Talk:Sam Sloan

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved -- no need for disambiguating qualifier. JHunterJ (talk) 17:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

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Sam Sloan (chess player) → Sam Sloan – No need for disambiguation in the title. There are no other articles on WP with "Sam Sloan" in the title, and there is a hatnote at the top of the page that links to the Samuel Sloan dab page. Currently, pages cannot be manually moved to Sam Sloan, as it redirects to the aforementioned dab page.JayJasper (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Cautious support As the other 2 people this might possibly refer to appear to be normally known as "Samuel Sloan". We should of course retain some sort of hatnote. PatGallacher (talk) 22:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support as standard procedure for use of parenthetical qualifiers. If there is a sole "Billy", "Charlie" or "Johnny" on a disambiguation page listing those named "William", "Charles" or "John", there no need for a qualifier and a redirect to the dab page unless the articles describing the other individuals stated that one or more of them was also well-known and publicly referenced by the diminutive form of his given name.—Roman Spinner (talk) 05:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Support No other article named Sam Sloan, no need for disambiguation. Canuck_{My page}^{89 (talk)}, 06:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC) Support - Rachitrali (talk) 07:58, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Very Odd Edit on 04:43, 28 January 2018‎

User 101.50.82.135, who appears to have been previously cited for vandalism (101.50.82.135 talk) of the page Chitral (princely state), added the following rather odd paragraph:

On January 17, 2018 Sloan was detained by the Superintendent of Police in Chitral Pakistan. He was held by an officer wearing a jacket saying COMMANDO ANTI TERRORIST SQUAD. He is believed to have been detained for attempting to take Family Tree DNA Genealogy DNA tests of Kalash people in Bumburet. He is still being held and his belongings are being held by the FIA, the Federal Investigation Agency, or by the ISI in Islamabad. Sloan contacted the Embassy of the United States, Islamabad but they did not offer any help at all, stating that US Citizens have been advised by the State Department not to travel to Pakistan [3] and thus any who come are on their own.

There are no citations regarding this purported incident (footnote three is a link to the US State Department's travel information page for Pakistan) nor have I been able to find any news reports of it.

What's going on?

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WTF

Uh.. I'm just driving by - I'm amazed there are no templates on this page warning about it! Most of the sources seem to be Sloan's own websites! There's pretty much an air of lunacy about it, as with everything he seems to be involved with. I was going to delete everything linking only to his own accounts, but that would be the whole page gone mostly. There's a load of far-fetched stories, which seem to come from Sloan himself and nowhere else. How is that wikipedia-appropriate. Wow. Anyway.. I just looked into one claim, that he was world chinese chess champion in 1988. Which sounds absurd on the face of it. It seems he didnt even play in it, but in the section for foreigners. I was going to delete, but I notice it, like most of the page, says "he claimed on such-an-such an occasion that' etc. Most of the page should be moved into a "Crazy Claims" section or something. For me, the most notable/amazing thing he's been involved in (I'm no expert) is the Truong online messages matter/scandal, where it seems Truong (Susan Polgar's husband and I believe on the board of the USCF then) wrote hundreds/thousands of fake messages pretending to be Sloan (and other people I think. I looked into it a few years ago, because it sounded soo incredibly bizarre.) Truong and Polgar were thrown out of the USCF because of that. I hadnt heard of the Sloan-winning-in-the-supreme-court thing, but the Truong affair seems to me the most notable chess thing he's been involved in. It was super-bizarre, and, from what I can tell, actually happened. Anyway, what a crazy life. Not surprised Fischer apparently felt on his level. Would make a great movie. But as a wikipedia page, wow. I guess no-one cares enough to clean it up. Probably most of it should just be deleted. I read the 2 2005 failed moves to delete. I'm not sure about that, but this page is nowhere near as 'good' as even the worst wikipedia page I'd seen before this one. I'm no wikpedia expert, but "Your own website" really is not a credible source, I think I'm pretty safe in saying. But I must go, am feeling less sane after even 20 minutes on this page. Good luck to who cleans it up, and thanks. (I'm not from the USA, have never met the guy) 110.20.175.168 (talk) 03:19, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

ok, so I'll leave a link to something more insane.. check out the last couple of years of this newsgroup. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rec.games.chess.politics Mostly Sloan's messages or people claiming to be him, or claiming not to be the people calling him a p.... r... etc etc. Wow hehe. He really spends his life mucking around in crap like that. Why?! (The abusive newsgroups, I mean) p.s. "An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive, and it has been disallowed" Gee. What is unconstructive is allowing so many bots on here. 110.20.175.168 (talk) 03:47, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

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Political positions

I removed the entire section "Political positions" with this edit since it seems overly promotional in nature and not really encyclopedically relevant per WP:NOTEVERYTHING. It looks like this was first boldly added here, but it might be time to take a closer look at this per WP:CONTENTAGE.

