Talk:Pentagon military analyst program

Why deletion?

It's obvious to me that one of the reasons to quickly flag this article for deletion is because it's dealing with a controversial issue.

While there may be copyright issues etc, I personally don't think thats a reason to just delete the whole thing. This article perhaps needs some simple editing or re-writing...

It would be a loss to Wikipedia if articles such as this and more were deleted in this fashion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.171.87.129 (talk) 11:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Title

Another thought on the title -- the Pentagon internally referred to the analysts as "message force multipliers" and that was used as the description of the story on tonight's The Daily Show. Might be a better name? -- Kendrick7^talk 06:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The the story on National Public Radio[1] calls it the "Pentagon message machine" and notes that the sunject of this article was first and officially known as the "Surrogates operation" although it was part of the larger Pentagon rapid response operation. -- Kendrick7^talk 01:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyvios

POV-issues aside, this article has some serious copyright problems in the edit history. If it passes the AfD as a keep, I strongly urge the closing admin to delete the edit history up to the AfD. MrPrada (talk) 08:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you've gotten the idea that anything failed WP:COPYVIO. I've reverted your edits. -- Kendrick7^talk 18:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Judging by the fact that you haven't restored the sentences that were directly lifted from the sources, I think you do know where the WP:COPYVIO occurred. Do not make me paste them here alongside the edit history, that will only exacerbate the problem. Also, do not remove neutrality tags without consensus. MrPrada (talk) 23:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Excerpts, I'll beg your pardon, are not copyvios. This is done all the time -- several of these excerpts are repeated as such in multiple sources. -- Kendrick7^talk 00:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I wasn't referring to the sentences with quotes. I was referring to two entire sentences, one from the Times which had the quantifier moved from the beginning to the end of the sentence, one from the Times which was the entire sentence pasted (I could tell stuff had been copied/pasted because the quotation mark was the NYT font and not the MediaWiki courier quotation mark, and when checking up to see if it was a rewrite or not, I noticed the text was identical), with the period changed to a comma and merged with excerpts from sentences of the Q&A, Xinhua, and Reuters, and at least one other sentence that was substantially word for word. MrPrada (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'm fairly sure this is permissible as long as the sentence is properly referenced even without double quotes indicating it's verbatim, despite what -- I admit -- I was taught in middle school. I'll double check with the admin who told me this if she's still around. -- Kendrick7^talk 02:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here. I don't know which sentences are involved, but generally it isn't necessary to use quotation marks so long as the sentence is clearly attributed. You could write, "According to the New York Times, the State Dept was 'not consulted about the White House's plan to seek extradition'," or you could write the same sentence without the internal quotation marks. Having said that, it would be better not to use the same words unless it's important not to change them for some reason — or unless there really is no other way to phrase things, but that's unusual. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 05:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was not referring to attributed quotes. I'll give you an example from the earlier version. The sentence "Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show" from [2], was rewritten as "Records show analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters" in [3] under the Grooming section, where you can see the sentence is obviously a word for word copy, not rephrased at all, and not, "According to the New York Times, 'records show...'" I was trying to avoid repeating the copyright violation on the Talk page, but I've got no other choice in demonstrating what took place here. There are at least two other examples, which I tagged with {{Copyvio link}} after I realized what had taken place. I understand the editor's haste to get more content into the article due to the AfD nom, but I think we can put to rest that there was direct plagiarism which has been (mostly) corrected. MrPrada (talk) 05:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Where the writing is distinctive ("analysts have been wooed"), it should really be attributed in-text, or quoted; in fact, if the word "wooed" is to be repeated, I would attribute and use quotation marks, I think. But it's better still to rewrite it. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 07:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

