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Reversions of Rockypedia: Whether Paterno had knowledge of 1998 investigation in which Sandusky was not charged and whether Paterno's alleged knowledge of 1998 was the reason for revoking Penn State wins

Dear Rockypedia (talk) and others who may help us in discussing this issue,

Thank you for your good faith efforts to make this page as accurate as possible. I think we share the same objective and maybe we can talk this out to work through it together.

The question is whether a sentence in the coaching record section is accurate when it reads:

"All wins dating back to 1998 were vacated, the year Paterno was first informed of Sandusky's suspected child abuse."

I don't think we can say for sure that Paterno was first informed in 1998 or that the wins were vacated because Paterno was first informed in 1998. It would be accurate to restate it according to more recent press reports with the following:

""All wins dating back to 1998 were vacated, when police investigated a mother's complaint that Sandusky had showered with her son."

This is more in line with the way the AP currently explains how the NCAA decided on 1998:

"It had eliminated all wins from 1998 -- when police investigated a mother's complaint that Sandusky had showered with her son -- through 2011, Paterno's final season as coach after six decades with the team and the year Sandusky was charged." http://www.usnews.com/news/sports/articles/2015/01/16/proposed-deal-would-restore-wins-for-penn-st-joe-paterno http://www.cbsnews.com/news/penn-state-joe-paterno-to-get-wins-restored-under-proposed-deal/ http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/12179571/joe-paterno-111-wins-were-vacated-restored

Whether Paterno was informed of the 1998 incident has not been legally settled or proven. The Freeh report seems to make conclusions, and the press reports that immediately followed Freeh's press conference repeat Freeh's conclusions, but whether Paterno had knowledge about the 1998 incident for which Sandusky was investigated by police but never charged comes down to how emails written by former athletic director Curley are interpreted and how Paterno's grand jury testimony is interpreted and how Paterno's responses to questions from Sally Jenkins are interpreted. The Freeh report is a contested document, the issue is not settled by any authoritative consensus, and people should be free to look at the available evidence and draw their own conclusions.

The evidence that we do know about has not yet been tested in court. We will find out more when the trials for Spanier, Curley, and Schultz begin.

Even if Paterno did know about 1998, whether Paterno in particular knew about the 1998 incident was not the basis for taking away the wins. The wins were vacated beginning in 1998 because the NCAA saw 1998 in the Freeh report as the first year when Sandusky was investigated and the earliest date of emails of Penn State administrators discussing the investigation. One email is captioned with Paterno's name and other emails mention "coach." It has never been definitively proven whether Paterno was told about the police investigation that began when a mother reported that her son had wet hair when she picked him up from Sandusky. Paterno's grand jury testimony addresses whether he may have heard a rumor. But the wins would have been removed whether Paterno knew about 1998 or not, and whether he was the coach or not.

If the Wikipedia article absolutely must make a statement about whether Paterno in particular knew about 1998 when addressing why wins were taken away beginning in 1998, it should at least say something about "alleged" to have known or "might" have had reason to know or that it was the Freeh report conclusions that the NCAA was relying on and not a definite legal finding.

Aside from the recent AP articles cited above that only mention that 1998 was when Sandusky was first investigated, other more recent news articles are more careful to avoid making a definitive declaration that the wins were vacated because Paterno had knowledge of the 1998 investigation:

"NCAA president Mark Emmert and the organization’s executive committee settled on 1998 because it was the first year Penn State officials are alleged to have known about an investigation into Sandusky, the Lions’ long-time defensive coordinator." http://www.timesleader.com/news/psu/151341333/Paternos-wins-restored-by-NCAA

"After an internal investigation concluded that he and other administrators missed or ignored signs of Sandusky's crimes, the NCAA vacated 111 of his wins, dating to 1998, the year investigators said Paterno might first have had reason to suspect Sandusky. Sandusky left the Penn State staff in 1999." http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150113_NCAA_said_to_reconsider_sanctions_against_Paterno__Penn_State.html

"The 111 wins that were vacated dated to 1998, when, officials asserted, Paterno and others first saw signs of Sandusky's misconduct." http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150118_NCAA_agrees_to_restore_Paterno_wins__restructure_fine.html

