Talk:Richard Stapley

A fact from Richard Stapley appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 March 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that actor Richard Stapley, who was sometimes known by the stage name Richard Wyler, published his first novel at age 17?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/March.

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Disputed (lead and Early life)

Wrong information and details in article. I have started to look at this bio - I am the world's worst for (dis)believing gossip, press-releases and web-scraped, internet-published latter day sources as are often 'pounced-on' by Wikipedia editors in Good Faith and I am seeing the same info on several sites - it becomes WP:CIRCULAR and it's not clear which of the 'outside' sources came first.

I normally write on classic motorcycles and road-racing roughly between 1950s and 1980s, hence I am basically aware of the name Richard Wyler as used in the 1960s involving a business retailing motorcycle components which then changed ownership (hard-copy, period specialist source in my possession).

Early-stage searches of England and Wales records show Richard Stapley (Richard B Stapley) to have been born in Rochford, a small place near to, and north of, Westcliff-on-Sea and Southend-on-Sea, in July-September 1922, not June 1923 at Westcliff-on-Sea as stated in the lede.

Unequivocally, he married Elizabeth Emerson in 1963 as Richard B Stapley, with the further two separate marriage entries for his then-wife showing both of his surnames as variously used - Stapley and Wyler (I've done this before...).

Additionally, there was also a baby Richard M Stapley, born and died within the first six months of 1944, also at Rochford; this I surmise was an illegitimate from the father, Richard B Stapley (the initial M may have represented the first letter of the mother's surname). The birth also implies that the subject of the article was around, or still-visiting, Rochford in 1943/44, although the prose implies he was in the RAF and from Westcliffe. The co-incidences are compelling.

I don't propose to change the article details - yet - but it's better to put the links here whilst I have just done the early research, as I'm winding-down my Wikipedia activities and may not get back to it soon. I see a lot of this inaccuracy, some much worse, and it re-inforces why Wikipedia is not, and will never be, a Reliable Source.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 13:28, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]