Talk:Ann Coulter

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Speeches at college campuses

“Shane Kennedy, then president of the IU College Republicans student group, defended her comments, saying, "I think the guy could have been more respectful to her."” should be removed.
“After the speech, during a question-and-answer period, many audience members, including the wife of a soldier stationed in Iraq, voiced their support for Coulter and apologized on behalf of the unruly students.” should be removed.
These detract from the rest of the section as they'e completely un-noteworthy comments made by obvious supporters of Ann Coulter. Curiously absent is any comment from her detractors. — NRen2k5 15:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that it is not NPOV. Once Good Cop agrees to stop fighting everyone over a particular passage, we'll try to unprotect the page and get that changed. --Ubiq 18:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Seems kind of one-sided to present what the "protestors" said/did, but not to present what the non-protestors said/did. It's all copyrighted material, anyhow. Lou Sander 02:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I definitely agree Lou. To my knowledge, nobody suggested we make the section one-sided in the opposite direction it is now. Neutralizing is the goal. My main problems with the section in question are these two portions:

1. "many audience members, including the wife of a soldier stationed in Iraq, voiced their support for Coulter" -whether or not someone is a wife of a soldier in Iraq is entirely irrelevant and should be removed.

2. "and apologized on behalf of the unruly students" -for obvious reasons the word unruly needs to be removed, as it is entirely too subjective.

We really need to get this article unprotected though. --Ubiq 06:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Those are direct quotations from the sources, and they're not ours to change. We just report what other people say, don't we? Sometimes source material is summarized, but that has to be done in a fair and neutral way. For whatever reason, editors of this article want to, or don't have the skills to, (or whatever else) to fairly and neutrally choose and summarize material about Ann Coulter. Lou Sander 14:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Direct quotations? Really? Doesn't look like it. They're not quoted properly, it would seem. Notice that in its current state, it isn't the Coulter shills who are calling the protesters unruly, it's Wikipedia itself that's calling them unruly. And it is entirely irrelevant that one of the apologists is “the wife of a soldier in Iraq.” It isn't relevant. I care that she's the wife of an Iraq soldier about as much as I would care if she was a schoolteacher from Abu Dhabi or whatever. It just isn't damned well worth mentioning. But that's just nitpicking, anyway. Including this sort of stupidity in the article, you'd have to be a hypocrite to not allow people to paste criticisms of Coulter in wherever they want. Because that's just what this is - pasting in support for Coulter wherever it fits. Either way it JUST. DOESN'T. BELONG. — NRen2k5 23:06, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not one-sided. It's to the point. You don't throw comments in there. If you're going to have comments, there might as well be comments on the comments. And then you don't have an article anymore, you have a talk page. — NRen2k5 23:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Lou: I think you might not have read the parts I was referring to from this article. As far as I know, the passages I quoted are not directly from the sources. They are subjective interpretations of the events by a wikipedia user, at least in the case of the word unruly being used. The tidbit about the mother of an Iraq soldier, too, is unnecessary and irrelevant. If you can read the specific part of the article I'm referring to, and get back to me/us, I'd greatly appreciate it. Regards. --Ubiq 03:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Ubiq: You're right about that. Sorry. It DOES seem that part of the crowd was "unruly," though. It also seems (to me) that if identifying the mother is unnecessary and irrelevant, so is identifying the organizations, behavior, gestures, etc. of the protestors. IMHO, this incident would be much easier to discuss than the Canadian troops stuff, and some good could be done by discussing it here. What do you think? Lou Sander 14:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It's nice that it seems to you to be that way, but that's just what it is: It seems to you to be that way. The fact of the matter is that group x protested a speech by party y. What parties a, b, and c think about the incident is irrelevant. What is important is noting the incident itself, not necessarily the actions of other people surrounding the incident, not their opinions on the incident, and certainly not who these bit players are.
Furthermore, Wikipedia is supposed to be as objective as possible, and outright calling someone “unruly” is subjective at the very best. — NRen2k5 18:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Lou: Like NRe2k5 just pointed out, it doesn't quite matter what it seems like. I don't believe our role as editors is to paint a situation with an adjective that's too subjective to be agreed upon. Furthermore, since none of us (at least the three of us discussing this matter) were actually there to see the behavior of the protestors, it can't quite be ascertained that their behavior was, in fact, unruly. And from the information provided in the article, I can't quite agree with you that "wearing red shirts and giving her the peace sign when she spoke out against attempts by liberals to equate gay rights with the civil rights movement" is unruly. Unruly is defined as: "not submissive or conforming to rule; ungovernable; turbulent; intractable; refractory; lawless: an unruly class; an unruly wilderness." Sorry, I just don't see giving peace signs and staging a walk out as "unruly".

I think you make a decent point about the wife of the Iraq soldiers, except for the fact that the protestors were mostly from gay/lesbian and feminist student groups. This is relevant because it explains why they were protesting, since Ann Coulter is noticably anti-gay. So let us ask what is relevant about a person's opinion who is also the wife of a soldier stationed in Iraq? Does that mean she supports the Iraq war, and is therefore more likely to be a conservative? I believe the fact that a person might be conservative would be relevant but I don't believe we can make such a stretch of a judgment to say that she was. So I think the best option at the moment would be to take that part out (and also take out the part that she apologized). The actual article that is sourced states this: "The wife of an American soldier in Iraq had nothing but praise for Coulter.

'My husband thanks you from Baghdad,' she said"

There isn't an actual apology there. In fact, looking at the article that is sourced [1], it only cites one person apologizing on the "unruly" students' behalf. Also, I don't think the word "unruly" was used in the article to describe the quiet gay/lesbian protestors, but rather one of the students who was unsatisfied with her answer to his question during the question/answer portion of her speech. Looking at this now, it either seems that there was some serious POV pushing by whoever wrote this part, or that whoever wrote this was not careful in reading the article they were sourcing. Either way this is inexcusable and needs to be fixed. And, yes, I definitely agree that this is an easier topic to discuss than the Canada-Vietnam thing. Best. --Ubiq 21:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, you're not getting the big picture here. Sorry. Lou Sander 13:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Care to explain then? Everyone but you seems to be confused, and none of us see this "big picture". ~Switch ^t 14:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep lookin' mate! (It's there.) Lou Sander 15:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, Lou. I carefully pointed out not one, but multiple distortions of the truth in reference to this section of the article and all you have to say is that I'm "not getting the big picture here"? Explain that if you will. Being less vague might help.

I'm suspecting that, again, you might not be looking at this carefully enough. Do this: First, read the section of this wikipedia article that describes the incident we're discussing. Second, look at the article that is sourced [2]. Finally, compare the two and see how different they are. You haven't contributed anything with your last two or three posts and your opinion has now been rendered all but meaningless here, unless you'd be willing to rebut the claims I'm making, or tell me how I'm "not getting the big picture". Regards.

EDIT: Just for reference and to make things easy on Lou, I'm going to list things I believe to be wrong or untrue with this statement in the wiki article (in respect to the article that is sourced as being the account of the event): "After the speech, during a question-and-answer period, many audience members, including the wife of a soldier stationed in Iraq, voiced their support for Coulter and apologized on behalf of the unruly students."

1. That many audience members apologized on behalf of the students. (Just one of them apologized.)

2. That the wife of the Iraq soldier apologized on anyone's behalf. (She just complimented her.)

3. That the gay/lesbian/feminist students who quietly protested were the ones who were unruly. (They were peaceful and orderly. The guy who--wasn't a part of the LGBT groups--yelled, "Vote no for tyranny," was the one originally referred to as unruly. Note that he went unmentioned in this wiki article.)

4. That many of the audience voiced their support for Coulter but that many didn't voice their dissent. (The questions were split up evenly between detractors and supporters.)

5. That the fact that a supportive audience member happens to be the wife of an Iraq soldier is relevant.

So, to recap, this is basically what I'm saying: that the statement I quoted is one big distortion of the truth, in perhaps every possible way. If you want to rebut this claim alone instead of making vague inferences to my not seeing a big picture, be my guest. --Ubiq 00:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Unprotection yet?

So we have two points that are preventing the page from becoming unprotected: College campus speech and Coulter, Canada, and Vietnam War sections. Good Cop seemingly has abandoned Canada and Vietnam War. If Lou doesn't respond with his specific objections rather than ad hominems consisting of "you're not getting the big picture here", can we unprotect this page please? --kizzle 03:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. I think my long, detailed rebuttals are wearing them both out, haha. We can request unprotection here if I'm not mistaken. But I'm not quite sure because I've never gone through an unprotection process. You seem like you've got a good grasp of what to do in this situation so I'll let you handle it. But I definitely agree it's time to get this thing unprotected (or perhaps put to semi-protect). --Ubiq 22:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll give Lou another day or so to reply with something beyond an ad hominem regarding the campus speech, then I'll request unprotection on the page you mentioned. --kizzle 22:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

This article was not locked because of Good Cop or even the Vietnam dispute. In fact, I think Good Cop has hardly ever even directly edited the article. It was locked because of a now-banned user's demand for documentation about Coulter's TV appearances and to a lesser extent, over another editor exerting ownership over one clause of the article. It wasn't much of an edit war to begin with, so I've requested unprotection myself. Cool Hand Luke 18:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I never understood why the article was locked in the first place. As long as we all insist on clear demonstrations of relevance to Coulter's notability, there shouldn't be big problems. Lou Sander 22:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Sweet. Let's get it unprotected then. --kizzle 22:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Um. It's already been done. Cool Hand Luke 22:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Category:Journalists accused of fabrication or plagiarism (?)

I would remove her from this category because Ann Coulter is not a journalist, she is a writer/commentator. As she is not a journalist, she cannot be a journalist accused of fabrication or plagiarism. I just removed Al Franken from the same category for the same reason. She could be in a writers accused of plagiarism category though. Anynobody 04:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Removed her from said category for said reasons. Anynobody 00:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Arrogance

Was watching Fox News for some strange reason and she said "if a Republican can't get my vote then he has no hope of winning". Is she always so arrogant? 203.109.240.93 01:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It's her schtick. That quote actually seems modest in comparison to the things she normally says. FYI I would advise against watching Fox News, unless you just like being lied to, misled, and generally brainwashed. --Ubiq 19:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Your point of view is showing. Let's hope you keep it out of your edits. Many people do, many don't. Lou Sander 22:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I really don't know what your problem with me is. All you've done the last 3 or 4 days is attack me and insinuate that I'm biased, or that I don't get some "big picture". If you can find any bias in my editing, feel free to point it out. I could sit here and compile mountains of evidence that your POV is biased, favoring Ann Coulter (and I really could), but I consider it to be irrelevant to someone's actual editing. And I simply won't stoop that low. We all have points of view about things. As humans, we're subjects. Letting a point of view show and editing to cater to that point of view are two entirely different things.

Don't take it personally, man. Some editors rely upon ad hominems rather than substantive points to get by here. Just stay civil and reiterate your points and you'll do fine :) --kizzle 05:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's become increasingly evident that you can't seem to contribute anything worthwhile to this article at the moment. Accordingly, this will be the last time I will respond to you, unless you feel like you can stop making this so personal, as personal attacks are not my battle to participate in. Regards and best of luck. --Ubiq 02:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

When you are working on an article about a person who often appears on Fox News, and you "advise against watching Fox News, unless you just like being lied to, misled, and generally brainwashed," people might have a slight tendency to see bias in your work. Just a thought. Maybe they think YOU think Ann Coulter lies, misleads, and brainwashes. 63.3.19.2 05:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Who cares. Are you claiming to be unbiased? --kizzle 05:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Except for a few holdouts, the whole world cares about biased editing of this encyclopedia. I don't think the anon is making any claims about his own lack of bias. I think he's politely pointing out extreme, self-declared bias by somebody else. Those are different things, you know. Pretty hard to assume good faith from somebody who talks about other people lying, misleading, brainwashing, ect then edits articles about them. 209.247.22.57 06:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't have an "extreme, self-declared bias" in editing of this article. I have an opinion on Fox News though. You presume by association that my dislike for a biased "news" station boils over to a bias in editing of an article of a person who happens to appear on said news station. Faulty reasoning. Since you find this sort of thing relevant, why don't you accuse Lou Sanders of bias, since on his userpage he states about Ann Coulter: "I don't necessarily love her, but I respect her brilliance." Isn't that more evidence of bias that you think should disqualify someone from editing this article? --Ubiq 08:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Coulter as Speaker

Ann Coulter is a very popular writer of books and columns. She has strong opinions, and she states them bluntly, and those traits are pretty relevant to her popularity and notability. They are present in her books, which are bestsellers, and in her columns, which are run in about 100 newspapers. She also frequently appears on television shows, where she is typically a major figure, and where she typically states her strong opinions bluntly. Like most important thinkers and writers, Coulter also makes speeches, some of them on college campuses. Like speeches anywhere, these have a much smaller audience than her writing or television appearances.