Rockypedia also removed a clarification I made about the number of wins the occurred under Paterno. The sanctions vacated 112, but one of those wins occurred after Paterno was not longer the coach. Tom Bradley is credited with one of the 112. Paterno is not being credited with 112 wins, he's being given back 111 of the wins that occurred while he was coach. If he was given 112 wins his total number of wins would be 410 and this is not correct. His career wins are 409. Srj4000 (talk) 03:20, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

You are mistaken, sir. I did not remove anything having to do with wins. Must've been another editor. Rockypedia (talk) 19:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Dear Rockypedia (talk), If you look at "Revision as of 16:24, 18 January 2015" that you made to undo my revision, you will see that you changed it from the 111 wins correction I had made back to the incorrect 112. I understand that you were trying to undo what I had changed about Paterno being informed of the 1998 incident, but in the process of reverting the knowledge of 1998 issue, you also reverted the wins clarification I had made in the same post. By undoing my revision, you reverted both the knowledge issue and the wins issue. Wbm1058 was nice enough to change back the revision to 111 so that is clear now. I'd still like to make it clear that it was a Freeh report finding as to whether Paterno was informed of 1998 so that it is stated as a Freeh conclusion and not an absolute fact. I'd also still like to discuss whether it is appropriate to state that Paterno "lied" in the posthumous findings section. Srj4000 (talk) 05:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit request: Whether Freeh investigators were "independent" and whether Paterno "knew" about 1998

I think these sentences need to be revised to make them more neutral:

- "E-mail uncovered by the independent investigators indicated that Paterno had been informed of, and was following, an investigation by state officials into a previous incident of sexual assault between Sandusky and another child in 1998, despite Paterno's grand jury testimony that he was unaware of any possible child abuse by Sandusky prior to 2001."

- "All wins dating back to 1998 were vacated, the year Paterno was first informed of Sandusky's suspected child abuse."

First, I don't think it is neutral to call the investigators "independent." Freeh was commissioned by the board of trustees. It is unclear whether Freeh was representing the trustees as his client when he made conclusions about Penn State as an entity separate from the trustees or about Penn State administrators and coaches. Freeh investigators were also collaborating with the NCAA and may have been influenced or been taking direction from the NCAA: http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/11863293/court-documents-indicate-ncaa-freeh-investigators-worked-together-penn-state-nittany-lions-investigation http://www.universityherald.com/articles/12895/20141112/louis-freehs-independent-penn-state-report-was-not-entirely-independent.htm http://www.si.com/college-football/2014/11/12/penn-state-investigation-sandusky-ncaa-freeh http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-penn-state-investigation-ncaa-freeh-cooperate-20141112-story.html

It would be more accurate to refer to them as "Freeh investigators" or to "the investigation commissioned by Penn State trustees" rather than characterize them as "independent investigators."

Second, the issue of whether Paterno knew about 1998 should be written about more carefully.

Aside from media reports and consensus reached in the immediate aftermath of the Freeh report, before it was analyzed and questioned in the years that followed, what is being used to make a definitive statement that Paterno was informed of 1998?

All we have are emails written by someone else, which some people have used to make a judgment that Paterno was informed based on their interpretation of the words that an athletic director used in the email.

I'm not suggesting that we omit any of the details or exclude any of the judgments that have been made. All of the events, evidence, and conclusions that people have drawn should be presented. But wouldn't it be more neutral and objective to at least preface these judgments with language like "may have" or "according to Freeh" or "Freeh concluded" instead of passing them off as definitive unquestioned fact?

And even though Freeh concluded that the athletic director may have touched base with Paterno about 1998, the basis for vacating the wins was not whether Paterno in particular knew. The NCAA sanctions would have been the same whether Paterno in particular was told or not. Srj4000 (talk) 23:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Srj4000's connection to the subject of the article.

Given that Srj4000's edits have exclusively been focused on this article, and the fact that every significant edit involves painting Paterno in a more positive light, I think it's a fair question to ask: What is Srj4000's connection to Joe Paterno, or Penn State?

