Talk:Aaron Coleman

Page violates Wikipedia style guidelines on balance, accusations of crimes for public figures and tone

While the subject of this page, Aaron Coleman, is quite a controversial figure who has done questionable actions, this page has been written in a way that is clearly hostile to him. I do think the sources are legitimate, but mostly negative information taken out of the sources without the other parts. I believe that the rules of Wikipedia biographies are being violated in multiple parts:

Balance:

"BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. Summarize how actions and achievements are characterized by reliable sources without giving undue weight to recent events. Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking. BLPs should not have trivia sections."

The page mostly talks about recent scandals of Coleman, while neglecting anything positive about him. It does not discuss the nature of his campaign beyond one sentence and even talks more about a sex exhortation bill than it. This clearly violates the balance part of the guidelines.

Accusation of Crime

"In the case of public figures, there will be a multitude of reliable published sources, and BLPs should simply document what these sources say. If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out.

Example: "John Doe had a messy divorce from Jane Doe." Is the divorce important to the article, and was it published by third-party reliable sources? If not, leave it out. If so, avoid use of "messy" and stick to the facts: "John Doe and Jane Doe divorced." Example: A politician is alleged to have had an affair. It is denied, but multiple major newspapers publish the allegations, and there is a public scandal. The allegation belongs in the biography, citing those sources. However, it should state only that the politician was alleged to have had the affair, not that the affair actually occurred. If the subject has denied such allegations, their denial(s) should also be reported."

Not only does the article take a negative tone regarding Coleman, but frequently neglects Coleman's denials, his reasoning for them and the lack of convictions in many cases. For example, "On December 8, 2020, Kathleen Lynch, a Wyandotte County, Kansas judge, issued an anti-stalking order against Coleman after Brandie Armstrong, the campaign manager for Frownfelter, accused Coleman of sending her harassing messages, showing up at her home uninvited twice, and attempted to get her evicted." there is no statement from Coleman, no information that states that it was temporary and clearly slanted against Coleman.

Tone

"BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves. Summarize how actions and achievements are characterized by reliable sources without giving undue weight to recent events. Do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources. Instead use clear, direct language and let facts alone do the talking. BLPs should not have trivia sections."

The article is clearly written in a passionate tone against Coleman, while using loaded language and giving undue weight to recent events. For example, "supporting abortion up to the moment of birth" is clearly loaded and could easily be made in a neutral tone of "supporting abortion".

Overall, the article is improperly written in an inappropriate way toward Coleman. Almost none of the sources cited have a negative tone as dark as this article and this place seems to be more of a dark list of allegations than a biography about a person.

Orange1861 (talk) 01:37, 1 January 2021 (UTC)Orange1861

Well sourced information, this seems to be more about whitewashing his past.VViking_TalkEdits 14:52, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Orange1861, I agree with your analysis of the violations of Balance, Accusation of crime, and Tone.

1. Balance: This page reads as a sin list of an individual instead of a through review of a person. The article quickly skims over the subjects policy beliefs or thoughts on issues. Also, balance is violated when sins are mentioned and no reply by the subject is included about those incidents.

2. Accusation of crime: This page does assume guilt upon the subject on a number of matters where even the underling articles cited as sources say "alleged".

3. Tone: I agree that none of the sources are as polarized as any language used in this article.

Overall, my thoughts are this article is due for a blanket deletion, While some sins could be left if well balanced with significant uplift to include more details about the induvial (platform, ideas, voting record, etc.). As is, the balance of the article is violated by it being 90% poorly toned accusation's of crime OsagePizza72 (talk) 15:20, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Changes I would recommend,

1. deletion of anything that is out of date, dropped, or dismissed without any pending action. 2. Deletion on paragraphs focusing on other elected officials and not Coleman himself. 3. Revised language throughout, mostly in the "Abuse allegations" sub-section to improve tone and balance. 4. Last and most importantly, major focus needs to be added about Coleman's policy and platform, inorder to balance with the rest of the article OsagePizza72 (talk) 16:18, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I've added 9 citations needed. I will allow two weeks for non-involved editors to reply to my request for help and to my comments on the talk page before making any further changes. OsagePizza72 (talk) 16:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Most of these were trivial fixes, like the article saying 'would be denied' where it can now say 'was denied'. -sche (talk) 19:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I am logging off wiki. I do not feel anyone on here is really having a conversation with me and I'm done projecting into the void

If anyone establishes a consensus... I will return. OsagePizza - OsagePizza72 (talk) 03:56, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

consensus OsagePizza72 (talk) 06:57, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Deviant

There's been some back and forth over the word "deviant" (someone added it, I removed it, the user above re-added it, Jorm rightly re-removed it), so I just want to point to MOS:LABEL, particularly "Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, [...] or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution." In this case, it seems best just to describe what the acts were. -sche (talk) 19:34, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. It appears you are correct on the word usage in this case. OsagePizza72 (talk) 16:49, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Dissmissed / dropped claims

The subject has had a number of actions taken against him, only for them to be dropped. I have removed portions that are no longer relevant/out of date and made numerous tone of voice improvements throughout the article only for them to be reverted.

This appears more about establishing a list of dismissed sins than about creating a bibliography about a person.

I would strongly suggest my changes be un-reverted, and that considerable effort and energy be used to add sections discussing subjects beliefs/policy/etc in order to improve the balance of the article.

