Talk:Bowling for Columbine/Archive 3

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Notable criticisms without a good source

I'm trying to find a way to expand the criticisms section without having to go to dubious sources. Unfortunately that seems to be a really hard thing to do. The only sources I can find online for some of these are from personal websites with really no credibility. However since I've heard of these criticisms I'm assuming it's notable. What we need is people to come up with good source for these things. Books or other movies would be good ones. Please help. DJ Clayworth 13:48, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Start with re-adding the notable sources first. Then make a to-do list in this talk space or in your user space with those claims that are hard to source, and help keep those claims out of the article untill a source is found.--GunnarRene 14:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The question is what is considered notable? Schrodinger for example considers none of them notable unless they are in the film industry. We need to come to a consensus on what is notable, I for example consider both Kopel and Hardy notable, but I honestly don't consider Bushnell notable (note that I removed him from my edits). I also disagree with the placement, I think that criticism of specific scenes should be in that section or at the very least we should have the scene fully described with a link to the section describing it so we don't have criticisms that are pages long because they have to describe the scene again. PPGMD 15:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

One would think that for matters of fact the normal news sources would be considered authoritative, and the film industry would be irrelevant. And, well, for the filmic aspect, wouldn't movie critics be cited? One can start at IMDB and find reviews at the NYT [1] and Slate [2] which are pretty negative about the way the movie puts together certain conclusions. I don't think documentary makers are the only authorities here on the filmic aspect. Mangoe 16:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want an example, you can check out the "Criticism of Family Guy" article on Wikipedia. On there, you have criticisms from people like Matt Groening, Kevin Smith, John Kricfalusi (The creator of Ren & Stimpy), Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan), Mad Magazine, and Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Even though Family Guy is pop culture incarnate, the criticism is still limitted to experts and notable figures within the industry. What you don't see is are random bloggers on the internet, or people proclaiming, "Well, Family Guy is a comedy show, and this guy is an aspiring comedian. So he should be able to comment on the show's animation techniques, even though he doesn't actually know anything about animation." Again, you don't need peer review, but standards for reliable sources still apply. Movie reviews are closer to getting there, but the problem is, 96% of movie reviews for this movie were positive. NPOV standards state that you let 4% of the reviewers be presented as the bulk of the reception. Right now, we don't really have any positive reviews for this movie on here, so what's the hurry to include the negative one?

Now, if you can find notable sources like that for a show like Family Guy, then why can't you find equally or notable sources for a documentary like BFC? Are you guys telling me that Family Guy is more controversial within its own field than BFC? The fact of the matter is, Bushnell, Kopel, and Hardy do not represent mainstream viewpoints, certainly not to the extent where they would warrant 90% of the article for an incredibly successful film. The problem is, you guys want to report a non-notable, non-authorative minority viewpoint as being the notable, authoritive, majority viewpoint. Which would be fine, if there was anything to substantiate it. Unfortuantely, there just isn't. You could dominant the article with bad reviewers if that's what most reviewers genuinely thought, but that's not what happened, and nothing you say or do is going to change that. Don't act like it's my fault that PPGMD and Ken can't find reputable sources that support their claims. -Schrodinger82 04:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

That article is terrible! There is a very long section on the way the various shows parody each other, where of course Groening at al. are relevant and cited-- as interested parties, not as expert commentators. But the body of the controversy section itself (which is pretty short) is limited to factual information about how the program has been consistently scheduled into late-night "adult" slots. The first graf is full of "some say" claims that aren't really backed up. And in any case there's little comparison between the two, as criticism of a comedy for being stupid and tasteless is hardly an analogy for criticism of a documentary for playing fast and loose with the facts and drawing specious conclusions.

A much better example would be 9/11 conspiracy theories and its companion article, researchers questioning the official account of 9/11. But again, the parallel breaks down on a some points. The 9/11 conspiracy theories article does an effective job of showing how the various claims of official misrepresentation and fraud are unfounded. In this case, there is clearly a mainstream and a non-mainstream. It's hardly clear that for BFC there is such a simple division. In the reviews I cited above, one sees a desire to be on Moore's side, and yet a criticism of the coherence of his presentation. I also came across (through a Salon article, if I remember correctly) someone criticizing BFC for largely ignoring the importance of black-on-black homicide in the murder statistics.

Also, we're stumbling into a problem I came across a while ago on a different topic. There is apparently a scene where Moore stands in front of a B-52 memorial and says "The plaque underneath it proudly proclaims that this plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve 1972." Well, a variety of sites that I can trace, including Kopel's NRO article, relate the actual inscription of the memorial, which of course says nothing of the kind. Now, I can take their word for the actual text of the inscription, or not. I personally am inclined to take it, but it sounds as though some here would not. That beings us to a problem: how does one verify the inscription, without doing original research (that is, reading the memorial itself)?

Bushnell's site doesn't seem to me to be very good, but Kopel's notability is beyond dispute. He is cited as an opponent to Moore in a story from WAVE TV in Louisville, Kentucky from February 11, 2005 [3]. His publication at the National Review site is sufficient anyway [4]. I personally would view him as a sufficiently good source for the B-52 inscription. Mangoe 12:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

You might argue that that the FG article doesn't have "expert commentators," but they're a heck of a lot closer on the subject than Hardy or Kopel. I'm sure that most people who know of FG have heard of "Ren & Stimpy." I seriously doubt that most people who have heard of "Bowling for Columbine" have heard of "WAVE TV." Again, I have no problem with the B-52 criticism, because that was a direct statement made by Moore, and could be verified using non-partisan sources. Wow, so Hardy was once mentioned on a local TV station? I don't see how that magically gives him the credence to question the films editing. Direct statements, sure, editing, no. (BTW, "direct statements" is only in theory, as established by Hardy's homicide/murder confusion.).

In WP:V, it states, "In the In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight." Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." I consider Hardy to be very dubious on his fact checking, given that he's a lawyer who doesn't understand the difference between murder and homicide, and given the fact that he attempted to call Moore a liar because he couldn't find an exact match of a number that Moore cited in 2002 in a collection of statistics that only went up to 1995. Sorry, but that is not good fact checking, by any count. Further, Hardy has no real editorial oversight. Kopel might be better and he might not, but I do know that most of his complaints on F-9/11 are on claims that Moore never actually made.

The other problem is that not only are the sources here highly dubious, but they also fail under "relatively unimportant." If you removed all non-expert subject opinion from the entries, then all you're really left with is, "Moore edits his films for effect." That might technically be true, but I fail to see why it's particularily noteworthy. In this case, it's your burden of proof to show that it is, without having to rely on subjective, non-expert opinion. Since the information is not important, and since the sources here are dubious and/or self-published, it therefore does not fit Wikipedia policy. -Schrodinger82 21:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

We have sources, it's you using WP:RS in a way that myself and others feel is improper to remove them, any addition to anything from Kopel or Hardy results in an edit war with you. I asked Cakeprophet (a mediator) to take a look at the NRA Meeting edits, and citations he felt that they were notable and proper for the article. He said that opinion based criticism is ok as long as it's presented in a NPOV manner without giving undue weight on one viewpoint. Mangoe feels that both Hardy and Kopel are notable. And then we have an editor from the Fact and Reference check project where I posed the question of what determines notability for political opinion. Here is exactly what he responded with:

There is no hard and fast rule, except that an article should strive not to give any one view undue weight.

Books from major presses are generally citable, but there are limits (e.g. on most political topics, it would probably not be appropriate to cite Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh, who are clearly gadflies rather than scholars). Organizations focused on an issue are usually citable as examples of their side's arguments: again, on most controversial issues, balance is important. Major journals of opinion are certainly citable (in the U.S., for example, National Review, Commentary, New Republic, The Nation, to give a right-to-left spectrum).

I personally wouldn't say that showing up on TV counts for much, but others might disagree. - Jmabel | Talk 00:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Kopel's been published by National Review on articles about Moore, and Hardy has a book about Moore out by HarperCollins. Those two make a bulk of the Pro-gun criticism. Bowling for Columbine is a political work, this it's natural that most of the criticism would come from other political sources. PPGMD 15:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... "as it's presented in a NPOV manner." Well, therein lies the problem. NPOV guidelines state "The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognised authority)." Hardy and Kopel are making comments on the film's editing. They might be "notable" in one field or another (Which I doubt), but they are not known authorities on film editing. The undue weight section states that "Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all." We have absolutely nothing to suggest that Hardy's views on Moore's editing reflect the majority opinion.

Here's my response to your question to Jmabel: First off, I'm going to say that your question is greatly misleading. You ask for the requirements to cite "a political opinion," with no mention of the actual context in your original post (e.g., commenting on a documentary filmmaking techniques.). Moore stating that he likes universal healthcare, and Bushnell saying that he disagrees is an example of political opinion (although Bushnell is not an authority on the subject, and such criticism is better left to the universal health care article.). Stating that Moore blatantly attempts to mislead viewers or that he's been caught in an outright lie due is not a political opinion. That's a direct attack on the filmmaker's character, using subjective opinions on his filmmaking techique to support you. Secondly, your comment that "I believe is incorrectly using WP:RS to remove critics stating their opinions of a work because he disagrees with them" is an attack on me. I am not removing critics because they disagree with me, I am removing critics because they don't meet established standards. If you had examples where I defended equally non-notable defenders, then you could accuse me of bias. You haven't done this.

