Talk:Charles Rackoff

ὧ== National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women comments ==

I added a sentence on Rackoff's comments on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. I think reasonable people can disagree on the matter, but I believe it's worthy of being mentioned in his biographical stub. It is sourced with a CBC article.

~ben —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.253.229 (talk) 21:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion it's undue weight. If he doesn't have some sort of ongoing campaign over this issue, it's just a single event that happened ten years ago. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Disagree, think it gives insight into the individual and is worthy of inclusion in the bio. (Jonathanwallace (talk) 15:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I chopped it, per WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:BLP. We don't report trivial campus news events, even if they get echoed in the wires. This incident has no bearing on the subject's notability. I quote from BLP: "Wikipedia contains biographical material on people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to their notability...." Ray^Talk 16:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I also support the removal for the reasons as per Ray and Demiurge. Off2riorob (talk) 17:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I am new to Wikipedia (only editing actively for a couple months) but wanted to state the reasons for my disagreement. While I would agree with the deletion if it was a third party's opinion that the subject is a bigot, no matter how well sourced, what I see here is the subject's own use of the status which makes him notable, his academic position, as a platform to express his views on a public issue. If I were a reporter or writer searching Rackoff here as preliminary research for an article about or mentioning him, I would find the deleted material significant, and I think its deletion violates NPOV by essentially white washing the subject. I think Wikipedia biographies should reflect the whole person based on their own writings and utterances, not their carefully groomed "best" version of their persona. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes , are there anymore reports about this, other citations? has it continued to be discussed, or was it a simple titillating story at the time? All these things need to be considered, he apparently was not reprimanded or it had no affect of his career at all, he had been a professor for so long, that is what we are here to report not that he sent a silly email and doesn't like feminists as a half of his life story, its a matter of weight. From my searches it would appear that this wikipedia is now the main propagator of this detail and we should take care not to be the main vessel for content that may reflect unduly poorly or be detrimental to a living person as imo this content presented as it was does. Off2riorob (talk) 18:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

What this dispute is about

I find that as a relative Wikipedia newbie it is often very hard to find the actual now-deleted content which is being debated on a discussion page. I understand vanishing it entirely if it is libelous or unsourced, but in this case no-one seems to disagree that these are the subject's own statements as accurately reported by CBC. While I will not try to re-add the content to the main article, as the subject is not important enough to me personally and I would like to have a Wikipedia editing history free of edit wars, here is the link to the article from which the deleted quote was drawn: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2000/12/07/massacre_email001207.html Jonathanwallace (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The history tab at the top of the page is how we access that content, FYI. Ray^Talk 18:04, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but that material is a lot harder for new-comers and outsiders to view and understand correctly than a simple link posted here on the discussion page. By the way, please compare the bio of Ward Churchill, a professor who prior to getting in trouble for unsympathetic statements about 9/11 victims was already notable for his prior work on Native American issues. Following the same line of thought successfully applied here, we would delete any mention from his bio of Churchill's unfortunate foot-in-mouth moment and the consequences. Jonathanwallace (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)