Talk:John L. Brownlee

Basic Biographical Info Missing

Where was John Brownlee born? What year? Where did he go to high school? When did he graduate? Cadwallader (talk) 00:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Controversies

This article appears to have been written by Mr. Brownlee's campaign manager. Mr. Brownlee managed to get himself into the news a number of times due to controversies he stirred up while serving as U.S. Attorney. I am going to add a section called "controversies" that references some of those events.Cadwallader (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

@Josiahfriend : Evidently you aren't happy with the Controveries section of this article. It was written as much as possible from a neutral POV and cites public sources for all of the points. If you consider it to be inaccurate on a certain point, please provide a citation that supports your position and then either correct it or add the additional point of view, rather than just deleting it entirely.Cadwallader (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

United States Attorney

@StormRider : I tihnk Josiahfriend added some good info on the ITT & Purdue Pharma cases. It should be left in - though it needs citations. Cadwallader (talk) 22:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Sourcing

The previous sourcing of linking to johnlbrownlee.com violates the wikipedia terms of use regarding sourcing. Please link to the original Roanoke Times articles. Ilmfgm

• Care to cite the Wikipedia policy that says so? WP:V actually lists cases where self-citation is allowed. And besides, in this particular case, the sources were actually primary and reliable secondary sources collected and republished by Brownlee. (Unless you believe he has some kind of occult mind control over the Roanoke Times staff, or something like that.) The links do not automatically make the sources themselves invalid. I'm going to restore all these. When I get time, I'll do a search for alternate links to the same sources, in case anyone else gets the urge to delete. Rklear (talk) 05:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
• Yes. I would be more then willing to do so. "Self-published sources are largely not acceptable, though may be used only in limited circumstances, with caution, when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." You are violating Wikipedia editing guidelines by liberally citing a poltical attack site as a primary source and ask the reader to "assume" they are accurate. Furthermore, they are not produced by an established expert on the topic, etc. The offending, poorly sourced shall be removed and not re-added. Thank you for your cooperation. Ilmfgm (talk) 10:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Although Ilmfgm's tone could be more helpful, I generally agree as to the source. Like Rklear, I suspect, I previously assumed johnlbrownlee.com was a site associated with the subject. However, when you actually go to it, it's a dedicated attack site that we should avoid linking to for BLP reasons.--Kubigula (talk) 17:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules do forbid citing self-published sources and original research. However, 100% of the citations are to copies of Roanoke Times Articles (and other public sources) that have been reproduced on the site in question. None of the citations in the Controversies section actually cite self-published sources written on that website. The newspaper articles cited were no longer posted on the original sites, having been archived and not available for free on the Internet - though copies can be purchased for a fee. However, the Roanoke Times would probably be more than happy to re-post the articles in question. I would not object to redirecting the citation links to the actual articles at the respective newspapers if the articles are still online.

Roanoke Times & World Report, 201 W. Campbell Ave., P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491, Main Switchboard: (800) 346-1234 or (540) 981 3211 Cadwallader (talk) 20:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Further clarifying, none of the citations are to "self-published sources". Despite the fact that johnlbrownlee.com is obviously not neutral, the newspaper and magazine articles reproduced there in toto are valid sources.Cadwallader (talk) 20:34, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Where did Ilmfgm go? Sock puppet? Cadwallader (talk) 20:38, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has precedent for linking to reproduced articles if the only available copies are posted on an adversarial website. For example, note the reference in the article about R._C._Sproul,_Jr. which links to documents reproduced on hushmoney.com - despite the fact that original commentary on hushmoney.com is self-published and critical of the subject of the article. I reverted the deletion of the reference links. If a non-involved, established Wikipedia editor wants to overrule my reversion, I won't argue.Cadwallader (talk) 20:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

For now, I reverted to the version with less BLP issues. Now that I see so much of the content was sourced to an attack site, we need to tread carefully. I am not saying that documents hosted on that site are unusable, but I am saying that it needs to be a last resort and that everything needs to be vetted carefully. I am willing to spend some time going through this stuff. However, the article needs to stay on an less controversial version until these issues are addressed.--Kubigula (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It is pretty clear what is happening here as is common in campaigns from what I hear. One candidate does opposition research on the other. It appears that this is the case of "johnlbrownlee.com." Someone dug up the articles and, as opposed to putting the entire article up for objective reading purposes, selectively quoted from it. It appears that then one or two others quoted from this nefarious source. In short, original sourcing OK. Dubious secondary sourcing NOT OK. Hope this clears things up. ilmfgm (talk) 21:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

"Someone dug up the articles and, as opposed to putting the entire article up for objective reading purposes, selectively quoted from it." That may be common, ilmfgm, but that is not the case here. All of the citations in the controversies section were links to complete unaltered articles at the original publication or complete unaltered reproductions of them on johnlbrownlee.com where the original was no longer available elsewhere. I verified one of them by buying the article from the Roanoke Times archives. No partial quotes or quotes of partial quotes were cited. There were no links to "nefarious" commentary in the citations - only links to complete articles.Cadwallader (talk) 23:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Some cleanup based on the concerns raised

Based on the above concerns, I have gone through the controversies section. Here is my analysis, so far, as to the various sections...

