Talk:John Sullivan (Oklahoma politician)

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

This page is about an active politician who is running for office or has recently run for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some current political conflict or controversy. Because of this, this article is at increased risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.

Biography: Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Oklahoma: Tulsa Mid‑importance

	Oklahoma portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Oklahoma, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Oklahoma on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OklahomaWikipedia:WikiProject OklahomaTemplate:WikiProject OklahomaOklahoma articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Task-force Tulsa.

Conservatism Low‑importance

	Conservatism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Conservatism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of conservatism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ConservatismWikipedia:WikiProject ConservatismTemplate:WikiProject ConservatismConservatism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

U.S. Congress Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Congress, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United States Congress on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.U.S. CongressWikipedia:WikiProject U.S. CongressTemplate:WikiProject U.S. CongressU.S. Congress articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is about one (or many) Person(s).

Number of illegal immigrants[edit]

Contrary to some recent edits to this article, there is no debate that there are 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Even though that figure was written on campaign literature distributed by the Sullivan campaign (which I saw with my own eyes), no credible institution touts that number as accurate. The Pew Hispanic Center, "a nonpartisan research organization supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts," one of the leading think-tanks in America, reported 12 million or less. Wikipedia's own article Illegal immigration to the United States also uses that figure, as do international news organizations, such as Reuters, and famous research institutions, such as Yale University.

Please do not inject non-NPOV language or weasel words into the article. It is critical that all claims have serious, reputable sources behind them. Poldy Bloom (talk) 06:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arrest Status on Assassination threats against US Senators[edit]

I have twice posted a status on the arrest/detention for Rep. Sullivan's assassination threats against US Senators. Twice, it has been deleted, probably by his staff. It is in the public interest to see how long it takes for someone to get arrested for assassination threats against US Senators. If a member of the general public made the threats, the arrests would have been immediate. Coming from a coalition that brought machine guns to town hall meetings, Sullivan and his people should be taken at their words on such threats. 173.28.218.168 (talk) 00:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Serious BLP issue[edit]

Hello, I would like to bring editors' attention to a serious issue in this article. Information has been added to the "Personal life" section of this article that appears to violate Wikipedia's guidelines for biographical articles. In particular, I wish to bring attention to the section titled "Criminal record", which includes allegations by a former opponent and information published by the media regarding the Representative's arrest record. I understand that this is notable for the arrest record being a subject of debate and media attention during his campaigns, however I think that it is misleading to create a whole section based on arrests over 20 years ago. Following an unbiased review, if editors believe the information should remain in the article, I would like to suggest that the specific details of arrests be removed, along with the heading "Criminal record", and the information should be moved into the section of the article dealing with his political career. Because I work for Representative Sullivan, I do not wish to make these changes myself. I invite editors to undertake an unbiased review of the section and make such changes if you are in agreement with my assessment per the BLP guidelines. Thank you in advance. --EdwardDC (talk) 16:31, 3 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined. The suggested edits are good, but the reviewer felt omissions in the content may create balance issues.

I appreciate the edits made to this page over the past few days to improve it, but I'm still concerned this section is misleading, not properly based on sources, and in my interpretation still a BLP problem. I notice that the two sources originally used are dead links, so they are not much use in verifying details, and the second half of the paragraph has no sources at all. I've found two sources that are on the web that deal with this issue, both local and national. I'm not aware of any coverage since 2004. Some other issues to consider: he was a minor, he was not convicted, the current wording makes the fight appear one-sided when it was not. I very strongly believe the details should not be included, but I understand that it was a campaign issue once, so some mention is warranted. Here's what I'd suggest instead:

During the 2004 re-election campaign, Sullivan's police record was questioned. Local media concluded that, at age 27, Sullivan failed to appear in court for a traffic violation and a bench warrant was issued. Media reports also noted several minor alcohol related incidents that occurred when Sullivan was a teenager, although records indicate no charges were ever filed.^[1]^[2]

^ Myers, Jim (October 24, 2004). "Details emerge about hopeful's arrest record". Tulsa World. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
^ "Rep. John Sullivan (R)". Almanac of American Politics. July 15, 2003. Retrieved 9 August 2012.

Thanks in advance for consideration of this matter. --EdwardDC (talk) 18:24, 9 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the Red Pen of Doom made the edits. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 17:53, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

King4057, the edits have not been made yet, this was a follow-up request asking for a change in wording to the material that's now been moved into the section titled "Elections". I believe TheRedPenofDoom made edits following my initial request but has not returned to the page yet after I added the above request yesterday. For now, I've reactivated the edit request. --EdwardDC (talk) 18:43, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. Sorry about that. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 15:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about the assault on a police officer incident? Your version appears to omit that, unless you're folding it under the alcohol incidents, which I don't believe is exactly appropriate. I mean, a significant portion of the first reference you're using is discussing the assault. Silver seren^C 23:42, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Assistance with wording regarding Dave Pearson[edit]

Done

Above I explained that I work for Representative Sullivan and my goal here is to make sure that information in this article is encyclopedic, neutral and follows Wikipedia's guidelines for biographical articles. One area of the article that needs to be revised is the paragraph focusing on Dave Pearson. This was not a major event for the Representative and the explanation here seems overly long. Not to mention, I see that the sources are a blog and a letter from the campaign treasurer to the FEC, neither of which are preferred sources for Wikipedia, based on what I have learned. While arguably the events should be included, a summary would work better and be more encyclopedic. I've written the following to suggest as replacement text for the current paragraph, with new sources from the Associated Press and Tulsa World:

In 2003 former campaign consultant Dave Pearson filed an FEC complaint against Sullivan over a disputed debt. FEC officials did not address the merit of the complaint filed by Pearson, but in the settlement the commission "cited a law that requires even disputed debts to be listed on campaign finance forms." Sullivan negotiated a settlement with the FEC in 2004 to list the disputed debt on his FEC filings.^[1]^[2]

If this meets with the approval of editors here, can it be added into the article replacing the current text? Thank you in advance. --EdwardDC (talk) 21:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

the whole incident appears to be WP:UNDUE - i have removed the whole paragraph. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:31, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

to display footnote data[edit]

^ "Sullivan negotiates settlement of FEC complaint". The Associated Press State & Local Wire. August 27, 2004. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
^ Jim Myers (August 27, 2004). "Sullivan, FEC settle complaint". Tulsa World (Oklahoma). Retrieved August 7, 2012.

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on John Sullivan (Oklahoma). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:03, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 7 external links on John Sullivan (Oklahoma). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:09, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

[TulsaWorld-1] Myers, Jim (October 24, 2004). "Details emerge about hopeful's arrest record". Tulsa World. Retrieved 9 August 2012.

[NationalJournal-2] "Rep. John Sullivan (R)". Almanac of American Politics. July 15, 2003. Retrieved 9 August 2012.

[Associated-3] "Sullivan negotiates settlement of FEC complaint". The Associated Press State & Local Wire. August 27, 2004. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

[Myers-4] Jim Myers (August 27, 2004). "Sullivan, FEC settle complaint". Tulsa World (Oklahoma). Retrieved August 7, 2012.

[1]

[2]

[1]

[2]