Talk:TJ Fisher

Many issues

I suspect there is a WP:COI issue going on here.

I have removed lots of material from this article, for a number of reasons (check the history for more line-specific reasoning). The article contained a number of quotes and musings from Ms. Fisher that are not relevant. An encyclopedia article should state facts, in clear, unadorned language. It should not have excruciating detail about her, her clothing, etc. when she is a marginal figure at best. Consider vastly more famous people, like Bill Gates and Angelina Jolie, whose pages make no mention of their clothing style.

In addition, references need to be added that make her notability clear. As it stands, I am unsure whether she is notable enough for a Wikipedia page.

I will be watching this page. I respectfully ask that you do not revert my edits unless you are able to explain how the content I removed does not violate Wikipedia's policies. Conical Johnson (talk) 03:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Conical asked me to look at this page and leave my thoughts. I think the previous version of the page was totally fancruft and looked like it had been edited by someone with a conflict of interest. For example, the fact that Fisher owns one of the original Howdy Doody marionettes is largely irrelevant and doesn't belong on the page, much less in the lead. Text like "Fisher is a chameleon-like writer" and "Always one to make quite a fashion statement, Fisher's idiosyncratic and memorable way of dressing" is a sign of peacock text. The current article is considerably better, and I would support it over the old version.

Some things I would consider changing: there are a few too many headers, so try to combine the Katrina text, awards and other such stuff. I would recommend looking at articles of other authors to see what sections are considered standard, but I would think section headers like "Early life", "Career", and "Bibliography" would be standard. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 03:43, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

ConicalJohnson/Boolalah remarks and threads

ConicalJohnson comments and article deletions were meant for Wikipedian contributor and editor Boolalah. The relevant back-and-forth thread of conversation dialogue is posted and may be accessed/followed on the Boolalah Talk Page. Boolalah has addressed the (initial) multiple issues of seemingly rude, snide, direct personal attack comments attached to ConicalJohnson’s editorial deletions, and the improper posting of the afore direct "open letter" with an improper salutation to the (living person) subject matter of the article, "TJ Fisher." ConicalJohnson recently posted a less terse communication; both editors seek to work together in a collaborative not warring fashion. The pillars of Wikipedia are based on a collaborative effort of volunteer editors of many diverse backgrounds and opinions, coming together; editors striving to share and shape referenced, cited and verifiable information in the creation of notable articles of interest and accuracy, and a NPOV from all. Boolalah (talk) 21:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC))

Contributor's request for collaborative agreement to remove improper WP notability tag and comments

Article topics are required to be notable, or "worthy of notice." It is important to note that a notability determination does not necessarily depend on things like fame, importance, or the popularity of a topic. (Notability is not temporary.) The subject matter at hand qualifies under notability guidelines for Books [award] and People category [coverage for Photo Howdy Doody (improperly deleted from article)] and press-coverage for protracted litigation [$60M suit and $33.3M dollar judgment/reversal]. Too much notable detail was purged from the living person biography article, regarding material relevant to their notability, while omitting information that is irrelevant to the subject's notability. Boolalah (talk) 18:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Undue weight

Please stop adding this content:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TJ_Fisher&diff=317204719&oldid=317177052

It is completely irrelevant to this person's notability that she lives on Bourbon Street and drives a Cadillac. Your claimed explanation for this is that Fats Domino is notable for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Conical_Johnson#Lack_of_response_on_earlier_postings.2Fre:_Boolalah_contributions_and_a_collaborative_effort

TJ Fisher is an extremely marginal figure, whereas Fats Domino is extremely well-known the world-over. And even then, Fat's car is not mentioned in the lead. See WP:NPF. It says that for people who are relatively unkown, we should "include only material relevant to their notability, while omitting information that is irrelevant to the subject's notability". Just being verifiable does not mean content deserves to be in an article. As I pointed out in my previous edit, the lead is not for opinions, and since her claimed notability is as an author, quotes about how "outrageous" she is have no place in this article. If you add this content again, instead of edit warring with you, I'll ask some third parties to come in and give their opinion on this. I don't want to just revert war over this, it's pointless. Conical Johnson (talk) 02:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh come on, this is still going on? This article is not meant to be a fan page; it's supposed to be neutral. Just because you can prove that Fisher lives on Bourbon St does not mean that it's worthy of being included here. Conical is correct here. I'm going to keep an eye on this page. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 12:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I've severely cut down this article. I removed a great deal of puffery about her. It almost seems like this article had been created from a press release about her, or maybe a bio page or something. Either way, it didn't belong here. My concern now is that the Real estate and controversy section is a little too long, and that should probably be fixed.

