Thanks Terry. I hadn’t seen that.

However, thats the part I added cause thats the part I know.

Wikipedia, like others have stated, isn’t perfect. However, I haven’t done anything to prevent others from adding additional information on the mayor – and I am sure there is plenty of additional information. If you would like to add it, go ahead, but that in no way changes the truth of what I put up there.

It’s like if you were to have an entry on Charles Lindbergh, but the entry only talked about Nazi sympathizing. Sure, Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer, but that’s only one part of his entry.

Not to compare Lindbergh and Haslam, but H isn’t just a mayor who’s a member of this group.

And maybe he didn’t present his side, but the language in the article is still skewed against him, like I pointed out above. It’s simply not an encyclopedia article on Haslam. There’s no sense of fairness or attempt at balance.

Oh, and SU – I tried using the RSS this time for the comment, but it doesn’t seem to be updating that well. *shrug*

It’s not a good entry. However, it’s very accurate. The two aren’t going to be mutually inclusive.

And fyi – I don’t care at all about the controversy or about the guns issue. I just don’t like to see this kind of ridiculous bias.

It’s not bias.

The Wikipedia entry isn’t very good, you’re right. But the problem isn’t bias, implying that there is a pro-and-con argument to anything/everything, it’s that that’s the entire content of the entry. It’s basically more of an entry on “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”.

You seem to be bringing a semantic argument. Has Mayor Haslam discussed this at all? In any way?

Are you stating that there is not a controversy over Mayor Haslam joining this group Jonathan?

Unclear as to what your objective is here. For bias to exist only one side of the story would be presented. Since Mayor Haslam has given no response how can there be another side?

So if a politician doesn’t respond then a third party can declare bias?

Pretty slippery slope.

And as for the “thousand people” remark, if you agree that so few people know about it, then the phrase “much local controversy” is inaccurate, and you’re also agreeing that BH’s entry shouldn’t consist almost entirely of this one relatively small controversy.

And fyi – I don’t care at all about the controversy or about the guns issue. I just don’t like to see this kind of ridiculous bias.

Of course, no one would care if he didn’t join the group. The fact that he did – and that someone listed him as a likely candidate for Governor in the future – makes it an issue and a fact worthy of reporting.

If you think it needs to be under a seperate header, feel free to go and do so. I don’t (at least not in the state that his entry is right now). Of course, your right that maybe only a 1000 people now anything about the controversy, but then, I would doubt more than a 1000 people are going to his wikipedia page at all.

Uncle – I hadn’t noticed the two different comment feeds. My mistake. But fyi – I was talking about this plugin, which sends an email to you when someone else comments, like a forum would. I find that it aids discussion. I was just bringing it up as a suggestion, not a criticism.

First, what facts are wrong? Sure I have some criticisms of the guy, but I presented the facts as they stand. If there are other facts, feel free to post them. As far as I know, (1) it is a controversy, (2) he did join the group, and (3) hasn’t put out any facts to counter the ones I presented.

Regarding the citations – Uncle is directly cited once.

His posts at KNS were cited two other times – not to look like someone else but (1) because they were different posts than what I found at his blog and (2) because I didn’t realize he did the “roundup” one (along with citations to Alphecca and an Idaho television station – not that anyone is counting).

But, to appease your non concerns, I changed the “Many Tennessee Commentators” cite to a Terry Frank (who I assume isn’t Says Uncle) post where she discusses a television roundtable on the issue and where all the participants (none of whom where Uncle but allof whome have some level of noteriety in East Tennessee reporting) agreed it would hurt Haslam in his effort to seek statewide office.

So, therefore there are two Uncle citations then – one to his blog (14% of cites) and one to KNS (14%) , two cites to Alphecca (28%), and a cite to Terry Frank(14%), Mayors Against Illegal Guns(14%), and an Idaho television station (14%). I could throw up others if you want to dilute the pool even more, but why bother. If 14% (or 28%) (or heck, even 42%) is mostly (as in, over 50%), then perhaps I need to take basic math again. Of course, thats all a red herring (not to mention pretty damn near applicable to nearly all stories in the MSM).

As far as “liberal big city mayors,” whats biased about that. Each of the three mentioned are big city mayors and self described liberals.

regarding “continued failure,” well, there has actually been a lot of talk about this and the Mayor has continually failed to withdraw from a group that stands directly at odds with other positions he has expressed. The fact that his people contacted Uncle and then failed to follow up at all further supports this.

and no one is harrassing anyone for not joining anything. The problem is that he went out of his way to associate with these people, who stand in direct opposition to Mayor Haslam’s expressed positions on the 2nd Amendment.

It’s not so much inaccurate as it is a poor use of an encyclopedia. It’s being used not for facts but for politics and criticism. And it’s very biased; “exposed the fact,” “liberal big city mayors,” “continued failure,” etc etc.

If this were about a mayor who continually failed to join an anti gun group, you’d probably delete it yourself.

And it doesn’t help that it mostly cites you, and it uses your stories on MKS’s blog to look like it’s citing someone else – “Many Tennessee commentators” is you. You’re the only Tennessee commentator cited, but it cites you repeatedly and as if you’re more than one person.

Regarding subscribing, look up. It says:

Posted in Guns, Knoxville Politics on January 16th, 2007 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.

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