Talk:Gilad Atzmon

Article Checklist for "Gilad Atzmon"

Workgroup category or categories	Music Workgroup, Politics Workgroup, Literature Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developed article: complete or nearly so
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Larry Sanger 15:23, 3 April 2007 (CDT); Edna Spennato 08:20, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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I am here to help author this article. Although I am a constable, I am working on this article only in an author capacity. Any constabulatory issues will require another member of the constabulatory to perform. --Matt Innis (Talk) 15:50, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

What next

Hello Edna, this article is looking great! Your question is what to do next as you work toward approval on this article. As I see it, according to our current CZ:Approval Process, you have a few couple choices.

• One is to get yourself listed as an author under the Topic Informant Workgroup and then apply as an editor to personnel@citizendium.org. This would get the workgroup started that needs to be directly available for the workgroup that you have chosen. This would not only help you, but other articles in the group as well. Then as an editor, you would put the article up for Approval by your workgroup by placing the ToApprove template on the top of this talkpage. Since you did all the writing, it would only take one other editor to approve it.
• Your other option is to place this article in CZ:Music Workgroup and perhaps the CZ:Sociology Workgroup as they already have editors that can place the ToApprove template on the top of the article.

I'll stop here until you've had a chance to let me know which direction you want to go with it. --Matt Innis (Talk) 09:51, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks Matt...It seems simpler for now to place the article in both the music and sociology workgroups. Not sure if I have managed though. Also tried to list myself as an author in those 2 categories and again ... not sure if I managed. I find the codes etc. quite challenging! Edna Spennato 12:12, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Article cleanup

Edna, in performing the checklist, I am adding this to CZ Live because youhave made more than three significant changes. I am also checking the "content from Wikipedia" box because it was imported from Wikipedia and was not totally authored by you there. --Matt Innis (Talk) 10:59, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay, I have added the Music and Sociology workgroups to this article, so you now can go to editors on either of those workgroups and try to get them to place the ToApprove template on this article. I will stick around and help out some as I can, but let you continue to take the lead here. I will relinquish any constable role here as I have made additions to the article, so I am just an author like anyone else.

We need to go through this article and convert the hyperlinks to reference format before this thing will get Approved. See this --Matt Innis (Talk) 11:18, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for all the help Matt...I have no idea how to convert hyperlinks to reference format and am a bit at sea on the technical side. Would appreciate seeing how it is done. I hope it is ok if I add the category of literature as well. I have tried to add myself as an author in those 3 work groups and hope i managed! :) Sorry to be so green on the technical side. It's because this is my first contribution to Citizendium. I will leave a note to ask the editors of those workgroups to place the ToApprove template on the article. Edna Spennato 12:28, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Hey, no problem, I see you as learning this very quickly. I suspect you will be teaching others very soon, in fact I'm counting on it:) Yes, ask the editors to come here, that's good! But the author tags go on the bottom of your user page. I am a little concerned about this not being listed on Topic Informant list, mostly because he is still alive and this could get controversial like Biography of living people on wikipedia, it is meant tp protect him (and us) a little more from people who perhaps don't agree with his politics.--Matt Innis (Talk) 13:11, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

As far as changing the hyperlinks into refs, I'll get to that when I have a block of available time, maybe tonight. --Matt Innis (Talk) 13:40, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Matt, I did not realise that being listed on Topic Informant list would protect an article to some extent from vandalism. If that is the case, we should add it to the Topic Informant list again. His biography at Wikipedia became the centre of a revert war and was slashed and vandalised to kingdom come, so I think this is likely to happen at citizendium also (once people start to find out about its existence). In fact, Gilad is a controversial figure and has a lot of adversaries, one of which turned out to be the main editor contributing to his biography at wiki, who made sure the info about him remained biased and extremely limited regarding his music and writing. I am wondering if there is a way to prevent that from happening again (as far as possible). Edna Spennato 14:45, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

