Talk:David Meerman Scott/Archives/2020

Advert tag

I have re-added an Advert tag to the article. I think the tag is justified by the policy WP:PROMO, particularly "Wikipedia is not a soapbox ... or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing", and, "Creating overly abundant links and references to autobiographical sources is unacceptable". The promotional nature of the article, which has been discussed extensively above, remains. An advert tag was added on 11 July 2019, but then removed on 7 January 2020 with the edit summary "rm tag: no reason given", which is why I'm giving my reasons here. Meticulo (talk) 01:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The Advert tag has once again been removed. To clarify, I placed the tag chiefly because of the promotional tone throughout the article as a whole. The tag was not placed solely in response to the citation link for Marketing the Moon, and I therefore disagree with the edit summary which says "... tag caused by said link". As far as I can see, none of the circumstances listed at WP:WTRMT have been met. The advert tag should have been allowed to remain. Meticulo (talk) 16:25, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? Q1) Which of the links do you consider autobiographical? In particular, do you consider an ISBN links to a book from a legit publisher (Wiley in this case) autobiographic? Q2) How many autobiographical links do you consider acceptable? Q3) Specifically which sentences or phrases do you consider as having an inappropriate tone? Thanks! (PS The discussion about was about a version of the article prior to 2017. I'm interested the article as it stands today.) ^{Talk to} SageGreenRider 17:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. The promotional tone is the main reason for my placing the tag, so I'll address Q3 firstly. The passages I consider most problematic are:

• Education and career: the sentence beginning "At NewsEdge he and his team..." This reads to me like something from a curriculum vitae, as though it were the achievements listed for a particular job. Also, it's not supported by the cited reference at customerthink.com, which itself may not qualify as a reliable source in any case. The sole reference there to Scott is, "...a few marketing experts like David Meerman Scott have been arguing for some time that most content should be freely available."
• Content marketing strategist: this entire section is problematic as it now stands. The first paragraph reads as highly promotional to me. The second paragraph is sourced from what appears to be a blog by someone who has chosen to post in Forbes' personal shopper section.
• Books: most of these read like blurbs. A bare bones bibliography section, without any description, would be sufficient in my opinion. If descriptions are to be retained, they should each be confined to a precis of at most a sentence or two in length, and rewritten in a more objective and encyclopaedic tone.

Meticulo (talk) 03:43, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I can fix those. how about my other two questions? ^{Talk to} SageGreenRider 12:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

(Q1) at a glance, I'd guess roughly about a quarter looked potentially autobiographical or self-generated in some sense or other. I haven't embarked on a top-to-toe close reading of all 59 sources, but I dipped into a sample. Of the links which weren't broken or to subscriber-only sites, many appeared to be marketing blogs or online trade journals that might not qualify as reliable sources. As for the question about ISBNs and publishers, not necessarily.

(Q2) how long is a piece of string? I suppose the maximum acceptable number or proportion of autobiographical sources in a BLP would depend on several things - an article's length, the noteworthiness of the subject, the availability of alternative sources etc. In this case, I'd say it should be close to none. I reckon there's probably enough reliable sources with significant coverage of the subject to justify his notability without having to resort to anything that smacks too heavily of the autobiographical.

Anyway, it might be more practical to address these matters later. The links might well change as we work on the article to fix the problem of tone. Meticulo (talk) 01:02, 16 June 2020 (UTC)