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RfC: Why deletion of facts from reliable source?

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I added these verifiable details about this book from several reliable sources:

The novel is narrated in the first-person from the point of view of Alison Poole, whom author Jay McInerney describes as, "an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year old … inspired by [former girlfriend Rielle Hunter, then named Lisa Druck]." REFS:
  1. McInerney, Jay (JAN/FEB 2005). "Interview". BREATHE MAGAZINE. Retrieved 2008-08-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. "EDWARDS' MISTRESS DISHES ON SLEEPING WITH POWERFUL RICH MEN, SORT OF". Radar. 2008-07-29.
  3. Stein, Sam. "Scrubbed: Edwards Filmmaker's Deleted Website Raises Questions". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
  4. As documented in the Huffington Post, Rielle Hunter's website beingisfree.org has been deleted and blocked on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, however, an archived copy is available at: Hunter, Rielle. "Archived copy of Rielle Hunter's website beingisfree.org". Retrieved 2008-08-01. An archived copy of the interview between author Jay McInerney and Rielle Hunter is available at: McInerney, Jay. "Interview between author Jay McInerney and Rielle Hunter". Retrieved 2008-08-01. Author McInerney's description in context is:

    "The way I remember it, I first met Rielle Hunter in a nightclub called Nells in early 1987, although the circumstances of our first meeting seem to be in dispute (see below). In my defense I can only say that events of that decade are not always as clearly etched in memory as we might wish, and neither of us was living a very sober or reflective life back then. At that time Rielle's name was Lisa Druck, and when she wasn't out at nightclubs she was taking acting classes. We dated for only a few months, but in that period I spent a lot of time with Lisa and her friends, whose behavior intrigued and appalled me to such an extent that I ended up basing a novel on the experience. The novel was called Story of My Life, and it was narrated in the first person from the point of view of an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year-old who was, shall we say, inspired by Lisa. I certainly thought of Alison Poole as a sympathetic and ultimately endearing character. One of her most striking traits was her obsession with truth-telling and her horror of being lied to, something that I certainly took directly from Lisa. When Lisa moved to Calfornia and got married I lost track of her, though I was reminded of her whenever someone would ask me, at book signings and lectures, what I imagined happened to Alison Poole after the book ended—whether I saw her as turning her life around or not. Through the grapevine I picked up occasional reports from the West Coast. I heard that Lisa had changed her name to Rielle, that she'd gotten divorced, and that she was increasingly engaged in various spiritual quests which she attempted to explain to me when I finally ran into her; all I could tell for certain was that she was a far happier person than I remembered. Recently she returned to Manhattan and one sunny afternoon in Washington Square Park, attempted to enlighten me on the subject of her own enlightenment."

These facts and WP:RS references were deleted on ""WP:BLP" and "WP:COATRACK" grounds, which doesn't make any sense: WP:BLP is about biographies, and this is published material in an interview with the author about the book's main character. And a

'coatrack article is a Wikipedia article that ostensibly discusses the nominal subject, but in reality is a cover for a tangentially related bias subject. The nominal subject is used as an empty coatrack, which ends up being mostly obscured by the "coats".'