Because of her strong opinions and statements, and because undergraduates like to heckle, she frequently has hecklers at her college and university speeches. The fact that she has them is, IMHO, reasonably relevant to her notability.

But the individual speeches, hecklers, etc. are something different. Does it matter what an individual heckler says or does? IMHO, it usually doesn't. Is the heckling notable? In most cases, it doesn't seem to be. WP:NOTE says that "a topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself." It then expands on that. Coulter's speeches are typically local events, with little impact beyond the local campus. They tend to be covered in the student newspaper, and sometimes in the paper from the college's city or town. It's really, really hard to see individual speeches and heckling incidents as notable in and of themselves, and even harder to see them, other than collectively, as relevant to Ann Coulter's notability. Yet the main article discusses five (5) of these incidents, taking up more space than all the coverage of her columns. Not very encyclopedic, IMHO. Lou Sander 22:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Semi protection?

I'm suggesting we should semi-protect this. There's been a lot of recent edits like this one, "Ann Coulter is a Fascist blow-up doll" amongst other things. Fascist? Probably. But it doesn't belong here. and as far as I know it has nothing to do with Richard Belzer. Dåvid Fuchs (talk / contribs) 02:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Belzer is the guy who called her that. ~Switch ^t 04:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur. The article was on long-term semi-protection -- {{sprotected2}} -- beginning Nov 30 (diff), and before that had been on "short-term" semi-protection for quite some time, because of incessant vandalism. When it was switched to fully protected, the the semi-protection was "overwritten", and so once the full protection was taken off it became altogether unprotected. I suspect this was a mere oversight, owing to different admin's doing the semi-protection, the full protection, and the un-protection. At any rate, the vandalism has wasted no time in beginning again, so semi-protection seems only sensible. -- Lonewolf BC 05:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I've made the request for the restoring of long-term semi-protection. I trust that this meets with general approval. -- Lonewolf BC 05:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes to college speeches

I made a few changes regarding this section. I removed the republican group president's comments and replaced that "big distortion of the truth" statement with a relevant and accurate one. My changes can be found here: [3]. Lou Sander has taken it upon himself to make edits as well. I, however, don't agree with them. He removed Ann's response to a question from an audience member of a speech: [4]. He removed the portion that stated what groups the protesters were affiliated with: [5]. I feel both these edits are removing relevant facts that explain the respective situations. I'm 99% sure that most of us did not agree on these changes that he made, and that he's taken, in a sense, a unilateral approach to editing, such that it suits his POV. Are most of us in agreement with his changes and if not, would you guys feel okay pursuing an RfAr in this case? Thoughts would be appreciated. --Ubiq 03:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Your changes seem pretty biased to me. Every time somebody defends Ms. Coulter, you delete it. Every time somebody spits at her, you put it in. You sure don't seem to let the article have a Neutral Point of View but you probably feel that you do. Try seeing the big picture about that. If you want to include things like hecklers at speeches, yhou really should give both sides. Why don't you do taht? And if you don't want you writing to be edited mercilessly, do not submit it. 209.247.22.57 07:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

First, you'll find your assertions are proven baseless and false when you see that I've made one total edit to this article in my entire edit history. The edit was to take out a completely false statement and distortion of the truth, as proven above in another section of this talk page. So your theory that I'm making biased edits basically falls flat. Secondly, nobody has edited my writing or the changes that I made, so when you say, "if you don't want [your] writing to be edited mercilessly, do not submit it," you're assuming that the edits that I disagree with are from changes to passages I wrote, but that is not the case. --Ubiq 08:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I just removed a good chunk of material from the same section as Lou due to it not being verifiable and potentially being OR. The article which is used as a reference does not label the students as being members of any specific group. Kyaa the Catlord 09:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Related, the article made an allusion to Coulter referring to the sexuality of the protesters which was not made in the supporting reference. This was clearly a POV supposition and not supported by the reference. Negative material removed per BLP. Kyaa the Catlord 09:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I noticed your changes and reverted them. For some reason the two references got switched up after Lou added a passage. The passage he added had the reference you were looking for and vice versa. It was not a POV supposition, it was a simple mistake. I'm not sure who made it but I fixed it. Thanks for keeping an eye on this.--Ubiq 09:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This portion seems out of place. "Speaking at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas, on January 26, 2006, Coulter said of United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' crème brûlée. That's just a joke, for you in the media."[71]" The subsection is about protests, not about weird Coulter-ism quotations. Kyaa the Catlord 10:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The quote you're referring to is in the sub-section "Speeches at college campuses" in the section entitled "Notable controversies regarding opinions and remarks". I guess since it's a controversial remark from one of her speeches at a college campus it seems to be in the right place. I think, since some of the surrounding quotes from her happened to be against or involved with protesters to her speeches, that it might look out of place. But I'm pretty sure it belongs in that sub-section, unless I'm missing something. --Ubiq 10:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you fellows REALLY think that detailed discussion of a pie throwing episode belongs in an encyclopedia? Do you think that the opinions of the pie throwers are worthy of note beyond your own personal awareness? What if somebody deletes the key contextual information about the amount of damage done by the pie...will you revert it and caLL the WikiPolice? In case you are wondering, I think the whole pie throwing thing needs to be deleted. There is no reason for it, and it supports the notion that Wikipedia is nothing to take seriously. 209.247.5.227 17:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Instead of using the anon criteria of "don't include if it makes Coulter look bad" I'd prefer to include based upon the fact that a Google Search for "'Ann Coulter' pie" reveals 224,000 hits, including mentions on Fox News and Coulter's own website. --kizzle 17:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but you are not familiar with the rightwingnut-flight-from-reality concept of truthiness, by which something is not "notable" just because a vast segment of the population has actually noted it. Gzuckier 18:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but you forget, Wikipedia is not a random collection of information. A one time pie tossing schtick is not notable. Kyaa the Catlord 18:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

? Seems to me, if something is noted, it must have been notable, with a reasonably high degree of correlation between the amount of noting, and the notability. Otherwise, what exactly is the measure of "notability"? Gzuckier 20:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You know, just because you say it's not notable without any supporting arguments, it doesn't mean it's true. --kizzle 18:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Where's the argument it isn't trivial gossip column drivel? Please, lets see some serious study on the throwing of pies at Ann Coulter as political debate and discussion. Kyaa the Catlord 18:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Instead of using the anon criteria of "don't include if it makes Coulter look bad" I'd prefer to include based upon the fact that a Google search for "'Ann Coulter' pie" reveals 224,000 hits, including mentions on Fox News and Coulter's own website. --kizzle 19:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer that editors assume we read their comments the first time. Charitably interpreting Kyaa, I think sen means that the fact a prank was reported doesn't make it notable. I also highly doubt that Kyaa believes in what you characterize as the "anon criteria."

I disagree myself. The pie-throwing must stay. It was widely reported (unlike most of thes student protests). As for the Stevens joke: she makes lots of shocking jokes, so we can't automatically assume any media coverage makes it notable. However, this one seems to have stirred up more controversy than most, it should just be put under a more appropriate heading. Cool Hand Luke 19:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Then lets find someone who critically analyzes it. Hannity and Colmes treats it as the street theatre it is, guffawing it up. The school paper reports more on the criminal aspect, the property damage to the school and the case against those who acted out than focusing on Coulter. It isn't a case of Coulter spawning controversy, its a case of the actions of her "critics" being controversial and therefore not on topic for this article. Kyaa the Catlord 19:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool Hand: I didn't mean any lapse of WP:AGF by my repetition. I personally hate it when others say "I've already answered that before" without linking or telling them where to look, so my habit is to simply repost to save time. I meant no ill will towards Kyaa by my repetition. And in the past, I've had problems when an issue of notability was decided by one person saying "it was widely reported" and the other said "not notable", which is why I mentioned the Google search coupled with Fox News and Coulter's own website. Maybe you'll have better luck. --kizzle 19:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars

I just realized two new edits by 209.247.22.57 where he basically just removed relevent, contextual information to the section we all seem to have our eye on: "Speeches at college campuses". These are changes that I'm sure very few people would agree on. I think a semi-protect might be in order, as well as an RfAr. I'm also going to see about getting an admin involved to address this user's various vandalism as well. It's been 12 or so hours since the unprotect and we've already got an edit war on our hands. Sad. --Ubiq 11:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The second one is the removal of the text I quoted above, which does not fit in the area it was situated in. It did not stir a controversy. Heck, that entire section needs to be culled, it is overly wordy. Kyaa the Catlord 11:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, these edits to Ann Coulter do not meet the definition of vandalism. They even made a coherent edit summary and used the talk page. Protection is not meant to filter out people you disagree with. Blocking a user for two-week old vandalism would be strange also. Cool Hand Luke 13:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes a new and inexperienced editor will jump in and set off edit wars. These guys sometimes don't know how to handle themselves in a social community. Maybe that is going on here. Think about it. 209.247.5.227 17:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Two seemingly valid edits, assuming good faith, is not an edit war in my book. Kyaa the Catlord 17:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Joke

A Google search for "Ann Coulter" Justice Stevens reveals 100,000 hits, including Fox News, Salon.com, Huffington Post, and Jewish World Review. A one-sentence mention is not going to violate undue weight here. --kizzle 19:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

A Google search for "Ann Coulter" Satan reveals 241,000 hits, so I think we shouldn't let Google's algoriths write articles. That said, the joke was reported by more reliable sources than most of her humor, so should probably stay. Cool Hand Luke 19:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

As above, the google test is a major failure when dealing with Ann Coulter. I scanned the first few pages of that search and the majority of them were blogs. The Huffington Post is a blog, for that matter. Kyaa the Catlord 19:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course a Google search means nothing in itself, which is why I also mentioned the notable news/opinion outlets that it was mentioned on as well. --kizzle 19:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

Page is filled with trivia. How is including every remark she said that anyone ever took offense at encyclopedic? Pare down. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that there is a group of editors who balk and edit war every time someone tries to remove any line from this article. Kyaa the Catlord 19:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the problem is that there is a group of editors who want this article to praise Ann Coulter and a group of editors who want this article to defame Ann Coulter, and both of those groups align together to drive off the much smaller group of editors who want this article to describe Ann Coulter. Anyone who sees the problem as being only on the other side is part of the problem. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

(stands up and claps) --kizzle 19:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Cough. Excuse me? Step off that soapbox and then talk, we're all editors here and the assumption of good faith is required, mandated and appreciated. Kyaa the Catlord 19:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assume the assumption of good faith. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hard to assume you're assuming when you're launching personal attacks. Thanks though. Kyaa the Catlord 19:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you just proved his point about the problem being only on the other side. --kizzle 19:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no one "the problem". There are several of them. One of them is that Ann Coulter says crazy stuff so often that it is considered normal for her, meaning "not notable" by some of her supporters here. Though any public figure saying some of these same "not notable" things would have it in their articles in a heartbeat. Imagine if John McCain or Barack Obama called someone "gay boy" or made a joke about putting rat poisoning in a judge's tea/coffee. Everyone would consider it very notable. Senator Joe Biden said of Barack Obama "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, ... I mean, that's a storybook, man." All he said was clean and somehow that's a racist and notable comment such that it gets on his wikipedia article. I find it really funny that people want to just take quotes out of the article because they think Ann Coulter deserves a double standard. The fact is: she is saying these things and these are notable things. If she says something particularly intelligent about a certain issue, I'm all for putting it in the article if it is notable. Politicians and political pundits occasionally have such quotes attributed to them. I am for the truth. Not for defaming her. She pretty much does that to herself and does not need my assistance.

Oh and I can't quite see how Hipocrate launched a personal attack, Kyaa. I'd recommend cooling down a bit. --Ubiq 19:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Trust me, when I get hot, ya'll know it. Pointing out the obvious suggestion that I'm pushing a position pusher isn't being hot, its simply stating what I see as an obviously libelous attack. Kyaa the Catlord 19:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Good points, Ubiq. --kizzle 20:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I would caution editors that if someone says outrageous things normally, said outrageous things, written in summary style read "X says outrageous things a lot" -ref--ref--ref--ref--ref--. There is not a double standard - we write summary style articles on every subject. Summary style means we summarize what is standard and mention what is notable. If the person is a comedian, the jokes they told last night are not notable. If someone is in a persistant vegitative state, but suddenly stands up, tells a joke, and dies without any explanation, that joke would be reported. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You didn't make a clear point as to whether or not these things are notable though. Ann Coulter is not a comedian, nor in a vegetative state. --Ubiq 20:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Every intemperate political remark made by Kanye West on national tv is worth including. Not so much for Ann Coulter. Better parallel? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Honestly though, the fact that she says so many things means that a lot of her asides cannot be notable, right? I am no supporter of Coulter, but almost any random statement from her is more provocative than the statements of all politicians. We simply can't judge them based on how "crazy" they are—it must be an objective measure. This is not a different standard than anyone else. I'm sure, for example, that Bob Dole once said something about potatoes that once got him in a specialty journal. It wouldn't belong in his article any more than 99.999% of all blog-generated noise. Coulter has been covered extensively for some of her humor, but a lot of this crap—in depth coverage on every town paper to have cancelled her—is just crap. Cool Hand Luke 20:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There.