Let me clarify something again. Directly from WP:INDISCRIMINATE: just because something is verifiable does not make it worthy of inclusion. Text about where she lives and what she drives and whatever should not be included unless there is some given reason why that is unusual or worthy of noting. And if you do find some reason to include it, list it here on the talk page and I'd be more than happy to discuss if it should be added. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 13:44, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Wiki Contributors

Helpful instructional Wiki contributor/editor sharing collaboration effort can be sincere and real. Sincerity is not passive-aggressive. Repeated tags for notability, ongoing suggestions and tags for citing, dereferences and verification — then repeated sarcasm and complaints (deletions of things previously noted for reference, then verified), is not the way of sincere Wikipedians. This page remains non-nuetralPOV, snide and mean-spirited. Some changes/deletions made were good regarding excessive detail. Others were inappropriate. Article creators can add too much detail. Editors on a mission to remove relative detail they do not "get" in the scope of an article as a unit damage Wiki articles. Purposeful or not. Recent changes includes major factual errors. Mistakes need fixed. A new non-biased, non-angry, NPOV contributors/editor (non Blue Man) with an understanding biographical pages about living people needs to rewrite the page. Boolalah (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay. First, I don't know who Blue Man is. Second, can you point out specific things in the article that you believe are snide, non-POV or mean spirited? If you keep making these generalities, we're not going to get anywhere. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 20:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Want to collaborate not drama push. Seek Wikipediana with civil additions/contributions to and the accepting of inevitable criticism on an article or content building and research. People bios, contributions with citations and references takes work, research and interaction. First, waiting for Conical Johnson to strike/delete the (unreported) direct address to TJ Fisher on the Discussion Page as it is violates Wikipedia policy as a prohibited personal attack that is bad for the article and contributor(s). On shaping Articles Wikipedia Notables aren't always household names. Repeatedly demeaning a article subject and calling verified, cited, references a "bio" appears non-neutral. Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability. Sourced material relevant to the subject's notability is supposed to be included. On this editor collaboration things concurrent (referenced) with the subject matter's notability keep being deleted. Suggest guidance be sought from the notice board for bios of living persons(?). Boolalah (talk) 18:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Note that all personal address to TJ Fisher has already been removed from this page. Conical Johnson (talk) 18:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

You really need to read WP:BLP. I don't see the address that you're talking about, and there are no personal attacks on this page. And I don't think we're discussing notability anymore; it's been pretty much established. As to your claim about criticism/praise: uhh, what? This article is supposed to be from a neutral point of view, which means to show both the good and the bad. Just because you don't like the fact that this article talks about the real estate stuff doesn't mean that it doesn't get included.

Oh, and there have been no edits made to this page in eight days, so I don't know what you're going on about how things "keep being deleted." Since you're clearly not responding to anything on this talk page, I don't know how much further we're going to get. Seems kind of futile to keep refuting the same talking points over and over. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 18:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Read WP:BLP and articles for tone, good/bad form for an interesting article, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR. Thanks for the formatting. Advanced stuff for a newbie. On defending article quality, it's over edited. The controversary stuff was researched belongs in. Three notability points: (Book) Nationally acclaimed award-winning post-K narrative/pictorial book for New Orleans. Too much deleted on the "notable" pro-New Orleans book including San Francisco Chronicle and Booklist review mentions. (Howdy Doody) also goes to strange notability, it is/was an international thing/news, more should come in. (Controversy/RE) the other edits make it unbalanced. Lead seems skimpy not enough overview. The subject matter's notable book(s) are about the French Quarter, notability of the book and subject matter go w/the Quarter. The book is about preserving/saving it and rebuilding New Orleans. Noted eccentricities that go with notability should not stripped out. Press comments, trademark pink car, Bourbon Street, seem notable unusual oddities. Doubt Wikipedians can say weird or infamous so "colorful" seems less derogatory? Living on Bourbon goes to bizarre. Is there a WIki personal-safety issue for the subject matter about saying Bourbon Street? If is better to work in small page increments at a time? Please help, do to indent on conversation? Boolalah (talk) 23:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Finally, some specifics. Let me reference some Wiki policies first and get them out of the way:

• Per WP:COPYVIO, we cannot make articles that are just copy-and-pasted versions of other sources.
• Per WP:FANCRUFT, this is not supposed to turn into an article full of facts that only a handful of people care about. To that end, delightful eccentricities and weird quirks about someone are probably not worthy of inclusion.
• Per WP:INDISCRIMINATE, "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." Something "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia."

Now to address specifics. I removed the book reviews because there's a difference between saying that a book received praise and that "other media quoted Fisher’s “passionate” and “poetic” prose about saving, preserving and rebuilding her adopted hometown of New Orleans." The former is WP:NPOV, the latter is not. This page should not turn into a list of every single place that a book has been mentioned. If it did, the article would be enormous. If it's something particularly special, then maybe it gets in.

The Howdy Doody thing is in there, it's just not right in the lead. (It's under Personal life.) And it doesn't really belong in the lead, either. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should be a general overview of the article. It should neutrally state who the person is, their career, and whatever. The lead is rather small, I agree, but the alternative is a gushing piece about Fisher's pink Cadillac.

