Talk:Stephen E. Ambrose/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Alleged "Unencyclopedic" content in the "Inaccuracies" section

On May 5, 2010, anonymous IP editor User:75.2.209.226 added another tag to the "Inaccuracies" section of this article however he/she again failed to post anything here ("Talk") to support this contention. Based on his/her earlier edits, however, presumably the portion that the anonymous editor is claiming to be "unencyclopedic" is the reference to the December, 2000, fact checking review of the Ambrose book Nothing Like It in the World entitled The Sins of Stephen E. Ambrose that documented dozens of factual errors, misstatements, and unsourced quotations in the original hardback edition of the book published in August, 2000. The fact, however, that the publisher subsequently incorporated all of the documented and sourced corrections specified in that review in the later paperback edition of the book published in 2001 confirms their veracity and acceptance by the book's editors as accurate. As this is the precise topic of this section of the Ambrose article, it is a puzzlement as to how this can possibly be considered by anyone as "unencyclopedic" as it is exactly on point and well sourced.

Unless and until the anonymous IP editor who added this tag specifies exactly what his/her specific issue is with this section (other then a another claim that he/she thinks it constitutes "sour grapes POV"), there again doesn't seem to be really anything further to discuss here. Centpacrr (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies section

This section is tendentious and verbose. I have edited it, retaining all the essential information, and leaving out the minutiae and detail, which not only add nothing to the section, but dilute its essential message. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 20:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

History & Research Organizations that Recommend and Link to CPRR.org

Included among the many dozens of well established "third party" history, research, educational, university, museum, broadcast, and government organizations and institutions that recommend and link through their sites to CPRR.org as a reliable and verifiable source on the topic of U.S. railroad history are the following:

  • This really doesn't matter since we're not debating about whether to include CPRR. The CPRR allegations are not being ignored. They're being completely covered in the hnn.us article. The hnn.us is written by one of the authors of the original document and links to it. II | (t - c) 09:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually it does matter as this list provides a clear record as to the bono fides of CPRR.org as a demonstrably reliable source on the subject of U.S. railroad history, and it has thus been posted here in order to avoid having to reargue this point each time that the site is again used as a source. This list should affirmatively settle that issue. In addition the link to the fact checking paper residing on CPRR.org has also been restored to the one sentence discussion of it in the Ambrose entry as the link to the paper contained in the HNN.us article is an old one (2002) which is now broken and thus no longer provides readers with a means to access the paper. Centpacrr (talk) 10:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
The claim that these "organizations and institutions ... recommend and link through their sites to CPRR.org as a 'reliable and verifiable source' on the topic of U.S. railroad history" is deceptive, misleading, and blatantly false. A sample of the websites mentioned above state the following about their links:
Library of Congress
"These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the Library of Congress of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. The Library of Congress bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links."
American Experience (PBS)
"we cannot and do not ensure the quality or accuracy of the non-pbs.org content to which we link."
The University of Connecticut Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
"This site may contain links to non-University web sites. Providing such links does not imply endorsement of the information or services offered by these linked sites"
And so on...
Claiming an endorsement when none exists constitutes a serious breach of ethics. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 02:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion, quoted below, appears in the Stephen Ambrose section of Wikipedia Reliable sources/Noticeboard:

Anonymous IP user 75.2.209.226 still seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the cited paper is and why it was written. It is not a scholarly "review" produced to be submitted for publication in a peer reviewed academic journal, nor does it pretend -- or NEED -- to be to be a reliable and verifiable source to demonstrate inaccuracies in the Ambrose book. It is instead a fact checking commentary that objectively points out and documents more than sixty easily verifiable inaccuracies found in a non-peer reviewed narrative "popular history" produced and published for mass commercial distribution to a general interest audience. If the book in question were the product of many years of original research personally done by its author and published by a university press as a scholarly treatise written primarily for an audience of academic historians, then perhaps 75.2.209.226 would have a minor point supporting his views about the paper criticizing it. Instead, however, the Ambrose book was commercially published in mid-2000 for a mass audience after being largely "researched" in 1999 by a paid assistant (his son, Hugh) employed by a commercial enterprise (Ambrose-Tubbs, Inc.) while Ambrose himself was unable to do so as he was slowly recovering from the effects of a a serious head injury that he suffered in a fall in November, 1998 that resulted in his extended hospitalization followed by months of rehabilitation. This caused the production of the author's manuscript for the book to be delayed and thus many inaccuracies (which, after all, is the subject of the section of the Stephen Ambrose Wikipedia article in which the paper is cited) contained in his text that were thus missed in the considerably truncated and rushed editing and review process forced on the publisher in order to meet its scheduled commercial publication date as closely as possible.
These errors (and their corrections) were identified and documented by three individuals with long interest, research experience, and vast personal knowledge in the field and submitted gratis to the publisher. The fact that the researchers are not "professional historians" does not make what they identified and documented any less accurate or verifiable. And the fact that these corrections were also all incorporated by the publisher in the book's revised second edition affirmatively demonstrates this even if Simon & Schuster did not issue a press release announcing that the corrections had been made or a "third party" did not publish an article in a newspaper or journal specifically reporting the changes. Anonymous IP user 75.2.209.226 has yet to dispute the substance or accuracy of the cited fact checking paper, only the process of its publication (i.e., where it is available on the internet) which he apparently does not consider to be sufficiently worthy because it has not been "blessed" by a "professional historian." Of course Dr. Ambrose was a "professional historian" but that did not prevent him from making many errors in his manuscript that "non"-professionals were easily able to identify and document. Centpacrr (talk) 17:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Unless the IP has something that goes against the statements being made by Centpacrr, my view is that the site is reliable, and even if the language in WP:RS and affiliated pages were against it, this is an WP:IAR situation, so either way, in my view, sounds like it is getting in. IMHO, anyway.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, the anonymous IP 75. Knows exactly what the web page is. Given Centpacrr's assertions regarding the expertise of his buddies, I wondered why I could find no mention of it in any scholarly or academic venues, and after having read it, I now understand why. It's not a review, by any stretch of the imagination. It's simply a list of allegations. Some of them are supported by evidence. Many are not; they're simply bald assertions that Ambrose was wrong. Moreover, the web page focuses solely on the factual accuracy of the book, failing to acknowledge that history consists of far more than an aggregation of factoids. There is no mention of Ambrose's interpretation of facts or events, of the themes he emphasizes, or of his conclusions regarding the impact of the transcontinental railroad on American history.
I'm glad Centpacrr pointed out the web page because it's a good illustration of a major difference between reviews in scholarly journals and those found in self-published sources - Scholars realize that hatchet jobs and bludgeoning authors are not effective ways of getting one's point across. Clear, concise writing that gets to the heart of the matter is not only more professional, but more productive. Moreover, unlike advocates, scholars are expected to write balanced reviews that identify the good points of a work, as well as the bad. Nugent, for example, in his review in The Journal of American History (the official publication of the Organization of American Historians), was highly critical of Nothing Like It in the World. Still, he recognized that in the book "Many points are well made" and that it "will adequately inform and enlighten most of those who choose to read it." No editor of a scholarly peer-reviewed journal would accept for publication a review that thoroughly excoriated a work, itemizing all its faults, major and minor, with evidentiary support for only some of them. Wikipedia shouldn't accept such advocacy as a reliable third-party source, either. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 03:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
  • User 75.2.209.226 apparently failed to read the long comment on this subject directly above that begins "Anonymous IP user 75.2.209.226 still seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the cited paper is and why it was written. It is not a scholarly "review" produced to be submitted for publication in a peer reviewed academic journal, nor does it pretend -- or NEED -- to be to be a reliable and verifiable source to demonstrate inaccuracies in the Ambrose book.. It is instead a fact checking commentary that objectively points out and documents more than sixty easily verifiable inaccuracies found in a non-peer reviewed narrative "popular history" produced and published for mass commercial distribution to a general interest audience." The inaccuracies identified in the paper were all objective fact checking and editing errors relating mostly to incorrect names, dates, places, relationships, amounts, and other easily verifiable non-controversial facts which is exactly the topic of the "Inaccuracies" section of the Ambrose article, as opposed to criticizing his opinions, writing style, organization, tone, interpretation, or any other subjective elements of the book which is not the topic of the section.
  • It should also be noted that neither of the other two citations in the section relating to inaccuracy issues with Ambrose's WWII books to which User 75.2.209.226 has curiously also not objected cite "peer reviewed journals" as sources either, but instead cite a privately owned website called "WarChronicle.com" which describes itself as "... a noncommercial website devoted to main roads and byways of military history" which "has no affiliation with academic or military organizations.", and an unlinked and otherwise unverified 1994 interview with a WWII veteran identified only as "Sgt. Slaughter." No scholars, professional historians, or reviews published in "peer reviewed journals" are cited in these instances which indicates that User 75.2.209.226's standards of verifiability and reliability for citing sources are at best inconsistent. (talk) 09:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
  • It seems like the IP editor has done some good work and we should have a good compromise here. The scholarly information is undoubtedly welcome and the CPRR allegations are well-summarized in the History News Network summary article, the best source on the issue. I don't think Centpacrr's argument against the WarChronicle makes sense given that the CPRR is similar. Both are borderline, but I think in the interest of fairness and disclosure both should be mentioned. Centpacrr, considering that the CPRR is still discussed, what else do you want? People who are interested can follow the link for more details. We shouldn't be forcing excessive detail on the reader. II | (t - c) 19:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
On this point, I entirely concur with Centpacrr. Moreover, Wikipedia has received criticism for the "sanitizing" of biographies. Of course, if someone wishes to expand the "career" section (with reliably sourced material), that would be welcome. LavenderLily (talk) 00:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that sort of judgement is precisely what WP:NPOV requires us to do. I can't see how we could possibly avoid it, and I don't even see how changing the size of that section would amount to our avoiding it -- it would merely mean coming to a different judgement than the one the article currently reflects. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Moreover, the article does appear to accurately reflect the current assessment of most historians and journalists. Defenders of Ambrose appear to, at best, comprise a small minority. And WP:NPOV cautions against seeking to give a false impression of "parity". LavenderLily (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

ClueBot revert?

