Talk:Zack Kopplin

Vandalizing Section on National Influence

The information presented in this section is referenced. One user keeps deleting the section. First they are claiming that the subjects discussed in this section didn't hear the challenges Kopplin issued to him. That is actually incorrect, the challenges were covered in the media, and both Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann were directly approached, as can be seen in the sources. Bachmann was specifically asked in person about Nobel laureates and did not answer, there is an audio clip.

Secondly, even if the objects of these challenges didn't receive them (which is incorrect, but to grant the possibility), it would still be relevant to have this section because Kopplin's work and challenges were covered in the media, including on MSNBC.128.42.223.146 (talk) 19:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

they dont specifically mention him - unless da vids say it ws from him there's no reasn to include it. also ur obviously him since u have his school's ip address stop tryin to make wiki glorify u for stuff u didnt do 208.54.64.161 (talk) 22:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, the page does seem to really overplay the role its subject played in the elections - the candidates were asked thousands of questions, directly asking one and being the inspiration for a second (that got maybe 90 seconds of speech total) shouldn't be put in the terms it was, like there was some great crusade and challenge. And it does seem pretty fishy that the one defending that happens to have Kopplin the younger's IP address... Perfect Purple Pyramid (talk) 00:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain a large number of students attend Rice University who might share that IP address, so I'd rather not jump to conclusions. Wikipedia has a fairly clear policy about Conflicts of Interest, but policy also states that "When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence and requires that Wikipedians must take care not to reveal the identity of editors against their wishes" (WP:COI, emphasis mine).

128.42.223.146, if you have a close connection to the subject, it might be beneficial to declare the potential conflict of interest here, which could go a long way to establish the good faith of your contributions and facilitate discussion here on the Talk page about improving the article. Nmillerche (talk) 00:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Recent rewrite

I just reordered a lot of the page. In total I changed:

• Many of Kopplin's critics don't seem to like the fact that he is a viewed as national figure and there have been attempts to make him more marginal through the wording of his page. For example, In the section on textbooks, it had been edited so that Kopplin was described as a "volunteer," when the secondary sources give the impression that he played a vital role in these discussions.
• One place that seemed to cause special controversy was the influence section (originally national influence). I've removed that section, and hopefully that should help fix some of the problems. Instead, I've added the information about Kopplin in the media to the first section.
• The Michele Bachmann section has been moved out of influence and into Education activism. I also fixed it so that it actually reflected what was in the secondary sources (the Huffington Post and Gambit articles).
• I also made small changes in the Second Giant Leap section, the intro, and the personal life sections.

GovtStBulldog (talk) 01:21, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, it is worth noting that Perfect Purple Pyramid made an edit that only changed "National influence" to "influence." That point is now irrelevant with the section removed, but it's clear that Kopplin is an international figure. It's one thing to be opposed to him, and edit in good faith. It's a whole different thing to make bad-faith and biased edits solely with the purpose of diminishing the importance of the figure.

Again, with this section removed, hopefully this problem should be less troublesome, but in the future, it would be good to avoid edits of this nature. GovtStBulldog (talk) 01:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)