Talk:Ann Coulter

I imported this from Wikipedia, with the intention of making it into a decent encyclopedia article about a controversial personality. IMHO, the Wikipedia version is a very bad article that places far too much emphasis on negatives, controversies, and the like. Louis F. Sander 22:33, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

I would start over, putting this on (say) Talk:Ann Coulter/WP, picking and choosing what to use. It's a mess right now. --Larry Sanger 23:12, 28 March 2007 (CDT)

Do you mean I should put it in some sort of "work in progress" area, where it can't be readily seen until it's finished? I'm going to work on it, and I already have, but it needs a LOT of work. I've discovered that the work goes fairly slowly, too, especially due to some pretty convoluted and hard-to-get citations. Louis F. Sander 00:39, 29 March 2007 (CDT)

Don't trim large amounts of fat without explanation, please

Mr. Sander, I noticed that you deleted two paragraphs from the article [1] saying only "trim the fat" in the summary. If you delete that much, you really owe the other contributors more of an explanation/justification. I am going to reinstate the material, on the assumption that it could easily be re-deleted--but after some explanation. I hope this seems reasonable. --Larry Sanger 07:59, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Very reasonable. Here's an explanation:

The WP version of the article includes endless crufty and unencyclopedic examples of Coulter's controversial remarks, along with the crufty and unencyclopedic responses of other commentators to those remarks, along with the responses of still others to those responses, etc. When I brought the article to CZ, I left that stuff behind. I retained a small section on Coulter's religious beliefs, which, in the WP article, serves to illuminate some of the crufty discussions.

On reflection I realized that that purpose is moot in the CZ article. Since there's no other strong reason to keep the material (she's a political commentator, not a religious figure), and since nobody else seems to be working on the article, I just took it out.

I'll wait a while, and if nobody objects, I'll take it out again. Louis F. Sander 09:00, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Political activities

I propose to delete this section, moving the Paula Jones stuff up to the discussion of her High Crimes and Misdemeanors book. The bit about her aborted candidacy is insignificant. (Another case of something that maybe belongs in the excruciatingly long article in another encyclopedia being out of place in this one.) Louis F. Sander 15:42, 27 May 2007 (CDT)

Issues and positions

I think we need a section talking about how Coulter view on various issues, I've started the section. Yi Zhe Wu 17:29, 27 May 2007 (CDT)

Which workgroups?

Please forgive me if questions about "which workgroup?" are a Citizendium tar-pit, but could I question why this article belongs in the Literature workgroup? I realize, of course, that the definition of "Literature" is controversial, but if we define the scope of the Literature workgroup as including any text and anyone who creates texts, then any mathematician who's ever written a scholarly paper, any painter who has created a visual "text," and just about everyone else, literate or illiterate, would belong in this category. I can accept Coulter's inclusion in "Journalism," and would suggest that she belongs in "Politics" too -- with the same being true for her liberal counterparts such as Bob Herbert of the New York Times -- but since she writes political argument rather than poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, does she really belong in CZ's "Literature" category? Bruce M.Tindall 19:13, 28 November 2007 (CST)

I'd just remove it. Be bold. :-) Stephen Ewen 19:22, 28 November 2007 (CST)

That's a good question, and on the surface the answer would appear to be No. On the other hand, she *is* the author of *books* also, and books, I suppose, can generally be thrown into the "literature" category, even if her books are non-fiction rather than fiction. Churchill's History of World War II, for instance, *apparently* won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, although that may well have been a useful pretext to give him *some* sort of Nobel. I hope some other people add their opinions here.... Hayford Peirce 19:30, 28 November 2007 (CST)

I've read her articles before and they don't seem so "literate" :-). Yi Zhe Wu 00:32, 29 November 2007 (CST)

when people write about history or politics we classify them under history or politics. When they write poetry, novels, plays they fall under Literature, I suggest. (some people do both--Bill Buckley writes spy novels, but not Coulter Richard Jensen 04:00, 29 November 2007 (CST)

For what it's worth, I agree with the new workgroups assigned by RJ: journalism, politics, media, in just that order Stephen Ewen 04:44, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Actually, would media be more appropriate as the first? She's not really a journalist proper, i.e., a person who seeks to report. See uses media to advocate for her political views, first and foremost. So, media, politics, journalism. Stephen Ewen 04:57, 29 November 2007 (CST)