I've been Bold. I have not yet fully adressed the "Notable controversies regarding opinions and remarks" section. Go crazy. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Wanna borrow my asbestos underwear? I'd be hiding under a rock if I had done that! Kyaa the Catlord 19:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That was pretty silly of you to remove that whole sub-section "Speeches at college campuses" and calling it trivia. I guess I can just go ahead and be bold and pretty much remove anything I want. Cool. --Ubiq 20:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you think that section was not trivia? Let's start a new subhead and discuss it. You can put it back in while we do, if it's very important to you. Please don't disrupt the article to prove a point. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I note that I have been reverted. I look forward to discussing each and every one of my changes in the next few days. Every day I will make one edit, and one edit only, to reflect what I feel the emerging best-state of the article is. I look forward to the day that we can talk about the article without reverting. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hipocrite, I disagree with your mass change to the article but I don't want to revert you because I see you as a "middle-ground" editor and I don't want to dissuade you from your participation on this page. I think your point that a section on style for someone who says controversial bullshit all the time should be written in summary form is very relevant. However, when someone as notable as Coulter says stupid shit all the time, she also gets a lot of press for what she says. I wish Google search did TV transcripts better, as I remember much more discussion on the Justice Stevens "joke". We do need to pay attention to notability, but we also need to pay attention that her controversial style renders many of her comments notable. Maybe not notable compared to her other quotations, but just like Ubiq said, if Obama joked about putting rat poison in Stevens' food, his presidential ambitions would be forever extinguished, not to mention the amount of media coverage it would receive. Of course, where this balance lies is extremely difficult, and thus while my personal assessment is that much of the info that you removed should be included, I'm not exactly going to tear my hair out trying to keep it in. There are a few passages which I think should be in, such as the Canada/Vietnam thing, but I'm willing to discuss the others. Can we maybe do as Ubiq suggests and go over some of them first? What do you think? --kizzle 20:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll discuss any section people want back. Put in a section below, and justify. Don't point me at earlier discussions. Focus on the encyclopedic value of statements. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Glad to have you here. --kizzle 20:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Speeches on College campuses

It was suggested that this section added value to the article. I'd like to hear a justification of this. For reference, -> [6]. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivia: matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities. We'll just take trivia as a synomym for "not notable". We've already demonstrated why these things are notable if you've read the several sections above. I don't want to sit here and repeat them. Furthermore, trivia sections in wiki articles usually don't include things that are very important, rather, they tend to be neat little tidbits of information that make people say "neat-o!" I disagree that the section you deleted had anything of the sort. Like I said, they are quite notable in the case of any politician or political pundit. --Ubiq 20:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to read your sections above. We're starting from scratch. Justify every word in that section, please. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I've explained why it's notable a thousand times over. You have not once yet explained how it is "trivia". You are the one who made the bold edits. You should do the justifying. References to Kanye West and comedians mean pretty much nothing. --Ubiq 20:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's trivia. You say you've explained it's notable a "Thousand" times over, so you can just find one of those and copy it here. Do it again and I'll give you a barnstar for humoring my attempt to create productive process. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ubiq, I know it might seem frustrating for someone new to come in and make mass changes, but let's try to use this as a clean slate. Hipocrite is a good editor and I think will serve as a good middle-ground between the pro- and anti-Coulter people here. --kizzle 20:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And, because I'm such a nice guy, I'll make it really easy - justify "The University Lecture Series, funded with student activity fees, paid Coulter $35,275 to speak at the Sun Dome," and I'll accept that every other word in that section is not trivia. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Lou Sanders added that in probably because he felt it was relevant to why she goes to college campuses and speaks in the first place. I could go with or without that part personally. But I felt it was fair to compromise since Lou wanted to provide context since we couldn't reach an agreement on other matters (actually he just left our discussions after I provided good points). Let me find some arguments, a few of which you've probably already seen, but I think they may be decent. Thanks for actually discussing this and not resorting to ad hominems by the way. Kizzle and I are not used to this. --Ubiq 20:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's an exerpt from Archived pages, on the topic of notability:

"I do not believe this passage should be included on the main Ann Coulter page. I think there should be a controversies section that leads to a separate controversies page for Ann Coulter because there are more than enough controversial things she has said. She is a political pundit who gets attention through such means. This is a notable controversy because it is understood that she (like many other pundits) is supposed to know her historical facts. And it was clear that she did not know. If there was at one point she did know, then it was clearly not demonstrated in the interview that she knew at the time, as she was not able to recall any evidence. I'm sorry, but a mere unassured utterance of "Indochina?" does not qualify as evidence. She stated something she believed as if it were something she knew and could prove then and there. And that is why, regardless of whether or not the facts aligned with her assertion, it made her look like an "idiot". Regardless, and as stated previously, Kizzle's passage is unbiased and NPOV such that it doesn't make her look that way anyway, so I don't know your problem is. If you're wanting to improve her public perception (and after reading through this talk page I'm almost certain you are) or perhaps neutralize it, you'd want this passage to be included, since it clears up misconceptions about Canada's role in Vietnam as mistakenly reported by Bob McKeown. This is notable too. If anything, it defends her much more than it does make her look bad. Look through the comments on the various videos for this incident and you will see that many of the people who saw the video have the mistaken idea that she was wrong and treated her with adjectives and nouns accordingly. --Ubiq 18:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)"

Also I don't think this point was rebutted well at all:

"There is no one "the problem". There are several of them. One of them is that Ann Coulter says crazy stuff so often that it is considered normal for her, meaning "not notable" by some of her supporters here. Though any public figure saying some of these same "not notable" things would have it in their articles in a heartbeat. Imagine if John McCain or Barack Obama called someone "gay boy" or made a joke about putting rat poisoning in a judge's tea/coffee. Everyone would consider it very notable. Senator Joe Biden said of Barack Obama "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, ... I mean, that's a storybook, man." All he said was clean and somehow that's a racist and notable comment such that it gets on his wikipedia article. I find it really funny that people want to just take quotes out of the article because they think Ann Coulter deserves a double standard. The fact is: she is saying these things and these are notable things. If she says something particularly intelligent about a certain issue, I'm all for putting it in the article if it is notable. Politicians and political pundits occasionally have such quotes attributed to them. I am for the truth. Not for defaming her. She pretty much does that to herself and does not need my assistance."

Political pundits (to me anyway) are far closer on the spectrum to politician than they are to comedian, in terms of how they are expected to conduct themselves. Accordingly, their words should be treated as such. --Ubiq 20:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say she was a comedian. Of course politicians would get extensive (and notable) coverage for saying the sorts of things that she says regularly. The difference is that she says this stuff all of the time, so it's only notable when it gets the level of coverage that a Tom Daschle misstep might. That's rare indeed because the media cover man-bites-dog stories, not Coulter-talks-crazy-once-again stories. As I and another editor pointed out, judging a statement's notability on its "craziness" is a POV standard, but judging it by the quality of press coverage is not. Cool Hand Luke 20:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't addressing you. I was addressing Hipocrite's comparison to that of a comedian. But it seems you and I are in a simple disagreement on the matter. I don't think weight and quantity of media coverage correlate with a statement's notability. I think judging by any standard not explicitly outlined in any rules/guidelines for NPOV would be considered POV, so I think saying "judging it by the quality of media coverage is not [POV]" would be false. I've already appointed out that statements she makes would be notable for politicians and other political pundits and that the double standard should not exist. You are saying, essentially, that the double standard should exist, and that she should be treated differently because she says stuff like this all of the time. This is a simple disagreement. --Ubiq 21:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You seemed to be addressing me, unless you missed my remarks. You said "don't think this point was rebutted well at all..." but no matter. (This is why you shouldn't repeat yourself. Chances are that your same text will not address new arguments by different editors. It's also highly annoying.)

You realize that judging whether a statement is "out of line" can't be anything but POV, right? Similarly, the only way to tell whether something is notable is whether it generated actual note. It so happens that Ann Coulter and George W. Bush could say the same thing such that Coulter could be dismissed as being Coulter while Bush would be hounded for the rest of his presidency. To cover both remarks the same would be a double standard; If Bush talked like Coulter just once it would probably merit its own article because of the commentary and reactions it would produce. Coulter? Not so much; she's made it her job to say crazy things. That's just the nature of notability. We don't want to give undo wieght, and we should also generally follow WP:SS. Cool Hand Luke 21:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm addressing you now, I was not addressing you in copy pasting my earlier points, which were also not addressed to you. Notable means "worthy of note" I think you're kidding yourself in thinking your standards for notability are any less POV than mine are. It's in the nature of the word "worthy" that POV will come into place. Again, I don't think Coulter's statements should be dismisses as being Coulter. That's where we are disagreeing.--Ubiq 21:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

In wikipedia "worthy of note" is descriptive and objective, not prescriptive. There might be all sorts of fabulous reasons about why Coulter's idiocy should be noted, but wikipedia concerns itself with what is actually noted. This is consistent with our policy against original research, and our related policy against giving undo wieght. Cool Hand Luke 21:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This dosen't appear to adress college campus speaches at all? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this section is it highlights the responses to her, rather than focusing on the subject of the article. We should be focusing on the conduct of Coulter, her politics and her articles, not on the reactions to it by miscreants and attention seekers. Kyaa the Catlord 20:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed in spirit, ignored in tone. Here's how I'd have written what you just said for better effect:

"The problem with this section is it highlights the responses to her, rather than focusing on the subject of the article. We should be focusing on the conduct of Coulter, her politics and her articles, not on the reactions of her listeners. Perhaps a statement that she has often been interupted by protestors on campuses, but to detail incident by incident is a failure to follow summary style. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"Miscreants and attention-seekers"? Nice choice of words there, buddy. --kizzle 20:47, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Unimportant, focus on the article, not the argument. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest that someone who knowingly vandalizes private or public property is a miscreant. And protestors, by definition, seek attention to what they are protesting to. Sometimes it pays to be direct. Kyaa the Catlord 20:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Unimportant, focus on the article, not the argument. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Response to Hipocrite: I mentioned her words. It doesn't matter where or when she says them. If they are recorded and they are out of line, they are notable. College campus speeches is just the sub-section under the section of controversial remarks for her. It's just organized that way.

Oh and WHERE'S MY BARNSTAR? Heh. --Ubiq 20:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You see that "out of line" is a POV, yes? Isn't a better standard, "if they are recorded and widely reported"? Using that standard, I think most of this could be condensed, but I see to recall a bit of coverage about some things, such as the pie-throwing (although not the tit-for-tat dialog with the protesters). Cool Hand Luke 21:16, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the section is it highlights the responses to her, rather than focusing on the subject of the article. We should be focusing on the conduct of Coulter, her politics and her articles, not on the reactions of her listeners. Perhaps a statement that she has often been interupted by protestors on campuses, but to detail incident by incident is a failure to follow summary style. Can we find a way to write it without going into incident after incident after incident? How about a sentance "Coulter has, in the past, spoken at a number of college campuses. She is often heckled. -ref-ref-ref-ref-ref-?" Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you make a good point about the summary style. However, in regards to being "interrupted", a total of one of these cases she was heckled (with a pie). The other times she said "rude" things in response to questions asked to her in Q&A sections. Or to quiet protestors leaving. I wouldn't be all against summing these cases up in a short little paragraph, but it couldn't be summed up in the way you wrote it and still be accurate. It would have to be something like "Coulter occasionally speaks at college campuses and is oftentimes met with protest.-ref- A pie was once thrown at her as well.-ref- She has also been noted for her crude remarks to detractors during Q&A sections.-ref-ref-ref-ref-" I don't really see the pie mention as being necessary but it's not a big deal to me personally. Let's get some more opinions in here about this summary suggestion though. --Ubiq 21:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hipocrite: You are right. Summary style is what's called for. He/she who wants to include some small incident has the responsibility to clearly demonstrate how it pertains to her notability.

