Talk:George Monbiot

MuttGirl 12:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Aristocratic back ground

Surfing the web I noticed that since Xmas all reference to Monbiot's aristocratic background and Tory family connections has been deleted. Even the sympathetic Sourcewatch site says this: "Monbiot's ancestors, the Ducs de Coutard, fled the French Revolution, and changed their name to Beaumont. Monbiot's parents Raymond and Rosalie were leading members of the Conservative Party in Oxford. He was educated at Stowe, and Brasenose College, Oxford. (Independent, 9 May 1995). He was made a fellow of Green College, by Sir Crispin Tickell."

Any reason for this?

Copyright?

This article seems to have large chunks lifted from Monbiots website (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2000/06/09/about-george-monbiot). However I can't find any indication of copyright on the website, so not sure where we stand. Any thoughts? AndrewMcQ 19:26, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have written to Monbiot about using stuff from the site, and received the following reply:

David Hi
 
If the articles are more than a year old go ahead and use them
if they're not you have to clear it with The Guardian. 
The person to contact is: penny dot jones at-sign guardian dot co dot uk.  

Good luck.
 
Best wishes
Sandy Kennedy
Assistant 

I've obfuscated the address to discourage spammers. — Chameleon 14:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

So we're OK with copyright but how are we with the ethical issues involved in someone effectively writing his own wikipedia entry? Would it not be better to have some independently-written biographical details instead?

Since convention is to take subjects' accounts of their lives at face value unless there is specific reason to believe otherwise, I can't see this raising any ethical issues as long as relevant independently sourced and written details are inserted. FrFintonStack 02:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a quality issue here though. It's unusual for an independent biographical article to be based so heavily on the subject's own opinion of himself. A near-verbatim transcript of the subject's autobiography may be OK as a starting point (subject to copyright clearance) but the article is nearly two years old now, and it hasn't developed beyond an "autobiog-by-proxy". The ethical issue is that an autobiography cannot have a neutral point of view, by its very nature. Factoid1000 10:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Carelessness?

Although the conribution by 62.252.64.18 (talk · contributions) may be benevolent in intent, we should not forget the previous version, and check to see if nothing has been lost on the way. Shinobu 02:23, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A more free picture

I replaced the picture by one I took at the make poverty history rally (stop the war stage). It does not require a origin tag and thus seems better. However he is not quite as smiley. --JK the unwise 12:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The presence of an origin tag is neither here nor there. Both pics are under a Creative Commons licence. — Chameleon 08:49, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Sources

Would it not be better to move the reference at the bottom to some kind of "source" section, like with other pages? If we can find the Telegraph article in question, that would also be good.—This unsigned comment is by 86.3.20.47 (talk • contribs) 5 September 2005.

Done, well the moving bit anyway.--JK the unwise 09:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Books

I’ve made an attempt at doing a write up of George Monbiot’s books to date since the main article doesn’t really mention them. I’ve assumed Amazon Watershed and Mahogany Is Murder are the same book with a different title but I’m not certain as I can’t find Mahogany Is Murder in print. Anyone know? --MuttGirl 01:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Niall Ferguson

The article stated that Monbiot shared rooms with Niall Ferguson while at Brasenose - but Ferguson went to Magdalen, not Brasenose, according to both his wikipedia entry and official website. So I removed the reference to him, but if there's some obscure reason why they did share rooms, feel free to put it back. Imran1985 09:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Rooms is probably the wrong word in this context, but Monbiot wrote that they were "housemates" two years ago. Philip Cross 23:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree from the article linked above it seems they shared a house in their 3rd year.

Deletions

I have removed a sentence stating that Monbiot has argued for a worldwide ban on air travel as I don't believe he has ever argued for that though he has argued that a vast reduction in air travel is neccessary. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I have also removed the sentence "despite his credentials, Monbiot is frequently criticised for insufficient fact-checking and for refusing to acknowledge serious journalistic errors" from his biography. While it's entirely legitimate to include criticism and it's true that Monbiot is often criticised, most major journalists' articles are followed up by letters contesting their facts and I don't see any particular evidence that Monbiot is criticised more than others in this way so I don't see why this should be given a sentence within his biography unless it's included in most other journalists' biographies. A more appropriate way to include criticism might be to include a criticism section with any significant criticisms from prominent figures. I'm happy to discuss this though if anyone thinks I am wrong to delete it.MuttGirl 20:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Good call: a letter to his newspaper pointing out fairly minor factual errors in one of his articles is hardly an appropriate referencing of the above claims (particularly the 'frequently'). If there is a reference to someone making the above allegations, it should be reinstated but in its absence their inclusion comes across as weasel wordsFrFintonStack 18:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

No: Poorly referenced material is usually flagged up with a "[citation needed]" reference, to invite further research by contributors. It is not a reason for immediate deletion. Deletion is a last resort, not a first resort. A dispute about the word "frequently" can be addressed by deleting just this word. It is not a reason for a bulk deletion. Wherever possible, deficient content should be improved, not deleted. Factoid1000 11:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, please see Wikipedia's Biography of Living Persons policy which states, "Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately". Secondly, this is not a case of the contributor just neglecting his/her source, where flagging might prompt them or others to provite relevant citations. The source that prompted the claim did not support it, and that undermines its credibility in a more fundamental way, and makes it much more likely that a supporting reference does not exist. Thirdly, it's highly doubtful that a short letter to a newspaper meets Wikipedia's notability criteria. If we were to include everything that had been written about Monbiot, this would be a very long and boring article. Deletion was the correct course in this instance.FrFintonStack 18:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Hagiography

This article reads like a hagiography rather than an encyclopaedia entry. Since Monbiot appears to have inserted the entire thing himself the negative assertions against others should certainly be called "claims" unless sourced -- as with other such negative Wiki content.

