Talk:Mark Satin

Detailed... But not quite in a satisfying way

My comments below are aside from the fact that the article seems somehow to focus on Mark Satin as a personality... Did Mark Satin himself pen it? or perhaps someone who works closely with Mr. Satin? Be that as it may, let me raise some practical issues with the article as it stands:

The article makes it clear that there's been a shift or leap in Mark Satin's thinking, from his "new age politics" days to his "radical middle" days. But the article leaves huge gaps in exploring the rift between his idealistic-if-theoretical days (of new-age politics and new options) and his later (radical middle) thinking.

For instance, what has happened to Satin's thesis that Americans were fatally limited by a psycho/sociological/metaphysical "Six-Sided Prison"? Has the prison de-materilized? Have most Americans freed themselves of it? Or has Satin decided he was simply naive and wrong-headed in emphasizing it? Or does this theory carry over into his later thinking in some way?

Also, the article glosses over important questions about the specifics of politics and the problems politics grapples with: An huge example might be 'What is Satin's concern (if any) as to the fate of workers in an America where industrial production has been increasingly shifted off to Asia?' Remember how good-paying manufacturing jobs have disappeared, being replaced by low-paying service jobs? I'm not claiming that Satin has not dealt with such issues, but saying the article doesn't really address (even in the briefest way) how he looks at them.Joel Russ (talk) 00:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Response from principal author: I appreciate this comment. It raises important questions about why I wrote the article in the way that I did.

First, the commenter notes that the article “seems somehow to focus” on Satin’s personality. My first response is that I chose to write a full-length biographical article about Satin, not an article about one or more of his texts. Many good biographies (Wikipedia’s included) often do try to convey the personalities of their subjects, and allow readers to see how a subject's personality and experiences might have affected their ideas. I feel I did a good job here. Another point I’d like to make is that rightly or wrongly, from the very beginning of his career, journalists and academics have chosen to pay an unusual amount of attention to Satin’s personality and experiences (for reasons that should be obvious from the “Personal life” section). My article reports on this while trying to put it in context.

The commenter also wishes that I’d focused on why Satin ‘s ideas changed, especially from the “New Age” stage to the “radical middle” stage. I believe I have dealt with that at some length (to the extent that the secondary sources allow) –by conveying, e.g., Satin’s disappointment with (what he saw as) the toothless Purity of the New World Alliance and the Greens, and by conveying his intellectual frustration with what he called the “hyper-idealism” of New Options Newsletter and its remoteness from the supposedly real world of “commerce and professional ambition.” I must admit that I was tempted to give my own two cents worth as to the reasons for Satin’s change(s) over time, but the Wikipedia editors wouldn’t allow it, and rightly so. I believe I have, however, filled the article with enough material from the secondary sources that a reader can come to his or her own conclusions.

Finally, the commenter would have liked to see more specifics about Satin’s policies. Many policies are mentioned in the article, but the commenter is looking for more depth. When I outlined the article, I needed to decide what was most important about Satin’s work. Here again, the secondary literature essentially decided it for me. Overwhelmingly, the material in the books and articles was concerned with Satin’s broader perspective, his worldview, his “ideology,” as he sometimes calls it. That is, after all, what makes him different from the thousands of people who’ve been writing intelligently about public policy issues over the last 50 years. The reason Satin’s lengthy bio belongs in Wikipedia at all is not that he’s one of those thousands, but that he has – several times – helped frame and promote coherent new ways of thinking about political theory, i.e. about how we should live and what we should strive for politically, culturally, and morally. Anyway, it is the broad-brush strokes – the contours of Satin’s ideologies –that the secondary literature has focused on. So that is what I honed in on.

