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Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Joseph Berrios

Please see this discussion of this article:

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Joseph Berrios

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

POV dispute

from anon IP user 68.250.73.249 talk page, (copied here by Hugh (talk) 22:18, 10 September 2012 (UTC)):

I am writing with regard to the article on Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios. After reviewing the article posted on Wikipedia we have found that much of the material posted is pejorative at best and most of the cited sources are editorials written by supporters of political rivals. We are extremely concerned that the editing process monitored by ClueBot NG has prevented this office from removing content that in one breath states that Mr. Berrios was the first Hispanic to hold office in the Illinois House then adds a quote from a less that reputable publication and author that negatively describes Mr. Berrios. Such slights and factual inaccuracies are pervasive throughout this article and most of the sources used or cited are editorials, written by individuals who have supported opposing political parties and candidates. We have also found that large sections of the text on Mr. Berrios’ article page have nothing to do with Mr. Berrios and are indictments of other people some of whom are deceased and cannot object to the material written about them.

We understand that monitoring of such a large body of work that is designed to be globally accessible and editable can be difficult and we also understand that the ClueBot NG system is not perfect. Our concern revolves around issues of fairness and accuracy and we hope that we will be able to work with your team to remove the false, derogatory, and in one section raciest tone and content currently posted in the article on Mr. Joseph Berrios.

Mr. Berrios is a public figure and as such, a certain amount of information should be readily available to the public and we are more than happy to provide such information. Our primary concern is that Wikipedia in this case is being bent to push a political agenda and thus the accuracy of much of the information contained in the aforementioned article is without merit and provides the public with a skewed view of Mr. Berrios.

Please feel free to contact me so we might discuss the options of this office provided through your foundation. We look forward to hearing your response and stand ready to work with you to remedy this problem post haste.

Welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for your interest in the article on Joseph Berrios.

The article is a fair representation of reliable sources. The article is very well referenced. Every sentence in the article is based on the lede from a reliable source. The main sources are the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspapers of record in Chicago, and other sources include Chicago Magazine, Crain's Chicago Business, and the Chicago Reader, the most significant print news venues in Chicago. In the very few places where editorials are cited, they are clearly identified in text as editorials.

Can you please be more specific about the "less that reputable publication" you identified? Thank you.

Can you please be more specific about "false, derogatory, and in one section raciest tone and content"? Thank you.

Can you please be more specific about "the accuracy of much of the information contained in the aforementioned article"? Thank you.

Can you please provide a photograph? Thank you. Hugh (talk) 22:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Well! I guess the subject's tenure as commissioner was relatively uneventful. No RS for years! No hiring of relatives & friends, no campaign fundraising controversy. Hugh (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

"20:49, 11 September 2012‎ Reaper Eternal(talk | contribs)‎ . . (30,285 bytes) (-1,109)‎ . . (→‎Hiring and promoting relatives and friends: Some cleanup, and deleting juxtaposition of content as nothing has been proven)" Nothing has been proven? WP is not a court. Conviction is not the threshold for inclusion, weight in RS is. Hugh (talk) 21:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

"He has been the focus of controversy over allegations of ethics violations and political corruption." Why not let the facts speak? "He has been the target of formal investigations into allegations of ethics violations and political corruption." Why not identify the specific issues? MOS tells us the intro should summarize all of the points in the article. Hugh (talk) 21:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not normally publish factual statements to the effect that a living person has engaged in a variety of illegal acts unless that person has been convicted of those illegal acts. --Orlady (talk) 03:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

thanks for your reply. this is chicago, cook county, illinois - NONE of the activities in the sentence you deleted from the intro are illegal activities. the intro did not say they were illegal. I know all this. I know the wp rules. I've been around, ok? they are not illegal activities but they are factual activities manifest in multiple rs whose factuality is not contested by anyone let alone the subject. what they are are key notable activities of the subject of this article. they belong in the lede. but thanks again. Hugh (talk) 03:34, 12 September 2012 (U

so. Reap. this is you role modeling concensus building? Hugh (talk) 02:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"20:18, 11 September 2012‎ Reaper Eternal(talk | contribs)‎ . . (31,879 bytes) (-1,851)‎ . . (→‎Hiring and promoting relatives and friends: Removing more undue weight..." may I quote for reference "Due and undue weight Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, IN PROPORTION to the prominence of each viewpoint. ... Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources..." emphasis mine. You seem to have made a quick study of the available rs on this subject. What is your secret? thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by HughD (talk • contribs) 02:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I beleive it is important that we see if we can agree that WP:UNDUE provides us with an object, quantifiable criteria for forming judgements of WP:UNDUE, that is, proportion to rs. Do you agree? If so may I suggest that going forward we substitute this criteria for any personal feelings we might have about how an article reads. And if so may I point out that this criteria requires us as editors to familiarize ourselves with the breadth of rs, and let me ask you if you are willing to put in the time before invoking WP:UNDUE? Hugh (talk) 17:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"02:20, 12 September 2012‎ Orlady(talk | contribs)‎ . . (28,625 bytes) (+7)‎ . . (→‎Later political career: headings: spelling, he wasn't a commissioner)" well, lady, the seats on the board of review are called commissioners, so he was a commissioner, sry. BTW, what is your burden to role model concensus building? Hugh (talk) 02:28, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:AGF and WP:NPA, please. I changed the heading "Cook county commissioner" to "Cook County Board of Tax Appeals." The normal understanding of "county commissioner" involves membership on (in the case of Cook County) the board of commissioners, not membership on the tax appeals board, sewer board, planning commission, parks board, taxi commission, etc. --Orlady (talk) 03:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

