Battle of Old Fort Wayne

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NPOV issues

Untitled

With a desire to avoid Wikipedia:Edit warring, and keeping in mind the extraordinary burden of proof for information on living persons per WP:BLP, I'd like to open a dialogue about the WP:NPOV & WP:BLP issues raised by User:Somewherehere, as well as possible Wikipedia:Coatrack issues. I invite User:Somewherehere and other interested parties to engage in a discussion here in order to reach a consensus.

(I don't believe any sourcing issues were raised or exist, as everything appears to be well-referenced.)

Second line

He previously represented incarcerated politician Harry Thomas, Jr. and is currently a partner at Venable LLP.

First, regarding Harry Thomas, Jr.:

On one hand, it's clear that Racine's defense of Thomas must be an integral part of this article because it's the event for which he's received the most media attention. It's mentioned in virtually every major media piece on Racine, including from The Washington Post (which noted the trial was Racine's "most prominent connection to District politics"), Washington City Paper, Washington Business Journal, and he's mentioned or quoted in articles about the case from NBC, ABC, FOX, Legal Times, and other sources.

On the other hand, "incarcerated politician" sounds unduly abrasive. While the mention of the case should be kept, it should also be more balanced--a just-the-facts line might read something more like "former D.C. councilmember convicted of embezzlement".

Second, regarding Venable- I'm not sure why that section was removed. Racine has worked with Venable for the majority (or at least a large plurality) of his career and any piece on him of depth notes he was a former managing partner there. I can't conceive of how including it could indicate a lack of neutrality, and it was left in the article further down. It should be kept.

Venable layoffs

While at Venable, the firm laid off 64 employees, including 16 lawyers, five paralegals and 45 support staff.

This seems like off-topic and needlessly defamatory Wikipedia:Coatracking. I don't believe it should be kept.

Sodexo suit

Racine was legal counsel to Sodexo in a class action discrimination suit brought by more than 2,500 present and former African-American workers. As part of the settlement, Sodexo paid more than $80 million and avoided trial. The case was one of the largest certified employment discrimination class actions in the wake of the 1991 amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On one hand, I think the fact that Racine's self-published bio notes the Sodexo case as an accomplishment makes clear that mere mention of the Sodexo case is not in itself biased, and since it's received media attention I think it merits being kept. The wording, however, might be suspect, especially noting the plaintiffs' race (why?) and noting that Sodexo avoided trial (why?). This section should be kept but be reworded to remove possible Weasel words.

MoCo school spending

He also led a review into questionable spending by Montgomery County School Board members, and found that many expenses weren't documented and board members used poor judgement and proposed safeguards to make sure that taxpayer money went towards educational purposes.

Aside from wonky grammar, I'm not sure I see what's wrong with this section. I think it should be kept but bolstered with more sources.

Harry Thomas, Jr.

Racine represented disgraced Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., who pleaded guilty to embezzling $353,000 to make personal purchases, from a luxury sport-utility vehicle and motorcycle to clothing, restaurant meals, and vacations. After Thomas' home was raided by the FBI, Racine was adamant of his client's innocence.

During sentencing, Racine explained that Thomas' guilty plea was an example of his commitment to teaching the city's youth about integrity and responsibility. Earlier, Thomas denied any wrongdoing, painting the investigation as a politically motivated witchhunt.

(For my thoughts on why the Harry Thomas Jr. case deserves inclusion, see "Second line" section above.)

While I believe this case merits inclusion, since along with the Attorney General campaign it comprises Racine's most notable slate of media mentions, I think the way this section is phrased veers into Wikipedia:Coatracking territory. It should be assumed, for example, that a criminal defense attorney pleading innocent on behalf of a client is adamant of their innocence, and it needn't be noted in this article. In addition, the facts of the case are presented in a strange and lopsided way (how are details of the luxury items Thomas purchased with the embezzled funds relevant to Racine?).

Finally, the second paragraph's inverted chronology ("Earlier, Thomas denied...") seems to be constructed to make a point rather than dispassionately present facts. There may be a legitimate sentence here, per the City Paper piece, but it should be presented in a much more neutral way.

I believe this section should be kept but reworked significantly to create a more neutral tone.

Establishment candidate

According to the Afro-American newspaper, Racine “is considered the 'establishment candidate' or one who represents the interests of the large law firms and corporations, by political observers”. He has said that as Attorney General, he will focus on consumer protection and strengthening the office.

The first part seems needlessly derogatory. There may be a place for the phrase "establishment candidate" (since it's been mentioned by, at minimum, WAMU and the City Paper as well) but this sentence is not it, and it should come only after the article is balanced with more positive information.

I don't see anything wrong with the other line other than it being slightly out of date after more recent interviews and press mentions.

Illegal endorsement controversy

On August 28, Washingtonian magazine revealed that three anonymous staff members at the Office of the Attorney General had filed complaints with the D.C. Board of Elections alleging O.A.G. employee xxxxxxxx and sitting Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan had violated the Hatch Act of 1939 by promoting Racine's campaign at work. xxxxxxxx allegedly circulated petition signature sheets to employees at the Office, while according to one employee Nathan "praised and recommended Karl Racine, and he asked us to support him" during two July 9 meetings to discuss the implications of the election for the Office.