But WP:RS information about the inspiration of the novel's main character is highly relevant and obviously not coatrack. I'm restoring the material: please provide reasonable, detailed justifications for deleting relevant, reliable, and verifiable facts, or all ask an admin to come in and do their job to make sure that people just don't arbitrarily delete stuff they don't like. AdamKesher (talk) 20:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Turning the largest part of this article into an exposition about Reille Hunter and, tangentially, John Edwards is coatracking. This is an article about the book - it's as simple as that. Additionally, the sources you're using are not appropriate for this sort of material about a living person: see WP:BLP. There has been an ongoing issue related to John Edwards, associated rumors, etc, and this is not the article to expound on the any of that. If you'd like to seek additional input via the BLP noticeboard or an WP:RfC, you're welcome to, but the material you're (re-)adding violates WP:BLP and skews the article unacceptably from its ostensible topic (the book) to a completely different one. MastCell Talk 21:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jay McInerney said that Rielle Hunter is the basis for his principal character—this has nothing to do with John Edwards, no matter who the father of her child is. Jay McInerney's inspiration for his book is WP:VER and WP:RS, this has nothing to do with WP:BLP or WP:COATRACK, issues you are grafting on to the simple issue of McInerney saying that Hunter was his inspiration. Additionally, you still haven't explained why WP:BLP applies. Your deletions violate at least WP:PRESERVE and probably WP:CENSOR, so I'm reverting and adding an RfC. AdamKesher (talk) 00:53, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've asked for more eyes from WP:BLP/N, because I've reverted some of this material before. As to 'why WP:BLP applies, it is quite simple. The book's author, the individual that may have inspired the main character, and the associated politician are all living people, so material about any of them is subject to WP:BLP on every page of the encyclopedia, including this talk page. Huffington Post is clearly not up to snuff; it is a blog/blog aggregator. Radar looks to be tabloid quality, again not a reliable source. I don't know if the copy of the interview is reliable or not; it might be, but that massive quote way over does it. So it appears to me to be at the least undue weight and likely a WP:COATRACK violation of WP:BLP. GRBerry 02:51, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have a fairly substantial misunderstanding of what WP:CENSOR actually says and means. Please read it again; it specifically states that "Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy... will also be removed." On WP:BLP issues, we err on the side of being conservative and excluding information that is questionably sourced or inappropriate. You've gotten feedback from another admin that this addition is probably inappropriate. An RfC is open and feedback has been requested at WP:BLP/N. Please await such feedback, to see if anyone agrees with your arguments, before readding. Also, please be aware that edit-warring to restore material which violates WP:BLP is grounds for your account to be blocked, or for this article to be protected. If you keep edit-warring to force this coatracky, poorly sourced material without awaiting feedback, one or both will result. MastCell Talk 21:17, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have a strong aversion to explaining precisely what language in WP:BLP would justify your persistant deletion of relevant verifiable facts from reliable sources from Wikipedia. Rather than edit warring and throwing around threats of account blocking and the like, would you please quote the policy from WP:BLP that you believe allows you to delete relevant facts that any reasonable person may verify for themselves? I think your continued deletions violate WP:EW, WP:PRESERVE, and WP:CENSOR; therefore, I've reported them to the Administrators noticeboard and requested that a neutral admin weigh in on this issue of censorship. You just can't delete stuff you don't like without a substantive explanation, and pointing to a wikilinked policy like WP:BLP just doesn't cut it. AdamKesher (talk) 03:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with MastCell and GRBerry that this is a BLP issue. First, the policy is quite clear that it applies not just to biographies, but any article containing biographical information about a living person. The material appears to have originally been self-published, and would have been acceptable as a self-published source (see note below), except that it's been taken down and the only current verification is the way-back machine (actually, that link is dead now, too) and I'm not sure if that qualifies (and BLP demands we be sure). As to the two other links, Radar I also dismiss out of hand as a tabloid. We wouldn't include the Edwards stuff until the mainstream media at least repeated it, so I see no reason to trust Radar more. The Huffington Post is a little more difficult to decide on, because its website has two sections, news and a blog aggregator. In this case, the link's a blog. The author's name and photo at the top and the text at the end of the article, "Comments for this post are now closed" (emphasis mine), make this quite clear. Blogs are generally not reliable sources, and blogs on newsites are only slightly better. As such, there's no reliable source for the information in question.--chaser - t 03:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC) modified after response.chaser - t 17:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is nonsense, but perhaps excusable because of the ongoing censorship efforts. Author Jay McInerney's quote above appeared in a published interview with his subject Rielle Hunter in 2005:
McInerney, Jay (JAN/FEB 2005). "Interview". BREATHE MAGAZINE. Retrieved 2008-08-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
McInerney's subject Rielle Hunter posted this published interview on her website, but that's certainly not a self-published source. This 2005 interview by author Jay McInerney has absolutely nothing to do with John Edwards or Hunter's baby born in 2008. I see no reason why WP:BLP can be used to delete or censor these facts. AdamKesher (talk) 05:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I should have cited Wikipedia:BLP#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source. That's what I meant.--chaser - t 17:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The source is author Jay McInerney's published interview in McInerney, Jay (JAN/FEB 2005). "Interview". BREATHE MAGAZINE. Retrieved 2008-08-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) This is not self-published, whether you wikilnked Wikipedia:BLP#Using_the_subject_as_a_self-published_source, Wikipedia:SPS#Self-published_sources, or any other policy about self-published sources. No one has even attempted to explain how the language of WP:BLP would justify the deletion of these relevant verifiable facts from reliable sources, which is a direct violation of WP:PRESERVE, WP:CENSOR, WP:NPOV, and I maintain, WP:EW. AdamKesher (talk) 18:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are you able to access any of these web archive links? Because I can't.--chaser - t 18:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The petabox.bibalex links were working as of two days ago (from my home computer). I can't access them now (from my work computer). I doubt it is a specific computer issue. The internetarchivemachine links have been dead for longer - at least as far back as 22:21 UTC on 29 July, when I checked before removing related material from the internet archive. GRBerry 18:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Ouroboros, a dragon that bites its tail, is a symbol for self-reference.

