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You've now introduced factual inaccuracies, based on an out-of-date article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. There have since been five union grievances, which are public, and an arbitration, which contains sworn testimony. However, this all refers to an internal personnel matter which is in the process of resolution and really has no reason to remain in the public domain. I would be happy to discuss this with you, but I would ask that you not make changes that do not now have a factual basis. ThisDirect (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ThisDirect, I added back one fact of the several that you had removed had been removed, so I am confused by your suggestion that my change added multiple inaccuracies. No matter how old the article, that many complaints were made to the school first was reliably reported and hasn't changed.
The audience for the Chronicle of Higher Education is university administrators. It is a fact that there had been years of complaints against a tenured professor that the university had not figured out how to address. Administrators at all institutions have the same problem with addressing behaviour of tenured faculty, hence the Chronicle's coverage. However, in the age of social media, universities can't just ignore these issues. They have to think about solutions and not let problems get to this point.
The section used to read:
As outlined in a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, over the years Watten's behavior, allegedly short-tempered and hostile, had made many students and faculty uncomfortable. In the spring semester of 2019 several graduate students filed new complaints. Unhappy with the response, they set up a blog to collect accounts of his behavior toward students and faculty.
In August you replaced it with edited it to read:
At Wayne State University in 2019, a social media campaign by some students against Watten, alleging hostile interactions, was the subject of an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
With no explanation for why this happened, it looks like students harassing a professor, and that the article was about the social media campaign rather than the university's problem. It is important that Wikipedia articles are neutral and balanced. The article history here shows what a battleground this article has been. I am willing to discuss the wording, but not leave out the university's inaction. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you are referring to here. I decided to clean up this article's numerous inaccuracies, add an appropriate bibliography, and edit and organize it better. What you see now sets a high standard of relevance, I believe. Finally, since these events, Wayne State promulgated a bullying and harassment policy that includes online behavior. I have correlated what happened with that policy; there is overwhelming evidence that this was long-term online harassment. ThisDirect (talk) 15:00, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be happy to substantiate this, but there is a larger question of how much highly contested detail ought to be presented here in a summary of my long and various career. For one thing, the students' manifold "complaints" in their campaign were *not* reflected in the university's action. In the grievance process, the vast majority were dismissed. Your claim that there was a long pattern of behavior was *not* found by the investigation, which concluded there was no such "pattern of behavior." That document is not confidential but has not been published, but there is no need to air this personnel process. Finally, it is *false* that there was inaction by the university. The student who complained in April 2019 was told that her complaint did not meet the standard for action, and she *withdrew it in writing.* That was substantiated in the arbitration. The students' actions were indeed a form of "mobbing"; they attempted to continue it with a defamatory article in the communist party online journal *People's World* last year. That article, containing the same BS as before, was removed on demand as "unverified and unverifiable." That sets a better standard for this case than the *Chronicle*'s reporting, which was the result, again, of the student mobbing campaign. Bottom line: let's return to the previous version. It bends over backwards to be objective, and does not remove the Chronicle articles, which are questionable sources. I will encourage you to do this; if not, I will and we can take it to a resolution process. I hope that is not necessary. This event has blown over; I have returned to my duties, and the students have largely been discredited; many left the program. Please let me know if I can provide any further information on this. ThisDirect (talk) 14:57, 24 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes this has no business being cherry-picked for a career summary; I've had many literary controversies, and they have been written about in academic articles (I have a large secondary literature; Lilian Chaitas's book in particular). This one came to Wiki page because the students were hacking every site they could find. I have documented all of this; I hope we don't have to go down a time-consuming road here. / As for accuracy, the student complaints in the Chronicle were in fact false, and should not be reported as fact. / I can provide more on this (much more) if needed. ThisDirect (talk) 16:05, 25 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the paragraph summarizing a one-sided and inaccurate to the point of defamation paragraph about conflicts dating to 2019. It has been resolved; the details are unnecessary; and it would be impossible to present an objective account in this space for many reasons. Many documents are not in the public domain, for one thing. Please see what you can do to simply put this to rest so that the site can do its business informing those interested in the subject. ThisDirect (talk) 01:49, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the wording proposed earlier accurately states that students had allegations that led to a social media campaign. Both are true: the students' motives are represented and the action summarized. Adding editorializing about "Wayne State inaction" is FALSE--Wayne State did act, but did not agree with complaints until the social media campaign made it a public issue; this tilts the narrative to the student complaints, which were not sustained, and shows bias. Also the removal of PUBLIC DOCUMENTS like the FIRE public letter to the university or the 5 union grievances shows bias in not QUESTIONING WAYNE STATE'S PROCEDURES, which is a part of the story. As well, the summary does not touch on the issue of ACADEMIC MOBBING, which occurred. Because the multiple issues here, please DO NOT IMPOSE conclusions based on INADEQUATE INFORMATION. Because much of this is not in the public domain, and has not been reported, it would be best not to act as if Wiki is the proper place to narrate it. THUS, PLEASE REMOVE THIS PARAGRAPH. ThisDirect (talk) 13:31, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the reasons that you should stop editing this article is that you don't know how. You're here to represent your interests. That's fine -- that's what the talk-page is for (in connection with subjects of articles) -- but you don't know much about Wikipedia policies/guidelines. Edits that you make are likely to be reverted. If you persist, your ability to edit might end up being restricted. That's why WP:COI requires that you not edit an article about yourself. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:25, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No actually I'm trying to make a clean, accurate, and usable page. The lack of knowledge is on the part of you guys or gals--you may know the rules, but you are clueless when it comes to content on multiple levels.