Would you explain to us how Hardy and Kopel don't qualify as "gadflies," as Jmabel put it, seeing as how Michael Moore himself would quualify under this standard? And if Hardy and Kopel are notable for being pro-gun authors, then you should try placing their views on the gun control page. After all, if the sole reason that Hardy and Kopel are relevant is due to their politics, then why not leave them to the political discussion, and keep them out of discussions on filmmaking? Jmabel also mentions the issue of balance. One of the big problems is, there is absolutely no balance in these criticisms, specifically because most major publications don't find this issue notable to begin with (Again, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nikodemos/Asymmetric_controversy), thus making balance impossible. You're not going to find many people who are going to dedicate entire websites and publish entire books dedicated to debunking Hardy's claims. However, that does not mean that we should give David Hardy undue weight. The problem is, these incidents were never really "news" to begin with, thus preventing balance from ever occuring. -Schrodinger82 21:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

You seem to like to cite that page alot, it's not a policy, it has little chance of being a policy, or a guideline. Bowling for Columbine is a political movie, it's not a documentary in the scene that he literally just followed because around, he had his own script, and he went for particular shots and responses. Thus it's only natural that the critics of the movie be political in nature themselves. Hardy and Kopel and more then notable enough to be considered Pro-Gun critics of the movie.

Also I was not being misleading on asking him what is consider notable for political opinion because there is no official policy or guideline, WP:RS was written primarily as a guideline for citing factual information. It really was never meant for political articles such as this one. PPGMD 05:11, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

1) Really? Not a policy, you say? From WP:NPOV: This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

2) Even if it was only a guideline, so what? You've presented no reason why the standard guidelines should be ignored in this case, other than the fact that you personally don't like them. Which, unfortunately, is not enough.

3) You keep pointing out that it's a political movie. So what? Please tell us where Wikipedia guidelines gives exemptions for political movies.

4) You claim that it's not a documentary. Unfortunately, the documentary film community tends to disagree. I would take their word on the subject over yours. Are you honestly telling me that Michael Moore is the first documentary filmmaker to have what he wanted in mind before starting out? Are you telling me that this was the first documentary of all time to have a political slant? Please. You know absolutely nothing about documentary filmmaking, and you're just making up arbitrary standards to suit your agenda. Watching non-film people insist that BFC wasn't a documentary because it has an opinion is like watching ID advocates insist that evolution isn't real science, because it's "only a theory."

5) Please explain to me how "Moore uses misleading editing" is a political opinion, and not an artistic one. Oh wait, it's not. Moore makes no direct political statement here. The entire criticism is based on what one particularily non-notable critic personally infers.

6) "WP:RS was written primarily as a guideline for citing factual information. It really was never meant for political articles such as this one." Yes, because I'm absolutley sure that this is the first time in all of history that the subject of politics has ever come up on Wikipedia. Clearly, the people who run this site have never thought to address them before. Not even in the excerpt of RS where it refers to "Partisan, religious and extremist websites". Nope, no one on Wikipedia has ever thought to address the pissue of political opinions in the past, thus giving you free reign to make up the rules arbitrarily to push your own agendas as you go along. -Schrodinger82 10:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

First I was talking about the Asymmetric controversy, it was the only site you linked in your last post. That has neither of the 3 tags which would be put on pages that are endorsed by a large part of the Wikipedia community. Second I never said that it wasn't a documentary, I said that it's deviated from the norm when it comes to documentaries, most documentaries just go out and film what happens, they don't have scripts (at least for before filming). Most documentaries wouldn't have a cartoon that tries to frame that the NRA was formed by Klan members after the KKK was declared illegal. The movie itself is a political commentary, it's for the most part Moore's opinion of why Columbine happened. Moore is in position to draw those conclusions and he doesn't openly cite more "Reliable Source" as being the researcher of the opinion thus it's in the realm of political opinion from Moore. It's not the first to do that, and it won't be the last, but it doesn't make it exclusively a documentary. Misleading edits to make the views more easily draw into Moore's opinion that the NRA rushed to Denver so soon after the shooting.

That being said, WP:RS was written to cite facts, (ie the Earth is X kms wide, and here's where it's written), opinion falls under the policy of WP:V, WP:NPOV, and often WP:NOTE is applied though that guideline is written that way. The partisan and religious websites is meant to prevent for example cite abortion "facts" from a Pro-life website. Or for example citing what the Bush administration has done for the last 8 years from the DNC website. PPGMD 15:50, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Look, you were the one who placed the unbalance tag. As a result, I decided to see what the guidelines for the unbalance tag were. That led me to the page on asymetric controversy. To this day, you still have yet to cite a single legitimate reason why this article warrants an unbalance tag consistent with Wikipedia guidelines, the only thing you've done is a "wait and see."

You claim that the movie "deviated from the norm when it comes to documentaries." Oh really? And who are your expert documentary filmmakers to back you up on this one? It's amazing that the documentary filmmaking community would nominate BFC for an academy award considering that it deviates from the norm so much. The same goes for the International Documentary Association. Gee, you don't think that they might have watched more documentaries than you have, and have a different standard for what the norm is, do you? I think they have. Most documentaries don't have cartoons, but they would have "dramatic re-enactments." A lot of the times, these re-enactments would be heavy distortions of reality. Moore just takes the idea one step further. And yes, a lot of documentaries are political commentary. For instance, if you watch a documentary on the Holocausts, then chances are the filmmaker will have a stance of being against them, and edit his film in such a way to make them look as bad as possible. If you wanted, you could try to cite notable Holocaust deniers like David Irving who insist that they never happened. But you probably wouldn't cite Irving on the editing, for proclaiming, "This documentary guys included two different speeches of Adolph Hitler from two different events and edits them together, in an attempt to mislead audiences into thinking they took place at the same speech! That's an outright lie, and believe me, as a Holocaust denier, I would know a lie when I see one!" In fact, documentary filmmakers scrap together raw stock footage and edit it together all the time. This is standard practice. Usually, the audience is smart enough to subconsciously realize that these clips are from different scenes, but I guess that the same can't be said for people who read David Hardy.

You claim that "Moore is in position to draw those conclusions and he doesn't openly cite more "Reliable Source" as being the researcher of the opinion thus it's in the realm of political opinion from Moore." Now, explain something to me. Why in the world should Moore have to cite a "reliable source" for claims that he never actually made? For instance, you want to include the Kopel bank comment on how Moore makes it look like the bank bypasses standard legality. Moore never makes that claim, nor does he imply it, so why should he have to back it up? If Moore never expresses his opinion that the bank bypasses legality, then why should we include a non-notable opinion from someone saying that it doesn't, other than to make it look like Moore has made claims that he actually hasn't? The same goes for the NRA meeting. What specific statements are you referring to?

You claim that "That being said, WP:RS was written to cite facts, (ie the Earth is X kms wide, and here's where it's written), opinion falls under the policy of WP:V, WP:NPOV, and often WP:NOTE is applied though that guideline is written that way." The problem is, those cited policies don't agree with you. Again, I've cited specific passages showing so. And your excuses as to why the guidelines on partisan websites don't apply here is incredibly silly. They're meant to regulate political opinion on abortion and the DNC, so that somehow means that they aren't supposed to regulate any other type of political opinion? Utter nonsense, and you know it. The last time I checked, that page didn't make any such distinction. Once again, you're making up rules to suit your agenda. "Oh, this movie doesn't fall under documentary, because it has a political slant!" and "Oh, this political opinion doesn't fall under partisan website, because it doesn't bring up abortion!" Please. -Schrodinger82 19:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Just checked out the NYT review. On Rottentomatoes, Scott still gives this movie a fresh rating, so I think that focusing on the bad comments goes against undue weight. -Schrodinger82 23:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Not exactly coherent

Having wandered over here along a round-about path, and not having seen the movie, I have to say that this is pretty much impossible to follow. The mixture of plot outline and rejoinder is too choppy, and the writing is often poor.

It would make a lot more sense if the basic outline of the movie were presented first, followed by the criticism/discussion of particular points and some history of the film as a whole. Mangoe 14:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to do that. Feel free to help. DJ Clayworth 22:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, not having seen the movie I really don't think I can edit the article itself much. Mangoe 12:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the same goes for a lot of Moore's harshest critics. -Schrodinger82 20:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal case

A case has been filed with the Mediation Cabal regarding this article. If you are a neutral party and interested in mediating, please review Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal and Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Suggestions for mediators before starting mediation, then feel free to dive in! If you have any questions, please contact me on my talk page. Thanks! ~Kylu (u|t) 21:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Taking this into single topics: the "Family Guy" article

The comment nesting has gotten too smeared, so I'm going to pick this into separate threads.

Above, it was said that 'You might argue that that the FG article doesn't have "expert commentators," but they're a heck of a lot closer on the subject than Hardy or Kopel."

Well, I disagree on that, but in any case the reason why (and for that matter, how) Groening et al. are in that article is because their shows and FG are parodying each other. They are not cited there as experts on comedy, and for that matter I don't know that anyone without an axe to grind would even recognize the existence of such expertize, for humor is in the eye of the beholder.

In any case, it's a lousy article. Mangoe 12:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

The point is, these guys all have established themselves as national celebrities speaking with their own TV shows, with the exception of Chris Ware, who is simply regarded as one of the top in his field and spoke in a magazine widely available on newstands. They aren't just random guys with self-published websites. The same cannot be said of Hardy or Kopel. It's amazing how you insist that the sources on that site aren't notable, and then you hold the standards for BFC far, far lower. You think that the FG article is lousy? Imagine how bad it would be if you included comments from every random blogger who hated that show, and then you would have a good idea of what people are trying to turn this page into. -Schrodinger82 19:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Taking this into single topics: Kopel

Again from above: "I seriously doubt that most people who have heard of "Bowling for Columbine" have heard of "WAVE TV.""

