User talk:Robertwersheir

Remove RINOS

Please stop spamming this link on multiple pages on Wikipedia. If you find that a link has been removed (repeatedly, by different editors), it is probably a good indication that the link in question should not be added. You may go to the article discussion pages, but adding a link to 15 different biographies of living persons (yes, I counted), and the article Republican in Name Only is excessive. I would suggest that you discuss adding the link on the RINO article only; the biography articles, due to the restrictions placed on them (see the link above), should not have links to polemic sites attacking them. In the meantime, I have reverted your additions on every article which still contained them. Horologium (talk) 11:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Dear Horologium,

I appreciate your devotion to Wikipedia's integrity, but I was confused by your rationale for removing my additions.

You indicated that I linked the "same article" to 15 different bios. That's simply not true. Each of these 15 links was entirely unique--leading to 15 separate profiles of 15 different individuals.

Moreover, I don't know if you were aware that the Olympia Snowe profile, alone, has 45 citations, covering 11 entries on the reference page, and 7 separate publications. There are also 12 supplemental links related to issues involving Snowe. It's a smorgasbord of info for anyone turning to Wikipedia to learn about the senator from a conservative perspective (and since Snowe's Wikipedia entry includes external links to two websites that the Snowe camp put together, I'd hope that a counterbalance would be welcome). And Snowe's is just one example--each profile was fashioned in much the same way.

For the record, the website as a whole makes use of 520 citations, covering 40 entries on the reference page, and 20 separate publications. It includes a total of 32 unduplicated links to multimedia and "further reading" articles.

All that notwithstanding--it's a little-known website. So I respect your decision to remove the links as they appear on the different lawmakers' entries. However, I'd certainly hope you'd at least consider not deleting the link on the Wikipedia entry for RINOs. Some of the links that appear there are little more than flashy backgrounds and opinion blogs--I'd certainly hope my 520 citations would at least qualify my site to appear alongside them.

Anyway, I apologize for rambling...I hope my tone's not harsh...I live and die by Wikipedia for my own hypertext informal learning, and have a lot of respect for you guys who are trying hard to keep it credible.

Thanks.

Robertwersheir (talk) 06:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC) RW

I am aware that each page is different; I was actually aware of the site's existence previous to this incident, although I had not explored it thoroughly. Nonetheless, while each link may be to a different page, they all rely on the same relatively small pool of references, about a third of which are simply rosters of the ACU's positions on votes in the House and Senate over the past few years, and most of the rest of which are op-eds, blogs, and press releases from conservative pundits and think tanks. Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons (BLP) requires external links for BLPs to be held to a higher quality standard than ordinary articles, and while the ACU, the Heritage Foundation, and National Review are noteworthy, they are not reliable sources for BLPs, due to their partisan nature. While it may seem unfair to list two sites written by Snowe staffers (her senate site and her campaign site), they are official sites, which gives them more weight than personal sites. As I said, the link to Republican in Name Only may be valid, but since you have a Conflict of Interest on the issue (it's your own site you want to add), and it has been removed previously, you should discuss whether it can be included on Talk:Republican In Name Only, which is the discussion page for the article. Repeatedly trying to reinsert a link can get you blocked for edit-warring, and I am confident that you don't want that to occur. Horologium (talk) 12:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)