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Inaccurate, biased and manipulative content - unworthy of wikipedia in present form

This article should never have got past the Wiki editors. Its sources repeat and do not represent the statements. It presents an ideological one sided argument against Cornell NYC without correct information, balance and more significantly, without facts. References include absurd venues such as forums where the political extremist group posted its thoughts. It is twisted, shameful, and not worthy of wikipedia. HOW did it make through the Wiki Net? Israelscitech ( talk) 06:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)Israelscitech reply

Mostly because Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, and anyone can add to. Whether content remains in place longer-term depends on whether or not the subject is notable (see WP:N) and whether the information included can be verified by reliable sources (see WP:V and WP:RS). You are more than welcome to edit the content in question. I might have a crack at a "first sweep" clean up. Stalwart 111 06:24, 12 February 2013 (UTC) reply
I've started a bit of a clean-up - I see you have too. The section I tagged with the Response heading should have been removed - exactly right. Anything related to the Israel Institute of Technology can be included in that article, not here. There's no need for a commentary on that institute with completely unrelated political conjecture. Stalwart 111 06:53, 12 February 2013 (UTC) reply
Ah, this one! Good work. Stalwart 111 07:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC) reply

Controversy section

The cited source, the article from The Nation, seems to miss the NPOV target in a big, big, way, starting with its unsubstantiated claim that “to avoid revealing such plans during Bloomberg’s bidding process, the schools turned in separate ‘expressions of interest’ in March 2011”. The schools' actions don't seem odd at all, since by the article author's own admission, there was no agreement or alliance in effect, formal or informal, there had only been “a series of conversations”. But the article just piles on the bias with “the schools began months of secretive discussions”. In any competitive bidding process, all parties keeps the details of their proposals to themselves, a standard and obvious characteristic that hardly needs to be mentioned, let along emphasized. A better term would be “confidential”; calling that routine business practice “secretive” is just fodder for the conspiracy-theory addicts.

Overall, it's hard to see a controversy here except in the minds of those people who are determined to invent one. Even the story from The Nation notes that, at the meeting of New York City's Community Board 8, one resident objected to the project because of the involvement of Technion, based on Middle East politics.

In our own article, a recent edit removed the qualifiers that the group is “small” and composed of “activists”, and that the group had, itself, invented the very accusations they were speaking out about. I think those bits are valuable in keeping this fabricated controversy in context as a WP:FRINGE viewpoint and giving it the appropriate WP:WEIGHT it is due. I'm going to put back those descriptive terms.

  Unician  ∇  05:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Correct me if I'm wrong, but NPOV doesn't apply to sources, but rather to our own article. Unless you're suggesting that The Nation is no longer a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards, then these qualifiers are unnecessary and seem intended to predispose readers towards the material in a certain way. The Nation article clearly states what NYACT is; it is unnecessary to describe them as a "small group of radical activists" in the article. Many people at Cornell, including faculty cited in the Nation article, are also upset about the partnership for the reasons listed.
Furthermore, it is inaccurate to state that NYACT fabricated its allegations. Whatever one's personal views on the subject are, Technion had been a target of the BDS campaign before NYACT ever existed, as the Nation article also makes clear.
Trying to paint NYACT as a fringe group inventing claims is inaccurate and NPOV. It is up to us to report the facts as best we can, not to pass judgment on them. Unless you can make the case that the Nation piece is not a reliable source, adding these qualifiers in a stated attempt to discredit a voice in this conversation is totally inappropriate. Sindinero ( talk) 15:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I'm not suggesting, I'm stating explicitly, that the cited piece from The Nation is grossly biased and unworthy of professional journalism. Taking the mundane and universal business practice of competitive bidding, which is a standard procedure routinely employed at all levels of government in the United States, and distorting it with language like “secretive” to suggest some kind of conspiracy, is manipulative. When a successful Cornell alum contributes to his alma mater's project, the article puts the term “gift” in quotation marks, as if to imply that it's something other than a gift. The article then veers off into an entirely one-sided essay on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. There is no journalistic neutrality in this piece.
It's true that sources don't have to show NPOV to be cited, but it's our job to show balance and give proper weight. A very few adjectives seems a mild and reasonable technique to achieve that weighting.
One of the suggested adjectives was “small”. Even the biased item in The Nation admitted that only one resident objected at the NYC Community Board meeting. In describing the formation of NYACT, it measured the size of the group as “several” people. If mentioning “small” in our article is considered WP:OR, would “several”, which is sourced, be somehow better?
Similarly, The Nation identifies some of those several people as “activists”. Would a reference on that specific term make it acceptable?
  Unician  ∇  20:36, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
The problem with that is that NPOV does not apply to sources, but to wikipedia articles, so it's something of a category error to fault the article for having a point of view. We don't really get to evaluate "journalistic neutrality" here on a case-by-case basis, since doing so -- arguing directly with the validity of particular pieces in reliable sources -- would run the risk of original research, because in that case we're no longer compiling what reliable sources say to the best of our ability, but arguing with the sources over the facts of a given topic. The question is whether it passes muster as a reliable source, which I think it clearly does. Furthermore, it's not The Nation alone that has suggested this process wasn't totally transparent, but rather one of the article's sources -- Prof. Eric Cheyfitz -- does so as well, by pointing out that the bidding process bypassed the CU faculty senate in contravention of Cornell's own bylaws. We may personally agree or disagree with this claim, but it's not our place to bring that personal perspective to the editing of the article, and to the evaluation of sources as reliable. Just because you may disagree with an article doesn't make it unreliable.
The language that was questionable was, i.a., "the small group of radical activists" -- which is clearly language meant to marginalize and diminish a particular group, given the popular connotations of the words used and the way they work together here to suggest (as you've stated your viewpoint in a previous comment) that NYACT is a "fringe" group. I don't think it's up to us as wikipedia editors to pass judgment -- either way -- on the validity of a particular political group or aim. "The small group" alone is not as objectionable, but I think it's totally superfluous to specify the group's size, since it's not really relevant here. As you point out, all the pertinent information about the group can be found in the cited source -- it doesn't seem necessary to me to qualify the group's stature or value either way. The relevant information is that they are a group (composed by the way, according to the source, of "activists, students, academics, writers and concerned individuals") opposed to the partnership between Cornell and the Technion. Anything beyond that seems, in my view, to be opinion-pushing. Sindinero ( talk) 23:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Is any of that section encyclopedia worthy? All of the sources used, except for one, are blogs or activist sites. They are not notable. None are in publications that would indicate this short "controversy" was notable enough for inclusion. The one exception (The Nation) is not a newspaper of record, but a highly partisan publication. Not sure if one article in one such publication merits such treatment here. See Wikipedia:Notability, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOT#NEWSPAPER. -- Precision123 ( talk) 08:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC) reply

External links modified

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Implausible Numbers

The article says that Cornell Tech is projected to "create 28,000 jobs, including 8,000 for academic staff." It repeats the claim later, saying the project will "create 28,000 jobs, of which ... 8,000 would be those of academics at the campus." That's not remotely plausible. All of Cornell, including the main campus in Ithaca and the medical center in Manhattan, has fewer than 3,000 faculty. The idea that Cornell Tech alone would have nearly three times as many seems absurd.

Elsewhere, the article says there will be "200 professors and 2,000 students inhabiting some 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2) of campus space," which is much more realistic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.4.239.249 ( talk) 20:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC) reply

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