So what? Probably most of them have not heard of many things. The general ignorance of the populace isn't a justification for anything. A TV station is a major media news outlet, and the fact that they put him on the air indicates that they view him as notable. Their opinion outranks yours. National Review is, within the realm of political commentary (which BFC most certainly is) one of the major players; if they say that Kopel is notable (by publishing him), then ipso facto he is.

As it stands, you are not presenting yourself as a good authority on this. I haven't even mentioned Hardy (at this point I don't even know who he is), yet you say "Wow, so Hardy was once mentioned on a local TV station?". Well, nobody said that. Indeed, it appears you didn't go to the site and read the reference. Kopel, however, is clearly a party to what is a mainstream-published dispute, and therefore must appear as such, without regard to the accuracy of his statements. Mangoe 13:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Hardy has also been published by the main stream media, his book on Moore was published by a division of HarperCollins. PPGMD 15:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

To Mangoe: According to the guy that PPGMD cited from the Fact and Reference Check page, "I personally wouldn't say that showing up on TV counts for much, but others might disagree." How many people get on local TV every years? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Is every single one of those people now a notable authority on something? Their opinion might outrank mine, but you'll notice that I never put my opinion in the article. Further, their opinion does not outrank the folks at the Academy Awards, the International Documentary Association, the film critics community, etc. Sorry, but you can't let a single segment from a single TV station represent the majority opinion. That is not NPOV. As for Kopel, is National Review a notable film publication? Is Dave Kopel a notable film critic? No? Then what basis does he have for comments saying that BFC is not a documentary? Oh, that's right, none. How many professional journalists are there in the world right now? Tens of thousands, maybe? You can't assume that each and every thing that each and every one of them says on each and every field is now notable. That's why you stick with the experts, and the people at the top. If Michael Moore fell dead tommorow, you can bet he would get coverage in the national press. Could the same be said for Kopel and Hardy? Would anyone in the press really miss them as "experts" at all? What about WAVE TV? I seriously doubt it. Because no one would really care. FYI, the Daily Show is far more known and influential than WAVE-TV is. Do we start looking at all their segments where they interview "experts," and consider those people notable authorities as well? For instance, if they interview some random guy who insists that smokers are being discriminated against, do we now add that guys comments to the smoking section of Wikipedia? No. Being on TV does not magically make you an authority on any given subject. It might make you a notable figure in itself if there's a national controversy surrounding you (e.g., Jennifer Willbanks), but that doesn't make you a reliable source. If you disagree, don't just sya, "well, he was on WAVE-TV, and that makes him notable!" Cite the specific guidelines or policies that support you.

To PPGMD: HarperCollins publishes 1500 books per year. Do we really need to include every single claim made by every single author on every single subject, regardless of its notability? I don't think so. -Schrodinger82 19:12, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Being published by a major publishing house establishes notabillity, so does being on the New York Times Best Seller list for 6 weeks. Hardy is notable, and so is Kopel because he got published in a notable mainstream magizine a number of times, and at least once on this subject. Also notable experts rarely get coverage when they die, about 90% of the people cited on Wikipedia as reliable sources would unlikely get a mention when they die beyond journals that are specfic to their field. PPGMD 20:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

You point out that "about 90% of the people cited on Wikipedia as reliable sources would unlikely get a mention when they die beyond journals that are specfic to their field." Yet we cite them anyway. You know why? Because those people are regarded authorities. They have Ph.D's in the field, and who have written academic papers on the subject. The same is not true for Dave and David. Again, they might have been published, but that does not make them credible in this field. 96% of movie reviewers give this movie a good review. Most of them have been published as well. Have we included everything that they have to say? No, we haven't. I think a lot more people have heard of Roger Ebert than have heard of D&D, yet Roger's comments aren't found on here. What about produced filmmakers? The academy awards has each person nominated by their peers. Hence, Michael Moore was nominated by other documentary filmmakers. Do their opinions matter more than D&D in the field of film editing? I think they do. Again, it is not NPOV to include D&D as the majority opinion in the field, when they clearly aren't. Especially when their criticisms fall outside their field of authority.

D&D have been published. Great. In what field? Read by which academic circles? If it's anything other than film, than their comments on their BFC's artistic merits are worthless. The fact that Hardy wrote a book might be notable, though probably not on this page. The individual claims are not notable, unless they either come from a) a recognized authority in the field, or b) were widely published by the mainstream media. Let me put it this way: If the Bible made it to the best seller's list, does that mean that people could freely cite passages from the Bible on every page of Wikipedia that they deemed relevant, citing Job and Daniel as a notable source? Probably not, unless Job and Daniel were recognized authorities on the specific subject at hand. For instance, you would not go to the whale page of wikipedia and add, "While scientists insist that whales are mammals, the Bible insists that whales are fish." You would not add that, because even though the Bible is notable, it is not a recognized authority on the subject of marine biology. You also couldn't justify it because, "In addition to being a marine biology subject, whales are also a creation subject, and thus we should include notable authorities on the subject of creation." The way that you're trying to do with D&D. And you certainly can't do things like insist, "The theory that whales evolved from land animals compares separate fossil records and places them together, which misleads people that they came from the exact same animal and into believing that God does not exist. The bible happens otherwise. Here are a bunch of citations from the bible saying that he does." Which is pretty much what you're doing by insisting that Moore edits his films to mislead his audiences into believing X. Attacking him on positions that he never actually made. -Schrodinger82 20:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Recap: Wikipedia Policies

Just so we're clear here, can the Moore critics cite any specific passages from Wikipedia Guidelines/Policies that clearly support them? Or do such passages not exist? Because I keep asking for them, and I keep getting nothing. The only thing people say is, "Well, this guy was once published!" or "This guy was mentioned on the news!" with no mention of how simply being published automatically warrants being included as a notable critic. Just so we're clear here, I am only looking for Wikipedia policy/guidelines, and not your personal opinion. If you want to rewrite said poliicies/guidelines, take it up on the talk pages there, and come back when you have the matter resolved. -Schrodinger82 20:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

There are no specfic passages that prohibit it, only your view of the passages on require expertise, and notabillity. No where in the guidelines does it say that you have to be an expert and film editing to have an opinion on a political film. Nor does it say that a person has to be published in X number places to be notable. As a political commentator both Hardy and Kopel are experts on Moore films and Notable, you are one of the few that disagree. I don't see anyone else taking up the argument. PPGMD 21:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

So that's a no. You have absolutely no policies and guidelines saying that D&D belong here. Thank you for your clarification. BTW, the burden of proof is on you here, since you're the one who wants the information to be included. -Schrodinger82 21:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

No the burden for me is to make sure it's verifiable and that it's stated in a NPOV way, Hardy and Kopel holding the opinion is verifiable, and it can easily be stated in a NPOV way like those of other critics that you didn't remove. Also concensus can over ride the opinion of one editor. PPGMD 21:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Really? And where does it say in Wikipedia guidelines does it say that that's all you need? Oh wait, it doesn't! Stop making up rules to support you that don't actually exist.

WP:V:

1. "The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain. Editors should therefore provide references. If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." In this case, the specific claims are 0 for 3.

2. "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." Dubious? Check. Unimportant? Check.

3. "As a rule of thumb, sources of dubious reliability should only be used in articles about themselves. (See below.) However, even those articles should not – on the grounds of needing to give examples of the source's track record – repeat any potentially libellous claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by more credible sources."

4. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field." Hmm... check. "For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. Are D&D well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field? Nope. Are either of them well-known professional journalist? Well, they might be well known among Anti-Moore circles, but not to the mainstream community. If you made a list of the 100 most well known journalists in the country, would Hardy and Kopel fall anywhere on it? I seriously doubt it.

5. The fact that some information is verifiable doesn't mean that Wikipedia is the right place to publish it. Verifiability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for an article. See what Wikipedia is not. The fact that information is true doesn't mean that it meets our verifiability requirements — information has to be sourced from reliable sources if it is to have a place in Wikipedia (although, of course, if information is true, you should be able to find a ready reputable source for it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Libel:

1. "The goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedic information source adhering to a neutral point-of-view style of prose, with all information being referenced through the citation of reliable published sources, so as to maintain a standard of verifiability. For this reason, all contributors should recognize that it is their responsibility to ensure that material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory." BTW, this is official Wikipedia policy. Accusing the Michael Moore (a person) of intentionally misleading audiences to believe X is defamatory. The fact that that these claims are dubious are potentially libelous.

WP:NPOV:

1. "This page, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, is one of Wikipedia's three content policies. The other two are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should try to familiarize themselves with all three. The principles upon which these three policies are based are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to improve the application and explanation of the principles."

2. "Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band," we can say, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or "The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100," which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we "convert" that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. It is important to note this formulation is substantially different from the "some people believe..." formulation popular in political debates. The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognised authority)." Can you find an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population that believes that Moore's editing is misleading? Are D&D recognized authorities on film editing? No. Hence, they do not meet the standard.

3. "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well."

4. "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Again, every filmmaker edits. Why are we giving undue weight to these particular examples, in reference to claims that Moore never actually makes? THere's absolutely no reason for that.

5. "In other words, views held only by a tiny minority of people should not be represented as though they are significant minority views, and perhaps should not be represented at all."

6. Disagreements over whether something is approached the Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) way can usually be avoided through the practice of good research. Facts (as defined in the A simple formulation section above) are not Points Of View (POV, here used in the meaning of "opposite of NPOV") in and of themselves. A good way to build a neutral point of view is to find a reputable source for the piece of information you want to add to Wikipedia, and then cite that source. This is an easy way to characterize a side of a debate without excluding that the debate has other sides. The trick is to find the best and most reputable sources you can. Try the library for good books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little bit of ground work can save a lot of time in trying to justify a point later.

