Talk:Missing in action

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[edit] Not enough citations!

Most of the information on here doesn't have proper citations! I don't believe half of it-about Kerry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.82.39.146 (talk • contribs) 00:42, 20 March 2007

[edit] Kerry?

As noted above their are few citations, also the article just jumps in a talks about a "Kerry" with no link or anything else. I assume it's refering to Sen. John Kerry (D), but this article needs major work. LCpl 01:08, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, appartently it is ... I followed the sloppy external link, read the article, and created a {{cite news}} to replace it and use for the redlinked attempts at a reference in that section:

• Sydney Schanberg (April 4, 2004). "Missing", The San Diego Union-Tribune. 

Since the author was a Pulitzer Prize winner, it should have been a no-branier that they have a wiki-link to put in the |author= field.

Some Other Editor can figure out "how the magicks work" and apply it to any of the other {{cn}} tags, if they can figure out which of the "External links" should be referenced. :-)

Happy Editing! —68.239.79.82 18:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ww II, last man MIA back home

hier a link from germany about Lieutenant Shannon Estill , us air force, 428. Fighter Squadron.

• Joint POW/MIA Account Command - Sucheinheit nach ehemaligen Vermissten und Kriegsgefangenen

found nearby Elsnig, near Torgau in northwestern Saxony.

Titel: Die Heimkehr des Leutnants Estill. In german newspaper Der Spiegel online, May 26th 2007 (www.spiegel.de/panorama/zeitgeschichte/0,1518,druck-485069,00.html)

if there is anybody, who want to have some more details about the documant.film,

the notice is part of wp: de - US Army. So long. --Asdfj 11:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partial source list from Schanberg

Found this on the Village Voice, Schanberg lists a bunch of articles, but only the title and date. These will need to be searched for in google news archive or LexisNexis.

• Schanberg, Sydney H. (2004-03-02). "Follow the Microfiche", Village Voice. Retrieved on 1 June 2007. 

-Crockspot 05:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

The vandalism to Wikipedia Missing in Action that occurred last year has happened again, but this time with a new twist. Last year someone, without leaving any explanation, on numerous occasions deleted large portions of the work that had been done on Wikipedia Missing in Action. Recently the same thing was done, with virtually the entire MIA text for the 1990s deleted. However, I have noticed that in place of the deletions is a link to a new Wikipedia entry for what was previously the subtopic of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. I followed the link. This new linked entry contains all kinds of editorial comments, political spin, subjects beyond the subject of a committee, and has some of the most basic facts about the committee wrong. To put it simply, one individual has taken upon himself or herself to delete a large portion of the work done over time on Wikipedia MIA, and in effect replaced with incorrect information and heavy editorial comment. Adding a large body of information, a good deal of which is false or misleading, was done, avoiding all objections by those who were unaware of this new location. In summary, this was a veiled plan by one individual to rewrite the work of many that had been done over time. I believe this was done in an unethical manner, and that this kind of behavior is not in keeping with the good intentions of Wikipedia. I will find what backup information I can to try and restore the information that was erased, and do the same if the vandal attacks again. ToTheCircus (talk) 05:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You are confusing vandalism with maintaining a neutral point of view. The old account at this article presented only one point of view, that of those POW/MIA activists who believe in live prisoners and a 30-year government conspiracy to abandon them. There are several other points of view, such as the U.S. Government, websites such as miafacts.org, the Kerry committee report, books such as those by Susan Katz Keating and Bruce Franklin, and so forth, that have to be represented as well. Indeed, since these viewpoints collectively represent the mainstream of thought on this matter and yours and those of the 30-year-conspiracy activists do not, by weight most of the content in these articles must represent the mainstream views; see WP:Undue weight. That's what I'm working towards. The activist/Schanberg viewpoint will get its day, but it won't be the only one or the most frequent one. If you don't like Wikipedia's rules, and don't like this weighting that must take place, I can understand that; people have very deeply felt, passionate beliefs on this issue. In that case there are many sites on the web that support your viewpoint, and I would suggest you go there. But if you want to edit here, you'll have to follow the Wikipedia guidelines for NPOV, undue weighting, and verification and citing. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