Ubiq: You are wrong. Just because YOU declare something notable doesn't make it so. Just because YOU declare something out of line doesn't make it so. And no, Ubiq, everything Ann Coulter says is NOT worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia article about her. Pretty elementary stuff. 63.3.19.2 21:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You will be banned fairly soon. Regards. --Ubiq 21:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Banned for disagreeing with Ubiq? Oh, the horror! Focus on the article, Ubiq. Don't focus on the argument, Ubiq. Assume a neutral point of view, Ubiq. Don't think that disagreeing with you is equal to personally attacking you, Ubiq. Assume good faith, Ubiq. Be a big picture person, Ubiq. 63.3.19.1 21:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You will be banned for vandalism and blanking of pages after warned and given final warnings not to. Best of luck. --Ubiq 21:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a piece of advice, suggesting that someone is doing something naughty and is going to be banned could be considered a threat. He's an IP, which could be shared by numerous users and the blanking warning on his talk page could have been done by someone other than the current IP user. Kyaa the Catlord 21:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe I threatened him. I've already reported him to the admin that gave him the final warning, meaning that quite probably, his days as an editor are numbered. The user in question has conistently vandalized and blanked aritcles and contributed pretty much nothing to wikipedia. He has demonstrated the exact same writing style and rhetoric on this talk page. IPs aren't immuned to be blocked. It's really a moot point to be honest. --Ubiq 22:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this could be summed up as saying "we should be conservative in what we include" which would reflect the style guidelines in BLP. Kyaa the Catlord 21:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

See my point above in response to Hipocrite. --Ubiq 21:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Which point? You've answered Hipocrite many times, but if you're talking about the comment you made five lines up, I think you can safely assume that Kyaa will see it. Moreover, your reply says nothing about BLP, which is a seperate point by Kyaa. Finally, I think that we don't need to get more opinions about whether we should follow summary style; the wikipidia consensus is that we should. Cool Hand Luke 21:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Please be civil. I'm trying my absolute best to improve this article and have been very patient and been willing to compromise. Your point about Kyaa seeing my point is not needed. --Ubiq 21:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound uncivil, but unless you're refering to another remark, it's not clear that you addressed Kyaa's point at all. You'll have to forgive me, but I find it annoying to get quoted a boilerplate in response to different and legitimate points. Cool Hand Luke 21:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It's all good. Just please try to understand that for the past hour I've been responding to multiple people at once. In respect to my comment to Kyaa, I was pointing him there because I was essentially agreeing that this part should be summarized, meaning he didn't have to make a further case for summary. --Ubiq 21:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I see strong consensus that the whole college section should be compressed to a paragraph in the form Ubiq wrote: Coulter occasionally speaks at college campuses and is oftentimes met with protest.-ref- A pie was once thrown at her as well.-ref- She has also been noted for her crude remarks to detractors during Q&A sections.-ref-ref-ref-ref-" Yes? Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Next thing we desperately need to do is summarize her political stance, there's a lot talked about how she's a conservative, a lot about reactions to her amazingly questionable at times statements, but no meat on what she actually believes and expresses. Kyaa the Catlord 21:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Cool Hand Luke 21:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You've basically got it, Hipocrite. Other points: a) The pie is nothing unusual; probably not worth mentioning. b) She gets $30K, putting her in a different league than other speakers. c) Important is that unlike many other speakers, she deals strongly with hecklers. d) "Crude" = POV? One person's "crude remark" is another's "response in kind." 209.244.43.57 21:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Crude, contraversial, whatever. The reason we had all of these remarks written in the first place was that we didn't have to paint them with descriptive words that are too subjective to be agreed upon. The reader could decide for himself/herself whether it was crude or not. So either we have one or the other. We're not going to put just "remark" becaue it is not accurate and way too vague. --Ubiq 21:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It's up to you guys at this point. Just try to make it NPOV, while including the actual information. I have to head to campus to get some more research done. I'll check up on this later. Have a good afternoon guys. --Ubiq 21:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll give it a shot in my giant edit tommorow. Let's table this one till then, declare an armistice and have a nice Friday night? I'm not going to talk about the fees she makes unless someone can find someone else comparing her fees to other speakers - no research by synthesis, please. I'm very pleased with the progress made today. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, you would say that, POV warrior ;) --kizzle 22:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I definitely support the concensus that the college speeches section should be very short and in summary style. My feeling is that pies don't belong, fees might.

Pie throwing: See List of people who have been pied. I checked about a dozen of those people, and found no mention of pie in their articles. Personal opinion: A pie incident says more about the protestors than it does about the victim. They are pie trolls, attracting attention to themselves and their agenda, rather than to the subject at hand. Wikipedia Policy: If someone mentions a negative thing like pieing in a biography of a living person, it is their responsibility to clearly demonstrate its relevance to the person's notability. It is up to all editors to insist on that demonstration. "It was in a newspaper" is not such a demonstration.

Regarding speaker fees: Many are listed at http://www.allamericanspeakers.com Do a select by fee range to see them. More are at http://premierespeakers.com/speakers Do a browse by topic to see them.

Coulter is an important person that colleges spend $30K to listen to. The protests by self serving minorities are incidental. Nobody invited them. To mention them without mentioning the other is to be maybe somewhat unbalanced. 209.244.43.248 14:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Hypocrite's stab

I took a stab at it. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Your stab is a good one, IMHO. The lead sentence needs work: "Coulter has frequented many college campuses around the world..." Doesn't quite say it. She does more than frequent them, she speaks at them. As I understand it, sometimes she's part of a university-sponsored speaker program, sometimes she's invited by a student interest group (College Republicans, or whatever). And she may do it at campuses around the world, but I doubt it. (I'm only aware of U.S. speeches, and only U.S. speeches are cited in the article. She's basically a U.S., not an international, person.)

Maybe better would be "Coulter is a (frequent/occasional/popular/often controversial/fiery/whatever) speaker at college campuses..." or "Coulter's speeches at college campuses draw both praise and criticism from their audiences." Lou Sander 11:37, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought the summary to be overall, a great recommendation by Hipocrite. The opening "Coulter's speeches at college campuses draw both praise and criticism from their audiences" is NPOV and accurate. I changed the ending from "Coulter has on occasion responded strongly to hecklers" to "Coulter has on occasion responded with insulting or homophobic remarks towards opposers, protestors, and hecklers who attend her speeches." The word strongly is vague and not accurate to describe how, on occasion, she responds. Her remarks have been insulting and/or homophobic though. The word hecklers is not accurate either, as sometimes/oftentimes the people she insults are silent protestors or people who ask her questions she doesn't like during a Q&A. --Ubiq 03:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I support precise language, but per WP:BLP we should be very careful tossing around words like "homophobic"; even the newspaper source says nothing more than that the remarks were "in reference" to the protester's sexuality. Even if we did find a source that we could attribute it to, we should think twice before putting it in as it might give undo weight. I'd much prefer treating these sections in summary style and leaving substantive criticism ("homophobic") to her politics sections. Cool Hand Luke 05:39, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think homophobic is such a subjective word that we need someone else's article to use it to describe her statements (on occasion).

"Homophobia is the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. It can also mean hatred, hostility, or disapproval of homosexual people, sexual behavior, or cultures, and is generally used to insinuate bigotry. The term homophobic means "prejudiced against homosexual people," and a person who is homophobic is a homophobe."

Ann called an opposer "gay boy" because he had a lisp. She also said, to exiting gay and lesbian students, "I believe the proper position is on your knees." Those seem like very homophobic statements. Indeed, if someone said [random racial epithet or insult generated from race stereotypes] to a [race/ethnicity] person, isn't that statement often referred to as racist? I believe so. Whether or not that makes one racist is up for debate, but I believe they're almost always, in such a case, referred to as racist remarks. Comparitavely, Ann's remarks are homophobic. --Ubiq 05:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

No, "homophobic" is entirely unlike being blond or loud or even insulting, and editors should not engage in this kind of speculation. If it's so obvious to us in our armchairs that her remarks were homophobic, it begs the question of why a reporter did not call them such. As it turns out, better news sources strive to present factual events without an interpretive gloss (as obvious as it might seem to some). We should do the same, especially out of WP:BLP concerns. Cool Hand Luke 06:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Which is why we present the reader with quotes in context so that they decide themselves what subjective labels to apply to the situation, no? --kizzle 06:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Kizzle made the point I was going to make. The section we had before Hipocrite's overhaul was devoid of such descriptive words. So now we have a summary that removes relevant information and does not accurately summarize what was there before. Perhaps we could say she has occasionally responded with "insulting, and perceivedly homophobic remarks." Joe Biden's article has that his statement was "perceived racism in his evaluation of Senator Obama". The statement in question, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, ... I mean, that's a storybook, man." seems a lot less racist than does Ann Coulter's remarks seem homophobic. Double standards I see. --Ubiq 08:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The strategy here should still be to attempt to put passages into summary style, but in controversial passages, it might be better to use verbatim quotations in order to combat putting editor interpretations into the article. Maybe we use quotations around certain phrases such as "gay boy" as in "Coulter has responded by using strong terms such as 'gay boy', etc."? --kizzle 09:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Kizzle is right. We can't just say that it's racist just because of how it seems to us. It's not a double standard; original research is never allowed. Biden got lots of press for his remarks and the percieved racism of them, which makes them notabale (once again, "notable" is descriptive and not prescriptive on Wikipedia). Coulter was not reported in the same way, so drawing inferences that the media does not is original research. Incidentally, Mark Richards' remarks are more clearly racist, yes? They choose to quote his remarks without labelling them. Considering WP:BLP, that's really the only thing you can do. Cool Hand Luke 15:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC) There's a strong argument to simply summarize as Hypocrite has done. There's so much dross in the article, however, that I don't think it's worth spilling much ink over eight extra words. Cool Hand Luke 17:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Citation #71 doesn't work any more. I didn't want to just take it out, since somebody might want to find it and fix it. Lou Sander 06:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. This is the problem we had in the first place with summarizing these speeches. At some point (this point) the summary is not an accurate summary. That's my problem. I'm fine with not labeling it with descriptive words. It seems to me that we need to agree on one or the other though. The current summary is not accurate. Joe Biden and Ann Coulter both got enough press about their respective incidents, Joe Biden just got more. So why is that we should summarize this and leave out the actual quotes, and replace it with a summary that's not accurate? --Ubiq 22:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

To Ubiq on the notability of individual campus speeches

We summarize because much of this stuff is simply not notable. You continually talk about how any politician would never get away with saying the things Coulter does. That's true, but treating noteworthy and non-noteworthy facts differently is the essence of being an editor.

It's not troubling we treat identical actions differently based on their notability. If the Pope publicly praised a movie, it might deserve mention in an article, but if Roger Ebert did, not so much.

This article is not St. Peter's rap sheet on Coulter, so it's not imperative to note every racist, homophobic, or mean thing she might have said or done. Frankly, this article would be several megabytes big if we tried to fully document every idiotic thing to crawl out of her mouth. Instead, we must include only what's noteable. Noteworthiness is not based on our subjective judgments, let alone what we find "newsworthy."

That said, we should certainly say how Coulter is considered to be mean, bigoted, and all the rest. We should also include several particularly noteworthy examples of her apparent bigotry and shock-jock tactics. However, we do not have to include every marginally bad thing written about her in every college newspaper. I don't know whether it would be a worthy endeavor to document her many faults, but it's certainly out of line with the hard-fought policies we've chosen for this project. Cool Hand Luke 04:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool Hand I applaud your attempt to mediate this disagreement, I know you are making a good faith effort to bring the matter to a civil conclusion. Respectfully though, I think you are missing the point that User:Ubiq, myself, and others are trying to make:

• As a professional political commentator, what she says influences how many people think about politics who don't have the time, resources or interest to do it themselves. User:Lou Sander pointed out that she is an important speaker, which she is. Because she is important, her influence is increased that much more.
• A political commentator must have a good understanding of political history, among other academic subjects, to provide relevant opinions and commentary.
• When a political commentator makes a mistake regarding politics it is notable and relevant, to their quality and credibility. In this case Ms. Coulter said the Canadian government sent troops to Vietnam in support of the U.S.'s mission to assist South Vietnam in their fight against communist North Vietnam. This was wrong, and Ms. Coulter admitted it.
• Her meanness, spiritual views or opinions are not what we are trying to note here: It was the inaccuracy of her assertion. If the CBC host hadn't called her on it, people unfamiliar with the truth would have thought that Canada sent troops to fight side by side with American troops AND allowed Americans to dodge the draft too.

I apologize if this post seems terse or gruff, I do not intend it to be. I do intend it to be as brief and relevant as possible. Anynobody 05:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and I do think the CBC issue is another problem, probably notable, and I oppose removing it entirely. Do note this is not because of some notion of what we think a public figure ought to be, as some of your bullet points imply. It's simply because it was covered in non-trivial depth in national Canadian and US sources.

