Talk:Selma Botman

Comment by 130.111.129.86

I just wanted to apologize to the user "Ptortx" when I said that "Selma Botman's personal secretary might not be the best person to determine bias." Ptortx is nor former President Botman's personal secretary. Ptortx is Selma Botman's "Senior Advisor." I stand by the statements that one sided citations should, instead of being deleted, counterbalanced with citations that show the other side, that events presented in a "biased and selective" way should be corrected to remove bias and expanded to remove selectivity rather than having all record of the event deleted, and that someone who works for Selma Botman might not be the best judge of what is and is not a fair presentation. Ideally an objective third party should act to control bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.111.129.86 (talk) 20:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment by 67.255.218.207

I am concerned that supporters of Selma Botman are compromising the neutrality of this entry. The events surrounding the no confidence vote are well attested in multiple reliable sources (USM's The Free Press, The Portland Press Herald, The Bangor Daily News, MPBN, WCSH6, WMTW (an ABC affiliate), Sun Journal, and so forth) and yet the section has been repeatedly deleted. Three times by her Senior Advisor, once by her strong supporter Nancy Erickson. Similarly, one of Nancy Erickson's personal blogs ("USM Referendum 2012" not "nancyerickson-lyon3") was added by an anonymous source with the description "Blog with the documents explaining both sides of the issues" That doesn't seem like a neutral description of the personal blog of one of Selma Botman's most vocal supporters, nor does it seem like an accurate description of what actually appears on the blog in question.

I have nothing against anonymous contributions (witness me not being logged in) and in truth I have nothing against links to biased materials. But I do see a problem with linking to biased materials while claiming they are unbiased and with deleting references to well attested events in order to make someone look better.

There is probably more documentary evidence supporting the fact that there was a vote of no confidence in Selma Botman than there is supporting her date and place of birth, but I don't see that being deleted repeatedly. The reason seems simple to me: her date and place of birth don't make her look less than perfect, the vote of no confidence does.

Especially if the section is ever increased to list the myriad reasons cited by detractors as leading to it.

But most of all, I don't think Selma Botman benefits from the repeated attempts to whitewash her history. If one removes everything that went wrong then one is left not with an article about a person, but with an article about a caricature. That would do more disservice to Selma Botman than any true thing that could be said about her time as USM President. 67.255.218.207 (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Further comment by 67.255.218.207, re: History erasing edits

I again want to state my concern that supporters of Selma Botman are compromising the neutrality of this article.

Today alone Nancy Erickson has made six edits to this page. The first removed all factual information about the 2012 no confidence vote, introduced a formatting error, and removed all external links. Fortunately this edit was reverted within hours.

Then she made a series of five edits
Edit 1 concerned the biography section of the page. She removed all line breaks and links to other Wikipedia pages. This did not introduce bias, it just damaged the formatting and made the article harder to read. Also, since it removed reference links it made it so none of the citations in the biography section actually showed up under references.

Edit 2 Again removed all factual information from the "Controversy" section, the untrue information it was replaced with was pasted twice, and a formatting error ("Controversy" opened as a section but was closed as subsection causing Wikipedia to treat it as a section named "Controversy=") was introduced.

Edit 3 Corrected the double pasting that occurred during Edit 2 but left the formatting error intact.

Edit 4 Introduced her own blog as a reference and, because her first and second edits broke or removed all existing references, effectively made her blog the only reference for the entire page. This is particularly problematic because part of the reason (only part of the reason) the information she introduced with the second edit was untrue is that she (apparently) doesn't even know when the events in question took place. So making her own blog the definitive source for the information in the article is not good. This edit also corrected the formatting error from Edit 2.

Edit 5 Removed two external links to a reputable source for no stated reason.

This kind of thing should not be happening. I understand the desire to defend someone you support, but trying to erase events you don't like from the public record is not the way to do that, nor is it right to claim that your blog is the only source for the entire page.

I'm not sure what should be done. As the note at the top of the page says, this article needs more citations, which means more people editing the page to add the citations, so it shouldn't be locked or anything, but this trend of people just deleting what they don't like or making things up, or linking to their blog as the only reliable source, has to stop.67.255.218.207 (talk) 22:23, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Reply by Emeagan

I don't know why this controversy is being reenacted in Wikipedia. Selma Botman's opponents (or at least one of them) anonymously keep refighting the issue over the no confidence vote. Not surprisingly other people respond. As a historian I'm not that appreciative of anonymous postings even when the person gives sources, especially since they obviously selective. It might be better to just leave it with the facts as presented in the Portland Press Herald, or perhaps also include the student newspaper article minus the curious photo, and minus the interpretive comments from the anonymous editor. Then again, maybe the whole section might as well be left out since it is clear when President Botman left. The discussion of the dates of her presidency is peculiar. I have to guess that the 2009 date related to her inauguration in the spring after she became president. However, that doesn't make it any more "official" than the beginning of her contract in July 2008 and her starting work. Emeagan (talk) 01:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the issue of neutrality is interesting. It would be well if the editor complaining about the changes made by Pres. Botman's supporters would admit his own bias, which is clear, especially from hs comments above, but even from the desire to shorten her term in office by using an unrealistic starting date, and his participation in the events being discussed, and take that into account. It would help, for example, if he (I think)would self edit and remove tendentious comments , e.g. one attached to note 9. Let people go read the source and decide for themselves.

The blog to which the editor is referring, while supporting P3esident Botman, does indeed include documents from both sides of the issue. Readers could decide that for themselves too. The whole controversy was just one part of an administration which was just one part of the subject's life. The hostility then, and this whole controversy here seems disproportionate.

I think taking a person's biography and adding lots of negative stuff beyond what is needed to make a factual point is not a good use of this reference source. Emeagan (talk) 13:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Further reply by 67.255.218.207

Ok, so first thing's first. She. I'm she. It's not a big deal since this is the internet and you had no way of knowing, but if you're going to use gendered pronouns when you don't need to: She, her, her, hers, herself.

Second, as I noted on my own talk page where you struck up a conversation with me: 220.223 does not equal 218.207. I'm not going to call you Professor Uzzi because your names both start with a vowel. Don't conflate two people just because their names start in similar ways. You need to read names to the end.

Third, you correctly called me out elsewhere for attributing intent to someone when I had no way of knowing. I said someone lied when all I knew was that they wrote falsehood. I can only know the actions of people (she wrote falsehood) not the intent (I don't know if she intentionally wrote falsehood or if she was simply mistaken.) I would thank you to apply the same restraint to yourself. Consider, "but even from the desire to shorten her term in office by using an unrealistic starting date," if you'd checked the addresses in full you'd know not to assume I am that person, though you're right about one thing: I do approve of what that person has done here. But not for the reasons you attribute.

I think that Botman waiting almost a full year before holding a ceremony to make her presidency official speaks well of Botman. It means that when she came to USM she was more concerned with doing her job than basking in the prestige of the position. A lesser person would have insisted on having the "Make it official," ceremony right away. So if I were to have the two start dates the reason would not be to condemn Botman but to praise her. (Though "informal" and "formal" might go better than "unofficial" and "official".)

Also worth noting that the two start dates are in the article whether they're in the term of office or not. When unknown person put two start dates in the term he or she wasn't adding any information, he or she was just making the term listed in the "Term" field agree with the term listed in the article. (It strikes me as possible that the reason he or she used "unofficial" and "official" is that "official" is used with the second date in the article.)

The other thing that the person you seem to think is me (you are aware that the only numbers in common between 220.223 and 218.207 are two twos and a misplaced zero, right?) did was to add "citation needed". That's not my style but I approve of it because if you're not going to add a citation yourself (which is my style) you might as well put up a marker so that other people know, "Oh, this is where a citation would be useful."

"and his participation in the events being discussed"

Ok, first off, I note that you hit me with an entire paragraph of male pronouns and only on the last one did you acknowledge that I might not be male but even then had to have the barb of "I think". What, pray tell, about me strikes you as so damn unfeminine that you need to admit uncertainty after four comments but three is just peachy? Where, exactly, did I so fail your standard of womanhood that you think I'm male?

I was going to leave that out but since I have to quote one of the unambiguous labelings of me as not-female to respond to that I decided to put it in after all.

You're so very ready to ask about my participation in events, but I notice you're leaving out yours. You were in the very first news article about the no confidence vote and you dominated the news about it from that point until after the votes were counted. Even articles about it that barely had Botman in them were full of you. If I, who for all you know could be one of your students and thus have very good reason not to want to let you know I'm on the opposite side of this argument, should have to be open about my involvement why don't you have to be open about your own?

You've made no secret about your position to the free press, for example. Why are you suddenly so silent about it here? I don't know what you're thinking, maybe you're thinking that everyone already knows and it goes without saying, but I do know how you're coming across. You're coming across as presenting yourself as a neutral party when you very much are not. The phrase used to describe you was, "vocal supporter of the president," yet suddenly here you're not vocal about it anymore. Here you are not admitting your own bias or your own participation in the events being discussed while calling on me to do just that. If you are taking them into account, which you call on me (in such a way that assumes I'm not already) to do, you're doing it privately. Not in a way that can judge as an onlooker. I have no more reason to believe that you're taking your bias and participation in events into account than you have to believe I am.

But fine, for you, I'll give you my bias: I'm biased against anyone who tries to delete history, especially from a reference source. Botman, to her credit, has not done that. At this point I've moved beyond caring much about Botman, but I am downright pissed off at the people who keep on deleting accurate information from her page. That's my bias, and now that you know that I'm female countdown to dismissing me as emotional or irrational or (ugh) hysterical in five.

And as for my participation in events, I was and still am a USM student. One who didn't go headline grabbing and thus you likely won't find in many news articles about the no confidence vote. And if you're after anything more specific than that, you're not going to get it. Your posturing here as a neutral observer when you were in fact a vocal supporter of one side does not engender trust.

Regarding both my treatment of the Portland Press Herald article as a source and "especially since they obviously selective.[sic]" how I've gone about finding sources is thus: 1 I find a reputable source that has covered the matter 2 I find the oldest article on the matter 3 I read through that sources articles from oldest to newest and use it to cite anything that needs a citation and doesn't have one or feels like it needs more citations than it has (extraordinary claims and all that.) 4 But I reject it out of hand if it only shows one side.