7. Remember that readers will probably not take kindly to moralising. If you do not allow the facts to speak for themselves you may alienate readers and turn them against your position. Remember how you kept trying to re-add the segment about how Kopel says that Moore makes it look like the bank is bypassing legal measures? If the Moore really makes it look like that, then why not let the facts speak for themselves? Why not present Moore's actual statements, and have the readers make up their own mind?

8. For instance, "John Doe is the best baseball player" is, by itself, merely an expression of opinion. One way to make it suitable for Wikipedia is to change it into a statement about someone whose opinion it is: "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre," as long as those statements are correct and can be verified. The goal here is to attribute the opinion to some subject-matter expert, rather than to merely state it as true. D&D are not subject matter experts in the field of film editings. You claim they're experts on Moore-bashing, but that's like saying the Joe Smith is an expert on John Doe being the worlds best baseball player, even though Joe is not an authority on baseball in general. That might be the most notable within their own subject matter, but then the subject-matter itself is non-notable.

WP:RS

1. What follows is a description of Wikipedia's best practices. Many articles may fall short of this standard until editors devote time and effort to fact-checking and reference-running. (See efforts to identify reliable sources.) In the meantime, readers can still benefit from your contributions, bearing in mind that unsourced edits, or edits relying on inappropriate sources, may be challenged and removed at any time. Sometimes it is better to have no information at all than to have information without sources[1].

2. It is always appropriate to ask other editors to produce their sources. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit in question, and any unsourced material may be removed by any editor. Hmm... looks pretty clear to me. The burden of proof is on you to prove that your sources meet the standards of Wikipedia. It's not on me to prove that they don't, although I will anyway.

3. Look out for false claims of authority. Web sites that have numerous footnotes may be entirely unreliable. The first question to ask yourself is, "What are the credentials and expertise of the people taking responsibility for a website?" Anyone can post anything on the web. Use sources who have postgraduate degrees or demonstrable published expertise in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with academic institutions. The most reputable have written textbooks in their field: these authors can be expected to have a broad, authoritative grasp of their subject. In general, higher education textbooks are frequently revised and try to be authoritative. Textbooks aimed at secondary-school students, however, do not try to be authoritative and are subject to political approval. Key phrase is "in the field they are discussing."

4. "Exceptional claims have a much higher burden of proof, and must be supported by exceptional evidence. Certain red flags should prompt editors to closely and skeptically examine the sources for a given claim." ... "Claims not supported or claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view in the relevant academic community. Be particularly careful when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them." You keep claiming that BFC is outside the norm for documentaries. Where is your academic basis for this? What institutions back you up?

5. Exceptional claims should be suported by multiple credible and verifiable sources. In circumstances where exceptional claims are made respecting historical events or politically-charged issues, exceptional claims should be supported with as many credible and verifiable sources as possible: sources which are mainstream and peer-reviewed. Well, there goes your "it's a political movie, so all I need is a political commentator" argument. In the case of political commentators, the standard is higher, not less. When have D&D's opinions on the movie been peer reviewed?

6. Editors have to evaluate sources and decide which are the most reliable and authoritative. For academic topics, every field has an established system of reviews and evaluations that can be found in scholarly journals associated with that field. In history, for example, the American Historical Review reviews around 1,000 books each year. The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature (1995) summarizes the evaluations of 27,000 books and articles in all fields of history. Editors should seek out and take advantage of these publications to help find authoritative sources. Disagreements between the authoritative sources should be indicated in the article.

7. "Issues to look out for" ... "Do they have an agenda, conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report? Remember that conflicts of interest are not always explicitly exposed and bias is not always self-evident. Sources like these may be used as primary sources only, i.e. as sources about themselves and their own activities or viewpoints. Even then, use them sparingly and with caution."

8. Have the sources reported other facts reliably, including on different subjects? Cross-check with what you already know. Already done in the murder/homicide example.

9. What is an independent secondary source? Independent secondary sources: Have separate editorial oversight and fact-checking processes; Have not collaborated; May have taken their own look at the available primary sources and used their own judgment in evaluating them." Do D&D have separate editorial oversight and fact-checking processes?

10. Evaluate the reliability of online sources just as you would print or other more traditional sources. Neither online nor print sources deserve an automatic assumption of reliability by virtue of the medium they are printed in. All reports must be evaluated according to the processes and people that created them. Again, just because you get published doesn't make you reliable.

11. Partisan, religious and extremist websites The websites and publications of political parties and religious groups should be treated with caution, although neither political affiliation nor religious belief is in itself a reason not to use a source. Widely acknowledged extremist or even terrorist organizations or individuals, whether of a political, religious, racist, or other character, should never be used as sources for Wikipedia, except as primary sources, that is to say they may be used in articles discussing the opinions of those organizations or individuals. Even then they should be used with great caution, and should be supported by other sources.

12. Unverified material that could be construed as critical, negative or harmful in articles about living persons should be removed immediately, and should not be moved to the talk page. The same applies to sections dealing with living persons in other articles. Real people are involved, and they can be hurt by your words. We are not tabloid journalists, we are an encyclopedia. Claiming that Moore intentionally misleads audiences to certain conclusions is harmful to a living person. The existence of such claims might be verifiable, but that is not enough to meet Wikipedia standards.

13. Articles related to popular culture and fiction must be backed up by reliable sources like all other articles. However, due to the subject matter, many may not be discussed in the same academic contexts as science, law, philosophy and so on. Personal websites, wikis, and posts on bulletin boards, Usenet and blogs should still not be used as secondary sources.

WP:NOR

1. For non-academic subjects, it is impossible to pin down a clear definition of "reputable." In general, most of us have a good intuition about the meaning of the word. A magazine or press release self-published by a very extreme political or religious group would often not be regarded as "reputable", as it has a biased agenda to advance. In contrast, The New York Times is generally accepted as a trustworthy source: Wikipedia could refer to the article (and to the sources quoted in the article). D&D are very partisan, and while they may be published, that does not qualify them as "reputable."

2. Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication. Is it openly partisan? Does it have a large or very small readership? Is it a vanity publisher? Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it "shoots from the hip"? If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable." We already have concrete examples that Hardy does an extremely poor job at fact checking, as shown in the mediation page, where he cites Australian homicide statistics in 1995 in order to dispute the numbers that Moore provided from a completely different organization in 2002. We also know that Hardy apparently hasn't corrected or updated his assertions since that time. Hence, he does not meet the standards for reputability, no matter how much you would like to believe that he does.

Those are my citations on this matter that show that D&D don't belong. Where are yours that say they do? Gunnar, I'm very interested to see what you have to say on the matter. -Schrodinger82 22:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Your numerous references to source verification are trivially disposed of, at least as far as Kopel is concerned. The NRO website can be taken as a reliable source for his statements, and I see no reason to doubt that his eponymous website is genuine.

As far as sources naming him as a party to the controversy, I've found the following:

• The WAVE segment cited earlier
• "Michael Moore's Oscar targeted" from worldnetdaily.com [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32217]

He is also notable as an opponent to Moore:

*speaker in WBUR On Point segment "The Influence of Michael Moore" [5]

So I don't see any problem with referring to anything he has written as germane.

I have come upon Hardy's "not a documentary" remark, but while I personally would question it as a exercise in film criticism it is part of the controversy and needs to be recorded. And it can surely be recorded as a statement rather than as an expert opinion cited by the article.

Your reference to Moore "critics" evinces a tendentious program. Right now you are pitting your expertise in notability against an array of clearly more authoritative sources. Mangoe 02:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wait, you're actually citing WorldNetDaily as an "authoritative source"? Wow. You haven't even watched the film, but you do read WorldnetDaily, and apparently that's all you need to know. Again, all of those things are small potatoes, and giving them a disproportionately large amount of attention would violate point #3 of NPOV. Furthermore, focusing on nitpicking details, which focus on claims that Moore never actually made, violates point #4 of NPOV. You claim that "Hardy's "not a documentary" remark," is "part of the controversy and needs to be recorded". Just out of curiosuity, what controversy are you referring to? Between who and who? Is it a controversy within the documentary filmmaking community? Or does it only come from people from outside the documentary filmmaking community? If it's a controversy from outside the documentary filmmaking community, then who cares? Again, undue weight. You can't treat people who don't know anything about documentary filmmaking on equal or greater ground than people who do. That is not NPOV.

The answer, as anyone can Google, is that lots and lots of people find Michael Moore controversial as a political and social commentator who uses the medium of documentary films. Other people who are also such commentators are clearly peers who may be cited as passing judgement on this aspect of Moore's work. It is crankish to pretend that he isn't making such commentary. Therefore I hold that anyone within the politico-social commentary arena has standing to be quoted in presonding to him, if they have made such comments. Mangoe 04:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

And no, I am not"pitting my expertise in notability against an array of clearly more authoritative sources." I might be pitting my expertise in notability against yours, someone who has yet to even see the movie, and who refuses to cite specific passages from wikipedia that support him, but that is not the same thing. Against the sources that you provided, I am pitting the vast majority of professional film critics, the Academy Awards, and the International Documentary Association. Once again, undue weight. The International Documentary Association and WorldNetDaily are not on equal ground here. -Schrodinger82 03:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It is simply common sense that in political commentary, the actors are other commentators. Your citations of wiki rules have thus far seemed utterly irrelevant to me. I know absolutely nothing about the International Documentary Association, but it is at best simply another actor in the controversy over Moore's depictions. Indeed, as to content I would tend to assume it an inferior authority, since I doubt that it is fact-checking its member's works.

