Talk:Max Landis

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sexual assault allegation[edit]

Putting it here, just in case it mysteriously vanishes from the main article again.

Sexual assault allegation[edit]

On December 22, 2017, Max Landis was accused of sexual abuse and sexual assault by Anna Akana on Twitter, hours before the release of the Netflix film Bright.[1][2][3][4][5]

Sources are blogs and a twitter feed. Quoting directly from one of the sources: "it’s true that these are allegations on Twitter, many of them second-hand, and I haven’t seen any stories yet from a publication with fact-checkers and vetting."[6] Seems like a very good reason not to put this in an encyclopedia article, until more reliable sources can be found. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:05, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats, he now has a named accuser in Allie Goertz, who has accused him of sexual harassment. Posting here in case the page is scrubbed. Again.

[7]

MLS102 (talk) 20:19, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the sexual assault allegations should be in the article. It is ridiculous that Wikipedia, whose platform is to has an open website with creditable facts and information about topics. While we don't know if the sexual assaults had happened. We need to remember where there is smoke there is fire. A number of women did come forward.I am ashamed that Wikipedia is trying to silent the women who already have spoken out against Max Landis. For Wikipedia to claim that the sexual assault section is defamatory then they should delete the website.--Ncam (talk) 15:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Ncam[reply]

"where there is smoke there is fire" is such an inane expression, like as you haven't heard of Smoke machines or Dry ice.
An encyclopedia should stick to Reliable Sources. -- 109.76.131.91 (talk) 02:17, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Who did he sexually assault? Who did he sexually abuse? Who did he sexually harass? Max Landis has an abrasive personality which triggers a lot of sensitive people, but inviting Allie Goerts into a bathroom aka "Neverland" does not count as definitive sexual harassment because nothing happened. He could have just as easily had the intention offering her drugs, but we will never find out. I thought this site is supposed to be about facts, not rumours. Check the sources again if you must. This section could just have easily been called "Smear Campaign". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.88.49.110 (talk) 09:01, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Max Landis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 21:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopediac tone / industry news[edit]

This article seems to me to be too much in the vein of an industry magazine and less of an encyclopedia article. About half of the article is about upcoming projects and information about unproduced spec scripts. Normally an article about a industry figure will include a sentence or two about projects in production, but this article seems to be dominated by it. This can also be seen by the fact that almost all the sources are industry sources such as Variety and other even less reliable transient news site, as well as a lot of his own tweets, rather than more reliable academic sources. This leads to most of the article being quite trivial and hagiographic. I'm going to start paring it down and hopefully finding more sober, balanced sources. If you have objections or comments, please make them known. Ashmoo (talk) 16:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Max Landis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:31, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Sexual assault allegations[edit]

Daily omission of the allegations is kind of ridiculous. You can't just pretend it didn't happen because you like him.

I agree that the sexual assault allegations should be in the article. It is ridiculous that Wikipedia, whose platform is to has an open website with creditable facts and information about topics. While we don't know if the sexual assaults had happened. We need to remember where there is smoke there is fire. A number of women did come forward.I am ashamed that Wikipedia is trying to silent the women who already have spoken out against Max Landis. For Wikipedia to claim that the sexual assault section is defamatory then they should delete the website.--Ncam (talk) 15:14, 5 January 2018 (UTC)Ncam[reply]

RFC on current events and past incidents being included as controversies.[edit]

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus was reached to keep the section, but to take extreme caution to avoid biased sources. -- Gokunks (Speak to me) 03:58, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was concern from many editors regarding the addition of allegations against the subject of the article. Mainly with unreliable or bad sources (such as blogs) that contained potentially libellous information. I changed this to this, with opinionated wording & bad sources all taken out & a reliable source The Daily Beast added. So the question is what should be done with the subsection Sexual Misconduct Allegations? -- Wilner (Speak to me) 05:31, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

  • Remove
  • Amend
  • Keep

Discussion[edit]

