Talk:A. J. Finn

Why here?

So why such a person who has lied so many times and has copied others’ books has his page on the Wikipedia?

a few article problems

Just quickly noting a few problems with the article.

• It should not have a section titles "Controversy", per WP:CSECTION. I suggest "Unreliable narrator" for the first part of that section, and that the second part is best put as part of The Woman In The Window (novel) section (which should have it's "novel" sliced off.
• The opening contains a boastful statement sourced to a non-third-party source -- the claims of "millions" sold sourced to the publisher's website. This information should be removed. The statement that it was a "commercial success" should also be removed.
• Barring more deep coverage, information on who represents him should be removed. This is not a directory.

I did undo some promotional edits that were being readded. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:50, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I have now implemented those changes and various other clean-ups. The agent information proved to be sourced to a press release, which emphasizes that this material was not WP:DUE. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:42, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

psychiatrist's quote

Accura9, you added "Mallory's psychiatrist disclosed that Mallory sometimes suffered from "somatic complaints, fears, and preoccupations" due to his bipolar depression." Please quote the text in the cited source that supports that statement. Schazjmd (talk) 23:32, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

You are correct on this. The source needs to be updated, doing it now. Thanks. Accura9 (talk) 23:40, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Accura9, your edit summary claiming that the sources didn't support the text is incorrect.

BBC: "The article also alleged that he said his mother died of cancer and his brother also died. Although his mother did have cancer when Mallory was a teenager, she and his brother are both alive."

Irish Times: In later years, Mallory reportedly told authors and employers that he had a PhD from Oxford, but the university confirmed that while he did complete his master’s degree there in 2004, Mallory never submitted a doctoral thesis. Though the New Yorker confirmed that his parents and three siblings are all alive, it claimed Mallory had told people in publishing that his mother had died of cancer and his brother had killed himself."

Please explain how these don't support the text that was there. Schazjmd (talk) 23:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

The text that was deleted stated that "Mallory admitted... that he had lied in telling people that his mother and brother were dead" (BBC article does not say that); and "admitted that despite claims to the contrary, he had not earned a doctoral degree" (Irish Times does not say this). The fact that these statements were false is already established in first sentence of this section. Accura9 (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@Accura9, the appropriate thing to do then is adjust the wording to better summarize the sources. Schazjmd (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

You are free to do that. He cannot at this point, as he has been blocked for editing warring. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:49, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To be fair, your edit didn't just say that he lied about these things, it said he admitted to having done so, which isn't quite stated in the sources. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

End of the Story coverage

During the edit wars here, an editor was repeatedly trying to insert a large block of text about an upcoming book, claiming that it was reliably sourced. However, the sources at use were a combination of ad/sales pages (of the publisher and online bookstores) and various comments on the book from NetGalley. None of those things are the sort of reliable third-party sources we rely on to identify content that is due to be included. Indeed, the NetGalley comments section, being essentially self-published postings, are not permitted to be used in this article under WP:BLPSPS. Should the book actually be issued in February, there were likely be enough coverage that some information about that book may be added at that time (although we should take care in how we cite it, as previously the review quotes here had seem to be selected as if looking for book-cover blurbs, rather than a fair evaluation of the reviews.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:02, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Review selection

While I have adjusted the quotes pulled from reviews to be more balanced rather than choosing them as if they were meant to be book cover blurbs, concern remains. The same promotional bent which had chosen those original quotes may well have also chosen which reviews to quote, focusing on ones with positive responses to be quoted. I have not sought out additional reviews to see what the mix out there may be; perhaps they are all good. (This concern also applies to the The Woman in the Window (novel) page.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:19, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Brigading

This wikipedia article, and that of "The Woman In The Window" is being brigaded by 199.185.175.96 in an effort to suppress verifiably true information.

There is incorrect information in the version from before, such as claiming the Washington Post decided there was no plagiarism, in relation to the Denzil allegations. But that article was published BEFORE the New York Times made those Denzil claims. It was actually written about completely different plagiarism allegations, made in the New Yorker, and relating to the film Copycat.

The two quotes used to defend the author fail to declare conflicts of interest. Karin Slaughter worked directly with Mallory, which wasn't acknowledged in the previous version. Carlo Gébler's quotes were actually in relation to his own feud with the *author* of the New Yorker piece.

There was no acknowledgement that Denzil's book was released first, instead focusing on a single claim from an agent, who also has a direct financial interest in Mallory.

The old version is highly biased, and misleading.

Peterspeterson (talk) 03:21, 18 February 2024 (UTC)