Couple questions: (1) Why was ClueBot reverted? More importantly (2) Why was all the information removed that triggered ClueBot? ISBN numbers were removed from references, among other issues. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 23:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

ClueBot went into gear after I added the ISBNs. It reverted not only that edit, but all previous ones I had made. I reported it as a false positive. You can easily see what it did by comparing the edits in the article revision history. Stop wikistalking. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 04:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
That question wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I've been watching this page since I got called in the first time. Be nice. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 05:21, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
It's already been established that you were never called in to look at this page. Be honest. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 06:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Where was that established? Because here's where I was called:[1]. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 07:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Hm, I don't see anything on that page calling for your intervention. Instead of insisting that you've been requested to act as Big Brother, haunting articles you have no interest in, and scrutinizing others' edits so you can catch them doing something wrong, why don't you do something constructive and productive, like actually edit Wikipedia? Live and let live. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 13:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
It would be in the paragraph that starts "I defer this to Noraft..." Which is right below the paragraph where you say "but then you undid them, reverting the paragraph to an awkward, wordy, and petty whine." I think that discouraging negative behavior is constructive and productive, actually, which is why I'm doing it. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
That seems like a bit of overinterpretation to justify long-term wikistalking. Besides, you need to learn something about behavior modification. Nagging and name calling are not effective in modifying behavior; they only generate resentment and anger. They're certainly not constructive. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 14:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
As Dr. Ambrose's decade long protégé and by far his closet professional colleague in the 1990s at both the University of New Orleans and Tulane University, Ambrose's handpicked successor as director of the Eisenhower Center, and his most frequent co-author (The Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997), Witness to History (1999), and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002)), Douglas Brinkley is hardly an objective or "disinterested party" when it comes to evaluating his mentor's work. I note with interest, however, that even Dr. Brinkley acknowledges that "As The New Yorker accurately notes, his work had flaws -- some very serious" but then implies that these should be overlooked because Ambrose was such a great "storyteller" by noting "I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller." The question is, however, are those "stories" historically accurate or embellished for dramatic effect? The latter may indeed be acceptable for a "storyteller" but certainly not for a professional historian.
As for the fallacies in the proponent's straw man argument for which he/she still seems to have generated little objective support, I have previously pointed thse out above in detail and so will not repeat them again here. Centpacrr (talk) 17:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
My uneasiness has nothing whatever to do with who wants to add it, but with the question of neutrality and judgement of Dr. Brinkley as an objective source because of the fact that his and the subject's academic and business careers were so inextricably intertwined. As I noted above, Dr. Brinkley's comment in the cited article that "I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller" as a perfect example of this problem. There is a world of difference between the level of accuracy acceptable for a "campfire storyteller" as opposed to that expected in the writings of a professional historian which Dr. Brinkley's comment seems to imply need not be applied in the case of Dr. Ambrose because he was such a great "storyteller." This seems to me to be the very antithesis of the obligation of an historian to his readers. Centpacrr (talk) 05:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I find two statements Dr. Brinkley made in his article ( "As The New Yorker accurately notes, his work had flaws -- some very serious." and "I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller."') far more damning of Dr. Ambrose than supportive, and also find the second one quite odd for a professional hisotian to make under any circumstances.
  • This, of course, is also just my own personal opinion. If you can figure out a way to logically incorporate this source into the article in a neutral way, you should certainly do so. I am just giving you the reason I think it is weak and therefore would not include it myself. (Please also remember that I have also only contributed two original sentences to the entire article as it now stands.) Centpacrr (talk) 08:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC) *(I have now also added the Ambrose quote with ref noted below to the Eisenhower section.) Centpacrr (talk) 04:57, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I think you are now finding out why the article has been "balanced" the way it has for so long with so much emphasis on criticism of his career -- because that accurately reflects what the sources reveal about him. You will notice over the first 28 years of his career (1962-90) he published nine books or roughly one every three years. Over the last twelve years (1990-2002), however, that number ballooned to 14 books -- or roughly one every ten months -- as his commercial company (Ambrose-Tubbs, Inc.) became a multi-million dollar book writing factory.
  • As an academic you are well aware that it is an all but impossible pace. This is why I find Dr. Brinkley's comment in "support" ("I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller."') both odd and damning. Essentially what Dr. Brinkley really seems to be saying is "yea he makes a lot of stuff up to embellish his stories, and lots of the supporting facts are approximate or just plain wrong, but geez he tells such great 'campfire stories' and his books are really popular that it's worth it for the entertainment value and besides he's just giving the public what it 'wants'." That's fine for the genre of the historical novel as practiced by the likes of Gore Vidal, but Dr. Ambrose's books were represented and marketed as popular history researched and written by a distinguished American academic historian and thus meant to be taken as historical gospel ("Nothing is relative. What happened, happened. What didn't happen, didn't, and to assert it is to lie. Historians are obsessed with what is true. They have to prove what really happened. In quoting someone, they must demonstrate that person really did speak or write those exact words." —Stephen E. Ambrose "Old Soldiers Never Lie", Forbes ASAP magazine, October. 2, 2000, p. 110.) when in fact they may be no more credible then another Oliver Stone film. For the best example of the pitfalls that this leads to I invite you to review Commentary dated December 19, 2000 contributed by G. J. "Chris" Graves, Edson T. Strobridge, and Charles N. Sweet regarding Stephen E. Ambrose's book "Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built The Transcontinental Railroad 1863 - 1869.". This is why I have been so firm in my position on the appropriateness of the current balance of material in the article being both justified and correct. Centpacrr (talk) 13:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
Interesting indeed! It is very much beginning to look to me as if the criticism section is not too long, but is in fact is too short. The callous substitution of Crazy Horse for Red Cloud is especially troubling to me because of the stark overtness — and apparent deliberateness — of the distortion of history. It also makes the Ambrose 2000 quote "Nothing is relative. What happened, happened. What didn't happen, didn't, and to assert it is to lie. Historians are obsessed with what is true. They have to prove what really happened. In quoting someone, they must demonstrate that person really did speak or write those exact words." ("Old Soldiers Never Lie", Forbes ASAP magazine, October. 2, 2000, p. 110.) seem even more disingenuous and cynical. Dr. Ambrose is beginning to look much more like an historical "propagandist" than a reliable or credible historian. Centpacrr (talk) 07:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
I hate to say this, Eurytemora, but all the material you are finding is making me think more and more that his patterns of fabrication and embellishment are so broad, pervasive, and without apparent remorse that they border on being sociopathic. If that indeed is the case, then owing to the very wide distribution and broad readership of his many "popular histories" he appears to have done an overwhelming disservice to the understanding of both our nation's past and of its culture. It would not surprise me that if Ambrose "invented" the Rose Bowl story, it might have been to impress Gen. Eisenhower who was a star football player at West Point and later coached the sport in the Army with considerable success. What a terrible disappointment it is to me to learn of this debilitating character flaw in what so many people still consider one of America's greatest "historians to the masses." Apparently he is in fact exactly what Dr. Brinkley inadvertently damned him as being ... little more than a great "campfire storyteller." At this point, I'm not sure that looking for more "positive" material on him is really worth the effort ... or even a justifiable exercise. Centpacrr (talk) 16:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
  • At your request, Eurytemora and I have been searching assiduously for more sources that would support your contentions, but the more sources found in these attempts, the more Ambrosian "confabulisms" we find instead. (It appears he couldn't even keep the "campfire stories" about himself consistent.) As a published writer of history myself (and that does not mean my views violate WP:COI), I had always been a great admirer of Steve Ambrose. Now, I'm afraid, all I feel is royally duped. I really don't know what else to say except that over the past month I have become even more convinced than ever that this article not only does not violate the precepts of WP:NPOV, it in fact reinforces them. (NPOV does not mean it is appropriate to "whitewash" or "pablumize" the facts.) Ambrose was what he was. Unfortunately he was also very "good" at it so it took a very long time for the truth about his professional misdeeds to surface widely -- and much damage was done in the intertim. As Eurytemora has done twice before, I invite you to look at "Bad history's impact corrodes public understanding" by James Palmer or any of the other sources that Eurytemora has posted above over the past few days. As an old broadcasting partner of mine once observed, "You can't polish a turd -- at least not forever."
  • As for your comparison with Jayson Blair, what the mounting evidence shows of many of Ambrose's practices over decades was far worse in my view. Blair's writings were temporal and could be used to "wrap fish" the day after they were published. Forty plus years of Ambrose's, however, persist in bookstores and the libraries of millions of Americans and others around the world were they will potentially continue to do damage to the understanding of the real story of America for generations to come. I'm sure that much of what Ambrose produced was correct and valuable, but so much more has now been demonstrated to be unreliable that all of it must be considered as suspect because there is virtually no practical way to tell the difference without meticulously fact checking it one's self. Centpacrr (talk) 23:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Alleged "Unencyclopedic" content in the "Inaccuracies" section

On May 5, 2010, anonymous IP editor User:75.2.209.226 added another tag to the "Inaccuracies" section of this article however he/she again failed to post anything here ("Talk") to support this contention. Based on his/her earlier edits, however, presumably the portion that the anonymous editor is claiming to be "unencyclopedic" is the reference to the December, 2000, fact checking review of the Ambrose book Nothing Like It in the World entitled The Sins of Stephen E. Ambrose that documented dozens of factual errors, misstatements, and unsourced quotations in the original hardback edition of the book published in August, 2000. The fact, however, that the publisher subsequently incorporated all of the documented and sourced corrections specified in that review in the later paperback edition of the book published in 2001 confirms their veracity and acceptance by the book's editors as accurate. As this is the precise topic of this section of the Ambrose article, it is a puzzlement as to how this can possibly be considered by anyone as "unencyclopedic" as it is exactly on point and well sourced.

Unless and until the anonymous IP editor who added this tag specifies exactly what his/her specific issue is with this section (other then a another claim that he/she thinks it constitutes "sour grapes POV"), there again doesn't seem to be really anything further to discuss here. Centpacrr (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies section

This section is tendentious and verbose. I have edited it, retaining all the essential information, and leaving out the minutiae and detail, which not only add nothing to the section, but dilute its essential message. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 20:27, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Need reliable source for Inaccuracies section