Also, no one is "hospitalised" by security guards unless they are moonlighting A&E staff. Colloquially, one could say someone was hospitalised by a broken leg but not by the ski's he was using.HommeVert 17:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a discussion regarding you first paragraph further up on this page. Encyclopaedic convention is to take subjects' accounts of their own lives at face value unless there are specific reasons to believe otherwise. The information was not inserted by Monbiot, but some of it was taken from his own site. Again, discussion of that further up. Admittedly, the 'biography' paragraph could do with citing its sources, even if these are Monbiot's own work.

The use of 'hospitalised' in the sense that the actions of said security guards led fairly directly to his admission to hospital, is common, legitimate and widely accepted. FrFintonStack 18:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The "Moonbat" epithet

This article came to my attention when I noticed that, after three years and about 200 edits, it still closely resembles the subject's autobiography on his own web site. The Wikipedia guidelines (see Wikipedia:Autobiography) discuss the problems with using autobiographical material in a Wikipedia article. Please read these.

The sequence of events in the original removal of the "Moonbat" reference is striking:

The text was vandalised (by author 84.65.174.255) on 16 November 2005, and further vandalised (by author 68.101.70.186) on 17 November 2005. The vandalism was deleted without restoring the original text by author 63.167.237.65 later on 17 November 2005, and the lost text was never restored.

Vandalism should be fixed with a revert to the preceding version. The "vandalism-then-deletion" cycle can result in material being inadvertently removed, and it is sometimes used by unscrupulous authors to mask a deletion.

I restored the vandalised text, which had been present for a significant period of time prior to its accidental deletion. Please read Wikipedia:Editing policy#Major changes, Wikipedia:Etiquette and Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes#Deleting... about deletion policy. In general, text should be improved, where content is present. Outright deletion is deprecated. Please avoid perpetual reverts to the subject's autobiography.

The epithet "Moonbat" is in common usage, its use is not a "rumour" - It usage is referenced to an article within Wikipedia itself. It is used pejoratively by conservative commentators to insult liberal thinkers in general, and Monbiot in particular. This may be because of its similarity to Monbiot's name, although the origin of the epithet is disputed. (The disputed origin is certainly not grounds for deletion). Factoid1000 11:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair point about deletions. I'm just unsure as to whether the term should be made a 'see also' unless it has particular significance to Monbiot, seeing as the term is only rumoured to be related to his name. Maybe it should be a 'trivia' point instead?

I agree about the biography, I think it really needs to be rewritten though I wouldn't say that that the whole article hasn't progressed from what's on Monbiot's site - all the information on his published works which makes up half the article is new. With the biography, I think its legitimate to have a list of his honoroury professorships and awards he's won and the section on his family has been added by wikipedians. The main issue I have is with it are the two paragraphs about his foreign work and protesting - it's more colourfully written than you'd expect of an enclycopedia. I'm sure we can agree on a way of editing the article that will make it more original/neutral. MuttGirl 12:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

"seeing as the term is only rumoured to be related to his name": The term's origins may or may not be linked to Monbiot's surname. The term's current usage is plainly associated with Monbiot, irrespective of its origins. The "See also" section of an article is frequently used to include "lateral" connections. The "See also" section with the "Moonbat" reference was present for much of 2005 without complaint, before being accidentally deleted. There was never a case made for deleting it at the time. Factoid1000 14:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

...but I think in 2005 most people genuinely thought it originated from Monbiot's name - the entry on the moonbat page was only updated to say Perry de Havilland denies that origin (he has said that he used it before he knew or met Monbiot) in 2006. But I accept its associated with his name so I don't mind it being mentioned, I just think to make it a prominent feature could be misleading. MuttGirl 19:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've restored the term as a "Miscellany" item, to address your concern about prominence. There's a slightly longer and fully referenced discussion of the term's use and origin. Factoid1000 10:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

"Clinical Death"?

"He came back to work in Britain after being pronounced clinically dead..." As it stands, this reads as some kind of claim to resurrection - could the original author re-write it and provide a reference please? Factoid1000 12:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

"Extreme Left-Wing?"

Should we really be calling him an "extremist"? It's an inherently subjective analysis; doesn't comply with Wiki's NPOV standards. Taken out, again. If you'd like to change it back, please provide a reason; otherwise, leave it alone. Thesobrietysrule 07:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The word has point-of-view connotations. If it is generally agreed that someone is at the far end the political spectrum, it might be appropriate to refer to them as "far left" or "far right" but extreme always has negative connotations. I would use "far left" to refer to the farthest ends of the political spectrum on the left - Marxism and Anarchism, neither of which fits Monbiot's politics so I don't think you need any addition to the word 'leftwing' here. MuttGirl 15:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who advocates world government is by definition far left. The far left have for more than a century dreamed of a world government run by them. In this world government they will crush all dissent, cancel all INDIVIDUAL freedom and "re-educate" those who oppose them. --82.156.49.1 01:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)