Talk:Sarah Palin

Edit conflicts, ahoy!

Glad to see this article is being edited so fast we are getting edit conflicts. I wish MediaWiki had a decent merge tool. --Tom Morris 10:38, 1 September 2008 (CDT)

Am I being neutral enough?

Please read through to see if I am being neutral enough for a political articles. I have tried to get her positions on things, but also included some contradictions to those positions. David E. Volk 10:46, 1 September 2008 (CDT)

You seem to be moving in the appropriate direction (would "right" be non-neutral?"). My initial thought was that many of the descriptions needed to have at least stub links to various terms. When I started to try to insert a few, the link became quite challenging. For example, some people would say, very seriously, that "anti-abortionist" is non-neutral. After thinking about it, we need to have neutral names (e.g., "abortion" is a specific concept, whether one supports it totally, partially, or never). The phrasing, then, should reflect her (and other politicians') position on the neutral name. "opposed to abortion" would be more neutral, to some partisans, than "anti-abortionist".

"Conservative" is even worse. We do have American conservatism as an article, but, scanning it, while it seems to be decently written, needs either subheads or sub-articles for many of the "litmus tests" (I hate that term. Why not pH or pH meter?) for different constituencies.

It was even worse in the late sixties and early seventies, but conservatives don't agree on conservatism. For example, an anarcho-libertarian and a religious traditionalist might call themselves conservatives, but think the other is a radical flaming-eyed something. Take some of the (bleagh) litmus tests, such as abortion, gun ownership, religion and government, the nature of marriage, market regulation, public health and safety, and you will find "conservatives" all over the place. It's one of the Republican challenges to unify these voters in supporting McCain-Palin.

Anyway, the major suggestion I'd make is to be very, very free in creating links, preferably not magenta, to issues, and then state her position in terms of the generic issue definition. It won't be easy. As an aside, I'd suggest that as a general policy for articles on politicians, especially those running for office. There might be an Editorial Council policy there, but I'm not sure I could even draft it yet. Howard C. Berkowitz 11:54, 1 September 2008 (CDT)