Edit: Also seems that the MovieWeb source listed by User:Aquillion could augment the Daily Beast source. I propose adding that source to it. -- Wilner (Speak to me) 19:40, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep These are all credible publications. -- User:Redandwhitesheets — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redandwhitesheets (talk • contribs) 07:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but word cautiously and avoid excessive weight. Here is another source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aquillion (talk • contribs) 00:23, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Boycool (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. My personal sentiment since the beginning.Tr114 (talk) 02:24, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but make sure it states somewhere in the section the word alleged.--Ncam (talk) 01:19, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep covered by multiple reliable sources. Sro23 (talk) 21:22, 13 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Bump...) This discussion has been up for a while and everyone seems to be in favor of including the accusations, so... Boycool (talk) 15:59, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Boycool42:, I'm all for it, it seems slow... but... I think in order to be sure we should keep it up for about a few more days. There were at least 4 editors who expressed concerns with the content, so something tells me we would be shutting a portion of the consensus off prematurely. 00:47, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What partly concerns me is the lack of specifics. 'Sexual misconduct' is a vague and fairly subjective term covering a very wide range of behaviours. Given the relatively low quality of the sources, I would suggest extreme caution in handling this. Pincrete (talk) 00:01, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I think the consensus if fairly obvious, so I'm closing this RfC after over a week of being opened. I mentioned that it was best to wait a few days for more votes, and both of those votes were for to Keep the section. I agree with @Pincrete: however and I think re-adding the section should be a collaborative effort. -- Gokunks (Speak to me) 03:53, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sourcing Concerns Used to Delete Daily Beast Article Cite[edit]

Other users and I have tried repeatedly to write about allegations contained in reputable sources, including the Daily Beast. Since when can Wikipedia editors decide that a well-regarded news source is not credible enough for their taste to mention. Can they decide that a Washington Post article is not reliable? A NY Times article?

In trying to write about this matter, I've been threatened for the first time in my many years of editing on Wikipedia. I edit rarely, but when I have it's been of people who were altering articles about themselves. This happened with JT Leroy in May 2007 and later with Tao Lin. If you go back and look at those, you can see that I was right that the other editors repeatedly removed information that was unflattering to the subject of the article despite appearing in a reputable news source.

Even JT Leroy didn't try to threaten me when I fought her repeatedly scrubbing references to her identity being a fraud.

Now that I've been threatened, I will no longer write on this page. And btw, if anyone starts off a message by saying they are not threatening you, they are threatening you. I received this on my talk page: "For your own sake."; "I'm not trying to threaten you, I just want to make you aware that if you keep adding that blog post to the Max Landis article, things might excalate (sic) and you could be bannned (sic) from editing...."

In reaction to this threat, for the first time since I started editing in 2007, I will give up and stop fighting against what appears to be an effort to scrub a page. Again, the Daily Beast is a reputable source and it is not for an editor to determine on his or her own that said article despite meeting the Daily Beast's requirements for publication, does not meet Wikiedia's. This site is legitimate as a secondary source for information. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Beast#Awards : "In 2017 the website won three New York Press Club Journalism Awards in the internet publishing categories of Entertainment News, Crime Reporting and Travel Reporting.[33] In December the Los Angeles Press Club’s National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards annouced the platform had won 4 awards for 2017 reporting including investigative articles about the Nate Parker rape case, Comic Bob Smith's struggle with ALS and remembering Bill Paxton."

