Talk:Tim Walz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

This page is about an active politician who is running for office, is in office and campaigning for re-election, or is involved in some political conflict or controversy. Because of this, this article is at risk of biased editing, talk-page trolling, and simple vandalism.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.

Tim Walz is part of WikiProject U.S. Congress, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to the United States Congress. You can help by editing this article. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject U.S. Congress articles.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Minnesota, which aims to improve all articles related to Minnesota.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ]
???	This article has not yet received an importance rating within Minnesota articles.
This article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

	Tim Walz is part of WikiProject Lutheranism, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Lutheranism on Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to Lutheran churches, Lutheran theology and worship, and biographies of notable Lutherans. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.

[edit] Making this article NPOV

I'm not sure if the POV template is a little harsh, but I really think that the biography needs to be re-written in an NPOV way. It really reads like a campaign ad. What do other people think? MicahMN | Talk 19:44, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. The article needs work. Boubelium

I did some minor editing. I think it's fine now. John Broughton 13:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Victory

The page had been updated to state that he is the incumbent, but still listed CNN's 52-48 projection for Gil Gutknecht so I removed that section. Someone should add something about his win.

[edit] Catholic, not Lutheran

This entry has Mr. Walz's religious affiliation wrong. He's Catholic, it says as much on his campaign website. I'll correct it, if there's no objections. --Wgbc2032 Dec. 14, 11:28 PM (Pacific) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.119.36.144 (talk) 07:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm sorry, I don't quite know how to use the editing tools on this site, but shouldn't the biographical entries on an online encyclopedia be, well, accurate? The section headed Religious affiliation contradicts nndb.com, the National Journal profile of new members of congress, and Mr. Walz's own campaign website. I don't live in Minnesota, and I've never met Mr. Walz, so I don't pretend to have inside information as to his religious convictions, but unless there is some reason to list him as Lutheran I'm going to change it again. 24.119.36.144 (talk)

I added a citation from his campaign website - Catholic it is. If the National Journal disagrees, it is probably wrong. Appraiser 21:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it's conceivable someone could praise the Catholic values they grew up with despite having converted to Lutheranism, but I'd say his site is a pretty authoritative source :) and it says nothing about any later-life conversions. Thanks for documenting this. - PhilipR 21:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

This news release from four days ago [1] states that's he's Lutheran, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I'll revise the page, with an edit comment to see the talk page. MisfitToys 23:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The Lutherans are claiming him. But these two organizations disagree [2] and [3]. On a website presumably approve by Walz [4], it mentions that he was raised Catholic, but says nothing about now being Lutheran. I would think that if he had converted to Lutheranism, he would have proclaimed that fact in campaign literature, as Lutheranism probably dominates his district. I don't know the real answer, but I'm certainly not convinced based on the Lutheran organization claiming him. Appraiser 00:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I just checked Project Vote Smart, a website which gives issue surveys to candidates, and Mr. Walz religion is listed as Lutheran (Raised Catholic). If I had to venture a guess, his wife is Lutheran and he attends services with her. But as long as he's being listed under both religions, I don't think it matters too much. I don't know if anyone remembers how Rep. Jim Gibbons was for years listed as Protestant even though he's Mormon. Again, so long as it's debatable, it doesn't seem like too big an issue.24.119.36.144 (talk)

Project Vote smart[5] "Biographical Data Collection Process - Every candidate for office is sent a copy of our biographical form when they are sent the National Political Awareness Test. Additional data is collected from the candidate or elected official's website. Please call our Voter's Research Hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART (1-888-868-3762) for more information." Assuming Walz provided the "Lutheran (raised Catholic)", I'll put it just like that on his infobox with this citation. (To future readers: I will revert it to that wording unless a more viable source is cited. And please justify any change here. Thanks.) Appraiser 15:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Three and a half months after pushing this, I'd like to change Mr. Walz religious affiliation given in the infobox yet again. The 'raised Catholic' in parenthesis just seems like erroneous information. I'm keeping the Project Vote Smart link so that information is still available. --Wgbc2032 20:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Do you have a source that is more reliable than the Project Vote Smart, who claims to have received its information from the candidate? I'll change it back unless someone cites a more reliable source. The article should match the citation. Also, on his campaign website, "his parents instilled him with Catholic values."[6]. That is pretty unambiguous to me. --Appraiser 21:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason I changed the tag to simply Lutheran was because I've felt, ever since we had this debate months ago, that the religion he was raised in didn't need to be included in the infobox. It seemed like information that, while not irrelevent, would be better suited for the article itself than the infobox. For the record I didn't at all question the information in Project Vote Smart's survey, and I kept it there as a source (I'm the one who brought it up in the first place). I wasn't trying to challenge his religious upbringing I just felt it was wrong to place which religion he was raised in in a category generally meant to show which faith a certain politician currently identifies with. That said, this debate (which, again, I'm guilty of starting) ended long ago and maybe I was wrong to try and revive it. Since Mr. Walz religion is reported rather inconsistently, maybe the current tag was a good compromise. I'd prefer it if someone moved this information into the article, but I won't push this any longer. --Wgbc2032 00:56, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

• My concern is that the information from the cited source matches what we put there. To omit part of his response to PVS seems mis-leading. It would be OK to change it and also change the source, as long as source is deemed reliable.--Appraiser 13:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)