On the only fact I've attempted to verify independently (the B-52 memorial inscription) it seems quite clear that Moore's words are accurately rendered, and that Kopel's statement of what it actually says is also accurate. The conclusion may be left to the reader, but personally I would call Moore's words a misrepresentation intended to give the viewer a false impression of what the B-52 was specifically remembered for. I do not think that my personal conclusion needs to appear in the article, but I do think that both Moore's words and Kopel's testimony need to appear. Mangoe 04:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Have you even read the policy that you are quoting, shutting them out like you are is in direct violation of the policy. The viewpoint that the movie uses tricky editing to draw users to conclusion by twisting the truth is held my a significant minority, Hardy and Kopel are two of the biggest proponents of this viewpoint. To contrast that viewpoint you can always quote the award it gets, oh wait those are already in the article, which is why the unbalanced tag is there because you give Undue Weight on people who think favorably about the film with little mention of the largest group of critics, the pro-gun group. PPGMD 03:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

If it's in direct violation, then you should be able to cite the specific passage. Please do so. And yes, the awards are already mention. Look at how much space they've gotten. Why in the world should we give an equal or greater amount of space to a minority opinion from non-experts about an insignificant segment of the film? Blatant violation of NPOV. The fact that the movie won an academy award at a live show seen by millions is reduced to half a sentence, but the fact that the NRA event was scheduled 11 days after Columbine, when Moore never even suggests anything to the contrary, apparently warrants an entire paragraph. Yeah, sure sounds balanced to me. Let's just give the academy awards half a sentence, and David Hardy ten paraphraphs to insist he disagrees. He's at least that influential, right? -Schrodinger82 03:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I already cited the passage, the article gives Undue Weight without mention to his critics. If you feel it's too long then we can trim it down.

Pro-gun critics such as David T Hardy and Dave Kopel believe that the movie "makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer." In a recent book Hardy says "speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which were not sentences he uttered." As an example of this Hardy compares BFC with the transcripts of the speeches given highlighting the differences.

I feel that paragraph with a link to the exact page would help even it out tremendously. It's stated in a NPOV matter and would be in the section that is already there. It is verifiable both on his website, and in his book, which I picked up this weekend for this debate. It does not give Undue weight because it would be within an article about the movie. Thus it follows all the guidelines. PPGMD 04:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Stating "makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer" is a defamatory opinion. In this case, the sources are highly dubious. See point #3 of WP:V. Saying that it's undue weight not to include defamation is stretching it. However, is is an undue weight violation to give one specific example of editing such high attention, when there are no notable authorities to back Hardy up on this. See my comment below from the article cited by Mangoe. -Schrodinger82 04:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I checked out Mangoe's tendentious article. Here's another one: Wikipedia policy is quite clear here: the responsibility for justifying inclusion of any content rests firmly with the editor seeking to include it. This applies most especially to biographies of living individuals, where uncited or poorly cited critical material must be removed immediately from both the article and the Talk page, and by extension any related Project pages. One defamation case could bankrupt the Foundation and see us shut down. So, recap: The burden of proof is on you guys to explain why you want to include the inclusion, not on me to explain why it shouldn't be included. This applies most especially to living persons, e.g., Michael Moore. And yes, when you accuse someone of being a liar aand intentionally misleading audiences rather than simply addressing specific claims, then that's an attack on the person. This not only goes for uncited material, but poorly material as well. Most likely, material that doesn't fit the above standards for being reputable and reliable. All good to know.

Here's something else from the same page: A particular problem is assigning undue weight to a single aspect of a subject. For example, you might know that there is some controversy surrounding a particular politician’s behaviour with regard to a property dispute. You may be very interested in that dispute, and be keen to document the politician’s role in it. So you would create an article on the politician which goes into detail about that, but includes little or no other data. This is unacceptable because it gives undue weight to the controversy. Similarly, if one single person says that a particular country is a state supporter of terrorism, then adding that country to the article state-sponsored terrorism would be undue weight. It is very important to place all critical material in the proper context, and ensure that an overall balanced view is provided. A balanced view does not need to be a sympathetic view—our article on Adolf Hitler does not portray him as a sensitive and misunderstood individual who was kind to his mother—but it does need to reflect the balance of opinion among reputable authorities. Wow, sounds just like the NRA rally example. Again, this is a re-iteration of NPOV. Your whole argument that we have to represent the "controversy" is completely dismissed in this passage.

More: First and foremost, however bad you believe the faults of your accusers are, think long and hard about your own behaviour. Is there not at least a germ of truth in what they say? Have you perhaps been less civil than you might have been? Have you provided high quality citations from reliable secondary sources to back your edits? Well? Have you? And no, saying, WorldNetDaily does not count as "high quality." -Schrodinger82 04:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

First defamation does not count for a critical review of the movie. Second BLP doesn't count when it comes to a movie. None of the quotes selected accuse him of being a lair. The way it's written is NPOV and consistent on how other critical quotes are done not only on issue articles but on other biographies. Frankly I am going to quit replying to you this is a waste of my time, I write something that no one on Wikipedia that I have dealt with would think it defamation, and you claim it's so. You even go as far to make claims that aren't even there. I will OTOH continue to work with other editors that are willing to talk and compromise. PPGMD 04:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

A partial reply on this section. More might follow.

On defamation: There's an author with a book out on the subject, published by a reputable publisher. If you want to sue somebody it's them, not the Foundation.

On whose authority do you call it "defamation" by the way? I though you said that Moore's use of editing was a standard technique of documentary filmmaking. If that is the case then why would pointing out its capacity to mislead defame Moore?

"The burden of proof is on you guys to explain why you want to include the inclusion, not on me to explain why it shouldn't be included." Wrong. The burden of providing a reliable source falls on those who wish to include information, but the burden of debating suitability for inclusion falls equally. Since some of your arguments run contrary to policies and guidelines, in those instances the burden is on you to get those policies and guidelines changed by consensus.--GunnarRene 02:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Just so we're clear here, can the Moore critics cite any specific passages from Wikipedia Guidelines/Policies that clearly support them?" Are you calling me a Moore critic? --GunnarRene 02:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

2. "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." Dubious? Check. Unimportant? Check." WP:V is here talking cheifly about reporting news, science, research, biographical information and the like. You know, facts. Regarding opinions this is relavant to whether the source accurately reflects the opinions of Hardy or Kopel. There isn't any doubt about that is there? Mate. --GunnarRene 02:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Are either of them well-known professional journalist? Well, they might be well known among Anti-Moore circles, but not to the mainstream community. If you made a list of the 100 most well known journalists in the country, would Hardy and Kopel fall anywhere on it? I seriously doubt it." Again, this is about reporting. Kopel's website has notability enough to be a source of his opinions. Does it have enough notablility to be the only source for a breaking news story? That might be a stretch. --GunnarRene 02:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:V point 5 is not relevant unless you can cite something from WP:NOT or somewhere else that would preclude the information from inclusion. So I guess the information passed the test for verifiability. On to the next policy. --GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)--GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Libel already answered. (Search for defamatory). --GunnarRene 03:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 1: Exactly. My advice that you work to change consensus should be taken with this caveat. --GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 2: Are D&D recognized authorities on film editing? No. Hence, they do not meet the standard. They are noted critics and don't need to be authorities on film editing. Again, this is not about the suitability of the Avid editing station, the legality of distribution contracts or something else that needs an expert on film making. The statement that this is "standard practice" would need citation of an expert or peer reviewed researcher.

WP:NPOV 3: The article indeed used to give too much room for negative criticism.

WP:NPOV 4: Again, every filmmaker edits. Why are we giving undue weight to these particular examples, in reference to claims that Moore never actually makes? THere's absolutely no reason for that. It's been published, and we have to reflect it neutrally without regard to whether or not we agree. There used to be too much, but now it's too little.

WP:NPOV 5: Kopel and Hardy don't represent a "tiny minority". If you take them as pro-gun representatives, they represent quite a few people. Of course, they don't represent all pro-gun people.

WP:NPOV 6: Good advice. What is its relevance to this dispute? That other editors should have collected anti-Moore books, films and articles and cited them in the article? I did help by citing claims in it, which hopefully helped separating non-notable from notable criticism. But I wasn't intending to start collecting materials and doing research for it. I'll leave that for those that actually watched this movie.

WP:NPOV 7: Remember how you kept trying to re-add the segment about how Kopel says that Moore makes it look like the bank is bypassing legal measures? If the Moore really makes it look like that, then why not let the facts speak for themselves? Why not present Moore's actual statements, and have the readers make up their own mind? Remember how this point talks about editors' own opinions, and not those opinions that are referenced from others? Moralising opinions can certainly be included, as long as they are attributed. "Kopel thinks that More's editing technique is deceiving" and "The Catholic church considers extramarital sex a sin" are not moralising statments, they are statements about somebody else's moralising. Including the first one in an article about this movie and the second in an article about sex is not moralising. It would, however, be moralising to dump the second in the middle of an article about a non-Catholic's extramarital affair.

WP:NPOV 8: Amply covered elsewhere. So then we've passed WP:NPOV. The old version of the article didn't pass this, but the current version where Kopel's and Hardy's criticism is removed is even worse.--GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS is a guideline derivative of the three content policies, so I'll address WP:OR first. My response is getting a bit long, so the RS part might be delayed a couple of days more.

WP:OR 1: Again, this is mostly referring to news, science, and other primary facts. For example, if Democratic Underground reports that Joe Lieberman has conspired with Martians to reverse the direction of gravity, that would not be a reliable source for it. But if Democratic Underground selects Joe Lieberman as the worst sentor ever or something, that might be relevant in an article about him. Perhaps not in the main article, but rather in the article about the event that made them angry enough to do it. National Review is not an extemist group either. And I haven't seen anybody describe Hardy as an extremist outside Wikipedia.

WP:OR 2: I'll handle this by point if you don't mind.

Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication.