Dear readers, I am sorry I used so many words to make these points. I shall try to be briefer from now on.Babel41 (talk) 01:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions from Dank

• We're between reviews at the moment so I'll add at least one note, and maybe more, here.
• "As the 1990s began, communism had lost much of its worldwide appeal. So had visionary politics in general, according to some historians." Is there consensus that communism (in the sense here) was "visionary politics"? I'm guessing not, but I'm not a political scientist. Point is ... "X had done this, so had visionary politics in general" will imply to many that "X" is being used as an example of visionary politics. - Dank (push to talk) 21:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done You are so right about this. I've rewritten the lead by dropping the reference to the decline of communism and making "relative prosperity and satisfaction" (as per Jos. Stiglitz's book & economists generally) the signature traits of the 1990s. MUCH better for context-setting; thanks! - Babel41 (talk) 00:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

• Done for now. I'd recommend peer review (specifically WP:PRH) at this point. - Dank (push to talk) 21:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done Peer review is underway! Readers in October 2011, please leave your comments there, i.e,. at WP:PRH. Thanks! - Babel41 (talk) 00:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Questions about article length

Satin is an interesting man with some interesting ideas.

Isn't this article about twice as long as it could/should be? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.2.59.54 (talk) 22:46, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Response from principal author: This article would be overlong if it had redundancies, or irrelevancies, or cloudy passages. But I don't think it has any of those things, at least not anymore. What it does have is a subject who's been an author and activist in three very different social movements spanning fifty years! That's a lot of ground to cover, especially if you take his ideas and causes seriously, as I tried to do, and if you include something about his personal life, which I also tried to do.

I realize that 7,500-word articles can seem daunting to some readers. But I tried to make this one reader-friendly in a couple of ways: (1) The section and sub-section titles should alert readers to the content that most interests them. (2) You can tell at the very beginning of most paragraphs what that paragraph is about. (3) The language is unpretentious (without being so informal as to be inappropriate in an encyclopedia).

Many of Wikipedia's "Featured Article" biographies are as long as this one. Some are even longer. One of my motives here was to try to create an FA-class biography about someone who isn't rich or famous, but who's made significant contributions to the world on his own terms and in his own way. There are thousands of people like that, and if this bio can make it into Wikipedia's vaunted FA category, then hopefully many more full-length Wiki biographies will be written about such people. And that would be a very healthy thing, not least of all for Wikipedia's youngest readers. - Babel41 (talk) 07:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Who are you in relation to the subject of this biographical article? This project seems a bit bizarre. Mr Satin is a stimulating thinker and quite an activist, but there are hundreds of thousands of these. The story is too long considering the man's impact. Not to say you're doing a poor job in constructing the article. Are you his son or daughter or something?

Response from principal author: Hi. As you may know, Wikipedia's articles are generally not signed, and I think that's a good thing. It encourages Wiki viewers to focus not on the status or credentials or personalities of the authors, but on how closely they hew to Wikipedia's editorial policies of Neutral Point of View, Verifiability, No Original Research, and the rest. I like the democratic implications of that, and the modesty it requires of those who devote their time and energy to writing Wikipedia articles. I am, though, happy to assure you hat I am not a paid employee of Satin, or any sort of publicity agent for him.

As for Satin's relative stature, that is a ultimately a subjective judgment that Wikipedia (wisely, I think) does not attempt to make and then impose on its writers of biographies. Some people, and I am one, would rate effective activists a lot higher than many of the movie stars, athletes, and office holders that populate Wikipedia's biography pages today. And I wonder how many activists have, like Satin, co-founded three national organizations, run two successful Washington, D.C.-based political newletters (over three decades), and writtn three books for major publishers that helped set the parameters for three very different contemporary ideologies?

Wikipedia can host a literally infinite amount of material, so no one is disadvantaged - no one else's biographies will be cut short - if thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people have full-length biogrphies on Wikipedia. If Satin's biography were disorganized, that would be a problem for readers. But I was very careful, in the Satin bio, to begin with a brief but comprehensive introduction. And I followed that with a detailed table of contents, so if people care to read further, they can click on the sections that most interest them.

If you look at the second tan box above, you will see that Wikipedia's Biography Project editors have rated my Satin bio as "B-class." If you then click on the "WikiProject Biography" line in that box, you will see that there are only about 20,000 Wikipedia biographies (out of about 975,000 Wikipedia bios in all) rated B-class orb higher. I can guarantee you that my Satin biography would not be ranked amoug the top 3% of bios on Wikipedia if its demanding editors found it to be inappropriate in any way.