I was able to view these links like many others, until this story broke into the non-U.S. news and U.S. blogosphere and someone scrubbed these WP:RS facts from mirrors to Rielle Hunter's website in the wake of allegations that Rielle Hunter is the mother of John Edwards' "love child". A simple Google search shows that many, many others have been watching these sites being scrubbed, and corroborate the details:

  1. Stein, Sam. "Scrubbed: Edwards Filmmaker's Deleted Website Raises Questions". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
  2. "Today's John & Rielle Fix". Deceiver.com. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)

The second of these sources says that he's saved the original now-scrubbed web contents, which was just an online copy of the published article McInerney, Jay (JAN/FEB 2005). "Interview". BREATHE MAGAZINE. Retrieved 2008-08-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) He also links to the very discussion we are having on this talk page (score one for self-reference!):

Some Wikipedians keep trying to add the forbidden name “Rielle Hunter” to thoroughly relevant entries, and other Wikipedians keep taking it out. In the Wiki entry for the 1988 Jay McInerney novel Story of My Life, one brave soul has added some information that seems pretty well-sourced, considering Hunter herself put it up on her site, Being Is Free: the fact that Hunter directly inspired Alison Poole, the novel’s main character. For some reason, certain people don’t consider this fact relevant to understanding the novel, or to be of any interest to anyone whatsoever. The two sides are now battling it out. (I haven’t been keeping track of Edwards’ Wiki entry, after the same thing happened there last week, but I think they’re finally starting to acknowledge Hunter’s existence.) …
Fairly Major Update: As of 1:45 PM EST today, that mirror site of Being Is Free is gone. Noticing a pattern here? Luckily, I already saved every single page to my hard drive…

If someone deletes mention of a published interview with an author from their website, does WP:BLP say that the independent facts are consigned to the Memory hole? If WP:BLP really says what people say it does, then it should be very easy to quote a sentence or two that would justify the deletion of these relevant verifiable facts from reliable sources. But instead, we're having this long, pointless discussion about easily verified facts, causing me to believe that WP:BLP is being invoked not because it makes any sense, but as a way to censor relevant facts from the article. AdamKesher (talk) 19:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No explanation of how WP:BLP applies, but threats of account blocking

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Rather than quoting even a single sentence from WP:BLP that would justify the deletion of these relevant verifiable facts from reliable sources, MastCell has issued this threat on my talk page:

This is one effective method of censorship at Wikipedia. Now that MastCell has issued completely baseless charges and a warning, any further action on my part to edit in the verifiable fact that Jay McInerney based his novel on Rielle Hunter would probably result in the above threats taking place, no matter that absolutely no one has even attempted to explain why WP:BLP applies, and the charges are scurrilous. WP:BAIT is a popular Wikipedia method to manipulate outcomes, and I'm certainly not going to take the bait, so I'm done here. Please scrub this article clean to your heart's content. AdamKesher (talk) 01:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm coming in to this dispute as an uninterested third party fresh from the Rfc link. I see the issue this way: There is no coatracking going on in that the text talking about Rielle doesn't sidetrack the discussion of the novel and doesn't distract from discussion of the book's plot. Mention of Rielle is an interesting part of the book's foundational influences and would be a glaring omission if not included. I also see the rules related to WP:BLP as asking editors to take a very careful and conservative approach to potentially damaging material. What I've seen here is that AdamKesher has more than met this requirement in this article. I have only minor issues about how the reference flows and where it would best be placed in the article. I will edit the article as an example of what flow and placement changes I am considering. I won't be using the block Wayback Machine site as a reference as it's not necessary. On a side note, I don't think it's a good idea having a Lisa Druck page consist only of a redirect to this article. There should be a Lisa Druck or Rielle Hunter page with biographical information about her specificaly or no page at all. Binksternet (talk) 20:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These. Sources. Are. Not. Sufficient. Or. Appropriate. For. A. WP:BLP. Subject. Radar? Huffington Post's blog? These are the kind of sources that WP:BLP was created to exclude, on the basis that this is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. But I'm done. Someone else can do what they like. MastCell Talk 22:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Real name removed

