Talk:Willis Stephens

Overlong Article

Is it just me, or is there too much space devoted to what is essentially an obscure politician, especially in light of the fact that there are many Assembly members who have no articles, including members who hold prominent leadership positions within that particular legislative body? Ruthfulbarbarity 03:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

re: Overlong Article

Well, IMHO, this is New York, which is less obscure then say the North Dakota state Assembly, but this is Wiki, and we're supposed to be an encyclopedia. I think the article provides well-sourced coverage of this Assemblyman's remarks that his constituents are 'idiots' and his ethical problems, which is probably why he lost the primary by a huge margin. MrPrada 13:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I live in New York State and have barely heard of this Assemblyman, let alone the controversy that precipitated his apparent primary defeat.

I agree that it deserves attention, although I don't see why it would merit more than the defeat of Ada Smith, a much more notorious member of the NYS Assembly, in a Democratic primary.

That being said, it's not a huge issue for me.

I do have a problem with the insertion of the word "guff," instead of a much less obscure-and conceivably, accurate-description of this incident. Ruthfulbarbarity 22:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

GA failed

1. Well written? Fail

2. Factually accurate? Pass

3. Broad in coverage? Fail

4. Neutral point of view? O.K.

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images? Fail (see comments)

Additional comments :

• I disgree that such pictures, if they weren't taken by you, are GFDL and as such to remove any doubt should be tagged as copyrighted images until further investigations.
• A sentence such as After serving in the Assembly for the past 12 years should be changed for this would not be valid say the next year and since an article should be timeless, it is best to change it.
• Same with Stephens himself has served from 1994 to present day., present day should be in an encyclopedia.
• Is Mr. Stephens, his wife, Ginny, and their three children reside in Brewster, New York. really useful in the lead section.
• I doubt the present is an appropriate tense for articles but it is ok for now.
• Political career and background section is not ordered, it is unordered, please make it chronoligical. Stuff about his father/g-father should be moved to another section or be added as a subsection of this one.
• Words such as currently, heated, himself, dishonorable, prominent, gracefully, reliably should be avoided, as they convey feelings, redundancy and timestamps.
• The purpose of the word trash in Connecticut trash magnate James Galante[6]. is really tough to understand.
• Citations should go after punctuation.
• Isn't the text of subsection Text of Stephen’s Email copyrighted, I would think yes.
• Stephens, who also serves as the legal counsel to the town of Southeast, New York, drew heavy criticism after accepting $9,355 from trash magnate, convicted felon and reputed mob boss James Galante, who was in turn awarded a 1.5 million dollar no-bid garbage contract by the town board on Stephens' recommendation[15]. is a duplication of what is already seen in a previous section.
• I think the word memo should be memorandum if I'm not mistaking.
• The article is not broad enough.

Lincher 03:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Repeated removal of sourced content

Hi. Please stop removing sourced content from this article. You (by which I'm referring to MiniRSVP and 70.18.5.207) have not provided any explanation for your removal of this content, either in edit summaries or on this talk page. Even assuming good faith, it does look suspicious that a) you're only removing negative material (which is reliably sourced and neutrally worded), b) Stephens is up for re-election at the moment, and c) you also know him personally. Please keep your conflict of interest and whitewashing out of Wikipedia and stop edit warring. Regards, Somno (talk) 08:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Improving the article

Hi again. The article has been protected so we can come to a consensus about what information should be in the article. I believe the "Controversy" section gives undue negative weight to the email incident. However, we can't just delete the whole section - the incident is notable because it was covered by a number of media outlets, and as such, it deserves to be mentioned. I'm also concerned that a number of the references' links no longer work, and they should be replaced with working ones, such as:

• Benson, John M. (July 7, 2005). "Assembly candidates steep in political brew". Putnam County Courier. Retrieved March 13, 2009. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• Kappstatter, Bob (June 30, 2005). "Hey, pol, who you callin' an 'idiot'?". New York Daily News. Retrieved March 13, 2009. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
• "Assemblyman calls constituents 'idiots'". Associated Press Online. June 29, 2005. Retrieved March 13, 2009.

If you have other references, please provide them here and we can discuss which are the most appropriate. I don't think it's necessary to reproduce the content of the email or include the image of newspaper headlines - it's too sensationalist and biased for an encyclopedia article.

Are there any reliable sources for the Galante part of the "Controversy" section? By which I mean independent, reliable sources; no opinion pieces and nothing coming from Greg Ball. If there are no reliable sources, then we do need to remove that section under the biographies of living persons policy. Somno (talk) 09:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear IP users, please comment here rather than continuing to edit war and blindly revert changes. Wikipedia is built on consensus and discussion. Somno (talk) 04:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and made the changes I've explained above. I also made a few minor changes like removing links that were dead (now 404 errors or unrelated websites) and the forum per the external links guideline. If you have any questions about the changes, please ask them on this talk page. Thanks, Somno (talk) 11:59, 17 March 2009 (UTC)