Self-published web pages are not considered reliable sources, per WP guidelines. See: [2] and [3]. Even though the The Sacramento Bee ran a story on the issue, they didn't conduct their own investigation, but merely reiterated the claims made by the railroad buffs on their self-published web page. So the paragraph on the criticism of Nothing Like It in the World in the Inaccuracies section needs a reliable third party source. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 23:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The ultimate "reliable source" for their accuracy of the information in the 25-page research paper, "The Sins of Stephen E. Ambrose" is the revised edition of Nothing Like It in the World itself (which I have added as a reference to the Ambrose article) which adopted and incorporated ALL of the fully documented and sourced corrections to the errors in the original edition that were identified in the paper. The site on which the paper appears (The Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum) is not a "self-published web page", but a 10,000+ page railroad history site that has been on line for more then eleven years and is widely recognized as the most complete source of information, photographs, original source documents, maps, etc, on the subject on the internet. If you have any doubts about the thoroughness and/or scholarship of the paper, or the sources cited therein, I suggest that you actually READ the paper and judge for yourself. Centpacrr (talk) 01:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how long the website has been up, or how many pages it has, it's still self-published - it's neither peer-reviewed nor edited nor vetted by neutral outsiders. As to reading the first and second editions of Nothing Like It in the World and comparing the two, that's what in Wikipedialand is called original research, and it's not allowed. If you can find a reliable third-party source that has criticized the book, then add it as a source. If you can find some neutral source that states that the second edition incorporated the criticisms of the railroad buffs, then add it. Otherwise it's just your word that your website is a reliable source, and that qualifies as a conflict of interest. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 02:59, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Well I guess that there is just no pleasing you then. You are free to accept or reject the sources, but if you actually bother to read the paper you will find everything in there is well sourced and verifiable. As you are still completely anonymous, however, I suppose that you could have huge conflicts of interest in this matter (perhaps you were you a classmate of Dr. Ambrose's at the University of Wisconsin for instance) but nobody would ever know. At least I am completely upfront about where I am coming from and am willing to be publicly and personally accountable for what I say. I'll just leave it at that. Centpacrr (talk) 04:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
You just really don't understand, do you? Perhaps if you read some of the WP guidelines, you might understand that this isn't about pleasing me personally; it's about adhering to a policy that calls for reliable sources. As Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources says:
It's relatively easy to create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media are largely not acceptable.
In this context, "self-published" means material not subject to full editorial control.
If you don't like that policy, then I'd suggest you try to have it overturned. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 04:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
The sources (many of which are also original source documents) are all fully laid out and footnoted IN THE PAPER which anyone can read for themselves. I did not write the paper, I only provided a link to where it can be found. So as I said just READ THE PAPER! Everything you are asking for is right there. I can't help it if you don't approve of the site (the webmaster of which, by the way is a PhD who is a retired UCLA professor) on the internet on which it happens to be hosted, but the paper speaks for itself. The sources you are asking for are all fully cited in it. Centpacrr (talk) 05:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Stephen_Ambrose (permalink) for an RS/N discussion. I think the IP editor is wrong. CPRR appears to be a historical society with relevant expertise in the topic rather than a self-published website. We should be careful about original research, though - I don't think citing Ambrose's book for the corrections works unless Ambrose himself specifically discusses the corrections.II | (t - c) 06:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately that is not possible as Dr. Ambrose died in 2002 without, to my knowledge, ever personally making any public acknowledgement of the errors in the August, 2000, first edition of Nothing Like It in the World. The only direct evidence I am aware of their acceptance was the incorporation of all the corrections included in the paper in its revised (second) edition published in 2001. Centpacrr (talk) 07:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Please read WP:OR. If you can find a source which says the the second edition incorporated all corrections, you can add it, but otherwise it's gotta go. It's too difficult to verify - that would require that we go through each error and cross-check the book. If you can find someone willing to say that we can write it as their word instead. I'd prefer that it was not CPRR, but that's a consideration too. II | (t - c) 07:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

History & Research Organizations that Recommend and Link to CPRR.org

Included among the many dozens of well established "third party" history, research, educational, university, museum, broadcast, and government organizations and institutions that recommend and link through their sites to CPRR.org as a reliable and verifiable source on the topic of U.S. railroad history are the following:

  • This really doesn't matter since we're not debating about whether to include CPRR. The CPRR allegations are not being ignored. They're being completely covered in the hnn.us article. The hnn.us is written by one of the authors of the original document and links to it. II | (t - c) 09:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually it does matter as this list provides a clear record as to the bono fides of CPRR.org as a demonstrably reliable source on the subject of U.S. railroad history, and it has thus been posted here in order to avoid having to reargue this point each time that the site is again used as a source. This list should affirmatively settle that issue. In addition the link to the fact checking paper residing on CPRR.org has also been restored to the one sentence discussion of it in the Ambrose entry as the link to the paper contained in the HNN.us article is an old one (2002) which is now broken and thus no longer provides readers with a means to access the paper. Centpacrr (talk) 10:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
The claim that these "organizations and institutions ... recommend and link through their sites to CPRR.org as a 'reliable and verifiable source' on the topic of U.S. railroad history" is deceptive, misleading, and blatantly false. A sample of the websites mentioned above state the following about their links:
Library of Congress
"These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the Library of Congress of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. The Library of Congress bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links."
American Experience (PBS)
"we cannot and do not ensure the quality or accuracy of the non-pbs.org content to which we link."
The University of Connecticut Thomas J. Dodd Research Center
"This site may contain links to non-University web sites. Providing such links does not imply endorsement of the information or services offered by these linked sites"
And so on...
Claiming an endorsement when none exists constitutes a serious breach of ethics. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 02:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I removed the original research. Please do not readd the statement that the 2002 edition incorporates the corrections unless you find a source which directly and specifically says that, as required by the original research policy. II | (t - c) 03:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
  • The reason that the information was included was to be completely fair to both Dr. Ambrose and his publisher (Simon & Shuster) by acknowledging that they had attempted to mitigate the damage done to the book by the inaccuracies in its first edition identified and documented in the fact checking paper, by their incorporating the corrections included in the paper in the book's second (revised) edition published in 2001. As with most (if not all) such mass corrections made in similar books in later editions, the publisher did not issue a press release announcing the changes, but instead did so without making any public comment at all. Dr. Ambrose also did not comment at the time, and, as he passed away in 2002, will also never have the opportunity to do so in the future. The source of the information that the corrections were made is contained in an addendum to the original paper made to it by one of its authors and linked to footnote 15 (the paper hosted on CPRR.org, not in footnote 16 which is the HNN.us article about the paper. That being the case, it seems to me that leaving out what Dr. Ambrose and his publisher actually did as a result of having their original errors identified makes the sentence as now constructed a material misrepresentation of what happened by withholding this essential information. Centpacrr (talk) 06:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Where does Sins of Ambrose page make this assertion? If the page makes the statement explicitly, then this is no longer an original research question. II | (t - c) 06:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
  • At the top of the page (immediately above the first documented error) is a note that reads: "Note: G.J. Graves comments that "The paper back edition has all of our corrections, but we are not given credit." (Mr. Graves was the lead researcher/author of the fact checking paper.) Centpacrr (talk) 07:01, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
If Graves was one of the railroad buffs criticizing Ambrose, then he has a vested interest in making himself appear in the best possible light, and his commentary about the second edition of the book cannot possibly be seen as an objective, neutral third-party statement. This is obvious in his sour grapes comment about not being given credit. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 02:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
  • In the continued absence of any indication that the anonymous IP editor ever intends to assume good faith on the part of either myself or any other editors in this matter, I have reluctantly concluded after two weeks of being harangued that any further discussion about it with him/her would be a fruitless exercise (akin to playing Whack-a-Mole). and have thus reluctantly decided to instead just delete the single sentence to which he/she continues to object that relates to the fact checking paper The Sins of Stephen E. Ambrose (no matter how it is presented) and will just move along to working on other articles. Centpacrr (talk) 08:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

And the loser is . . .

Talk page verbiage in past month

Section Total Words Words by Centpacrr % by Centpacrr
Scatter shot tags 338 338 100%
Alleged "Unencyclopedic" content 230 230 100%
Inaccuracies section 37 0 0%
Need reliable source 884 452 51%
History & Research Organizations that Recommend and Link to CPRR.org 1061 711 67%
Undue emphasis 2057 1718 84%
NPOV concerns 871 261 30%
Total 5478 3710 68%

Talk page edits in past month

Editor No. Edits
Total 121
Centpacrr 72
ImperfectlyInformed 15
75.2.209.226 12
CheeseStakeholder 10
E.w.bullock 5
Nomoskedasticity 4
Others 3

And the loser is . . .
                Wikipedia!
75.2.209.226 (talk) 05:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations, 75.2.209.226. That's about the cleverest obfuscatory straw man I have ever seen. Now how about either addressing the actual issues, or finding yourself another hobby that doesn't waste so many other people's time. Centpacrr (talk) 05:41, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Undue emphasis

There were numerous problems with the last paragraph of the Inaccuracies section":

  • It was extremely wordy
  • It was poorly worded
  • It placed undue emphasis on a single book - the paragraph describing the problems with Nothing Like It in the World was many times as long as paragraphs on other better known books
  • It placed undue emphasis on a single source
  • It emphasized a source planted in the article by an editor with a conflict of interest (it's his website)
  • It gave more emphasis to a self-published website than to reliable third-party sources
  • The editor who wrote the paragraph claims a consensus that doesn't exist

I will be requesting mediation for this. Any changes made to the page prior to the conclusion of mediation will be considered vandalism and will be dealt with accordingly. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 14:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion, quoted below, appears in the Stephen Ambrose section of Wikipedia Reliable sources/Noticeboard:

Anonymous IP user 75.2.209.226 still seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the cited paper is and why it was written. It is not a scholarly "review" produced to be submitted for publication in a peer reviewed academic journal, nor does it pretend -- or NEED -- to be to be a reliable and verifiable source to demonstrate inaccuracies in the Ambrose book. It is instead a fact checking commentary that objectively points out and documents more than sixty easily verifiable inaccuracies found in a non-peer reviewed narrative "popular history" produced and published for mass commercial distribution to a general interest audience. If the book in question were the product of many years of original research personally done by its author and published by a university press as a scholarly treatise written primarily for an audience of academic historians, then perhaps 75.2.209.226 would have a minor point supporting his views about the paper criticizing it. Instead, however, the Ambrose book was commercially published in mid-2000 for a mass audience after being largely "researched" in 1999 by a paid assistant (his son, Hugh) employed by a commercial enterprise (Ambrose-Tubbs, Inc.) while Ambrose himself was unable to do so as he was slowly recovering from the effects of a a serious head injury that he suffered in a fall in November, 1998 that resulted in his extended hospitalization followed by months of rehabilitation. This caused the production of the author's manuscript for the book to be delayed and thus many inaccuracies (which, after all, is the subject of the section of the Stephen Ambrose Wikipedia article in which the paper is cited) contained in his text that were thus missed in the considerably truncated and rushed editing and review process forced on the publisher in order to meet its scheduled commercial publication date as closely as possible.
These errors (and their corrections) were identified and documented by three individuals with long interest, research experience, and vast personal knowledge in the field and submitted gratis to the publisher. The fact that the researchers are not "professional historians" does not make what they identified and documented any less accurate or verifiable. And the fact that these corrections were also all incorporated by the publisher in the book's revised second edition affirmatively demonstrates this even if Simon & Schuster did not issue a press release announcing that the corrections had been made or a "third party" did not publish an article in a newspaper or journal specifically reporting the changes. Anonymous IP user 75.2.209.226 has yet to dispute the substance or accuracy of the cited fact checking paper, only the process of its publication (i.e., where it is available on the internet) which he apparently does not consider to be sufficiently worthy because it has not been "blessed" by a "professional historian." Of course Dr. Ambrose was a "professional historian" but that did not prevent him from making many errors in his manuscript that "non"-professionals were easily able to identify and document. Centpacrr (talk) 17:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Unless the IP has something that goes against the statements being made by Centpacrr, my view is that the site is reliable, and even if the language in WP:RS and affiliated pages were against it, this is an WP:IAR situation, so either way, in my view, sounds like it is getting in. IMHO, anyway.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, the anonymous IP 75. Knows exactly what the web page is. Given Centpacrr's assertions regarding the expertise of his buddies, I wondered why I could find no mention of it in any scholarly or academic venues, and after having read it, I now understand why. It's not a review, by any stretch of the imagination. It's simply a list of allegations. Some of them are supported by evidence. Many are not; they're simply bald assertions that Ambrose was wrong. Moreover, the web page focuses solely on the factual accuracy of the book, failing to acknowledge that history consists of far more than an aggregation of factoids. There is no mention of Ambrose's interpretation of facts or events, of the themes he emphasizes, or of his conclusions regarding the impact of the transcontinental railroad on American history.
I'm glad Centpacrr pointed out the web page because it's a good illustration of a major difference between reviews in scholarly journals and those found in self-published sources - Scholars realize that hatchet jobs and bludgeoning authors are not effective ways of getting one's point across. Clear, concise writing that gets to the heart of the matter is not only more professional, but more productive. Moreover, unlike advocates, scholars are expected to write balanced reviews that identify the good points of a work, as well as the bad. Nugent, for example, in his review in The Journal of American History (the official publication of the Organization of American Historians), was highly critical of Nothing Like It in the World. Still, he recognized that in the book "Many points are well made" and that it "will adequately inform and enlighten most of those who choose to read it." No editor of a scholarly peer-reviewed journal would accept for publication a review that thoroughly excoriated a work, itemizing all its faults, major and minor, with evidentiary support for only some of them. Wikipedia shouldn't accept such advocacy as a reliable third-party source, either. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 03:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
  • User 75.2.209.226 apparently failed to read the long comment on this subject directly above that begins "Anonymous IP user 75.2.209.226 still seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the cited paper is and why it was written. It is not a scholarly "review" produced to be submitted for publication in a peer reviewed academic journal, nor does it pretend -- or NEED -- to be to be a reliable and verifiable source to demonstrate inaccuracies in the Ambrose book.. It is instead a fact checking commentary that objectively points out and documents more than sixty easily verifiable inaccuracies found in a non-peer reviewed narrative "popular history" produced and published for mass commercial distribution to a general interest audience." The inaccuracies identified in the paper were all objective fact checking and editing errors relating mostly to incorrect names, dates, places, relationships, amounts, and other easily verifiable non-controversial facts which is exactly the topic of the "Inaccuracies" section of the Ambrose article, as opposed to criticizing his opinions, writing style, organization, tone, interpretation, or any other subjective elements of the book which is not the topic of the section.
  • It should also be noted that neither of the other two citations in the section relating to inaccuracy issues with Ambrose's WWII books to which User 75.2.209.226 has curiously also not objected cite "peer reviewed journals" as sources either, but instead cite a privately owned website called "WarChronicle.com" which describes itself as "... a noncommercial website devoted to main roads and byways of military history" which "has no affiliation with academic or military organizations.", and an unlinked and otherwise unverified 1994 interview with a WWII veteran identified only as "Sgt. Slaughter." No scholars, professional historians, or reviews published in "peer reviewed journals" are cited in these instances which indicates that User 75.2.209.226's standards of verifiability and reliability for citing sources are at best inconsistent. (talk) 09:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
  • It seems like the IP editor has done some good work and we should have a good compromise here. The scholarly information is undoubtedly welcome and the CPRR allegations are well-summarized in the History News Network summary article, the best source on the issue. I don't think Centpacrr's argument against the WarChronicle makes sense given that the CPRR is similar. Both are borderline, but I think in the interest of fairness and disclosure both should be mentioned. Centpacrr, considering that the CPRR is still discussed, what else do you want? People who are interested can follow the link for more details. We shouldn't be forcing excessive detail on the reader. II | (t - c) 19:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I actually personally don't object to the WarChronicles.com citation, or, for that matter, even the far less verifiable "Sgt. Slaughter" reference. I am only pointing out that neither of these references provide access to information that supports the WWII inaccuracies claims that is anything close to the level of specific and verifiable information provided in Pacific Railroad researchers' paper regarding the "Nothing Like It in the World" question. (Their paper is also far more specific than anything that the IP's choice of "peer reviewed scholars" provides.) I mentioned them only to point out the stark inconsistency that the IP editor seems to be willing to apply in evaluating the reliability and verifiability of the WWII sources (neither of which is either "peer reviewed" or is the work of "scholars") as opposed to what he/she insists must be applied to the railroad fact checking paper and its authors whose documented corrections to the book's errors were all subsequently acknowledged by Dr. Ambrose's publisher as valid by their being incorporated in the book's revised edition. I am also constrained to observe that there is no way for any of us to evaluate whether or not the IP editor himself/herself brings any COI or other unacceptable biases to consideration of this matter as he/she continues to insist upon doing so behind an arras of completely anonymity. (This is also the third time in nine days that he/she has accused me of "vandalism" as well as my failing to "assume good faith" on his/her part when I have not agreed to meekly acquiesce to his/her personal dogmatic views on "tone", "grammar", "context", "sourcing", "neutrality", and any number of other aspects of editing on Wikipedia.)
  • I have no objection to his/her inclusion of the references to the two book reviews (which I actually expanded on by including the names of the university's at which the two historians are faculty members), but his/her insistence that the authors of the much more specific and on point fact checking paper are nothing more than "railroad history buffs" grossly misrepresents both the quality of their research and their extensive backgrounds, experience, and expertise in the field. (One of them has served dozens of times as an historical consultant on many research projects including to PBS on their two hour film on the building of the railroad made for the American Experience series, to the History Channel, the California State Railroad Museum, and many others organizations and scholars; another (since deceased) was the biographer of the CPRR's construction chief J.H. Strobridge and the author of a variety of other papers (including the formerly linked HNN paper) on the history of the construction of the CPRR, and the third has long experience as a staffer in the live exhibits section at the NPS Golden Spike National Historic Site in Utah.)
  • Let's then see what some other editors have to say here before coming to a final resolution, however the characterization of "railroad history buffs" is coming out. Centpacrr (talk) 23:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
"[R]ailroad history buffs" is a quote from the Washington Post article.
"[H]istory buffs" is a quote from the intro to the History News Network article.
If you don't like those terms, then discuss your personal issues with the authors of those pieces. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a more general concern about the "criticisms" section, unrelated to the one at the top of this section. It think that it is just too large, consuming a disproportionat amount of text and making the article entirely non-neutral. Although there is no question that this man's career was tarnished by plagiarism late in his light, and the Eisenhow allegations are disturbing, it seems unfair that these issues now dominate the article. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

NPOV concerns

I've placed an "npov" tag on the article, on the grounds that the criticism section is of greater length than the career section. To me, that is prima facie imbalance. This article is not neutral. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Just because nobody has gotten interested enough to flesh out the other parts of the article substantially doesn't mean we should delete well-sourced criticism. I disagree with the tag. If you think this is a major problem, fill out other sections. II | (t - c) 15:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree with II, mostly. Possibly the "inaccuracies" section could be condensed a bit. And the big boxed quote in the plagiarism section makes the overall Criticism section appear bigger than it is. Beyond that: "neutral" does not mean equal weight to opposing positions -- it means different views/issues are presented in proportion to their weight in relation to his notability. So in principle there's nothing wrong with the fact that the criticism section is larger than the career section. The fact is, it is getting harder to say that he had a distinguished career, in light of recent revelations. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
If this were a bigger article I could see a basis for the criticism section being at this size. That Eisenhower article in the New Yorker was devastatig, and I agree that it was very harmful to his reputation. I am certainly not defending Ambrose or seeking to downplay his misconduct in any way. But we have an obligation to be balanced in these articles. At this point I don't think it can be seriously disputed that we are giving excessive weight to the recent criticism of his work and the plagiarism. The obvious absence of interest in providing noncritical biographical information on Ambrose is is not an excuse for an indisputabley imbalanced article. I would think that, given the emphasis placed on neutrality at Wikipedia, that the correct thing to do would be to keep the criticism section in proportion to the rest of the article until or unless the article is ever expanded. It may not be, if editors have no interest in doing so. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 18:39, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Articles on Wikipedia hardly ever grow in a linear way, but in sections as editors choose to work on them. Just because the non-critical sections of this article are not currently as developed as those on the later controversies about his work does not mean that they won't be in the future, and so suggesting that his background has not yet been addressed with as much detail is not a good reason to delete other relevant, well researched, and reliably sourced material already there. Instead it is a reason to encourage the development of the sections of the article that may still be lacking. Your complaint should therefore be not that the sections about Dr. Ambrose's negative issues are too long and should be cut, but instead suggesting that the background sections should be expanded to add perspective.
If you really want to make the article better, then make expanding it your project, not removing accurate and well sourced material that just happened to have been developed first. By definition of the Wikipedia project, every article is a "work in progress" that grows and is refined over time. Using your logic, if the background section were say three times as long as it is now, for instance, then would you be calling for some of that material to be cut and to leave the controversies as they are? Material should only be removed because it is inaccurate or irrelevant, not because it is "out of proportion" to another area at some particular point in time in the whole article's development process. Centpacrr (talk) 18:59, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
By that logic, there would be no unbalanced articles. There would only be articles that "will be balanced when someone gets around to making them balanced." Sorry but I don't think telling someone who raises this issue to "go ahead and expand the article" is an acceptable way of dealing with unbalanced articles. As I read the NPOV rules, there is an absolute obligation to make articles balanced NOW, not sometime in the future. The proper solution is to reduce the size of the humungous "criticism" section so that it is proportional to the life of this person. This is not Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass, known almost entirely for his plagiarism, and yet the article makes him so. While I do believe that the plagiarism issues are serious enough that this article belongs in the "plagiarism controversies" category, which I added, that does not mean that this article should be dominated by negative aspects as it does now. In fact, this article can almost be construed as being "out to get" Ambrose, and certainly not as a neutral bio. I have no special interest in Ambrose. I just stumbled on this article as it was mentioned in another discussion. I am sure that any ordinary reader would reach this same conclusion. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
Also, I would appreciate it if someone would stop putting in the lead that his "reputation was damaged." If a reliable source said that, then by all means put it in, with a footnote, and the same with the description of the reports as "substantiated" or "confirmed." Let's be neutral in our wording, please. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
I think you’re misinterpreting the meaning of NPOV, particularly in regard to a BLP. And I essentially agree with Nomoskedasticity. The recent revelations have caused people to reevaluate earlier assessments of Ambrose.75.102.7.34 (talk) 07:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
I ended up coming over here after engaging in a similar argument with CheeseStakeHolder at the Gerald Posner article (where CheeseStakeHolder and another editor have removed well sourced material about Posner’s recent journalism scandal – see diff http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gerald_Posner&action=historysubmit&diff=363577724&oldid=363500623 ). After reading the Ambrose article, I have mixed views. On the whole, I don’t think the disputed neutrality tag is really warranted (but see below).
Partly it depends on how much of Ambrose’s work can now be said to be valid. For example, if he substantially made stuff up about his Eisenhower interviews, particularly substantive content (a question I’ve not looked into closely – so I personally don’t have a sufficient basis for saying one way or the other), then the problems become large and warrant a great deal of attention.
WP:NPOV says “material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is ‘POV’”. Much of the language in the policy seems to be about disagreements about facts or interpretations. If there are two schools of thought about a controversy, including each, in proportion to their prominence/how common the view is.
In the case of this article, I think expanding the other sections would be good. Especially where there’s a public consensus that Ambrose’s contributions are still valid, even in light of the problems with his scholarship that have come out more recently.
Having said all this – there is something about the tone of some of the criticism in the Ambrose article that bothers me – strikes me as not fully professional. For the sake of fairness, I think certain elements could be reworded. And if Ambrose or his defenders had valid rebuttals for some of the criticism (as opposed to “He characterizing them as ‘cranks’”), that information should be researched and included. Eurytemora (talk) 04:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I reread the article. Though I don’t support the “disputed neutrality” tag, I feel that there is some level of bias at certain points (e.g. Inaccuracies section), even though nothing appears factually wrong. I also think it should be possible to rectify any bias without removing valid sourced info. Eurytemora (talk) 06:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
75.2.209.226 asked me to examine the article content and revisions (since I’m not from around these parts – fresh eyes). IMHO it’s extremely difficult to offer sound opinions, since it seems to me that valid opinions on a subject such as this require exhaustive research/familiarity with the subject. I’ve spent much of the past day reading Ambrose and a few dozen articles about Ambrose – but feel that I’ve only scratched the surface – so, huge caveat to any opinion I offer.
Given what I’ve read, it seems to me that the Criticism section, and the article as a whole, does appear to be representative of the current consensus of historians (both academic and amateur) regarding Ambrose. However, I do think the Career section could be further expanded.
I noticed one apparent inaccuracy in the Inaccuracy section. One sentence states “He characterized them as ‘cranks’ when they asked that he make changes to passages in his books”. This implies that Stephen Ambrose literally called the veterans “cranks” – which would reflect negatively on Ambrose. However, the word “cranks” is taken from the author’s characterization in the cited article (“the Ambrose organization opted instead to mount a misinformation campaign portraying the veterans as cranks.”), and apparently not from an utterance by Ambrose (unless someone knows of a reference showing Stephen Ambrose actually using this word).
One of the relevant articles I came across - Philadelphia Inquirer Jan 15, 2002 “Ambrose is under fire on another front - vets - Ambrose 's worst sin is errors, veterans say”. The article states that Hugh Ambrose (Stephen Ambrose’s son, who served as his agent and research assistant) referred to the vets thusly: "we receive letters from people that are so angry that we do not respond. The troop carriers are one example in particular. This is not a discussion, this is a diatribe." (the article is available via NewsBank and is worth a read). Randy Hils, posting on HNN responded “The letters in my possession are the words of honorable men seeking redress as gentlemen. For the Ambrose organization to characterize these letters as a ‘diatribe’ or insinuate that they ever offered serious discussion, is simply false.”
After reading further articles, I think the characterization in the cited article is in essence largely correct, but I would state it slightly different in WP for accuracy. Eurytemora (talk) 07:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