To address your other point, yes I changed the structure of these articles. The material that used to be here was heavily focussed on the Kerry committee, which is better dealt with in its own article (other famous Senate special committees have their own articles too, such as those for Watergate and Whitewater). What is really needed is an overall article on the Vietnam POW/MIA issue, from the time of the war through the present. It's a big topic and shouldn't dominate this article, which ideally should be about missing in action throughout history and not skewed towards Vietnam. But that doesn't exist yet, although I did create Category:Vietnam War POW/MIA issues to at least group together all the existing articles that touch on the subject. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

To ALL: The recovery of the deleted information is going slowly and not going to be perfect. Unfortunately, some of your refinements and additions may been destroyed forever. Please help restore the site if you can. I am restoring at least some of what was deleted, and we can work together from there. As to the comments from Wasted R Time, my objection was about deleting large amounts of information that had been put out there over time and replacing it with your own information (much of which is inaccurate) without comment. I clearly remember there were a number of positive comments from different people to the effect that Wikipedia MIA was a good start. We all should respect those comments, even if they differ from our own. Those discussion comments have also disappeared. If you thought a specific point was inaccurately represented you could have voiced an opinion and we all could have checked the facts and deleted it if it was wrong. If you thought different areas needed expanding in order to have balance, you could have added information rather than have deleted accurate information. You summed up your comments about proper weighting by saying "That's what I'm working towards." I think that WE, that is, EVERYONE willing to contribute, should be working toward a properly weighted factual MIA Wikipedia through careful examination of the facts. This means not going out and just erasing data you want suppressed and replacing it with your own information. Comments like your statement "In that case there are many sites on the web that support your viewpoint, and I would suggest you go there" do not, in my opinion, encourage an atmosphere of community and working together. Please introduce any of your proposed deletions and alterations one or two at a time, state clearly what you think might not be factual, and allow for sufficient time for research and discussion. I believe we in the Wikipedia community would have caught a lot of the errors of fact that you have introduced at your new location had you done so. Additionally, a good debate over what belongs and what does not can occur without characterizing others. For example, do your comments regarding the fictional movie "Rambo" and writings about events that took place many years after the committee belong under the topic of the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs? Rather than pronounce what will or will not be the most "frequent" position, carefully consider information for ACCURACY and BASIS of fact. Let's all work TOGETHER constructively and come up with a good truthful end product. We then can break up the material and work out what links (create links (maybe more, less, or the same of what you think there should be) we agree should be made. ToTheCircus (talk) 05:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Your knowledge of Wikipedia is very poor. Nothing ever disappears, unless an article is outright deleted, which I do not believe has happened here. Everything is in the histories of back versions, including Talk discussions. You do not know how to write a proper citation; no Wikipedia article text contains things like "END VILLAGE VOICE QUOTATION". I'd advise you to study other articles and see how things are done here. This is not your average discussion board where everybody posts information they find useful and it is all shared. You should begin your study of Wikipedia with WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:CITE. You also do not know how to associate material with articles; detailed criticisms of the Kerry committee obviously belong in the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs article, not here. Regarding your criticism of the background and legacy material in that article, I understand your point, and some of it may be moved out once an overall article on the Vietnam POW/MIA issue is created, but as for now, that's the best place for it.

But to cut to the quick, the Schanberg view of the POW/MIA question cannot dominate our treatment of it. Per WP:Undue weight, it is a "small minority" viewpoint among reliable sources and must be treated as such. If you cannot accept this, you are bound to be unhappy here; it is only in that context that I suggested you stick to web sites that do not question that view. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The restored information that I put out has once again been deleted. The last restored information was taken from material on an archival webcrawler, and I was unaware that the history section contained backups. It appears that I went to a lot of extra work due to the original removal of the information without discussion. I will restore information I can find on more up-to-date histories. Not only has accurate information been suppressed, but a good deal of inaccurate information and extreme spin have been added to a new linked site about the 1991-1992 POW/MIA Committee. Much of it is outside of the topic of the committee, and those topics should be addressed at Wikipedia MIA. The personal characterizations do not help make a better Wikipedia. ToTheCircus (talk) 13:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Worldwide view

Any chance we could get a more, non-american, worldwide view? I'm sure other countries have their MIA soldiers... or could the MIA from Iraq go into its own section? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.116.29.56 (talk) 18:18, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to agree. This article consists of one paragraph about MIA and then a huge section about US war heroes. This is a long way from the neutral POV that Wikipedia is meant to present. Either the US entry should be moved to an article of its own, or else a lot of other international examples must be added. As it stands this article looks very biased! 84.144.92.28 (talk) 11:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)