• Is it openly partisan?: National Review is predominantly conservative, but far from extremist. The book publisher does not appear to be partisan, right?
• Does it have a large or very small readership? Large, for both
• Is it a vanity publisher? Definitely not
• Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? The latter.
• Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it "shoots from the hip"? They don't have external academic peer review, but they have the same kind of editorial and legal review that reputable newspapers, opinion journals and magazines have.
• If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? (b)
• If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable."

I guess we have an aswer then. All four cited policies passed, except for NPOV for which the article was allready conceded as having problems and in the process of being rectified.--GunnarRene 03:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

On whose authority do you call it "defamation" by the way? I though you said that Moore's use of editing was a standard technique of documentary filmmaking. If that is the case then why would pointing out its capacity to mislead defame Moore?

"The burden of proof is on you guys to explain why you want to include the inclusion, not on me to explain why it shouldn't be included." Wrong. The burden of providing a reliable source falls on those who wish to include information, but the burden of debating suitability for inclusion falls equally. Since some of your arguments run contrary to policies and guidelines, in those instances the burden is on you to get those policies and guidelines changed by consensus.--GunnarRene 02:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Just so we're clear here, can the Moore critics cite any specific passages from Wikipedia Guidelines/Policies that clearly support them?" Are you calling me a Moore critic? --GunnarRene 02:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

2. "In general, sources of dubious reliability are sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking, or with no fact-checking facilities or editorial oversight. Sometimes a statement can only be found in a publication of dubious reliability, such as a tabloid newspaper. If the statement is relatively unimportant, remove it." Dubious? Check. Unimportant? Check." WP:V is here talking cheifly about reporting news, science, research, biographical information and the like. You know, facts. Regarding opinions this is relavant to whether the source accurately reflects the opinions of Hardy or Kopel. There isn't any doubt about that is there? Mate. --GunnarRene 02:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Are either of them well-known professional journalist? Well, they might be well known among Anti-Moore circles, but not to the mainstream community. If you made a list of the 100 most well known journalists in the country, would Hardy and Kopel fall anywhere on it? I seriously doubt it." Again, this is about reporting. Kopel's website has notability enough to be a source of his opinions. Does it have enough notablility to be the only source for a breaking news story? That might be a stretch. --GunnarRene 02:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:V point 5 is not relevant unless you can cite something from WP:NOT or somewhere else that would preclude the information from inclusion. So I guess the information passed the test for verifiability. On to the next policy. --GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)--GunnarRene 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Libel already answered. (Search for defamatory). --GunnarRene 03:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 1: Exactly. My advice that you work to change consensus should be taken with this caveat. --GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV 2: Are D&D recognized authorities on film editing? No. Hence, they do not meet the standard. They are noted critics and don't need to be authorities on film editing. Again, this is not about the suitability of the Avid editing station, the legality of distribution contracts or something else that needs an expert on film making. The statement that this is "standard practice" would need citation of an expert or peer reviewed researcher.

WP:NPOV 3: The article indeed used to give too much room for negative criticism.

WP:NPOV 4: Again, every filmmaker edits. Why are we giving undue weight to these particular examples, in reference to claims that Moore never actually makes? THere's absolutely no reason for that. It's been published, and we have to reflect it neutrally without regard to whether or not we agree. There used to be too much, but now it's too little.

WP:NPOV 5: Kopel and Hardy don't represent a "tiny minority". If you take them as pro-gun representatives, they represent quite a few people. Of course, they don't represent all pro-gun people.

WP:NPOV 6: Good advice. What is its relevance to this dispute? That other editors should have collected anti-Moore books, films and articles and cited them in the article? I did help by citing claims in it, which hopefully helped separating non-notable from notable criticism. But I wasn't intending to start collecting materials and doing research for it. I'll leave that for those that actually watched this movie.

WP:NPOV 7: Remember how you kept trying to re-add the segment about how Kopel says that Moore makes it look like the bank is bypassing legal measures? If the Moore really makes it look like that, then why not let the facts speak for themselves? Why not present Moore's actual statements, and have the readers make up their own mind? Remember how this point talks about editors' own opinions, and not those opinions that are referenced from others? Moralising opinions can certainly be included, as long as they are attributed. "Kopel thinks that More's editing technique is deceiving" and "The Catholic church considers extramarital sex a sin" are not moralising statments, they are statements about somebody else's moralising. Including the first one in an article about this movie and the second in an article about sex is not moralising. It would, however, be moralising to dump the second in the middle of an article about a non-Catholic's extramarital affair.

WP:NPOV 8: Amply covered elsewhere. So then we've passed WP:NPOV. The old version of the article didn't pass this, but the current version where Kopel's and Hardy's criticism is removed is even worse.--GunnarRene 03:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS is a guideline derivative of the three content policies, so I'll address WP:OR first. My response is getting a bit long, so the RS part might be delayed a couple of days more.

WP:OR 1: Again, this is mostly referring to news, science, and other primary facts. For example, if Democratic Underground reports that Joe Lieberman has conspired with Martians to reverse the direction of gravity, that would not be a reliable source for it. But if Democratic Underground selects Joe Lieberman as the worst sentor ever or something, that might be relevant in an article about him. Perhaps not in the main article, but rather in the article about the event that made them angry enough to do it. National Review is not an extemist group either. And I haven't seen anybody describe Hardy as an extremist outside Wikipedia.

WP:OR 2: I'll handle this by point if you don't mind.

Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication.

• Is it openly partisan?: National Review is predominantly conservative, but far from extremist. The book publisher does not appear to be partisan, right?
• Does it have a large or very small readership? Large, for both
• Is it a vanity publisher? Definitely not
• Is it run principally by a single person, or does it have a large, permanent staff? The latter.
• Does it seem to have any system of peer review, or do you get the feeling that it "shoots from the hip"? They don't have external academic peer review, but they have the same kind of editorial and legal review that reputable newspapers, opinion journals and magazines have.
• If you heard that the publication you are about to use as a source was considering publishing a very negative article about you, would you (a) be terrified because you suspect they are irresponsible and do not fact-check; or (b) feel somewhat reassured because the publication employs several layers of editing staff, fact-checkers, lawyers, an editor-in-chief, and a publisher, and will usually correct its mistakes? (b)
• If it is (a), do not use it as a source. If it is (b), it is what Wikipedia calls "reputable."

I guess we have an aswer then. All four cited policies passed, except for NPOV for which the article was allready conceded as having problems and in the process of being rectified.--GunnarRene 03:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Defamation is saying that Moore is being misleading, and that his film is not a documentary. Neither of those comments have an adequate source.

The question is whether D&D are reputable. Logically impossible to prove a negative. Ergo, the burden is on you.

If you don't want to fall back on the standards of WP:V for dubious sources, then you have to fall back on the WikiProjects Film standards, which state that you need to look at professional film critics.

V:5, see above. D&D don't meet any current standards.

WP:NPOV 2: They are noted critics? Really? What experience do they have in film review?

WP:NPOV 4: "It's been published, and we have to reflect it." Wrong. State one policy that says that we have to report anything so long as it's been published. You can't.

WP:NPOV 5: So how many pro-gun people do they represent? Can you name any other non-Moore pro-gun pages on Wikipedia where they're mentioned?

WP:NPOV 6: Good advice. Filmmaking is an academic subject. Moore bashing is not. Since Moore bashing is not an academic subject, the act of Moore bashing in itself is not notable.

WP:NPOV 7: The Catholic Church is notable, not only because they have their views, but because their views have a direct impact on US policy. The problem is, D&D don't really have much of an impact on anything. The most impact they've had is cause Moore to add an outtake to the bank scene in later outtake. But what of their protests that the film isn't a documentary? What's the most they've accomplished with their views, other than selling a few books? Have they gotten the Academy to reconsider their decision? Have they convinced their readers to boycott any movie studio that does business with Moore? What? Be specific.

WP:NPOV 8: Wrong. See above.

WP:RS is a guideline derivative of the three content policies, so I'll address WP:OR first. My response is getting a bit long, so the RS part might be delayed a couple of days more.

WP:OR Hardy doesn't do basic fact checking. This is proven in the homicide/murder example, and the fact that to this day, the page still insists that Moore is lying about his numbers several years after Moore has listed his sources. If he doesn't do basic fact checking, then he doesn't meet the basic standards for reputability. Period. Kopel is another matter. -Schrodinger82 06:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"Neither of those comments have an adequate source." No, you. You neither have a reliable source that calls those statements defaming, nor have you been able to convince anybody to follow your very special interpretation of policy.

"The question is whether D&D are reputable. Logically impossible to prove a negative. Ergo, the burden is on you." Yes, to prove that the publishers of the book and articles are reputable, which has allready been done without you questioning it. You are only questioning Kopel's website. The burden is now on you to explain why we should violate NPOV by removing relevant and sourced criticism from this article. And I can't see you addressing the standing of entertainment journalists regarding polemics and reporting.

"If you don't want to fall back on the standards of WP:V for dubious sources, then you have to fall back on the WikiProjects Film standards, which state that you need to look at professional film critics." If there's a disagreement between the content policies and the wikiproject's guideline the policy takes precedece: WP:NPOV: "The principles upon which these three policies are based are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus. Their policy pages may be edited only to improve the application and explanation of the principles."

WP:NPOV 2: "They are noted critics? Really? What experience do they have in film review?" This is again your view that only entertainment journalists can criticise a polemic or work of non-fiction just because it's a popular film. That's like saying that only literary critics can comment on the news, because it's written in English and journalists aren't experts in English literature.

WP:NPOV 4: ""It's been published, and we have to reflect it." Wrong. State one policy that says that we have to report anything so long as it's been published. You can't." Actually, I can do that with a header from WP:V: "Verifiability, not truth", and a quotation from WP:NPOV: "Debates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in."

