did you have any observations on my characterization of my view on even time here, and my characterization of Elonka's view here?
6. In referring me to the Paul page (and presumably to his campaign page), are you suggesting that my edits seem directed at talking about Paul's moneybombs rather than moneybombs in general? If so why?
7. In relation to the edits and links so far: When and where did Elonka answer my specific, repeated request for specific violations of OR, RS, or any other policy, aside from her citing FMNN?
8. How did she attempt to build consensus in relation to my objections?
9. Do you have any comments on the edit history, specifically, my 20 edit summaries 18:33-22:52 11/27 and her 5 edit summaries 20:53-23:18 11/28?
10. When she says, "There is dispute about the origin of the term", does she mean the origin of the phrase "money bombing", or the origin of the usage a political fundraiser? In either case, what is her reliable source for the dispute in the origin of the phrase, or the origin of the usage?
11. What did you think of my idea of putting disputed passages in comments tags temporarily for issue resolution, so that it would be easy to track where compromise had been reached and where dispute remained outstanding? What did you think of Elonka's idea of not taking advantage of this idea?
12. Do phrases like "the chosen fundraiser date in 2007" and "the 2007 moneybomb" imply there was only one 2007 moneybomb event, and is this implication true? Why or why not?
13. How would you rate the propriety of the following topics for this page: early citations of forms of the term "moneybomb"; claims of coinage of the term and explanation of who the claimants are; examples of moneybombs other than the 11/5 moneybomb; sequence of events leading to national exposure for the term; stated purposes for moneybombs from any campaign?
14. New issue: can you help me understand why these edits, which seem to me to reopen questions already decided by consensus, are not described by WP:STALK?

Ann, this is just a start of this thorny issue. I hope you have looked at all the links I provided, and recognized who made which edits. I don't want to "lead the witness" by directing your research unless absolutely necessary. I am using this method because being direct would appear too vindictive. Thank you for your help in answering these questions. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Source question

On digging deeper into freemarketnews.com, I have concerns about whether or not we should regard it as a reliable source. Looking at the mainpage, it seems to just be a "Ron Paul" website: http://www.freemarketnews.com/index.asp Unless someone can provide info that this is a "real" news site as opposed to just another campaign site, we should pull info that's sourced exclusively to it. --Elonka 22:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a complex question and I will need to answer tomorrow because I am meeting Ron Paul in St. Petersburg tonight. :D Thank you for your patience. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

May I ask the exact nature of your relationship with Ron Paul? Are you by any chance one of the maintainers of the freemarketnews.com website? --Elonka 16:53, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I am nothing more than a donor and volunteer, and have no formal relationship with FMNN or its site, though of course I read it and occasionally comment. I will answer the source question shortly after I am sure I have the policy correctly stated, and I appreciate your patience. John J. Bulten (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Judging by their own words, these people have a strong ideological bias which conforms to Paul's; but this is definitely not a campaign website. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

1. Orangemike has judged rightly that implying FMNN is a campaign site is misguided.
2. FMNN is a "real" news site in the sense of having accepted journalistic standards and meeting Google News's (admittedly looser) standards of reliability.
3. The issue with FMNN is not reliability, but conflict of interest. They do publish Ron Paul, so should be handled more carefully. In accord with WP:COI, it is a "close relationship" between them and Paul in which their possible bias should be guided by the judgment and commonsense of editors.
4. But you're making this academic by your edits, aren't you? John J. Bulten (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment from E. Nordstrom

Hello guys, nice work on the content of the 'moneybomb' article, I can see some real though and effort has gone into it. I have been contacted by (ABC News) for an interview. I am not sure what questions will be asked, but if the origin of the term 'money bomb' or 'moneybomb' is asked, the truth to be told is:

Jesse Elder, a Jazz musician from New York coined the phrase "MoneyBomb" or "Money Bomb", September of 2007, for the use of an opt-in email listing of Ron Paul supporters who wanted to make a weekly donation to the campaign. Registering the email address, ronpaulmoneybomb@yahoo.com for pledgers to 'enlist'.

On October 16, 2007, Eric Nordstrom secured the internet domain 'ronpaulmoneybomb.com' to assist Elder. The Ron Paul Money Bomb website, the eventual outcome of the original opt-in email listing, was constructed by Eric Nordstrom, an active duty serviceman, stationed in England.

Elder and Nordstrom have been vastly uncredited for the popularity of the term 'MoneyBomb' or "Money Bomb". The original opt-in email address was promoted by Elder and the general Ron Paul support community. Nordstrom, having created the website for Elder, continued to advertise the website and used the term 'Money Bomb' in all references to the website. Popularity of the term 'moneybomb' or 'money bomb', was vast and by October 18th, advertisments, blogs, comments, etc, could be found readily on the internet, all refering either to the original opt-in email address or to the ronpaulmoneybomb.com website.

Trevor Lyman, who registered the domain thisnovember5th.com also on the 16th of October, saw the potential of the popularity of Elder's and Nordstrom's 'money bomb' concept and soon adapted to add the term 'moneybomb' or 'money bomb' to his own fundraising event advertising, further propelling the 'Guy Fawkes' / 'V for vandetta' theme of thisnovember5th.com. It soon became apparent to Elder and Nordstrom that their original concept and keyword(s) had been 'borrowed' by Lyman.

