Talk:John Hargrove (orca trainer)

Reviewer notes

• Several problems remain, the references need article titles at least
• I don't know that an appearance-by-appearence recap is encyclopedic I'm of a mind to simply remove it, but I'd want to do it with a bit of care with regard to sources
• There are probably a few examples of non-promotional wording still to prune
• I do think the sources now evidence notability (Austin Chronicle, News10 to pick two)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Joe Decker (talk • contribs) 00:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Article and talk-page were flipped

The "John Hargrove (Killer Whale Trainer)" article and this talk-page were flipped by a name change. I corrected the text by copy/pasting, but afterwards noticed that such had left the relevant page histories still associated one with the other. i.e. Presently, this talk page's history starts off with the history of the original "John J. Hargrove" article (and vice versa).

Ya' know, after consideration, I think I'll just make reversions and do the move over with correct targets ...

Done.

And even corrected capitalization to fit Wikipedia manual of style while I was at it. (i.e. the article is now John Hargrove (killer whale trainer)). Had to move/make talk page first as otherwise the article auto-generated one which conflicted. --Kevjonesin (talk) 14:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Criticism section

Hello, @BloominOnion: I normally would be slightly less hostile to a new editor, but you seemed to know your way around references and the like very well, so I figured we'd jump into the deep end; if you are genuinely new, I apologize, Wikipedians aren't always this crabby. Your revert said: "editor removed entire section of source material that was provided by multiple contributors, made no effort to contest a point she didn't like." Excuse me? I only reverted your additions, just that, unless you're an account used by multiple people - is that the case?

Anyway, the content. Criticism sections are bad times. Integrate it into another section. If you are truly and direly set on including more of it, we can create a "book release" section, and as part of that we can discuss the hubbub. Secondly, as attested to by sources already in the article, we have third-party confirmation of an "offensive" by a corporate entity (SeaWorld) to stir up negative stories about a critic. This is a classic case where Wikpiedia should be VERY reserved and not only impeccably source everything, but also hold things in the proper proportion. For example, if a movie gets good reviews from 80% of the critics and bad reviews from 20% of the critics, a reception section should include roughly 80% positive comments and 20% negative comments. Since there's tons of critics, it'd be very possible to include ALL the bad reviews and go into great detail, but it'd lend undue weight. It's the same with fringe science; if 99% of scientists believe 1 thing and 1% believe another, they shouldn't both get "equal time". My point is that you seem to have done the equivalent of dredging up every bad review of a movie that has received a mostly positive, or at worst mixed reception; tiny press releases from state-level organizations? That... that just doesn't matter. Additionally, this is inherently a "tabloidy" incident which Wikipedia by default is very hesitant to give too much press too. Nobody is claiming that Hargrove is a white supremacist, or that he's actively leading a political campaign against blacks: this is a private video of a personal embarassing moment. Note that Wikipedia barely gives two sentences in Prince_Harry#Personal_life about his dressing up in a Nazi uniform in a costume party for something comparable, although if we wanted to we absolutely could spend 3 paragraphs of media reactions on it. Lastly, if we did want to talk about it in more detail, don't use "n-word", Wikipedia is not censored. I think it's fine to just say "a racial slur" because which one is not amazingly relevant, but if we're gonna say which one, just say "he used the word nigger in the drunken video."