My concern relates to the length of the criticism section, which at this point is the largest section of the article. This situation is addressed in WP:NPOV as follows:

"An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news."

In raising this issue on the NPOV noticeboard, I received one response, which affirmed that the criticism section is of disproportionate weight, and that indeed the established editors on this page have no interest in adding non-negative context to this article, but that the best solution is to expand the "career" section of the biography. Failing that, there will be a continued NPOV issue. The criticism section needs to be reducted to a length proportionate with its significance in his biography. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:15, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I must disagree with the above. I do not believe that the criticism sections are in any way "out of proportion" to their importance to the subject. As the controversies developed over the final years of Dr. Ambrose's life (and the eight years since his death), the criticism has come to include questions about his entire career going back to his PhD work. As what has been called into question is the essence of his credibility not only as an historian, but also as one of the best known and most widely read in his profession, the level of coverage of that central topic seems to me to be not in the least overblown or excessive. Centpacrr (talk) 16:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
On this point, I entirely concur with Centpacrr. Moreover, Wikipedia has received criticism for the "sanitizing" of biographies. Of course, if someone wishes to expand the "career" section (with reliably sourced material), that would be welcome. LavenderLily (talk) 00:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia has received widespread criticism not for "sanitizing" biographies, but for doing just what is happening in this entry, which is to overemphasize the sensational and the negative. The impression I am increasingly getting is that biographies are a major problem on Wikipedia. That seems further compounded by what I see as a systemic bias against the media. On Centpacrr's popint: if multiple reliable source says that the "essence of his career" has been destroyed by these allegations, then it would most certainly support the view of him as a "Jayson Blair" and there could be no possible objection to such a large segment of his article being devoted to criticism. But unless that judgment has been made by such sources, we cannot take it upon ourselves to make that judgment in deciding how much emphasis to give to criticism. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 15:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that sort of judgement is precisely what WP:NPOV requires us to do. I can't see how we could possibly avoid it, and I don't even see how changing the size of that section would amount to our avoiding it -- it would merely mean coming to a different judgement than the one the article currently reflects. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Moreover, the article does appear to accurately reflect the current assessment of most historians and journalists. Defenders of Ambrose appear to, at best, comprise a small minority. And WP:NPOV cautions against seeking to give a false impression of "parity". LavenderLily (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Re: The destruction of Dr. Ambrose's credibility, see for example: MAKING BOOKS; Writers Beware: History Is an Art, Not a Toaster (New York Times), The Plagiarist Why Stephen Ambrose is a vampire. (Slate), Dueling D-Day Authors: Ryan Versus Ambrose (Forbes.com), Stephen Ambrose's Work Faces New Scrutiny (AOLNews.com), Stephen Ambrose And the Rights Of Passage (The Washington Post), and Plagiarism: alchemy and remedy in higher education By Bill Marsh (Book: SUNY Press). Centpacrr (talk) 23:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
It's well established in the article what a scoundrel Ambrose was. That needs no further elaboration or amplification. The need now is to turn this into a balanced biography and not a borderline attack page. Right now it serves mainly to disparage the subject of the article. The size of the criticism section needs to be trimmed pending addition of non-negative biographical materials, assuming anyone is interested in adding them. If not, I think that NPOV requires a shorter article with a proportionate criticism section. If we're in agreement on that, let's get started. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:55, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
I think the discussion above in this section shows that we're not in agreement on that. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
There is no agreement or consensus to make any cuts to this article whatsoever. The charges regarding the deficiencies in Dr. Ambrose's pattern of professional conduct over a long period of time are serious and therefore require a more detailed accounting of the evidence to be understood and credible to the reader. Make no deletions, although reliably sourced additions are always welcome, however. Centpacrr (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested, there's a discussion regarding this article at the NPOV noticeboard.[4]

The crux of the argument I’m making is that it’s an empirical question.

As editor Nomoskedasticity commented (see above), WP:NPOV intrinsically requires a judgment. The only way to make an appropriate high-quality judgment (for any given WP article) is by extensive review of reliable sources. It’s possible to try to enforce one’s own a priori judgment of what the balance should be (e.g. based on one’s prior instinct), but it seems that Wikipedia would then be failing to function as a neutral high-quality encyclopedia (i.e. supposedly reflecting opinions roughly in proportion to their prevalence in reliable sources).

CheeseStakeholder posted a 2007 version of the article. Based on a word count of the text excluding the criticisms (and setting aside the Works section that just lists his books and the Reference section), the positive/neutral content of the article has increased ~150% (i.e. ~2.5 times the 2007 length). The criticisms have increased by even more, but that seems to properly reflect the widely reported discoveries of apparent fabrication (and many additional inaccuracies) in Ambrose’s work. So trimming reliably sourced negative material does not seem to me to be an appropriate response (though addition of good quality neutral/positive material would always be welcome).

Also, in case anyone is interested, here's response to a personal comment by CheeseStakeholder [5]. I didn't post this at the NPOV noticeboard (ancillary and not appropriate for that venue). Eurytemora (talk) 05:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

ClueBot revert?

Couple questions: (1) Why was ClueBot reverted? More importantly (2) Why was all the information removed that triggered ClueBot? ISBN numbers were removed from references, among other issues. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 23:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

ClueBot went into gear after I added the ISBNs. It reverted not only that edit, but all previous ones I had made. I reported it as a false positive. You can easily see what it did by comparing the edits in the article revision history. Stop wikistalking. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 04:32, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
That question wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I've been watching this page since I got called in the first time. Be nice. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 05:21, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
It's already been established that you were never called in to look at this page. Be honest. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 06:18, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Where was that established? Because here's where I was called:[6]. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 07:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Hm, I don't see anything on that page calling for your intervention. Instead of insisting that you've been requested to act as Big Brother, haunting articles you have no interest in, and scrutinizing others' edits so you can catch them doing something wrong, why don't you do something constructive and productive, like actually edit Wikipedia? Live and let live. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 13:50, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
It would be in the paragraph that starts "I defer this to Noraft..." Which is right below the paragraph where you say "but then you undid them, reverting the paragraph to an awkward, wordy, and petty whine." I think that discouraging negative behavior is constructive and productive, actually, which is why I'm doing it. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:02, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
That seems like a bit of overinterpretation to justify long-term wikistalking. Besides, you need to learn something about behavior modification. Nagging and name calling are not effective in modifying behavior; they only generate resentment and anger. They're certainly not constructive. 75.2.209.226 (talk) 14:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed edit of criticism section

