Talk:Kingsley Fletcher

Kingsley Fletcher

I am with the Ghanaian High Commission and have checked land records. The guy in question is a North Carolina (USA)based preacher who doesn't even reside in Africa, let alone govern a "kingdom". In fact the Se area he claims doesn't even exist. Local reputation is that he is a shameless self promoter who breezes into Ghana a few times a year on semi-legitimate business deals to make money and take it back to the states. World leader - no. King - no. Preacher who has published a few books - yes. Literally thousands of folks in Ghana are tribal leaders by virtue of lineage but such association does not warrant a Wiki page. Take it down. Is offensive to locals who know better. (talk) Greatminds99 (talk) 23:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Ghanaians do not even claim the guy Greatminds99 (talk) 23:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Greatmind - thank you for your input. Unfortunately we cannot accept your input as authoritative without confirming your status as a representative of the Ghana High Commission. If you could alert us as to which High Commission you are located, then an administrator can contact you directly for confirmation of your statements. Your privacy will be maintained at all times. You can email me by clicking here and following the "E-mail this user" link in the "toolbox" on the left-side navigation menu. Manning (talk) 04:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

If what Greatminds99 says is true, then part of the page Ga people will have to be re-written: it lists Shai as part of Ga-Adangbe. Is this really incorrect, and are we going to accept the say-so of someone who says so by email? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I went through them all and not one of the references about the Ga people makes any mention of the Shai or Se people. Feel free to check them again in case I missed something. Also this very old ref states that in 1948 the Shai tribal group had a population of approx 18000 (with a caveat that it might be less, or that it might be more) and that they were distinct from the Ga people. Bah, who knows? Manning (talk) 14:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Who is this guy?

Who is this guy, for real? A preacher in NC who writes/sells lots of books: [1]. Then there are lots of blogs that accuse him of being a fraudster (I'm not proposing to use these as sources here). He's a king? In looking for news sources, mostly I get press releases about this Malta business, and the "World Public Forum", whatever that is. This whole thing seems like a PR exercise. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, he's mainly known as an author, as far as I know. And he's almost certainly a fraudster, but this article might not be the best forum to discuss it. I used to work for a company that published his books. His date of birth (April 1, 1956) is printed in the biographical paragraph on the backs of many of his books. Why is any more of a citation needed? I've pursued a number of biographical articles on Wikipedia, and none of them have citations specifically for a birth date; it's just assumed to be public knowledge to anyone with a library card. And the same is true here. --Mikhailovich (talk) 14:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Fine, not a big deal. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Knights of Malta?

Further thoughts on this article, and especially on this "Knights of Malta" business: I gather, from having done a bit of searching and reading (e.g. here) that most of these "orders" are scams. Two possibilities to consider, then: 1) this article was originally written by or on behalf of Fletcher himself and he is trying to use "being knighted" as part of the PR on offer here. 2) Someone else has included the claim "being knighted", knowing it to be a scam, as part of an effort to discredit Fletcher. Either way, and given that the only source offered for it is a press release written/offered by a PR agency, I propose to delete that sentence. Any thoughts? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'd back you up on that. I've suspected for a while that Creativecontinent is either Fletcher himself or someone with a clear PR agenda for the article. S/He's the one who keeps removing the birth date and adding in all the "His Majesty" nonsense. --Mikhailovich (talk) 01:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

@Mikhailovich: I think Wikipedia should add a rule where if you're not from the region or at least very familiar with the region, you should NOT be allowed to edit. "His Majesty", what you refer to as "nonsense" is a very common terminology used for kings in Ghana when translated from local dialect. I suggest you read more about the Ghanaian culture in that regard. That said, the whole Malta thing makes no sense and is very out of place. --Simon T8W (talk) 09:04, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

The information about being knighted by the Knights of Malta is true. The confusion may be around the article using an abbreviated term, Knight's of Malta rather than the full proper name of the actual order he was Knighted under. The 'Knights Hospitallers of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta - The Ecumenical Order' is the actual order. More information can be found about the order at http://www.knightshospitallers.org/index.htm. Actual photos of Drolor Bosso Adamtey being Knighted can be found on the website as well. This should provide some level of validity. Click on http://www.knightshospitallers.org/invest_malta.htm. Other photos to cross reference Drolor Bosso Adamtey I [aka. Dr. Kingsley Fletcher] can be viewed at http://www.seghana.com.