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I have removed the names 'Rielle Hunter' and 'Lisa Druck' from this article, leaving the claim that the character in the novel is based on McInerney's former girlfriend. There is no good reason to name her as far as I can see; the name isn't important or notable with relevance to the book, and it's invasive of her privacy and potentially offensive, hence violating WP:BLP. (See also: WP:BASICHUMANDIGNITY.) The real name is still given in the sources linked (and here on the talk page), for anyone who wants to find it; but we do not need to quote it in the article itself, and should not do so. Please do not revert this change without discussing it here first. Terraxos (talk) 02:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's reasonable, though since Hunter apparently had a hand in publicizing the link (doing a joint interview with McInerney), I'm not so concerned about the name as I am about the linking of tabloid-quality sources. MastCell Talk 04:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just now became aware of this article - my question is, what is it about the information being included in the article is potentially harmful to Ms. Hunter that it must be removed? Kelly hi! 04:50, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I said immediately above, I think the issue is not particularly one of harm to Hunter, as she had a hand in publicizing the link between her and the book character. A brief look at the article history, however, will disclose that the throwaway remark in a old, low-profile, no-longer-visible interview has been amplified well out of proportion as a back-door means of linking sub-par sources regarding Edwards and the related allegations. The harm, and the policy violation, comes from linking those poor-quality sources about the tabloid allegations, and from hijacking this article to push that unrelated storyline. MastCell Talk 05:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
??? - I don't see any mention of the Edwards stuff in the article. Kelly hi! 05:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting. Did you glance at the References section of the article? The first two refs are entitled "EDWARDS' MISTRESS DISHES ON SLEEPING WITH POWERFUL RICH MEN, SORT OF" (caps in original) and ""Scrubbed: Edwards Filmmaker's Deleted Website Raises Questions". That is, both references deal directly with Edwards, and only extremely tangentially with this book, which is the ostensible subject of our article here. Both sources are tabloid/blog-quality, as well. MastCell Talk 05:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh, no - I read the text and not the footnotes and didn't realize the references were those particular references (I'm relatively familiar with the tabloid coverage on the Edwards thing, unfortunately.) Does the fact that she was an inspiration for the book really need be sourced and footnoted - i.e. is it controversial and likely to be disputed? Or can the source simply be the Breathe magazine or whatever it was originally that Radar cited, so we can avoid the headline in the footnotes? Also, please assume good faith here, MastCell - no need to get worked up.Kelly hi! 05:44, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's essentially the point I've been trying to make throughout the lengthy thread immediately preceding this one. It's also the substance of the version that I've been restoring on BLP grounds. I have no problem with citing the Breathe interview to source the statement that McInerney's ex-girlfriend Reille Hunter was the inspiration for the character. MastCell Talk 05:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your assessment about using Breathe as the source and avoiding the tabloid refs. Thanks, MastCell. Kelly hi! 05:59, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) I just reverted the coatracky refs, but kept the sales info. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the effort to prevent coatracking in this article. I would hate to see such a tack taken here. However, I've been up and down the coatracking guide and I just don't see how it applies to this article. Does the girlfriend cite go off on a lengthy tangent? Does it pull the book article off its base into a biography of a living person? Is it an attack? No, no and no. The author's influence for the formulation of his main character is acknowledged very briefly and left at that. Omission of this information would make the article less interesting and would be laughed at by readers in the know. At any rate, I see absolutely no coatrack here. I am reverting Baccyak4H's edit on that basis; it seems we both have read the coatrack guide and yet have come to opposite conclusions. In addition, I am reverting his/her edit because it re-employs the blocked Wayback Machine "petabox" url as a reference; a reference that is now completely useless for anything except an article about how information can get blocked at archive.org. Speaking of references, the two used here to establish Rielle as Alison's model each say pretty much the same thing, so I'm taking out the less-well established Radar magazine reference and keeping The Huffington Post reference. As an award-winning online news commentary site, an article at The Huffington Post qualifies for reference material here, and the article was written by Sam Stein, political writer at HuffPo and former Newsweek and New York Daily News writer who holds a Masters in Journalism. This is no tabloid or blog hit piece. Binksternet (talk) 16:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now that the New York Post article has been used as a reference, the names and some lengthy quotes went back in. I'm not going to comment on the use of both names in the article, except that they don't need their wikilinks to nowhere. I will comment that the extensive quotes in the Breathe and the NYP article citation templates now seem to me to be coatracking. They both used one very apt line that ties the character with the girlfriend, so I deleted one quote and used the apt line in the other. Greatly trimmed down now. It's still true that an interested reader can click on the NYP article and get to the meat. Binksternet (talk) 03:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

