Talk:Christopher Massimine

Falsification of Resumé

Hi there, Glenroy20. You've reverted my change a couple of times, in order to surpress the negative story. The Fox 13 story is clearly reliable, and your edit summary characterising it as "instigated by disgruntled employee" is not supported in either source. Your point that the Salt Lake Tribune and Fox 13 are related does not inherently make this less reliable. What I find slightly more concerning, however, is the fact that your account seems to have been created with the sole purpose of removing this information. Just a reminder that if you have a personal connection to this person (and especially if you are this person), then WP:COI, the conflict-of-interest policy suggests that you should wait to establish consensus, and then allow someone else to make the edit. Do you have a personal connection to the subject of the article? BobEret (he/him) (talk) 18:15, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I didn’t see this when I wrote my paragraph below, but I concur 100%. Stallion Cornell (talk) 18:24, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Continuing to remove the multiple fraud allegations against Massimine constitutes vandalism. It is indisputable that Massimine is currently on leave, that the University of Utah is investigating the allegations, that many of Massimine’s supposed clients and employers deny he has done any work for them, and that the “NPAA” which supposedly gave him an award does not exist. Simply removing this factual information, which is reported and confirmed by credible outlets, is not acceptable. Please stop. Stallion Cornell (talk) 18:19, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

The news story reported by Fox13 clearly states they have not confirmed the vast majority of the resume items reported on. Posting this story as a credible source only serves to validate misinformation and cause damage to the subject, Christopher Massimine. I suggest we allow the University of Utah and associated parties to conclude their investigation before you post this malicious content which is causing additional harm to this individual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Glenroy20 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

The edits to the article that you keep reversing have only noted those things which are, in fact, both confirmed and credible. For example, you keep removing references to the fact that Massimine is on leave and that the University is investigating. Those are facts not in dispute. Your reversals of legitimate edits seem designed to pretend that the allegations don’t exist. That’s vandalism and unacceptable. Stallion Cornell (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Glenroy20 That's not an accurate description of the article. Although the Fox story suggests that some of his items were difficult to prove as false (which does not automatically make them true), it has a significant list of proven falsifications:

1. "It took approximately five minutes for FOX 13 to call NYU and confirm Massimine did not receive a master’s degree."
2. "In some of the congratulatory photos, Massimine is seen wearing a small medal with a purple ribbon around his neck. FOX 13 quickly learned the same medal can be purchased online for $4.25."
3. "A search on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website confirms the NPAAA is either unregistered or does not exist."
4. "A spokesperson for Wieden+Kennedy, the actual advertising agency in charge of producing Old Spice commercials, confirmed Massimine never worked on those ads. “That individual has not worked for us,” the spokesperson wrote."
5. "“He is not a member and was not ever a member,” wrote spokesperson Alexandra Anderson in an email to FOX 13. “He was not inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame.”"

This is a sufficiently long list of allegations that are confirmed to warrant inclusion in the article - it is not sensationalist or tabloid in tone. If the investigations do turn out to be false (which seems unlikely; however, obviously it isn't the place of Wikipedia editors to predict), then this investigation ihmo will still be notable, and should remain either way. Remember to sign your posts with four ~ characters. BobEret (he/him) (talk) 19:08, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I think there is probably some information from the recent reports that would be relevant to include, but it is hard to tell given the state of the article. I tried to clean up the lead a little, but the whole article is still a mess. A lot of the content probably needs to just be removed, including the promotional material sourced solely to the article subject rather than having the back and forth about what is "claimed" (WP:BLPSELFPUB says that the article subject should not be used for material that is "unduly self-serving"). The content that is sourced to articles that do not mention the subject should also be removed. If independent reliable sources haven't mentioned certain aspects of their career or directly made the connections/inferences, then we shouldn't be either and the content should just be removed from the article until there is better sourcing available. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:44, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Checked google/bing, newspapers.com, proquest, jstor, and google books. Nothing exists in a search for "National Performing Arts Action Association" except the single press release, dutifully and identically hosted on a few sites. A search on just "NPAAA" finds the Negro Political Action Association of Arizona, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Association of Arab Americans, non-proteinogenic amino acid, and something to do with kids' sports (it's never spelled out). I think the whole mention of the alleged association and its award should be removed, not just disputed in the article. Schazjmd (talk) 00:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I just went through the article to clean it up, and I removed the disputed material and a lot of the other poorly sourced content. I don't know what else would be appropriate to include, but I did include the recent news reports in relation to his current job at the University of Utah as that seems relevant. Hopefully at least the article will be more manageable now. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:39, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Cannot confirm Associate Producer credit on American Idiot, and therefore Tony nomination

