Talk:Anthony Phan

Unsourced material/cleanup

This article has very few sources for its material. I'm going to do what I can to clean up.

I can't find any mention of the following things outside of Wikipedia, so I'm removing it:

• Phan's biography and education
• his nonprofit, Think 22 Silicon Valley

Probably not notable enough to mention:

• Selective Service Board. From what I can tell, Selective Service doesn't even publish a full list of its board members, and there are thousands of them, so I'm not sure if being one is a notable enough to mention anyways.
• University of California Student Association, which is essentially student government

Other things I'm cleaning up:

• Referring to him by his surname rather than given name
• His website is just a parked page, so I'm removing it.
• Added a source for his age when elected.
• WP:FLOWERY language like "insurgent campaign" and "trounced"
• The Mercury News editorial cited has nothing to do with Phan, so removed the statement and reference

At some point I think references for the electoral history should be added.

Any thoughts on whether the Mochi magazine article is noteworthy? I'm leaning towards no, but I'll leave it in for now.

If anyone has any thoughts on these changes please chime in. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 21:36, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

California Fair Political Practices Commission

A passage about an investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission was removed by User:Svpols, saying the passage was irrelevant. I don't mean to assume poor faith, but this editor created this article, wrote most of its content, and has not edited any other articles, which leads me to guess that they are close to Phan or Phan himself. I've reverted the edit. The passage isn't particularly well-written and is unsourced, so I'll clean that up. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 22:35, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Concerns about bias / Response to Leealex408

Keeping in mind the concern previously expressed by Zeldafanjtl regarding the involvement of User:Svpols, I have some concerns about recent edits by User:Leealex408, and I am reverting his edits. This user apparently created his account for the purpose of editing this article, and it appears to me that his edits have focused on making the article more favorable toward Phan. After his edits were reverted, he reinstated them very quickly, suggesting some focus on this article. Alex Lee is a generic name, but it is the same name as one of the candidates running against Phan in his current race for State Assembly, who presumably lives in San Jose (which has a 408 area code). Thus, it seems possible that Leealex408 is a rival of Phan's in his current race, or the creator picked the name as an intentional red herring. With that said, forgetting about the identity of this editor, I'd like to address the edits.

Leealex408 first changed the description of Phan's mailer from "anonymous" to "controversial." This is a small change that I hate to quibble over, but the edit summary seems to show bias from its defensive language. His comments in his edit summary are also factually incorrect. The edit summary states that "Phan clearly took responsibility" and that "the ad was far from anonymous," but the linked newspaper article clearly explains that the mailer in question which the article describes was only linked to Phan due to the fact that a phone number listed online for the committee behind the mailer was the same phone number for Phan's personal consulting business. The mailer went out with no one's name on it, and there were no public names listed for the committee, so it's fair to say that it was an anonymous mailer. Even after being linked to the mailer, it's hardly fair to say that Phan took responsibility until much later given the fact that he initially declined to comment and then had his committee release a statement that didn't use his name. While not included in the edit itself, such a counterfactual yet strongly-worded assertion in the edit summary raises red flags.

His second edit added a number of later developments to the events discussed above which seem to be included to portray Phan in a more positive light. They are mostly fine, but it goes a little off the rails toward the end by mentioning that Milpitas Mayor Rich Tran had recommended Phan as one of two Councilmembers to possibly be Vice Mayor. There are only four possible Councilmembers who could be Vice Mayor; one had already held the position and another was currently holding it, leaving Phan and one other. As such, it is pretty insignificant, and seems to only be included here to portray Phan's relationship with Mayor Tran in a positive manner.

His third edit deletes a portion of the article that described an incident in which Phan pulled out a bag of popcorn during a Council meeting and interrupted a constituent speaking during public forum. Leealex408 says it is "common for elected officials to have exchanges, even heated ones, with the public," and that he is "not sure how this is relevant." I disagree with this is common behavior from elected officials, but I'm not sure what the relevant Wikipedia guideline to refer to would be.

Leealex408's fourth edit is the one I take the most issue with. He deleted a portion of the article describing a very noteworthy incident in which Phan harangued one of his public employees during a council meeting, simply saying in his edit summary that the account "does not actually contribute to this article" because "it neither illustrates controversy nor provide any insightful information related to the individual's biography." Alex408 does not refer to any Wikipedia guidelines, so it is unclear to me how he differentiates between what is relevant and what is not relevant, and it seems to me that this user consistently finds things which do not reflect well on Phan to be not relevant.

With this in mind, I am reverting the edits. I am sorry to make any accusations of bad faith, but I would rather express and explain my suspicions than say nothing. If User:Leealex408 would like to clarify his edits, I am more than happy to listen, but if he is going to delete content in such a manner I think he should be able to reference the Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines when making his case. My surface and my buried roots (talk) 02:08, 8 January 2020 (UTC)