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I have been spending years doing research for a project I am working on and I kept seeing John Meier mentioned.
I have just recently begun editing Wikipedia pages and I noticed that every other person I had been researching already has an extensive page, but it seems Meier has never had a proper one about him. So I thought I would try to spend time editing this page as I feel I have read much more information about him than most people would know about.
I would also really like to talk to anyone in his family or anyone who knew him if they are interested in contacting me anytime.
I am mostly interested in Howard Hughes and the RFK Assassination but I will edit as much as I can for this.
I am not sure if this page has been Vandalized before, as it seems some previous editor had deleted years of previous edits from other editors, but I will first fix some of the current edits to make it more accurate, even though they seemed to have been correct on older edits of it. I can only spend so much time on this, so it might take me at least a few months. But I will try to keep working on it until I exhaust my knowledge around it. Machinations24 ( talk) 23:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
First of all, check the history, I didn’t write the article.
And I see you don’t seem to care about other writers’ opinions on here since you once again put your changes back. When I have time maybe I’ll have to go through all the work you have written and start making changes to all your sites to force my own opinions on you.
And just because you have been participating for several years on WP doesn’t mean you have been doing it right, which I can see from other complaints people have made about you on your personal discussion page.
The reason I feel qualified to edit this particular Wikipedia page on John H. Meier (as well as Age of Secrets), is that I have spent years studying political history, specifically events in the late 60’s and early 70’s. This has also lead to learning as much as possible about Nixon, Howard Hughes, and those that where involved with them, including Meier. I had read the Age of Secrets book, that was written about him from a distinguished reporter who had spent decades researching and reporting on Meier.
I have read many articles and books about him over the yeas, and in fact have some copies of articles that talk about him. When I saw this site, I quickly went and tracked down as many of the articles as I could find, and copies of some of the books I didn’t already have.
I was fine with your changes except for these ones:
1) you say there is tons of unsourced info. here and add a verify calling for addition citations, yet at the same time you remove the extensive newspaper source list and say its not needed because the article has references?
Those newspaper sources are needed because they are the sourced info. for the article! Which is how every WP page is. Otherwise every single sentence in the entire article would have to have a reference number attached to it.
WP pages need to be shown that they can be verified from reliable references. That is why all those newspaper articles need to be in there.
2) you deleted all the pictures. Again this is very important as it goes to establishing credibility of the source material.
3) you deleted him being mentioned as a former U.S. Senate Candidate (which he was, for New Mexico). This is very important as it ties in with his involved with the U.S. Government, etc.
4) you deleted most of info. about Gonzalez. It is important because the document wasn’t only about John Meier, but Meier and how corrupt the CIA can be. The reference to being used as a tool for the President was important as it tied into Watergate and John Meier, etc.
5) you changed it to say Meier claims to have paid a political price. Its not just Meier’s claims but books including ones written by veteran reporters, newspaper articles, and magazine articles.
6) you removed what was written about the Playboy article, which is an important source for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterx45678 ( talk • contribs) 23:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
My response, point by point:
1) That's not how you properly reference an article. Please see WP:Manual of style
2) Those images are non-free, and editors are highly discouraged from using them on Wikipedia articles. I've noticed that many images you've tried to upload before were deleted for just that reason, yet you keep resubmitting them. Moreover, the images come from a singe source (again, this Age of Secrets book, which makes the Meier article more about the book -- and the favorable account of Meier in it -- than the subject itself.
3) Why is him running for US Senate notable aside from the other accomplishments he's done? Seem like pretty small potatoes in comparision.
4) The Gonzales-related passages were edited because they were assertions made only in the book, and as such not independently verifiable. This is extremely important when making accusations of that kind, particularly because it involves living persons. See WP:OR.
5) See point 4 above. Same applies here, too.
6) That source was used in a manner that was too promotional. This WP article isn't supposed to trumpet what an amazing superman Meier is (or thinks he is, I don't particularly care).
Alcarillo ( talk) 00:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Response
1) making the comment about the U.S. Senate is like saying there is no point in writing anything about Richard Nixon accept that he was the only President to resign.
2) The Gonzales affidavit weren’t assertions from the book, but was made public, as well as one of the sources that showed the political and personal price he paid. I might have some articles about it, I will look through what I have.
3) The problem is, you seem to be looking at this site and Age of Secrets as the same site, they are very different sites that contain only some of the same information. There are endless sites on Wikipedia with similar subject matters that do the same thing. It can’t be assumed that because someone goes to one site they will go to the other. As well as you keep thinking all of this is some big conspiracy to promote Age of Secrets. That book came out a long time ago, the publisher wouldn’t be spending time trying to promote sales of it.
4) When I have time I will look through the articles I have to see if I can add to those citations, but since I didn’t write this article I am not going to spend too much more time on this.
Peterx45678 ( talk) 18:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I found somewhere that Meier came in 15th in that nomination race. So I don't think his candidacy was all that notable (note that in just about every instance where his name is mentioned in WP, his Senate run is mentioned). I'll keep trying to find that info. Alcarillo ( talk) 22:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
While I appreciate anyone wanting to make a Wikipedia page better, and conforming to WP policies, it should be people who are familiar with the subject matter who make the changes and, as per WP Policies, any controversial changes that someone wants to make must be debated in the discussion area before those changes can be qualified.
The creators of Wikipedia pages put a lot of time, energy, and research into creating pages in WP and they deserve consideration towards any major changes to their work. Especially when many others have looked at a WP page and made their own edits to it, that you are then not only changing the original page, but eliminating everyone else’s edits, which no one, previously to you, had a problem with.
Your suggested changes are noted but as they are controversial lets discuss which ones should or shouldn’t be made.
I am reverting your changes again until we can discuss this. Please wait until myself and/or anyone else has had a chance to speak and discuss this matter before making any changes.
I will go through your changes in details and post another message with my thoughts on which changes I think are fine and which I don’t agree with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterx45678 ( talk • contribs) 22:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I made extensive revisions to this article to make it conform to wikipedia style and policy. The previous versions were too heavily weighted with non-neutral points of view, and hyperbolic and unsourced superlatives. If any factual errors arose they can easily be fixed -- simply reverting those edits does not address the shortcomings of the article. I advise anyone wishing to make edits to this familiarize themselves with WP policies on articles about living persons and the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Alcarillo ( talk) 21:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
There are 2 issues with the content in the Background paragraph. Specifically, the 3 paragraphs sourced to "John Meier Interview". First, it is not written in an encyclopedic tone that we expect from all articles, but especially from
Bios of living people. ...one man wanted to tell a spellbound nation...
, ...but that was not what the Committee wanted to hear....
and so on. That tone is more suitable for a press release by the publisher, and indeed it is being used as such.
Secondly, per the policy I linked above, all material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source
, which this is not. Please provide a
reliable source for that content, or it may be removed. Thanks,
Crow
Caw
14:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
This is written from o pov that all of Meier's fabulist assertions as fact. Read some neutral biographies of Hughes and you'll see the real Meier. 2600:1001:B10D:C3FD:24F6:DE50:59F3:C3FA ( talk) 22:21, 20 May 2017 (UTC)