As suggested on the NPOV noticeboard, I've edited the ridiculously long "criticism" section down to the length that is warranted by the size of this article, and then self-reverted. My edit is here[7]. My version retains all major controversies with one exception: the criticism sourced to the website "warchronicle.com" [8], as that website is not a reliable source. Thoughts? CheeseStakeholder (talk) 19:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I have been talking to CheeseStakeholder on the NPOV noticeboard, but have not worked with him otherwise.
I have read the talk here and it seemed to me that actual changes had never been written out for discussion. I checked the diff above and it seems to retain 16 of the original 21 references and to greatly condense what was a large section of this article. It is not obvious to me that content significant to understanding the issue was removed. I do not think it would be unreasonable to suggest that what remains might be a more concise version of what was here before.
What do other people here think? Blue Rasberry 20:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
I support this as well, mostly. The fact that it is more concise has the significant virtue that it is more likely to be read. I would only suggest a bit more detail based on the Nugent review -- retaining the passage "mislabeled maps, inaccurate dates, geographical errors, and misidentified word origins." But overall I think it is an effective change, mainly in retaining the core information while being more concise and readable. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:41, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
The diff and self-revert system appears to be a good tactic for working through something like this.
The proposed edits, as a whole, are somewhat too condensed, in the sense that important information has been removed. Just for one example, the question of whether Eisenhower solicited Ambrose has received a lot of attention in the press, and that’s been entirely removed. Also, the military inaccuracies have received a lot of play, including in other reliable sources. So, rather than deleting all that material, it should be retained in some form (with citation of other sources), if the warchronicles.com article is ultimately decided to not be a reliable source. However, I’ll note that the warchronicles.com article is not self-published, and it appears to be written by a military historian with relevant expertise (specifically USAAF Troop Carrier Historian Randy Hils), whose work is cited by others in this field, and who appears to have articles published in other reliable sources (including HNN). So I’m not sure it’s proper to exclude the warchronicles.com article as a source.
Overall, I would potentially support something in the direction of what CheeseStakeholder is trying to do, especially if it increases readability and makes the language more professional. Eurytemora (talk) 23:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
I am puzzled by this ongoing unilateral campaign to eviscerate the "Criticism" section of the Ambrose entry and thereby essentially pablumize much of the detailed, well sourced accounting of the complex issues regarding the documented revelations of multiple serious deficiencies in Dr. Ambrose's research and fact checking which have brought into serious question the accuracy and reliability of increasing numbers of his published writings. These issues have been continually developing and revealed over the last decade, and have grown to relate to his entire career as evidence seems to have been uncovered that they may go back as far as his PhD work. As such these issues are clearly central to understanding his career and thus deserve (and even demand) extensive treatment to his Wikipedia entry, especially since they so completely fly in the face of his own words in an article over his name entitled Old Soldiers Never Lie in the October 2, 2000, issue of Forbes ASAP magazine at p. 110 in which he says: "Historians are obsessed with what is true. They have to prove what really happened. In quoting someone, they must demonstrate that person really did speak or write those exact words."
As what has been called into question is not only the essence of his credibility as an academic historian, but also as one of the best known, commercially successful, and most widely read purveyors of American history to the general public, they require a far more detailed exposition and accounting to be both understood by, and credible to, the reader. To instead give them the Reader's Digest treatment is a disservice to the reader of the article and actually makes it much harder and more time consuming for him or her to find out the facts and reasoning behind the controversies. The argument that the section is too long simply because another section of the entry is shorter is a straw man. It is the length that it is because of its importance to the subject.
I am not an "owner" of the Ambrose article as the proponent of its truncating implies, and have in fact only contributed a single two sentence paragraph to it and edited down another related paragraph. I also do not have a personal axe to grind in this matter as the quotations that Dr. Ambrose used from my own works in his book Nothing Like It in the World were faithfully made, fully acknowledged, accurately footnoted, and correctly reflected in both the chapter notes and bibliography. I therefore have no problem whatsoever as to how any of my work was used and credited by Dr. Ambrose. Centpacrr (talk) 03:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I largely agree with Centpacrr. However – and perhaps I’m wrong here – I think I see potential common ground that all might agree with. What I’d like to see happen is adoption of creative solutions that everyone feels reasonably good about. And it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game (where one "side’s" loss is another’s gain), since there are many "dimensions of possible movement" open to us.
I don’t want to see valid information removed. And I agree that it shouldn’t be totally pablumized (especially since this would drive it even further from the typical descriptions now found in reliable sources, that Wikipedia is supposed to reflect), and it shouldn’t be made harder for readers to obtain the facts and reasoning behind the controversies.
However – I think there are aspects of the current language that contribute to an “attack” feeling. For some concrete examples of this: the quote “annoying slips”. Another example is the quote "a chastened Ambrose". Also, “He characterized them as ‘cranks’”, which is not even exactly accurate (I noted this earlier – in essence this is what he did, but I haven’t seen a source that quotes Ambrose using the word “cranks”). Yet another example is in the lead. CheeseStakeholder added the sentence “In response to one of the early reports, Ambrose said he was not ‘out there stealing other people's writings.’” This was intended as a defense of Ambrose, but it immediately reminds me (and I suspect other readers) of Nixon’s famous line “I am not a crook”. It actually (to me at least) makes it feel like even more of an attack article.
In addition, I think there are places where language could be somewhat condensed without losing information or impairing readability. And I think it wouldn’t be that hard to add more legitimate positive content. I like the diff and self-revert strategy. Also, perhaps the problem can be broken down into little bits – working on one segment at a time (with people offering draft language) and seeking consensus on that, then moving to the next. [[User:|Eurytemora]] (talk) 05:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't really see that either “annoying slips” or "a chastened Ambrose" is unduly negative or inappropriate. The quoted phrase “annoying slips” essentially summarizes the central theme of Prof. Nugent's review which is that the book suffers from sloppy research and poor fact checking. I actually see the report of Dr. Ambrose being "chastened" as more of a positive response on his part than a negative. Dr. Ambrose would have been painted in a far worse light had his reported response been that he had stubbornly defended the error as opposed to having been "chastened" by it. I concur with Eurytemora's views on the other two issues ("cranks" and the Nixonian denial in the intro). Centpacrr (talk) 10:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to focus on the size of the Criticism section, which creates the NPOV issue by turning this intoan "attack article," I have seen little directly addressing that point. I would like to cite an op-ed by Douglas Brinkley[9].

I have asked for outside intervention on the NPOV noticeboard. One outside editor has expressed a view that this proposed edit is desirable. Only one editor appears to oppose any changes to the section at this time. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 15:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