And if/when similar reporting is done by say the NY Times, will this then be allowed or will it too be reviewed de novo by editors here and deemed unsuitable as a source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redandwhitesheets (talk • contribs) 05:25, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Redandwhitesheets, I have started an RfC just above this post, if you care to give your comments about it. Apologies if something I said to you made you feel threatened? I clearly stated I wasn't lodging a personal threat at you, but just making you aware that even if your edits are valid, some wikipedia ediotrs are out for blood and will use them against you to try to block you. The best course is to stick to the rules and just hope for change. -- Wilner (Speak to me) 05:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your note. I took it as a threat and I appreciate your clarifying that it was not intended that way at all. I still will no longer work on this page as it appears that people are actively refusing to allow in material despite there will be articles from highly reputable sources of news, such as the Daily Beast. I hope that you and others will make sure that when a news source you deem credible, say the NY Times, LA Times or Washington Post write about this, as they may do, that this entry will reflect that and not be continually scrubbed clean. I hope this is in the proper format as I've never had to engage in such a back and forth on a talk page. And again, I've been doing this as needed (which has been rare) since 2007. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redandwhitesheets (talk • contribs) 06:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No prolem. The issue I am now seeing is that every time The Daily Beast link gets added (which is a great reference), there are still other sources that are less reliable, so editors (one specifically that I won't name) keep reverting without care for the good sources inline in the name of seeking consensus. It's frustrating, and this seems to be one of those rare instances where certain Wikipedia editors are letting their partisan thoughts cloud the mission of Wikipedia. (see also [here] for a point about that in regards to The Mary Sue link being noncompliant in this instance.) If you voice your opinion on the above RfC it would go along way to getting this solved, as consensus is what we need to get it on the page. -- Wilner (Speak to me) 06:36, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please add in the Daily Beast link then without the other sources and see if it gets reverted? Right now, as I see it, it keeps getting scrubbed clean/reverted to a version with no mention of these issues. So perhaps editors who are upset with that, just revert to a version that mentions it. Perhaps you could set a new "norm" by writing a version that includes unassailable sources like the daily beast and making a note of it so if people do revert after a scrubbing, they revert to this version. Or perhaps there is a way to get it locked with the Daily Beast cite in it. Of course, it is possible more stories will come out in the next couple of weeks so my big concern is if the page keeps getting scrubbed clean even then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redandwhitesheets (talk • contribs) 06:02, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The allegations need to be on this web page. It is a game changing fact that he's being accused (he has removed himself from social media from the day of the first accusation even). This makes no sense why it's not on here. Donmike10 (talk) 00:08, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's not on here because it has not been reported anywhere other than the Daily Beast. There have been discussions about the Daily Beast in the past:
The consensus of editors seems to be that Daily Beast, by itself, is not enough to source controversial BLP content. The page was protected for persistent BLP violations. Pending changes reviewers are supposed to take into the account the reason a page was protected before accepting an edit. Instead of disruptively trying to edit war this into the article, and WP:NPA against the multiple reviewers who have reverted this, any one of these editors was free to comment on the discussion I opened at BLP/n Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Max_Landis. SeraphWiki (talk) 00:22, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In looking at those two cites, they appear to only have years old discussions of this issue. There is no consensus in either post. This appears to be cherry-picking very old commentary to find discussions about using Daily Beast as a source. The first link is from July 2009. The second is from April 2011. Presumably, discussions of a periodical from almost seven years ago are not particularly relevant to today. Esp. as compared to awards from this past year. Also, in so far as there is a consensus, it appears to be that it is a legitimate source of news. Neither of those cited discussions has a clear consensus against the use of the Daily Beast as a source of news. Rather than an individual Wikipedia editor substituting his or her own judgment for what constitutes a legitimate news source, let's see how journalists themselves feel about this publication as noted above regarding awards in their field from this last year. See, e.g. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Beast#Awards : "In 2017 the website won three New York Press Club Journalism Awards in the internet publishing categories of Entertainment News, Crime Reporting and Travel Reporting.[33] In December the Los Angeles Press Club’s National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards announced the platform had won 4 awards for 2017 reporting including investigative articles about the Nate Parker rape case, Comic Bob Smith's struggle with ALS and remembering Bill Paxton." If users cherry pick which articles they believe in and which they don't from award-winning news publishers, then Wikipedia would be a free for all with subjects of articles either wiping clean bad news about themselves via sockpuppets or paying a legitimate editor to do so on their behalf. Are anonymous editors now going to judge de novo the journalistic merits of articles in Slate, Saloon, the NY Times, the LA Times, Politico, The Washington Post, etc. If the answer is no, then it's clear that the Daily Beast fits within that world of reputable sources. Redandwhitesheets —Preceding undated comment added 01:34, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Another possible source is MovieWeb: here. I think that in combination with the Daily Beast, they're enough to support at least a mention. It's important to provide context and disclaimers from those sources, though. --Aquillion (talk) 08:21, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Aquillion: I think that's a good idea. They seem to be a good reputable source. they splt their opinion section and keep the news fact-based. I'm for it. -- Wilner (Speak to me) 19:38, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

