Talk:Bernard Marshall Gordon

Problems

Of course there are some problems with this article and there were right from the start of development. I recognize that according to Wikipedia policy the sources are my problem as so far I am the principle author. The main problem of course is that Bernie Gordon is more of a current figure than a historical one so the historians have not yet had a chance to work him over. But so are many other persons written about on Wikipedia in that category.

So, what we have about him are articles recently published, which are all on the Internet, I am sure. I used a selection of these. There are the following questions:

1) Are they third-party; that is, sources who are not directly involved? Obviously, not all. Bernie wrote an article referenced here and he is definitely not third party. But then there is the question of whether primary sources are always to be excluded! Many ancient sources were definitely primary, such as Thucydides and Julius Caesar, when they write of events in which they participated, and yet Wikipedia uses them all the time. The policy, in other words, like many legalistic documents, does not and cannot capture every case. If you need to quote someone, who is better than the persons themselves? To quote someone else quoting that person is redundant. There is no doubt that some of the sources were definitely biased in Bernie's favor. Others were not. I ignored the bias, but, you know, just because someone's actions or lives may look good, your saying that is not necessarily bias. Who has anything bad to say about St. Francis?

2) Are they accurate? Due to the lack of historical assessment I had something of a problem determining which of the material was accurate. An author would get something wrong and that would be repeated. This caused a certain deficit in understanding some aspects of his life, such as what he did on the DE. Was he the commander? Nobody says. They don't seem to know. But then, this is a problem not at all unique to this article. There are many errors in Wikipedia about living persons. We should not repeat an error just because it can only be corrected by reference to a primary source.

3) Are they reliable? Well, I chose only the most solid material that everyone seemed to know. It seems to me reliability is an issue for any source of any period and distance from the original event.

I would appreciate the public's input on this article. Is it original work? Is it all non-third-party? To what extent is it verified?

I have no axe to grind myself. I do not currently work for Analogic although it has been in my sphere of primary cognizance. I do not know Bernie personally and have nothing personal to gain by writing about or not writing about him. The article came out of light exchanges at the coffee table with lymanschool. I do think the person who placed the templates may be being a bit harsh on lymanschool and may be interpreting Wikipedia policy more severely than was intended. Bernie is a famous living person. There are plenty of articles on those.

What would you like to see for sources? Does anyone know of some printed material on Bernie?

I don't personally care if the article goes or stays. I would like to see good articles on Wikipedia. It is not a good thing to open up the Internet and find material on which you cannot rely, just as with any other mass medium. If this article has merit it should stay. If in the final analysis it is judged propagandistic or inacccurate or Dave's biography of Bernie, it should go. If I did not think it would pass I would not have put it there.

What do you think, Wikipedia public?Dave 12:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC

Questions

I found it strange that in the Marriage and family section of this article, Gordon’s first wife was summarily dismissed, while his second wife is described in great detail. Rather than “after a period of years” exactly how long was he married to his first wife? What was her name? Did she contribute to his success as an entrepreneur, and shouldn’t details concerning the children they had, be included? Following the “it was not working out” the next sentence begins with “Late, at approximately age 32, he married Sophia…..” For clarity, the reader would like to know what is meant by “Late”….. when did he first meet Sophia, when was he divorced, and when did he marry Sophia? I am sure the person who wrote this biography (maybe Botteville, or ?????) can supply the details concerning Gordon’s first Marriage and family. Since Gordon is still alive , maybe he could do so?

Replies

I dont think there is any question that his patents are reliable third-party sources. Also there are others already listed in the references. Maybe there needs to be some of those "[1]" links pointing to them? I dont know how to do that yet. Practically eberybody knows bernie gordon. I dont understand the problem. Ee signal 15:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at Bill Gates. If nobody has any problems with that article, I can't imagine why anybody would disapprove of this one. Gordon is a saint compared to Gates. Ee signal 23:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

"Ee signal", I believe you are right when you say it just needs more "[1]" links. The quality of an article and how well it is supported by other sources has nothing to do with the subject's ethics or "saint-hood" status. Comparing this page to the Bill Gates article, this article has arguably no formal "References" section but the Gates article has 60 references which are conveniently associated with the passages in the article in its "Footnotes" section. That, in my option, is the main reason this page was tagged with a {{Primarysources}} banner. It has not as much to do with the reliability or WP:NPOV of the sources. Sure, sources can be unreliable but say you had the choice of verifying the secondary sources of statements in this article or the Bill Gates article. The later would be much easier. Adding references is easy, you can either just put brackets around web addresses at the ends of the appropriate sentences. For example, right in the summary section at the top, it mentions $120 million in philanthropy and gives a direct quote from Mr. Gordon, all it needs to back that up is "[http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2005/07/18/story3.html]" at the end of the quote. For more sophisticated formatting, see Template:Cite web and Template:Cite news or just hit [edit] in any section the Gates article to see how they do it. --Georgeryp 21:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

This article was completely ridiculous. Did he write it himself or something? Hold your praise for your blog, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.97.110.142 (talk) 19:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Mr. 32.97.110.142, gosh, is that your real name? Your minimal edits have been mainly on musical instruments. That you should stray so far as here indicates to me you have your own reasons. We can safely ignore you, I think. Now, for the rest of you, this article is my fault. It is certainly not true that there are no 3rd-party refs. I didn't do the references right, being inexperienced at the time. No, Bernie did not do this article. He has more important things to tend to. I did it. Gordon is an important inventor and philanthropist. So is Bill Gates. So are a lot of Americans. That is what we are all about, you know? Wikipedia is to some extent a Who's who, just as it is a musical encyclopedia, a classical encyclopedia, etc. etc. If you don't like the way I did the article, do another one. Stand behind your words. Actually I don't like the way I did it either. I'm going to rework it starting at the bottom. I always do things backwards. It will take a while as I got other WP projects I would like to do. If you see a way to improve it, step in. WP invites editors. And, if you see a way to fix the Bill Gates article, on behalf of WP I invite you to edit that too. As for the tag, well, I generally leave those on until the issue has been solidly addressed. The circumstance that some of you don't get yet is, you are not being invited to get nasty, you are being invited to contribute. Yes, you. Can you do that?Dave (talk) 03:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

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