removal of marketing crap

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I removed some cherry-picked review snippets and Amazon sales figures from the article [1] [2] but was reverted by Binksternet[3] with an edit summary saying "no good reason for deletion given". I felt that my edit summaries gave the reason, but to expand: I felt those sections were excessively promotional, against Wikipedia's required neutral point of view. In addition, the three jacket blurb quotes were not verifiably attributed. They gave the names of publications but did not give the dates or page numbers of the reviews being quoted, so I'm removing them again. The longer excerpt by Michiko Kakutani is properly cited so I'll leave it in but will fix the inline attribution (which mentions only the NYT and not the reviewer's name). The Amazon sales figures are cited only to Amazon, the primary source for such figures, and the accompanying analysis is not cited at all, so I removed the section from the article under the no original research policy, which (as referenced in my edit summary) requires citation of a reliable secondary source. I'm removing it again for the same reason. Please do not restore the removed materials in any manner not fully conformant with the above policies and written in the spirit of neutrality. Wikipedia's guidelines about editing with a conflict of interest may also be relevant. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 04:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I always wonder what's going on when I see an anonymous IP editor quoting wiki rules right and left when they've got less than a score of edits under their belt. Why don't you sign in with your User name? Anyway, to respond to your points, I put "no good reason" in my edit summary because you gave no reason at all for your original deletion of the Sales section. Your argument here about the sales figures being original research doesn't eliminate the sentence and reference saying that Amazon lists the book at ranking "a quarter of a million," nor does it take away from Amazon's reporting that it ranks #5 of McInerney's Amazon titles. Both of those facts are available at the same reference: Amazon page for Story of My Life. The original research argument would only apply to the mention of Ransom and The Last Of The Savages. I'm guilty of adding those solely for the purpose of trying to make the section more readable as opposed to a cold recitation of stats. Barnes and Noble, on the other hand, reports the book's overall rank on its sales page but they don't report the book's rank among the author's other listings. Again, I'm guilty of bringing that information in just so the paragraph's sentences would be balanced in tone. Mea culpa in the name of readability. I'm adding the Sales section back in with its references, but now it will be trimmed back to the bone. Binksternet (talk) 05:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The book is currently #342 at Amazon, probably because of the Rielle Hunter incident. The reason material cited only to primary sources is original research is that the notability of the material to the article subject is not established (Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information). If the "cold recitation of stats" without added unsourced interpretation is boring to the reader, the absence of sourced interpretation is a sign that a notability problem in fact exists, and the stats should be removed rather than expanded on. Even if the actual sales figure is notable, the length of the previous version of that section was excessive (undue weight). The current version is a lot better, but I'd have preferred just stating what the rank was (#234,567 or whatever, or now #342) rather than interpreting it as "below a quarter million other texts".
The reason I gave for removing the review section was "remove 'criticism' section which contains of jacket-blurb like snippets except the Kakutani excerpt. should be replaced with a real section."[4] I think anyone editing about book reviews knows that jacket blurbs are marketing collateral and do not try to give a neutral presentation of what the review says. So that edit summary plus a glance at the actual removed section should have been enough to see the problem. Do you understand this issue at all? Wikipedia is absolutely saturated with marketing spam inserted by publicists and it has to be removed ruthlessly, not defended. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 07:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: I now notice that the description of the Amazon rank as reflecting the book's 2008 sales figures is just plain wrong. Amazon sales ranks are updated almost continuously, like several times an hour. If Amazon at 3pm today says that a book is at #342, it means it's at #342 for that hour (or maybe that day or so), not for the whole year. Being in 250,000th place basically means no copies have sold in a while. Selling just a handful of copies in one day will put a book in the top 1000 for a short while, but it falls back down again quickly. I don't know the exact formula but describing it as a "2008 sales figure" isn't even OR, it's just misinterpretation. I don't want to revert any more, so can you fix this please? I still think the section should be removed completely, but I'm open to other ideas if you insist. Thanks. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 07:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see now how Amazon had me fooled with their ranking algorithm. I concur with every point you made. I'm deleting the section. Binksternet (talk) 09:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 20:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Publishing history" section

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I have reviewed the BLP and Coatrack pages and believe that this modest addition conforms with both. Ribonucleic (talk) 17:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That seems like a good way to handle it. Certainly the Edwards connection has to be mentioned in the article somewhere, since it is a component of the book's current notability. Most of the dispute earlier seems to have been about wanting to devote excessive space to it. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 20:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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