If anyone wants my attention please ping me, I'm taking this page off my watchlist. SeraphWiki (talk) 06:17, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

@SeraphWiki and SeraphWiki:

The submission I made was to edit the name for Max Landis. It is currently listed as John Maxwell Landis, though I have confirmed with the subject that is not their birth name. Their birth name is not even Maxwell. However, I did not know or understand that Wikipedia has strict COI implemented guidelines, which make sense. However, I argue that I, being a fan and acquaintance of this subject, could not find evidence of the name John Maxwell Landis anywhere. Not on his work, or in articles about his life. I've never seen him credited as such on IMDB or in any films, including those he was in when he was young, such as his father John Landis's films. As is the policy I just read through, I am requesting that someone else help me to edit this back to where it is correct. I am more than happy to step aside, but I have been unable to find any evidence that his name is John Maxwell Landis, and have only found evidence to the contrary. I feel like this change was made in bad faith in an attempt to connect Landis to his father in a negative way, as both he and his father have relatively negative reputations with the press. If this submission is incorrect as well, that's fine, but this was my last shot. I also was not trying to edit war, which I guess is a thing. I was trying to make an edit in earnest that I felt was appropriate, given the fact that the other name exists nowhere else but wikipedia. There is no citation stating that is his name either, and I argue that the burden of proof shouldn't lay with me, but with whoever changed that submission to begin with. I could find no birth announcement, no articles concerning the subject listing a full birth name that was different than his listed name on all of his credits. I am not hired by Max, but have been in communication since finding this out. Again, I want to clearly state my COI so that this isn't seen as some biased attempt. If that information is wrong, and the subject is lying to me about his name, then please, cite the source that came from and be done with it.

The only somewhat objective source I was able to find was this: https://www.californiabirthindex.org/birth/max_landis_born_1985_16909434 , confirming the Birth name and date. There are also no John Landis names listed after 1971. 15:11, 25 February 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bfalvey7 (talk • contribs) 19:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reply 25-FEB-2019[edit]

  Reverted to status quo ante  

  • The unreferenced change in name in the article from Max Landis to John Maxwell Landis first occurred just over one year ago. The edit was made by an anonymous IP, who placed it in the infobox under the |birth name= parameter.[a] And there it sat for about a year, unnoticed, until January of 2019, when the editor TheDarkKnight180 placed the name in the lead section. Neither of these edits were sourced with references.
  • The changes have been reverted.

Regards,  Spintendo  01:25, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

  1. ^ This same IP — although not 100% certain to be the same editor who inserted the name change into the infobox owing to the IP's anonymity (more than likely it is the same editor)— is currently blocked for vandalism ("unsourced hoaxes") occurring in other articles.

Semi-protected edit request on 18 June 2019[edit]