POV

OK, before I have to take this to WP:3O:
1. It is fairly obvious that "Grooming" is a POV-title for a section and should be changed or deleted. I'm unconvinced of the need for this many sections, this is not Wikinews. Most of it can be summarized under Expose, Impact, and Congressional Response.
2. "The analysts suppressed doubts about the Bush administration's misinformation out of fear of jeopardizing their access or government contracts". This sentence is completely unacceptable and is coming out now. One, the Times article makes reference to Pentagon points, not Bush administration. Two, this article refers to the briefings they received as misinformation, which is an assumption by you, and not the articles cited. This is WP:SYN.
3. The quote from The Nation is tangential and should go. We don't need to list every Progressive think tank and publication opinion in an encyclopedia article, just as it would be silly to list every Conservative think tank and publication's opinion on the article.
4. The statement "Propaganda operations against U.S. citizens by the government are illegal" is partially true. It is illegible for the military to perform PSYOPs directed at the American Public. Public Affairs briefings on the other hand, are not, and while I agree there is questionable legality if it is proven the analysts were paid for their service, it remains to be proven that any laws were broken. Prefacing the Pentagon's explanation of their actions with the sentence tries to make it seem as if the spokesperson is making an inaccurate statement and gives undue weight to the critics. As noted in one of the references, "The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people...(its) a bit incredible to think retired military officers could be wound up and used as puppets of the Defense Department".
MrPrada (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll address you're points individually tomorrow. But I believe you're obliterating the nut graf of the article in your version. The Times didn't fight a lawsuit for two years and resultantly publish a 7,000 word exposé on the happy story of a few retiree getting to go on a couple of field trips. However: I think we can come around to some compromise version given time, but I'm naturally suspicious as you've argued for the deletion of the article at the ongoing AfD, then you gut the article, then people vote in agreement with your insistence that there's nothing to see here, based on your version. If you'd care to change your vote -- even if ultimately this material could be merged elsewhere -- I'd be happy to work more constructively with you on this. But you can't have your MRE's and eat them too, sir! -- Kendrick7^talk 03:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I do think it is salvageable under another title, as I stated in the AfD. If anything, I think the edits I've been making would help the keep arguments. However, I still feel it belongs (at best) as a fork of another (as of yet unwritten, as you noted in the AfD) article. I have not gutted anything that goes to the substance of the article, the solid core is there as is, but the POV, undue weight etc., I have chopped. MrPrada (talk) 03:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Nut graf is appropriate for WikiNews, what we're looking for (especially in a contentious article like this) is encyclopedic value. MrPrada (talk) 05:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

1) OK, I'll try to think of a better word than "grooming" although this is used by several of the sources

I don't necessarily disagree with the use of the word grooming, its using it as a section heading which injects POV.

2) This is exactly what the NYT article says: <quote>"members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access."<quote/>

Correct, it says SOME analysts. Not "analysts suppressed", but some. And the some they are referring to is Belevacqua, who has an axe to grind with the administration and Fox, so he is not the most objective of sources. If we are going to quote him, it must be done in context (see below), or not at all.

3) Not sure what part of the Nation you don't like. Someone has now gone in and poisoned the well by adding sources unrelated to this article regarding Mr. Bevelacqua (who for all we know was saying what the message machine wanted him to say on Fox News anyway) and I will be removing them shortly. If someone wants to stub out a biography of the man, I have no objection.

I no longer have a problem with the Nation quote now that its balanced by the Front Page Mag one added by another editor. I'd have to disagree with removing the fact that Belevacqua was against the war. It speaks to the context of his statements, as he managed to remain objective even though he was receiving these briefings (and he also didn't bother to say anything for two years). Note that it is also referenced by another article from the Nation. Since he is listed as a former analyst, it is also relevant how he left the network, as it calls into question is objectivity. Otherwise, we can do away with the entire Belevacqua quote, but by itself, it needs balancing. If there is some particular reason we are using this retired Major, then he should be defined. There are plenty of other choices, Gen. McInnery, Gen. Scales, etc., who could also be quoted, and I would support giving a brief background of them as well.

4) And the legality seems to be a central point of interest here, although I'm open to the word ordering -- Kendrick7^talk 00:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'm open to keeping that phrase, but using it as the predicate to the Pentagon's statement gives makes the spokesman seem erroneous. The order of operations in the lead should go something like, Definition, Response, Description, which it seems to do now. The legal ramifications can be addressed farther down in the NYT Expose section. MrPrada (talk) 00:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm generally OK with the text on Belevacqua as it stands, if only because it's now an open question whether his comments about Israel were part of a PsyOps operation or not. Thanks for finding the source clarifying the manner of his opposition to the occupation after his initial support for the war. I don't like the source's use of weasel words ("some"), but it does name a few other names anyway. Belevacqua's quote seems to be the most often repeated though. -- Kendrick7^talk 16:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Psychological warfare, psyops

Nescio: First of all, it pained me to undo your edit, since you were the only one to show attention to this topic at all after my recent edits. I would love it if there were more editors!

However, the paragraphs you added, as I understand them, refer to foreign psyops that the US public happens to be exposed to due to increased globalization. This appears to be completely different from the military analyst program, which was aimed directly at the US public and not at foreign audiences. Only in the last two lines do you appear to draw a link to this program, though even that is not so clear.

Therefore I do not believe this text belongs in this article. But as I stated in my edit description, I think this should clearly be mentioned in Propaganda in the United States, in the International subsection. I would love to hear other people's opinions on this. Is anyone even reading this?? --KarlFrei (talk) 17:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

This would be OK as a shortened background section but I agree what's there is mostly off topic and should be forked over to another article. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)