That is why I suggested it, not for vandalism (kids playing), but more for liability reasons because we have to be careful what we say about living people and corporations. Our Topic Informant workgroup is meant to be a place where somebody like Gilad could come and say that a certain quote was not correct and the people of the workgroup would go make sure it was accurate. At least that is the picture I have of it. It needs someone to grab the reigns and work with it (hint, hint:). Just by the topic, I figured we were looking at something controversial, but CZ is different than WP. See the CZ:Professionalism Policy and Constabulatory banning policies. This does not mean things are not going to be discussed, but we must remain civil and professional at all times. I'm sure you will be fine. --Matt Innis (Talk) 15:36, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Approval process

This is an interesting situation. I don't feel comfortable approving this article this fast, only because I am only an author as is Edna. Tom, from a music standpoint does it seem satisfactory enough to put your name on it? And if so, the controversial political activism probably needs some oversight by the sociology workgroup (at least in theory). How about we grab some workgroup involvement. --Matt Innis (Talk) 14:46, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

Unless the nominating editor is an expert specifically in the area of this article--about Gilad Atzmon's music, in other words--he really can't nominate the article for approval.

Moreover, the article has some clear neutrality problems. Here are just a couple of examples:

The history of creative human endeavor is filled with great artists, and punctuated from time to time by talented individuals whose accomplishments make them stand out in some particular way, and for whom no labels seem to apply. Some are unique because of the extraordinary volume of work they produce in their lifetimes, such as Pablo Picasso, one of the most talented and prolific artists of the twentieth century. Others are remarkable in that they excel in two seemingly unrelated careers, such as Leonardo da Vinci who was both a scientist and engineer, as well as a great painter and sculptor. Yet others, like the Mexican painter, Diego Rivera, and the contemporary award-winning writer, Arundhati Roy, stand out in terms of their commitment not only to their art, but also to social or political issues of the day, to which they devote much of their time and energy.

It may be possible that Gilad Atzmon is another such artist about whom all the above can be said.

This is panegyric, not encyclopedic prose. It is fine for us to say that some of his fans feel this way about him, or that some prominent critic has said this about him, but it is inappropriate for an encyclopedia article to say this about him. Please study Neutrality Policy.

Atzmon is an outspoken critic of the Israeli state and its worldwide Zionist support network, and campaigns against the ongoing ethnocide and the forced transferrals of the Palestinian people from their homeland, the Nakba, which began with the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948."

It is all right (of course) to say that Atzmon is an outspoken critic of Israel, if true, but not to refer uncritically to "its worldwide Zionist support network," which sounds like propaganda, even if completely true.

Furthermore, since the subject of this article is alive, I believe we should get a response from him or his PR people. Cf. Policy on Topic Informants.

For all these reasons, I'm going to remove the approval template from the article. --Larry Sanger 15:22, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

Okay, thanks for the guidance Larry! Edna, lets work on the narrative prose in the lead first. I love your tone, I don't see anything wrong with that, but we need to rethink how we can introduce him without seeming to be partial. If I ever need an intro to an article about me, I hope you are the one to do it:), but here we need it to sound more like an unbiased encyclopedia that neither fans nor critics could disagree. Feel up to tryin it again? --Matt Innis (Talk) 15:31, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

Also Edna, are you in touch with Gilad? If so we should set him up as a topic informant somehow. See this information. It gives him a voice in what is said about him. --Matt Innis (Talk) 16:18, 3 April 2007 (CDT)

Hi, I got a note from Edna on this because I'm listed as a music editor. It's a great start! I agree with Larry's recommendation to work toward a more informative and neutral prose style. Please let me know if you need help with this --Jon Radwan

Lit Workgroup and tone

Hi, just came upon this entry. If it's going to be listed within the Literature workgroup, I'd like to see more than the very brief section alluding to Atzmon's novels -- a list of titles, some sense of their critical reception, editions, etc.

I would also agree that the opening of the entry is not encyclopedic in tone or layout -- there is, in fact, an entire paragraph before anything is said about Atzmon himself. The main facts (birth date, nationality, achievements, etc.) really ought to be in the first few sentences.

Russell Potter