To move things in a more productive direction, we *do* need more 3rd party sources on this article, as puffery from Hargrove & his publishers aren't really reliable either, which is a lot of what this article has had to rely on before. But tabloidy hit pieces aren't much better. I'd like to revert the criticism section again, but willing to hear your thoughts, and if you want to help build a *netural* account of Hargrove that gives due weight to the video controversy, that'd obviously be great. SnowFire (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm concurring with SnowFire. My experience at Blackfish has shown me there is a lot of rabid partisanship with anything involving captive orca, and neutrality gets lost along the way. --Tenebrae (talk) 23:36, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I too don't think we need a criticism section, however I'm afraid that sometimes some editors go overboard in trying to remove criticism from the Blackfish and John Hargroves and try to add additional criticism to SeaWorld and other Marine Mammal Parks. As for the current criticism section we can remove that and include a section on his book that will give both good and bad, this section can include the video, the cancelled book signing, and statements from MLK III and NAACP - CA, but also include that it was a best seller in the animal section at amazon, and he had interviews with CNN and others. As long as this section is written fairly I think it could be a really good section. Most of the information is already in the article and could fairly easily be re-arranged. I do not have as much time to edit this year as I did last year, but if no one else gets to it I will try to get to it sometime this next week. VViking_TalkEdits 11:46, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Regarding his interviews on CNN etc.: It's been well-established at WP:BIOGRAPHY and elsewhere that a subject's promotional appearances to help sell his or her work are normal, standard routine and non-notable. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:55, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much. I don't get the impression that *lots* of bookstores canceled, and the book tour appearances by themselves are not particularly notable whether canceled or not, unless there was a wave of embarrassing cancellations or protests or the like. (The protest in the linked source article before was by anti-SeaWorld protesters protesting the cancellation, not anti-Hargrove ones.) And if there was such a rash of notable cancellations, well, somebody can add a source saying so. SnowFire (talk) 18:20, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@Tenebrae: I'm fine with rephrasing "offensive" somehow, although that is what the Orlando Sentinel article says (as hypothetically another "neutral" source). Hargrove, however, most definitely is accusing SeaWorld of a "smear campaign". I think that's fine as long as we're clear this is Hargrove's POV, just as we should report whatever SeaWorld wants to claim about Hargrove. SnowFire (talk) 00:13, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate what you're saying, but neither of those terms were quoted so they appeared to be the words of the editor. In any event, we can't cherrypick loaded terms that violate neutral tone. The replacement phrases say the same things without the incendiary tone. --Tenebrae (talk) 03:01, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Anyone can find quotes from anybody on different sides of an issue, and the quotes added to the article is both WP:CHERRYPICKING and original-research synthesis to make a point. --Tenebrae (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

These two made news. NAACP and MLK III are not just anybody, one is a large civil rights group the other is a very well known advocate of civil rights. How is it original research, they were both cited? Not including that these two organizations made a comment about his racist rant would seem to be white washing. VViking_TalkEdits 23:54, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

The NAACP-California didn't appear to make news? There was a press release is all I saw from the old reference. Moreover, it's still about something incidental. Lots of people have stupid drunken incidents, we don't closely report on it except as it has bearing on their actual reason for notability. There's some of that here since SeaWorld is the source of the video, but not enough to spend tons of space discussing the finer details and every little reaction. SnowFire (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Concur with SnowFire. Many things that anybody who's in the news does gets commented on by somebody or other. Anybody can comment about anything, and their opinions don't change the actual factual content of what occurred. --Tenebrae (talk) 17:54, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

(de-indent) Belated reply to "neither of those terms were quoted so they appeared to be the words of the editor" - I disagree. The sentence is prefaced with "Hargrove accused SeaWorld of conducting a smear campaign" ("media campaign?"). It doesn't get more explicit about the source then that! It isn't neutral, no, but it's still misleading to misrepresent Hargrove. It'd be better to remove it than misquote, even in the case it's "wrong." If John Doe accused the Pope of framing him for murder, either we report that highly contentious claim, or we don't; we wouldn't 'tone things down' and say "Doe accused the Pope of stealing his dog". If we need to use scare quotes to make it super-explicit this doesn't have the Wikipedia authorial voice behind it, let's do that. SnowFire (talk) 22:09, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi, SnowFire. I think we're on the same page but have some miscommunication. My point was that those words were not within quote marks in the text of this Wikipedia. Here's what the article said before you added the quote marks:

Hargrove accused SeaWorld of conducting a smear campaign against him to distract from the real issue of killer whales in captivity.

So, yes, without quote marks around the words "smear campaign," it does look like the words of the editor rather than Hargrove's. But you've added the quote marks, and that passage reads very clearly now.

Minor edit: We can't say "currently," "recently," "now," etc., as per WP:DATED. I'll made the minor adjustment. --Tenebrae talk 23:37, 13 April 2015

@SnowFire, you are incorrect about the content that you removed. I encouraged other wiki moderators to re-examine the deletions that snowfire made, as they were added by multiple contributors as I had stated. The remarks were originally in the "career" section of the page but I moved them down to a criticism section that I created. If you don't want to call it a criticism section, that is fine, but as it stands now this page has been completely whitewashed. As it currently stands, the page says, "Hargrove was drunk, he said some things, and it was all part of an evil plot by sea world." Really? How is this an objective perspective on what transpired? Hargrove's video caused a book store to cancel his appearance, his book sales have plummeted, and the NAACP and MLK III both condemned him. Snowfire alleges the NAACP didn't make the news, I encourage other wiki editors to fact check that. It made the NY Daily News as well as tons of other outlets. I believe the page right now trivializes the events and what they have meant for the book. Furthermore, I believe it is unbecoming of a wiki editor to removed well-sourced material from multiple contributors and attempt to glaze over the incident in two sentences. To be fair, I am only going to add the MLK criticism back in. But I encourage wiki editors to take a close look at the history and examine the deletions that Snowfire made. -Bloomin Onion

As a procedural note, let's re-examine that contested edit: [1] . I reverted *your* changes, Bloomin' Onion, but as the diff I linked hopefully makes clear, I didn't change what anyone else said. I did edit with Viewmont Viking earlier if you're referring to that, but I think we reached something of an accord on what would be fair, and it was hardly wholesale deletion.