My own feeling is that most Wikipedia biographies are too brief, and that there should be many, many more biographies on Wikipedia. I think every good and productive person merits a carefully crafted New Yorker-article-length biography on Wikipedia, and I would like to live in a world where people aspire to that as a matter of course. Let us share more of peoples' detailed life stories, triumphs, failures, and changes, in this extraordinary global forum. As Satin might say, let us learn from one another. - Babel41 (talk) 07:25, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Babel41 says: "I can guarantee you that my Satin biography would not be ranked amoug the top 3% of bios on Wikipedia if its demanding editors found it to be inappropriate in any way".

Preposterous. The slur against Ann Coulter makes the article worthy of immediate deletion for a number of reasons, predominantly for legal reasons.--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

As usual, you have no basis for your statements. And as such, I'd stay far away from mentioning legal issues per WP:NLT. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Featured Picture award

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Draft dodgers being counseled 1967.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Makeemlighter (talk) 22:31, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Kudos to my seven Wikipedia editors

After winning a "Featured Article" award, as this article did on February 16, 2012, it is customary for the nominator or principal author to send a customized "barnstar" to the Wikipedia editors who helped bring the article up to snuff. I thought you'd enjoy seeing the barnstar I sent them, along with some of their replies:

		The Helping Hands Barnstar
		Dear Dank, Brianboulton, Ealdgyth, Ed, Jimfbleak, Nikkimaria, and Noleander, - I could not have brought the Mark Satin bio up to Featured Article status without the unique contributions (not to mention tact and patience) of each of you. I am probably two to three times your age, and not at home with this technology. But working with you gave me a glimpse of a beautiful 21st century world in which individual initiative, collectively honed, can produce socially (in)valuable work that is also first-rate. God bless! - Babel41 (talk) 23:48, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Dank, I can't even begin to express my debt to you. At least the Barnstar is a pretty picture. - Babel41 (talk) 06:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey, that works for me, always happy to get a barnstar I haven't seen before. Your dedication is inspiring. - Dank (push to talk) 13:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

If you are three times my age, you are the world record-holder by a very considerable margin. But thank you for your generous tribute, and congratulations on bringing this fine aticle to featured status. I look forward to its future mainpage appearance. Brianboulton (talk) 10:05, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for kind words. If you are two or three times my age, you probably remember Babel (: Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. You did a great job on the article! --Noleander (talk) 13:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, from the Featured Articles administrator:

Congratulations on the promotion; you've done some impressive work on the article, and your diligence in checking the references is commendable. Ucucha (talk) 03:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks guys. - Babel41 (talk) 04:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The article was far from "up to snuff" when it was published. The article included an egregious slur against Republican political commentor Ann Coulter. She was viciously referred to as a "militant". How the editors approving this article as "featured" could allow that word to remain in the article at the time of publishing is indefensible and utterly disgusting.--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 11:25, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The source has, "Mark Satin, editor of the Radical Middle Newsletter, one of the nation’s cutting-edge political periodicals, thinks outside the box. He is the perfect antidote for the nastiness and attack dog mentality of Ann Coulter and Al Franken." Militant is a credible summation of that sentiment. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Why I removed the "dmy" tag

1exec1 - Thank you for adding the "dmy" tag to the Mark Satin article (which would convert all dates to the "4-9-2012" format). I appreciate your attention and concern. However, as the principal writer of the Satin bio, I have removed the tag, for the following reasons:

• The article goes back nine years, and in all that time, no one has added dates that diverge from the "4 September 2012" format originally established;
• The "4-9-2012" dmy format is confusing to U.S. readers, who are used to placing the month before the date;
• In my opinion, spelling out the month in the main text and the references is appropriate for an encyclopedia, which is traditionally literary in style. Printing the month as a number (as in 4-9-2012) is characteristic of bank statements and grocery store receipts.