Elder and Nordstrom were content to know that their original concept of 'moneybomb' or 'money bomb' was in good use by the Ron Paul support community. It has been suggested that the 4 million dollar success of thisnovember5th.com would not have occured were it not for the already seeded popularity of the original opt-in email list of Elder's and the already growing use of the term 'moneybomb' and 'money bomb' prior to Lyman's registration of thisnovember5th.com. As it stands today many if not most donation campaigns continue to use the Money Bomb theme first set in motion by Elder.

86.157.186.206 (talk) 09:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

If Jesse Elder's and I's hard work promoting the term 'moneybomb' and 'money bomb' is to fall off the map due to Wikipedia's regulations regarding corroboration of facts with "perceived" authorities of truth, so be it. We know who did what and we are happy that our work has legs. I would guard against promoting any single person as the sole promoter, creator, or responsible agent for the popularity of the term 'Money Bomb'.

The main page article comes out booming with Guy Fawkes and Trevor Lyman information. It gives the impression that the success of November 5th was the catalyst for the popularity of the term. Subsequent reporting of the success of the November 5th event, by commercial news and media, is absolutely not what caused the popularity of the term 'moneybomb' or 'money bomb'. The truth is that the term(s) already had popularity among Ron Paul supporters prior to October 16th and the grass roots community for other candidates only took notice after the 5th of November. Unfortunately, the term 'moneybomb' or 'money bomb' shares the same fate as Ron Paul's message to the country. Everyone wants to twist it to their benefit.

I am further concerned, as are many, that Ron Paul's campaign needs money now, to be effective in the early primaries. ronpaulmoneybomb.com has been trying to get the public to donate weekly to maximize contributions without the large lag times. In contrast Trevor Lyman's projects are long term oriented and have massive lag times between drive dates. Long term promotions keep money from flowing into the campaign. One could argue that because you have included Trevor Lyman's name and the name of the previous November 5th drive, on the main page, without including the Actual origin (Jesse Elder) and ronpaulmoneybomb.com, one could surmise that you want people to follow the Trevor Lyman bread crumbs, and eventually locate the future December 16th 2007 event. Waiting until the 16th of December to provide a big 'money bomb' for Ron Paul is Lyman's concept. By urging people to wait until the 16th of December to donate, he is asking people to choke the main campaign of funds needed now for the early primary advertisements. Elder's and Nordstrom's concept is to donate now and to perform a regular weekly donation. My point is that it may come to pass that Lyman and followers may end up suffocating the main campaign of funds so as not to be effective in the early primaries which could domino effect the remainder of Ron Paul's bid for the Presidency, by posting Trevor Lyman and his projects on the main page it reinforces to the general public that the long term, campaign suffocating, donation drives are the way to go and therefore would make Wikipedia an accomplice of sorts to the potential demise of the Ron Paul bid. Previous versions of the main page included a history of 'money bombs' from all campaigns, and future 'money bombs' containing weekly (low lag time) and mass donation drives (giant lag times). At least with that there was a sense of choice or a balance between the two. Lyman is a small portion of the 'Money Bomb' story. A story still forming. - E. Nordstrom 86.157.186.206 (talk) 10:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! I am honored you would favor us with your thoughts, and pleased you chose exactly the right page (this talk page, "Talk:Moneybomb") to lay out your concerns. (They were actually worthy of their own section, so I have promoted them to the bottom of the page, the newest content.) As you've probably noticed, editing articles themselves by those directly concerned is discouraged until one learns the types of appropriate changes one may make to articles about oneself, such as at the links WP:AUTO and WP:SELFPUB; so you have taken the right approach with this site. You may also be interested in creating a new account and user page and contributing to Wikipedia improvement as you are able.

And it's a special honor and thrill to be able to participate in moneybombs and then to see my name show up on Paul's site shortly followed by that of "Eric Nordstrom, APO, AE" and the other usual suspects. (Paul used his status as #1 troop-supported candidate in military donations to great effect in the debate last night. Thank you for everything.) Both pride and honesty require me to admit hitting every target since my deployment with MB2 and committing to continue until personal supplies are exhausted.

My approach with this article was simply-- like every other item I edit-- to add significant info, which I had received often due to my interest and participation in connected events, and which I had verified reliably to my satisfaction. I am particularly interested in stubs and short articles when I can add useful (and often further improvable) sources. The first author here and primary editor was User:Kazvorpal, who with collaboration produced this version, listed 11/10-11/16. It was a good start after the 11/5 coverage, but I saw improvement possible: nonpartiality among all events from all campaigns which have been cited as "moneybombs"; removal of nonneutral characterizations such as saying MB1-2 "weren't extremely successful"; and verifying much more about the coinage, early history, and mainstream acceptance of the term, which are of exceeding interest in neologism articles (which I can say as a writer for some print dictionaries). All my edits to this article have been along these lines, though as you know I have faced resistance as to the reliability of my info, which is being worked out along Wikipedia resolution lines. I was especially gratified when your site and Free-Market News Network took notice of my work.

You have taken the absolutely correct steps for an involved party interested in fair presentation of a subject on Wikipedia: you have provided the detail on your personal site; have contacted news organizations like ABC and FMNN; and have expressed your concerns properly here. I am confident the Wikipedia community will, over time, deliver a clear consensus on what should be the notable, verifiable description of moneybombs. John J. Bulten (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)