Fact: American Idiot was nominated for a Tony in 2010. Disputed fact: Massimine was an associate producer on the show. Can anyone verify whether Massimine had any credited association with this show? The citation he included for himself is a link to a website that allows self-publishing, which means anyone can give themselves credit for any project they want. I cannot find any other mention of Massimine having any association with that show, other than articles that have propagated from this self-published source, or from puff-pieces where Massimine himself is perpetuating the claim. His name is not found anywhere in the 2010 playbill for the show and he's not listed anywhere in on IBDB. He's also not listed among the producers on the Tony website . If Massimine is lying about his Tony nomination, we should not perpetuate this false information on Wikipedia. Unless this can be verified from a source independent of Massimine's self-published work, I propose that any mention of his Tony nomination be removed. Sophistrate (talk) 22:31, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Sophistrate Are there any RS that mention his nomination? If not, I agree remove it. Ideally there would be a source saying that he claimed it, but that it seems like it's probably false (as you've basically proven); however, I worry that if we said that without a secondary source, it might be a bit too close to original research. BobEret (he/him) (talk) 19:58, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

BobEret I haven't found any source that refutes his Tony nomination claim, so yes, this could fall under original research. However, I still think it could be removed on the grounds of lacking reliable citation. There is some discussion about the state of this page here: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Christopher_Massimine. Now that this page is getting the attention of more experienced editors, I've decided to leave the edits up to everyone else. I don't think I can objectively and dispassionately contribute anymore, because the more I look into his blatant fraud the angrier I get. Sophistrate (talk) 20:14, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree that if the material is not included in independent reliable sources, then it should just be removed, rather than the "he claimed but its not verified" approach. Material published by the article subject is not reliable for unduly self-serving claims (per WP:BLPSPS), and interview statements by the article subject are not much better. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 23:49, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I added in a line about how Massimine is not in fact a Tony Award nominee. A spokesperson for Tony Award Productions recently confirmed this information to FOX 13 News, stating they were glad the Wikipedia page has been updated. 172.83.7.246 (talk) 22:47, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

172.83.7.246 Has Fox13 released an article about this? Otherwise, we cannot verify what you are stating. Sasquatch t|c 22:57, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

The Fox13 article is already used in the article, the IP just didn't call it."However, a spokesperson for Tony Award Productions sent the following statement to FOX 13 via email...." Schazjmd (talk) 23:05, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Schazjmd thanks for clearing that up. I'm going to re-add something similar back in and ref the article. Sasquatch t|c 23:08, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

A lot of the material mentioned by the FOX13 has been reported on by the Salt Lake Tribune (see https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/06/04/claims-pioneer-theatre/). Jurisdicta (talk) 03:58, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that the Salt Lake Tribune article is already cited, although I don't know if it adds a lot of new information to the Fox13 report. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 17:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

"Youngest executive"

I'm challenging and BroadwayWorld described him as, at age 27, "the youngest theater executive to oversee the activities of a professional multi-million dollar performing arts institution". It's sourced to BroadwayWorld, which is one of the sites that posted his NPAAA Humanitarian of the Year press release. I believe the ref cited in the article is also just an unquestioned press release.

In this RSN discussion about Broadway World, Collect says It is a commercial site running press releases. and NinjaRobotPirate says They seem to mostly run press releases and other promotional fluff. I think I cited it a couple times for DVD release dates, but I don't think it's a huge sin to cite a press release for something so trivial. The claim in the article is a bit more than trivial (and is a weird type of puffery). I'm going to remove the portion of the sentence sourced to BroadwayWorld, based on this. Schazjmd (talk) 00:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I ended up removing the press release cite entirely, and cited the Daily Beast ref to support that he was CEO there. Schazjmd (talk) 01:12, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I had initially attributed the statement because of similar concerns about the source and how it was phrased, and I don't have any objection to its removal. A lot of the material that had been put into the article previously was sourced to press releases, and those aren't appropriate sources for promotional or self-serving claims. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:15, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the previous comment, using sources that come from press releases that can be obtained for promotional or self-serving claims. These type of sources would fall afoul of being reliable sources as defined by WP:RS as these sources could not be "independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." (See WP:RS) Jurisdicta (talk) 04:38, 21 July 2021 (UTC)