While I think it is acceptable to mention Sloan's attempts at obtaining public office, listing his poistion's on various issues in a separate subsection seems a bit excessive. If there was a particular issue Sloan associated with for a particluar campaign which was significantly covered in reliable sources covering the campaign, then that possibly could be mentioned with the relevant content about the camplaign in the "Political campaigns" section, but he sources cited were primary sources which seem problematic to me per WP:BLPSELFPUB. Wikipedia articles about politicians are not venues for the politicians to promote their campaign or their pet issues. If there are secondary sources providing critical commentary of the various positions that Sloan has taken, then that can be included; however, listing issues in a manifesto like manner is not very encyclopedic at all. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:47, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I think we can perhaps restore this section someday. Other candidates have such sections. I will take my time.--Sa57arc (talk) 15:15, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

More children?

Sloan says that he is now finding more biological children through GEDmatch searches. Should we add them to the infobox?--Sa57arc (talk) 23:34, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Such content would seem to be possibly a problem per WP:OR, WP:BLPPRIMARY, WP:BLPPRIVACY and WP:BLPNAMES. Unless any of these new found children (who may be adults at this time) are Wikipedia notable in their own right and this recent discovery is something which seems to have received some coverage in secondary and independent reliable sources, then there's doesn't seem to be any real encyclopedic need to mention them. If someone is doing their own research to find out how many children they might have and it personally helps them find some closure, then that's good for them; however, that's not necessarily relevant to Wikipedia and it's not Wikipedia's role to try and set the record straight. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:35, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Before adding any more children’s names, it would be best to try and find proper sourcing and discuss the encyclopedic importance of the nine someone had already added. I just removed (technically hid) them because they were sitting unsourced in the infobox unsupported by reliable sources and corresponding content into body of the article. Such information probably should’ve been removed a long time ago per WP:BLPNAMES and WP:BLPSOURCES; moreover, infoboxes should summarize key article content and not be the only place something is mentioned per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. — Marchjuly (talk) 22:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

What about Familypedia?--Sa57arc (talk) 23:28, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Just from the name that would seem to be something not going to be considered reliable per WP:UGC. You are aware that Wikipedia doesn't even consider itself to be a reliable source for any purpose, aren't you? -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I only brought Shamema back. I guess the others will stay hidden.--Sa57arc (talk) 23:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I guess we have settled on no children names at all.--Sa57arc (talk) 06:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You seem to have tried to bring more back. Again, I don't think you should be adding content such as this per WP:BLPSOURCES and WP:BLPNAMES without some really strong secondary sources cited in support. The cause of someone's death or whether someone identifies as transgender are not things which should be added to articles without some really strong sourcing as well as there being a really strong contextual reason for doing so. A much stronger source is needed that citing someone's FIDE profile page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The details about Shamena and her kidnapping that could only be supported by court records or some DVD on Amazon should have never beein this article in the first place per WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSPS Morbidthoughts (talk) 02:30, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I concede the point. No secondary sources mention any of Sloan's children except for Shamema and her only briefly.--Sa57arc (talk) 05:24, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Removed most anusha.com citations

I removed most of the Anusha.com citations. I left two that are presented as archives of documents authored by other people where there is no other copy on the web available. I also removed some of the warnings at the top of the article. I think that we can trust Sloan to have honest copies of news articles and legal documents on his personal site.--Sa57arc (talk) 20:24, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This has to do with WP:CONVENIENCE. If the archived copies of articles, for example, show an entire scan of the article show that the name of the publication, the date of publication, the name of any authors, etc. can be seen, then it might be OK to cite it as a source if the original publication is considered reliable per WP:SAYWHERE even if the original article can't be easily found online. Even in that case though, the uploading of the scan by Sloan might be considered a WP:COPYLINK violation for Wikipedia purposes and it might simply be best to cite the original source without any link to anusha. If, on the other hand, the archived version is basically Sloan just copying and pasting or re-entering a transcript of the article onto his website, then it might be wise not to cite it. With a scan you can at least see if it's been manipulated a bit, but there's no way to verify a manually entered version of the article without actually seeing the original version of the article. So, I don't think Sam Sloan#cite_note-Mauro-10 (i.e. http://www.anusha.com/amlawyer.htm) and Sam Sloan#cite_note-Duffy-12 (i.e. http://www.anusha.com/duffy.htm) should be linked to since they aren't really archived links or the original source per se, but rather "archived versions" re-created by Sloan. In addition, they might also not really be needed per WP:CITETRIM since both are used to cite the same content which is also supported by five other citations. This also something technically odd about those two archived links in that they try to download some type of audio file onto my computer when I click on them; that could just be me, but there should really be no reason to download a file for it to be verified. Anyway, I'll ask about it at WP:RSN to see what some others might think. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:00, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Sloan added midi audio files to his pages back when he authored them around the year 2000. On many browsers then, they would play the audio in the background. Times have changed but Sloan and Anusha.com have not.--Sa57arc (talk) 23:10, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