The information that Mr Plating wants removed is reliably sourced, and he is trying to substitute a reference that does not meet WP:RS. End of story. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 09:37, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Article in several 2006 Mexican newspapers

In El Torreón del Siglo here (google translation from Spanish) calls him a false King, points out that Ghana is a Republic. Says that there is a region called Shana, but it hasn't got an autonomy that allows a king, and Ghana's laws don't allows monarchies inside the country. Calls the king a "charlatan" and chastizes the ex-rector of an university for not recognizing the "fraud".

It also gives details of his "other half of life" as a religous preacher:

"Mr Fletcher (or the King and Queen?) Founded in 1985 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the Life Community Church. Before doing so, reads the page of that church? Dr. Fletcher had already traveled extensively as a missionary evangelist and had established over 200 churches worldwide?."

"The Life Community Church (Church life in the community) is only a portion of the vast conglomerate run by Fletcher, identified with the name Kingsley A. Fletcher Miniestries, which includes initiatives linking both sides of the preacher-king: Life for Africa Inc, for example, founded in 1993, said participation in the distribution of drugs [meaning medicines], we do not know what title. The credit division, however, is the most striking. It's called Covenant Community Credit Union, offering a broad business method. Examples are securities issued by its Hispanic version, the Cooperativa comunitaria latina de crédito [translates to Latino Community Credit Cooperative], all of which operates within a broad group of buildings, the North Carolina Minority Support Center."

It's also mentioned in weekly Proceso[2] "However, the supposed king turned out to be, in fact, founder of a sorts of sects and not a dipplomatic representant of Shai" and in La Jornada de Oriente[3]. They all cite the Torreón source that I linked at the start of my post. (journalist Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, in an column called "Plaza pública" of 3 November 2006). The university records the visit here, "Visita Rey de Ghana. Dr. Kingsley Fletcher – Drolor Bosso Adamtey 1ero." --Enric Naval (talk) 16:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Ghuana is a republic, to be sure, but there are still tribal "kings" who have power and standing. The BBC explains the situation in regard to the Ashanti King. My assumption was that he may come under that system, given other sources which seem to accept his status. It is interesting, either way. :) - Bilby (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've made a quick clean up of the translation of the above editorial. You can access it at my user page here. It's written in the bombastic style typical of Latin American editorials. Actually quite humorous. --Whoosit (talk) 19:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, looks great. I've just added a bunch of references -- including several that are solely about him (not incidental mentions). Now the question is whether anyone on the AfD will pay attention, revise opinions on notability... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:46, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Undue weight on Mexican report

I'm concerned that this article is placing undue weight on the Mexican editor's claim about his status. It seems unbalanced, as we only have the opinion of one editor to say that he wasn't a king, yet multiple sources that say he is, at least, a Suapolor, and we know that the Mexican report was wrong in at least on significant respect (Ghana is a republic, but it also has chiefs and at least one tribal "king"). I'm not sure how best to balance it, but at the moment the article seems overly negative in tone, rather than neutral. - Bilby (talk) 12:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I understand the concern. But the incident did get reported in two other newspapers as well. It's a bit odd: on the AfD people are arguing that this article should be deleted because he couldn't possibly be a king -- but there are three articles reporting on the view that he isn't really a king and we shouldn't say something about that using those sources? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I just think we have a balance problem in a BLP, which are always ugly by their very nature. We have three Mexican papers claiming that he's not a king. Fair enough. However, two of those are directly quoting the first, and the first has a significant inaccuracy. Then, on the other sie, we have multiple sources referring to him as King, or at least Suapolor. For example, we know that he was invited to speak as King at the African Presidential Roundtable in Berlin this year [4], that he was to speak at the North Carolina Central University School of Business [5] last year, and that he spoke at the World Congress of Families this year [6]. I'm not sure how to fix it, but there seems to be an over reliance on the Mexican report, leading the article to be quite unbalanced. I'm sure the Mexican report warrants a mention, my concern is how to do it fairly. :) - Bilby (talk) 12:57, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly willing to work on resolution of BLP issues. It also seems that there's a problem of logic in the way the article progresses: it now refers to critiques of the view that he is a king without first presenting the view that he is a king. We could use something like the NCCU source for that -- but I'm not sure about the quality of that source: a university media (PR) office will want to inflate the impression of grandeur of an event they are trying to promote (and in this case they present him as "King Adamtey I of Ghana", as if he rules the whole country). In any event perhaps the article should give greater weight to the notion that he is a king -- though we ought to try to know more about what this means in the Ghanaian context, I think. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do with the article. It's worth a shot, anyway. - Bilby (talk) 10:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Suapolor and Se people.