Srj4000 is involved in a good bit of wikilawyering in his recent additions to this talk page, but it all has one goal in mind - to clean up any negative passages on the Paterno page and make Paterno look better. I'm interested in this article being NPOV, and it's inaccurate for Srj4000 to portray my edits as "reverting" his work, a term designed to make it appear as though I'm the one introducing a non-NPOV viewpoint to the article. In fact, I was simply bringing the page back to where it was before his edits - a version that was agreed upon, by consensus, years ago. I didn't even revert some of his more innocuous edits, because it's just not worth fighting over every single turn of phrase, but working to portray Paterno as an innocent man in the Sandusky scandal is clearly non-NPOV, and it's clearly what Srj4000 is engaged in here. That, at least, is my conclusion when looking at all of his edits together. Rockypedia (talk) 20:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I was just reminded of something else: one of those edits [1] by Srj4000 involved removing a relevant cited source, changing the meaning of a sentence (again to portray Paterno more positively), and added a completely different citation at the end of the new sentence. That's not the action of someone looking to improve a page as far as NPOV goes. I'd like to hear an explanation for that. Rockypedia (talk) 22:10, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't really know what the word "reverting" means in this context or whether I'm using it correctly in talking about the Wikipedia edits of one person being undone by the edits of another. I only used the term "reverting" because that was the terminology that you had used in explaining your edits on 16:24, 18 January 2015‎ and on 17:27, 18 January 2015‎ on the Revision History page. I was trying to use the word the same way that you were using it. But I'm not that familiar with whether I'm using it correctly in this instance or whether it has special meaning on these boards. Regarding the edit I had made about whether Paterno had knowledge of 1998, I had removed a Deadspin article citation that was contemporaneous with when the Freeh report was first released and before the conclusions of the Freeh report were questioned, and I replaced it with a CBS News/AP article citation from this week that was more careful in describing how 1998 was chosen as the beginning of the sanctions. I don't think we can say definitively that Paterno was informed of 1998. It would at least be more accurate to say that Freeh concluded that Paterno was informed of 1998, but even if Paterno himself was informed of 1998, that in itself was not the basis for the sanctions. I'm not trying to portray anyone's edits in any way, I'm just trying to make the page accurate and unbiased in any direction. More recent news articles and commentary seem as though they are more careful to characterize the findings in the Freeh report as Freeh's conclusions. I don't think the conclusions can be stated as an absolute without reference to the fact that they are Freeh's conclusion since many of Freeh's conclusions seem like they are being questioned or at least being characterized more carefully in recent press articles. I'm not trying to portray anyone as innocent or guilty, I think the emails and the grand jury testimony should be presented no matter how bad they make anyone look. But I don't think it is appropriate to go a step further to characterize them as proving a "lie" or proving definitively that Paterno had knowledge of 1998 unless the Wikipedia page also states who is making that judgment. And the more recent news articles that have had time to get caught up on the issue are more accurate than earlier articles from right after the Freeh report was released and before it was analyzed with more care. Srj4000 (talk) 06:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Regarding Rockpedia's explanation that he was bringing back the page to where it was years ago, I just want to clarify what he is referring to. Rockypedia brought back a sentence from over two years ago that read: "E-mails uncovered by the independent investigators indicate that Paterno lied to the grand jury when testifying that he was unaware of any possible child abuse by Sandusky prior to 2001." But more recently beginning in early 2013, for the whole year of 2014, and in 2015 up until Rockypedia re-edited it to add back that Paterno "lied," the sentence had consistently read: "Email uncovered by the independent investigators indicate that Paterno may have followed an investigation by state officials into a previous incident between Sandusky and a different child in 1998, despite Paterno's grand jury testimony that he was unaware of any possible child abuse by Sandusky prior to 2001." I think the "may have followed" is more neutral and still communicates the underlying issue without making an assumption or a judgment and without trying to portray Paterno in a positive or negative light. An even more accurate sentence might be:"Email uncovered by Freeh investigators indicate that Paterno may have followed an investigation by state officials into a previous incident between Sandusky and a different child in 1998, despite Paterno's grand jury testimony that he did not know of any other inappropriate sexual conduct by Sandusky prior to 2001." or "The Freeh investigation found emails exchanged by university administrators in 1998 discussing a previous incident in which Sandusky was investigated by state officials. An email from Tim Curley with Paterno's name in the subject line reads that Curley "touched base with coach" and a later email from Curley with the subject line "Jerry" reads that "coach is anxious to know where it stands." These emails between administrators led Freeh to conclude that Paterno was updated about the 1998 investigation that did not result in charges against Sandusky, though Freeh noted that the available record was not clear as to how the conclusion of the 1998 investigation was conveyed to Paterno. In Paterno's grand jury testimony in 2011, Paterno stated that he did not know of any other inappropriate sexual conduct by Sandusky prior to 2001."