WP:NPOV 5: "So how many pro-gun people do they represent? Can you name any other non-Moore pro-gun pages on Wikipedia where they're mentioned?" Do you here mean "represent" as in being representatives of a commonly held opinion, or "represent" as in being elected representatives of somebody?

WP:NPOV 6: "Filmmaking is an academic subject. Moore bashing is not. Since Moore bashing is not an academic subject, the act of Moore bashing in itself is not notable." Moore bashing is actually a whole host of academic subjects. They're called journalism, political science, film science, etc.

WP:NPOV 7: A whole lot of questions but no withdrawal of your contention that a Kopel quote would violate the point about moralising to our readers. If you don't address that, I'll consider it one more point stricken from your smörgåsbord of arguments.

WP:NPOV 8: Where above?

WP:OR: Hardy doesn't do basic fact checking. Says you. You might be right or wrong. But Hardy isn't the *publisher* of his own book. WP:OR is talking about the *publisher*. If you find something wrong with his data(*1), you need to find a reliable source that says "Hardy is not correct". For this purpose, if Michael Moore has said this, then you don't need to go looking too hard. Citing the statistics and saying "homocide and murder is not the same" even when a reliable source says it, can not be included without the source saying "Hardy is wrong to confuse homocide with murder" or "Moore talked about homocide, which is not the same as murder". You have to find a reliable source that says something like that. Everything else is original research, even when backed up with primary sources. --GunnarRene 16:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

On the last point, I'd just like to offer an observation of mine: If a criticism is considered to be invalid by the opinion of a reliable source, and many editors agree, that would tempt editors to remove it as "irrelevant". I do agree that such points should be reduced in prominence, but I don't agree on their removal. That is first because somebody might have heard that criticism without hearing 1 answer to it, second because to accurately describe a debate, we should also include points that were mistaken, pure lies, matters of interpretation, or whatever. Just keeping the "valid" points up there would also be unfair to the article's subject as it could be made to appear that all the criticism was valid. --GunnarRene 16:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

(*1): How long did it take from the release of the movie untill Moore provided references for the gun deaths numbers? If it happened after Hardy wrote his book, then it would be harder to criticise him, unless there were painfully obvious sources that he overlooked. --GunnarRene 16:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

"You neither have a reliable source that calls those statements defaming" Ken admits that they're defaming when he says that they "are damning, and impossible to counter." You claim that it has already been proven that the book is reputable. Where? As for proving NPOV, I have already cited specific passages, and explained my reasoning, but that is not my burden in the first place, it's yours.

WP:NPOV #2: Wrong, this isn't just my view, it's the view established in WikiProjects film, as well as in WP:RS. Your counter example is a false analogy. The only way it would be an apt analogy would be if you said, "Only literature experts should be able to criticize the article for literary merits." Which is true, just like only film critics should be able to criticize the film for it's use of film technique.

WP:NPOV #4: Way to dodge the point completely. "It's been published, and we have to reflect it." is not even close to being justified by ""Verifiability, not truth." Particularily when you look at WP:V point #5, and the fact that the sources cited are aalready excluded in accordance with WP:V #1-4, and WP:RS.

WP:NPOV #5: I mean "represent" as in, "If CNN was doing a news story on gun rights that had absolutely nothing to do with Michael Moore, would they contact either of these guys as being notable pro-gun experts? Or are they non-notable in that cited field?"

WP:NPOV #6: And even if I accepted that as true, that doesn't justify so-called "experts" speaking outside their field. e.g., film people speaking about politics, and political people speaking about film.

WP:NPOV #7: Claiming that Moore misleads audiences by making it look like the bank bypasses legal checks, rather than sticking to the facts, is moralization. Period.

WP:NPOV #8: Kopel & Hardy are not subject-matter expert in any way, shape, or form, and thus, do not meet current standards. Hardy can't even distinguish between murder stats and homicide stats, much less good editing from bad editing

WP:OR: Complete non-sequitor. Being published does not automatically entail good fact checking. Further, your claim that "WP:OR is talking about the *publisher*" is false, since the actual question it asks is, "Ask yourself some questions when you are evaluating a publication." Publication, e.g., the actual work. We have good evidence that David Hardy as a researcher has incredibly poor fact checking (e.g., citing a user review from blogcritics.com as a source), and you have no evidence that his book was any different. You expect us to accept on faith that every word printed by HyperColins is authorative and reputable. I'm sorry, but I can't agree with that, and nothing in Wikipedia standards would compel me to.

To your point that people might have heard the arguments that Hardy presented without hearing the response, I agree, that would be a problem. However, that's what the external links at the bottom at for. I don't see any point to represent the debate, when there hasn't been much notable debate outside of the blog sphere to begin with. To answer your question on when Moore posted his sources, there's no date on the website itself. However, I can easily find postings of people quoting the relevant excerpts from that page as early as 10/23/03. Hardy's book was released in June, 2004. Just out of curiosuity, did Hardy update his book accordingly? We know he apparently hasn't updated his website. Again, this points to poor fact checking. Hardy continues to call Moore a liar, even though Moore has posted his sources nearly three years ago. Either Hardy hasn't bothered to check them yet despite making a virtual career out of Moore bashing and a great opprotunity to prove Moore as a liar yet again, or he has bothered to check them and found the results not to his liking. So it's a choice between being lazy, and being dishonest. Either way, Hardy clearly isn't even reputable on the subject of gun deaths, despite being a gun advocate. Why would I assume that he would be reputable in film criticism? -Schrodinger82 08:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Compromise Vote

One thing I think most of us agree on is that Bushnell's should go, and the section needs to be cut down. Thus I am proposing the following compromise:

1. The Pro-gun section would be cut down to this:

"Pro-gun critics such as David T Hardy and Dave Kopel believe that the movie "makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the
viewer." In a recent book Hardy says "speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's
voice, but which were not sentences he uttered." As an example of this Hardy compares BFC with the transcripts of the speeches given
highlighting the differences." plus a quote of Kopel's exact viewpoint.

2. We cite a who in the What a Wonderful World Section, right now it sounds too ORish, it's need a citation of someone saying they have an issue with that section. I believe it was Kopel that brings it up.

3. Citations will be to Kopel and Hardy's published work in nationally published periodical sources, and books that have been published by major houses.

This compromise would mention that a significant minority has an issue with the movie, it meets the NPOV standards as it states their opinion nothing else, and we can easily verify (by our citations) that those two hold that opinion. By using the sources mentioned above they would qualify as reliable sources that Kopel and Hardy hold that opinion. PPGMD 23:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Voting

Please vote Support or Oppose and give a reason why, please keep the reason why to under 30 words.

Support

1. Support per nom. PPGMD 23:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose for now. Does not give weight in proportion to the nature of controversies. See discussion.GunnarRene 02:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Schrodinger82 opposes. "pro-gun criticism should stick to the facts, and what's within their field of authority" continues below.

Mixed

1. I tend support except that I would hold that their websites are adequate for reference as to their views. Mangoe 01:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Compromise discussion

1. T1. he pro-gun criticism should stick to the facts, and what's within their field of authority. Their complaints on Moore's portrayal of the NRA/KKK in his cartoon can be considered something factual (e.g., Moore depicts these two as parallel groups), and would be within their field of authority (NRA history.). General comments on editing, such as the Heston speech, violates undue weight. Hardy does not meet the basic standards for fact checking, period. This is proven. Furthermore, he has no major academic credentials or positions that would compel me to ignore this. Political commentators should be limited to times when this movie has become an actual political issue (e.g., an actual decision in policy.). -Schrodinger82 07:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

The proposed section (as of now) does not give weight to controveries in proportion to their notability. Much of the ensuing debate revolved around the pro-gun issue. For example, I would hold that at least those criticisms that Moore characterize on his "Wacko attacko" page should be included. As for the section itself, I think it should be centered on gun issues, while other issues noted by Hardy or Kopel are cited in their relevant sections. The "Pro gun" section was too large before, and also included information irrelevant to guns.
Regarding websites:
Kopel is a professional opinion journalist, and he is one of the most well-known critics of Bowling for Columbine. Thus whatever opinions offered by Kopel on Kopel's website should be includable. Reason: Wikipedia:Verifiability (also repeated by Wikipedia:Reliable sources): "self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by reliable third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so." (WP:V's emphasis) Note also that WP:V here is talking about information about events, biographical facts about people, etc. that is "worth reporting". Ones own opinions, which are the bread and butter of opinion journalists, are not "reported" in the same fashion, point being that if a well-known journalist's self-published work is reliable enough for original reporting about controversial subjects or living persons, it is more than reliable enough for publishing their own opinions about a film.
Although Hardy has a book published, I'm not sure about including opinions from his website. A tricky case would arise if he modifies or corrects information already published in the book. As long as the website isn't a reliable source, perhaps the best way in those cases is to remove any such information?
"This compromise would mention that a significant minority has an issue with the movie" Are you sure that it's a minority? A minority of whom? A minority of critics? Of all people that saw the film? Of all Americans? Instead of saying that they represent any kind of minority, why not factually note how they were vocal critics, but also counting in positive criticism? I'm not quite sure about this point.
If Kopel and Hardy are NRA members and that is to be mentioned, that fact also has to be cited from a reliable source.--GunnarRene 02:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What changes do you suggest to conform to a version that would be agreeable most of the parties involved. Suggestions overall are better then quoting policy, because if we get in a policy war we will simply not go anywhere. As far as a minority or not, we simply have no stats on it, I am inclined to believe that most NRA members hold this position, but outside of that, there is no reasonable way to measure how many hold this opinion as no agency that I know of has attempted to measure it. PPGMD 02:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm too fatigued from reading all this discussion to write anything coherent in article space. Perhaps I'll have time tomorrow, but I have to prepare some patient trials and process workshops, so I hope you'll get some more help from somebody else. Just refrain from calling them a minority without a basis for it, add Kopel's website as a potential source, and you'll have my permission to move my "vote" to support. My other concerns I can address at a later date, and I might assess the article too. --GunnarRene 04:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not enough to be a journalist. The key word is well known. The phrase "well known" is a necessary qualifier for a reason. Has Kopel ever had his own radio or TV show? Has he won any prestigious journalism awards? Further, even then, WP:V still recomends that you exercise caution. How many opinions journalists are their in the country? What makes Kopel so special, other than the fact that he's one of the ones with a vendetta against Moore (practically the definition of minority view.). Currently, Moore is many magnitudes more notable than Hardy and Kopel combined. So would that justify giving Moore's rebutall many magnitudes more space?

