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Talk:Ronald Wilson Reagan (view source)
Revision as of 18:40, March 10, 2007
, 18:40, March 10, 2007Why do you dislike my references?
I'm a little confused. I see why many of Undelia's edits were removed, but why the part about Reagan opposing government aid to the poor? Isn't that a component of opposing big government, trying to cut welfare programs that would benefit the poor? I don't think that all of Undelia's edits should have been removed wholesale, since some of what was added seems factually accurate.
I'm a little confused. I see why many of Undelia's edits were removed, but why the part about Reagan opposing government aid to the poor? Isn't that a component of opposing big government, trying to cut welfare programs that would benefit the poor? I don't think that all of Undelia's edits should have been removed wholesale, since some of what was added seems factually accurate.
== Why do you dislike my references? ==
Why were my edits unceremoniously and completely undone? Most of the edits were adding book citations so that claims were supported by some sort of sources. Does Conservapedia dislike facts and evidence? Or does it just dislike citations to viewpoints that don't harmonize with its own narrow agenda?
The question of whom to credit for the end of communism is a major one for historians and scholars. And there are a lot of scholars (I would say it's an accurate characterization to say most scholars) who disagree with those who credit Ronald Reagan for the end of the Cold War. I would've thought Conservapedia of all places would've appreciated trying to teach the controversy in a fairly even-handed way. Providing references to the "other side" in this debate doesn't strike me as contrary to Conservapedia's purportedly educational mission.
Obviously Conservapedia has its own conservative bias, which it is proud to wear on its sleeve. However, where I'm "biased" is that I'm not satisfied with assertions lacking grounding in sources. But it seems like Conservapedia is undermining its own objective of being "educational" by eschewing sound scholarly practices of documentation, references and -- gasp! -- presenting multiple sides of an issue, all so it can engage in unsubstantiated opinion. Wikipedia, for all its faults, likely would not arbitrarily remove several references and citations. One of their major flags, after all, is for articles with unsourced statements. Such articles appear endemic to Conservapedia, which one could attribute simply to it being so new and experiencing rapid growth, but given the way this particular entry has been butchered by administrators, it looks like unsourced statements might simply be official policy.
You do a great disservice to potential users by not only tolerating but encouraging such slipshod methods of scholarship. More than anything else, this will cause large numbers of people to reject the information in Conservapedia ''prima facie,'' and will lead more people to trust Wikipedia because it at least appears to uphold more rigorous standards. While I haven't prevented students explicitly from using Wikipedia (though I've strongly discouraged its use and urged them to consider its problems as a source), you have me leaning toward banning the use of Conservapedia outright, because the standards appear so low as to not even warrant further discussion.
Also, in simply removing my edits wholesale, I should point out that you removed several minor changes that had no business being expunged. For instance, adding "was born" in the sentence about how "Reagan was born and raised in Illinois ..." Also, I corrected the capitalization of "American president," since "president" (like other titles) should only be capitalized when used as an appositive before a proper name (e.g. President Lincoln, but Lincoln was elected president). See a style guide (Strunk and White, Chicago, etc.) for more on that.