This is in reference to the section above about hecklers, protestors, ect. I mean only that outrageous/mean comments are par for Coulter and that each individual quip is not normally notable. Ubic has very often asserted otherwise because it would be a "double standard" not to treat Coulter's sexual orientation-baiting the same way that we would a nationally-significant politician. This is not the case; the coverage by reliable sources dictates. Notability is determined by actual note. Therefore, widespread coverage on her meanness/innacuracy is notable even when editors claim otherwise. By the same token, obscure non-coverage of a minor speach is not notable even when editors claim it is. Cool Hand Luke 06:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I feel I should apologize, I didn't realize your comments were regarding the notability of each and every speech she gives where protesters or hecklers show up. To save each other's time in the future I have a request. On a page where an editor like User:Ubiq is arguing for/against several notability issues, could you please be more specific about which notability issue you are addressing? Don't get me wrong, I should have looked over the rest of the page more thoroughly in an effort to avoid confusion before making my post. If the title had been something like "To Ubiq re: notability of speeches" I would have known you weren't talking about the CBC thing. On that subject though I have a question. If I understand you correctly you believe the CBC interview is notable because it was covered in some depth by the national media rather than the accuracy of the information she presents? Is that what you are saying or have I misunderstood you again? Anynobody 07:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That's correct. It could be that many respected commentaters (ie, those generally considered more reliable and influential that Coulter) have made many factual errors. If no reliable sources cover their mistakes, neither should we—no matter how much we believe that public intellectuals should get facts right. Doing so violates WP:N, WP:BLP, and almost certainly WP:OR. The CBC case, on the other hand, is more notable. That said, arguing about whether we include a relatively poorly-reported (possibly non-notable) "confession" on C-SPAN seems to be pushing a POV. Cool Hand Luke 16:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, WP:NOT says "Notable here means "worthy of being noted"[1][2] or "attracting notice"[3]. It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance". It is not measured by Wikipedia editors' own subjective judgements. It is not "newsworthiness". They are talking about notability for articles, but it seems to apply here, too. Later down, it says "Non-triviality" is an evaluation of the depth of content contained in the published work,... Lou Sander 17:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe I understand your pointsCool Hand and Lou Sander. Your position Cool Hand is that not enough reliable sources have covered this issue in depth. Why is the CBC interview not as reliable a source as Time? She made an assertion on camera the accuracy of which can be verified through official primary and secondary sources. The clip of the debate is available online at several sites: Ifilm, YouTube, Google Video and the entire program can be viewed on the CBC page itself. She clearly believes that the Canadian government supported the U.S. in the Vietnam war by sending soldiers, and appears to be disappointed that they did not send send soldiers to Iraq because of this belief. If Canada had been a participating ally of the U.S., it is very doubtful that the North Vietnamese would have allowed Canadian soldiers to enforce the cease-fire established by the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. The Canadian government confirms that it sent soldiers as peace keepers representing the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) in 1973 while the U.S. withdrew. Canadian awards for participation in ICCS Operation Gallant.

Lou Sander if I understand what you are saying; The notability of information is less about fame, importance, and newsworthiness than it is about it's worth or ability to attract attention. This puzzles me because of the discussions you have been having with users on this talk page, it seems that your subjective judgment is that her error is not worthy of inclusion here.I apologize but I have not found any arguments you've made for this except your own judgment, whereas I maintain it is worthy due to her occupation and the influence she has over some people. Moreover, since notability depends on worth OR attracting attention, let us assume it does not meet the 1st criteria regarding worthiness and discuss it's ability to attract attention. This incident has drawn quite a bit of attention here and many other places on the internet. It attracted enough attention so that over two years later videos, commentary, and information about it are still being discussed and are readily available from many sources. I don't mean to sound petulant but if this interview had NOT attracted so much attention, information about it would be much harder to find because information that doesn't attract attention tends to be deleted rather than archived. Anynobody 23:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

"Verifying" what she said is precisely what constitutes original research. We must rely on secondaries barring exceptional circumstances such as breaking news. FAIR is fair with attribution, but the most reliable source seems to be the coverage in Time which does not exactly support your original research that she "clearly beleieved" something incorrect. Both secondary sources might have a place in the article, but OR speculation does not. Cool Hand Luke 23:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Irregularities in Public Registration

While you are cleaning up the article, pay some attention here.

How important is the date on her drivers license? WP:BLP says that biographies of living people must be written conservatively and with due regard to the subject's privacy. She explains that she has several stalkers, yet you discuss at length her birthday without regard to her privacy. WP:BLP#Privacy of birthdays doesn't mention this exact situation, but it's similar. Why not err on the side of caution and delete most or all of this birthday discussion? (Unless your goal is to show her as a bad person)

There might be something notable about the voting irregularity, but it isn't in the first two paragraphs. She went to vote in a town election (notable?). She went to the right precinct, but they told her she was in the wrong place. She went to the place that matched her registration (wouldn't anybody?) and voted. Later on, a Democrat tried to make something of it, and it still hasn't been settled. The encyclopedia spends three paragraphs describing this. That is more than it spends on her entire film and radio career. 71.245.188.161 03:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Did this one yesterday. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Jersey Girls

Recived my hacksaw today. Comments? Concerns? Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

A bit short. Can we maybe just mention the Today show interview specifically? That was pretty notable. --kizzle 22:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else? I could see "including on the Today show" Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me, except that a lot of the citation links don't work any more. Somebody needs to replace them, fix them, or get rid of them. Working links or not, the Jersey Girls stuff is definitely relevant to Ann Coulter's notability; see the "Clear demonstration" section, below. Lou Sander 21:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars are unacceptable.

Passage #1

Coulter became involved in some controversy[7][8] for a statement she made on CBC's news program the fifth estate. During a conversation with the host, Bob McKeown, Coulter asserted that "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown disputed her assertion by saying "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam," to which Coulter eventually said "I'll have to get back to you on that". In a subsequent C-SPAN interview, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the 10,000 Canadians who voluntarily signed up with the American troops, though admitting she was wrong that the Canadian government had sent troops, as well as taking a shot at McKeown:

Yes, 10,000 Canadian troops, at least. There is a War Memorial to them, at least for most of that. The Canadian Government didn't send troops [...] but [...] they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada... People keep saying: "well, he didn't tell you that they - 10,000 troops - ran across to sign up with the Americans..." I don't think he knew, he's a bubblehead Ted Baxter

For more information on Canada's involvement in the Vietnam War, see Canada and the Vietnam War.

---

Passage #2

Coulter gained some criticism for a statement she made on CBC's news program the fifth estate. During a conversation with the host, Bob McKeown, Coulter mentioned that Canada had sent troops to Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Coulter asserted that "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown replied, "No, actually, Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam." Coulter disputed him, including the question "Indochina?" McKeown continued to claim that Coulter was wrong, and his claim has been widely repeated since. McKeown's claim was actually false. Canada sent troops to French Indochina on August 7, 1954, at the time of the partition of Vietnam. Serving as part of the International Control Commission, Canadian troops remained in Indochina/Vietnam for almost nineteen years, departing on July 31, 1973. Canada awards a military medal specifically for service with this group. 1,550 Canadian troops have received it.

For more information on Canada's involvement in the Vietnam War, see Canada and the Vietnam War.

---

Whether or not Coulter's or McKeown's point in context was accurate is debatable. Passage #1 consists only of verbatim quotes while giving Coulter the last word. Passage #2 clearly sides with one POV in this debate. Given the dispute between editors here, sticking with verbatim quotes is better than editor interpretations. If passage #2 is included, then I have a whole bunch of info I want to add as well. --kizzle 21:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

So much extra info. Try this "On The Fifth Estate Coulter said "Canada used to be...one of our most... loyal friends ... Canada sent troops to Vietnam." While Canada did send troops to Vietnam, they were part of the International Control Commission, not in direct support of the United States. Coulter says she was refering to 10,000 Canadians who volunteered for the US Military."

I question including this section at all, however. Not Notable. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hip, it's more of a pragmatic inclusion. I stated above that I'm not a huge proponent of its notability (though the specific question got covered in Time Magazine and asked again on C-SPAN) but at a small paragraph consisting of verbatim quotes, the brief paragraph + redirect link prevents people from balooning this article into a debate about Canadian participation in the war, such as HowardDean's recent contribs. Think of it as a plug to prevent future leakage of info not about Coulter into the article, and at its proposed space, it's not exactly violating undue weight, and seeing as it's solely verbatim quotes while giving Coulter the last word, I think it's pretty neutral as well. The notability of the incident does rise above her general comments to just barely satisfy the policy Lou states below, though admittedly not by much. I like your tendency to make much of the fluff here into summary form, but I think this is something where we should use verbatim quotes rather than editor interpretations. Just my 2 cents. --kizzle 23:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Hipocrite is right to question it. The incident is not notable, not notable, not notable, not notable. It is questionable to include it. He/she/bot who includes it: please provide a clear demonstration of its relevance to Ann Coulter's notability, per this policy, which requires us to insist on this clear demonstration. Lou Sander 22:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Lou, but some people (myself included) think it is notable, as she is someone who is expected to know her historical facts. Passage #1 is as about as NPOV as it gets. It is not, in any way, biased or malicious. It clears up the misconceptions about the particular event, actually. I (and others) have laid out several arguments demonstrating why various events are and are not notable, including this one. Do you care to demonstrate why it is (not notable x 4)? I'd like to see relevant points and argumentation. --Ubiq 03:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Respectfully Lou Sander I don't think this is Biased or malicious content because she is a political commentator and the accuracy of her information on such matters is important to determine her credibility. A commentator who shows a pattern of incorrect factual citation seems somewhat useless. I am NOT saying Ms. Coulter is useless, but as a commentator keeping track of her factual mistakes is relevant. If Ms. Coulter was an artist of some kind, her factual mistakes would not be relevant to include under her biography. Since opinions about her are so contentious, it is indeed a good idea to question issues like this as you and Hipocrite have done. It seems to me that kizzle is trying in good faith to include this info in respectful way. Unfortunately there is no way to post information about these types of mistakes in way that is painless to her or her supporters. The best thing to do is be as respectful as possible in noting the mistake, and resolve to hold all commentators to the same standard. If somebody like Al Franken made a similar mistake, it would be important to note that as well in a respectful manner. Anynobody 03:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The malicious agenda is to demean Ann Coulter by showing that she is foolish, or "doesn't know what she is talking about," or is "somewhat useless," etc. There has been no clear demonstration that the interview is relevant to her notability. ("I think it is notable and so do others" is not a demonstration, it is an assertion of a point of view.)

The interview is not relevant to her notablity. It is one of dozens or hundreds that she has done. Its key aspect is the interviewer's repeated strong insistence that Canada sent no troops to Vietnam. Coulter did not strongly argue that they did, but politely and repeatedly said that she thought the interviewer was wrong, which he was. Did Coulter say anything notable in the interview? No. Was the interview widely discussed and analyzed anywhere other than on the network that ran it? No. Is the interview an important part of the malicious agenda described above? Yes. Is it important to people who don't have that agenda? No. Lou Sander 04:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, whose "malicious agenda" is it? Mine, for proposing the passage? Watch your mouth. --kizzle 05:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Lou, you completely ignored Anynobody's argument (which I think is a very solid one) and you are repeating yourself on your opinon that it is not notable. Your conclusion (that this is not notable) is based on the assumption that the agenda is malicious, but you're not stating whose agenda is malicious. Keep in mind that you are using a very strong word here: malicious. If you're referring to the CBC, how can you go about proving that their intent was malicious? Also, even if you were able to prove this, it doesn't quite matter, as the agenda of the NPOV description of the event (Passage #1) is NOT malicious. You also state that the interview was not widely discussed anywhere other than on the network that ran it. This is not true. Do some google searches. I'd work with you on this but your premise that CBC and/or this article is highly questionable, and, in my opinion, unfalsifiable. --Ubiq 05:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you (please) work on clearly demonstrating the relevance of this interview to Ann Coulter's notability? I see biased or malicious content here, and I am insisting on that clear demonstration. (The nature of the bias/maliciousness is that the item has no importance beyond giving the impression that Coulter doesn't know what she's talking about, etc.)

