Talk:Common Nonsense

Criticism?

There's no negative criticism to this book? You only put glowing reviews in the critical reaction section. That's grounds for POV right there. PokeHomsar (talk) 04:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

If negative reviews from WP:Reliable sources can be located, please feel free to include and reference them.   Redthoreau -- (talk) 06:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is written and presented in a way that gives it a biased tone and partial viewpoint. Suggest that the article be fully revised and/or re-worded to attain a more concise and impartial representation of the subject matter (e.g. removal of non-quotational labels and unofficial names describing certain groups/people/organizations/things; Highlighting author comments in a way that maintains it's value as a quotation without becoming an advocacy concerning subject content or positions). WIthout revision, the scope of the article falls out of range of encyclopedic content.D. R. Shoup (talk) 05:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any particular examples? Because the article just presents what the book is about, and even if you don't agree with the contents of the book, it is balanced in just presenting what the contents are. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I gave examples in my initial post (see: e.g.). Also, I made an assessment concerning the overall tone of the article, relating to the balance of content presentation - not relating to the contents of the book; therefore, the example given IS the overall article. I could make suggestions for what would make a more neutral revision of the article, but if I was going to take the time to do that, I would just edit the article directly. I figured it would be the more considerate thing to give the original author the opportunity to do so before making such a large revision. As such, the tag that I used alerts other editors to review the contents and check for neutrality so as to focus on creating a consensus for driving any necessary revisions - a valid use of the POV-check tag. I will replace it - which I could now replace with a neutrality dispute tag, since there is an active discussion about it, but I think that can be reserved for the time being.D. R. Shoup (talk) 03:39, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

D.R. Shoup, without corroborating sources, your judgment on "neutrality" is simply your WP:OR and not really relevant (see WP:IDONTLIKEIT). You have yet to provide any proof that the article violates WP:NPOV or WP:Undue. The article merely relies on the existing articles that discuss the text of the book. Obviously if reliable sources can be located that take a more critical tone towards the book, they could included as well. However, the work has primarily received favorable coverage in those media outlets that have reviewed it. To proportionally reflect the findings of those outlets is not in violation of Wiki policy.   Redthoreau -- (talk) 04:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

If you are attempting to make the case that there is a proportional representation of findings regarding the work, then that is just one more point of contention that I would identify. If you are content with using pure semantics as a metric for analyzing the equity and neutrality of an article instead of an unbiased, honest assessment of it's content and that content's intended literary effect, it would suggest that your true intent is not related to the primary mission of wikipedia - rather, it shows that your concern is only to manipulate guidelines in ways that are expedient for you. Seeing as this article appears to be a personal project of yours, it is understandable that you might be defensive of criticism, but to do so at the expense of objectivity and reason is nothing short of arrogance.

If you were truly inclined at holding up wikipedia standards for NPOV, you would not take the condescending position of leaving the responsibility for providing opposing criticisms up to whoever cares to attempt to add them, but you would research them yourself; all in the interest of neutrality. As it is clear that you have made no attempt to do this, i.e. no such viewpoints exist on this article, it is arguably clear that this article overly favors the subject material. The case I make for placing the tag is to alert others to this fact, and therefore may be able to include such material as you have suggested, since it seems that you have not made the attempt to do so yourself - even as the main contributor to this page.

I have made no indication that fits WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and made no claim of original research. I am merely making a statement about what the article does and doesn't contain. If you are more interested in arguing about it, than go ahead. I would think it more preferable to seek out greater opinion from multiple editors, instead of attempting to prevent any attention to possible issues.D. R. Shoup (talk) 06:51, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Burden of proof lies on those that make a claim. You claim it violates the NPOV standards, but you can't point to anything. It's not condescending, it's common courtesy that if you make a claim, you don't make others do your work in finding proof for your claims for you. WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE is not about giving the same weight to positive and negative views when all the reliable sources are just one or the other (take a look at the Murder article, no decent sources exist advocating murder, so the article generally views it as unlawful). If there are sources critical of the book, bring them in. If you don't have any, then why should you expect others to have them? I guess reality just has a liberal bias? You are making claims of original research by saying there should be critical views to balance out things, when none have been found. So far, only you appear to have expressed a critical view, and you're not a reliable source. You have pretty much epitomized WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT by saying you're unhappy with the state of the article, while being unable to actually point to any problems, or provide any solutions to such problems. Your claims of POV and undue weight appear to be just rationalizations to express your not liking the article. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I have indeed listed reasons and examples about how this article is poorly worded and structured. If anyone would list which parts of my comments they don't understand, I will try to rephrase those points as best I can. I apologize if they seem like rationalizations solely to support a personal opinion, but they are the rationalizations for why this article does not do it's best to neutrally present itself. I have not given full, explicit suggestions for solutions, but I have made some general ones. However, that can be rectified. D. R. Shoup (talk) 23:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

D. R. Shoup, although it is flattering to have more than 15,000 edits and receive a Wiki lecture from a 3 week old member with less than 30, there are a myriad of errors in both your assumptions and your supposed understanding of Wiki guidelines. To address these sequentially:

(a) Please read WP:AGF. In composing this article I tried to find negative reviews of the book, but were unable to. I was actually surprised that some of Beck's ideological allies did not give the book a negative review or attempt to refute any of its content. As for Beck personally, I believe his course of action was to ignore it and hope it would not receive any coverage - so there aren't even any criticisms by Beck on the book that I could find. If you can locate these, then by all means please include and reference them in the article. I am not even against a "Criticism" section in the article if several sources can be located --- or a section that investigates the purported accuracy of the book, if reviews can be found that challenge the veracity of any of the books claims. The article was composed with the sources that existed at the time that I comprised the article. There was not any effort by me to selectively choose only favorable reviews, however this was all that I could find at the time. If that has changed since, then by all means add them to the article. But don't assume that their absence implies censorship.

