Talk:Ben Konop

moved from article to talk page:

Lucas County Roots:

• Grandparents immigrated to Toledo from Poland and Russia in the 1920’s.
• Son of Alan and Barbara Konop. Father has been a Toledo attorney for 40 years. Mother has been a teacher, social worker, and non-profit board member in Toledo.

Moved why? Isn't this relevant?

Career Experience:

• Worked for Congresswoman Kaptur, Federal District Court Judge Carr, and Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge McDonald.
• Practiced law for three years in Washington, D.C. at Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP.
• 2004 Democratic Party Nominee for the United States Congress (4th District of Ohio).
• Presently serving as a professor at The University of Toledo College of Law.

Moved why? Unsourced? Gordonofcartoon (talk) 15:12, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Controversies

What is the policy of the subject of a biographical wikipedia article making updates to the article about them? Checking the history, a user "BKonop" is repeatedly removing a "Controversies" section of the article. Someone keeps coming back to replace the section so the subject matter of the section is maintained in the article. It just seems a bit unseemly that the possible subject of the article is repeatedly removing a "Controversies" section, particularly because the reason that "BKonop" is giving to change the article is non-factual information, even though each item in the subsection is linked to sources. 72.241.2.141 (talk) 12:16, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

As I said at WP:COIN, that said, the reliability/neutrality of the controversial material needs looking at. The whole "controversy" section - collecting a laundry list of negative things he's done, then bagging it up under "Konop's brief tenure as a politician has been shrouded in controversy" smells of WP:SYNTH (whose thrust is that stringing sourced material together to make some original conclusion is not allowed).

Particularly, juxtaposing two pieces of information to present him in a negative light - "Konop has been labeled by some a carpet bagger" (because someone said it on a blog?!) and the "Konop attacks Oxley on issue of residency" piece - is definitely against WP:NOR unless some reliable published source has previously made that argument. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 12:30, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

This section of the article still has some real POV issues with regard to phrasing. For example, that he has "refused to resign" his office is hardly a neutral phrase. The facts of this section might be correct, but the phrasing needs work. Qqqqqq (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

This section grows only more ridiculous by the day as a venue for statements that attempt to portray the subject of the article in a poor light. Opinion columns are not reliable sources, except for statements fact they might present, to cite as evidence of some shortcoming by the subject of the article. I've tagged the section as having serious POV issues; WP:BLP compels us to be careful with biographies of living persons. Qqqqqq (talk) 22:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

In addition, Konop cast a critical vote against permitting a large Baptist church from building a new facility in a rural township. The vote angered many members of the local religious community.

The Blade article makes no mention of the local religious community being angry, in fact it only seems to mention the local residents who were opposed to the church's expansion. --72.240.39.190 (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In January 2007, Konop voted to raise taxes on the lodging industry in Lucas County.

The Blade article seems to suggest the opposite, in the first paragraph: "give local businesses a tax break if they promise not to lay off workers." --72.240.39.190 (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to include Mr. Konop’s voting record in controversy? Perhaps this needs its own section to include all of his decisions and how they have positively and negatively affected people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.39.190 (talk) 17:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

This page is terribly biased -- I have zero stake in this race and just came to it after seeing the heckling youtube video, but this is one of the worst-written Wikipedia articles I've seen. It's clearly an attempt by Konop's adversaries to list any sort of item that could count against him. Is the fact that he accidentally bumped into a flag a "controversy" that is in any possible world worthy of cutting short his mayoral campaign? Clearly not -- that's absurd. This page needs some real editing, and I'd be happy to do so but it appears to be locked. In any case, some active Wikipedia editor should take a pass through this and clean it up, since if people are undoing "BKonop"'s edits, someone neutral should take responsibility, since this is an embarrassment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.182.154.4 (talk) 22:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

This article is exceptionally biased and contains much information that has no reputable source. It reads like a bio directly out of someones' resume. In addition, it appears to be edited repeatedly by individuals associated with Mr. Konop or with a biased view of Mr. Konop. It needs to be cleaned up and pared down to include only the relevant, well sourced information. Interestingly, there is no current reference to the most notable aspect of this individual's resume: the heckling incident, the aftermath of the heckling incident and Mr. Konop's pop-culture notoriety as evidenced by the popularity of the associated YouTube videos and the recent South Park episode referencing such incident. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.73.20.159 (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

References

Moved to Talk for analysis

Konop's brief tenure as a politician has been shrouded in controversy.

-Konop has been labeled by some a carpet bagger since he ran for commissioner in Lucas County in 20006, despite running for Congress two years earlier in an entirely different district. Ironically, Konop had questioned Congressman Mike Oxley's residence in his 2004 campaign.

-In one of his earliest votes as commissioner, Konop voted in favor of a tax increase on Lucas County hotels and motels.

-In December, 2007, Commissioner Konop was caught driving without auto insurance when he caused a traffic accident. He was forced to settle out-of-pocket.

-In April, 2008, Konop skipped the Lucas County State of the County event and instead opted to hold his own event.