As to the notable eccentricities: I think I already covered this above, but I'll state it again: they're not really worthy of inclusion, since all they do is turn this article into a fanpage. Having said that, I suppose we could let some through if we could find a reliable source. This page was given as a source for the pink Cadillac thing. But that's not a particularly reliable source, and the only reference on there to the car is in some guy's review. Find an actual reliable source and then we can talk about it. The other quirks should be investigated on a case-by-case basis.

As to the Bourbon St thing, I don't really think it should be in there. There's a "personal safety" policy in that we're not allowed to publish personal information like addresses and phone numbers. I don't get where you're coming from, though: in one sentence you say that we should mention that she lives on Bourbon St, and in the next you ask about if there's a safety issue. Do you want it in or not? I would be okay with saying that she either lives in NOLA or, more specifically, the French Quarter.

You should really read WP:PUFFERY - the symptoms listed pretty much sound like what we're going through here. "...[L]isting of minor biographical details (such as specific radio show appearances and minor speeches given)" - we have that with the book reviews; "adding lots of footnotes to non-reliable sources or sources that do not mention the subject" - we certainly had that before with linking to Morgana Press.

You may also want to take a look at some other articles, particularly FA-class bio articles. These are articles that have been selected by Wiki users as being the best of their kind.

I know I wrote a lot, but you should give it a read and think about your edits. I'm not saying that the current version of the article is perfect - it most certainly is not - but it is a much better version as compared to what it was before - at least in terms of following Wikipedia guidelines. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Break

Back on line. Will work on article. Bios include some color. Will try to collaborate. Remain open to help but not page guarding. Seek to collaborate on unoriginal research without Arbitration.Boolalah (talk) 19:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back. I've cleaned up your recent edit. First, don't just bundle them all into one ref tag - separate them out and put one link in each tag. I've said this at least a half a dozen times, but I'll say it again - this page is not mean to put Fisher up on a pedestal. We aren't going to list every single nomination that her books ever received, and silver and bronze medals aren't really worthy of inclusion. The only thing that should be listed here are first place awards from notable organizations. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 21:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Please strike the above "you" (on a pedestal) and "your" (book) comments (to TJ Fisher) when critiquing Boolalah edits. This violates WIki policy. Boolalah (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)Boolalah (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

So done. On a side note, I've removed the Hoffer thing; I fail to see how Eric Hoffer is at all related to Fisher, and "silver nod" is both unnecessary for this article and is pretty puffed up. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 00:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Added deleted gold award. Point missed. Other deleted awards signify book's serious message, tone, noteworthiness. Eric Hoffer literary recognition and current events/political category nod relate to strong post-Katrina/pro-New Orleans voice and prose. Factual awards "puffed up"? No. Familiarity with the work's message (See Amazon "Look Inside) and New Orleans is relevant.Boolalah (talk) 05:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You seriously need to stop adding WP:POV text. Stuff like "an emotional portrayal celebrating the spirit and love New Orleanians have for their city" and "passionate reflection on the city" is pushing a point of view for the book and is unacceptable. Further, "Fisher’s calls New Orleans the city of “Magical Thinking.”" does nothing for the article; it's pure fancruft that does not improve the prose in any way. On top of all that, the text you keep adding is going beyond the scope of this article. This article is about Fisher, and the stuff you're adding is more about one of her books. The stuff on this article should be about things that Fisher is directly involved in. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 07:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yikes! Again? I don't have much time these days to edit WP, but I support HelloAnnyong's edits. I don't think your assertion that "bios contain some color" is supported on Wikipedia. When a person is extremely famous and has been deemed to be heavily influential in the world, like John Lennon, then a little more coverage of that person's thoughts and personality is given, because these thoughts are seen as having powerful influence over society. But the level of detail has to always be proportional to the level of notability and influence, and in the case of a relatively obscure figure, these details don't belong in the article. I think there is a specific set of actions to be taken here, but I'll leave those thoughts on the appropriate user talk page. Perhaps a 4th opinion should be brought in so we can have a clear consensus? Conical Johnson (talk) 09:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Wiki is improper for bully attitude, aggressive non-nuetral POV and "super star" obsession for comparatives. Words deleted came from press. Now will cite/ref each word. Grammar rewrites welcome. Citing notable book verified info is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boolalah (talk • contribs) 17:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, you're clearly not getting this. There are very strict guidelines on articles about living persons, and you continue to add POV text. Since two people telling you not to add text like that to the article is clearly insufficient, I'm going to get outside opinions on this. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 19:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, you're clearly not getting this. You do not get WP:BLP guidelines on reverting good-faith edits with NPOV/V/NOR/high quality secondarily sourced material relevant to notability, avoiding both understatement and overstatement.

Details for HelloAnnyong to restore to article:

1. Author lives in and writes books about the French Quarter (distinctive from New Orleans). 2. Reference to author's award-winning book [page notability (versus separate merit)], i.e. quoted references from San Fran Chronicle.

Will also seek unbiased BLP Board, Editor Assistance.

Boolalah (talk) 18:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)