Talk:Matthew Shirk

BLP concerns

This article is a BLP mess. As it currently stands it pieces together a variety of articles in order to make the subject come off in the worst possible light. The opinions of newspaper columnists and worse, bloggers, are presented as if they were facts. I do not have time to fix this now, but it needs to be taken care of immediately.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:02, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The primary contributor to the article seems to have overlooked this, and has attempted to re-instate material sourced only to an opinion column. I have removed it again, along with several sections of what could probably be termed attack material, which gave a vast amount of undue weight to certain sources. As said above, these sources include opinion columnists and blogs. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not a collation of negative opinions of the subject circulated in op-ed columns, blogs, and the local alt weekly.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The critic of this article seems to be intent on removing any negative or unflattering statements concerning the article's subject. My understanding was that Wikipedia does not try to sanitize an article by removing unpleasant information as long as it is accurate and comes from reliable sources.Mgreason (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You are quite correct that I'm intent on removing any negative statements concerning the subject, when they are poorly sourced and not neutrally-worded in a biography of a living person. You really need to read up on that policy. As it says, "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Material sourced only to bloggers and opinion columnists is not acceptable, nor is piling on negative assessments from legal blogs and Folio Weekly without any regard for proper weight. This has been a problem for you at multiple articles.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion

Response to third opinion request:

I have taken a third opinion request for this page (Disagreement about whether to include unflattering information). I have made no previous edits on Matthew Shirk and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

Looking at the page history, I am assuming that the statements in question are primarily these, and I shall limit my review to that material unless advised otherwise.—Ash (talk) 17:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. I also previously removed some material here, with the same intention and justification.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Not being an expert on the subject or the sources quoted, there seems little point in making a blow by blow assessment. Consequently I have selected four samples from the edits. I have considered the original source material for these items as well as the text of the article. I apologise for this being a long reply, if you are not overly interested in the logic behind my opinion please skip to the conclusion below. Sample 1: However, at the same time, the Public Defender’s staff was advised that loyalty to Shirk and his management team would determine who kept their job. "He didn't say loyalty to the mission of the office or dedication or hard work or any of those things," according to Alan Chipperfield. ref=http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/112908/met_361369960.shtml The quote is as stated in the source. Jacksonville.com is part of The Florida Times-Union which looks to be a good reliable source. Here the newspaper editorial/summary is re-quoted as fact as well as the sourced quotation but currently I have no reason to believe this has been contested and so appears to meet BLP requirements. Sample 2: Summaries of the controversy were posted on several national legal websites including 'JD Journal'. ref=http://www.jdjournal.com/2008/12/08/attorneys-allege-retribution-by-public-defender-state-attorney-video This is a blog site and so fails to meet BLP requirements for inclusion. Sample 3: A collection agency sued Shirk in 2007 for failure to pay a $6,544 credit card debt. He agreed to repay the debt, along with $1,035 in attorney fees and court costs. The year before, Bank of America filed suit to recover a $13,537 balance, but BOA later had the case dismissed. ref name=FOLIO Folio Weekly appears to be a free weekly alternative paper. After looking through the publication I cannot consider this a quality reliable source as discussed at BLP. As court cases are involved, other authoritative sources should be available. Sample 4: On November 19, 2008, the parents of Eric Edwards, jailed since July for seven felonies and facing habitual offender status, paid Shirk $3,750 to represent their son. Shirk insisted they understood that he had just seven weeks before he took office, but the Edwards were adamant that he take the case. In the end, no depositions were taken and the only motion Shirk filed in the case was to withdraw as counsel on December 31, 2008. The Edwards requested a refund, because little work was done on their son's behalf. Shirk refused, stating that he logged sufficient hours to earn the money. The Edwards filed suit against Shirk in small claims court on April 2, 2009, claiming civil theft. Shirk claimed the situation was politically motivated. ref=http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-04-02/story/public_defender_being_sued_by_former_client The story is repeated in some detail from Jacksonville.com. As before the source meets BLP requirements. As well as BLP, consideration should be given to NOTNEWS point 4. The level of detail quoted from the source in sample 1 & 4 appears over the top when the salient points could be highlighted. Consideration should also be given to dependence on a single source for controversial matters. Conclusion. Removal of suspected controversial items is justified under BLP. As some of the sources appear to be of sufficient quality to justify potential inclusion, specific discussion is required on the talk page as to why these items appear controversial or which particular sources are not sufficient. Controversial items may be included only if supported by quality reliable sources (not opinion pieces), preferably more than one source, and the level of detail included should be in proportion to their long term importance on this biographical article. In particular, heavy use is made throughout the article of The Florida Times-Union which makes the article suspect with respect to bias. Where the article repeats quotes from witnesses rather than statements of fact, then this fails NOTNEWS as well as the verifiability requirements of BLP as these may be unsupported opinions or amount to gossip. Specific discussion addressing these points is needed for this material to be re-added to the article.—Ash (talk) 22:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Ash. I think that goes a long way to resolving the issues. --Cúchullain ^t/c 17:26, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

New material

This edit added a large amount of poorly sourced, fawning material to the article. One of the sources is an op-ed piece; another is a newspaper just reprinting an email in which the subject talks about himself. As it is poorly sourced and not neutral it needs to be removed per the biographies of living persons policy. The editor who added the material has been warned about this and invited to discuss the material here on the talk page.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I've reworded the text attributed to editorials. Editorials can be used so long as they meet the relevant policies (eg the Criticism and praise section of the BLP policy page.) The Florida Times-Union is obviously a reliable source, so we can quote its editorials, so long as we attribute them as such, keep the text neutral, and be careful of the weight we're giving them. Including one or two sentences saying, in a dispassionate fashion, that they approve or disapprove of what the subject is doing is okay. More than that is not.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

After several months I went ahead and trimmed the article. There was far too much space devoted to the campaign versus what he's actually done as Public Defender, and we were using far too many words to say simple things. The article was longer than that of several governors of Florida I think.Cúchullain ^t/c 19:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

scandals

A simple google search of Matthew Shirk reveals that much has occurred that has not been addressed in this article. I will try to address in time. --JumpLike23 (talk) 04:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)