Talk:Andy Barr (American politician)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Bibliography

Do we really need that big of a bibliography? Can we eliminate or reduce it? I don't see a lot of articles with that amount of bibliography information on it. NBA2030 (talk) 02:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Each article in the Bibliography is cited in the article, so yes, they are necessary. Since Barr just became a congressman, it isn't as though there are any comprehensive biographies on him yet. What is known of him right now has to be assembled from various newspaper articles. Often, only one or two facts appear in each article, which is why there are so many of them. This will be the case with all modern politicians for whom there are not yet comprehensive biographies. See Steve Beshear for a GA of a modern politician with a huge bibliography. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 02:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I meant to say biography, not bibliography. My bad. I think we should reduce and merge some parts to make it less wordy. NBA2030 (talk) 14:42, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm OK with making it less wordy where appropriate. If you plan to entirely remove particular facts, I think that should be discussed here first. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 14:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree 100% this article needs to be reduced in length, it is way too long for a politician that has not even taken office yet. Some sections should be completely removed, such as his background info at the top, as it is already stated later in his biography. Also, the picture of Rand Paul should be removed. I am going to go ahead and remove some of his info at the top, but anything else I'll discuss here.

Finally, as soon as he gets his congressional portrait, that needs to be added. Mailman903 (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree about the portrait; I plan to look for that once it's available.

I disagree with your removal of information from "the top" (also known as "the lead"). Per WP:LEAD, "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects." The information you removed summarizes the most important aspects of the article as presently constituted. If Barr has a long and distinguished congressional career, the information presently in the lead will become less important, and revision will be needed. If he serves one term and gets defeated for re-election, maybe we won't need to revise it that much. The bottom line is, since it is meant to be a summary of the article body, it will, of a necessity, repeat what is in the body. It's supposed to. Introducing information in the lead that isn't in the body actually violates WP:LEAD. Unless you provide a relevant counterargument, I plan to restore the previous lead.

Also, I certainly disagree with carving away cited, relevant information from the body just because you think the article is "too long". If there is consensus that individual facts are too trivial for inclusion, that's another matter. I get that most newly elected congressmen don't have articles this long, but I happened to have access to a relevant source (the Lexington Herald-Leader) and the time and inclination to do one for Barr. For you to strip away that hard work because most others of this relative level of inexperience have shorter articles is wrong and shows a lack of appreciation for the work it takes to actually build up an article (i.e. build an encyclopedia).

Someone suggested I nominate this for good article status because they thought it was so well done and appropriately broad. I planned to wait until there was a little more to put in about his House career, but maybe I should see if it will pass to keep folks from coming in and cutting stuff willy-nilly.

Regarding the picture of Paul, it's free, relevant to the text, and provides some visual interest to a large block of text. What's the problem? Do you think it's somehow better unillustrated? Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 23:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I undid the removal of content from the lead. While I understand how it can seem redundant, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section describes how the lead section should summarize all of the important aspects of the subject. When he is a member of Congress and has a track record of that sort, it will very likely change the sort of content in the lead, and might necessitate reducing some details from the body in certain ways. As it stands, I think this is a very in depth and well written article about a man we might otherwise not know much about. I wish my other articles on 113th Congressional freshmen were half this detailed. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:24, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

My apologies. I didn't realize it was you that put a lot of time into this. The reason I suggested merging and removing parts of this article altogether is because an article with this much info tends to be unprecedented for a Member of Congress who hasn't even taken office yet, plus some of it sounded rhetorical. Lot's of other recently-created articles about incoming members of Congress (such as Markwayne Mullin or Keith Rothfus) don't have nearly as much info. I guess it's a good thing after all, and rather than making this article look like theirs, we should be making theirs look like this one. Finally, the reason I suggested the removal of Rand Paul's picture was because I think images on this page should only be one's featuring Andy Barr, and most other articles who mention an endorsement don't typically have a picture of just the person who endorsed them. Basically, I thought it was unnecessary, but I could be wrong.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone with the removal and I won't do it anymore. Happy New Year everyone! Mailman903 (talk) 16:25, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

"rather than making this article look like theirs, we should be making theirs look like this one" <- this is exactly my point. I know this came across harsh – harsher than I meant, I'm sure – but that's the point I was getting at. If you see something too trivial to include, let's talk about that. Regarding images, yes, if we had relevant images of Barr from that period in his life, that would obviously be preferable, but there are rarely that many free license images of various points in the lives of modern politicians. In those instances, getting something relevant is – in my opinion – better than having no image at all. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 21:32, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Fake ID

User:Andonee believes that the section of the article which states "In 1993, at age 19, he was arrested in Key West, Florida, and charged with possessing a fake Mississippi driver's license. He pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to eight hours of community service" should be removed. I understand where they're coming from, it borders the line of irrelevancy, but I'm not sure its removal is warranted. Being arrested is never a "minor event" in one's life, and I think it should stay. Muttnick (talk) 16:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

deletion discussion

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geoff Young 176.59.168.167 (talk) 08:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)