Talk:Greg Mortenson

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Greg Mortenson article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Add new text under old text.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Start a new topic

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2: 40 days

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography

Montana Low‑importance

	Montana portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Montana, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Montana on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MontanaWikipedia:WikiProject MontanaTemplate:WikiProject MontanaMontana
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Central Asia Low‑importance

	Asia portal Greg Mortenson is part of WikiProject Central Asia, a project to improve all Central Asia-related articles. This includes but is not limited to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Tibet, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang and Central Asian portions of Iran, Pakistan and Russia, region-specific topics, and anything else related to Central Asia. If you would like to help improve this and other Central Asia-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.Central AsiaWikipedia:WikiProject Central AsiaTemplate:WikiProject Central AsiaCentral Asia
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Human rights Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Human rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Human rightsTemplate:WikiProject Human rightsHuman rights
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

AJE interview with two 'Taleban'

Mansur Mahsud, a Pakistani man shown in a photo in Mortensons book alledgedly depicting the author with the group of Taleban that kidnapped him, has said of Mortenson that: "He is lying. He was not kidnapped. He was our guest."

Category:21st-century hoaxes

Are the charges that the basis of his story was fabricated allow for the addition of "Category:21st-century hoaxes" to the article for him and/or for his book?

External links modified

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Greg Mortenson. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:27, 9 January 2018 (UTC)Reply

Nick Kristof Quote

Latest comment: 16 hours ago1 comment1 person in discussion

From the Literacy in Central Asia section:

"According to op-ed columnist and Mortenson friend Nicholas D. Kristof, the schools built by CAI have local support and have been able to avoid retribution by the Taliban and other groups opposed to girls' education because of community "buy-in", which involves getting villages to donate land, subsidized or free labor ("sweat equity"), wood and resources."

The article linked in reference to Nick Kristof doesn't say any part of this. It's actually a reference to this op-ed, which I believe had been brought up at one point: www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/opinion/13kristof.html?ref=opinion|NYT

However, the section mischaracterizes the quote and I think the relationship between Kristof and Mortenson. Kristof's op-ed reads as follows:

"To get a school, villagers must provide the land and the labor to assure a local “buy-in,” and so far the Taliban have not bothered his schools. One anti-American mob rampaged through Baharak, Afghanistan, attacking aid groups but stopped at the school that local people had just built with Mr. Mortenson. “This is our school,” the mob leaders decided, and they left it intact."

Here are the errors as I see them:

- Kristof doesn't mention wood or resources at all. There's no support for the claim that those were given by the community

- Saying that the community "donated" land and labor, and the reference to "sweat equity" are opinionated and unsupported by the original text. The school is, in theory, owned in some way by the community, but the text implies that the community is somehow giving something to the CAI. Also sweat equity is wrong because its not a venture and the labor does not affect their ownership, only the feasibility of the project (again, according to the op-ed).

- The original op-ed came out in 2008, so I don't think it's current or accurate information, and the statement that the schools "have been able to avoid retribution" can't be verified by it in that verb tense.

- Referring to Kristof as a "Mortenson friend" implies consistent support. Kristof was sympathetic to Mortenson after accusations but this seems to imply greater support.

~2026-43165-16 (talk) 15:22, 5 August 2026 (UTC)Reply