To answer your question of "A minority of whom?", WikiProjects Films guidelines stating that that the reception information must deal with box office numbers and professional film critics, since a) you can be relatively certain that they actually saw the film, and b) critics have to review films regardless of whether they look interesting (For instance, the user reviews for "Kangaroo Jack" will be higher than the critical reviews of "Kangaroo Jack," because the "user reviews" are composed entirely of people who were willing to pay to see it in the first palce). Right now, Mangoe is one of the biggest advocates against Moore, and he hasn't even seen the movie. In terms of rating whether or not the film qualifies as a documentary, the majority view can be established in the academy awards, where individuals are nominated by their peers in their own category (Hence, when an actor says "it's an honor just to be nominated," they really mean it, because it means that their follow actors highly respect them." There are going to be vocal critics to just about anything. That doesn't make their individual claims inherently notable. -Schrodinger82 07:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that I haven't seen the movie either, and I'm mainly here to ensure that policies and consensus as I understand it is guiding the development of this article, as I'm supposed to think that you are too. Again, the more exceptional the news, the more "well known" the journalist needs to be to have a self-published source relied on "Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence" (WP:RS). His website is more than enough to verify his opinions on something, but if he reports the next Watergate on his website we should indeed ask why it hasn't been reported in the news media. If that scenario DOES happen, and he gets a report published in the news media about it, then his website could be relied as a source of additional details.

And by the way, if Michael Moore himself says that it isn't a documentary, does that count? Of course it doesn't remove the film from the documentary category, but that would be something that should be noted rather prominently in the article. If a other critics say the same thing, then it should also be noted but with lesser prominence, in proportion to the prominence of their criticism. And there lies the dispute.

Since Kopel and Hardy are not entertainment journalists, they have little standing to be cited on the entertainment value of a film. And entertainment journalists, almost by totality, have little standing to evaluate the movie's value as a factual representation or as a polemic since films like Kangaroo Jack is mostly what they write about. Political journalists, like Kopel, have a better standing in that regard. Hardy, as a lawyer, also has some expertise on the issue of factual representation of controversial issues (like in lawsuits) but less of a standing on the political scene before this controversy. But since he's had a book published by a reputable publisher and he's been covered by multiple media outlets, that makes him notable in this debate with no regard to Schrodinger82's opinion on his fact checking. --GunnarRene 15:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Just out of curiousity, where has Moore ever claimed that his film isn't a documentary? I would like to see the exact quote + source. The fact is, D&D aren't well known. You would never, for instance, see them on a late night talk show as the featured guest, because no one in the audience would know who they were, and mor importantly, no one in the audience would care what they would have to say. Just out of curiousity, where exactly would you draw the line between verifying the "entertainment value," and the "factual representation" of the film? Personally, I would limit it to statements of fact that the film actually makes. As opposed to statements of fact that the film doesn't make. For instance, Ken (Have you seen the movie, Ken) claims that "one criticism is that Moore blames the NRA for not cancelling uncancellable events." The problem is, 1) The criticism is not well known, and has yet to get any major media attention. 2) Moore never actually blames the NRA for that. 3) The event in question was never "uncancellable." At what point did this statement meet the threshhold for "factual representation"? What exactly made Hardy an expert on whether or not the event could be cancelled to begin with?

I should also point out that Hardy himself attempts to cite entertainment journalists in an atempt to show that deception occured. Why? Because that's the best way of finding out whether or not the editing was misleading. The problem is, not a single citation he listed qualifies as a reputable entertainment source. One comes from the "Willamette Freethinker," a publication of the "Corvallis Secular Society" who doesn't normally review movies, one is a self-published political website on geocities that also doesn't normally review movies, one is a user review at popcornmonsters.com, and one is a user comment from blogcritics.com . Be honest. Does that sound like good research and fact checking to you, to substantiate such an "exceptional claim" (e.g., that Moore's movie is fiction and intentionally misleads its audience.)? I don't think so. Hardy himself frequently attempts to cite film critics in order to prove deception. So why is that a good enough standard for Hardy, but not one for us?

You claim that "Hardy, as a lawyer, also has some expertise on the issue of factual representation." Hardy, as a lawyer, can't even tell the legal distinction between murder and homicide, and claims that Moore is being deceptive for using an accurate definition of the latter (Of course, he never actually points that Moore's definition is accurate, even though it is, thus misleading readers into believing that Moore's statistic is deceptive). Since Hardy is not a recognized expert on murder and homicide, I have a hard time taking his word for it that Moore is wrong, when there are much more authorative sources out there that say he isn't. If there are really factual disputes regarding this film, then it shouldn't be hard to find a more credible source on the matter. You claim that he has been published be a "reputable publisher." Where's your evidence that Hardy meets the standards of reputability (e.g., independent fact checker + oversight)? The claims on his website are ones that he wrote long before his HyperCollins book deal, and there is absolutely no evidence that he has undergone any sort of independent fact checking since. Sorry, but if all you needed to be listed as a reputbale source was to have a book published by a major press, then that's what the guidelines would say. Of course, they don't say that, because no one actually believes it. -Schrodinger82 21:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

1) It has received media attention, 2) Actually he did he said during the Flint part "Just like after Columbine, the NRA rushes to Flint to hold a big rally..." 3) Ok so no event is uncancelable, it would just be against the law to cancel it, the only way for the NRA to legally cancel the event is within 24 hours find another location that can host the event within 6 weeks, and then send out 4 million mailers all within 24 hours. I don't know if you have ever book a convention all, but that's damn near impossible, but not only that the NRA would have likely lost their money for the planned convention hall, have to spend over a million dollars send 4 million mailers out at the last minute (assuming that is even possible which it is most likely not), and then the NRA would have had to divert all it's shipments, bring back it's Go Team (which is likely already in Denver or on it's way to begin setup), and 22,000 people would have had do the same. Your talking about spending millions of dollars on something that is unlikely to be legally possible.

Frankly this is simply POV pushing using nuances of the rules that are incorrectly applied, and I am likely wasting my time writing this because I think nothing short of us giving up and going to solve this unless someone steps in and gives a final ruling. PPGMD 13:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

You: Actually he did he said during the Flint part "Just like after Columbine, the NRA rushes to Flint to hold a big rally..." Actual Statement: "Just as at Columbine, Heston showed up in Flint to have a large pro-gun rally"

If you can't represent the movie accurately, then don't complain when it gets removed. Even if your quotatation wasn't grossly inaccurate, it still doesn't depict Moore "blames the NRA for not cancelling uncancellable events," as Ken claims. And the event was not uncancellable, period. Either something is cancellable, it it's not. According to the law, it was. The law says they needed 10 days, they had 11. Everything else is just yours and Hardy's non-expert opinion, which has no relevance here to begin with, because Moore never even blames them for what you claim he does. As for your claims that it got media attention, from who? WAVE-TV? Big whoop. Yes, let's put WAVE-TV on the same level as Michael Moore. Despite his prominent awards and magazine covers and talk show appearences, Michael Moore only wishes he could be on WAVE-TV, right? Please. As for your claim that this is simply POV pushing, that's exactly right. Thank you for finally admitting that this is all that you've been doing all along. -Schrodinger82 22:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh I don't have a transcript in front of me to quote it word for word I don't spend an hour going through transcripts, reading policies word for word to do my response on talk for a single article as I have quite a few others that I work on.

You simply don't get it anything is cancelable as long as you don't care about the consequences. The 10 days is the deadline to get all the mailers out, not how long it would take to get the notices out. Sure they could have canceled the event, likely been broken two New York laws (not huge offenses, but if there is someone with a grudge against the NRA could have used it against them), waste millions of dollars.

The POV pushing isn't on our side, it's on yours, you interpretation of Wikipedia policies is sketchy at best. PPGMD 02:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

If you don't want ot quote it word for word, then you should put it in quotation marks and insist that it's what Moore said. Especially when you're quoting him for the sake of pushing an argument. You claim you claim that "You simply don't get it anything is cancelable as long as you don't care about the consequences." Please feel free to list the actual consequences that the NRA was threatened with, using a reliable source. What exactly would New York have done to the National Rifle Association if they hadn't complied? You claim that "The 10 days is the deadline to get all the mailers out." According to who? Is David Hardy your only source on this matter? Sorry, but after all his other inaccuracies and dubious source, I have a hard time taking his word for it on this. You claim that "if there is someone with a grudge against the NRA could have used it against them." Just "who" are you referring to here? Can you substantiate this? Moreover, what does this have to do with Moore's actual statement? And you can accuse me of POV all you want, but whether you can back that up with anything other than personal opinion is another matter entirely. Obviously, you haven't done so, and likely never will. -Schrodinger82 04:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)