(b) "Semantically" I was very careful in the article to attribute quoted statements, to make clear that the utilized words were not Wikipedia's interpretation, but rather the words of the utilized sources. If you believe that artistic license has been taken with any of the remarks in the article, then please feel free to read the utilized refs and make edits accordingly.

(c) This article is not a "Personal Project" of mine. I have worked on hundreds if not thousands of wiki articles over the last 3 years. What is clear however, is that you have committed about 9 of your 25 total Wiki edits (35 %) on vaguely challenging the neutrality of this article (but without any specifics).

(d) The tag you keep using is incorrect for several reasons. (1) The article has not been nominated for a neutrality check - so it is false. (2) The only person concerned with the neutrality at the moment on the TP is you, which is not enough to warrant a nomination or article wide tag. What the tag should really say is "D. R. Shoup does not like this article, because he believes that there has to be negative stuff about the book out there that is missing - however he does not feel like finding it, so please, can someone else prove his assumption right."

(e) I openly accept the participation of any other editors. In fact, presently the only other editor who has chimed in also disagrees with you.   Redthoreau -- (talk) 19:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Redthoreau, I find your attempt to "pull rank" both amusing and puerile - and also somewhat predictable. Since you are so keen on assuming you understand everything that is in front of you, I won't point out why your inability to realize that your assumption about my history on wikipedia could in any way be wrong. Besides, if it truly makes you feel superior, who am I to try and take that away from you?

Not surprisingly, it seems you have not understood or comprehended most of my comments on this matter. I will, however, concede on one point: There is a more concise tag regarding the article which I should have utilized; although even with my apparently "limited" understanding of Wiki guidelines, the one that I used previously was still acceptable - it was not false in declaring it's nomination for a neutrality check, because I was the one nominating it. Given the insignificant amount of traffic this article receives, and of the four respondents on this TP, three have engaged in a discussion on neutrality with one of those three in support of a neutrality check, that makes a 33% consensus for applying such a tag. Since there are a myriad of examples where articles have been tagged under NPOV for even less than 33% of editors in dispute, it seems to be a very valid rationale. In fact, I would even venture to say that the section above this one (talk:Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance#Criticism?) contains another editor that supports the same course of action I am proposing. That would make 50%; or does your "senior" position and really cool two-tone signature on the matter have much more weight than other's? At any rate, since you seem to be big on semantics over quality (are you by any chance a lawyer?), I will include a more appropriate tag using my aforementioned concerns as the basis for it's placement. Since I am well aware that you obviously scoured the article to make sure all of your "t's" and "i's" (and " " 's) were in place after my first post, you can rest assured that I have never challenged the accuracy or existence of any quoted source. But I do think that others would find it a little disingenuous that any critical review sources you have listed consist of contentiously known "ideologically progressive" websites, thereby not lending credibility to any objective analysis of this book's author's opinions. An article being semantically sound is not the sole determinant of the article being well-written or neutral in presentation. Lastly: while trying to put words in my mouth about what I do and don't believe is usually not a good way to debate an issue, it does, however, in this case serve as an example of how you fail to understand what it is in this article that I am challenging - even though I have clearly pointed out the issues concerning the structure of the article. I suppose I could be even more explicit with examples, but it has proven to be amusing to see the misaligned reaction that I have received from such an accomplished wikipedian. While I don't have the greatest amount of time to continue this foolishness on a minor article, if you would like to continue trying to point out my logical faults and "inexperience" instead of putting out the banner to alert others for input, then I may find some time to do the revision this article would benefit from and go forward from there. D. R. Shoup (talk) 23:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

D. R. Shoup, regarding your "history", you are either a 3 week old user with less than 30 edits, or an experienced user operating as a WP:SOCKpuppet against Wiki policy - without revealing your other user name. I'll let you correct me if indeed I was wrong, and you are the latter. In regards to your "nomination" that never and still has not occurred, thus the former tag was factually incorrect. It said that the article had been nominated to be checked, and in fact it hadn't. Furthermore, I haven't done any "scouring" since your first post; in fact I haven't edited the content of the article (other than one minor edit) in weeks. Unfortunately you are recasting my adherence of Wiki policy with regards to adding cited information, as some sinister plot to conceal POV. As I have said and will continue to say, if you can find any negative reviews of the book or any articles that discuss the book unfavorably, then please cite and include them. You have yet to do so, or even prove they exist. You are also free to rewrite any content to make it closer to the utilized references, if you feel that I have unfairly utilized the existing sources. If you spent even half the time locating references, as you have writing TP essays that lack almost any relevant information, then this issue might be resolved already. As for your projection of "foolishness", and supposed lack of time, again, I would implore you to find references that could be added to the article. I utilized those that were available several weeks ago, if new content has been released since then - or if I overlooked any sources that could be used - then feel free to add them. Nobody is barring your participation in the article - in fact I am encouraging it - rather than simply placing an "I don't like this" tag at the top of the article. We are here to echo the existing sources on the matter, and that should be our only goal. You have yet to contribute anything other than your own personal opinion, which might be interesting to yourself, or great for a blog, but is not really helpful in constructing an Encyclopedia. ... apparently intimidating and/or pompous two tone signature ---> Redthoreau -- (talk) 00:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