The Portland Press Herald article used as it's source a statement given by Botman on the night the vote was tallied, it did not touch on the disagreement over how to read the vote (which I know you know about because you were in the press as the representative voice of one side of that argument.)

Thus I would have rejected the article out of hand but previous revisions of the page gave me the impression it was widely regarded as something important to cite. So I did. I made an exception to rule four for it. Honestly, I would have preferred to have presented it in the same way as the opposing press release that came out the same day as the article: Clearly stating that it is one sided and linking to it directly rather than giving it the dignity of being a source. I've lost a lot of respect for the Press Herald over the years but, "She says she won so she must have won," really felt like a low even for them. By that same logic I could have become President of the US just by saying I won the election.

Of course, in a very real sense it doesn't matter. The disagreement was never solved because the body that could interpret the rules specifically said they wouldn't, the semester ended The Faculty Senate Chair went off to teach a summer course in Greece for Harvard (That made some ripples as I recall), you probably did something similarly interesting, neither side retracted their press release saying the vote went their way. And it was all made moot because the Chancellor showed up regardless. The difference between getting the Chancellor's attention with a failed non-binding vote and getting it with a successful non-binding vote is pretty much nil any way you look at it.

So I am sympathetic to the argument that this doesn't matter enough to care about. "The whole controversy was just one part of an administration which was just one part of the subject's life." I'm sympathetic, but a disagree. The thing is: This is true, but it is likewise true that the same could be said of anything. Writing The Rise of Egyptian Communism was just one part of her literary career which is just one part of her life. Doesn't meant we should leave it out of her biography.

History, be it personal or somewhat wider in scope, is just a series of moments, if you toss out all the moments because they're so small compared to the rest you'll have nothing left. This event may seem insignificant, on a certain level it may be insignificant. But for those of use who were in the middle of it that semester (not sure how it felt to those, like you, who were higher up) it mattered a lot. It changed everything for a time. It is a part of our shared history, yours and mine. We lived through it. And it should not be forgotten. Certainly not erased.

You seem interested in a certain point: Here: I don't know why this controversy is being reenacted in Wikipedia. My talk page: Why this battle is still going on, I don't know.

I can tell you very simply: because people are still trying to pull a damnatio memoriae on the no confidence vote. I came here because Nancy Erickson vandalized the page. It was fixed by not-me.

But I had come, and I had come to a conclusion. This happens too much and instead of just leaving it at revert, vandalize, revert, vandalize, and on forever I wanted to do something different. I didn't want to limit myself to stopping the page from getting worse by reverting it after it was vandalized. I wanted to make it better. You see that in my first edits. The references section was in the wrong place, I moved it to the right one. I fixed broken formatting, I tried to put it in chronological order so a reader could more easily make sense of it. I added some more citations.

Then Nancy Erickson vandalized it again, this time with less restraint than she used the first time (she deleted about a third of the page) and with little apparent reason for what she deleted (who benefits from her kicking Selma Botman's page out of the USM category?) Again fixed by someone not-me.

Then Nancy Erickson vandalized it again, and this time I was the one to fix it. And that's what prompted the comment to which you're responding. Because it wasn't my goal to be reverting vandalism at that point. I wanted to be working on her biography. I know of at least one interview that should be rich with stuff for her childhood.

Why is it being reenacted? Why is it still going on? Because the page is still subject to vandalism. If Nancy Erickson hadn't vandalized the page at all I wouldn't even be here. No reenacting, no going on. If Nacy Erickson hadn't vandalized the page the third time I'd be deep within writing up a well cited biography of Selma Botman that doesn't make it seem like she popped out of thin air fully formed in a university setting.

But instead I've had my time taking up reverting vandalism and talking to you, and constantly wondering two things: 1 If I add one more citation to this part will it stop her supporters from deleting it? 2 If I start writing now will someone have vandalized the page by the time I'm done. (Look at Erickson's run, she showed up on two days and between those two days made 14 edits.) Sure it might go days or even a month without being vandalized, but it also might hit a bunch of times in a row and you have no way of knowing when it will.

That hanging over you makes it harder to write the biography.

It's hard to write new stuff here, or expand existing stuff there, when a lot of attention needs to be devoted to the possibility that this already well cited section will be deleted, making sure that doesn't happen, and if it does and you fix it then for all you know it'll be deleted again in an hour or less. Also a good deal of my attention right now is taken up talking to you.

I want to write a good biography, showing her good and bad traits, but it's hard to do when people keep on burning up the already written parts.

I want it to be the case that when someone comes here with vandalism in mind the article is so well written they have second thoughts.

I don't want it to be one sided, in spite of what you may think, but the solution isn't to erase the truth, it's to show what it looks like from both sides. If Erickson or Ptortx or whoever were coming here and adding to the page with well documented true material that casts Selma Botman in a better light than the article currently does, maybe it would bother someone, but not me. They're not trying to build Botman up, they're trying to erase anything that makes her look less than perfect. That's not right. If you support someone then support them with truth. If Erickson had described and linked to one of her articles supporting Botman that would be a hell of a lot better than the "Delete almost everything, replace with untrue thing" path she ended up taking.

As a last word: The blog.

First, I'd have had no problem with Erickson linking to it if she labeled it as what it is: a pro-Botman blog run under the blogger ID of one of Botman's strongest supporters. Just like I'd have a lot less problem with you saying I should state my bias (which I've never tried to hide) and participation in events if you had opened up by pointing out that, like Erickson, you were one of Selma Botman's strongest supporters through the events in question. I have problem with bias, I think it's probably impossible to avoid. We are people and people have inclinations.

The problem I do have is when biased information is presented as unbiased. People can still look at it and make up their own minds but that decision is no longer wholly their own because the framing has prejudiced them in a certain direction. They've been told it's not biased, if they believed it then they've let their guard down and are more easily manipulated.

As for the content of the blog, some of it will be useful to me as I try to make this into a page worthy of USM, yet at the same time I basically lost faith in it the moment I saw how it handled the Rosetta Stone Incident. As a USM student I can talk to people who were in the room when the rumor causing comment occurred. I can get, to the best of their recollection, the exact words used.

But if I weren't a student at USM and didn't have access to these first hand accounts then all I'd have to go on is what is in the blog and that would leave me still not knowing what it was (the blog never describes the incident) but knowing that I was supposed to think it didn't happen.

That does not inspire confidence. Generally a first step to dismantling a rumor is to say what it is. Then you take it apart piece by piece. If you refuse to even tell people what the claim you're countering is, you're not trying to enlighten. You're trying to push people into your way of thinking.

Failing that, tell the truth that started the rumor, what was the "comment in passing"? What was the context? What was being discussed? What led up to it, what followed from it. Actual information. None of that is given. 67.255.218.207 (talk) 07:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Extended material on USM dismissal

With this edit here, a massive amount of material was introduced regarding the events surrounding the subject's dismissal from the University of South Maine. The newly added text can be seen in the box below:

On May 24th, 2010 the University of Maine System Board of Trustees approved a sweeping academic reorganization plan that Botman had pushed for since the previous year. The plan resulted from a process that included both faculty and administrators on an institutional redesign team. One member of the design team described it thus, "We were supposed to save money on deans, to put it bluntly." Indeed when the plan was approved it was supposed to save the university $1.3 million a year by eliminating 3 deans' positions.

In June of that year Selma Botman wrote an editorial explaining her view of the plan. On February 11th of 2011 it was reported that faculty and administration were clashing over the implementation of the plan, requirements put in place after the plan was approved, and even the math used to calculate projected savings. Part of the reason for this was that when the Faculty Senate approved the plan it was with the belief that faculty and deans would be in charge of organizing themselves into to schools and departments, but the administration imposed orders on them that prevented them from doing so.

When a petition forcing a no confidence vote in USM President Selma Botman was delivered to the Faculty Senate on April 4th 2012 the reorganization was still not complete, a fact attributed to the administration botching the implementation, and, with the exception of Bob Caswell and Tim Stevens who worked directly under Botman, every member of the reorganization's design team who was eligible to sign the petition to force a no confidence vote had signed it.

The petition was the result of a long string of incidents according to the man behind it. Physics Professor Jerry LaSala, who was Chair of the Faculty Senate when the reorganization plan was drafted, described the situation at the university thus: "We have gotten [President Botman] at various times to back off at the last minute from events that would have precipitated a no confidence vote much sooner. But there is no--that we see--there is no cumulative change in her behavior. We merely put out a fire and start over again. That's the way it seems to us."

Some time around March 12th, 2012 ("three or four" weeks before April 4/5th) the petition to force a faculty wide vote of no confidence in Selma Botman was actually drawn up. Before the petition began to be circulated the Portland Press Herald broke the story of USM handing out pay raises ranging from 3 to 41 percent and totaling $242,000 to 44 select administrators at the same time the university administration was telling the faculty, working without a contract, there was "no money" and the largest raise they could hope for was half a percent. At least four of these raises were personally pushed for by Selma Botman. Only two of the people Botman got raises for were named: Bob Caswell and Tim Stevens.. Before the end of the day the new University of Maine System Chancellor, who only took office three days before, suspended all future raises of that nature system-wide pending review.

Seven days after the pay raise story broke, Tim Stevens, senior advisor to President Botman, and Executive Director of Public Affairs Bob Caswell, voluntarily gave up their raises, which were two of the three largest in dollar value. Those were the only two of the 44 raises that were announced as rescinded and when asked USM spokeswoman Judie Alessi O’Malley said, "My understanding is that there will not be any others."

At around the same time (a week and a half before April 5th) the petition for a no confidence referendum began to circulate. Mark Lapping, professor and executive director at the Muskie School of Public Service, insisted that the petition circulators only ask for signatures from tenured faculty who had already attained the highest pay grade, for fear that anyone else might be subject to reprisals. He claimed, "People are scared on this campus. They have been intimidated."

On April 2, 2012, the Bangor Daily News reported that the University of Southern Maine faculty had gathered enough signatures on a petition to force a faculty-wide no-confidence vote regarding President Botman. This was the first the public heard about the plan for a vote of no confidence. To force a faculty wide vote under the Faculty Senate Bylaws the petition need only have 10% of the faculty sign it and be given to the Chair of the Faculty Senate. In fact the signatures on the petition (which can be viewed online) represented "roughly 15 percent of faculty at USM" and "a majority of the top-level professors". It was delivered by former Senate Chair Jerry LaSala to the then-current Senate Chair, Professor and Chair of the Classics Program Jeannine Diddle Uzzi, on April 4th 2012. At this point the vote of no confidence was forced. Selma Botman stated that in the event of a successful vote she had no intention of resigning. (Because the Faculty, either via their senate or as a whole, lacked the authority to remove President Botman a successful vote would be nothing more or less than a non-binding recommendation to the Chancellor and Board of Trustees that Botman be removed.)

