Talk:Justin Berry/Archive 2

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Justin Berry on Oprah

I recently wrote a subjective analysis of Berry's appearance on today's (rerun) episode of Oprah on my talk page. Unlike what I've written here, it isn't trying to objectively analyze the fact set, but rather to give my impression upon observing Berry in the act of telling his story. It may be illuminating, or it may just be one man's opinion. Take it for what it's worth. We should, however, work up inclusion of some of the details Berry & Kurt Eichenwald gave on the show into this article, so it becomes less dependent on the New York Times as a source, and, hopefully, less controvesial by having a broader base of support.--Ssbohio 02:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Uncited information removed from article to talk page

I removed the following information from the article because it was uncited & potentially inflammatory/derogatory. I relied on the archived discussion of WP:OFFICE's application to this article & of my reading of WP:BIO.

(Information deleted per WP:BLP and the passage of 4 months without any corroboration being presented.) --Ssbohio 18:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

TOCRight removed

I have removed the {{TOCright}} because I think the talk archive looks much better with out. I took two screenshots. Here is one with the tocright [1] and one without the tocright [2]. I believe the latter arrangement looks significantly better, no matter what it "historically" looked like. Hbdragon88 05:06, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

While I still think it matters what historical consensus has been, I also think it looks fine the way you've changed it. Thanks for the improvement. --Ssbohio 03:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Third Opinion on ampersand disagreement

Interesting article, glad this dispute gave me a chance to read it! I also note that both Ssbohio and (&) Hbdragon88 have made constructive edits contributing to the article. I note that there are relatively few ampersands at stake and have carefully read your discussions on user pages etc. and I think I understand where you are both coming from. However, SSbohio asked for an opinion, not mediation, so here is mine;

In the original edit [3] made by Hbdragon88 only two ampersands were changed and none in the URLs for the external links. In my opinion this made the text a little easier to read and it scanned more easily. The later revision [4] clearly needed to be fixed, but I think that the visible ampersands should have been left out. I find the new one which appeared in the " Larry King Live & C-SPAN" sentence to be incongruous. While I know that this is not a style policy I think that the 'stray' ampersands tend to distract because they appear to be used at random. However, if there is a particular reason for their inclusion (the Ampersand article cites its use in the name of professional firms) then I would not think they should be globally removed. I hope this opinion helps. All the best to both of you. Ekilfeather 13:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much, Ekilfeather, for your help & opinion. The ampersand is part of my natural style of writing, &, while I have no objection to replacing it with "and" in the article, I do have the concern that as I continue to edit this article, it will become a ping-pong situation, with my edits constantly being copyedited, even though they were in keeping with the MoS in the first place. It's the philosophy represented by the arbitration commitee in the Jguk case, where they identified the problem, finding that (emphasis mine):

When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to English spelling as opposed to American spelling it would be acceptable to change from American spelling to English spelling if the article concerned an English subject. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article is colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles as both are acceptable.

My preferences aside, I was wondering if your had considered the question of hbdragon88's use of the "&amp" HTML in place of the ampersand? My feeling is that using the HTML code will make the artcle harder to edit, especially for inexperienced editors, and that it is an unnecessary complication since the MediaWiki software already correctly renders the ampersand. So it's clear, I have nothing against the use of "and" in the article, just against removing the "&" for no other reason than that it's there, since it, too, is acceptable.--Ssbohio 14:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that a non-visible ampersand, when correctly dealt with by the software, should be left alone. It would seem to be an unnecessary extra bit of work to replace the character with an HTML entity. Generally URLS are copy/pasted from address bars in web browsers into the article text and I, for one, and you for two, wouldn't bother to convert it. On the other hand if someone else wanted to go to the bother of doing it for me I wouldn't object either :-) Visible ampersands in the text are, to my taste, a little distracting. Previous to starting wikipedia edits my writing experience has been academic and the guidelines I was introduced to discouraged the use of ampersands in the body text. As for wikipedia house style I agree that ampersands are not specifically discouraged. However, the use of contractions are discouraged and that section in the MOS states; "In general, formal writing is preferred." [5]. I have no firm evidence to support this view, but my guess is that most readers would marginally prefer "and" to "&" in the body text. I also think that the Jguk case is a little different in so far as the BC/BCE reverts reflect a certain socio-political difference between editors. I would say that the "and" vs. "&" discussion reflects only a "punctuation philosophy" (if such a thing can exist). I think the use of "and" is the more formal and, as such, is a little more in keeping with the spirit of the WP:MOS. I don't suggest for a moment that you need to change the way you write, I think that getting good content down is by far the more important task. However, I've copy edited plenty of articles myself and had my own prose copyedited (sometimes even by robots - oh, the shame :-), the important thing being that the meaning of the text remains unchanged. For this reason I agree that semi-automatic conversions are dangerous, you spotted the danger with the modified URL, but also because such a change might affect the meaning of text, even subtly (as the story goes wars have begun over a missing comma). Hbdragon88's original copy edit I think only reflected only his tendency towards what he regarded as the more formal style (correct me if I am wrong). Best. --Ekilfeather 13:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I really find your comments delightful. You helped me to see this situation with a bit more good humor than I felt at first. It reminds me of the argument in favor of the serial comma: "I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand, and God" expresses a different idea than "I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God." One is a list of people to thank, and the other claims God as a parent. In any regard, I perceive that, on the one hand, ArbCom was pretty clear about not making edits to change from one style to another where either is acceptable, but, likewise, formal style has definite merits. Since process is important, I'd like to see someone who feels strongly about deprecating "&" in favor of "and" propose that as an MoS change, thus allowing consensus to dictate the style. My view is ratifies the current status, where either is acceptable, is good, and that change for its own sake, isn't. Also, if you're interested, take a look at the talk page archive to see the foundation for my skittishness about edits to this article. Thanks again for your help. --Ssbohio 16:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Film

• *A feature film based on Justin Berry's life, Justin.com, began filming in July. Written, directed by Miguel Horte and starring Matthew Newton as Justin, ...

Does anyone have a source for this? I can't find any mention anywhere. -Will Beback 08:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I checked Google & IMDB. I can't find any notes on it. I'm going to remove it It has already been removed, apparently based on BLP. --Ssbohio 18:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Keep your eyes peeled; it keeps returning. -Will Beback 19:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)