If Wikipedia ever develops a tag that can convert all dates to the "4 September 2012" format, please let me know. In the meantime, I would prefer that the article remain without the dmy tag. Thanks again for your trouble.-Babel41 (talk) 20:33, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The tag doesn't mean anything like that. It's just a marker that an article uses DMY format, that is, 4 September 2012 for example. According to WP:MOSNUM 4-9-2012 format is forbidden altogether due to its ambiguity. 1exec1 (talk) 21:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I've readded[1] the tag; the tagging of {{Use dmy dates}} appears to accurately reflect the current status-quo of using NN Month YYYY dates in the article, when viewed as it stands as of August 2012. This tagged is used by other editors (and bots) to know the present format that is in use. —Sladen (talk) 23:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

However, as an article about an American, the correct date format for the article is MDY (per WP:STRONGNAT, not DMY, which I have now corrected. Canuck^{89 (converse with me)} 23:31, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

File:Draft dodgers being counseled 1967.jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Draft dodgers being counseled 1967.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on May 14, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-05-14. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:41, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Picture of the day

U.S. citizen Mark Satin (far left), director of the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, counseling draft-age Americans at the Programme's offices in Toronto, August 1967. The Toronto Anti-Draft Programme was Canada's largest organization providing pre-emigration counseling and post-emigration services to American Vietnam War resisters.Photo: Laura Jones

Note on removing the Neil Seeman passage

I have removed the passage commenting on Neil Seeman's understanding of Mark Satin's worrk. It appeared at the end of the second-to-last paragraph under the "Radical Middle, The Book" sub-section, and it read as follows:

"The author and Canadian businessman Neil Seeman pointed to Satin's work as the intellectual pedigree behind effective post-partisan decision-making in complex policy-making, such as solving childhood obesity."

The Satin article has been designated a "Featured Article" (FA) by Wikipedia's editors. (For background on FAs, click on the bronze star at the upper right hand side of the Satin article.) All challengeable statements in FAs MUST carry citations, including page numbers when the material is in printed form. Moreover, all sources cited must be reputable. At a minimum this means that, except for the biographical subject's (Satin's) own statements, they cannot come from blogs or from self-published books or materials.

In the case of the remved passage above, no source is given. In addition, the statement as it stands is somewhat awkward and extreme. Even Satin's most ardent champions do not claim his work is "the intellectual pedigree behind effective post-partisan decision-making." Generally he is seen as one of several influences on post-partisan thought, as our article alreadty demonstrates at some length. If a special claim on Satin's behalf has been made by Neil Seeman (who is indeed a recognized expert on health care policy in Canada), in a reputable publication, such as HealthcarePolicy magazine or Seeman's recent book on obesity policy for University of Toronto Press, please copy the relevant passage below (along with the page number) and I will characterize it, link to it, and find an appropriate place for it in the article, probably in the "Assessments" section. Thanks!! - Babel41 (talk) 18:21, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Bravo!

This is an astonishingly good article, even among the Featured Articles. If the writing were not as concise as it is, it could have been 20% longer without drawing attention from fastidious copy editors. Maintaining NPOV when most of those who write about Satin have there own strong POVs is another of the article's achievements. Congratulations, and thank you, to those contributed to his masterpiece.—Finell 02:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree, I think the quality of the article reflects well on our copyeditors and on the Military History wikiproject. A lot of people were involved with this one, actually, but it was mostly Babel's work. - Dank (push to talk) 16:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Why I used the word "coward" in the Assessment section

From Jan. 9 through Jan. 13, Michael W. Parker made five attempts to add language to the "Assessment" section of this article that would have referred to its subject, Mark Satin, as a "coward."

Parker's attempts were reverted by four different Wikipedia editors. I was one of them, but I have changed my mind and have created a new second paragraph in the Assessment section that retains Parker's language. Here's why:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but it is more than just that. It is also an experiment in democratic editing.

When a summary of the Satin article was featured atop Wikipedfia's Main Page on January 9, it came to the attention of literally millions of people who might never have turned to an article about an anti-Vietnam War activist and visionary political theorist. Because the summary was linked to the article, thousands of such people read the entire article.

Michael Parker may have been one of them. At any rate, Parker noticed what to him was an elephant in the room: Although the article is about a person who is – among other things – a well-known Vietnam War draft evader, the Assessments section did not provide any mention of people's assessment of Satin's draft evasion!