These options would present more of an unbiased statement of the issue.Srj4000 (talk) 20:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

"The investigation also uncovered information that Paterno may have persuaded university officials not to report Sandusky to authorities in 2001.[8][9] "

This should be removed as the citations are speculatory at best. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smokeybandit2 (talk • contribs) 13:01, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking this over, it looks like Rockpedia is inserting POV material into the article. This example is the most blatant. I went and cleaned up some of his edits. Note that this edit of his shouldn't be reverted, as it removed a copyright violation. The line removed was copied word by word from the listed source. ThemFromSpace 20:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
Your example of the most "blatant" insertion of POV material, was, in fact, simply me reverting the passage back to where it had been before Srj4000 began his most recent positive-spin edits to this page. Please check farther back in the history and apologize for your baseless accusation. Also, I still haven't seen any acknowledgement of my request to know what Srj4000's (and yours) connections to Penn State and Joe Paterno are, as it seems clear that at least Srj4000's account exists solely to portray Joe Paterno in a more positive light. Perhaps an admin can shed some more light on this. Rockypedia (talk) 16:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Rockypedia, Without relying only media reports from the same period in which the Freeh report was first released, please explain why it is necessary for these two sentences state unequivocally that Paterno was informed about 1998:
- "E-mail uncovered by the independent investigators indicated that Paterno had been informed of, and was following, an investigation by state officials into a previous incident of sexual assault between Sandusky and another child in 1998, despite Paterno's grand jury testimony that he was unaware of any possible child abuse by Sandusky prior to 2001."
- "All wins dating back to 1998 were vacated, the year Paterno was first informed of Sandusky's suspected child abuse."

I'm not suggesting at all that we remove the content, I just don't think it is neutral to state that he knew about 1998 without any qualification at all about it being a Freeh report conclusion that has not yet been accepted as fact by any authoritative body.

I think newer articles are more objective and neutral since some of Freeh's conclusions have now been questioned in the past few years. I'm sure more changes will be necessary as additional evidence is produced and tested later when the court cases of Penn State administrators begin. Please explain why at this point you feel it is necessary to state definitely that Paterno knew about the 1998 investigation instead of saying more neutrally that "Freeh concluded" that Paterno may have been informed about 1998 based on Freeh's interpretation of what the athletic director had written in emails to university administrators. Srj4000 (talk) 23:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
You're still not addressing what your connection is to Penn State and/or Joe Paterno, nor why you made an accusation that I "blatantly" inserted POV material when I was merely reverting your own positive-spin edit back to what had been the consensus for well over a year. Please address these two questions, rather than continuing your current line of trying to justify showing Paterno in a more positive light than neutral sources do. You're not being neutral at all, as evidenced by your dozens of edits, all of which attempt to downplay Paterno's role in the scandal. Is that coincidence? Please explain your point of view to all of us. Rockypedia (talk) 13:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
I've never used a word like "blatantly." Please tell me where you think I said that. I'm not connected with Penn State or Joe Paterno. My interest in the coverage of the Freeh report in relation to Paterno comes from my study of the work of Ed Glaeser and Cass Sunstein regarding Asymmetric Bayesianism http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2362931.
I don't understand how it is more neutral to say that Paterno knew about 1998 rather than state that Freeh concluded that Paterno may have known about 1998. We don't have any basis to know what Paterno knew except for what Freeh concluded and many of Freeh's conclusions have been questioned or determined to be premature before evidence has been tested and opposing opinions have been offered. Even people arrested for crimes by the government are given terms like "alleged," and in the case of Paterno we are talking about Freeh's opinion of some emails without any cross examination, interviews of the senders, or rules of admissibility.
The only basis for saying that Paterno knew is Freeh's conclusion, and of course anyone else is welcome to look at the emails and decide for themselves, but the news reports from the day the Freeh report was released are merely reciting Freeh's conclusion and the more recent media reports don't say without qualification that Paterno knew, they say according to Freeh.
Rockypedia keeps referring to a consensus that was reached years ago. I don't remember a consensus, but years ago was before the Freeh report was questioned, when it was merely recited as fact, but now it has been questioned and we do not rely on old consensus in light of new information. In the sentence from the posthumous findings section, Rockypedia removed a sentence that had stood without any objections from early 2013 until 2015, and he replaced it with a previous sentence from 2012/2013. If the sentence was so unacceptable and was not in line with consensus, it is hard to understand how it stood for over a year for most of 2014 into 2015 before Rockypedia decided to change it back to how it read in 2012/2013.
I'd like to discuss this further, but I would prefer to remain focused on the substance of the words in the article and making them neutral by identifying where statements are based on someone's judgment, interpretation, or opinion. Same content, just stated by identifying whose conclusion it is so that people are not led to believe it is definitive fact. We may come to more conclusive statements once the actual trials begin for the administrators who sent the emails. Srj4000 (talk) 20:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Joe Paterno Turned down the NFL?