hmm, i wonder how the heading got to be "Cook county commissioner"? i'm sure it was not an editor who can't be bothered to familiarize themselves with the subject of the article. Hugh (talk) 03:26, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

so. lady. you know, i used to think we are all editors here, but very recently I have been made aware of the hierarchy. i was unaware wp included an elite corp of blp clean-up specialists, what's that like? how is it you are able to bounce from subject to subject with such facility? Hugh (talk) 03:26, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

you know, I read every word of all 80-some refs that were in this article before the ip and then you started blanking. do you have any respect for that? does that mean anything in your world? Hugh (talk) 03:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I was not completely honest in my above post; i have read every article in ProQuest on the subject of this article, including news and profiles in the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-times, and long-form profiles in Chicago Magazine and the Chicago Reader. I am not claiming WP:EXPERT yet I tend to think you should be developing concensus with me before deleteing content and references from this article so that we may conform to WP:UNDUE. What do you think? Again, may I ask, what is your burden engage in concensus building? And as you understand it what is your burden to familiarize yourself with rs before making judgements of undue? Hugh (talk) 15:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Just because material has a source does not mean that it should be included. I removed a large chunk of the content (here and here) because it had the effect of drawing users to a conclusion that has only been speculated on in the sources. This violated WP:NPOV, and was so large as to constitute undue weight. It also was a synthesis of various sources used to put John J. Pikarski, Jr. in a negative light and attribute his potential problems back to Berrios.

Just because you think material is negative does not mean it should be excluded, see WP:UNDUE. "it had the effect of drawing users to a conclusion that has only been speculated on in the sources" What users? We editors are not required to fashion articles such that it is impossible for anyone anywhere to arrive at a false conclusion. What about letting the facts speak? There is nothing synthetic in the content you deleted. The content you deleted is very well referenced. Might you be mistaking multiple refs for synthesis? The content you deleted is a significant episode in the story of Berrios, well represented in multiple rs. Hugh (talk) 17:41, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I also removed the snippet ("A Chicago Tribune editorial called Berrios' hiring of his relatives 'a flagrant violation of the county's ethics rules'.") sourced to this one-sided hatchet job.

One-sided hatchet job? The content you deleted was an excerpt from an editorial from the most important paper of record in Chicago, fully referenced, including a working link, AND in addition identified as an editorial in text. Many Chicago politicians go their whole career without mention by editorial boards. One of the most notable aspects of the subject of this article is the relatively frequent appearance in editorials in the major papers. Hugh (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I removed the paragraph starting with "In May, 2011 Berrios gave his daughter a 20%, $10,000 raise and a promotion..." since it initially appeared to be more undue weight. While probably way too much weight was placed on that material, I would be fine with merging the substance of that paragraph into the prior paragraph, which leads into the findings by the ethics board. If it is restored, I would recommend removing this

<ref>{{cite news |title=Editorial: Berrios a family guy - too bad for you |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/5543093-474/editorial-berrios-a-family-guy--too-bad-for-you.html |date=2011-05-23}}</ref>

highly POV source.

My final removal of one sentence was because that sentence painted Berrios in a negative light and offered nothing that the following paragraphs did not go into in more detail. (WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE)

You removed the topic sentence for a section. You cut the lede of a section. The section had 2 subsections. The sentence explained why the subsections hang together. The sentence did not "paint Berrios in a negative light." The sentence is neutral, factual, verifiable, and well-soourced by references in the subsections. Removing the sentence adversely effects the readability of the article. Hugh (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This has all been done in accordance with the biographies of living perons policy, and I can make the edits despite the protection due to this exemption.

I disagree. Can you please be more specific about what in WP:BLP justifies your deletions of content? Because from your sparse comments so far it seems to me you are leaning heavily on your interpretation of WP:UNDUE and as you might see from my above comments I do not think you are applying WP:UNDUE correctly. Of course I recognize how perfectly reasonable that you and Orlady and others unfamiliar with the subject could read a perfectly neutral and verifiable wp article on this subject and recoil in abject horror omg this MUST be blp violation! but we are to let rs be our guide. From WP:WELLKNOWN: "If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article — even if it is negative..." Hugh (talk) 19:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

The remainder of my edits consisted of minor tidyings of the article and I have no particular objections to them being reversed. Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

"fined Berrios $5,000 to $10,000 for each of the relatives he hired." factually incorrect, should be "fined Berrios $10,000 total, that is, $5,000 each for each of the two relatives he hired." these things will happen when one edits w/o reading rs. Hugh (talk) 21:11, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

agf, by all means! they're serious questions. I'd like to know what you think. reading rs: core activity of all wikipedians or just for those editors with lots of time on their hands? Hugh (talk) 04:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I have been asked to come by and weigh in on issues here. Are there still quibbles about content that need an open mind or are we on a road to agreement?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:31, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Revision as of 19:59, 11 September 2012 (view source) Reaper Eternal fix protection template - hi tony, the admin who protected this had an expiry, closed the issue, then another editor removed the expiry with the edit summary "fix protection template" - no justification offered for the open-ended full protect - can you pls restore the original expiry of 16 Sept 19:56. thanks! Hugh (talk) 12:41, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Someone Needs to Update Information in Summary Paragraph

The body of the article and the information box correctly state that Barrios was defeated as Assessor and Cook County Democratic Chair, but the summary at the top has not been updated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dkelber (talk • contribs) 18:04, 11 December 2018 (UTC)