Talk:Kristin Fairlie

IMDb as a source

Repeated discussion has established that IMDb is not a reliable source, except for some instances of writing credits. All other material is, essentially, user submitted. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, while one should certainly take extended biographical information from IMDb with a grain of salt, it's a perfectly valid source for where a person was born, because there's no compelling reason for anybody to misrepresent that. In many cases, further, it's the only source that's potentially available for where an actor was born.

Secondly, there is an absolute requirement — not a suggestion, a requirement — to diffuse articles out of undifferentiated parent categories such as Category:Television actors, Category:Film actors, etc. It is absolutely unacceptable to move any article out of a subcategory back into the general unsorted parent category unless you have specific evidence that the subcategory is actually wrong.

And thirdly, even if she had been born in a different country entirely, the mere fact of having lived in Canada long enough to do Total Drama Action, Alison and Allie, Heartland, Flashpoint, Murdoch Mysteries, Instant Star, Total Drama Island, Renegadepress.com, Train 48, Metropia, Wind at My Back, PSI Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, Goosebumps, Road to Avonlea, Little Bear and Madeline — Canadian-produced TV shows, every last one of 'em — would itself be sufficient to warrant categorizing her as Canadian even if she was also in another national category.

The bottom line is that IMDb is an acceptable source for basic biographical information unless and until an actual source is provided that indicates different information. Then, sure, the other source trumps IMDb — but until there's another actual source that actually indicates differently, it's absolutely not acceptable or correct to insist that we strip even the slightest mention of a person's nationality just because IMDb is the main cited reference for it. Especially when doing so requires breaking the category diffusion rule. Bearcat (talk) 15:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Your concerns, one by one:

You state IMDb is "a perfectly valid source". I state that IMDb is not a reliable source. This is the subject of a current proposal, found at Wikipedia:Citing IMDb. At present, and for quite some time, the only "Appropriate use" supported is "writing credits marked with 'WGA'". The only "Disputed use" supported is "(info on) Released films". As various Wikipedia policies (c.f. WP:V, WP:RS, WP:BLP, WP:PROVEIT) make clear, any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be sourced to a reliable third-party source. I am challenging the material. To restore it, you must source it.

You state there is an absolute requirement to diffuse articles out of undifferentiated parent categories. As you haven't pointed to the policy, guideline or essay that suggests this to you, I am unsure what you are referring to. Please explain. I am aware, however, that articles should not be in a parent category if their is reliable sourcing that places the article in a daughter category. Keep in mind Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Biographies_of_living_people applies.

You state that having lived in Canada would be sufficient to warrant categorizing her as Canadian. Please note that the categories in question (Canadian Xs) are subcategories by nationality (Xs by nationality). One does not become a Canadian national simply by working in Canada.

You state in various ways that we should use info from IMDb because we have no other source and/or unless another source says differently. Wikipedia simply does not work this way, especially when dealing with the biography of a living person. Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. Verifiable information is whatever we find in a reliable source. If there is insufficient information in independent reliable sources, we should not have an article on the topic. This is a core policy of Wikipedia. - SummerPhD (talk) 16:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

You're missing my actual point, which is that there is an explicit obligation to remove articles from Category:Television actors and Category:Film actors. Those categories are required to be kept empty of individual articles. Keeping the categories properly organized is a big enough and overwhelming enough job as it is, without people thinking that other issues somehow override the obligation to keep the categories properly organized.

You can dispute the validity of the source all you like, but it's also quite clearly stated that to be removable on sight, material also has to be controversial or under dispute — material that isn't sufficiently sourced, but isn't under any sort of actual dispute either, simply gets tagged for additional sources needed. Which means that in order to remove the word "Canadian" from an actor's article, there needs to be an actual indication — either an actual source that actually indicates conflicting information, or an actual issue actually raised by a user — that the information might actually be wrong. Information has to actually be either controversial or explicitly contradicted somewhere to be removed from an article; if it's neither of those things it needs to be tagged for sources but left alone, because ignoring the category diffusion rules isn't any more appropriate or acceptable than ignoring sourcing issues is.

Improving sources is very important on Wikipedia, yes — but you need to do it in a way that respects the fact that category diffusion is a critical requirement of keeping Wikipedia properly organized and maintained too. As important as the work you're doing is, it must be done in a way that respects the category diffusion rules at the same time, because Wikipedia has a requirement to be organized properly too.

You're misunderstanding me if you think I'm against improving Wikipedia sources — I absolutely insist on quality sources — but you can't use one rule to undermine another one, as you're doing here. You need to find a way to respect and follow both rules at the same time. Bearcat (talk) 18:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I am still not hearing where this mandatory diffusion is -- especially to the extent that it over-rides core policies. I see that Category:Television actors, actually says"Articles in this category should be moved to subcategories when appropriate. This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should list very few, if any, article pages directly and should mainly contain subcategories." Based on what we have, this article seems to belong in Category:Televison actor stubs. - SummerPhD (talk) 00:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying that WP:SUBCAT overrides core policies. But it most certainly doesn't underride them, either. But for what it's worth, stub categories aren't meant to be the only category on an article, either. An article can be in just a national subcategory, or in a national subcategory and a stub category, but is never to be only in a stub category — stub cats are for internal workload management purposes, not for user navigation. Bearcat (talk) 00:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

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Date of birth

Some sites have 1983 listed as her birth year. Some have 1985 listed. According to this interview

https://www.manic-expression.com/2014/07/29/old-school-lanes-nickelodeon-tribute-interview-with-kristin-fairlie/

Kristen herself states that she was 12 when she auditioned for A Scarlet Letter and that came out in 1995. She also stated that she was 8 when she started out in the industry and she's been in the industry since 1991. These suggest 1983 being her correct birth year. But since there's no reliable source anywhere stating her DOB, it should stay out of the article for now. Kcj5062 (talk) 10:00, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Could we use Rotten Tomatoes as our source? That would support the April 22, 1985, date of birth. (Side note: that DOB does not come from user-generated content on the site.) Mr. Starfleet Command (talk • contributions) 23:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

OK, given that no one has objected in the lengthy period of time since I made my suggestion, I have re-added the DOB with a citation to Rotten Tomatoes. If anyone disagrees, please say so here. Mr. Starfleet Command (talk • contributions) 00:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

There's been a recent RfC when it comes to using Rotten Tomatoes as a source. It's fine to use for stuff such as movies and TV shows, but not for WP:BLP as it's not a journalism site and it's main purpose is film aggregation.[1].

It may not be user-generated, however they don't indicate where they got that info from. And it has the incorrect DOBs for some actors. So for all we know they could have those DOBs listed because that's what's listed on other sites. A lot of sites do web scrape without doing any fact checking beforehand. Which is why some actors have falsified DOBs online. Kcj5062 (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

OK, sorry I made that edit, I wasn't aware of the RfC. I'll try to find some reliable source confirming some DOB, but I'm not hopeful: Rotten Tomatoes was the best that I could find last time I went looking, and if that won't work, I think we'll probably have to leave things as they are. Mr. Starfleet Command (talk • contributions) 13:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, while searching for more definitive info, I stumbled across this interview which seems to be the same as the one by Manic Expression. If the dates listed can be believed, the version I found was the original, but who knows. It's not very important anyway, as it doesn't shed any more light on her DOB, but I figured I'd note it here just in case. Mr. Starfleet Command (talk • contributions) 14:50, 17 September 2023 (UTC)