As for factual accuracy and all that, she said, almost as an aside, that Canada sent troops to Vietnam. The guy jumped on it and wouldn't get off it. She kept saying, politely and mildly, that she thought the guy was wrong. The guy WAS wrong, though some people have trouble acknowledging it. Claiming that this event is somehow notable because it's important to track her mistakes? Pretty far out, IMHO. Lou Sander 06:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And yet she admitted she was wrong. Funny. --kizzle 06:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I've already argued this exact point with Good Cop (to which he couldn't respond with anything), I'll just copy and paste my argument here. In this I demonstrate that having knowledge about something is quite different from stating the truth about a certain thing (and very importantly so and relevant to the situation in this interview). I assert for one to know a fact, one must also have memory of the fact: "there are more than enough controversial things she has said. She is a political pundit who gets attention through such means. This is a notable controversy because it is understood that she (like many other pundits) is supposed to know her historical facts. And it was clear that she did not know. If there was at one point she did know, then it was clearly not demonstrated in the interview that she knew at the time, as she was not able to recall any evidence. I'm sorry, but a mere unassured utterance of "Indochina?" does not qualify as evidence that she remembered. She stated something she believed as if it were something she knew and could prove then and there. And that is why, regardless of whether or not the facts aligned with her assertion, it made her look like an "idiot". Regardless, and as stated previously, Kizzle's passage is unbiased and NPOV such that it doesn't make her look that way anyway, so I don't know your problem is. If you're wanting to improve her public perception (and after reading through this talk page I'm almost certain you are) or perhaps neutralize it, you'd want this passage to be included, since it clears up misconceptions about Canada's role in Vietnam as mistakenly reported by Bob McKeown. This is notable too. If anything, it defends her much more than it does make her look bad. Look through the comments on the various videos for this incident and you will see that many of the people who saw the video, have the correct idea that she didn't know what she was talking about, have the mistaken idea that she was wrong and treated her with adjectives and nouns accordingly. --Ubiq 18:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)" Note that my mention of you was meant for Good Cop, not Lou, though there are cases it would apply here. Like Anynobody stated, a political pundit's credibility is quite relevant, and when someone makes a claim (that Canada sent troops to Vietnam) and can't back it up with something but an utterance of "Indochina?" then it does not matter whether her claim happened to be true. Suppose she'd said George Washington was the first U.S. President, to which Bob replied "No. John Adams was." Her reaction is very important. If she's able to rebut his claim by saying "No. Washington was. Elected in 1789. Alexander Hamilton was his treasurer and was a good one at that." then she's pretty much in the clear, no? But if she says, unconvincingly, "I think you're wrong...Hamilton?" she has not demonstrated that she has knowledge of her claim. And yes, this is relevant to her notability and her credibility. --Ubiq 07:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have honestly tried to find instances where she has been 100% correct about something factual to balance the mistakes currently being discussed. The best I could do was:

"There are a lot of bad Republicans; there are no good Democrats."

• Interview with Brian Lamb; August 11, 2002.

She is right about the first part, there are a lot of bad Republicans like Tom Delay and Duke Cunningham. The second part is incorrect because there are good Democrats, for example Wesley Clark. To make my motivations clear, I am registered as an independent and would like to see this article be as NPOV as possible. In the interests of compromise and balance; Can one of Ms. Coulter's fans please help us all by citing cases where she has cited accurate facts to prove her point on something. I get the impression that nobody here would dispute the notability of her using facts to prove her point to a reporter. The main problems I am encountering is that she tends to use hyperbole a lot and second that nobody seems to be keeping such a record, not even herself. Meanwhile she makes incorrect statements like she did in the CBC interview that are easy to get information about. Lou Sander please understand that in my mind Ms. Coulter hasn't proven to be a "useless" commentator yet. I'm hoping that you or her other supporters will be able to prove she gets her facts right more often than not because I honestly don't know if she does. To be clear I define a useless commentator as one who offers opinions and commentary based on incorrect facts and assumptions. "Commentators" like that are useless because I can get opinions and commentary based on incorrect facts and assumptions from anyone. Anynobody 09:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to add that she could have been 100% correct if she had said that there are also a lot of bad Democrats rather than no good ones. James Traficant, Robert Torricelli and Alexis Herman to name a few. Anynobody 09:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried to read all of the above but got caught up in giant walls of text. Why is this notable enough to be included in the article, again? Helpful would be third-party sources reporting on this "controversy." Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be helpful to read those giant blocks of text that explain why it's notable instead of assuming nobody's made a case yet. Read my response to Lou. --Ubiq 19:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Read my above comment. --kizzle 19:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If an argument can't be sumarized into a short paragraph either it's too confusing or the arguer dosen't really have an argument and need to seek focus. Pick one. You can form your arguments in the form "This incident is notable because (short list) as documented in (short list). Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Hip, it's more of a pragmatic inclusion. I stated above that I'm not a huge proponent of its notability (though the specific question got covered in Time Magazine, an article on FAIR, and asked again on C-SPAN (see video on CBC site of her response on CSPAN) but at a small paragraph consisting of verbatim quotes, the brief paragraph + redirect link prevents people from balooning this article into a debate about Canadian participation in the war, such as HowardDean's recent contribs. Think of it as a plug to prevent future leakage of info not about Coulter into the article, and at its proposed space, it's not exactly violating undue weight, and seeing as it's solely verbatim quotes while giving Coulter the last word, I think it's pretty neutral as well. The notability of the incident does rise above her general comments to just barely satisfy the policy Lou states below, though admittedly not by much. I like your tendency to make much of the fluff here into summary form, but I think this is something where we should use verbatim quotes rather than editor interpretations. Just my 2 cents.--kizzle 19:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems you have two arguments - 1 it got covered in reliable sources and 2 people will put it back in if we take it out. I accept 1 as a valid arugment - unlike most of the other crufty crap I have removed, coverage in Time is relevent. I suggest you write exactly one paragraph that summarizes what was said in the Time magazine article, and in the Time magazine article only. I ignore argument 2, and believe that crufty crap can be kept out of articles via due vigilence by editors to fighting crufty crap that they both like and do not like. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The version I had previously had an extra para where I make one-sentence mentions of Cloud defending Coulter in his opinion piece, as well as FAIR's critique of Cloud giving Coulter a free pass, but that became a target for debate creep. As it stands, we're only talking about a paragraph. Let's use your style and put the Time + Fair links as pure citations next to the opening sentence, as I have added above, to indicate that the incident is, in fact, notable, and then let the verbatim quotes speak for themselves. Like I said, I appreciate the effort to change passages into summary style, but this is one where I think we need to stick to verbatim quotes in order to avoid debate creep and editor interpretations. --kizzle 20:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

"If an argument can't be sumarized into a short paragraph either it's too confusing or the arguer dosen't really have an argument and need to seek focus." -Hipocrite. Sorry but I think that's an extraordinarily judgmental leap you're taking to say that. Not everything has to be in summary form. I like to make my points as clear as possible, as to not ignore important things I think the reader would bring up in a rebuttal. This doesn't mean "it's too confusing" or that "the arguer doesn't really have an argument". It means the argument is long, not short. Can't derive much out of length of an argument. --Ubiq 22:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivial revert warring part 10923719823

The trivial revert warring going on between Lou Sander and Ubiq is stupid. Here's an oppourunity for you two to justify "attend" vs "disrupt," paying careful attention to our core content policies. I will state for the record that it is transparently obvious that "Coulter is a frequent and controversial speaker on college campuses, receiving both praise and protest." is better than the convoluted and multiply subordinated "Coulter is a frequent and controversial speaker on college campuses, and her words are both praised and protested." Go ahead: Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Revert warring is preventable by discussing changes here before making them. Here's the complete passage:

Coulter is a frequent and controversial speaker on college campuses, and her words are both praised and protested. On one occasion, during an appearance at University of Arizona, a pie was thrown at her[67][68] Coulter has, on occasion, responded with insulting remarks towards hecklers and protestors who disrupt her speeches.[69][70][71][72]

I'm not 100% sure about "frequent," but I don't object to it. I agree she's controversial. I agree there is both praise and protest, but I don't think we've found the best way to express that yet. All the ways so far seem stilted to me. I don't disagree with them, I just hope to improve the wording. Maybe the word "controversial" says it all.

What we have here is an important speaker who reacts when heckled or otherwise provoked. What often happens is that something she says creates a reaction, or a walkout, or whatever; her talk is often disrupted, and people are often ejected. She responds strongly and usually proportionally and in kind. When it's all over, other people typically criticize the reactors, or Coulter, or both. IMHO we need to talk about that in an evenhanded manner that doesn't include colored words like "homophobic," or "vicious," or "insulting," or "hateful," even though some people might want to include them, advance opinions/reasons why they are appropriate, etc. Specifically, I don't like "responded with insulting remarks," unless a source has characterized them as insulting. I don't like it even if somebody digs up such a source, since this is a BLP, and we are advised to be evenhanded.

All who disrupt also attend. Some who attend do not disrupt. Coulter reacts to the former, not the latter. Lou Sander 17:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I ignored your giant wall of text because it did not address the question at all - justify "attend" vs "disrupt." Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh wait, it did, at the very bottom. After screaming loudly at others to cite sources for what you were NOT revert warring over, you fail to cite sources for what you were revert warring over? Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I discuss/scream on the talk page. I seldom revert, let alone war, but will do both for controversial changes made without prior rational discussion. The sources for "disrupt" are already there: #69-Aja Ray's obscene words, gestures; his arrest. #70-physical attacks. #71-bad link. #72-noise drowned out the speech, two-party guy ejected. Seems fair to call these "disrupted." It's too long, but maybe "attend her speeches and make physical attacks(70) or are ejected or arrested.(69)(72)" Why not just "towards hecklers and protestors?(69)(70)(72)." Lou Sander 18:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's a clear example of her insulting remark to a student who asked her a question: "During her question-and-answer session, Coulter responded to both fans and protesters. One comment that drew strong audience reactions came from a young man who asked her if she didn't like Democrats, wouldn't it just be better to have a dictatorship? Coulter responded with a jab at the way the student talked.

"You don't want the Republicans in power, does that mean you want a dictatorship, gay boy?" she said.[9]

She called him "gay boy", which is, insulting. What about his question was disruptive if she wasn't even speaking? Like I said, using "disruptive" implies that she only reacts in this way when someone is disruptive. That is not the case, as I just demonstrated. --Ubiq 19:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh. And Lou, why don't you respond to my argument in the above section instead of just leaving it? I'm beginning to notice a pattern of you doing this sort of thing: making a highly questionable assertion that's the premise of a conclusion that isn't agreed upon, then when someone holds you to it and debates it well enough for you not to have a decent rebuttal, you leave, only to come back days later with the same premise, only in a new section, hoping that everyone forgot the previous debate and that nobody will debate the "new" one. It gets old, really. --Ubiq 19:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

(crickets chirping)... --kizzle 23:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed vietnam war

Coulter became involved in some controversy for a statement she made on CBC's news program The Fifth Estate. During a conversation with the host, Bob McKeown, Coulter asserted that Canada sent troops to Vietnam. McKeown disputed her assertion. While Canada did not send combat troops to Vietnam in support of the United states. They did send noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972.[10] In a later CSPAN interview, Coulter admitted she was wrong about the actions of the Canadian government, but justified her comments based on 10,000 Canadians who volunteered for the US military.

---

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hipocrite (talk • contribs) 20:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

Sigh... here we go again. How is neutrality preserved in this passage? Where is the mention of Coulter's important admission on C-SPAN which the pro-Coulter people always glaze over? Why do we have to put the details of Canada and Vietnam on a bio page about Coulter when we supply the redirect link? What about the fact that Coulter, in her mea culpa, never once referred to these non-combat peacekeepers? I must respectfully disagree with your usage of summary style in this one instance, as I can't for the life of me understand why you want to use editor interpretations rather than verbatim quotes. If it's a matter of space, we're only talking about the difference of a few lines. Just as we get into problems about the college speech section as to what descriptors we can or can't use, by using verbatim quotes we truly allow the reader to decide for themselves without deciding the debate for them. Some people think that Coulter was right, that Bob McKeown was incorrect in his isolated assertion that "Canada did not send troops to Vietnam", as Canada did send non-combat peacekeeping troops in 1954 and again at the very end of the war to oversee the ceasefire. Some people also think that Coulter's point, taken in the context of her general point about Canada's relationship with the U.S. and an analogy to Iraq, was correctly disputed by McKeown, and that he was referring to combat troops when he said "troops". Your proposed passage has clearly sided with one of these points of view. --kizzle 20:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it most certainly has not. What in my brief and descriptive paragraph would you modify? Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

To summarize my above passage:

1. Add Coulter's verbatim mea culpa from C-SPAN as it is there now.
2. Re-word your summary with verbatim quotes from the interview, as you are excising context about her general point. If all the interview consisted of Ann saying "Canada sent troops to Vietnam" and McKeown saying "No they didn't", then I'd agree with Lou et al. But there is context that is missing, and at the space the passage currently takes up, we can afford to include it.
3. Provide redirect link to Canada and the Vietnam War to syphon off content that does not belong on a bio page about Coulter.