For about a month the faculty held multiple meetings and worked with President Botman to set up a fair method by which the vote could take place while various people weighed in on the matter.

On May 2, 2012, after two days of voting, the vote was tallied. A dispute existed over the exact meaning of the vote's rules, resulting in a disagreement over whether the vote passed or failed. The tally was that 68% of votes cast were for no confidence, but only 75% of faculty members cast votes. A two thirds majority was needed for the vote to be considered a success. Some contended that this meant two thirds of those voting indicating the vote had passed, while others contended it meant a two thirds majority of the entire faculty was required and thus the vote had failed with 51.46% of the entire faculty having voted no confidence. Botman, claiming the vote had failed to pass, contacted the press that night. Those who claimed it did pass didn't put out their own press release until the following day.

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee was aware of the potential for such a dispute before the votes were tallied and said then that they did not plan to interpret the results, just deliver them. They reiterated this after the results were tallied, leaving the matter of whether the vote passed or failed unresolved.

On May 3rd University of Maine System Chancellor James Page said he intended to meet with Selma Botman and members of the faculty and other members of the community the next week, stating he took the views expressed by the faculty "very seriously." Selma Botman said it was, "Business as usual." Professor LaSala again pointed out that the vote did get more than 2/3rds of the votes actually cast and stated his desired outcome was Botman leaving her post and an interim president being appointed.

Chancellor Page came to USM on Thursday May 10th and Friday May 11th. This began a series of conversations between Page and Botman that lasted for almost two months. In late June Botman requested to reassignment citing a need for a change in leadership she stepped into a newly created post, Special Assistant to the Chancellor on Global Education

While Botman's stepping down is commonly referred to as her "resigning" Chancellor Page said, "She didn't resign," and that because she didn't resign and was not fired her contract, specifically the part about her salary, still applied. Meaning that she would keep her pay of over two hundred thousand dollars a year to be paid for by leaving other positions vacant and as a part of the deal she retained the title of "President".

Selma Botman was replaced as USM President by Theodora Kalikow, who had recently retired from being the University of Maine at Farmington President, a post she held for 18 years. Referring to Kalikow's replacement of Botman, Chancellor Page noted that, "This is ultimately an interim position."

This article is a WP:BLP (Biography of a Living Person), which is supposed to focus on the subject herself (personal life, work, employment, philosophy and views, etc). It is not meant to be an extended fringe documentary article like "The Botman No-Confidence vote of May 2012" or "The Selma Botman Dismissal Controversy". On a biographical article such as this, this material lends way too much detail as to what happened and appears to be a Point of View driven addition. This might be great on a forum or commentary website, but it doesn't belong here on a Wikipedia biography. Please provide a rationale as to why the article should carry so much material on Botman's ousting from the University and why this coverage isn't undue weight for a BLP. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 03:52, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Reply by 67.255.220.223

In the end I had to break things down by paragraph and look through it one at a time to really answer your question and I still don't understand why you asked it. Before I say anything else though there are a couple of points that could use clarification:

What happened to Selma Botman wasn't that she realized later that month that the vote of no confidence had passed and so resigned. Amoung other things she'd stated that even in the face of such a thing she wouldn't resign and she kept the job for the rest of that month and the month after it, it was only the month after that that she left.

Second, she didn't resign, this is important. It's important because her contract allowed for her to be transferred which is what technically happened (even if it seems like every paper said "resigned" in spite of the Chancellor himself saying, "She didn't resign,") and that meant that, because she didn't resign, parts of her contract were still in force. The practical result of which is that she kept her salary, benefits, the lot. She also kept her title but I think that was separate from the legalistic details about what not actually resigning but instead being transferred meant.

Third, she left to step into a job she herself had designed around the areas that interested her, and has been getting paid a fifth of a million dollars and change yearly salary to do it. I wouldn't call that ousting. More like highly paid vacation (the stated reason for her keeping the title "President" is so she'll get respect while she travels) or dream job. Yes, she left the job of USM President, but like her predecessor (who left the job to become Chancellor) she didn't lose much of anything by leaving.

Fourth, a non-negligible (but still minority) amount of the stuff you've quoted has nothing to do with the no confidence vote which is what I assume you mean by "ousting" Time overlaps. The pay raise scandal broke during the no confidence process (after the petition was drafted but before it was circulated) so if one is going to be chronological (which, in fairness, I wasn't always) it has to be stuck in there.

Ok, so, to your request: "This article is a WP:BLP (Biography of a Living Person), which is supposed to focus on the subject herself (personal life, work, employment, philosophy and views, etc). [...] Please provide a rationale as to why the article should carry so much material on Botman's ousting from the University and why this coverage isn't undue weight for a BLP."

First paragraph you quote: not about the no confidence vote. Instead about the university restructuring. Since you didn't ask about the restructuring I'm guessing this paragraph is not germane to your request. Though I will briefly say that the restructuring is probably the single biggest example of Selma Botman's work during her time at USM.

Second paragraph you quote: ditto.

Third paragraph you quote: ditto. It mentions the no confidence vote, but that's as a means of dating as well as an explanation for anyone who might go to the source and be confused as to why it seems to be no confidencey instead of restructuringy. The article mentions the restructuring as one of its secondary topics but it's important because it's actually one of the more recent mentions of how that whole thing is going. You know, Selma Botman's work, the thing you said a biography of a living person is supposed to be about.

Fourth paragraph you quote: here's where things start to get interesting. See in the previous paragraph in my effort to keep the restructuring together I skipped forward over a year and in so doing skipped over important things. That has the potential to confuse the reader when I go back to mention those important things. Now I was tired (moreso now) and I make no claims of being a great writer, so if you want to say that it sucks I won't disagree but it's there to accomplish two things: first, temporal transition, walk us back so we can talk about something other than Selma Botman's signature work. (Remember, editorial of her own that is currently, as of your revision, included as a citation, is in praise of the restructuring.) It's a shift from work to more of philosophy and views as evidenced through work and, to a lesser extent, employment. (I saved personal life for the next edit, which I'm sure you'll revert any time now because when it comes to "personal life, work, employment, philosophy and views, etc" that edit is so much more superfluous than the one you did revert.)

I should point out the reason for the "lesser extent" above. The vote of no confidence, even if it had passed beyond dispute, would, in itself, have done nothing. It would have served as a non-binding recommendation to those with the power to act. Nothing more. You've deleted that fact from the article twice now, and in so doing made it seem like the vote had more power over Botman than it did. That misrepresents, at the very least, her employment. And given some of the things she said, probably her philosophy and views as well both of which would have been downright delusional if she'd said those same things in the face of a no confidence vote with teeth. I understand the desire for brevity, but when cutting things out completely changes what is left in I, personally, see that as a problem.

Ok, so the first thing was to walk back the watch a bit and shift gears from work to philosophy and views. Second thing was to establish that the no confidence vote didn't come out of nowhere like a bolt from the blue but was instead tensions that eventually boiled over. That's about her work and employment. She is, you'll recall, the boss of every person, not a relative, mentioned in the article except the Chancellor. When management allows tensions to rise like that it speaks to their work, but it also speaks to their views and philosophy. Since she was the top person at USM almost every interaction she had at USM was with an underling. Which means there is a lot to be learned of her philosophy of management, her philosophy of higher education (recall that USM was her model for how 21st century education should be) and her views on how people higher up in a hierarchy should treat those lower down.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because the next paragraph has all of one sentence on the no confidence vote before the Portland Press Herald intervened with the pay raise thing. I included it for two reasons, one is that looking back at the revision history of the page I can see that at one point it was considered a bigger deal than the no confidence vote and while people may talk about hindsight being 20-20 the fact is that sometimes perspectives in the moment are better. Maybe it was the bigger deal and everyone ended up looking the wrong way. Certainly the finances of the UMaine system have yet to play out. The second is that it seems dishonest not to include it when putting things in chronological order. It did happen right between the petition being drafted and the petition being circulated. It's in the middle. I know I fudged chronological order to keep the restructuring info all together, but once was enough.

So we have two paragraphs in a row not about the no confidence vote. I assume they are not germane to your request. And since there are a bunch of paragraphs I'll move on. But I will add this: one of the reasons to include something strung out instead of condensed is so that you don't squeeze out the stuff in the middle. The no confidence process went from mid March to early May. It was not the only thing to happen in that time. The pay raise thing was a scandal that rocked the state that Selma Botman had the misfortune of being in the middle of. (Given what we know now, the same thing, more or less, could have happened to any University President in the University of Maine System.) And it does speak to views. She fought for those who worked close to her to get raises when she could have fought to distribute it more equally (and gotten the faculty back on a contract in the process.) Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your own economic views.

And then we're back to the no confidence vote, which is (if I read you correctly) what you asked me to justify. Which of personal life, work, employment, philosophy and views, etc does it fall under when it is pointed out that in a few years on the job Botman has managed to foster an atmosphere where people rightly or wrongly (there's one person on this very talk page who has previously argued it's wrong, wrong, wrong (that was in citation 20, btw)) are afraid that if someone who can suffer retribution signs a piece of paper they will suffer retribution? What does it tell us about her philosophy of leadership when her underlings are intimidated? And if you say nothing then I question what you think a philosophy of leadership is and what you think a philosophy of higher education is when her model results in that atmosphere and still you can say it contributes nothing to work, employment, philosophy and views.

Next paragraph is honestly the kind of cringing details that make one want to bash their head into a wall, but it matters because the rules were followed and our interpretation of events would be completely different if they weren't, because it tells us how she is viewed by a majority of those who have been there for the longest, and because it finally gets us to Botman's own statement of her views. I mean, I've since added ones earlier in the article, but if you reverted this it seems likely you'll revert that since it's only personal life where the part that you did revert hits all of your other four points. If four out of five is too low a standard, I can't imagine one out of five cutting it.