D.R. Shoup, put up or shut up. Present sources that are critical of the book and specific passages from the article that are POV, or quit complaining. You're not accomplishing anything with your filabustering and tag-warring, actually present evidence for your claims if you want to be taken seriously. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Redthoreau, I will correct you: you were wrong, nor am I the latter. I will say that in no way do I find your signature pompous or intimidating - I said that it was really cool. You would do well to learn when not to make assumptions. Also; did I miss a new policy regarding nominations? Am I now supposed to get permission from a higher authority before doing so? Please inform me if this has changed.

I do not much appreciate intimidation or aggression, Ian.thomson, as being told to "put up or shut up" is not a constructive attitude conducive to healthy debate. It is not my fault that you are missing the points that I am making concerning the articles structure. However, I will end arguing with the two of you, as it is apparent that your concept of what constitutes encyclopedic content is severely lacking. I would even pose the question whether you have ever picked up an encyclopedia in the past, but I do not really care if you have or have not.

I will repeat, the discussion is not just regarding the inclusion or lack of diverse sources. It is the overall structure of the article as it pertains to the book it is describing, which reads more like a review in a newspaper than an encyclopedia article:

* Half of the article consists of quotes from the author, mostly describing either his positions/opinions or the basis for those opinions, and not just about the book itself (e.g. "Beck may mock himself ... but Beck has made an art of ensuring his fans rally around him no matter what. The more he's mocked, the more it feeds right into his game plan."). This should be kept to a minimum, as it naturally adds weight in the article to favor the subject material - his book. This is more appropriate for an op-ed column in a newspaper. It relates closer to running afoul of ADVERT policy.

* The Critical Reception section is more or less a list of comments from external reviewers, and should therefore be broken up and presented so. When they are put together as prose in a paragraph, it gives the impression that the author of the article supports or agrees with the comments that are being referenced.

* The section labeled "Beck Fans Reaction" consists of information that is accusatory in nature and referenced by only one source. Without further verification it is a questionable addition with very little relevance to the reception of the book, and it's inclusion can mostly be interpreted as a statement that demonizes "Beck Fans" by association, and should be removed or heavily revised.

Hopefully these few examples suffice, and are explicit and simple enough for you to interpret as points of contention. I would also ask for you to now give your rationale before removing the most recent tag that I placed, as I have now clearly laid out points that question neutrality of style and/or structure. D. R. Shoup (talk) 02:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Some specifics to work with

D. R. Shoup, if you are neither of those options, then you should reveal your other user name(s). As for nominations, there is a NPOV notice board where one would nominate an article to be checked for neutrality, see ---> Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Nominations are not something that just occurs in your head, they are an actual process. Furthermore, the Template:POV-check tag you were using states: "The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies." Up until your last reply, you did not do this. In addition, per ---> WP:DRIVEBY:

"Drive-by tagging is strongly discouraged. The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort." [...] If your sole contribution to an article is to repeatedly add or remove the tag, chances are high that you are abusing your "right" to use the tag."

There is also an explanation of how an editor should proceed if they believe there is a dispute, namely:

"... on the article's talk page, make a new section entitled "NPOV dispute [- followed by a section's name if you're challenging just a particular section of the article and not the article as a whole]". Then, under this new section, clearly and exactly explain which part of the article does not seem to have a NPOV and why. Make some suggestions as to how one can improve the article." See ---> WP:NPOVD

As for your specifics, (a) The "Critical Reception" section quotes should not merely be a list of statements as you suggest, but a blend of remarks if possible into the prose. (b) The "Beck fans" section, is cited and it is clear that those views are of the author himself - not us as editors. (c) As for it sounding like a review, or relying heavily on Zaitchik himself, that is because at the time of writing the article, most of the references were interviews with Zaitchik or reviews of the book that heavily relied on his comments. We can only use the resources that are available - and to reiterate - you are free to add additional sources, that you believe are better suited. You are also welcome to revise the present wording for more neutrality. I am not even sure that I would necessarily disagree with your desired wording, as you have yet to provide any examples of how you believe it should read. It's possible that I may agree outright with your additions (as it is usually in my Wiki nature to compromise); however you have yet to add anything other than a "drive by" tag. Redthoreau -- (talk) 03:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Too many quotes

Way too many quotes. I propose moving most of them to Wikiquote. Viriditas (talk) 10:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

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