As Dr. Ambrose's decade long protégé and by far his closet professional colleague in the 1990s at both the University of New Orleans and Tulane University, Ambrose's handpicked successor as director of the Eisenhower Center, and his most frequent co-author (The Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997), Witness to History (1999), and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002)), Douglas Brinkley is hardly an objective or "disinterested party" when it comes to evaluating his mentor's work. I note with interest, however, that even Dr. Brinkley acknowledges that "As The New Yorker accurately notes, his work had flaws -- some very serious" but then implies that these should be overlooked because Ambrose was such a great "storyteller" by noting "I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller." The question is, however, are those "stories" historically accurate or embellished for dramatic effect? The latter may indeed be acceptable for a "storyteller" but certainly not for a professional historian.
As for the fallacies in the proponent's straw man argument for which he/she still seems to have generated little objective support, I have previously pointed thse out above in detail and so will not repeat them again here. Centpacrr (talk) 17:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The edit – it removes too much critical material. Turns the article, on balance, into “Ambrose through rose colored glasses”. A partial whitewash. Such an article would violate NPOV. LavenderLily (talk) 00:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, I see a multidimensional space of solutions. Here’s a proposal. I want to see if there are any objections.
1. The easiest and most noncontroversial way to shift balance in the article is by adding positive (and neutral) content. CheeseStakeholder’s expressed concern is balance. If the issue really is “balance” (as opposed to argument about balance serving as a proxy to remove valid critical information), then adding positive material would be one obvious route to fully solving the problem.
There is a lot of legitimate material to add, given how much Ambrose has been written about. I volunteer to do this, and I’ve begun compiling such material. In some ways I find this personally challenging, since Ambrose romanticizes U.S. military intervention (whereas I’m damn near a pacifist myself), and argues for American exceptionalism (I think the U.S. has some wonderful features, but the superpatriotic exceptionalist perspective leads to trouble), and something like a powerful imperial presidency (again, something I generally disagree with). However, even so, I have been able to find plenty of legitimate positive and neutral material to add (that I don’t feel dishonest adding). I’m pretty busy at work, so compiling and writing up these elements might take a week or so. Any assistance would be welcome.
2. Change the language for the critical material in some places, to make it more neutral/professional (and give it less of an “attack” feel). Here’s another example (in addition to those mentioned above): “He was also accused of reneging on promises to correct the record”. The word “reneging” has a very negative feel – something like “failing to follow through on” would be more neutral.
3. I think it’s possible to condense slightly in some places, without making information about these complex controversies inaccessible to readers. Centpacrr’s cautions about overcondensing are valid, but I think a bit could be done.
4. CheeseStakeholder mentioned a citation he wanted to add (by Brinkley). In general, I think the more citations the better, since it gives readers access to more information. There are ones I’d like to add as well. Of course, the information in the sources must be accurately represented and, as has been noted, an artificial impression of parity should be avoided. But I think more references are generally better than less.
I think implementing all these things jointly should solve the issue, hopefully to a reasonable level of satisfaction for all parties. I encourage everyone to try to look at this from as detached and objective a perspective as possible. I’d like to see what people think about what I’m proposing here. Eurytemora (talk) 03:52, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
All in all this sounds reasonable to me, although I am still quite uneasy about using any Douglas Brinkley pieces as neutral sources because of the well documented extent of his very close personal, protégé/mentor, professional, collaborative, and business relationships with the subject. I would also hold off doing any trimming to existing text until the new material has been fully incorporated in the article. Centpacrr (talk) 04:26, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
On Brinkley - Well, it should be mentioned that Ambrose was his mentor and coauthor (i.e. that should be made explicit), so readers can take into account the bias. But if CheeseStakeholder wants to include it, I think he has every right to do so (reliable source, etc.) and I'd vote for including it. My motto here is treat others as you would want to be treated. Eurytemora (talk) 04:51, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
My uneasiness has nothing whatever to do with who wants to add it, but with the question of neutrality and judgement of Dr. Brinkley as an objective source because of the fact that his and the subject's academic and business careers were so inextricably intertwined. As I noted above, Dr. Brinkley's comment in the cited article that "I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller" as a perfect example of this problem. There is a world of difference between the level of accuracy acceptable for a "campfire storyteller" as opposed to that expected in the writings of a professional historian which Dr. Brinkley's comment seems to imply need not be applied in the case of Dr. Ambrose because he was such a great "storyteller." This seems to me to be the very antithesis of the obligation of an historian to his readers. Centpacrr (talk) 05:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
I do realize that your unease has to do with the nature of the source (and not who wants to add it). And I agree with you that Brinkley is a very biased source. Not at all objective. And he’s excusing Ambrose on the grounds of being a “campfire storyteller” (not a valid reason for fabrication by a professional historian). So certainly not an ideal source. But technically, it appears to me to meet WP “reliable source” criteria (in the sense of not self-published, etc.). So my inclination is to include it (with the caveat made very explicit), and any “controversial” statements by Brinkley (in particular, strongly biased or invalid ones) addressed by citation of other sources. I’m trying to find common ground for a solution here. I will say that if such compromises are not reciprocated, it would be problematic. Eurytemora (talk) 06:03, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
  • As long as the source's potential bias and conflict of interest are made very clear I can see an argument to include it with with that caveat. The point I was trying to make, however, is that I personally would not include it as being self serving. As Dr. Brinkley and Dr. Ambrose were both academic and business partners for about a decade, it would naturally be in both the professional and financial best interests of Dr. Brinkley to defend Dr. Ambrose. While I am presuming that Dr. Brinkley's support is also genuine, it still seems potentially self serving enough as to make an alternative interpretation reasonable as well. For that reason I personally think it adds nothing of value to the article, and in fact the caveats would make it more of a distraction.
  • I find two statements Dr. Brinkley made in his article ( "As The New Yorker accurately notes, his work had flaws -- some very serious." and "I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller."') far more damning of Dr. Ambrose than supportive, and also find the second one quite odd for a professional hisotian to make under any circumstances.
  • This, of course, is also just my own personal opinion. If you can figure out a way to logically incorporate this source into the article in a neutral way, you should certainly do so. I am just giving you the reason I think it is weak and therefore would not include it myself. (Please also remember that I have also only contributed two original sentences to the entire article as it now stands.) Centpacrr (talk) 08:46, 16 June 2010 (UTC) *(I have now also added the Ambrose quote with ref noted below to the Eisenhower section.) Centpacrr (talk) 04:57, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Interesting... As you're probably aware of:
“records show that Eisenhower saw Ambrose only three times, for a total of less than five hours.” [10]
I came across the following in an Ambrose interview while searching for positive material for the Ambrose article.
Stephen Ambrose: “Ike died in 1969; I had been with him on a daily basis for a couple years before that, doing interviews and talking about his life. Mamie was still alive, she had the farm at Gettysburg, and then 10 years after that she died.” [11]
After seeing this, it makes me feel weird to try to plump up his WP biography with positive stuff. Like we’re contributing to the perpetration of a hoax. I’m having strong ethical reactions - conscience is really bothering me. A lot of the positive stuff I’m finding is based on Ambrose self-reports (written about in secondary sources), and I don’t know how to figure out what of it is real versus fake. I’m an academic, and continuing to promulgate false claims goes against my most fundamental ethical principles.
I was also reading that historians thought that he had faked a lot of stuff for years before the New Yorker article came out (apparently sort of an open secret).
Also, I did a close read of the Brinkley article. You’re right Centpacrr – in fundamental ways it is more damning than supportive. Eurytemora (talk) 09:55, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I think you are now finding out why the article has been "balanced" the way it has for so long with so much emphasis on criticism of his career -- because that accurately reflects what the sources reveal about him. You will notice over the first 28 years of his career (1962-90) he published nine books or roughly one every three years. Over the last twelve years (1990-2002), however, that number ballooned to 14 books -- or roughly one every ten months -- as his commercial company (Ambrose-Tubbs, Inc.) became a multi-million dollar book writing factory.
  • As an academic you are well aware that it is an all but impossible pace. This is why I find Dr. Brinkley's comment in "support" ("I still consider Ambrose -- even with the recent revelations of ethical lapses -- an American treasure, our best campfire storyteller."') both odd and damning. Essentially what Dr. Brinkley really seems to be saying is "yea he makes a lot of stuff up to embellish his stories, and lots of the supporting facts are approximate or just plain wrong, but geez he tells such great 'campfire stories' and his books are really popular that it's worth it for the entertainment value and besides he's just giving the public what it 'wants'." That's fine for the genre of the historical novel as practiced by the likes of Gore Vidal, but Dr. Ambrose's books were represented and marketed as popular history researched and written by a distinguished American academic historian and thus meant to be taken as historical gospel ("Nothing is relative. What happened, happened. What didn't happen, didn't, and to assert it is to lie. Historians are obsessed with what is true. They have to prove what really happened. In quoting someone, they must demonstrate that person really did speak or write those exact words." —Stephen E. Ambrose "Old Soldiers Never Lie", Forbes ASAP magazine, October. 2, 2000, p. 110.) when in fact they may be no more credible then another Oliver Stone film. For the best example of the pitfalls that this leads to I invite you to review Commentary dated December 19, 2000 contributed by G. J. "Chris" Graves, Edson T. Strobridge, and Charles N. Sweet regarding Stephen E. Ambrose's book "Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built The Transcontinental Railroad 1863 - 1869.". This is why I have been so firm in my position on the appropriateness of the current balance of material in the article being both justified and correct. Centpacrr (talk) 13:28, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
My feeling is that CheeseStakeholder came to this article and, knowing relatively little about the topic (e.g. as suggested by the comment "I don't know if he [Ambrose] has been written about that much."), felt offended by the amount of critical content in the WP article and decided that it was "an embarassment to Wikipedia". Then added a line (an Ambrose quote) to the lead that made the depiction of Ambrose look even more negative (even though I think his intent was to defend Ambrose), then posted at the NPOV noticeboard to seek support for "an intervention".
After mulling this over a great deal in the past day, I'm still inclined to stretch to try to meet CheeseStakeholder partway, along the lines of the proposal I posted above. True consensus is always desirable (and I don't want people feeling disempowered). But it won't be easy and I do have a clear line - I won't sanction anything that's ethically questionable or that contributes to perpetuation of false information/claims/hoax. Eurytemora (talk) 01:51, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
OK, give it your best shot at adding material within those appropriate constraints you have noted above with which I agree completely. Centpacrr (talk) 02:06, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
While continuing to look for positive material, I came across an article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - the plagiarism and falsification was apparently initially noted in the mid-70’s. But the publication describing it was in an obscure journal (Wisconsin Magazine of History), and the problems didn’t break into the MSM until this past decade. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article:
"You don't have to convince Harry Anderson that famed author Stephen Ambrose plays fast and loose with the facts. He's been saying so for years. Anderson, retired director of the Milwaukee County Historical Society, accused Ambrose of plagiarism and faulty scholarship in a book review that was published a quarter of a century ago. The review, published in the winter 1976-'77 issue of the relatively obscure Wisconsin Magazine of History, pans Ambrose's book on George Armstrong Custer and Crazy Horse as error-filled, unsubstantiated and misleading. In the middle of the review, Anderson notes that Ambrose lifts certain sentences word for word without quotes from James C. Olson's ‘Red Cloud and the Sioux Problem.’... Anderson's review of Ambrose's work on Custer makes even more serious charges than the recent cries of plagiarism...In one passage, Anderson says, Ambrose lifts a sentence from Olson's book and changes the characters from an American Indian named Red Cloud to Crazy Horse. ‘Presto! a new fact of history and a new achievement for his hero,’ Anderson writes....’You don't change facts,’ Anderson says. ’It's either history or fiction. In the end, the author has to take responsibility.’"
Source: Ambrose 's work suspected in '70s - Famed author stole passages, historian charged in review. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) - Wednesday, January 16, 2002. Meg Kissinger, Journal Sentinel staff. Eurytemora (talk) 07:11, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
Interesting indeed! It is very much beginning to look to me as if the criticism section is not too long, but is in fact is too short. The callous substitution of Crazy Horse for Red Cloud is especially troubling to me because of the stark overtness — and apparent deliberateness — of the distortion of history. It also makes the Ambrose 2000 quote "Nothing is relative. What happened, happened. What didn't happen, didn't, and to assert it is to lie. Historians are obsessed with what is true. They have to prove what really happened. In quoting someone, they must demonstrate that person really did speak or write those exact words." ("Old Soldiers Never Lie", Forbes ASAP magazine, October. 2, 2000, p. 110.) seem even more disingenuous and cynical. Dr. Ambrose is beginning to look much more like an historical "propagandist" than a reliable or credible historian. Centpacrr (talk) 07:38, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to start making edits. This will be an incremental process over time (bit by bit over days). Given the problems with Ambrose's self-reporting, I'll only add material that I can verify (or make the caveats clear via wording when I can't fully verify). Eurytemora (talk) 09:04, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree. Because of technical circumstances beyond my control, however, I may not have access to reliable internet service for a number of days. but I will be back as soon I am able reconnect. Centpacrr (talk) 09:39, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I’ve compiled a bunch of positive/neutral material to enter, but I’m stalled right now – I’m trying to enter information about his personal life, but there is completely conflicting information in “reliable sources” - e.g. as to whether he was married two versus three times, and the women with whom he had children. I don’t want to enter invalid information - It might take me a while to sort this out. Eurytemora (talk) 03:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I think I’ve figured out the essentials, and I’ve added some text about marriages and children. But the reality is still somewhat confusing. In one interview, Ambrose says that he was 29 years old when his first wife died, leaving him with two children. And some of the sources I came across seem to basically confirm this (e.g. one says “In 1966, Ambrose's wife died and one year later, he married Moira Buckley.”). But in his own biography, Ambrose writes that he was unable to serve in the Vietnam war because ”By the time America was again at war, in 1964, I was twenty-eight years old and the father of five children.” Eurytemora (talk) 06:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm having a very hard time figuring out certain aspects of his life. Ambrose appears to frequently offer conflicting accounts (and I also can't reconcile some of these with external information). Dates and facts don't match up. Trivial example - just now I wanted to add something about his philosophy of writing, and one of the main points he makes is the importance of knowing Latin (being fundamental to how he writes). In an interview he says "It's a sad thing in America today, that kids don't get Latin anymore. I did four years of high school Latin...it was a great thing, in this little tiny high school -- 300 students -- in the rural Midwest farming community, we had a Latin teacher, full-time Latin teacher. That's all she did. And four years of Latin in high school is a great thing." But he starts his own biography as follows: "I was born in 1936 and grew up in Whitewater, Wisconsin, a small town where my father was the M.D. My high school had only 300 students but was good enough to offer two years of Latin, which taught me the centrality of verbs -- placement, form, tense." Eurytemora (talk) 12:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Interesting. Stephen Ambrose claimed that he played in the Rose Bowl (playing for University of Wisconsin – Madison).
However, he graduated from high school (Whitewater High School) in 1953, then entered University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1953 (fall semester) and finished his B.A. (from University of Wisconsin – Madison) in 1957. [12] Other sources confirm these dates as well.
However, University of Wisconsin – Madison didn’t send a team to the Rose Bowl during the years Ambrose attended as an undergraduate.
Trying to separate out the facts from his fictions is driving me crazy! Eurytemora (talk) 13:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
Note: According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison website, Ambrose was a "...former Badger linebacker (1954-56)..." none of which, as you point out, were Rose Bowl years for the school. Many of the references I have found to the Rose Bowl story, however, attribute Ambrose protégé Douglas Brinkley as being its source. I have not found any reference as to whether or not he got the story directly from Ambrose or someplace else, but either way he clearly didn't bother to fact check it before passing it along. Centpacrr (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I hate to say this, Eurytemora, but all the material you are finding is making me think more and more that his patterns of fabrication and embellishment are so broad, pervasive, and without apparent remorse that they border on being sociopathic. If that indeed is the case, then owing to the very wide distribution and broad readership of his many "popular histories" he appears to have done an overwhelming disservice to the understanding of both our nation's past and of its culture. It would not surprise me that if Ambrose "invented" the Rose Bowl story, it might have been to impress Gen. Eisenhower who was a star football player at West Point and later coached the sport in the Army with considerable success. What a terrible disappointment it is to me to learn of this debilitating character flaw in what so many people still consider one of America's greatest "historians to the masses." Apparently he is in fact exactly what Dr. Brinkley inadvertently damned him as being ... little more than a great "campfire storyteller." At this point, I'm not sure that looking for more "positive" material on him is really worth the effort ... or even a justifiable exercise. Centpacrr (talk) 16:09, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
I admit that the volume of his lies is staggering, and it's hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for extending the biography of this person. Yet we still need to have a neutral biography and I just don't think we're there yet. I would feel much better about the criticism section at this length if we could find more of a general nature from reliable sources remarking on the impact on his reputation. If the preponderance of historian viewpoints is that he's a Jayson Blair, then we have no problem. But we don't, so I see a continuing NPOV problem.
Please, no responses to this with yet another litany on what a bad guy he is. I'm with you I'm that. I'm talking about reliable sources, not Wiki editors, expounding on the overall impact to his reputation. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 22:04, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
  • What exactly is it that you consider to be unreliable about the many sources already cited in the article? (Please be specific.) The "expounding" (as you describe it) by Wiki editors (including yourself) is all in threads which you started in this and the NPOV talk pages where it is appropriate for editors to express and defend their personal views in discussions on the topic. As for the article itself, I have only contributed a total of four sentences (one in the intro, two in "inaccuracies", and one in the "Eisenhower" subsection) with appropriate citations of reliable sources.
  • At your request, Eurytemora and I have been searching assiduously for more sources that would support your contentions, but the more sources found in these attempts, the more Ambrosian "confabulisms" we find instead. (It appears he couldn't even keep the "campfire stories" about himself consistent.) As a published writer of history myself (and that does not mean my views violate WP:COI), I had always been a great admirer of Steve Ambrose. Now, I'm afraid, all I feel is royally duped. I really don't know what else to say except that over the past month I have become even more convinced than ever that this article not only does not violate the precepts of WP:NPOV, it in fact reinforces them. (NPOV does not mean it is appropriate to "whitewash" or "pablumize" the facts.) Ambrose was what he was. Unfortunately he was also very "good" at it so it took a very long time for the truth about his professional misdeeds to surface widely -- and much damage was done in the intertim. As Eurytemora has done twice before, I invite you to look at "Bad history's impact corrodes public understanding" by James Palmer or any of the other sources that Eurytemora has posted above over the past few days. As an old broadcasting partner of mine once observed, "You can't polish a turd -- at least not forever."
  • As for your comparison with Jayson Blair, what the mounting evidence shows of many of Ambrose's practices over decades was far worse in my view. Blair's writings were temporal and could be used to "wrap fish" the day after they were published. Forty plus years of Ambrose's, however, persist in bookstores and the libraries of millions of Americans and others around the world were they will potentially continue to do damage to the understanding of the real story of America for generations to come. I'm sure that much of what Ambrose produced was correct and valuable, but so much more has now been demonstrated to be unreliable that all of it must be considered as suspect because there is virtually no practical way to tell the difference without meticulously fact checking it one's self. Centpacrr (talk) 23:23, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
CheeseStakeholder - I’ve encountered multiple such references (i.e. of general nature). I feel I also need to fix some of the material I added (e.g. that he played in the Rose Bowl, etc. – I thought I was being skeptical/careful enough, but apparently I wasn’t). However, I’m really way behind on my work right now, and folks are complaining, so I might not have much time to do anything here for a day or two. Eurytemora (talk) 23:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Centpacrr - Please stop the Wikichat. As the Missing Manual says, article talk pages are to be used for improving an article, not for expounding one's personal opinion about the subject of an article: "If you can't make a point in two to four paragraphs, then you're either using Wikipedia as a soapbox (which is a no-no); or confused." The Missing Manual also says that "If you see wikichat on an article talk page, regardless of its age, remove it." So I am doing just that. Also, please keep the language on this page clean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.37.198.182 21:51, 19 June 2010


