Talk:Dave Reichert

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Contents 1 Very NPOV 2 Linking to external articles with no article content 3 Bias? 4 changes 5 Pre-election polling: delete? 6 Combine Early Life, Education & Family? 7 views section seems like original research

[edit] Very NPOV

Both this and the Darcy Burner article read like they were written by someone on her campaign staff. I deleted this outright, as it means nothing to the casual voter and as it picks DeLay with the specific intent of hurting his campaign.

"During his term he voted with the Tom Delay 91% of the time."

I also tried to reduce what struck me as NPOV verbiage and selections in his list of votes.

I tend to vote Dem, by the way.

--63.64.174.130 01:34, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linking to external articles with no article content

This issue relates to the last edit Kgrr has done. I don't really understand the value of linking to news articles if those sources aren't used to meaningfully contribute to an article's content. IMO, encyclopedia articles should not be a repository of links. (Google/Yahoo/MSN Search does a great job with that already.) Can we get some consensus here about this? Without any direction, I'm going to start cleaning up the external links that aren't used as reference. Velvetsmog 19:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Velvet Smog, When writing essays, typically citations are divided into references to works actually cited in the text (embedded links) and a bibliography (See Also) which lists the literature generally used in preparation for the essay. Citations in the text are not listed again in the bibliography. I am about to insert a section on (corrupt) campaign finances. The problem I have is factual information about corrupt campaign finances has been systematically removed from several articles I have worked on including this one either as NPOV or hidden in an edit. The links you see is background research material for that claim. Please do not delete the links to materials used in creating the article.Kgrr 15:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes the See Also section is used to refer people to more detail than the level of detail the article presents. I use the See Also section as a link to other important information about the subject until it can be incorporated into the article. Rather than deleting such information, why could you not be collaborative and contribute to the article? Anyway I have gone ahead and inserted a section on dirty campaign finances in the 2004 election section. The references you wanted to delete have been moved up as citations. The 2006 campaign finance trail is also included in the article now and again, the references are now citations. I have deleted many of the links to the newspaper articles. I am building another case in that Reichert has been subject to Quid Pro Quo to his campaign sources rather than to his constituents. His recent shift from hardline Republican to moderate may be an effort to correct that. I have to gather the evidence first before I write the article. Those articles are in the See Also section.Kgrr 16:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Let me just be clear. If the content referrenced is being used in a meaningful way in the article, I see that as a benefit. Whether it's an inline citation or a list of references at the end of the article, that's up to style and author's choice. However, I was taking point with the addition of external links with no addition of substance to the body of an article. (I've also seen this quite a bit at Kyoto Protocol). Velvetsmog 19:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bias?

Excerpt from "2006 Campaign for Re-Election" : "the Republican party's [...] anti-environmental stance" That is interpretating the Republican Party's belief of less government regualtion of the environment as anti-environmental.

Excerpts from "National Security Issues" : "but he voted against preserving the rights of citizens" Again, interpretation. "Reichert in a speech given to the House of Representatives spoke about the tools needed by the police force on the streets today to follow-up on leads to find terrorists, but did not mention the balancing responsibility to protect citizen's rights." The point of the speech was about finding terrorists, the fact that he did not mention balancing responsibility to protect citizens' rights in irrelevant. Why not mention he didn't mention what he had for breakfast?

Excerpt from "Trade Issues": "This plan reflects the Bush administration’s long-term goal of removing tariffs from all trade within the Americas. This plan has faced serious opposition because of the job losses and environmental destruction that NAFTA has brought to Mexico." First sentence is interpretation. Second sentence is irrelevant and is not backed up with fact.

"That is interpretating the Republican Party's belief of less government regualtion of the environment as anti-environmental."

Oh come on now let's call a spade a spade. I am a member of Washington State Conservation Voters this is exactly what we believe it to be. I could site our statements on the enviromental threats that gutting the enviromental protection laws has had on our fair state. --8bitJake 03:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Statements do not equal fact.--Seattle GOP 23:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Well my freinds in the Washington State Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club of Washington State would tend to know what they are talking about when it comes to threats to our enviromental protections. --8bitJake 04:38, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] changes

The above things have been changed.

[edit] Pre-election polling: delete?

Pre-election polls change too quickly to be encyclopediac. They will be meaningless after Nov 7 anyway. I suggest deleting them. I will make same suggestion on Darcy Burner. rewinn 05:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Combine Early Life, Education & Family?

Would it not be more typical for a biography to combine the information in /*Early Life*/ and /*Education*/ with that in /*Family*/ ? Everything in those sections preceed the 2006 political campaign and so should not be split by it. I see that the same issue exists on his election opponent's page. This split might be appropriate for campaign materials but not in an encyclopedia ... but I hestitate to make such a change w/o discussion. rewinn 06:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] views section seems like original research

Of the thousands of Congressional votes, why are the ones listed here listed? Is this taken from some citeable source? Or did somebody haphazardly put that together? It reads a lot like original research to me, and in any case isn't too useful as an encyclopedia article. More useful would be summaries rather than lists of votes, and preferably citeable ones, like "so-and-so calls him a supporter of gun rights" or "newspaper x calls him foo". --Delirium 07:52, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Given that this section has 26 references, I find it a bit odd to call it "original research" and to ask if it has a citable source. Of course, this has been haphazardly put together - that's the way Wikipedia works. See also Who is responsible for the articles on Wikipedia?. If you feel important votes are missing, please feel free to add them to the list. As for usefulness: I find such a list very useful for people who want to understand a politician, which is something every good citizen should do. How about if you click random page 10 times - how often do you come up with something more useful than this? — Sebastian (talk) 17:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The citeable source is needed for the view that these are representative votes; independent primary-source analysis, even cited to the primary sources, is original research. In an article on a historical figure this would be clear to all contributors---you can't just start digging up archives on Thomas Jefferson and making a novel historical narrative on Wikipedia, but must cite prominent biographies that have been written on him. But for some reason this sort of OR cruft accumulates with more recent figures. --Delirium 14:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)