Anyway, we finally get not Botman's underlings, not her supporters, not her detractors, but Botman herself talking about how she feels management should interact with those managed, how administration should interact with faculty, how higher education should be run. That's work, employment, philosophy, and views all at once. Remember that Botman is one of those who believes that a successful no confidence vote requires two thirds of the entire faculty to say they don't think she's fit to lead. And then note how she responds to the possibility of it. She says she would stay and lead a school where two out of three professors or more don't have confidence in her ability to lead. That tells you a lot. Why does this paragraph belong in a biography of a living person, because it focuses on the subjects work, employment, philosophy and views.

Next paragraph is a single sentence, but I would argue it's an important sentence for what it shows about Botman. If you're the kind of person who thinks less of Botman because of the paragraph I described above, you'll probably think more of her because of this one sentence paragraph. If you're the kind of person who thinks more of her because of the paragraph previous, this one will probably make you think less of her. It shows you that she is not one dimensional. After putting forth a philosophy of management in which the boss (herself) doesn't have to take into account what the underlings think she then spent almost a month working with those very same people on a system to get their voices heard. I suppose one could argue it's about employment (it is her job) but I think it more speaks to her ability to hold diverse views and have a philosophy more complex than it at first appears. So my rationale for the inclusion of this one sentence, which I don't think is "so much" information is simply that not only does it focus on her views and to a lesser extent her philosophy, but it also shows the mutability and diversity of these things.

The paragraph after that you wrote. I removed the part where you erroneously claimed Botman resigned less than a month later° and replaced it with the true statement, backed up by multiple sources (the citations were already there), that she contacted the press. I coupled that with the likewise true info that the other side did the same thing the next day, but other than that, you wrote it. Oh, and I toned down "erupted" to a lower register. Other than that, all you. Why don't you give your rationale for why it belongs there instead of asking me?

The next paragraph was an attempt to head off misinterpretations that I thought your paragraph might lead to. Notably that the dispute in how to interpret the vote was unforeseen (thus one sentence saying it was foreseen) and the idea I felt like you... not necessarily introduced, but set up the reader to cross paths with: that whether the vote was successful or not was ever resolved. So I pointed out that it wasn't. Second sentence. Two sentences. One citation each. Yeah, they're not focused on Botman, but I think they do a lot to clarify, and I think sometimes one can take their eyes off a tight focus on the subject in order to clarify things. Plus, I think two sentences is pretty good considering. Low tech footnote: °°

The next paragraph is three people's reactions to the vote. I think reactions matter in a biography. If you just have what happened to someone and none of how they reacted you don't get personal life, work, employment, philosophy and views, etc, you get a corpse or a rag doll depending on how morbid you are. So, the reactions of three people. Person number one: her boss. Employment. Person number two: herself. Philosophy. Oh good God, philosophy. Maybe a little bit of views and employment, but mostly philosophy. It's almost Zen in the way it gets to her Philosophy. Though I'm not sure whether it's personal philosophy, business philosophy, philosophy of higher education, philosophy of conflict, philosophy of boss-worker relations, or all of it rolled into one. Person number three: the one behind the no confidence vote, her underling, the closest thing a non-fictional character can have to a nemesis.

Next paragraph: Employment. In three sentences Selma Botman gets a new job. The job she holds to this day. It's not just any employment, it's her current employment.

Next paragraph: More employment. The legal reasons why her pay remained the same, how she's getting paid without putting her employer into deeper debt, the fact that her change in job hasn't lost her the prestige (the title of "President") from the old job.

Last paragraph: I'd argue this is still employment. Two sentences describing what happened to the job she left behind. I suppose it could be argued that, since she left it behind, it doesn't belong in her bio. But if one didn't say that the position was filled, might that cause someone to think it was left vacant for a time?

-

I'm very tired, it's possible I'm incoherent, this is my second draft of this, and I still don't have an idea of why you asked for a rationale because because the only two paragraphs not focused on Selma Botman's work, employment, philosophy and/or views (I definitely admit to not having a focus on her personal life) were:

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee was aware of the potential for such a dispute before the votes were tallied and said then that they did not plan to interpret the results, just deliver them. They reiterated this after the results were tallied, leaving the matter of whether the vote passed or failed unresolved.

And, if you don't buy my argument that who fills a job immediately after the subject vacates falls under the subject's employment:

Selma Botman was replaced as USM President by Theodora Kalikow, who had recently retired from being the University of Maine at Farmington President, a post she held for 18 years. Referring to Kalikow's replacement of Botman, Chancellor Page noted that, "This is ultimately an interim position."

Maybe these two things don't belong in the biography of a living person, but they don't seem to be "so much material" or "undue weight". They're four sentences. Four. Not even particularly long sentences.

And now I feel stupid for not realizing ages ago that I could steal from girl/woman with similar ip address to me. Condensed list is the way to go. Ousting seems the wrong word, but assuming by that you mean "no confidence vote" then some of the stuff you quoted is not germane to your request for a rationale for the inclusion of such material because it is as unrelated to the no confidence vote as it is possible for a thing to be given that it happened concurrently and to the same woman. (Which at least two different things did.)

This is my paragraph by paragraph rationale: Not germane (but if you're wondering: Her masterwork) Not germane (but if you're wondering: Her masterwork) Not germane (but if you're wondering: Her masterwork) Her work, views, and philosophy Not germane (but if you're wondering: economic views) Not germane (but if you're wondering: whichever one you file management style under) Her work, employment, philosophy and views Her work, employment, philosophy and views The diversity of her philosophy and views Your paragraph. I assume you have a rationale for it. Two sentences to clarify ambiguities I felt your paragraph introduced Philosophy. Her's, naturally, capital P mandatory for this one. Employment. She gets a new job. More employment. Details of the Job she got Two sentences on who replaced her in the old job

-

I'm going to close on this: You know what is a good way to generate a lot of unnecessary content? Ask someone to give their rationale for everything they said with no indication as to what part you might be most interested in. I don't know about you, but I feel like this has been a giant waste of time and space. It's almost three times as long as the thing you thought was too long, and it needed to be because to give a rationale for stuff I need to go through everything point by point.

Unless, and I very much doubt it (and don't tell me if it's true because it would be horrible to learn after the time I've spent doing this) it would have been enough to point out that given the entire thing was about people disagreeing with her philosophy or her work or her views or some combination of any or all of the three, every single thing that happened with respect to it shed some kind of light on her work (USM with restructuring was supposed to be her masterwork to lead us into the future) her philosophy (of leadership, of teaching, of relations across power differentials, of listening, of decision making, of dealing with adverse occurrences, of higher education) or her views (on all of the same stuff as her philosophy as well as economics, reciprocity vs other means of getting what one wants, and so on) so therefore the entire section quoted already does what you said it should do.

-

° I'm seriously going to have to join the person with the similar IP address in decrying the misuse of months if this sort of thing keeps up. July fifth is not "later that month" to May second. Also, I like her division of years into thirds. Twelve months makes three a natural divisor, but it needs a name. Like trimester means three months. Quadmester?

°° It wasn't just a question of what "two thirds" meant, or what "faculty" meant, or what "vote" meant, or how the order of precedence dictated things be viewed ("Was Robert's Rules overruled or could it be used to clarify ambiguity in the higher document?" was a major point of contention.) It was that the Faculty Senate Bylaws gave four ways to carry out a referendum. Once it was forced that collapsed to two ways because part of the four ways was two different ways to force one. It also was that the Governance Document which supersedes the Faculty Senate Bylaws gave its own way for the Faculty Senate to do a referendum and if, as both sides agreed, the result of a successful vote would be to hand off the matter to the Chancellor and/or Board of Trustees there was yet another set of rules in the Governance Document. And what had been done up to that point could be seen as fitting all four of those sets of rules. So which set of rules would be used to count the vote depended on a lot of things.

For just one example: Who was it really addressed to? Was Selma Botman herself supposed to be an end recipient or just a bystander or way station along the way. The petition spoke of her in third person, but sometimes people address others in third person. Can we parse this phrasing in such a way to make her an intended recipient? Because if we can then that completely changes the set of rules we're operating under. With an entire English Department at our disposal surely there must be a way.

I didn't really think that was on topic so rather than getting into the nitty gritty details I threw in the relevant documents as external links of anyone wants to see how convoluted the entire thing is they can do it for their own selves and run through the permutations in their own head rather than bog down the article. For the article I just had two sentences:

The Faculty Senate Executive Committee was aware of the potential for such a dispute before the votes were tallied and said then that they did not plan to interpret the results, just deliver them. They reiterated this after the results were tallied, leaving the matter of whether the vote passed or failed unresolved.

And gave a citation for each. I kind of feel like I've been avoiding going into overmuch detail, even in places where it definitely speaks to multiple elements of the set: personal life, work, employment, philosophy and views. For example I could have had a much larger section on how the plan for restructuring was made in the first place, the way faculty was originally intended to be kept out, only to be let in, and then kicked out again, and so on. That gives a lot of insight into her views on leadership, her philosophy of higher education, and how both evolved over time. There were definitely more news articles written on that than I used. Unlike the no confidence vote it might not have made the The San Francisco Chronicle and it probably didn't net a lot of searches on Google Czech Republic, which the no confidence vote did, but locally it was a big deal. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 09:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello again 67.255.220.223, this is AzureCitizen. I got online this morning, saw you'd replied, and read your entire post. In terms of what editors normally see here on Wikipedia, your comments tend towards the lengthy side. The really lengthy side. Hence, I don't know if I'll be able to respond to everything, but I'll try to reply to what I think is germane, and try to put into perspective items that I think are important for consideration.

1. First off, it is obvious that you have spent a great deal of time focused on this issue, and you're very familiar with it. You must be affiliated with USM (a student, a faculty member, someone who was present and proximate while all these things were going on) and you care a great deal about the issue.

2. I, myself, have no connection to any of this. I live in Northern Illinois, and had never even heard of Selma Botman or what happened at USM in connection with her hire, tenure, and dismissal (or contract transfer, if you will). I came to this article because I saw a warning on the Biography of Living Person's noticeboard that issues over neutrality and edit warring were flaring up, and decided an outside editor should step in.

3. I don't take much issue with your writing and prose per se. I can see that in the course of laboriously documenting what transpired, you are trying to provide some balance, and you are trying to include proper sourcing. It's apparent to me that you want to include every detail you can in an effort to avoid being accused of having "left something out".