I don't think it's in debate that SeaWorld is criticizing Hargrove (the "evil plot" comments)? SeaWorld has outright stated that the drunken video comes from "an internal whistleblower" at SeaWorld, and Awesome Ocean has created a website attacking John Hargrove and his book. So I think it's certainly fair to mention this. It is similarly not a matter of debate that Hargrove has called it a "smear campaign," although SeaWorld would surely refer to it as a "fact campaign" or the like. If you have some place specific where you feel the article is slanted, please feel free to point it out.

Do you have a source about his "plummeting book sales"? That'd actually be a useful addition to the article, although bear in mind that most books sell a lot of copies on release then tail off quickly afterward. You're actually correct that in so far as the controversy affected book sales, it is relevant to this article; but the source absolutely must do the connecting of the dots, not a Wikipedia editor performing original research.

As for why I'm opposed to including the NAACP react quote, see above; it's undue coverage of a tabloidy event only peripherally related to Hargrove's reason for notability. Lots of people have comments about everything. Nobody disputes that Hargrove's language was offensive; we don't need a parade of quotes saying "No, you shouldn't lightly toss around 'nigger'." It's like those "International Reactions to X Incident" sections seen sometimes after terrorist incidents and the like which are just a parade of "World Leader Z condemned the attack." These sections are bad ideas, as would be including every single quote we can find related to the drunken incident, as would be including every single quote & story from Beneath The Surface. SnowFire (talk) 19:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Snowfire, Would it be fair to point out that, as you said, "SeaWorld would surely refer to it as a 'fact campaign' or the like," or no? For now I'll leave it be, but something to consider right? Also, the sentence that is backed up by nothing but a facebook source needs to be deleted, so I'm going to go ahead and do that now. I hope we can both agree that facebook does not qualify as a reputable source for Wikipedia, and pulling out a facebook post (which didn't even come from Hargrove's facebook page) is certainly "original research." --Bloomin Onion

If the quote from MLK III or the NAACP was made from some joe blow off the street, or some editorial letter in a newspaper then no we don't need to include it. But it is from two well known civil rights groups/people saying he is not a good spokesperson for this cause. We typically include information when well known groups make criticism, look at all the times PETA is quoted in a number of articles, is that just "Anybody can comment about anything, and their opinions don't change the actual factual content of what occurred"? Should all of those quotes be deleted throughout Wikipedia if your answer is yes, then let us get started. If your answer is no then why is this one different?VViking_TalkEdits 11:52, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Onion: The Facebook reference is suboptimal, yes. It seems there are other references available though so do you object to the content or just the sourcing? Again I'd honestly be fine with shaving this section even slimmer, but if we're going to go into detail, the apology seems relevant enough.

Viewmont: It depends! Basically if it's something like a movie, you expect lots of "reaction quotes" in a reception section, sure, because societal reaction is very important to the topic. If it's one event in someone's life, and that event has basically nothing to do with the person's reason for prominence, then the proportion of "reaction quotes" needs to be a lot smaller, maybe even nonexistent. Hargrove is an animal trainer and activist. Look at something like the Max Mosley article; it spends a paragraph or two on the "sexy Nazi party" allegations but really only because Mosley sued a bunch of news organizations about it, and the lawsuits are relevant and need context. Without the lawsuits, Wikipedia should spend very little space discussing the matter, even if the tabloids loved it and provided plenty of sourceable news stories on it. SnowFire (talk) 21:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Tenebrae, when you made the deletion you pointed out that two editors did not find the quotes fitting. It is clear that there are two editors who believe that at least one of these quotes should be included. I think it is unreasonable to attempt to cover this incident while making no reference the reaction that it drew from the public. I do not want to start an "edit war" but I urge you to consider putting in at least one of the two quotes in the interest of fairness. --Bloomin Onion

Onion: In general, in a dispute, Wikipedia favors the side who wants to keep material *out*, especially for biographies of living people. Better a short and incomplete article than an unbalanced one. That said, if you really feel passionately about this, there are forums where we can ask for more input. SnowFire (talk) 21:21, 17 April 2015 (UTC)