OsagePizza72 (talk) 16:37, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

It's not clear what you mean by "no longer relevant/out of date". Provided we sufficiently explain when something happened, a complaint cannot be out of date no matter if it was dropped. If a complaint was dropped but out article doesn't make this clear, then our information would be out of date and we do need to correct this. However correction may mean adding the new information about the complaint being dropped as supported by a reliable secondary sources. A dropped complaint may still be relevant to understanding the subject if it was a significant. For example for a politician, a complaint which generated significant press coverage or feedback especially if it has a reasonable effect on their campaign or their ability to function in office, is likely to remain significant enough to keep. From what I can tell, the ultimate point is this is a very new politician who has received a lot of coverage generally negative, and a lot of criticism from various parties because of various things they either did or allegedly did in the past. Some of it was when they were very young, but since they are still in their early 20s, it still receives a lot of attention especially since the stuff they did or allegedly did are major things likely to have caused significant harm to other individuals. Further, some of the more recent allegations have similarities. Probably the way the subject handled this during the campaign didn't help. Given all this, it's likely that the article will including a lot of fairly negative stuff. We do have to make sure we maintain WP:NPOV and ensure WP:DUE weight, but unfortunately for the subject, the balance is likely to be in the negative side as reflected in reliable sources. It doesn't help that the subject only recently succeeded in gaining office, and is young enough that there are really no life achievements before that either so there's very little to talk about. Frankly this is the sort of article I wish we'd just delete for now but I doubt there would be any support for that given the sourcing. Nil Einne (talk) 12:20, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Something you said stuck with me. That no matter the fairness of the editor the article's balance will be in the negative. And than you talked about just deleting the article. And this could be an option, but I think his page should be locked by an admin until after his re-election. That way as you said, he is able to grow as a person and more for us on Wiki to warrant writing about

Of course, I hold no authority or respect on this website. just my 2 cents that I am in agreement with you OsagePizza72 (talk) 18:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

" Green Polo Man" / Imposter episode AP NEWS

John Hanna with AP article / source Backup: https://apnews.com/article/kansas-09c93644e0cd0fcccf76588dda132333

Today, I felt, instead of moaning about how other people should quote on quote"add content to the article" -- That I would finally write something up for you guys. Enjoy!

[Untitled Section] (more senior wiki writers can pick title if they want to help with programing it into the Article)

In late July and the two weeks preceding Saturday, August 7th,2021 a man went door-to-door in Kansas City. On a private Facebook group for local residents, people shared two home-security system photos of the man and a third showing the man on a scooter.

“This poses an extreme danger to members of the public,” Coleman said Monday. [1]

Coleman has been campaigning door to door, including Saturday August 7th,2021, and said he would be nearby on any street supporters visit. Coleman also said he and his team wear blue campaign shirts, while the alleged impersonator did not.

^^^ / end new section.

Easy work you guys... hope you are proud! Really it was not much work... just copied and pasted from AP News and rewrote to match grammar, etc,

Thanks!

08-10-2021, OsagePizza OsagePizza72 (talk) 03:04, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how this is useful to add to the article. It seems a completely random minor story which involved Coleman in a very limited fashion. Further if the above text is meant to be something we can copy in the article it's not. Part of it, the bit about Coleman campaigning door to door seems to be directly lifted from the source so introducing it into the article would mean we are introducing a copyright violation. Please take a read of WP:Close paraphrasing. And the part which isn't doesn't seem to adequately summarise the information. From reading the source, it seems that person said they were campaigning for Coleman but the above text doesn't mention this. This is significant because otherwise the connection to Coleman is almost non existent. Okay he complained about this person but so what? His complaint also makes no sense without this context since how is someone going door-to-door an "impersonator"? (Likewise your "imposter".) But further, even with this context, the source doesn't mention if these is any support for Coleman's allegation that the person is an "impersonator". Even if we accept the basic claim that the person said they were campaigning on behalf of Coleman but was not an official part of Coleman's campaign team, it's unclear from what Coleman said if this person ever claimed to be an official representative. I don't live in the US but I'm fairly sure there's nothing stopping US citizens from campaigning for whoever they want except some limited funding restrictions since it would violate the first amendment so a person saying they are campaigning for Coleman demonstrates. Even if they said they were campaigning on behalf of Coleman, this could be interpreted in numerous ways so although it may be understandable Coleman felt the person was an impersonator in that case, there is likely to be disagreement that it's enough. Probably the reason the ref is so limited is from what I can tell, all it's doing is reporting something Coleman said. There doesn't seem to have been any independent verification of what was said in these Facebook groups, nor of the security camera footage presented, demonstrating why we should not include any of this without at a minimum far better sourcing. I suspect the reason the sourcing is so limited is because of my first objection i.e. it's a completely random minor story which even if true had no real significance. As a final nitpick, the ref is not properly integrated into the text. Nil Einne (talk) 11:54, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I would kindly ask that you read the current article... do you feel as none of the current content is a "story which involved Coleman in a very limited fashion."? But I digress

And I think you are right that we should wait on a 2nd source for this before moving forward. OsagePizza72 (talk) 18:22, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

too long

The lead section seems too long and overly detailed. Same w/the section on Kansas H. of Representatives. My edits to those sections have been undone. Not really sure about why. 35.141.91.127 (talk) 02:43, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Just tried again to clean up the lead. If there are any issues, please bring them here instead of doing blanket reverts (User:Adakiko). 35.141.91.127 (talk) 18:20, 19 May 2023 (UTC)