4. The big problem with all of this, however, is that it's undue weight for a person's biographical article. If one comes at this thinking that this is Selma Botman's biography, hence her employment is part of that biography, hence anything happened during her employment is part of that story, hence all of those details should be included, one could justify writing 10,000 pages of material and tacking it onto this article, because somehow in some way it connects to Selma Botman and what happened. That's not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. We have to filter things down to what is key and relevant, with coverage proportionate to what has been reported in reliable secondary sources, and summarize when too much weight is being emphasized on something. When it's a living person's biography (a WP:BLP), we have to be extra careful about undue weight regarding controversies or material that is contentious. Further, what remains must adhere closely to Wikipedia's policy on Neutral Point of View.

5. For some examples of what a typical university president's biography might look like, take a look at a couple examples:

Ann Weaver Hart, president of the University of Arizona

Roderick J. McDavis, president of Ohio University

Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennslyvania

6. Getting to the key point, you've got to find some way pare back a lot of this extensive coverage on what happened with Selma Botman's removal, finding some way to just summarize the key points, and doing so in a neutrally worded fashion. You can still retain all the source citations, provided they are neutral and reliable sources, so that the reader can click on those and read them to learn more if they want the finer background details.

7. If, after reading my comments, you understand the above and agree, we can set up a sandbox page mapped off of this page where you can work on editing the text you've already created, and work to get it pruned and re-worded to where you want it to be and where others can collaborate with you to get it into shape for re-insertion in the main article.

8. On the other hand, if after reading my comments you disagree and feel that everything you wrote should still be included, I can show you how to navigate to the entry at the Biography of Living Person's noticeboard and you can make a case there why you feel Wikipedia should make an exception in this instance. Please take note that at present, they are considering locking this page down such that IPs will not be able to edit it, due to the WP:BLP concerns.

Do you want me to go ahead and set up the sandbox page now, so you can see what it looks like and make some test edits to it? No commitment on your part required, this is something I can go ahead and do for you if you just want to see and experiment. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 14:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi.

I didn't sleep last night, it'll be 24 hours at a minimum before I can try to write something coherent, and trying to pare down all of that information without in the process introducing falsehoods is something that's going to need a very awake mind.

I believe that your attempt to do a similar thing earlier was made in good faith and yet it introduced some falsehoods and implied others.

Point is: don't rush on my account, I'll be a while.

[imagine a giant pause here because there was one]

And I'm glad I checked for new edits before posting because otherwise I would have stopped there. I almost did post stopping there actually. Instead I saw the next section.

You're right, I'm local. I was going to say that that made you the only non-local person here, but then I remembered the first contribution to this page. I've looked at Wikipedia:OUTING multiple times and I still don't know if disclosing the results of an IP location look up constitutes outing. So I'm going to be circumlocutory here in a tired sort of way to stay on the safe side. While you aren't the only one here who is non-local (for definition of local equal to "close enough to be a student or teacher at USM") you are the only one with no connection.

Which makes me wonder if the next section is right. If this matters only to people with direct connections maybe it doesn't belong on Wikipedia in the first place.

I need to rest. I'll think on all of this.

67.255.220.223 (talk) 19:25, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Later Reply by 67.255.220.223

I said I'd come back when I was better rested and had some time to think. Take a deep breath and prepare for a lot of words because there's a lot going on here.

First: Notability. Your (AzureCitizen's) comments raise serious concerns in my mind about notability. I don't think whether an institution is "major" or not can be determined solely by the size of the student body, but if it can be then what stands out is that every example you gave of a major public university was more than three, almost four, times the size of USM. Even if one takes all the Universities together (public and private) half are significantly larger than USM while the remaining half are private schools chosen only because they happen to be smaller.

Beyond that the page predates her being USM President and didn't have a single source, reliable or otherwise, until the controversy that caused the edit wars broke to the public. (I didn't know that until the day the person with the changing IP address that starts with a number in the 70s brought it up.) The first time it had anything that meets Wikipedia's standard of a reliable source was eight days ago. Seriously, look at the revision history. Before eight days ago Wikipedia's standards for notability backed up by reliable sources would have said, unconditionally and without a doubt, that this bio doesn't belong here.

Bio's aren't supposed to be done a principle of, "Make them first and wait for them to become notable later."

And the last thing on notability is that Selma Botman no more held the top post than Joyce Gibson does now. Joyce Gibson holds the top post at the Lewiston-Auburn College, one of the three campuses that make up USM. President Selma Botman held the top post at USM one of seven facilities that make up UMS. We could similarly break things down by program and have people lower ranking than Joyce Gibson holding the "highest-level" spot. Selma Botman, the bio's subject, only held the highest level spot if you limit your scope to the parts of of UMS that were directly under her. The same could be said of anyone working in UMS, even if the only people they outranked were students.

This is being added for clarification after everything else has already been written. "Second", "Third", and "Fourth", all assume that the article will remain. They're concerns about how to best approach it going forward, not reasons not to go forward.

Second, if we accept that the bio does belong here then it needs a lot of clean up. Some of the stuff is merely outdated. (E.g she did restore USM's financial health, but it didn't last and by the time she left it was slightly worse off than when she came.) Other stuff is just plain false (the previously noted thing about her resigning later in the same month, for example.) Other stuff is unsourced or poorly sourced. Even the stuff that is sourced by usually reputable sources is somewhat questionable because if one combines the source finding method described by the editor above (pick a source, read through what it says on the topic in chronological order) with the concerns of the editor below (basic facts are misrepresented without correction or retraction later) what becomes apparent is that the only thing the various sources disagree with more than each other is themselves.

What one decides is a reliable source, and that decision will have to be made if the bio is to meet Wikipedia standards, will determine a lot about how the article shapes up in the end.

Third, in order to describe President Botman's career at USM it's probably going to be necessary to adopt an achronological style as in the article you linked to on Amy Gutmann. (There the section on Gutmann's presidency goes 2004, 2011, 2009, 2013, 2012-2019, 2007-2012.) The reason for this is that the things in Botman's presidency overlap, sometimes fitting together like Russian nesting dolls.

Of the things in the article now there is the strategic planning thing which took a year to write down and won't be done, if the plan is stuck to, until next year. So that's 2008-2014. The next few things have never had citations attached to them and I honestly have no idea what they're referring to even though I was there at the time. The next thing that ever did have a citation attached is about the university's financial health during her time there, which means that once it's brought up to date it'll cover the period of 2008-2012. The thing after that is 2009-2011, then 2009-[wasn't finished when she left] then 2012.

So, in the article as it appears now:

• 2008-2014
• ????
• 2008-2012
• 2009-2011
• 2009-???
• 2012

Maybe that reads perfectly fine to everyone else, but it seems confusing and hard to follow to me. A big part of this is obviously that the things President Botman did took time. The pay raise scandal that broke and later had the no confidence vote attributed to it (in spite of the no confidence process beginning before the story broke) is probably unique in how fast it occurred. It was over in a week. Literally seven days. Compare that with something like the closing of the daycare, which one would think would be pretty fast but instead took six months. (With student protests about it continuing right up until her last semester.) Six months during which a lot of other stuff happened.

I'd prefer a chronological style, but I think it's going to be necessary to group by topic. How best to do that I'm less than clear on.

Fourth, and this is a big one, Selma Botman came to USM at a time when the university was in financial distress. That's when she became USM President. There was a period in the middle when it wasn't in financial distress. Oddly the revelation that it wasn't in financial distress was itself scandalous because news of it came at time when people were being told (so far as I know not by Botman in this case but by those who outranked her, so no one should attribute the blame for this to her) that they'd need to cut because of the (then-nonexistent) financial distress. And then it plunged back into a roughly equal amount of financial distress.

What that means, for those who aren't familiar with what universities in financial distress do, is that the vast majority of what she did while at USM was cut things, plan for things to be cut, or push for things to be cut. None of that is popular. That's what I meant below when I said that a cleaned up, fully accurate bio that meets Wikipedia's standards would probably be counted as a win for those with axes to grind against Botman. An accurate portrayal of Botman's time at USM will be a litany of unpopular decisions. No matter how much one tries to point out that the university didn't have the money to keep on doing X, or point out that it was argued that cutting X was necessary for the university to continue, cutting X will still sound bad.

Cutting popular programs, no matter how necessary the cuts may be, pretty much never makes people look good. If Selma Botman is notable solely for being USM President then the bulk of her bio should be about that but no matter how one tries to write, "She cut X, Y, and Z," evenhandedly it makes her look like the bad guy. Even more so because one of the primary complaints about her leading up to the no confidence vote was that the promised savings from the cuts failed to materialize thus one can't say, "She cut X, Y, ans Z thus saving, A, B, and C," because while the things being cut are a matter of clear public record the resulting benefits are subject to dispute. Unsurprisingly her supporters line up one one side of the dispute and her detractors line up on the other.

So a neutral presentation of the facts will make Botman look bad, regardless of whether or not that looking bad is justified. I have no idea what to do about that. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 22:51, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by something you said above. You said that with with respect to student body population size, "if it can be then what stands out is that every example you gave of a major public university was more than three, almost four, times the size of USM.". I thought the examples I gave (Middlebury, Vassar, Swarthmore) were smaller than USM. Could you clarify that you're saying in that respect, when comparing the student body population of USM to these schools? Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 16:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Very simple, you've given six examples of universities major enough for their presidents to be notable for being in presidents of them. The three you gave that were smaller were all private schools. Private schools are generally smaller than their public equivalents meaning that a private school to public school student body size comparison is apples to oranges (in the colloquial sense, not the web-comic sense.) Only two of the six examples you gave were of public schools and they were both multiple times larger than USM, more comparable to UMS, of which USM is just a part, than to USM. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 00:48, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, let's switch to public-only schools if that's a discriminating factor of significance:

• Jackson State University (~8,700 students)
• University of Louisiana at Monroe (~7,500 students)
• Southern Oregon University (~6,800 students)
• Dixie State University (~6,500 students)
• Frostburg State University (~5,200 students)
• University of Hawaii at Hilo (~4,000 students)

These public universities have smaller student bodies than USM, correct? Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 01:44, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Does this belong here?

I'm sure everyone was thinking, "What this talk page really needs is another anonymous contributor from the University of Southern Maine area."