I went and researched this "Suapolor" title as it is redlinked... and I can't find any evidence that this title even exists, other than in articles either written by or referring to Mr Fletcher.

I also can't find much detail on the existence of the Shai people other than they are a small tribal group that travel around a lot to work on farms. see this link here. There IS a Shai Hills Reserve (see here) which is a 51 km² nature reserve located 50 kms north-east of Accra. Manning (talk) 15:15, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

It would really help if there were a way to get input from someone with local knowledge. As for whether the word exists apart from our subject: a google search with the terms (suapolor -adamtey) gives two results that refer to people other than Fletcher -- here and here. The meaning hardly seems equivalent to the English word "king" -- but this is an act of interpretation on my part. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the second reference provides a translation: suapolor is given in parenthesis as development chief -- so I have added it. I doubt there will be an article on the term, so I have de-wikified it as well. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Cool - nicely hunted! Manning (talk) 07:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Stolen Valor

He is also wearing highly rated US military awards for valor and combat. According to POW.network there is no records of this person being awarded these medals or had military service. Also he is wearing them incorrectly as well. Also some of the awards he have multiple ribbons of can only be earned once and thus only one is worn. The Army Service Ribbon is the third row from the bottom. Also the US military uses devices on a single ribbon to note additional awards rather then the wear of a additional ribbon. Also you wear the medal or the ribbon, not both as he has done with the Purple Heart Medal. Also none of the ribbions are in the right order according to the standards of the US Military. Articseahorse (talk) 02:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies632.htm

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Blanking

Editors wishing to delete well-sourced material should discuss it here, rather than simply reverting. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:15, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Simon T8W: please have a look at WP:SOURCEACCESS and WP:DEADREF("Do not delete a citation merely because the URL is not working"). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

@Simon T8W: This blanking has resumed and needs to stop. Discuss your concerns here -- but first review the links I've already given you more than 3 years ago (in this section). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: I have discussed precisely why what you're doing is wrong. Yet you're refusing to reason with me or anyone else against what you're doing. It's a terrible idea to be known for edit warring and Suck Puppetry. See WP:INACCURATE WP:IAI and WP:INAPPROPRIATE WP:ICW to learn more about inaccurate information.

I'm really not sure what you mean; in any event you are not responding here to the points made in this section about WP:SOURCEACCESS and WP:DEADREF. You'll really need to stop deleting sourced content, especially in the absence of clarity about any other concerns. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

@Nomoskedasticity: because you're refusing to be sure of what me or anyone is trying to say. It is obvious you want your will to triumph over everyone else. If you look at the edit history, it's just you rolling back the article to include paragraphs from deadlinks which are very false. What is your aim for doing this young man? Why keep a paragraph for an article that deteriorates the quality of the content? I'm not sure how many articles you do this vandalism to but if there are any other articles you do this to, then you must be banned. I encourage you to stop the edit warring. Simon T8W (talk)

You don't appear to have looked at the policies in those links. Nor have you established that the information is false. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:39, 10 November 2020 (UTC)