• Referred here from WP:COIN. This whole section sounds like a political ad. The tags as placed do reflect some of the problems with the section. I'll add a few other observations: First sentence is very POV pushing. How do you quantify "shrouded"? The carpetbagger paragraph as it stands came mostly from a blog, hence more unverified POV. The last sentence by itself there is rather irrelevant and out of context if the rest of the paragraph is removed. Finally, the 3 example bullet items are cherry-picked negative items which, although sourced, are too unrelated and arbitrary in my mind, and I consider to fall under WP:UNDUE. Are these 3 items representative of a pattern? Are they the only 3 controversial things he's ever done? (Don't answer that... they are just to illustrate the arbitrary nature of a selected bullet-point list like these). They might play well on a radio ad, but not here. (2 more weeks.... 2 more weeks....). Arakunem^Talk 14:12, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Since when "blogs" automatically imply unverified POV? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.83.70.253 (talk) 02:49, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Lucas County Commissioner

I would condense it down into several paragraphs so as to avoid repetition of phrases like "Authored and secured unanimous passage". Plus much I would consider trivial - a list of everything he's done is not needed, just the most important items. Results IMO are better too. The microchip line is a good example of showing results. Meanwhile, convening a committee has little meaning unless said committee accomplished something important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.47.15.10 (talk) 20:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Alright how about this?

Since taking his seat as a Lucas County Commissioner in January, 2007, Commissioner Konop has created programs to give free cell phones to senior citizens and domestic violence victims to dial 911 in an emergency. This program has empowered victims without any cost to tax payers.

He’s helped thousands of people take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit and brought over $2 million back to the community. By providing tax services to those who might have otherwise missed out, citizens were able to obtain federal returns that they deserved.

Konop instituted microchip scanning for dogs to help return lost pets to their owners. About 8,000 dogs have been scanned for microchips.

He has also convened a committee to study ways to streamline county government and promote regionalism in Lucas County, and appointed Lucas County’s first poet laureate, an unpaid position in which the appointee (University of Toledo professor Joel Lipman) hosts poetry workshops, coordinates poetry readings at local junior high schools and the Lucas County Jail, and is available to create original poetry for signature county events.

He has developed partnerships with the Lucas County Board of Elections, SweatFree Communities, the Toledo Zoo, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Toledo Area Regional Transportation Authority (TARTA), Imagination Station (formerly COSI), Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, United Way of Greater Toledo, YMCA/JCC, YWCA, local healthcare providers, and media partners on a variety of projects including having all financial disclosure forms for elected leaders and candidates for office at every level of government available for viewing on the internet, establishing anti-sweatshop purchasing policies in Lucas County, creating the Million Pound Challenge that 1,500 people have signed up for, offering families free transportation between Toledo’s noted cultural attractions, and creating Lucas County Cares which is a program to recruit county employees to volunteer their time with a local homeless shelter.

Konop has also authored a number of resolutions that have passed unanimously such as creating a fellowship program for recent graduates and displaced workers at local high tech and alternative energy companies, establishing measurements to determine the success of the Lucas County Improvement Corporation (the county’s publicly funded wing of economic development), requiring all county board applicants to disclose any financial contribution to the Lucas County Commissioners or any business dealings with the board or agency to which the applicants seek appointment, ending the practice of the County Commissioners awarding no-bid contracts, and halting all non-essential travel for government workers paid for by county taxpayers.

--72.240.39.190 (talk) 13:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Good work, but it seems a little pro-subject to me. I can elaborate if need be, but that would be my first reaction. Qqqqqq (talk) 20:51, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I see your point, would it be better to shorten it down or include more content from different view points, i.e. sombrero41?

References

Reliable sources and original research

I have removed all information that was sourced by blogs or video-hosting sites. Wikipedia does not allow original research or blogs as sources (see WP:RS). Information can be added to the article if it is published in what Wikipedia considers a reliable source. Let me know if you have any further questions here or on my talk page. hmwitht 15:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

the information i posted came from the toledo blade, is that not considered a reliable source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.39.190 (talk) 15:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Toledo Blade is a reliable source. What in particular would you like to add to the article from the current point? hmwitht 16:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ummm

wtf does "accounced" mean? are all of you dyslexic?

Heckling Incident

There have been repeated attempts to include information relating to the well documented and sourced heckling incident involving Mr. Konop. This incident is likely to be the most relevant information to the vast majority of people accessing Mr. Konop's wikipedia page. Yet, the info continues to be removed, while non-NPOV, non-sourced, opinions, etc are being restored to the page without any clear explanation. Clearly there is a problem with biased editing of this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.73.20.159 (talk) 17:31, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough but it needs a reliable source. It's not in the one you provided. Brycehughes (talk) 05:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I found the source it looks like you meant to use. However, what you added was a direct copy-paste. Feel free to add it back in in your own words. Brycehughes (talk) 05:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ben Konop/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

This article should be updated to include media coverage that has occurred since he announced his bid for Mayor of Toledo.

Last edited at 17:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 09:25, 29 April 2016 (UTC)