Talk:Joe Barton

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Climate Change

Please provide factual and neutral point of view in entries, per Wikipedia guidelines. The facts on Rep. Barton's record speak loudly and clearly enough about his positions that commentary is not needed. References to criticisms should be included where appropriate. Jason Coleman 23:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the Environmental Record section take up more than half the article? Surely that is not the only thing that is important about this congressman. And if so, then there is clear bias in this article. Gregweitzner (talk) 15:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2006

page need to be updated for 2006 election 64.132.172.213 19:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quote section

Quote sections should be avoided in Wikipedia articles. Please try to work the quotes into the existing text or remove them altogether.--Gloriamarie 21:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The quotes section seems to mostly consist of inflammatory remarks made by the senator; and many are given without much context. This section should certainly be removed. 209.242.154.132 (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Long quote sections are often a problem. I've moved this one to Wikiquote. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 21:53, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it ramble on about oil?

The Criticism section rambles on about oil prices and oil companies as if someone is trying to paint a picture of the oil industry and it is very opinionated in stating that prices were 'too low for the likes of oil companies'. Also, nothing in that section has references. It's more like a kid's blog than an encyclopedia entry.

House Resolutions

Is the list of resolutions Rep. Barton has introduced worth having? It's basically just http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&Db=d110&querybd=@BANDNOT(@FIELD(FLD003+@1(00062))+@FIELD(FLD008+(m))). Reb42 (talk) 06:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Followup

I'm going to remove this listing, and add a link to thomas.loc.gov. Reb42 (talk) 06:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

College Football Playoffs

Someone should add someting about his call for BCS playoffs to determine #1. --76.31.242.174 (talk) 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism section

I am deleting the criticism section and the subsections for it:

Oil: The section does not have a sufficient amount of reliable sources. The first paragraph is not sourced, and the only source in the second paragraph is a liberal blog. The third paragraph is predominately not sourced. The only source in the fourth paragraph is a dead link.
Hurricane Katrina: The only source here leads to nothing. Besides the section is written like a BLP violation. Point seems to be to try and prove that he lied about it. Material purely used to denigrate an individual is a violation of WP:BLP.
Autism: So just because Don Imus doesn't like it, means it is a controversy? Besides the act eventually passed anyways. The Red Peacock (talk) 19:02, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Barton's comments about Alaskan oil with regard to Dr. Chu's testimony are noteworthy and indicative of both his scientific and political views. Removing them claiming NPOV:UNDUE is specious at best, since these can be sourced from a variety of places besides Think Progress. Regardless, you do not claim that this specific source or the others are incorrect nor explain why they are not a "sufficient" number of sources. What do you mean by this? Insufficient to prove that he made these comments? Additionally, I would challenge you to show the cited sources do not meet the burden for verifiability. I'm curious as to why you later remove a second time but then claim NPOV:RECENT instead, changing your removal rationale; to quote NPOV:RECENT "Recentism is not by itself an argument for article deletion". The fact that you change your justification for deletion seems, at least to me, to be evidence that you are removing material simply because it is critical and attempting to justify such removal after the fact. I would ask that other editors please comment on what I have written here before I restore these edits. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.249.178.66 (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2009 (UTC) He is a true tool of big oil. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.117.142 (talk) 23:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Random votes

We have entire sections devoted to short paragraphs on the subject's votes on:

Congressional Vote on Financial Bailout
Healthcare Reform

There's no indication that these are especially important votes for him - he isn't listing as the author or sponsor of either one, nor even a notable supporter. Like all of his colleagues he's voted on numerous bills while in Congress. Though the material is verifiable, it seems like undue weight to pick these two bills for special treatment. Any objection to removing them? Or what about just condensing it to a sentence like "he opposed X, and voted for Y and Z"? Will Beback talk 07:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

JOE BARTON ARTICLE BLATANTLY BIASED

This entire article which was writeen immediately following Barton's comment regarding a "shakedown" and BP has a clear and obvious bias throughout. It assumes that the reader should agree with the author about healthcare legislation, "global warming," and a variety of favorite lefty causes, despite a growing discontent with the hard left agenda currently being forced on the public by the current administration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.225.112.57 (talk) 10:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This "entire article" has been written over the last 6 years, starting 01:13, 29 August 2004 (UTC). I would not call the agenda of the Bush administration then in charge "hard left", although it certainly was unpalatable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:15, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Environmental Record

Clearly this section was written with a strong bias regarding Congressman Joe Barton's views on the environment. It appears to have been written with an agenda to demean the Congressman. It is very poorly cited and the references given at times do not correlate with the text written. For example, the second paragraph says "Barton has consistently acted over the years to prevent congressional action on global warming." This sentence is backed up with a reference regarding a Washington Post article that only mentions Barton once, saying, "the panel's top Republican, Joe Barton (Tex.), does not believe human activities contribute to global warming." Obviously, this says nothing about his record of preventing "congressional action on global warming." Because Congressman Barton is a living person, this article is subject to Wikipedia's standards on biographies of living persons and all information on this page must be verified or deleted immediately. Eaglecap Backpack (talk) 19:02, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because the user has created the paragraph headline "Environmental Record", this does validate what has become a clearly biased sounding board of deliberations on the congressman's record. "Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies, along with "Verifiability" and "No original research." This lengthy section plainly has not been written in the spirit of Wikipedia's fundamental policies and should be deleted or heavily revised. Wikipedia is a free-content encyclopedia created to be a reference of factual and non-biased information. This is not the Huffington Post. Kristoffer Lance (talk) 23:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are certainly issue with the Environmental Record section, but the section does not strike me as "clearly written with a strong bias" as Eaglecap states and Kristoffer Lance implies. Indeed, some of the tags and complaints seem poorly considered, such as the citation needed notes at the top. The points raised there that are marked as "citation needed" are extensively discussed below. The contention that all content must be verified or deleted immediately strikes me as bizarre given the extensive citations, though citations could certainly be improved. The contention that Barton has a record of preventing action on global warming is well documented in the congressman's own words, though more effective citation would certainly help. Barton has repeatedly and consistently disparaged attempts to address global warming because he does not believe it is happening and/or is caused by humans. His trip to Copenhagen is strong testimony to his opinions on the matter. Statements that he holds such opinions are not POV. Even his supporters agree that he is seeking to block action on global warming, and they think that such prevention of action is a good thing. The assumption (on the part of the reader) that it is "bad" may be POV, but the reporting of the position is not. If some believe that "demeans" the congressman, that is an interpretation created by the reader.

That said, I agree that the section needs significant cleanup. This includes citations - I noticed that several links have multiple dead link tags and assume one or the other should be removed. On the dead link front, while dead links are problematic they are not necessarily "wrong" - most of them appear to point to government publications, so finding appropriate offline citations for them may be possible and would be sufficient (if they support the text, of course). However, as the content seems to be largely correct and the tone does not come across as terribly biased, I am curious what the POV contention is with the section. It seems that editors are reading value assessments into the facts presented. While cleanup is called for, perhaps reducing or removing some of the more editorializing commentary (even if well cited), deletion is unwarranted given the significant focus of Barton's tenure in Congress on energy issues and his high profile opposition to global warming action. --Moretz (talk) 11:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the story with the "original research" tag. I see no justification for that one, and none is provided here in talk. It may be an honest mistake, but it makes it look like like someone is trying to disrcedit this section by throwing trouble tags around. I am removing that tag, but if there is solid grounding for it, please add it back and provide some more detail.