Talk:Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center

NPOV, Original Research, etc

This article needs a lot of cleanup to remove some bias from the original author. It contains no references (except to a blog with one author) and links outwards a lot. I'm tempted to just blow away the second section altogether, but I'd like to see if someone (original contributor?) has a better idea. -- BillWeiss | Talk 04:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Bill, This was a rough draft that I started and was planning to flesh out. However, I realized that I had titled the page wrong (EMRTC acronym should be Energetic Materials Research and *Testing* Center - not *Training* Center) and I wasn't sure how to change the title. I was inclined to just let this page die and recreate with the correct title, unless you or someone else can tell me how to re-title. On a separate topic, I'm unclear why you refer (disparagingly apparently) to Socorro News as a "blog"; the article referenced was a transcription of a presentation by Dr. Greg Miller of Environmental Dynamics, a professional environmental consulting firm, and presented to Socorro City Council on January 28th. Socorro News, the "blog" as you call it, presented Dr. Miller's critique in its entirety, including links to all his supporting documentation. It was - and is - my feeling that this information/data is entirely topical to EMRTC, at least as it relates to current affairs. Incidentally, the referenced information is not available from another (electronic) source, as Socorro City Council minutes are not available electronically. Dr. Miller is a recognized expert in evaluating EA documents prepared in the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process, and his critique of the EMRTC EA seems to me to be relevant. At any rate, as I mentioned, I was planning to flesh the page out much more (with references, etc.), until I realized that I had titled the page incorrectly. Or, if you can help me re-title it that would work equally well. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NewMexicoCitizenJournalist (talk • contribs) 08:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. First of all, please check out Wikipedia talk page guidelines to become familiar with the conventions. I've added the preferred formatting, and a bot signed your post for you.

I moved the page to Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center for you. Instructions on doing so are at Help: Moving a page.

I refer to the Socorro News site disparagingly as a blog because it is a blog-type site with one author ("sharring") with a low post volume (15 posts in almost three years?). A quick google search shows only one site that links to socorronews.com. In short, in my eyes it fails most of the tests of the guidelines for verifiability. It could easily be all original research and/or have a non-neutral point of view. It almost certainly counts as a self-published source.

Actually there are more than 200 web pages that link to socorronews.com, including the New Mexico Research Guide from 123-explore and the Socorro Public Library. Like hardcopy newspapers, Socorro News has only a few reporters, notably about EMRTC "sharring" and "hlee". Other topics have other reporters. BillWeiss indicated that Socorro News had only 15 articles in three years, but he didn't look at the whole site. It has 16 articles about the drop zone over the course of one year. The whole site has hundreds of articles. --Bejnar (talk) 22:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't mistake this for saying that this material isn't welcome here. Any additions you can make to any article, backed by reliable sources, are fantastic. I would suggest first trimming the "Current events" section to what can be verified via the primary source of the transcript, and heavily rewording the section to indicate that it is based off of one person's viewpoint. A secondary source for any of this material would help quite a bit.

-- BillWeiss | Talk 07:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Bill. Thanks a lot for your comments/suggestions. In the coming few days, I'll take a crack at editing per your comments. Thanks. NewMexicoCitizenJournalist (talk) 09:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)