Possibly most of the editors who worked on this article over the years, including me, felt that the article already dealt with that subject sufficiently. Possibly some of us did not want the article to be used as a referendum on draft evasion, or wanted the Assessments section to focus exclusively on what we saw as the more important aspects of Satin's life and work.

But Michael Parker did not see it that way. He insisted that the Assessment section convey what he and many others still feel – that Satin's actions during the Vietnam War were cowardly.

Parker's attempts to inject that perspective were poor. He mangled the opening paragraph of the Assessment section. He did not tell viewers that the sources he was referring to were e-mailers to Satin's website. He did not create a citation that was consistent in form with the 211 other citations in the article. He violated Wikipedia's canonical rule, "Neutral Point of View."

It would be easy to continue to ignore him. But it would be wrong. We must, as the Wikipedia community, be open to listening to what contributors are trying to say; even (or perhaps especially) when they are not as technically adroit as many senior Wikipedia editors.

And for all of Parker's technical faults, he is stubbornly right about the main issue: You cannot fully assess Satin without at least acknowledging some of the emotion, including the negative emotion, that still attaches itself to Satin's draft evasion and counseling, four decades after the fact.

Therefore, I have created a new second paragraph in the Assessment section that briefly captures the polarized assessments of Satin's draft evasion and counseling. That paragraph is (hopefully) consistent with Wikipedia's cardinal rules of Neutral Point of View, No Original Research, and Verifiability - AND it includes the word "coward."

I feel that the Assessment section is now even more factually and emotionally complete - even more Real, to broader ranges of the viewing public - than it was before. - Babel41 (talk) 01:53, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Babel41: The transition between the new paragraph and the subsequent one is a bit rough. Wording is a bit repetitive in the section ("some see", "others"). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 07:37, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

'Coward' is a very strong and opinion based word. For it to be in his biography as a notable and objective assessment, there must be very strong sources that are not just angry opinions. Even if it's a lot of angry opinions, it would better to capture the anger without a conclusive judgement. For example, Bill Clinton avoided the draft but we would not attribute it to cowardice even if a lot of people feel that way. We present the facts of his draft status and reasons why but it would take exceptional sources to use strong, negative and opinion based attribution for the cause. Sheer volume is not enough (and has an OR problem as well). --DHeyward (talk) 09:53, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Although I think my statement, above, is a good general expression of Wikipedia philosophy, I find myself agreeing with both of you on the specifics here. NeilN, the transition is poor - the paragraph sticks out like a sore thumb. And DHeyward, what you say makes perfect sense (for encyclopedia writing). I am familiar with the sources used in the Satin article, and Satin is not directly called a "coward" by any of those writers or by any reputable source cited by them. Even the reference to "coward" on Satin's website is an allegation about an unspecified number of unnamed e-mailers.

Because the paragraph relies fundamentally on the word "coward," I am going to revert it. (The rest of it revisits material already discussed in the "Neopacifist" section.) I am also going to restore the original transitional sentences in the first and (now again) second paragraphs. For Michael Parker, and for anyone else interested in discussing ordinary people's reactions to draft dodging on Wikipedia, I conclude that the best thing is adding a new paragraph or sub-section on that topic, not to a biographical article, but to a more general one on the Vietnam War or the peace movement. - Babel41 (talk) 04:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I still believe that by removing the "c-word" it allows extreme left liberal bias to remain as a constant and overwhelming theme throughout the article. I doubt there is a single Republican politician or voter, dead or alive, who would agree that this article is politically balanced and unbiased. What is so wrong with the word "coward?" Satin freely admits to being called that word and, who knows, many of the angry e-mailers may have been Democrats. And I would assume there were many e-mailers saying it, not just one or two. (Redacted)--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 10:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

(Redacted)

Note that the "c" word is not used. Thank you.

--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 12:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Italicized Subheaders

Dank, should all of the italicization of the subheaders be changed then? Some of them were already italicized before I tried to standardize all of them.--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 23:09, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

EditorExtraordinaire, no - titles of artistic works like movies and books are italicized per WP:MOS. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, NeilN, for that good explanation. I kept looking at those and was wondering why some were italicized and others were not.--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 23:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)