--kizzle 21:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with any of your requests contingent on reliable sourcing. The language I used was direct from the Time article. Can you propose alternative language that does not make our article look like a quotefest? I would note that quotefests are highly unlikley to be featured articles. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:05, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It's hard for me to determine what specific criteria renders my passage such a subjective term as a "quotefest" ;) 3 main quotes are all I care about:

• Coulter on CBC - "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" video
• McKeown on CBC - "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam" video
• Coulter on CSPAN - "Yes, 10,000 Canadian troops, at least. There is a War Memorial to them, at least for most of that. The Canadian Government didn't send troops [...] but [...] they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada... People keep saying: "well, he didn't tell you that they - 10,000 troops - ran across to sign up with the Americans..." I don't think he knew, he's a bubblehead Ted Baxter" video (click on US response)

Along with the daughter link: For more information on Canada's involvement in the Vietnam War, see Canada and the Vietnam War.

--kizzle 21:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Try now. I feel the passage is now at absolute maximum length for me to accept it as a compromise from my favored position that any mention of this is crufty cruft cruft. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I must respectfully disagree with your assertion. I can't see how the reader is serviced by excising verbatim quotes with editor interpretations, especially given the verbatim alternative is only a few more lines. --kizzle 21:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Because excessive quoting makes us not an encyclopedia but a politics information board. We are not here to argue about politics. We are here to describe Ann Coulter. Quotes of some debate she had on some show are not descriptive. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It makes it kind of hard to describe Ann Coulter by avoiding quoting her, and 2 short quotes and one medium quote comes nowhere near "excessive quoting". --kizzle 22:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this strict insistence on summarizing everything is necessary. Including relevant information without subjective analysis is though. It's not even that lengthy in the first place. --Ubiq 22:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

"This page is 58 kilobytes long. It may be appropriate to split this article into smaller, more specific articles. See Wikipedia:Article size." We're at the very very top end of featured - we need to cut material to include more better material so we can get a bronze star. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Then why don't we create an Ann Coulter criticisms/controversies article that links from her main page (per this policy)? That way we can include actual quotes and not inaccurate summaries of various incidents. --Ubiq 22:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Didn't Hipocrite's original question ask why the CBC interview is notable? It's two years old and wasn't mentioned much outside CBC. The CSPAN part isn't sourced. IMHO the whole thing isn't at all relevant to Ann Coulter's notability, and I haven't seen any clear demonstration that it is. Lou Sander 23:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but your claims and opinions are pretty much meaningless, Lou. I've debated this with you in above sections. As predicted, you ignored my points and are restating your claim right here, so just read above a few sections and respond to the actual points I've made instead of just repeating yourself. I've noticed over the past few weeks you've failed on a consistent basis to provide good points or counterpoints, yet you keep repeating your opinion on the matter as if it means much at this point. --Ubiq 00:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, Lou, your inability to address any specific points that we have mentioned since then renders you a non-participant in this discussion. --kizzle 01:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to butt in here. First, I ask that Ubiq remember to keep it civil, assume good faith and that one of the suggestions from WP:DR is to sometimes disengage from an argument when it gets heated. Perhaps that is what Lou is doing. But on to my larger point. This entire debate about how to present this CBC appearance has gone on for quite some time despite its dubious notability. Because I have issues with the video under WP:RS, the only coverage of this story was in the Time article about Ms. Coulter. There has been no independant coverage of this incident, and as such does not qualify for inclusion under WP:NOTE. See the first paragraph of the guideline. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 00:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Time Magazine doesn't count as "independent coverage", nor her subsequent appearance on C-SPAN? And how does a video clip taken from CBC's own website fail to satisfy WP:RS? --kizzle 01:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I responded to the independant coverage question below. I just noticed your question (maybe I should start reading from top to bottom, instead of the other way around). The video clip from CBC is a primary source, which although not per se forbidden, is discouraged by Wikipedia because it often leads to original research which is disallowed. Here's the test of notability, IMO, you can find entire articles solely on her "Jersey girls" comments. She was interviewed on numerous shows based solely on those comments. Where is the article in the mainstream media, American or Canadian, that deals only with this topic? Was the interview on CSPAN only concerning this dispute? Or was it just mentioned in passing as part of a larger interview? If there is such a source, I will gladly change my opinion.Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 19:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Any encyclopedia benefits greatly when only clearly notable material is included. It also benefits when editors keep their focus on the articles. Lou Sander 01:46, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

With the examples I posted at WP:ANI, you might want to think about taking your own advice. --kizzle 01:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Ram: I'm being civil. I ask that you assume the assumption of good faith. Thanks. Lou is known for leaving arguments (that weren't heated I might add, so your suggestion that he's ignoring my points for the reason of resolving something is false) only to start the exact same argument a day or two later. It's always "I haven't seen any clear demonstration that it is [notable]" without citing legitimate reasons why or answering peoples' points why it is notable. I assumed good faith the first 3 or 4 times he did it. It's a bit different now.

Please don't take my comments the wrong way. I am assuming good faith. You seemed pretty annoyed with Lou (and you may have good reason) and made comments about him instead of improving the article. We all get frustrated with others at times, it natural, I just didn't want to see you go over the edge. That's all. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 19:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Now. Onto your point. You stated "there has been no independent coverage of this incident" This is false.[11] [12] [13] [14] Your conclusion (that this doesn't qualify for inclusion) is based on previously stated premise. --Ubiq 01:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I will only deal with the Time article because the other's do not qualify as reliable sources due to their polemic nature, IMO. Time mentions this in a larger article about Coulter and complaints of innaccuracies. It also supports her. The mention is not about the incident itself. To me that would mean "independent". If a reliable source mentions this incident on its own terms and not in a laundry list of other things, then I will consider a step towards notability. So my opinion is clearly NOT false. You and I may view this differently, but please let's have some humility. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 19:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, we'll stick to the points. I disagree that the other sources are not reliable and that they are "polemic". Look at the FAIR article. Is this article polemic? How so? Can you cite specific examples? Look at the WorldNetDaily article. How is this polemic? It's possible I could be misinterpreting what you're saying but it seems like you think "independent" should mean "seemingly politically neutral". Taken from independent sources, "an independent source is a source which describes a topic from the outside." How are these articles not describing the topic (of her interview with Bob McKeown) from the outside? If you can point these things out to me, I'd appreciate it. The thing about the "laudry list" to me is a point not worth rebutting, as there seems to be plenty of references/sources on wikipedia that have events mentioned/described in such a manner. Yet, the events described are rarely considered less notable because of it. --Ubiq 20:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify... when I said "polemic", I meant in terms of using the website as a source in general, not that their presentation of this issue was biased. Fair.org is a self proclaimed liberal media watchdog group seeking to counterattack conservative misinformation. It exists to refute conservative arguments. WorldNetDaily although it claims to be independant, on a cursory review it is apparent that it has a conservative "mindset". I mean, Ann Coulter has a banner on their page! In almost all cases, these sites on their own, would not be considered a reliable source of information, except for information about themselves. Again I ask, has this issue been covered in any other reliable published works besides Time? If it has, it should be included. The other question is the mention in Time and the C-Span, and CBC videos enough to show notability on its own? Some say yes, I say no. But my larger point is considering there doesn't seem to be any agreement on how to even present it, shouldn't we first reach a consensus if it should even be included? As to your last point. I agree there are many problem articles on Wikipedia, just see WP:AFD. But we have to take it on a step by step basis. Just because a bad article exists now, doesn't mean it will be here forever. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 21:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see how these aren't independent sources. It sounds like, by your definition, any source that has a hint of political bias is not a reliable source. By this measure, we wouldn't be able to use Fox News as a source, because there is very clear and blatant conservative bias on their part. Similarly to how you said, "[FAIR] exists to refute conservative arguments", I could easily say "Fox News exists to perpetuate misinformation, and provide entertainment and opinion based 'news' to push its neoconservative agenda". Should we not use them? Also, has FAIR or World News Daily been shown to have poor verifiability? You said "in almost all cases, these sites on their own, would not be considered a reliable source of information, except for information about themselves." I don't see any legitimate reason for saying that and your reasoning seems to be because of political bias. Let me ask, who besides yourself "would not consider" it a reliable source of information and why? Reliable to me would mean that there's been consistent credibility and verifiabilty, sans subjective interpretations of events. Look at the actual articles. How are these articles more politically biased than any Fox News or CNN article or "news" story?

Concerning your larger point, the only person not seemingly agreeing with kizzle's passage is Lou. He simply just doesn't want it in the article though. He hasn't once provided evidence or an argument that the passage is biased or not NPOV. All he's done is make vague inferences that kizzle (or other editors, "some people" he likes to say) are malicious in their editing. If you can look over the passage and tell me what you think, it would be greatly appreciated (and I can find it for you, as it may not be found easily on this page, just ask). Thanks for discussing this in a civil manner by the way. --Ubiq 22:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Please do not make assumptions about my motives, desires, or biases. It is uncivil and uncalled for. I am not questioning your motives arguing for the inclusion of this issue, please give me the same courtesy!

From WP:RS:The websites, print media, and other publications of political parties and religious groups should be treated with caution, although neither political affiliation nor religious belief is in itself a reason not to use a source.

That goes to FAIR and WORLDNETDAILY as a reliable source not to their independence. TIME is a bit different. If FAIR and WorldNet are considered reliable sources then yes they would qualify as independant in this matter, since they in fact have articles solely dedicated to this issue. To answer your questions about what separates these from Fox and CNN is this. Fox and CNN, have copy edit staffs, ombudsmen, research departments, and other procedures in place to make sure that their stories are factually accurate (even if it always isn't). I don't know if the other organizations mentioned have these safeguards, and considering their upfront bias (not perceived or a matter of opinion as with Fox and CNN, after all both Fox and CNN officially deny any bias), it should give editors here caution when using them as sources in general. I have no fault with the specific articles but only with the source. To use a really extreme example: If Stormfront.org, did a fair and accurate article on the dangers of alcoholism, I wouldn't not use it here on Wikipedia not because of what the article says but rather because of who wrote it. (I am not saying any of those organizations are anywhere near to Stormfront--the allusion is just illustrative). Finally, I don't have any problems with the passage using quotes (although I usually prefer summarizing info, but Kizzle's point is fair and may be a good exception), but I know Lou and apparently Hipocrite did have issues with it.Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 23:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

<----------------moved

Ram: I looked over this paragraph: "Please do not make assumptions about my motives, desires, or biases. It is uncivil and uncalled for. I am not questioning your motives arguing for the inclusion of this issue, please give me the same courtesy!" and couldn't think of one thing I said that warranted that repsonse. Then I looked over my paragraph and noticed "I don't see any legitimate reason for saying that and your reasoning seems to be because of political bias." and how you might have taken it the wrong way. I meant to say that your reasoning that these articles shouldn't be considered reliable seems to be because of the fact that the sites writing them have political bias. Sorry. I need to word things better. I have absolutely no clue or hint that you, personally are biased and I wouldn't accuse you of it.

As far as your argument goes, it sounds like you're saying that FAIR and World Net Daily actually have claimed they are politically affiliated or biased. This is not the case with World Net Daily. FAIR, on their about page, mentions that they're progressive. I don't know that that necessarily disqualifies them or renders their articles illegitimate. Also, in regards to Fox News and CNN having editing teams to make sure they are accurate, we have no clue that either of them don't put slant first and accuracy second, so I don't see it as a good point. Fox News has been shown to flat out lie on occasions. As far as your comparison with alcoholism and stormfront.org, I see that as a weak analogy. FAIR specializes on the topics of credibility, "fairness", and accuracy. If anything, I'd say that should help their case in why they are reliable on this event, since credibility is exactly what this event is about. I can only go a couple more times about this, at some point we'll have to just agree to disagree. --Ubiq 00:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about taking your comments the wrong way, I guess we're even now. With regard to WND, fair enough, although their allegiance to the right is pretty apparent from viewing their website. Just to be clear, I am not saying their articles aren't legitimate, but that under WP:RS we should be cautious using it as a source where there has been no corresponding coverage in other non-biased, mainstream, reliable sources. Here TIME has covered it, but I don't know if that is sufficient. I brought up the procedures at Fox and CNN because under the old RS section (there's been some edit warring there recently), these were factors lending the source to reliability. The page has since been refactored and those principles have been lost but see [15]. I am sure Foxnews would disagree that they have told any "lies" in their news reporting, and am sure the targets of Fair would disagree with your characterizations. But in any case, I agree let's just agree to disagree. I'm not going to edit war over this and my objections are duly noted.Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 00:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I definitely agree that caution should be important in considering what is reliable. As far as your reference to WND being conservative, I also agree. They even have an article claiming soy milk makes you gay. But your original point regarding this was that Fox News and CNN don't declare a political leaning, so they deserve the benefit of the doubt as an RS. I was just, essentially, trying to point out that since neither FAIR or WND declare a clear affiliation, there is very little difference between Fox News, CNN, FAIR, and World Net Daily in terms of reliability. They all have their leanings, and none of them admit to being politically affiliated (with the exception of FAIR somewhat). I personally consider none of them unbiased as a whole, but will admit that some of their articles/stories aren't biased or unreliable, meaning I think these articles/stories should be looked at on a case by case basis to determine if they are reliable. I'm sure the subject of reliability of a source on wikipedia could be debated endlessly, especially when clear and definitive standards aren't stated. Makes it kind of unfair for us but that's life I guess. --Ubiq 00:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This matter appears in Time as an example of an alleged mistake that really is NOT a mistake. At the risk of posting a great wall of text:

Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words "Ann Coulter lies," you will drown in results. But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors. One of the most popular alleged mistakes pinging around the Web is from her appearance on Canadian TV news in January, when Coulter asserted that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam." Interviewer Bob McKeown said she was wrong. "Indochina?" Coulter tried. McKeown said no. Finally, Coulter said haltingly, "I'll get back to you." "Coulter never got back to us," McKeown triumphantly noted, "but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam." What he didn't mention was that Canada did send noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972.

