Talk:Matthew S. Petersen

Copyvio

This Living Person article is a straight copy - nearly verbatim - from the Federal Election Commission website, http://www.fec.gov/members/petersen/petersen_bio.shtml. Most of it is just straightcopying and hence, a copyright violation... Stevenmitchell (talk) 16:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Federal government publications are public domain, so it's not a copyvio, but probably bad practice nonetheless.—Chowbok ☠ 05:21, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

A mention of his hearing belongs at the top of the article

It is one of the main reasons anybody cares about him, and per Wikipedia:Recentism, I am confident that 10 years from now, one of the most significant things about this individual will be the time he was nominated to be a federal judge and didn't know the very basics of the rules of evidence. There are numerous sources quoting legal scholars appalled at this situation. If anything recent is not allowed in the top of the article, why are you allowed to mention he was nominated? Hell, might as well just say he was born and nothing else. I will be putting it back in 12 hours unless a reasonable discussion on this issue takes place here first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sesquipedaliapod (talk • contribs) 06:10, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what people come looking for. Wikipedia has a format for living people's pages and that format ought to be adhered to. Moreover, it's not like the nomination/hearing stuff is hard to find on the page seeing as the whole thing fits on 1 screen right now. Finally, it's just form to use threat to roll back changes that are valid just because you're upset with formatting. Chill a bit. FWIW, I came looking for the name of law firm where he once worked and what he had done before. Tinyhelper (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

The format is to summarize the most important parts of the article. The fact that he's a judicial nominee who doesn't know basic legal terms is most of the most important parts of the article. The policy is that "notable material should neither be suppressed nor allowed to overwhelm." You are suppressing it. Adding a few words to incorporate this notable material strikes a balance between giving it too much weight and suppressing it. (As a sidenote, is there anyone, anywhere who has responded positively to being instructed to "chill?") Sesquipedaliapod (talk) 21:02, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Sesquipedaliapod, I've wordsmithed this section to incorporate the quotes you insist on, while providing more context and support.Mistakenformatt (talk) 23:30, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Appreciate you collaborating on this instead of just reverting. I think your edits look great. I'd like to propose adding something to the top of the article: "During his confirmation hearing, he had difficulty answering "basic questions of law"" Open to suggestions on the wording. Sesquipedaliapod (talk) 00:56, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

@Mistakenformatt: Thanks for your fine edits to this article. I think you did a good job of striking a neutral tone while including relevant content. I don't think you put it there, but I'm going to remove comments about the hearing from the lede. At this point that's still a WP:RECENTISM issue, and we probably shouldn't be using direct quotes in the lede anyway. Marquardtika (talk) 03:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Marquardtika – Thanks, and I agree. The lede is a little short, but I don't think that line (or a direct quote) belongs either. — Mistakenformatt (talk) 03:44, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

@Mistakenformatt:@Marquardtika: Neither of you responded to my points above on "recentism." Again, the policy for the first paragraph is that "notable material should neither be suppressed nor allowed to overwhelm." The material is notable; you're suppressing it entirely from the lede. Contrary to your assertions here and in the edit summary, the phrase "basic questions of law" is not simply a quote from Sen. Whitehouse, but a direct quote (with trivial wording variations) from CNN, The Washington Post, and NPR, to name the first three I found in half a second of looking. I used a quote from these sources precisely to avoid coming to any such conclusion of my own or to take Sen. Whitehouse's assessment at face value. I would agree that a quote from Sen. Whitehouse doesn't belong there, but the conclusions of three of the largest news organizations in the country do. Sesquipedaliapod (talk) 06:55, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

You provided two links to the same Washington Post article and one link to an NPR article. Both of them use the term "basic questions of law" in the article titles, but neither articles uses the term in the article body. Headlines aren't generally reliable in an of themselves, and certainly not when we're considering putting something in the lede. In terms of recentism, this hearing just happened several days ago. There has been media coverage of it, and we've put that in the body. But it remains to be seen if the hearing will have enduring notability. If it derails Petersen's nomination or otherwise impacts his career, which remains to be seen, then yes, it will likely deserve a mention in the lede. But if it is largely forgotten when this news cycle ends and Petersen ends up being confirmed, it's not likely a noteworthy enough aspect of his biography for the lede. The point is, we don't know yet because the hearing just happened, so we need to wait to see how relevant it proves to be over time. Marquardtika (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

@Marquardtika:I have corrected the CNN link, which was obviously a mistake. The very first sentence, which is not the headline, reads as follows: "A Trump judicial nominee struggled to answer basic legal questions posed to him by a Republican senator on Wednesday, including his lack of experience on trial work, the amount of depositions he'd worked on and more." The Washington Post article contains in its second paragraph the phrase "struggling to answer rudimentary questions about the law" (as I noted, there are variations in the exact wording between articles). Here's CBS, in the first body paragraph: "the apparent inability of a Trump judicial nominee to answer basic questions about the law." If headlines are not considered reliable (and I will note that the word "headline" does not appear anywhere in the reliable sources policy, so I don't know where you decided that), surely body text from multiple news organizations is? Moreover, how long do we need to wait? Is there a policy that lists a certain number of years? Should we wait until he dies and then assess his entire life in one big go? Maybe we should wait 500 years after his death? We wouldn't want to make any hasty decisions; he could always reincarnate. Or we could just update the article as events transpire, since the entire point of this effort is that the page is editable. Sesquipedaliapod (talk) 20:38, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Sesquipedaliapod. The article subject's performance before the committee is by far the single most widely publicized incident of his life. The fact that different news outlets use different synonyms to describe how basic the questions were does not detract from the uniformity of views that these were indeed basic questions of law. When my wife told me that this nominee was unable to answer basic procedural questions, I assumed that the media was overselling this. When I actually watched the video, and they asked what the Daubert standard is, and he did not know, my jaw literally dropped. Now, I will grant that I apparently have more experience in practice in the federal courts than this guy, and I happen to have published an article discussing certain aspects of the use of expert witnesses, so I am probably more familiar with this standard than the layman. However, knowing that the Daubert standard relates to expert witnesses is 2L law school stuff. Knowing what a motion in limine is, that is 1L Civ Pro stuff. bd2412 T 21:11, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Sesquipedaliapod that the video should be discussed in this article and should be in the lede. The event is notable and relevant, and Wikipedia's explanation of it helps people understand the world around them, the relevance of Mr. Petersen, and the widely-viewed video itself. -- econterms (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Now that he's withdrawn, it's clear the hearing is a major enough part of his biography to warrant including it in the lede. I'd suggest something like "Petersen withdrew his nomination for the federal judiciary after receiving criticism for his performance during his confirmation hearing" or something similar. Marquardtika (talk) 19:42, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Good, concise, and neutral. -- econterms (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

References

Articles on legal terms used in the hearing

• Fun fact: Because the term "motion in limine" came up at the hearings and the video went viral, visits to the en.wp article about that topic jumped from a few hundred daily to over 25000. See [1] -- econterms (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Daubert standard went up even more. bd2412 T 05:21, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Bias

Article has strong bias towards the subject. Needs to be more objective and less general supporting facts. 2603:6011:4C03:AD9F:597B:F1C9:A0EF:DC08 (talk) 02:45, 16 June 2021 (UTC)