Talk:Gary Botting/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Gary Botting. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Early life

Information specific to his work in entomology should probably be in a separate section?--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:42, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment

One of my edit summaries has a dead link to WP:EASTER. Intended link is WP:EASTEREGG, where the word sect was linked to an article other than the linked topic.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:39, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Sex and moths

The sentence "The Jehovah's Witnesses' strictures on sexual activity led Botting to experiment in his early teens with the hybridization of moths ..." would appear to be poorly and inaccurately phrased. In the preface to his Orwellian World book, Botting writes: "My experiments at home were conducted without the knowledge of school or congregation, for I had been brought up to believe that sex was dirty and what I was doing to my bugs to get them to mate involved some pretty nifty surgery ..." (Pg xiii) My reading of this is that he did his work sexing moths, but told no one because it involved sexual reproduction, which was viewed as dirty. The wording above seems to suggest (wrongly) that the puritanical JW outlook on sex somehow prompted him to begin his work with moths. BlackCab (talk) 09:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

The rewording of this, "The Jehovah's Witnesses' strictures on sexual activity indirectly led Botting to experiment in his early teens with the hybridization of moths" is no better. There is nothing in the source material that suggests that. BlackCab (talk) 22:28, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Sources

Unless a particular point is contentious and likely to be disputed, it's not usually necessary to provide more than 1 or 2 sources for a particular point. (By this, I mean it is not necessary to provide an exhaustive list of sources; I do not mean placing multiple sources within the same ref tag.) For example, it's not necessary to refer to every newspaper article involving a particular legal case. Also, unless the cited sources actually mention Botting as the lawyer, including his involvement in the cases constitutes original research.--Jeffro77 (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Michael Jackson

There's an awful lot of stuff under "Religion" that has only the most tenuous link with the subject of the article. Botting's comments on Michael Jackson sound like bullshit and it is hardly notable that he, as one ex-JW, found a reporter and newspaper willing to publish his opinion on the matter. While acknowledging that "Well, I've never heard of that" is never much of a reason to delete information from Wikipedia, I have to say .... I've never heard of it! The entire Michael Jackson section, in my view, should be deleted. BlackCab (talk) 03:06, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The minor fiasco about Jackson is a bit trivial. I'm loosely familiar with the 'furor' about the Thriller video, but I'm not aware that there was any significant 'Messiah' following. I've never seen any evidence that Michael Jackson was ever officially a JW, beyond being raised in the religion by his JW mother.--Jeffro77 (talk) 04:03, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Notability

According to WP:ACADEMIC, scholars should not have their own pages unless they are fellows of prestigious societies or have made a significant impact on their field. Having one's work published is not necessarily an indication of notability. It doesn't seem that Botting's work on entomology, literature, or Jehovah's Witnesses has been significant enough to merit his own article. His career as a barrister and legal scholar, viewed objectively, probably merit a short article, but this article seems to go into excessive detail on subjects of questionable notability. 99.99.28.50 (talk) 17:14, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, the majority of the 'Professor of English' section details a personal vendetta, in which one side seems clearly to be taken. The entire article, in fact, portrays Botting in unencyclopedically glowing terms, which ought to be tempered. As a stylistic concern, even if some of this information of dubious relevance is kept, the paragraphs with 20 or more lines really ought to be split up to make for easier reading. 99.99.28.50 (talk) 20:53, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree and could not have put it better - overall this article reads a lot like a resume with a lot of irrelevant detail and requires work to achieve NPOV / encyclopedic style. May be worth tagging for peacock language as well. Uninspired Username (talk)

Edit summary

Previous edit summary referred to removing minor detail from the lead. It was actually the Early life section. In any case, a statement about Botting's grandmother taking him to meet someone at that point is not particularly notable, and appears to have no significant bearing on later connections with the individual.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:04, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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Tags for language and style

Hi, I tagged this article for multiple issues. Overall it is interesting and has a lot of information but the style is often unencyclopedic and reads as a resume or contains irrelevant information. There are many scare quotes and direct quotations - some work to meet the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch is needed. Cheers, Uninspired Username (talk) 17:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)'

I added a tag for advertisement as well. Uninspired Username (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2020 (UTC)