What is a Language poet, for instance? Why is there controversy around that movement? What is a literary movement? What is the avant-garde? How did that affect teaching at Wayne State? What is mobbing? Call-out or cancel culture? How does it work in relation to "outliers" such as avant-garde poets, etc.
The kerfluffle over moving Carla Harryman to the "personal" section shows gender bias to a woman author, who also has a Wiki page (which needs more work, as it is entirely inadequate to the bibliography there). ThisDirect (talk) 17:56, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We can all agree that that is what you're trying to do, but what you're actually doing is shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly. As long as the COI is a live issue it is going to be more difficult for you to get your concerns addressed. MrOllie (talk) 21:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The publication section could likely be trimmed, or split into a list article if it is that notable.
The publication section is comprehensive but could likely be trimmed down a bit. Ideally, it could be discussed in prose format, where we mention the broad topics and themes, with specific mention of noteworthy publications. If the publications are extremely notable, there is enough here in my opinion to justify splitting into a list article. If the publications are not notable enough to be a standalone list, they are likely too excessive for this page. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:21, 26 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is ridiculous. A bibliography is a central element in an article like this; any film director or jazz musician or actor will have a list of works. What is going on with these editors is really ignorant and harmful. Please keep this site accurate. ThisDirect (talk) 13:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@GeogSage: In general in our well-maintained academic biographies, we tend to have at most about 3-4 selected journal/similar publications, but a more complete list of books. I'm not sure what to do with the chapbooks (which I think is most of the "Creative works" subsection) -- perhaps trimming to those that have reviews in reliable sources. I think we could axe the entire articles and book chapters section, but if we were going to keep one article, then I see that "Aesthetic Tendency and the Politics of Poetry: A Manifesto" is highly cited in a lower citation field. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 15:41, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is aggressive and ignorant on your part, not knowing the field in the slightest. I have a large bibliography of secondary sources, including a book-length volume, two dictionary entries, multiple chapters written on my work. There are three Cambridge Compendium summaries of Language writing that mention my work prominently.
@Russ Woodroofe This is what I was saying and agree with. The list is a bit excessive compared to what I've seen on other academics pages, and could be converted to prose. Rather then listing out the papers, we could write about them, including the number of articles, journals that they commonly publish in, and note key articles while listing books. If they are noteworthy, we could create a list article.
@ThisDirect, to point to some examples I've worked on. Arthur Getis is one of the most influential researchers in my discipline of geography. The publications section has a short paragraph describing their journal articles, followed by a list of some of their books. Another example, the single most influential geographer in the past century is likely Waldo Tobler. His research and publications section is a summary of the content of his research/publications, not a list. Because his publications are extremely noteworthy in the field in of themselves, I created a separate list article Waldo Tobler bibliography. In my opinion, this is the ideal. @ThisDirect, I'm really not an invetested editor in this, I'm just trying to follow what I've seen done on other academic biographies and make the page better. While I don't partially think COI rules make a lot of sense personally (I think that if something is verifiable and noteworthy, it doesn't matter who adds it or works on it. I think that if a rule is unenforceable, like banning people from editing their own Wikipedia page on a website that allows anonymous editing, then it is a silly rule. I also think that the people who know the most about topics are often involved in that topic to some degree. I won't be the one telling you not to edit your own page.), you seem to be struggling to discuss this topic without feeling personally attacked.
I also highly recommend you read the WP:BLUDGEON. I recommend you also read the page WP:Ownership of content. The last comment you made would likely not look good if this talk page were to be brought to the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard, and I don't think you're aware of the Wikipedia etiquette. I think you probably have a lot of knowledge on your topics of interest, and think experts are very valuable to the project, so I really don't want to see you chased away or hit with sanctions there. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 16:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from User talk:StarryGrandma § Barrett Watten