Remove "He has been accused of emotional and sexual abuse by several women." from the introduction of the page. This matter is mentioned below and viewers of the page can simply scroll down to access such content. At the end of the day, we don't need to attach the bad/worst things people have done in their lives to their introduction (while I can only speak for myself, I can tell you that I don't include the list of bad things I've done in my life into my elevator speech or when I'm making introductions). While the validity of the content in Wikipedia is paramount, how it is produced can be done so in a matter that does not paint each person in the worst light possible. And if the goal is to do so, then there are plenty of pages in which this goal is not met (ex. Kobe Bryant, Hillary Clinton, John F Kennedy). Thank you for what you do. 71.254.105.109 (talk) 20:12, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done The relevance of this line is important to the notability of this individual at this time. Regarding your other examples, those people are primarily known for many things beyond "bad stuff"; Max, however, is not. A better example to look at it is perhaps Bill Cosby. --Jorm (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I had never heard of this individual until he landed very much in the news. I support the decision above and added this article to my watchlist to help ensure that the article is not whitewashed by his fans, family, and staff. -Jordgette [talk] 21:16, 18 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of the lede paragraph is to summarize the most notable things a person is known for; the body of the article is for the details (and for less notable info). Whether those are good things or bad things is not relevant. And for the sake of NPOV we certainly don't limit ourselves to what the subject of the article would choose themselves. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 17:23, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Needless Section.[edit]

I would "not forum" this except someone has already responded. This is not the place to argue about Star Wars characters.--Jorm (talk) 21:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The criticism that Landis called the Star Wars character Rey a "Mary Sue" is only heard about half a million times a day in Star Wars discussions and Its certainly not worthy of mention in this article since it is a very common criticism of the weak character development in episodes 7,8,9. A character can win lightsaber battles (never picked one up before), swim perfectly (raised on a desert planet), perform mind tricks, all with no training ... SystemBuilder (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

His comments are mentioned here because the controversy received media attention. If you want to argue about the validity of those comments, Wikipedia is not the place to do it. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 21:10, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Section about criticism and allegations[edit]

There is clearly a difference of opinion about the section detailing the various unpopular things that Landis has said and allegedly done. Some people want to get rid of it, but NPOV rules against that. But it's gone by various names:

  • "Controversy" / "Controversies"
  • "Misognyny and abuse allegations"
  • "Abuse allegations"
  • "Personal life"

WP:CSECTION advises against sections "focusing on criticisms or controversies", and that's definitely what this is. WP:STRUCTURE cautions to keep the sectioning of the article neutral. I don't see a way to integrate this material into the rest of the article, because it isn't really related to his professional life. I think a "Personal life" section is the best solution, because that's what this material is about. This nondescript section header wouldn't be to whitewash it, but to avoid WP:UNDUE by putting a red flag on it. The subsection headers spell out what they're about, and the lede draws attention to the fact that those subsections are there, by summarizing them. That should be enough. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 15:07, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it should be "personal life" if the only thing the article has to say about his personal life is that he's an ass. If there's no way to work the controversies into the rest of the article, it's fine to have a separate section on it. WP:CSECTION is an essay, not a guideline and certainly not a rule. My preferred header would be "Misognyny and abuse allegations". -Jordgette [talk] 16:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Should we have a "personal life" section if the only thing it says is that the subject has a wife and kids and they go to a church and support some charity (i.e. positive things)? That's pretty common. In fact, the "personal life" section also used to have information about his neurological diagnoses, but that was moved in order to turn it into a section focusing on what an ass he is. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 13:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it the advice is not so much about the heading, but more about the content and having a section that might act as a WP:COATRACK or target for people to fill biography articles with insults. In this case the information seems keep a WP:NPOV neutral point of view and does not seem to be WP:UNDUE, so I wouldn't agree with people who want to get rid of the section.
I was trying to think of other creepy writers and I note that the article for Woody Allen includes abuse allegations as a subsection of "Personal life". If this article had an existing Personal life section it might make sense to do the same here and put the information under that subheading, but it seems to me like that would be a little unbalanced, to use the Personal life section heading when it would contains only criticism. So it was a good suggestion I just dont think it works well enough for this article at this time (but it might be the least worst choice).
My preference is for this encyclopedia to try and have consistent generic headings. Controversy does still seem to me like the appropriate generic heading, and it was/is the WP:STATUSQUO. Criticism (the section begins with "Landis has been criticized") also seems suitably generic but others might find that term too neutral. At the moment the two subheadings both use the word "accusations", so another approach might be to make the heading "Accustations" and shorten the subheadings under to "Mysogyny" "Sexual assault", but that might seem harsher and less objective than "Controversy".
Whatever the consensus decides please make sure to use {{tl:Anchor}} and include anchors to the old heading or headings. {{Anchor|Controversy}} -- 109.76.215.105 (talk) 02:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think the section should stay, as long as it doesn't become too big (WP:UNDUE). However, its name should definitely changes from the content-less 'Controversy' which wikipedia style discourages, to 'Misognyny and abuse allegations' because that summarises what the section contains. This would also limit the likelyhood if the section become a dumping ground for bad things about the subject. Ashmoo (talk) 20:10, 7 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quotations and typographic conformity[edit]

