Talk:Mike Mandel

Mike Mandel Wikipedia page edits that have been deleted

Hello Lopifalko,

I am Mike Mandel the subject of the Wikipedia page that you are administering. Thank you for taking the time to initiate this page, I very much appreciate it. However, a friend of mine, 172.101.46.37, has informed me that he has tried to create new content for my page, but that you have consistently removed most of it. When I look at the page as currently constructed it includes short narrative information that is about my work from the 1970s, or recent shows and publications that refer back to work from the 1970s. And lists. 172.101.46.37 has tried to include more context about the early work, but that has been deleted. I would appreciate having this information included on the page. You have removed all references to my group exhibitions. In fact, you only allow for one listing. And you have removed all references to my 25 year career as a public artist! In effect, the page that you've created makes it seem that I have been dead since the 1970s (other than one sentence that identifies that since 2016 I am living in Boston (incorrect: I am living in Watertown, MA), and that I am married to Chantal Zakari. 172.101.46.37 has attempted to write about all of the collaborations that I have accomplished with Chantal Zakari as the current page does not provide any meaningful narrative information about these projects. I would appreciate it if you would take a look at all the deleted material that I have pasted below and perhaps if there are inadequate annotations, you could provide some suggestions on how to include the information. When I look at pages of other artists constructed by others, there is much more narrative information. Take a look at Tom Lehrer's page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer There are many, many paragraphs of narrative information that provide a rich context for this artist's creative work. That is what's missing from my page. Perhaps you have done this because the annotations are not adequate. If you can suggest to 172.101.46.37 how to better provide you with that information, it would be greatly appreciated. I have copied below the material that 172.101.46.37 has submitted but has been deleted by you. Please see what you can do to have this material (or most of this material) included on the page so that the page can have the contextual information that, in my opinion, it so badly needs. I look forward to hearing from you. If you like you can email me directly: mike@thecorner.net

-Mike MandelMike124ipedia (talk) 15:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello Mike Mandel and thank you for coming here to explain. I removed 172.101.46.37's prior poor edits, but it was not me that removed their recent good edits. I restored some of that recently removed content, but I see what you mean there is other worthwhile content that is worth restoring.

172.101.46.37 originally added various content with issues: lists of unsourced claims; prose that was way too detailed, and almost entirely made up of quotations. We very much appreciate additions that are not overly detailed and that are sourced with that Wikipedia considers independent reliable sources. If I didn't include anything then it was either because I could not find the sources to back the info up; or because I wanted to cover just the most notable aspects of your career that I could learn of through the media that I read, and that demonstrated your notability, and yet left room for expansion — Wikipedia is always a work in progress.

I removed all of what 172.101.46.37 had done, leaving the following comment as to why I had done so: "This article has been ruined. Where to start... excessive use of quotations (long unbroken slabs of text), unsourced lists of claims. Reverting to before 172.101.46.37 showed up!". (You can see this change here).

The issues I found with the lists of claims that 172.101.46.37 had added were: 15 "Grants and Awards", none of which were sourced; 7 solo exhibitions, 11 exhibitions with Larry Sultan, and 59 group exhibitions, none of which were sourced; 23 unsourced collections, even removing the 2 well sourced collections that I had originally added; a long list of "Permanent Public Art Commissions" and of "Temporary Public Art Projects", none of which were unsourced; a "Gallery Affiliation" section, which Wikipedia does not include, and even with an inline external link to the gallery website, all of which I consider to be spam.

All of the above were subsequently re-added with sources by 172.101.46.37. This was good. (You can see this change here)

A bot called "XLinkBot", not me, reverted that last addition of well sourced content, citing the reason as "https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikemandel/sets/ [\bflickr\.com\/photos\/]" — presumably it thought it had found an issue with some of the content. (You can see this change here). You can read on XLinkBot's page that "If your additions were reverted by XLinkBot, please take time to review our external links & spam guidelines, and take note that Wikipedia is not a repository of links, not a directory, nor an advertising service; one should not link to sites that contain (likely) copyright infringements, and when you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid linking to a site you are connected to. If you feel your addition was within these policies and guidelines, you may undo the changes made by XLinkBot. In all other cases, please discuss the links on appropriate talkpages first."

Appreciating that 172.101.46.37 had this time added well sourced content, I cherry picked the books, exhibitions, and collections, restoring them to the article. (You can see this change here). I didn't restore the group exhibitions because group exhibitions are less notable and in my opinion they are not so interesting for people to wade through, but this is open to debate. I have to admit that at this point I presumed the prose that XLinkBot removed was the same prose with issues that 172.101.46.37 had added. Now that I look at it I see that it is a completely different prose with all of the previous issues dealt with. Though it was not me that removed it, I can see that it is worth having and would have been worth me also re-adding after XLinkBot had removed it. The same is true for the "Permanent Public Art Commissions". Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Please note, it is easier for other editors such as myself to follow what is going on if submissions are made one logical piece at a time, with a comment as to what is being done with each addition. Thanks. -Lopifalko (talk) 14:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I have now added all of this back into the article, with amendments. -Lopifalko (talk) 14:07, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Lopifalko

Many thanks Lopifalko. The page is now much more comprehensive. Appreciate you taking the time to work this out! Both 172.101.46.37 and I send you our thanks. Mike124ipedia (talk) 21:45, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Mike Mandel

Thanks -Lopifalko (talk) 06:21, 20 April 2018 (UTC)