Like anonymous person 2 (67.255.218.207) at the time of no confidence vote I was a USM student and still am one, and I similarly see the benefits of anonymity when potentially dealing with both contentious issues and people with institutional power over oneself. (Don't take that personally by the way, it's not really the contributors, it is more who may be lurking.)

And that kind of gets to my point, most of those who come to this page probably come from a similar area, probably have similar backgrounds, similar accents, similar patterns of speech. At the very least most of us probably have one thing in common, we probably attend/attended or work/worked at the same university.

We have a decent chance of meeting each other in real life, even if unknowingly. The same would not be true if this were the talk page of First Age. (Selected via Wikipedia's random article button.)

And for me that brings up a question that hasn't been asked yet. Should this page be here in the first place? One thing that can probably be safely added to the list of what Wikipedia is not is "TV Tropes". "No such thing as Notability" does not apply here. Quite the opposite in fact.

Is this page really notable?

Outside of those who were there, which it seems like many of the editors of the page were, is this something that would be notable to people?

This will probably be distressing for my fellow USM student, for trying to "delete history", but maybe this page shouldn't exist at all.

The no confidence vote, the most contentious part of her biography to the point that it's been deleted at least three times, might have seemed to have risen to the level of notability in the moment (reported as far west as the west coast and known about as far east as the Eastern Bloc) and, yes, notability is not temporary, but those who are notable for only a single event, and Botman hasn't even made local news since leaving USM, are those the Wikipedia:Notability page states, "we should generally avoid having a biographical article on." Further, outside of USM where it was a big deal and, being the first such vote, will matter as precedent in the future if such a thing happens again was it really even notable at the time or just a mildly different story to send out over the news wires?

Even assuming that the no confidence vote was notable, other than it what is notable here?

Not being USM's President. None of the other USM Presidents, not the 9 before (though Wikipedia thinks Dr. Francis L. Bailey is the same person as F. Lee. Bailey; if I knew how to stop that redirect I would) and not the current one, have Wikipedia pages. Only Selma Botman does. Apparently being USM President isn't very notable.

She's an expert in the Middle East, and undeniably so, but there's no evidence on the page that her research has made a significant impact in that area. Certainly not as demonstrated by reliable independent sources.

Her work has not made a significant impact on the area of higher education. Maybe someday it will, the restructuring plan has yet to fully play out and maybe in the end something similar will be adopted by a significant number of academic institutions inspired by her work, but it hasn't happened yet. Wikipedia doesn't run on who might be notable in the future.

At USM, the only place where she did hold a top post, that post was administrative not academic, and thus does not meet the notability requirement for academics. (One doesn't even need to be an academic to hold the post.) Wikipedia does not, at this time, have a set of notability guidelines for administrators. (That I can find.)

If she's made a substantial impact outside of academia in her academic capacity it is not alluded to on the page. As far as the page indicates she is not and has never been the head or chief editor of a major well-established academic journal in her subject area.

If any of her books have caused her to meet any of the notability requirements for creative professionals it is not demonstrated on the page.

That exhausts notability requirements for academics.

And if we fall back on the notability requirements for people in general there is nothing on the page indicating she is notable.

We could probably pour over all the articles that have made some kind of mention of her (The USM student paper will have a lot) and make a substantial detailed and beautiful biography (as 67.255.218.207 wants to do) and then fight tooth and nail about the exact details in that biography, and have edit wars from here to eternity, but that skips over what should have been the first question: does this page belong here in the first place?

There's nothing that I can see on the page that indicates it actually does. When this page was created it had zero references. In the last version before the vote of no confidence flare up it had zero references and only one thing listed as an external link (USM's main page.) (It did have an external link in the body that I think was intended as a reference, pointing to Botman's own work.)

By the time the no confidence vote was over it had three more external links (two on the pay raise thing and one on the vote) that I think were intended as references.

When the article finally did get references (three of them) they were all added by someone with COI (the Senior Advisor mentioned higher up on this talk page) and all to editorials. One of those editorials written by Botman herself and linked to not as a primary source on Botman's writing or opinions but instead as a secondary source on her accomplishments.

Then the edit wars, which have yet to stop, started.

As a USM student I'd like to think that the head of my school is the most notable person in the world, and Selma Botman was the head of my school for four years, but I'm not seeing a lot of notability here.

Maybe we shouldn't debate whether it's better to admit your bias up front and try control for it or say stuff without noting potential bias because you believe you can be totally unbiased, and just delete the page. Maybe we shouldn't demand editors out themselves or imply those making the demand would take personal offline retribution if the demand were met, and instead just delete the page.

Maybe we shouldn't argue over what does and does not contribute to biography and admit that this biography never met the notability standards in the first place, because as near as I can tell it didn't and doesn't.

She can't be slandered or whitewashed if there is no page. Much of the contributions were made by those with conflicts of interest, none of them make her out to be notable that I can see. If she meets the requirement of notability the evidence of that fact isn't on the page which kind of defeats the purpose of notability.

But maybe I'm wrong. Can anyone argue why Selma Botman is notable and this biography does belong on wikipedia?

And there's one other thing. The citations are all to news sources reporting not in retrospect but in the moment, and if there's one thing that such news sources have had in common with respect to this case it's that they've been unreliable. As noted by person who makes this entry look tiny by comparison (67.255.220.223) USM President Selma Botman didn't resign and the fact that she did not is actually quite important in a legally binding way. (And will continue to be legally binding until June of this year, for what it's worth.) Look up news on Selma Botman's resignation. All sources got it wrong. Papers, radio, tv, internet. You'll find a lot of things saying she resigned even though, in actual fact, she didn't.

I don't know why news sources were so bad on this particular story, but they were, and the whole thing about not being able to tell the difference between "didn't resign" and "did resign" is hardly an isolated incident. One apparently reputable source reported that the threshold for the no confidence vote (the hotly debated "two thirds") was 50%. One source (TV news as I recall) said that a number greater than 50% wasn't a majority. One source said that a full-time tenured faculty member wasn't full-time because they didn't know what Full Professor meant and didn't come to Wikipedia to look it up. Multiple sources said that the no confidence vote was caused by things that happened after it. (Time travel I guess.) They didn't even agree on how many faculty there were (some said 340, others 377.)

So even if Selma Botman does meet the notability requirements to merit a BLP page, and I'm definitely not convinced she does, there may be a dearth of reliable sources. She has not been covered, that I know of, outside of instantaneous poorly-researched breaking-news stories. There are no books or peer reviewed texts or even magazine articles we can go to. Among news articles there are few if any retrospectives that might have used additional time to do research and correct the mistakes of early reporting. 76.179.113.103 (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Reply by AzureCitizen

If you would like to nominate this article for deletion, you can read up on how that works at WP:AFD. If you decide to proceed, first create a user account at WP:RQAC and then initiate this article's deletion request at WP:AFDHOWTO. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 18:45, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Response by section author

If I had known I would get a response so soon, much less two, I'd have checked back much earlier.

No, I do not want to nominate this article for deletion. What I want is someone who is not me, who is not at USM, who is not in the entire UMaine system, who does not personally know Selma Botman, Page, LaSala, or any of the other people involved, to look at this article and its sources in depth and then, based on that, make the determination as to whether it should stay or go.

An example of what I mean by looking at the sources is that the Bangor Daily News is undeniably the thing that first broke the story of the then-upcoming no confidence vote, so one would think that it was a good source for the article (and it usually is a good source) but it also reported, at least twice perhaps more often, that the pass fail threshold on the vote was 50% when in fact it was two thirds (with debate over exactly what "two thirds" meant) so there's a basic, critical, fact that this usually reliable source got completely wrong. It never, that I can find, offered a retraction.

Or what I said above about mistaking "didn't resign" for "did resign" a mistake like that makes a source seem quite unreliable, but I think pretty much every source covering the story made that mistake and, I'd have to check, but off the top of my head I don't think any of them offered a correction or retraction.

So it seems like this bio is a case where determining what constitutes a reliable source requires work on a case by case basis. But since throwing out a source as unreliable could mean throwing out important events or quotations, it seems like it's a place where personal bias could creep in. Look at how many times the word "bias" appears on this talk page, bias is a major concern.

I don't trust myself or anyone else directly involved in the UMaine system to be able to determine which sources to leave in and which to leave out objectively. Some cases are obvious. When the article says 50% where it should say "two thirds" don't trust anything it says about the rules of the vote. But when it comes to the more liminal cases where it's not obvious and one has to make a judgement call I can't see someone not being at least somewhat influenced by whether or not they like what the article is saying when determining whether or not to count it as a reliable source.

And since notability rests on reliable sources as its foundation, that means that I certainly don't trust myself or anyone involved in UMaine to determine if it is notable or not.

So I don't want to nominate it for deletion, I want someone who is uninvolved, unbiased, to give it a good long look, and not just on the page now but also previous revisions as at one point there were more than twice as many news sources cited as there are now, and based on that long in depth look, determine without my input or influence whether it should be nominated for deletion or not.

76.179.113.103 (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Reply by ukexpat

It seems obvious to me as a completely disinterested outsider that some people have a bit of an ax(e) to grind here and are using the article as a venue for doing so. I would encourage you to read WP:ACADEMIC, criterion #7 and explain why she doesn't meet that guideline.--ukexpat (talk) 18:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Response by section author

Are you sure you meant seven? I ask because when I go there and look it says "7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity." Even a cursory look at the article shows that, outside of her family, Selma Botman's impact has been entirely inside academia.

Her impact outside academia has been basically nonexistent since she first went to Brandeis University. She has had a small number of quotations in local news media about Egypt (around the time of the "Arab Spring") but the guidelines on number seven specifically state "A small number of quotations, especially in local news media, is not unexpected for academics and so falls short of this mark," so that doesn't count.

Likewise while she has authored books they are not "widely popular general audience books". If they were, that would be a good thing to note on the page. But they aren't.

Outside of her books and her few quotes in local media, her influence has been inside of academia and of limited scope. By her own choice, it should be noted. It's not that she tried to reach a more general audience and failed, it is that she focused herself on academia. She started as a teacher, then moved into administration. In neither of those areas did she make a substantial impact outside of academia.