I don’t really have time for this right now – but I did a quick check, saw what occurred on the talk board today, and thought I should say something. An anonymous editor - 69.37.198.182 – left an unsigned comment about Wikichat. In the same edit, they deleted prior comments by Centpacrr from the talk board. Nomoskedasticity then reverted, to maintain the integrity of the talk board (i.e. restoring the comments by Centpacrr).

I completely agree with Nomoskedasticity’s reversion (to restore the deleted comments that were integral to the ongoing discussion - deleting such comments compromises the fundamental function of the board). However, I don’t want to see anyone censored, so I just restored the comment by 69.37.198.182 above (i.e. that was removed in the reversion).

Some thoughts: Centpaccr’s comments are not Wikichat. Wikichat is defined as “text whose purpose is anything other than improving the related article”. Centpacrr’s comments are part of an ongoing discussion about NPOV and decisions about appropriate balance in this article, with appropriate choices necessarily predicated on global assessments of the subject. The NPOV discussion was initiated by CheeseStakeholder, who at various points brings up global questions (e.g. is it comparable to the Jayson Blaire case, etc.). In addition, the text that 69.37.198.182 attempted to remove contains hard information, “reliable source” references, etc. Removing such information is, in my opinion, very inappropriate. If I popped up on the George Bush talk page and randomly posted “He was incompetent” or popped up on Brittany Spear’s page and randomly posted “Did you see that ugly outfit she was wearing last night?”, that would be Wikichat (IMHO). This is not.

69.37.198.182 also posted "If you can't make a point in two to four paragraphs, then you're either using Wikipedia as a soapbox (which is a no-no); or confused.”, which isn’t actually part of the Wikichat section in the manual. Moreover, in the manual, just below the text 69.37.198.182 quoted, is a boxed “Note”: “Occasionally, you may have a legitimate need to post a lot of text, if you're be proposing a major rewrite to a lengthy and controversial section of an article, or to an entire article.” Since we’re in the midst of a major rewrite, and discussing global issues of balance in that context, that seems to clearly apply.

The manual also contains very strong strictures against editing or deleting existing comments.

Some additional comments. Centpacrr – some of your comments are a bit lengthy. I don’t want to see you self-censor, but brevity is usually good (unfortunately, I often violate that myself, including in this posting). Also, when I receive a response (to a comment of my own) that’s a long, emphatic block of text, I have an impulse to respond in kind – which can sometimes lead to angry mastodons goring each other. Also, I don’t think CheeseStakeholder is saying that the sources already posted are unreliable. I think he’s just asking for sources that discuss the impact on Ambrose’s reputation globally. Though, as you point out, some of these have already been posted (e.g. the James Palmer article). I’ll post more when I get a chance (in a day or two). I think the discussion has been moving in a productive direction, and would like to see that continue. Eurytemora (talk) 01:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

  • NOTE: The anonymous IP User that posted the unsigned comment above from IP 69.37.198.182 charging me with "Wikichat" appears to actually be the former anonymous IP User:75.2.209.226 (see earlier disruptive and personal attack postings above) who, after four weeks of silence, has chosen to engage in his/her most recent bit of anonymous Wikistalking and disruptive editing (for which he/she has a long previous history of hounding many editors) while hiding this time behind the public server of the Stratford Public Library in Stratford, CT (to which 69.37.198.182 resolves), which is less than 30 miles from Wallingford, CT, the location of the commercial ISP to which the IP 75.2.209.226 resolves. (It should also be noted that this user's Wikistalking of me began because he/she disagreed with the "reliability" of a citation in an early edit of mine to the Stephen Ambrose article of a well sourced fact checking paper critical of the Ambrose book Nothing Like It in the World because the paper had not appeared in a "peer reviewed" journal.) This quickly led to he/she starting this whole kefuflle by, among other things, attempting to recruit a proxy, one of his/her demonstrated oft used tactics. In addition, in a period of just three weeks in May, he/she also started and perpetuated 16 separate threads in various Wikipedia boards and talk pages (See [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]) in a pattern of Wikistalking of me and a number of other editors who had deigned to disagree in any way with his/her personal views of how Wikipedia should be edited. His/her campaign to that end consisted mostly of posting dozens of universally condescending and demeaning comments apparently designed to intimidate, questioning the motives of other editors, making blanket accusations of "vandalism" and "spamming", and demonstrating an unremitting lack of any assumption of good faith on the part of any other editor while he/she repeatedly demands in edit summaries and postings that all of those whom he/she was criticizing blindly owed him/her an unconditional assumption of good faith on his/her part.)
  • This IP user also engages in a persistent pattern of disruptive editing by trolling through the edit histories of editors he/she is hounding and then altering and/or deleting their long standing contributions from articles to which the anonymous editor had him/herself never previously contributed, and which are about subjects which he/she had never shown any previous personal interest, with the clear intent of drawing those that he/she is hounding into edit wars. In addition to Ambrose, in my particular case, the articles in this category which the anonymous IP user disruptively edited to one degree or another are: LZ 129 Hindenburg, Central Pacific Railroad, Transcontinental railroad, Penobscot River, Penobscot Bay, Time Zone, and 1860 Republican National Convention. When challenged by other editors on any of these disruptive behaviors, the anonymous IP editor's usual response is to first feign innocence while claiming instead to be the real victim of abuse by the other editors, and then to immediately charge any editor that he/she has been hounding with many or all of the same unhelpful and disruptive acts (as described above) for which he/she is being challenged.
  • His/her most recent "comment" should therefore be considered only in that context, and not as any attempt to be helpful or shed any useful light on this issues under discussion here. (Sorry, Eurytemora, for the length of this note, but I am really just not going to put up with another "round" of this serial anonymous "editor's" wikistalking hobby.) Centpacrr (talk) 02:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
This kind of back-and-forth doesn't belong here. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 13:25, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
That is true -- Centpacrr, this sort of concern can go to AN/I, where something actually be done about it. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
NOTE: The one who brought this here was not me, but the anonymous IPs user by his/her vandalizing the talk page. Centpacrr (talk) 18:37, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
The problem with taking cases like this to ANI, it seems to me, is that the anonymous IP user never registers and frequently changes his/her IP address (at least six more have been identified so far as being used by him/her this year alone) so that there is no practical way to discipline him/her with blocks, etc, as he/she also frequently does not even sign his/her postings as you can see above. The reason I volunteer my limited time, expertise, and energy to the WP project is to improve its content for its readers, not to play "Wac-A-Mole" with a chameleon. Fortunately there are very few users here whose behavior is as persistently egregious as this one, but there are unfortunately also just enough of them to eventually drive conscientious editors away for good. I hope I don't eventually become one of the latter. Centpacrr (talk) 15:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
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