Talk:Edward Blum (litigant)

First sentence; non-notable works

Mitchumch, please respect the BRD process and avoid re-reverting. "Litigation in laws" sounds awkward to me, certainly more accurate awkward than "activism against laws." And generally speaking Wikipedia is not a bibliography service, so we don't include exhaustive lists of subjects' non-notable books. At least that has been my experience. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:16, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

@DrFleischman: You could have initiated a discussion before reverting my edit.

In regards to the first sentence, it was not WP:NPOV. Blum is a controversial person. The "activism against laws" phrasing failed to reflect the controversy surrounding his litigation work. I'm open to a new phrasing for the first sentence, as long as the phrasing is WP:NPOV.

I believe you have misunderstood the Wikipedia:Notability (books) guideline. That guideline is strictly for articles about a book. For example, the Bible. Listing the works of a person within a biographical article is not related to that guideline, it's simply a conventional part of Wikipedia. What article(s) were you referring to when you stated, "At least that has been my experience"? Mitchumch (talk) 22:37, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand my concern with "litigation in laws." It had nothing to do with neutrality. It was simply about good copyediting. "Litigation in laws" is simply awkward language. If you want language that conveys the controversial nature of Blum's work, then (i) we need a reliable source saying his work is controversial, and (ii) we should explicitly say his work is controversial. Moreover I don't think changing the language to "litigation in laws" even accomplishes your goal of conveying that his work is controversial.

As for inclusion of Blum's book, I understand our notability guidelines quite well. I am saying that generally speaking we try to avoid making lists of every published work a subject has written because we are an encyclopedia, not a bibliography service. Therefore common practice is to include just a subject's notable works. What articles am I referring to? None in particular; I've dealt with this issue on a whole bunch of articles over the last 5 years or so. Here are some examples. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:28, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

As for WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY, I have no idea what that link is suppose to mean since there does not appear to be any elaboration within the subsection titled "Wikipedia is not a directory". Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi added the link on 3 March 2017. Perhaps that editor could elaborate here and possibly add that elaboration on the Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not page for clarity sake. My concern about WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY stems from any conflict with MOS:APPENDIX from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works. This may be a matter of miscommunication.

In regards to "litigation in laws" and "activism against laws", do you have an alternative in mind? The use of "against" is a NPOV issue for me. Although, I do understand your objections. Mitchumch (talk) 19:52, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I can't speak for Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi's specific reason for adding WP:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY to WP:NOT, but personally I think it's pretty clear what the idea is here: bibliographies are by their nature catalogs/directories/databases (take your pick) and are not encyclopedic.

Can you please explain what makes the use of "against" non-neutral? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:28, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the message calling me here. The purpose behind the (harmless, until now!) March augmentation of WP:NOT was an attempt to prevent (much as Dr F. says) WP being used as a depository for authors' lists. WP:NOTLIBRARYTHING, you might say (indeed, I considered that too, but wasn't sure how well known LT actually was. I also considered, for example, WP:NOTCOMPLETEWORKS- but that seemed to allow too much gaming over whether the list was actually complete). It is very much in the spirit (and only in the spirit) of other areas of NOT: not being a DIRECTORY of publications, not being a REPOSITORY of titles, etc. It was in response to a number of BIO cruft-ridden articles plagued with small amounts of (often trivial or non-notable) text and then lists of literally hundreds of published works. Pinging Drmies at this point as I seem to remember they came across the kind of thing, too. Obviously we do have lists of complete works, but they are standalone lists, and need only be summarised in a main article. NOT:BIBLIOG was intended to stop WP being spammed by promotional lists that has the result that 'the list becomes so long that its inclusion in the main article would be unsuitable.'Not for article subjects who have WP:Verifiably a large number of WP:Noted works (Shakespeare, Agatha Christie), but for e.g. academics who may produce large body of publictions (POP, eh) but little of which may independently notable. In this particular case, I wouldn't see the harm in adding one book (it's certainly not what the NOT:BIBLIOG addition was intending to address!), since it does 'not have to be sufficiently notable to merit' a standalone article in the first place to be added. Although personally, I think it excellent custom and practice- wikt:belt and braces, shall we say- to get into the habit of sourcing everything in a BLP, not necesserilly because we have to, but because we can. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 10:42, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

This is consistent with my approach to these things. It's not a big deal when it's just one work, but when articles become laden with tens, even hundreds of works, sometimes including lesser items like journal article, that it becomes problematic. So it's not a hard-and-fast rule, but the best approach, in my view, is to stick with the notable works. Blum has actually written or contributed to a number of works. I wouldn't be opposed to adding an external link to his WorldCat page so readers can easily access his bibliography. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:10, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Mitchumch, are you going to respond or just keep edit warring? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:55, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

DrFleischman Despite an ongoing discussion surrounding your edit, you have again chosen to remove content from the article with no support from a Wikipedia policy. You first used Wikipedia:Notability (books) that was not applicable. Then used Wikipedia:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY when Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, who added that policy shortcut, has explicitly stated, "I wouldn't see the harm in adding one book (it's certainly not what the NOT:BIBLIOG addition was intending to address!)". You also stated, "It's not a big deal when it's just one work".