How do you know what Sloan did back in 2000? Have you been in contact with him or was this posted somewhere on his website? That would explain the audio files, but again not sure how you know such a thing. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:30, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

He has updated his giant home page with 2016 info but all the other pages that I have seen are old stuff.--Sa57arc (talk) 06:39, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Wives

Are there any secondary sources for his wives? His first and third wives are mentioned by name in the infobox, but they're not mentioned anywhere else in the article. Even the bit about his second wife seems to rely heavily on WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSELFPUB types of sources, but at least there's something in the article about her. Unsourced content only mentioned in the infobox probably needs to be removed per WP:BLPSOURCES or incorporated (with supporting citations) somewhere in the body of the article. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:45, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

See Sam Sloan#cite_note-Hallman-2. Search for "wives".--Sa57arc (talk) 07:05, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I did that before I started this thread. That source doesn't mention any of his wives by name or anything about when Sloan married them of when he divorced them. It also says he Sloan claims to have five wives (not three). That source completely fails WP:RSCONTEXT for anything other than what it actually says, such as his first wife was a Kalesh woman, not that his first wife was Anda Baumanis. We can't take what's written in that source to support anything other than what's actually written in that source per WP:SYN; moreover, some parts of that article (particularly the parts about Sloan's personal life), have an interview feel to it in which the writer is asking Sloan to talk about himself and it doesn't appear that the writer did anything more than take the claims made at face value. That might make for interesting reading, but it's not really the solid source needed per BLPSOURCES. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

USENET postings incident

Most of the content in this section seems to be only supported by some online news group posts which is not allowed per WP:BLPSPS. The second source cited is basically just for the "law" Sloan is supposed to have broken, but has nothing to do with Sloan or anything about the particular incident. What are needed are secondary reliable sources which discuss the content, not citations to online news groups. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I changed that section name to "Domain name seizures".--Sa57arc (talk) 09:48, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Changing the name doesn't really change the fact that the section is pretty much unsourced per Wikipedia's standards; moreover, adding further unsourced content to it only exacerbates the problem. How do you know that Sloan regained his domain names? What source are you "citing" for that information? Do you have personal knowledge of the details your adding to the article about this and other stuff to the article or are you finding it somewhere in reliable sources? -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The domain names http://www.samsloan.com http://www.shamema.com http://www.ishipress.com now work. Those are the ones that the posting said were seized. I hope you do not consider that to be WP:OR.--Sa57arc (talk) 12:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

You are right. No BLP-quality sources and the incident is non-notable. I removed the section.--Sa57arc (talk) 01:34, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Taxi driver stories

​@Sa57arc: I'd imagine that many persons who have worked as a NY cab driver probably have a story or two about some well-known person who was a passenger in their cab; however, this is pretty trivial type of content that probably should not be mentioned even if supported by a reliable source. If there is an incident between Sloan and someone well-know that for some reason received coverage in reliable sources, then perhaps something like that could be mentioned.

You sincerely seem to be trying to improve this article though it's not clear why that's suddenly the case. Prior to November 15, you don't seem to have edited this article at all; since then, though, quite of lot of your editing has been focused on this article or content somehow related to Sloan in other articles. I've asked this before, but it's still not clear where you're getting this type of information. Are you reading it somewhere online? Do you have some connection to Sloan and thus know things like this? There's nothing wrong with either per se, but some care needs to be taken with WP:BLP content in particular to make sure it's properly supported by reliable secondary sources and encyclopedically relevant to a general understanding of the subject of the article. Many of the changes you're making seem OK at first glance, but you still keep adding unsourced and somewhat trivial blubs like this.