Recently, an edit of mine which cleaned the style of a couple quotations was reverted. To avoid an edit war, I am following the BOLD, revert, discuss policy. The editor believed quotations should never be altered, even if they contain errors. While this may be true for errors, it is not necessarily true for style. I encourage everyone to read the Wikipedia Manual of Style's entry on quotations and typographic conformity. To summarize very briefly: Wikipedia quotations are not facsimiles. They should conform to typographic conventions already set in the article and with conventions set across Wikipedia as a whole. Each of the corrections I made, one per MOS:PREFIXDASH and one per MOS:&, are explicitly listed in MOS:CONFORM as things that should be changed within a quotation. In the case of MOS:&, while there is a comment in COMFORM on unnecessary ligatures (such as the ampersand), there is a link to a separate section which explicitly mentions the ampersand.

Please note I am not attempting to misrepresent what either quoted individual has said; I am simply conforming the quotations to this article's and Wikipedia's style. You can read more about my edits at the linked style entries, but I will summarize them here.

  1. Replacing the hyphen in "post-Harvey Weinstein world" with an endash – MOS:PREFIXDASH – The compound noun Harvey Weinstein contains a space and thus needs an endash instead of a hyphen. Using a hyphen, the prefix applies too only the word to which it is attached; thus, the quoted phrase is about a "Weinstein world" that exists "post-Harvey". EDIT: I was incorrect in thinking this issue still needed to be fixed; it was at the time (and still is at the time of this writing) fixed using a separate approach.
  2. Replacing the ampersand in "him & his dad" with the word and spelled out – MOS:& – The ampersand should be used conservatively: usually in proper names or where space is limited. Editors may replace ampersands in quotes when the meaning of the sentence is unchanged.