"In all, he led the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl appearances with 24 wins while turning down offers to coach National Football League (NFL) teams, including the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots."

Did not see a cited source for these offered NFL jobs. No evidence this happened and irrelevant to his page as he was a college coach. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:A:6600:E769:3DBA:FFC:2891:F60C (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Here is your cited source: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1346&dat=19820113&id=rMVOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1g4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=2929,4133039&hl=en Try google search it works.

3.5 million documents

Haven't looked into this, but it seems unlikely that 3.5 million documents were "reviewed". Update one source NY times says "involved 3.5 million documents". A more or less meaningless statement as it stands.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC).

Ok, the Freeh report says "Analysing over 3.5 million pieces of pertinent electronic data and other documents" Freeh in his speech said "We also analyzed over 3.5 million emails and other documents." (But he also found it necessary to state that the team was comprise, among others, "lawyers (one of whom is a former Navy SEAL)" so puffery seems his style.) "Pertinent" is a loose phrase and so is "pieces of electronic data" R.F. 2015-11-26Z14:00

Wins reinstated

I put in a brief line about the reinstatement of the 112 wins, as a parenthetical near the coverage of the removal. It should also go in the main narrative, with whatever else was agreed at the the time.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC).

Freeh report section in general

I think this needs splitting into the report, the NCAA action and any other major chunks. As it stands the section is mislabelled.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC).

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Semi-protected edit request on 9 May 2016

I have an issue with the following sentence:

"An independent report composed by the law firm King & Spalding and commissioned by the Paterno family"

A report that is commissioned (presumably paid for) by a party with a vested interest is not independent. Therefore, I suggest that "An independent report' be changed to just "A report" Watertavi (talk) 17:50, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, that's the better wording. Rockypedia (talk) 18:21, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 Done - Arjayay (talk) 18:45, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Woefully lacking on coaching career

I came here to see if the article mentioned anything about Paterno being passed up by the Packers as head coach in 1971, and if it didn't, I was gonna add it in at an appropriate spot. What I found instead was an article on the Jerry Sandusky sexual assault scandal that also happened to mention a little bit about Joe Paterno's coaching career. Not only is there nowhere to place the aforementioned tidbit about the Packers, but the prose under "Coaching history" says nearly nothing about his coaching career pre-2000. And even the prose that is there is pretty trivial. I'm not saying there's too much on the scandal here. It seems like that was a gigantic deal for a long time on this page so let's not get into that. But rather, there's far too little on his coaching career. Lizard (talk) 22:57, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The stuff regarding the scandal in this article should be Paterno's part in it and how it affected him. -- Jtalledo 12:27, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Is it though? The whole thing is WP:TLDR to me so I haven't looked through it too much, but if those walls of text is what was agreed upon the article should be then who am I to trim any of it? Lizard (talk) 19:47, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
I don't think there was any formal agreement. But yeah, you're right, I'm not sure how well it would go over if it got pruned. --Jtalledo (talk) 23:33, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

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wins

Some of the sources cited in this article assert that 111 wins were removed and subsequently restored to Paterno's record, while at least one other cited herein places that figure at 112. Which is it? Certainly both figures should not be included without explanation.--~TPW 17:30, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

One of the 112 wins happened after one of the Penn State players got tackled into Joe on the sideline during a game and broke Joe's leg. He wan't at the next game, so his top assistant who filled in for him got credit for that one win. Jeff in CA (talk) 02:30, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 March 2019

If your sources are incredible at best, you shouldn't allow them to be published. Shame on you Wikipedia, this is why people have stopped using your citations as any kind of basis in fact. 67.246.163.115 (talk) 00:44, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  Spintendo  00:53, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Removing undue weight banner

I propose to remove the undue weight banner. It's been there for over three years, and the section on the child abuse controversy has in that time grown by about 6%, while the article as a whole has grown by a similar amount. That tells me that the editors who have an interest in this article don't think that undue weight is given to that scandal.

