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*'''No''', that diff shows a badly needed purge of ]-violating content. ] (]) 08:12, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
*'''No''', that diff shows a badly needed purge of ]-violating content. ] (]) 08:12, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
*'''Comment''' Summoned by the bot, It is reasonable to delete the unsourced content which the removed section had several. But there were sourced content in that section too, and I don't think they should be removed along with the junk stuff. There has to be a way to include them without conflating it with unsourced or poorly sourced commentary. I don't agree with the accusation of COATRACK. The content was directly relevant to the article subject, albeit sketchy in some parts.]<sup>]</sup> 13:24, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
*'''Comment''' Summoned by the bot, It is reasonable to delete the unsourced content which the removed section had several. But there were sourced content in that section too, and I don't think they should be removed along with the junk stuff. There has to be a way to include them without conflating it with unsourced or poorly sourced commentary. I don't agree with the accusation of COATRACK. The content was directly relevant to the article subject, albeit sketchy in some parts.]<sup>]</sup> 13:24, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
*'''No''' the selective edits are not harming the neutral POV. ] (]) 15:41, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
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Lyndon LaRouche is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.
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Sources
LaRouche lived all his adult life in New York (1953–1983) or Virginia (1983–present), which means the two major newspapers of record are The New York Times and The Washington Post. Both have written extensively about him, including several extended investigative and analysis pieces from the 1970s to the 2000s. These articles provide the structure of much of this article—in that we highlight what they highlight. For their archives on LaRouche see below. For the books we use see here.
Mintz, John. "The Cult Controversy", The Washington Post, includes a series on LaRouche.
Christopher Toumey
This article seems to rely heavily on commentary by someone named Christopher Toumey. Who is he, and what makes him an authority? The source links seem to be broken -- they all lead to something that says "Toumey 1996", but that's the end of the line. What is "Toumey 1996"? Not the original Jack Bruce (talk) 16:16, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Toumey, a cultural anthropologist, published Conjuring Science: Scientific Symbols and Cultural Meanings in American Life in 1996, which discusses LaRouche's claims about AIDS and his false assertions of scientific authority (pp. 84-95). Xelkman (talk) 01:55, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding me
Ten days ago I tried to initiate a discussion about a source that appears frequently in this article, Christopher Toumey, who seems to have no stature as a commentator. Also, the quotes from him in the article cannot be verified online. It looked to me to be something that fell short of Misplaced Pages's policies on sourcing. Ten days have gone by and there has been zero response on this page. Meanwhile, some fellow has repeatedly deleted a huge swath of the article with no discussion at all, including material that is sourced to serious news publications with a circulation in the millions. I thought that the policy was to discuss any major changes in an article. I'm sorry, but Misplaced Pages seems to me to be playpen for people who do whatever they damn well please, with no responsible oversight. How could anyone take it seriously? Not the original Jack Bruce (]) 14:19, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
At least five experienced generalist editors have reverted this hagiographic content, Not the original Jack Bruce. There is no consensus for its inclusion. On the other hand, you show all the signs of being a "throwaway" single purpose account engaged in a slow motion edit war determined to keep this stuff in the article, and not a person who is here for the broad purpose of improving the encyclopedia. This is not another LaRouche controlled publication. Your efforts are unlikely to work here. Sorry. CullenLet's discuss it07:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
It is clear to me that this article needs trimming. It is too long. The thing that struck me was that it seems to rely on "indy" commentators who may not be reliable sources. I identified one of these commentators, Christopher Toumey, in a post on this talk page, and waited to see what others would say, because that seemed like the most responsible way to proceed. No one responded. Then an editor came along and without initiating any discussion, deleted a very large segment of the article. I reverted the deleting, making a request for discussion on the talk page, which was ignored. A second editor deleted again, saying (in an edit summary, not on the talk page) that the sources were sketchy. Among these "sketchy" sources were the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, UPI, Xinhua, People's Daily, and Russia Today, all major publications.
One of the deleting editors left a message on my talk page in which he advised me to read BRD (he later denied having left that message.) I read BRD. It advises editors to make a "bold" edit (deleting a sizeable part of an article seems to qualify) and then "If your bold edit was reverted, then do not re-revert to your version." It also says "Discuss the edit, and the reasons for the edit, on the article's talk page. Leave the article in the condition it was in before the Bold edit was made (often called the status quo ante)." As well, it says "Discuss on a talk page: Don't assume that an edit summary can constitute "discussion"." None of these policies were followed by the deleting editors. I would be happy to discuss proposed deletions and if reasonable explanations are offered, I won't object. I would also like to get a response to my question about Christopher Toumey. Not the original Jack Bruce (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I've answered your question in the previous section. This took me less than five minutes of searching on Google. Xelkman (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't mean to single anyone out in particular. If you check the history you if see their is no consensus for inclusion or omission, and there has been over ten reverts. Why do you think the material should be included or omitted? Jonpatterns (talk) 11:04, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
In February, a large amount of material was deleted from Lyndon LaRouche. The only explanation offered, in one of the edit summaries, was that the sources were "sketchy". Among the sources for the deleted material were the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Corriere della Sera, and Xinhua. Other material sourced to these same publications was retained in the article. The deleted material depicted the subject in a relatively favorable light, while the retained material was unfavorable. Requests for an explanation on the talk page have gone unanswered. Should this article be considered non-neutral and display the "neutrality dispute" message? 75.27.248.232 (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
No, the article has not been made non-neutral by the removal of text which tried to make LaRouche seem like a respected thought leader in global politics when he is actually a fringe character. It's not the removal in February that made this article non-neutral, it was the much earlier additions of such text. So the removals fixed the problem. Binksternet (talk) 00:56, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
So, just to be clear: in your few, the source, for example New York Times, is not the problem, but rather that the viewpoint was incorrect? So we retain the negative comments from that source, but purge the positive comments? That's an odd approach to neutrality. 2602:304:B1BF:8E80:949E:1039:4EE1:D41C (talk) 16:26, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
There was one statement sourced to The New York Times: a Mexican official told The New York Times that LaRouche had arranged the meeting by representing himself as a Democratic Party official. That's hardly a positive statement. The problem is that it was included in a larger block of content misrepresenting LaRouche as a major figure in world politics by throwing out a whole bunch of insignificant meetings. See WP:COATRACK and WP:UNDUE. clpo13(talk)16:36, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
Comment Summoned by the bot, It is reasonable to delete the unsourced content which the removed section had several. But there were sourced content in that section too, and I don't think they should be removed along with the junk stuff. There has to be a way to include them without conflating it with unsourced or poorly sourced commentary. I don't agree with the accusation of COATRACK. The content was directly relevant to the article subject, albeit sketchy in some parts.Darwinian Ape13:24, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