There does not appear to be any grounds for removing it in policy and you also do not have consensus to remove it.

I replaced your entry in the "External links" section with Template:Authority control because it is a standard feature on bio articles that performs the same function as your entry, but with greater functionality. It will take a little while to appear in the article though. Thank you for adding Template:pov-inline. It didn't occur to me to do that. Mitchumch (talk) 20:26, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• Mitchumch, I am a bit puzzled by your reasoning. We are not a bibliography; pointing at "personal opinion" when you revert Dr. Fleischman is meaningless since a. they provided an argument here and b. if theirs is "just" a personal opinion, then yours is no better.

  Now, I also don't see much of a problem with adding one single book, though I hasten to add that good editorial practice would be to find a review of the book in a decent publication and add that as a reference--and I also hasten to add that this is really not so much a book as a pamphlet published by his employer, a politicized think tank. In other words, I would not accept that as a reliable source, for instance, but that's another matter. Another option is to just work the title (and a review or two) into the prose of the article. Anyway, toodles. Drmies (talk) 21:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Drmies: I am moving the discussion on Wikipedia:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY to Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not in the "Wikipedia:NOTBIBLIOGRAPHY" section.

As far as this article is concerned, you have stated, "I also don't see much of a problem with adding one single book". My addition of the "Works" section is based on MOS:APPENDIX from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works. Those guidelines are not my opinion. As for Dr. Fleischman, I've provided a clear explanation for my revert. For other issues you've brought up, please see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not.

DrFleischman Please consider participating in the discussion to register your input at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not. Mitchumch (talk) 21:35, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Why do you keep insisting that "personal opinion" is somehow a valid rationale? Do you not want this conversation to progress? Drmies (talk) 12:03, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

@Drmies: The one and only time I've used the term "personal opinion" was in an edit summary that proceeded this entire discussion. That was my observation at that time. During this discussion, I have read the rationale given by editors, examined them, and presented my observations. Please review this discussion for the basis of my position. Mitchumch (talk) 13:55, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

First sentence

I'd like to focus on this since it's more important to me than the bibliography issue. Mitch, can you please explain what makes the use of "against" non-neutral? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:53, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

I would like to postpone this conversation. You can remove the template you posted. I'll repost it and start the discussion at a later date. The "Works" section was most important to me. Thanks though. Mitchumch (talk) 02:19, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

This page is wildly dishonest

Edward Blum's litigant career has been to fight against laws that protect minorities. This page disingenuously phrases those as if he's defending minorities who have been disenfranchised by gerrymandering, quite the opposite of what happened.71.222.196.201 (talk) 00:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Lead needs to more accurately describe notability

Blum, a non-lawyer, is of course notable for his decades-long struggle against race-based affirmative action. He is further notable for his extraordinarily successful track record of getting cases in front of SCOTUS. He is notable for successfully challenging the constitutionality of the VRA, ultimately succeeding in Shelby v. Holder. He is notable for losing the Fisher cases, then persevering with the SFFA cases, which may shortly find race-based affirmative action in university admissions to be unconstitutional.

What is not notable about Blum is that he "connects potential plaintiffs with attorneys who are willing to represent them in "test cases" which he tries to use to set legal precedents." That's his method, which is neither novel nor notable. Ditto for the fact that he "is the director and sole member of the Project on Fair Representation"—it's just the name of one of his corporations, which few know. Indeed, SFFA is far better known.

The lead absolutely needs to be revised to focus on what's notable and important about Blum—a legal layman who has done a remarkable job of bringing attention and financing to his cause, and has had some extraordinary success, with more likely to follow.

Thanks and look forward to discussion! ElleTheBelle

PS:

The rest of the article suffers from some of this sort of confusion as well—sections titled "Project on Fair Representation" and "Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment" would be far better as something along the lines of "Race-based affirmative action in university admissions" and "Race-based affirmative action on corporate boards", respectively. THere's no need to get into the fact that Blum set up websites to attract potential plaintiffs—again, this is common practice and hardly notable.

Lastly, the guy is clearly a legal and civil-rights activist, and disambiguating him with the term "(litigant)" is a bit silly—while he does help begin a lot of litigation, other than in his first case he's not notable for being a plaintiff in his own right. Categorizing him as a "civil-rights activist" or just "legal activist" makes a lot more sense than than as a "litigant"—especially given that he uses identical tactics and methods as do other civil-rights activists, such as the NAACP or ACLU. ElleTheBelle 21:05, 14 May 2023 (UTC)