• Burrows prosecution - current version is preferable. The "unpatriotic" critique from the prior version comes from johnlbrownlee.com or letters to the Roanoke Times. That's not sufficient for BLP purposes. I did add a reference from the Roanoke Times that references the content of the section.
• Acting as US Attorney while on active duty - current version is preferable. I see no reason to link to johnlbrownlee.com and the bit about Bill Dolan looks like original research. This section needs more work, and we can probably get more from the Roanoke Times. One concern I have is that we currently don't have a good source for the statement that his service gave the appearance of violating federal law. Linking to the actual statutes is a bit close to OR.
• US Attorneys firing controversy - both versions are virtually identical
• Failed judgeship bid - prior version was preferable. This section was appropriately sourced and I see no reason to remove it. So, I restored and tweaked it a bit.

That's my take.--Kubigula (talk) 04:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your fair analysis, Kubigula. I would suggest that the links to the copies of Brownlee's Army orders and the release orders should be kept, as they are significant to the controversy and are U.S. Govt documents, considering this generated an article in the Roanoke Times, and as far as I know that is the only copy of them on the Internet. As for the need for a source that his service gave the appearance of violating federal law - that was implicit in Roanoke Times article stating that the Roanoke Times contacted the US Attorney's office to inquire whether his service was legal. The entire article was about the question of whether he broke the law.

"Brownlee acknowledged in a recent interview that he was informed that The Roanoke Times made inquiries to the Department of Justice in April about whether he could serve in both capacities. Brownlee also said he became aware of the law while he was on active duty, but said the issue never came up while he served."Cadwallader (talk) 23:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Name change to John Brownlee only

• I am actually going to suggest that the actual name used is for this article be changed to John Brownlee only. I think we've established that the person who created the article name has a political ax to grind, and, more importantly nowhere in news articles, etc. is he referred to as John "L" Brownlee. Which, suprise suprise goes to the attack site. The guy's middle name is "Leslie." Sure. But anyone that has looked at the new articles can easily discover that no one calls him that. For example, Obama's Wikipedia article isn't Barack H. Obama and Nixon's isn't Richard M. Nixon. Ilmfgm (talk) 23:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, John Brownlee is taken - it's a disambiguation page. So, I think our choices are to leave this as it is or to move it to John Brownlee (Virginia) or something similar. Given that, I think John L. Brownlee is the better choice.--Kubigula (talk) 17:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Under the WP disambiguation rules, the term in parentheses should be a noun or phrase describing the person. John Brownlee (Virginia) would be incorrect. John Brownlee (politician) or John Brownlee (lawyer) would be best. As it happens, both of those also describe John Edward Brownlee, but as they are not taken, I think first-come, first-served would apply. Either that, or you'd need the longer John Brownlee (Virginia politician). Rklear (talk) 23:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry Ilmfgm, this page was created last fall by a Brownlee fan. They picked the name of the article.Cadwallader (talk) 15:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Early Release from Active Duty

@Ilmfgm keeps removing the sentence about John Brownlee's early release from active duty during Operation Enduring Freedom. This is sourced, and it is significant. The rest of Brownlee's unit served out their full tour. Given that Brownlee's campaign website has title "Conservative Values, Career Prosecutor, Army Veteran", it seems pretty relevant.Cadwallader (talk) 15:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

False Claim

Somebody added this sentence to the section on his failed bid for federal judgeship.

"However, Brownlee was endorsed by the Virginia Bar Association."

The source cited for that quote states,

"Also this week, the Virginia Bar Association, the Virginia Defense Attorneys Association and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association released names of candidates they found to be qualified. Brownlee's name was not on either list."

Therefore I removed that claim as the source says he did not receive an endorsement from the Virginia Bar Association.Cadwallader (talk) 15:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

References

Sanitize the Controversies???

This article appears to have been completely taken over and sanitized by Mr. Brownlee. Gone is any negative or controversial issue from the 2009 election, or before that. No reference to the publication of Brownlee's army orders on Wikileaks. The entire article has been rewritten as if by someone writing a resume for John Brownlee. Cadwallader (talk) 18:23, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what was removed, but I've added detail about his performance in the Purdue Pharma prosecution. You should feel free to revert any bad changes and improper removals in the future. Manys (talk) 00:31, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

External links modified

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