I've just read the child abuse section, and while in places it goes into a bit too much blow-by-blow detail IMO, it's well-written and balanced. It's not a rehash of the whole scandal; rather, it focuses specifically on Paterno's role. It makes up about 1/3 of the article, which is maybe a bit high, but not absurdly so, given that, like it or not, Paterno has become known almost as much for that as for the rest of his coaching career. One could arguably calve it into an article of its own and replace it with a much shorter summary in the bio, but then we'd have an article called something like Joe Paterno's role in the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. And if that hasn't happened in three years, keeping the banner at the top of the article is unlikely to make it happen. Jbening (talk) 17:18, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Whole-heartedly agree. It should absolutely be a substantial part of the article because it's impossible to discuss Joe Paterno, his career, or his legacy without discussing the scandal. Maybe the introduction (which seems to be a little over half scandal content) is a bit heavy? - Amatheur (talk) 20:17, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Good point about the lede. I've just had a go at trimming the text relating to the scandal, retaining all of the relevant information but in a more summary form, and trying to keep the balanced perspective it had had. It's now only about 1/3 of the lede. What do you think? Jbening (talk) 02:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
I like it! It tells you what happened, the two reports, and the NCAA vacating/reversing; it's balanced; and it doesn't dominate the lede. With that, I think the banner can be removed. - Amatheur (talk) 22:26, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
I think the lead is currently balanced, but I think the "Posthumous findings" (Freeh report) section is too long, especially since most of the details are already found at the Penn State child sex abuse scandal page and many findings in the Freeh report were found to be inaccurate with the NCAA having to reverse course on many of their sanctions after the lawsuit against them. Eagles 24/7 (C) 19:06, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
If you want to take a swing at it, happy to look over it. I would myself, but I think it's a decent length as is and slammed with real-life work right now. Amatheur (talk) 18:52, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

joe

joe is not in politics why is the article locked he is a football coach — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.223.154.228 (talk) 14:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Being a politician is not a reason pages are protected, please see Wikipedia's page protection policy. Eagles 24/7 (C) 14:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

The notice at the top

Is it a fucking joke? --Wikipedia Wonderful 698-D (talk) 20:46, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Wikipedia Wonderful 698-D: Can you elaborate? The reason for it being there is explained in the section above. Any assistance in fixing the issue would be appreciated. Lizard (talk) 22:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I came here to say the same thing; a disclaimer about "undue weight" is completely ludicrous. 2001:56A:71D0:9C00:1D9F:F741:473C:269C (talk) 16:12, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
It's not a disclaimer; it's a notice that the article may lend undue weight to a certain topic, asking editors to assist in fixing the problem. Lizard (talk) 16:31, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Half of the content concerns the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. Editors are being invited to discuss this proportion and, as they see fit, to ply their labors. 50-50 is the tipping point where this article becomes more about the scandal, which has its own article, than about Paterno.Donaldecoho (talk) 10:58, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Word count: Non-scandal-3179 words; Scandal-3689 words. Coverage in this article is past the 50-50 tipping point and merger with the separate scandal article should be considered.Donaldecoho (talk) 00:54, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

The quotation box

I think that the quotation box at Joe Paterno#Child sex abuse scandal and dismissal presents a neutrality issue. It features two pulled quotations, one directly from the accused and one taking the position that the accused was innocent. I don't think a quotation from the Freeh report should be added—because I think then the impulse will be to add a quote from the response to the Freeh report, and a response to the response, on end—but I'd suggest that the box should be removed entirely (or perhaps limited to the Paterno quotation).--2604:2000:1742:A11F:E8F1:593B:E169:738F (talk) 01:49, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the quotation box presents a neutrality issue. The appropriate remedy is to remove the box entirely. Jeff in CA (talk) 09:01, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

1970s rapes

More history of ignoring sexual assault on his watch.

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/32496588/before-jerry-sandusky-penn-state-football-had-another-serial-sexual-predator-untold-story-crimes-fight-bring-justice — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.212.231.250 (talk) 01:23, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

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