JasonAQuest, please let me know how you interpret these Manual of Style entries and how you feel we can come to an agreement on how the article should be written.
~ JDCAce (talk) 23:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The statement in MOS about archaic ligatures to normalize lists several of them, but importantly does not identify "&" as one. Instead there is a "see also" reference, indicating that that it is a related item, but with different guidance. Simply put: "&" is not archaic. Not only is it routinely used – and understood – in modern names such as "AT&T" and those of countless business partnerships, its usage here is contemporary: a 2017 tweet. Additionally, the person quoted apparently didn't type it that way out of laziness or space limitations. She used "and" elsewhere in the tweet, suggesting that her use of "&" in this phrase was a deliberate stylistic choice (possibly to present "him & his dad" as a kind of "Father & Son" business partnership). It's not our place to judge of course, which is why we should defer to her choice. MOS:& says that quotes should be changed "cautiously" (a word conspicuously missing from your "summary") for the same reason we don't change spelling or grammar: these are their words, not ours. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 15:24, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the reply, though I don't appreciate your implication that I intentionally mischaracterized the Manual of Style by omitting the word cautiously. I am attempting to assume good faith and be civil, and I ask you to do the same. I felt the omission of cautiously was acceptable, because I believed I had already met the requirement of cautiousness by ensuring the meaning and intention of the sentence had not been altered. I was unaware at the time that you disagreed with that assumption.
You are entirely correct the ampersand is not archaic. However, I disagree with the rest of your points. While it is entirely possible the Quinn's use of an ampersand was a deliberate stylistic choice, I feel the need to reiterate my previous point, quoted from MOS:CONFORM: "A quotation is not a facsimile and, in most cases, it is not a requirement that the original formatting be preserved. Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure meaning or intent of the text." I argue that the ampersand in "him & his dad" can be changed without obscuring the author's meaning or intent. Perhaps Quinn did have intent when using the ampersand, though what intent that could be is unknowable, as the ampersand and the spelled-out word and convey the same meaning. I am unable to find the Tweet itself to make a determination one way or the other; Quinn's account's entire history seems to have been erased, and a new, separate account has been created and is private.
One additional and tangential point on the subject: The Manual of Style's section on original wording does state minor spelling errors can and should be changed (while major errors should be noted with "[sic]").
If you still disagree with me after reading this reply, then I have a couple suggestions how we can better the article and hopefully both feel satisfied:
  1. Remove "him & his dad" from the quotation. There are several ways to rewrite the sentence, but here is one example: "...they had been withholding the story because Max and his father, John Landis, 'are powerful figures'." Note that are powerful figures remains quoted.
  2. Replace "him & his dad" in the quotation with a bracketed substitution. There are several options we can take, and my preference would mirror my example above: "...they had been withholding the story because "[Max and his father, John Landis] are powerful figures'."
I've chosen to replace he in the quote with Max and I have reiterated who his father is; though the meaning of he could safely be inferred, it has been several sentences at the position of the quotation since the antecedent is stated, and significantly longer (almost the entire prose section of the article) since the reader is told who his father is.
As for the hyphen/endash point I made before, I see it was unnecessary. At the time, I believed your edit simply reverted my endash to a hyphen. However, I was wrong; your edit did revert the punctuation but also removed the word Harvey, thus making the hyphen correct. I will go back and strike my comment so as not to confuse future readers.
I invite other editors to share their point of view on the ampersand inside a quotation, as well. It would be good to have a consensus.
~ JDCAce (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Excerpts from the subject's statement[edit]

An editor (not me) briefly excerpted the subject's August 2021 essay, quoting two assertions from it, without comment. IP edits have recently removed these quotes, one of them with the edit summary: "Deliberately misleading quotations removed. Citations must not misrepresent the authors intentions. The essay in question is meandering and consists of over 3000 words. It should—if at all—be summarized in an unbiased, neutral fashion."