In her time at CUNY she focused on CUNY, in her time at USM she focused on USM. It is nowhere stated, but I assume that in her time as a teacher she focused on her students. And her focus directed her impact. She had an impact on CUNY, she had an impact on USM, but those are both institutions within academia.

Now some of what I've said I know as a result of personal knowledge while the rest is a result of the information available in the bio itself. And you're right, there's clearly been ax grinding going on in this article. So maybe, at some point that I don't know of, she did make a substantial impact outside academia in her academic capacity and some malicious axe grinder removed that with an edit I haven't noticed.

There are only 134 edits to the article but I have not looked at them all. I've looked at what it was like when it was created, some intermediary things (chosen because looking at the revision list they seemed like important points), what it was like before the person with an admitted COI first edited it, what it was like immediately before the no confidence vote was announced, what it was like immediately after, what it was like before the vote was taken, what it was like after, what it was like immediately before the edit warring started, how it ended up and this talk page. That's it.

Hardly a comprehensive looking at the editing history to see if an ax grinder removed her making a substantial impact outside academia in her academic capacity.

But here's the thing, if you're going to say that she is notable and thus this biography should remain on Wikipedia because of number 7 then it requires more than maybe number seven but if so it's since been deleted it needs to have an example of her making a substantial impact outside academia in her academic capacity in the article as it exists now and that impact's existence and substantialness must be verifiable via reliable sources.

That's not the case right now. At least not that I can see. Every impact she has listed, substantial or no, in the bio up now is within academia, not outside of it.

(And, looking at the recent ax grinding, if an outside impact was removed by an ax grinder it wasn't a recent one.)

If there's some obvious example of her making a substantial impact outside academia in her academic capacity in there right now, as you seem to imply, I don't see it. Would you point it out?

There are definitely areas where I think it's possible that bias might cloud my judgement in this direction or that (which is why I want someone else to determine if she's notable in a way that can be verified by reliable sources) but number seven isn't one of them because, via the bio, it seems clear that her impact has always been within academia.

76.179.113.103 (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Further Response by ukexpat

My mistake - criterion #6 I meant. And a suggestion -- huge walls of text do not aid discussion. --ukexpat (talk) 00:47, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Further Response by Section Author

"And a suggestion -- huge walls of text do not aid discussion."

Perhaps not. It seems to be a Mainer trait (the most succinct self identified Maine resident here, Emeagan, made a comment several times longer than your longest.) That said, your way doesn't seem much better, if you'd simply quoted the criterion you meant the giant wall of text above would never have existed. Instead you shortened things to the point that a single mistyped character completely changed the meaning of your contribution.

Anyway, to your request that I "explain why she doesn't meet that guideline." This is why I think disinterested parties are needed, and I thank you for coming here. As a USM student I have a vested interest in arguing that USM is both major and significant (whether or not it is true), which would mean she does meet the guideline and thus is notable under it.

But as it stands right now, just looking at her bio on Wikipedia, she doesn't. The one sentence version stipulates that the institution must be "major", holding the highest post at an academic institution isn't enough in itself. The expanded version says it must be a "a significant accredited college or university" meaning just being President of an accredited university isn't enough. All notability guidelines say that they must be backed up by verifiable reliable sources.

In the article as it stands there is nothing backed up by a verifiable reliable source that indicates USM is "major" when considered among other academic institutions and nothing backed up by a verifiable reliable source that indicates that USM rises to the level of "significant" when compared to other accredited colleges and universities.

It may be one citation away from indicating one or both of those things, but as it stands it doesn't meet criterion six due to a lack of verifiable reliable sources.

If you've got a reliable source that can demonstrate that USM is major among academic institutions and/or significant among accredited colleges and universities please add it. As a USM student I will thank you for it. Until such a source is added Selma Botman does not meet criterion 6. That's my explanation.

Also, explanations always take longer than questions. Answers don't. If you'd asked "Does she meet 6?" the answer would be one sentence, "As it stands, no." But you asked for an explanation, and that needs a lot more words than an answer.

74.78.44.228 (talk) 16:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Look, either she was president or she wasn't - if she was, she meets #6, if she wasn't, she doesn't. I have no dog in this fight, but it seems to me that the notability issue is being used as a smokescreen by persons who dislike the subject.--ukexpat (talk) 19:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I'll have more to say on this tomorrow when I'm better rested and have had more time to think, but I think you're making two key mistakes.

The first is you seem to be guessing the wrong way on who would benefit most from the bio being taken down. Look at the sources right now. Three editorials, one written by the subject herself. Those are no-nos and by Wikipedia guidelines should be taken down, that would leave the information they covered unsourced meaning it should be taken down. The subject's resume as explained by the non-neutral party trying to get her hired is another source. Doesn't really lead to the neutrality that's expected to be seen in BLP.

Take away the shoddy sources and the information supported by them and what is left? Only the controversies the subject found herself in. Even presenting them in a completely neutral light, it's hard (believe me, I've tried) to make a bio consisting almost entirely of controversies come off in anything but an unflattering light.

If this article is ever cleaned up to actually meet Wikipedia guidelines those who dislike Botman will probably count it as a win and those who like her will probably count it as a loss. The reason is basically timing. She didn't show up at a good time for USM. She came to a university in financial distress, she left a university in somewhat greater financial distress (as measured by debt and deficits.) So most of what she did there was cut things, and that is never popular.

Second, you're leaving out a significant part of the guideline. If you were going to do that you should have stuck with criterion 7. She has made an impact outside of academia in her academic capacity. She's been quoted in the local paper a couple times and (I think but I'd have to look this up) she's even written an editorial or two in said paper on her field of academic knowledge.

This is explicitly ruled out as making one notable under criterion 7, but if we ignore the word "substantial" in 7 the way you're ignoring "major" in 6 then she meets criterion 7 beyond any arguing. Maybe the word "major" doesn't belong in criterion 6 and thus it should be applied the way you're applying it, if anyone was president of any academic institution, no matter how far that institution is from being major, they are notable. But in that case shouldn't you be having this fight on the Wikipedia:Notability (academics) talk page, not the Selma Botman one?

If you intend to change the entire way Wikipedia judges notability, I don't think the talk page of a minor former leader of a ancillary university in the diminishing public higher education system of a small state is really the place to do it. (And I say that with every noun other than "page" and "place" in that phrase being extremely significant to me personally.)

Or for a short version, since you said to the section author that you prefer short version to longer text:

You said, "Look, either she was president or she wasn't - if she was, she meets #6, if she wasn't, she doesn't." Number 6 on Wikipedia:Notability (academics) says that is flatly untrue. According to Wikipedia:Notability (academics) the question isn't whether she was president or not, that is necessary but not sufficient. Whether she was president or not only matters if the institution was/is major. Something that has not yet been demonstrated. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 00:38, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Good that we've simplified this down to a single issue, namely whether or not USM is a major academic institution. This should be relatively easy to sort out by using comparisons. For example, take a look at these three schools, all of which are accredited and led by a university president, who in turn has an article on Wikipedia:

• Middlebury College, student population ~2,500, whose president is Ronald D. Liebowitz
• Vassar College, student population ~2,400, whose president is Catharine Bond Hill
• Swarthmore College, student population ~1,500, whose president is Rebecca Chopp

The student population at the University of Southern Maine is ~10,000 (8k undergrad, 2k graduate level), correct? Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 01:26, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

First, the person who wrote this section is right about my position: I am definitely against deleting the page. Second, no that is not correct. But it doesn't really matter if it's correct or not because the student population is constantly changing in a single direction (downward) so the population right now is not going to be the size of the population as it was during Selma Boman's four years.

Also, if notability is in terms of student populations The University of Maine President deserves a page since UMaine is bigger but otherwise on largely equal footing (it's another university (the main one, hence the size) in the system USM is a part of.) And the University of Maine System Chancellor (the person who holds the top post in the system while the Presidents serve as regional managers) definitely deserves one. (There were two during Selma Botman's time, the second of which is still occupying the post) Perhaps one of our non-biased disinterested outsiders can work on fixing that. It is kind of strange that those who outranked President Botman at USM (first Pattenaude then Page) don't have pages when she does.

As someone or other noted, it's USM's vacation so those at USM probably aren't going to do a lot of editing as a many/most of them will be away on vacation, but it would be nice if people with "no dog in this fight" could use their objectivity to make pages, even if only stubs, for the notable people this article should have internal links to. Since such people are disinterested they should be able to make these pages without all the hubbub here. 67.255.218.207 (talk) 15:11, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

If the President of the University of Maine and the Chancellor of the University of Maine System do not have biographical articles on Wikipedia, anyone who is interested can start one and edit it - no need to worry about people who have "a dog in this fight". I trust that whether someone has personal subjective views on Selma Botman or is instead a completely outside observer/editor who is entirely neutral on the Botman matter, there probably won't be any concerns and their editing efforts on BLPs for the U of M President and UMS Chancellor are not likely to cause conflicts back here at the Botman article. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 21:15, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Response by 67.255.220.223

Section author, your IP address appears to have changed. I'm told these things happen for those who use certain ISPs so on the one hand it's not a big deal, but on the other hand it would be easier to follow things if you announced something like, "My IP address has changed, I'm the person who formerly had IP 76.179.113.103."

I'm following this section with interest because its outcome will determine whether I try to correct falsehoods currently on the page (introduced by good faith editing, not ax griding, by the way) or support the bio's removal.

I'm not sure whether it's a result of non-University of Maine people finally showing up, or the fact that USM is going on vacation, but other than Ukexpat who has limited him or herself to minor edits and it looks like editing of the page itself has stopped for the moment so we all have some time to think, nothing needs to be rushed to.

67.255.220.223 (talk) 17:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Some Questions

Question 1: At the time Selma Botman left the University of Southern Maine the annual deficit had grown large enough to turn a greater than two million dollar surplus into a greater than seven million dollar debt. That doesn't give use an exact figure for the annual deficit but it does mean it was more than 9 million dollars.

The article, such as it is, ends its discussion of the University of Southern Maine's fiscal health under Selma Botman by saying, "Botman helped keep the university's budget out of the red through the elimination of nonacademic programs and by trimming administrative staffs," since when is seven million dollars in debt "out of the red"? Either this is some strange new meaning of the phrase, "out of the red," or the article isn't presenting the facts of the case.