The main problem I can see with this section are that it verges on Wikipedia:Coatracking while the article lacks more positive information about the campaign. I think it should be kept, but only in reworked form, only after a significant amount of information is added to the "Campaign for Attorney General" section for balance, and only with Racine's response given on WAMU here appended.

The name I have redacted is that of a low-profile person, and per WP:BLP, it should be excluded for that reason.

Overall balance

It's clear that despite any legitimacy to the individual sections above, overall this article paints an overly and unduly negative picture of Karl Racine. Taking into account WP:BLP, even keepable sections should not be added back in until there is a greater balance of positive and negative information.

Keeping in mind WP:COAT's advice that "An appropriate response to a coatrack article is to be bold and trim off excessive biased content while adding more balanced content cited from reliable sources," plan on incorporating the above edits after more positive information is added in an attempt to improve the balance, tone, and content of this article. There is a wealth of information on Karl Racine in the local press and this article should present all relevant sides of the story. --Phantasmagorian (talk) 23:55, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV

clear NPOV violation biased toward article subject, major media mentions (Harry Thomas jr & ag campaign) omitted in favor of irrelevant positive minutiae. -166.137.88.39 (talk) 04:51, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm responding to a post in the BLP noticeboard. This edit does not seem justified and the massive text above is tl;dr. If there really are issues with this article< they should be presented here or at BLPN succinctly. Coretheapple (talk) 16:58, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Point taken, and I'm endeavoring to restore the well-sourced material (some of it was drawn from a self-published bio). I'm sorry you feel "the massive text above is tl;dr" but a broad swath of material was removed and the user alleged a NPOV violation in the edit summary--I was under the impression the next step is to discuss whether the material indeed constitutes an NPOV violation here on the talk page. --Phantasmagorian (talk) 02:54, 14 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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New material

A deep-dive profile on him in Politico: Meet the Man Curbing Trump’s Power Without Anyone Noticing. 112.118.168.4 (talk) 15:00, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update being reverted

For some reason related to Sanford Capital (see AN/I section, first Nick Moyes and now Michepman has reverted an update by Omanlured concerning Racine being re-elected in 2015, and in the second revert, my covering a bare-link reference. I continue to think that Nick Moyes' revert was a mistake, since the edit summary refers to removal of content by Omanlured, who had added content (referenced to the New York Times). But whatever the context at Sanford Capital giving rise to the AN/I report, and Omanlured having accepted that their lack of edit summaries may well be responsible for confusion, calling my reinstatement of useful, referenced content that I have to assume was mistakenly removed and expansion of a bare link to the Washington Post "potential tag team edit warring" and blind reverting of same is uncollegial and detrimental to the article. So here as requested is the talk page discussion. I do not consider my revert plus extra improvement in any way contentious; what is going on at teh other article may or may not be, but as I say, I have to assume Nick Moyes was confused. I will now revert Michepman, and invite them to make amends by expanding the remaining bare links. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:49, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think you were quite right - I was clearly confused. I acted quite incorrectly in reverting the addition of cited content which for some reason I thought another editor was deleting, when actually they were adding it. (I was 100% sober (honest!) but it was extremely late, so lack of proper attention, and maybe jumping to unfair conclusions in relation to other pages, is my only explanation for a really fundamental error of judgement here. I have also apologised directly to Omanlured for that unjustified revert. From the UK, and without a subscription, I cannot view that source, but it looks quite valid, so I fully support reinstatement of content that Michepman had re-removed. I also tend to agree with Yngvadottir that Michepman's overly harsh words haven't been as helpful here as we would normally hope for. We both need to take a bit more care in what we do and say. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 19:12, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for reaching out and providing support. I've fixed one additional bare link that was also a broken link using Archive.org. Omanlured (talk) 20:08, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I responded in longer form on WP:ANI, but the gist of what I have to say is that I accept the apologies offered for the mistakes made by the participants in this situation and am willing to let things go and move on from here. 23:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)Michepman (talk)
WTF! As I have just explained at WP:ANI, no apology was being offered by me, whatsoever, in any shape or form, to Michepman. My apology for making one wrong revert was solely offered to Omanlured. I was seriously expecting Michepman to come back here or to WP:ANI and to offer an apology for their continued assumptions of bad faith editing against that same editor. Unbelievable! Nick Moyes (talk) 23:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hagiography

Most bizarre unexpurgated manifesto on Wiki. Tom Donnelly (talk) 18:46, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wow coincidence, came to the talk page after reading to see if anyone had mentioned this and you beat me by 40 minutes. 2601:140:8900:2100:B844:3322:B5C2:51B9 (talk) 23:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What are you referring to, exactly? Bangabandhu (talk) 19:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Added partner Kim and sons to personal life section

This info was added on 1/3. It was reverted. I have readded it. The RS are the official twitter, instagram, and facebooks pages of Karl while hewas Washington DC's Attorney General. These/those pages are certified/recognised as offical govt social media pages. 2601:152:C00:67B0:95A4:C9E0:D94C:C77B (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Karl_Racine