This potato is heated past the surface of the Sun.
editI don't know how many of you are Democrats, Republicans, or from the fucking People's Front for the Liberation of Rhodesia, but it's our job to write a good NPOV for the voting public. Let's hammer a good one out, for the next 90 days and for the historians to come. I'd like to be on copyediting duty, and leave the more sensitive stuff for the others. Our work begins. Encyclopedia Lu (talk) 23:33, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
- Correct and laudable, thank you. As the article creator, I have tried to be evenhanded, but I'm not sure I succeeded. I'd like to get a meaty couple-few sentences from a positive review by someone who can write well and isn't well-known enough for everyone to have an opinion about her, describing cogently and persuadingly why she likes it. Not sure if even National Review will provide that, but probably there's something somewhere.
- I know the article is not going to be able to avoid being problematic here, but wrote the article because it is a quite radical book which Senator Vance has praised, and Senator Vance is important enough now that now and in the future people will want to know that he praises books like this. If Senator Vance wants to walk it back, I think it'd have to be along the lines of "Well, I didn't actually read it, it was described to me by people I trust" which itself would be worthwhile recording for posterity.
- I don't know if the article will be controversial here at the Wikipedia, as almost all editors will feel the same way about the book (dislike) and it would be hard to balance the article with positive stuff. The main task is too avoid too much piling on. We want to reader to walk away from the article not knowing how we feel about the book. Herostratus (talk) 03:16, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
A question of balance
editThere are some things in the article I want to point out. I mean mostly I wrote them, but I'm not sure they're right.
1) The negative quotes are mostly from people who are well known and considered by many to be montebanks, so many will dismiss their thoughts out of hand, while the positive ones are from less-known people whom the reader will mostly not have an opinion (positive or negative). Not sure if this matters, and if it does how to fix it.
2) I put Senator Vance's blurb in a quote box. This brings it front-and-center, gives it more emphasis. Some editors feel that quote boxes can be used to cherry-pick material so that they are not NPOV. I think it's NPOV. I put it there because it's important, not to indicate that we agree or disagree with it or to subtly push some POV. I think most everyone would avow that Vance's blurb is much the most notable aspect of the book, it is what makes the book notable and without it there probably would be no article. So its legit to emphasize it. IMO.
3) Another editor put the positive quotes into notes which require a click to see, and provided a cogent reason. I don't know if that's an improvement -- might well be -- but that leaves the negative reviews front and center in the text -- not balanced. But the text given by the negative viewers is not quotes (they are paraphrasings), so it's not a parallel situation. We could change them to only be direct quotes from the refs... I think that might end up as not quite as good as the paraphrasings... not sure on this one. Herostratus (talk) 03:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)