The information whoever added that phrase had access to would not be out of date as it was written more than a year after the 7 million dollar debt came to light. A year after, even, Selma Botman managed to negotiate with those who held higher positions and get two million dollars of that debt forgiven on the promise that she would cut the remaining five million from the budget (and attempted to do so by telling each of the five colleges to cut a million dollars.)

Why does the summation of Selma Botman's fiscal leadership of the University of Southern Maine end at the highest point in her career at that university rather than the end of of her career at the university?

For that matter why does the article understate the high point it does end on by more than a million dollars? 24.34.149.107 (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The article currently says ""Botman helped keep the university's budget out of the red through the elimination of nonacademic programs and by trimming administrative staffs.". The text of the source citation at the end of the sentence says "Botman has kept the university in the black by cutting its administrative staff, eliminating nonacademic programs and using economic stimulus money to pay down past deficits, among other actions.". Is there something about that sourced statement that you think is conflict with the sourced article?

With regard to the contention that Botman turned a two million dollar surplus into a seven million dollar debt, could you point out the specific source citation (already in the article as you said below) which establishes that? AzureCitizen (talk) 02:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The figure should be a 2.7 million surplus with revenue drop accounting for twenty two hundred thousand of the difference between years thus meaning the university "should" have had a surplus. But those figures come directly from the university's head financial officer and therefore constitute original research (I looked into this, I got figures, no news source to back me up) thus it doesn't belong on Wikipedia without an outside source. On the other hand given the number of non-journalists who did the same original research, you'd think at least on journalist did.

As for the seven million dollar debt, I don't know that it's in the currently cited sources, but most articles about the no confidence vote mention the five million dollars in cuts that were ordered after two of the seven million were forgiven. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Question 2: The article notes that three dean positions were cut, it fails to note that the people filling those positions were not cut, nor was their pay, they were just moved to the administrative side of the University of Southern Maine meaning that cutting the positions didn't actually save money. It cites the article where it was pointed out that it didn't save money, but never includes that information. Why? 24.34.149.107 (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

With regard to the contention that the people filling those positions were not cut but were instead moved to administrative positions with the same pay, hence no money was saved, do you have a source citation you could share with us that establishes that? AzureCitizen (talk) 02:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the person is confused, the fact that the people were not cut but moved to administrative positions with the same pay was a part of the plan from the beginning so any article mentioning the plan might mention it and I don't have time to read them making sure not to miss a word at the moment but I'm guessing that the questioner mistook "Some faculty senators uneasy about proposal" for "Faculty and administration clash over implementing the academic reorganization" which does have someone mention that moving people from place to place within the university without changing their pay doesn't net any savings. Also the second was a citation in the article, it is no longer.

That said, standard disclaimers: I can't speak for anyone else and do not know what the person's source is, nor do I know what they are thinking at any given moment. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Question 3: The figures I've used (greater than two million dollar surplus, greater than 7 million dollar debt, so forth) are from the same source the article uses (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly), the official reporting from the university. The reason for this is obvious, with only a handful of exceptions, it's what one needs to use if one wants to report any figure at all. But the article doesn't include the caveat I'm about to give:

The officially released finances of the University of Southern Maine were found to be inaccurate for at least some of the time period during which Selma Botman was the University of Southern Maine's President.

Using suspect figures because they're the only figures you have is understandable. Not noting that the figures are suspect is not cool. Any time a potentially suspect figure, be it good or bad for the article's subject, is used, it should be noted as suspect along with a link to the news article that first announced the fact that the University of Southern Maine was putting out bad figures regarding its own financing.24.34.149.107 (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

With regard to the figures being inaccurate and suspect, do you have a source citation you could share with us that establishes that? AzureCitizen (talk) 02:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Again, can't speak for someone else, but I'm guessing the PPH or someone quoting them was the source, I know I ran into it when I was using 67.255.218.207's method of picking a reputable news source, starting at the chronological start and going through every article that source put out in chronological order. But since I did that with many different sources I don't know for sure off the top of my head which one broke the story and that's why I said I'm guessing PPH.

Also, given that it was, as I previously noted, a scandal, anyone in a 20 mile radius knew about it. No idea if 24.34.149.107 would qualify for that. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Question 4: The article contains a link to an editorial by the article's subject explaining her view of the "sweeping academic reorganization plan" that the article's subject oversaw, it does not contain any information on the implementation of that plan nor the views of those affected by the plan. Some of the citations do include this information so it is clearly available to those editing the article, but it has been left out.

The article's subject oversaw the implementation as well as the formation of the plan. More of her time was spent on implementation than planning so it should, logically, bear greater weight than the planning and approval process. Yet undue weight is given to overseeing the formation of the plan, and no weight is given to the implementation.

Why undue weight to one part and no weight to the more important part? Also, given the nature of the plan, a portion of its success or failure as a plan rested and still rests on the views of those affected by it. So what the article's subject did or did not accomplish by overseeing the formation of the plan can only be accurately determined by including those views, at least in summary. They are not included. Why? Without them the entire section on the plan is abstract to the point of meaningless. More so given that the article omits the implementation process entirely. 24.34.149.107 (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

With regard to emphasis being on what the subjected intended to do, as opposed to what actually happened during implementation, do you have some sources you can provide which specifically discuss the latter and the subject's accomplishments (be they positive or negative)? AzureCitizen (talk) 02:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

That we've already got at least one of. What is currently source number 12 ("Faculty petition triggers referendum for a no-confidence vote in President Botman") contains four paragraphs on the status of the implementation as it was one year and 11 months post approval. (Which is only 1 year and 8 months after it started.) 67.255.220.223 (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Question 5: The article focuses a lot on what its subject wanted to do to the exclusion of what she actually did, why?

I realize this is running long so I shall only give one example:

"She also decided to resume the practice of hiring tenure-track faculty," the article reads. It never said if she actually followed through on that decision with action. Did she resume the practice of hiring tenure-track faculty? The article gives no indication. I can decide to become a millionaire right now, it doesn't mean anything. Decisions only matter if they lead to actions.

This could be expanded to include question 4. It says her plan was approved. It does not say how (or even if) the plan was implemented.

The article treats intent as if it is magically notable in itself while avoiding making note of what results, if any, followed from the intent. 24.34.149.107 (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

The article currently says ""She also decided to resume the practice of hiring tenure-track faculty", with the source citation at the end of the sentence containing the information "To further ensure the future health of the university, Botman said she also wants to resume hiring tenure-track faculty members." Do you have any source citations that indicate what happened next? If so, we can include that, and if not, we simply don't have reliable sources for how that worked out. That's not a problem, however, for what we've already included in the article. Intent is not "magically notable", but we do have sourced reporting on the intent itself. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 02:45, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I originally wasn't going to comment on this point because it requires guessing on someone else's thought process even more than above where I said the person seemed to be confused. Hence my original contribution to this section not touching it, but since you seem genuinely confused I thought I probably should address it, as any native would know what was being talked about.

In her time as USM President, Selma Botman was perhaps best know as, depending on whether you were a supporter or not, either someone who didn't keep her word or someone who was unjustly accused of not keeping her word. Years of broken promises with no change in sight was one of the stated reasons behind the eventual no confidence vote. Other than the implementation of the restructuring plan, one of the few alleged broken promises to make it into cite-able news (for example the MPBN report that was a cited reference in this article but is no longer) was that she broke the promise of "hiring certain positions".

So when what makes the news is that this person says, "I'm going to hire X," and then doesn't hire X, to someone who has followed that news describing only what she said she'd do and none of what she actually did, especially regarding hiring, probably seems suspicious at best.

Someone who was aware of Selma Botman's reputation (deserved or not) for not hiring people she said she was going to hire would probably be more quick to pick up on why reporting on who she said she would hire rather than who she did hire might set off alarm bells for some people than you seem to be at the moment.

A defender of Botman would try to claim she never said that, try to make it look like she did hire the people in question (with facts if possible, otherwise if necessary), or try to claim that her not hiring the people she said she would hire was due to factors beyond her control. A detractor of Botman would either try to claim she never acknowledged the importance of tenure-track faculty, or try to demonstrate that she broke her word (with facts if possible, otherwise if necessary) and in so doing attempt to demonstrate that the reason her word was broken was on her, not a result of factors beyond her control.

You, being neither a defender nor detractor just reported the facts you had, which is certainly understandable and in no way bad. But to someone who hasn't been following your contributions it might look like a defender trying to imply she did hire the people by noting that she decided to and then having no follow-up thus leading the reader to assume that it happened as decided without actually getting into the potentially risky business of saying that she did hire people. (Potentially risky because she might not have.)

Or, for the extremely short version, you were originally brought here because of issues of neutrality. You just (unknowingly I assume) stepped into the middle of one of the biggest areas of contention. If it were agreed that she followed through on that promise the vote of no confidence would never have happened. If it were agreed that she didn't, the vote probably wouldn't have created an intra-faculty rift. 67.255.220.223 (talk) 02:53, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Family Connections

Shouldn't we include the following in this article:

Botman is married to Thomas F. Birmingham. According to Boston Globe columnist Howie Carr, Birmingham’s uncle was a small-town Charlestown, MA hood shot to death in 1969. Birminghams’s father was a Veteran’s agent for the City of Boston indicted for accepting welfare payments for the family of Suitcase Fidler, gangster and partner of the late Eddie Connors in Boston. Charges against the senior Birmingham were dismissed when he hired one William M. Bulger as attorney (Carr, Howie. 2011. Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano, Whitey Bulger’s Enforcer. New York: Forge. p. 405). William M. Bulger is the brother of notorious mobster Whitey Bulger of the murderous Winter Hill Gang in Boston. Bulger served as legal counsel to the Birmingham family at that time.

The family relationships continued into the next generation. Botman’s husband, the younger Birmingham, was a protege of William Bulger when he served as Senate President of the Massachusetts Legislature. Birmingham followed Bulger into the Senate, and succeeded Bulger as Senate President in 1996 (Carr, p. 405). William Bulger was President of the University of Massachusetts when Botman was appointed President of the University of Southern Maine, and apparently recommended her strongly to members of the University of Maine System Board of Trustees prior to her appointment. Bulger was later forced to resign as President of the University of Massachusetts after he refused in 2003 to assist the FBI in finding the fugitive Whitey Bulger (Jacoby, Jeff. 2013. “Political Elites Should Shun Bill Bulger.” Boston Globe. June 23).