I've read the full statement, and in my assessment these quotes do not misrepresent the subject's assertions. These are things he said, and apparently meant. By quoting him, we are not endorsing his assertions as correct. We are also not refuting them as incorrect. That's not Wikipedia's job. We're just reporting what he said, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether he has a valid claim, or he is full of shit. That's neutral. That's unbiased. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 05:19, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've done the IP edit and provided the reason you mentioned above. To substantiate the problem I see with the citing of merely two short snippets from Landis’ long and unfocused text, a look at his original paragraphs suffices. The second quotation regarding Cosby and Weinstein makes the dissonance in meaning particularly obvious.
Landis writes: "Someone made a sponsored video where they compared me implicitly to Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. I was shown it and I laughed out loud. I’m not a real celebrity. 99% of the people who watched that video had no idea who I was. And again, it just took the weight off my back, it made me realize that so much of this current culture, at least the bubble I had been in, wasn’t about accountability at all. It was about spite."[8]
The way in which this paragraph has been quoted solely implies that the difference between Landis and Cosby/Weinstein comes down to him not being as famous. One can't but assume that in all other relevant regards, the mentioned parties must be akin. Why else would such a specific aspect be singled out for a quotation? I find this to be a disservice to readers.
While I would have phrased it differently, I fully support your notion of "leaving it up to the reader to decide whether he has a valid claim, or he is full of shit", but given the confuse nature of the source text, these quotations are obviously cherry picked to convey a certain image of Landis. I have no sympathy for him and am of the opinion that his essay does him a great disservice, but I will repeat by my assessment that the quoting style at hand is inherently biased and should therefor not find its way into an encyclopedia. TheLoudestSound (talk) 16:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What image of Landis do you believe the quotes were chosen to create? -Jason A. Quest (talk) 16:55, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your response is an unwarranted rhetorical attempt to paint me as an apologist, devoid of any factual replies to the arguments I've made. Landis has personally admitted to things that are morally wrong by any standards, but the quotations that have been picked from his essay are needlessly tendentious, nonetheless. Whoever reaches that point of the article will likely have formed a clear enough image of him, so why disregard basic principles of proper citation? TheLoudestSound (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, my question was a sincere request for you to clarify the point you're trying to make. While it may be "obvious" to you how these quotes are "biased", "deliberately misleading", "misrepresent[ative]", and "tendentious", it is not obvious to me, and accusing me of ulterior motives when I simply don't understand is not constructive. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 23:43, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I'll try to boil this down: Has Landis, in the paragraph quoted earlier ("Someone made a sponsored video …"), actually "rejected comparisons" to Cosby and Weinstein, as the current entry plainly states? Is that really an appropriate summary?
After initially reading the quotations, I expected some kind of press statement when I followed the link to Landis' text. What I found instead was little more than a journal entry. TheLoudestSound (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Asking a question doesn't answer my question. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 03:15, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
While asking a question is certainly an adequate way to answer one, any attempts to explain a viewpoint are wasted when the overall debate is not open-ended. Picking the names "Weinstein" and "Cosby" from a 3000+ word essay (in which they appear once, as a side-note), along with an interpretation of why the author brought them up to begin with, is insincere and an unsound way to go about citations. If you truly need the connotations that these names evoke to be spelled out, you might want to carefully consider any further involvement in such dodgy topics. TheLoudestSound (talk) 04:59, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Socratic method only works when the answer is obvious. And it did not answer my query. Also, this isn't a debate; it's a Wikipedia Talk page, where editors are supposed to try to reach a consensus about how to improve the article, in a civil, respectful manner. You're new here, so I'm trying to be patient. Maybe you could meet me halfway by not insulting me quite so often.
To directly answer your question: Yes, I do think that "...they compared me implicitly to Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. I was shown it and I laughed out loud. I’m not a real celebrity." is pretty accurately represented by saying he "rejected comparisons to Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein on the grounds that he was 'not a real celebrity'". I would've phrased it as "rejected a comparison", since there's only one of them mentioned, but it's a pretty literal paraphrase. Look, we can't summarize his whole essay; there's too much to it, and that would give undue weight to it. But we can pick a few relevant points from it, to give the reader a sense of it. Without that, they'd be left wondering whether he refused to address the accusations, denied them, apologized, or whatever. The essay is online for them to read, but they shouldn't have to give clicks to his blog just to understand the gist of it. Would you like to propose a quote or two or a (neutrally worded) description that better summarizes his essay? -Jason A. Quest (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the text "The post contained no direct apology to any of his accusers or any other named people."[9] Since this is all so controversial I'm taking the extra step of explaining in full. First it seemed odd to write about something that didn't happen, then I wondered if maybe someone had reported on the essay by Landis and made that commentary so I checked the reference. But then I found that the reference was only to the original essay by Landis and did not contain any editorial or commentary. (The comment was added by User:Megan_cernovich [10]) If such commentary or something like it existed and could be reliably sourced then it would be great to add it but without sourcing it seems inappropriate to add any of our own analysis or criticism of the essay.
Attempts to summarize what the essay does say seems fair, but pointing out what the essay fails to say does not seem appropriate for an encyclopedia biographical article. -- 109.77.205.32 (talk) 03:45, 11 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why my edits are considered whitewashing. You have quotes that are applied without adequate context and have been contested in this section before and you're the only one who has argued that they're validly used. I summarized the article with a neutral focus in mind (he addressed some of the allegations, that some were true, some were false, in his own words) and applied what I considered to be the only real quote of him addressing the allegations on the whole. To revert and say "this should be discussed before making changes" when you're the only one trying to keep it this way seems disingenuous. 108.20.115.216 (talk) 19:53, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Max_Landis&oldid=1212561721"