So, maybe instead of adding more unsourced content, it might be best to start removing already existing unsourced content from the article if a proper secondary source can't be found and cited in support. Articles can also be improved (at least from a Wikipedia standpoint) by trimming them down to only information that can be reliably supported by proper citations. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I guess I got annoyed with the use of perennial candidate in the first sentence. I kept adding more things he did to the first sentence. He is a PC but it makes him sound like a dumb fool. He is a smart fool. I got carried away but by working together we have a good first sentence now. One thing that Sloan does that many notable chess players know from personal experience is that he walks around at international chess tournaments and hobnobs with the players. When he does so, he is a charming gentleman. He does not disrupt the players concentration. If he did that then they would throw him out but he does not. The Hallman article is new and very helpful but Hallman characterizes Sloan as "not likable". I think that Sloan is a Gadfly (philosophy and social science) but likable. Some of his partners and wives must have thought he was likable for a while at least. Some on the Internet have suggested that he caused his daughter Jessica's death. Sloan gets a bad rap IMHO. Youngsters hate him for talking in detail about his love life. Well pooh on them. In the end, I really did not change much content. I added some year dates and stuff. I gather some stuff into new little sections. Not much.--Sa57arc (talk) 10:51, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I just did a major copyedit of the article, and while I did not know that "perennial candidate" had previously been in the lead sentence, but it seemed clearly the most notable aspect about him in the sources as I went through them. If you look at MOS:OPENPARABIO, it explains some of the guidelines for leads in BLPs, including why the subject is notable and their noteworthy activities based on due weight. I could understand possibly adding "chess player" back (although even that seems puffed up in the article already), but him continually running for office seems to be central to his notability. I also think it is inappropriate to add unsourced labels into the article such as "gadfly" and "memorizer". We have to go by what is in reliable independent sources, regardless of whether we agree with their sentiments. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Gotta say that I'm enjoying just how much work is going into improving this article lately: when I first stumbled across it a few months ago, it was, well, in need of a major copy-edit (which I couldn't do at the time). So thank you all for your work. And, yes, RS, RS, RS. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 01:05, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I should also note that I didn't check every statement for accurate sourcing, which is why I added the more footnotes template at the top of the article. I tried to connect sources to the specific sentences as much as possible, and hopefully going forward it will be easier to remove unsourced fluff if it get put into the article without a citation. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think Sloan is probably "notable" is some sense for lots of reasons, but his Wikipedia notability seem primarily due to his arguing a case before SCOTUS and being a political candidate at various times (even though he's never seems to have ever been elected). It might be argued that his accomplishments as an author/publisher also help establish notability, but I'm not really seeing anything that clearly would meet WP:NAUTHOR. His accomplishments in chess and xiangqi are also somewhat impressive, but I don't they rise to the level in establishing Wikipedia notability. They seem OK to mention if properly sourced, but they shouldn't be given WP:UNDUE importance and care should be taken to make sure they don't seem more significant then they are by WP:NAMEDROPing famous people he might have as contemporaries or might have interacted with over the years as a player of either game. Too much of the such content as well as much of the personal life stuff, however, seems to be sourced back to Sloan himself which needs to be treated carefully per WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSELFPUB. As I posted above, one way of improving an article is to remove unsourced or otherwise inappropriate content when proper sourcing can't be found for it, and try to stick to reflecting what those reliable sources that can be found are actually saying. This might make the article less exciting to read in a sense, but I think care has to be taken to try and adhere to WP:BLP as best as we can. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

chessprogramming.org

Is https://www.chessprogramming.org/Sam_Sloan an OK source for a BLP?--Sa57arc (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

No, it's not a reliable source for any purpose on Wikipedia. See WP:UGC. You may also want to spend some time reading WP:RS and WP:V as they provide a lot of information about proper sourcing policies. There are apparently multiple threads on this talk page from the past few weeks where others have had to spend their time explaining basic sourcing policies to you, and you have continued to add unsourced information into the article even today. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 18:40, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Sa57arc, could you also respond to the question by Marchjuly about whether you have a connection to Sam Sloan? Given that you are adding information that is not in sources, I think it would be appropriate if you would say whether you are Sam Sloan or whether you are getting that information from him, as that would be a conflict of interest. You could also participate in the noticeboard discussion about your apparent COI here. Thank you. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 18:52, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not Sam Sloan.--Sa57arc (talk) 19:42, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any personal or off-wiki relationship with him that would pose a COI? Thank you in advance as well. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 20:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I have read a lot of pages on Anusha.com. I hope the article can someday mention that he claims to have visited 78 counties. Maybe I will email him and suggest that he mention that in his next interview someday. I bet that the reporter will find that newsworthy.--Sa57arc (talk) 20:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Another source check

How about

https://www.game-ai-forum.org/icga-tournaments/person.php?id=443

This shows that SS was involved with the Rex chess software program.--Sa57arc (talk) 22:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)