If the Vietnam material goes into the article, it should not do so under color of deception. It is an alleged mistake whose allegation doesn't stand up under professional fact-checking (verbatim citation above). Lou Sander 13:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

So I'm guessing that you are now agreeing that it is notable, but simply stating that it shouldn't be included under the color of deception, which is something I agree with. Kizzle's passage is not deceptive in any way, so are we ok with it now? Let me know. --Ubiq 18:48, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

1) The event is not notable on its own. It is but one of hundreds of interviews she has done. It is two years old and has mostly been forgotten.

2) A clear demonstration of its wider relevance to her notability has not been made. Attempts have been based on indirect, subjective opinions.

3) Time looked closely at it and found that the troops business is a "popular alleged mistake." Maybe it could be presented as an example of alleged errors that are something other than errors. Lou Sander 19:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

"So I was wrong." - Ann Coulter on CSPAN. --kizzle 20:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Lou:

1) You are not saying anything you haven't said before. Just because an incident is old or that she has done other interviews relates in no way to notability.

2) First you were saying "clear demonstration of its relevance to her notability". This was before I provided evidence of its notability with the articles above. Now you are saying "clear demonstration of its wider relevance to her notability." Your standards for including this increase with every bit of evidence that's been provided to you.

3) The topic is not about whether what she said was a factual error. It was, in coincidence and technically, a true statement (though she admitted being wrong). The topic was about her credibility, which was shown to be poor in the context of the interview. --Ubiq 20:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Jesus Christ people (don't edit my comment). If you don't like reading mountains of text than go find another talk page, as there are more than several issues being tossed around here.

• Notability: As I have stated before, I'm not a huge proponent of its notability, and to answer Ramsquire's question, there were no interviews that were scheduled solely to deal with her assertion. But, you have the Time piece, CSPAN interview, FAIR, WorldNetDaily, and a shitload of views on YouTube (which is obviously not an objective measurement) covering a single, specific question in a one-hour program on CBC. So while she was never scheduled to come on and discuss specifically her controversial assertion on say Hannity and Colmes, CSPAN, Time, and the CBC website thought it fit to cover this one specific question out of an hour-long program. It's not as big as the Jersey Girls, but its more notable than many of her comments. Given the doubt, and the fact that the proposed passage lets her have the final say, and that it's only 3 quotes, we're not violating undue weight, nor WP:NPOV. Lou's criteria of notability consisting of "It is one but of hundreds of interviews she has done" is ridiculous, as so was her interview on the Today Show where he asked her about the Jersey Girls comments, and yet we cover that.
• Time Piece: I have no problem including Time, but I frankly must vehemently disagree with than not including the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting criticism of Cloud's piece. The Time piece is inarguably an opinion piece, and while it comes from a major reputable news source, it is still an opinion piece. Leaving out the other side, which is best represented by FAIR's critique, is failing adhering to NPOV. Yes, FAIR is a liberal-leaning organization, but for what they exhibit in slight partisanship, they more than make up in WP:V. Hell, Drudge is abashedly partisan and yet Wikipedia uses Drudge as citations, primarily because what he says can most of the time be verified. In FAIR's (and MediaMatters btw) case, these things can be verified through the transcripts and date of broadcasts they publish along with their critique. WP:BLP and its corresponding criteria for sourcing, WP:RS, says that we must be "careful" of using partisan sources, but when that source superbly satisfies WP:V, then I believe it merits inclusion. Subsequently, I proposed earlier to have a brief paragraph afterwards, mentioning the Cloud piece as well as the FAIR criticism of the Cloud piece, but that was rejected by others here, so I kept it brief and simple: 3 quotes and a re-direct link on a question that got specifically covered in Time, CSPAN.
• Rant (optional read): I have heard the mantra that Lou and other pro-Coulter people have constantly re-asserted: Bob McKeown was wrong. Why was he wrong? Because you say that Coulter didn't necessarily mean "military" troops when she said: "Canada sent troops to Vietnam". The word "troops" could mean non-combat "troops" as well as combat "troops". Thus, there are two issues to consider: First, whether Ann Coulter was right:
  1. That Coulter was referring to the non-combat definition and referring to the 240 non-combat peacekeeping troops in order to "contain" the "threat" that Vietnam posed, and thus, while her mea culpa subsequent to the interview never mentioned these non-combat troops, she was absolutely right.
  2. That Coulter was referring to the combat definition, and, like she explicitly said on CSPAN, she was wrong.
• The second issue is whether or not McKeown was right:
  1. That McKeown was referring to the non-combat definition of "troops", and thus was absolutely wrong, as at least 240 non-combat peacekeeping troops were sent to Vietnam.
  2. That McKeown was referring to the combat definition of "troops", and thus was absolutely right, as Canada never sent any combat troops.
• My question to you then: If we're going to give Coulter the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she meant non-combat, then why can't we give McKeown the benefit of the doubt and assume that he meant combat troops? --kizzle 20:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't have said this better myself. --Ubiq 20:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

So Lou, are you arguing that Coulter was wrong when she said she was wrong? If so, that's your original research - the fact remains she admitted making a mistake. That you don't think she made a mistake is irrelevant. Sixth Estate 20:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

By the way, John Cloud of Time Magazine calls this issue "one of the most popular alleged mistakes" and yet we can't even mention it? --kizzle 21:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Kizzle, you've stated repeatedly that you are not a huge proponent of its notability. Well neither are Lou and I. So why is this debate so ongoing? If it has questioned notability, why even begin to address how to present it. Shouldn't we reach a consensus on notability first? That is my larger point. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 22:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the event is as notable as the Jersey Girl incident, but I do think it's notable enough for inclusion. See my above post on notability as well as my immediately prior post pointing out that Time Magaine called this issue "one of the most popular alleged mistakes". --kizzle 22:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 23:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not our job to determine whether Bob or Ann are in fact right. We don't have to play philosophic games with their phraseology; in fact, we must not do this. Stitching together conclusions from primary sources is the definition of original research, and Wikipedia is not a publisher of OR. Following the secondary sources, we can write a passage that describes the event, notes the plausible validity of her statement (citing Time), then questions whether such treatment is too sympathetic (citing FAIR). fin Cool Hand Luke 01:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Removed image

I have removed the fair-use Time Magazine cover per Mindspillage's mailing list post regarding the foundation's new copyright policy - [16]. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:35, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you know the protocol on removing images? I'd like to remove the ones from X-Wing since they're copywritten/fair use images. Kyaa the Catlord 14:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I expect that we'll shortly have a substantial reduction in fair-use images. I would be shocked if X-Wing images survive a re-tightening of the FUC - the relevent text is

"Some Wikimedia projects use media that is not free at all, under a

doctrine of "fair use" or "fair dealing". There are some works, primarily historically important photographs and significant modern artworks, that we can not realistically expect to be released under a free content license, but that are hard to discuss in an educational context without including the media itself. Because the inability to include these works limits scholarship and criticism, in many jurisdictions people may use such works under limited conditions without having license or permission. Some works that are under licenses we do not accept (such as non-derivative) may meet these conditions. Because of our commitment to free content, this non-free media should not be used when it is reasonably possible to replace

with free media that would serve the same educational purpose."

There's currently a discussion at WP:AN about how far this will go. I believe in free content and oppose fair-use in general, and welcome this. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

So I can go around and just remove the linking? (I'm such a n00b.) Kyaa the Catlord 14:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I read the email. Does it apply to quotations from copyrighted written works? Seems like it should, but all the email says is "media." Aren't Time and C-SPAN "media?" Lou Sander 15:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's refering to images. Quotes will remain fine. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Only if you have a thick enough skin to handle the backlash from removing pictures of spaceships from an article about spaceships, which might be severe, regardless of how right you are. On that one, given how I see the community operting, you might want to wait for the giant purge which should be coming soon. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Teehee. But I'm evil! :P Kyaa the Catlord 15:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Clear demonstration

Ann Coulter once criticized the Jersey Girls. The episode appears in her Wikipedia biography. I offer this as a clear demonstration of its relevance to her notability:

• Coulter's criticism was very widely read: it appeared in a book that topped the New York Times bestseller list
• It was very widely discussed in mainstream sources afterward
• Hillary Clinton denounced it on the floor of the U.S. Senate
• Rahm Emanuel denounced it on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives
• 9/11 Commission member Tim Roehmer, speaking as an individual, also denounced it
• Clinton, Emanuel and Roehmer were all importantly involved in the nationally very important 9/11 investigations that led to the Jersey Girls becoming notable.

Lou Sander 21:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Phew, thank goodness you didn't address any specific points above! That was a close one! --kizzle 21:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thing is Lou, I think everyone concedes that the CBC interview is not as notable as the Jersey Girls comments. The question is, is the mention of it in TIME (and in other sources-- whose reliability I dispute), and her subsequent discussion of it on C-SPAN sufficient to state it's notability. Whether it happened two years ago, yesterday, in te 80's is irrelevant. Was it notable when it happened? I don't know, and lean towards it being not. Other's disagree. Ramsquire ^{(throw me a line)} 22:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

They haven't done too well at providing a clear demonstration of its relevance to Ann Coulter's notability. The hopefully clear demonstration of the Jersey Girls' relevance hopefully shows what such a clear demonstration might look like. Lou Sander 22:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's what your argument looks like Lou: Let's say I don't want Hakeem Olajuwon to have a Wikipedia article. I want to argue that Hakeem Olajuwon isn't a well known or popular person, so I list the number of people who know who George W. Bush is, the number of people who talk about him, and the number of people/groups that support him. I come to the conclusion that Hakeem Olajuwon is not well known because not nearly as many people know who he is, so in conclusion, he shouldn't have a wikipedia article. The fact is, they are both well known, just George W. Bush is more well known. There are degrees/levels of certain things, like how well known someone is and the notability of an event. All you demonstrated was that the Jersey Girls incident was very notable, but you did not demonstrate that the CBC interview wasn't notable. --Ubiq 23:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The material is challenged on the basis that it appears to be biassed or possibly malicious. Its up to those who want it in the article to provide a clear demonstration of its relavence to Ann Coulter's notability. Until they provide it, it is up to the rest of us to insist on seeing it. I am an editor of Wikipedia. I DO see the proposed material as biassed and possibly malicious. I AM insisting that the clear demonstration of it's relavence to Coulter's notability be provided. I need to see it so I can be sure the material isn't biassed or malicious. Where is it? 209.247.22.60 23:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If she admitted the mistake herself, then how is it either biased or malicious? --kizzle 23:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do explain how the proposed passage is biased or malicious. Providing evidence or citing the actual passage might help. --Ubiq 00:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I just feel that it is an attempt to get biassed and possibly malicious content into a persons biography. I'm almost sure of it in fact. I guess its my editorial judgement. My boyfriends too. Our feelings are strengthened & our assumption of good faith are weakened by the lack of a clear demonstration of this matters relevance to Ann Coulters notability. Please do make it clear if you can. 209.247.22.60 00:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you understand who has to prove what. You are stating that this passage is "biased and possibly malicious content". Yet you are admitting that this is based purely on a judgment from the "feelings" or inclinations from you and your boyfriends. You are also claiming that you aren't assuming good faith because of a "lack of a clear demonstration of this matters relevance to Ann Coulters notability" (Lou?) If you want your "feelings" to mean something here, you're going to have to provide evidence that we haven't demonstrated relevance clearly per WP:N and WP:RS, and that the passage is "biased and possibly malicious" per NPOV. Again, it might help to cite quotes from the actual passage to demonstrate this instead of just reiterating your "feelings". Inclinations don't hold weight in an argument. --Ubiq 01:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and by biased and malicious, do you mean these kinds of edits? [17] [18] [19] [20] --Ubiq 01:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)