Talk:The Human Stain/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

This is like wanting all the theories of turning lead into gold?

I can see the usual suspects are here forgoing common sense and the basic facts with "wikilaw". Roth has stated what he thought about the character, that is the definitive answer. Everyone's else version was wrong.

Therefore using the assumption's being laid out on this talkpage...there should be a specific article on the ways of turning lead into gold. Because despite the answer being "no", all the wrong theories (like in this article) must be published because they are "verifiable". Ignore the plain simple answer and merge it with conjecture masquerading as fact!

Wikipedia is just proving again that it is just a playground of popularism, patrolled by power-crazed anonymous editors who hide behind pseudonyms. That are more interested in the legalese of the site than the content.!

The bottom line is Roth has given his answer which is the only one history wants to know. Just like history and science has proved that lead cannot be turned into gold. Does that mean all the alchemists' recipes should be listed just to make the point there were difference between mainstream science and the cranks? Of course not. Because there is only one answer.

It's similar to filling up the article on Elvis with all the "conspiracies" surrounding his death, or merging the Apollo missions into the moon hoax rubbish. Just to show there are differences in opinion. However I say that when a definitive answer exists other opinions are WP:FRINGE. How can you debate a definitive answer without sounding like prevarication?

Sadly the only reason there is so much debacle here is because of WP:Recentism, the other scourge of this site. Can anyone name contemporary critics of Shakespeare, Johnson, Twain, Elliot, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Sallinger?? No because they existed in pre-internet times. What matters is what the authors wrote and thought not what other think. Look at their articles, that view speaks for itself! It is as simple as that. Roth is the only real source. However *sigh* I don't think it makes much difference, as I ruefully note, the same rules lawyers are popping up everywhere on this site; it's not surprising this is happening. Who wants to be banging their head against a wall day in, day out? 109.155.66.153 (talk) 09:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

So you're saying a New York Times literature review is WP:FRINGE? And once an author claims to reveal his motivation for a story, that's the end of the discussion?

Why should we have an article on the Bohr–Einstein debates? Bohr absolutely kicked Einstein's ass on quantum mechanics. Einstein clearly had no idea what he was talking about and therefore should not expect to be remembered in those debates. </sarcasm> --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 13:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It appears the IP is saying "what matters" to him or her, and is critical that it does "not [allegedly] matter" to others. Regardless of the utility of arguing about what matters to the IP and why everyone should see it his or her way, it appears that what matters for this article is what the sources have discussed about the topic of The Human Stain. So, apart from any policy, whatsoever, it would be odd (and uninformative) not to include the sources. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

It boils down, in the end, to Wikipedia's departure from the fundamental basis of Western culture: that truth and fact have an existence separate from anyone's opinions. At Wikipedia, what's "true" is what the majority of editors say is true, as enforced by a majority of administrators, a majority of whom are children who know nothing at all about the topic at hand. The result is that, while Wikipedia can be useful as a compendium of data not in dispute, it is absolutely unreliable on any subject where controversy or manipulation is present.

Moreover, when truth and fact have no independent standing, the result is the fever swamps of petty politicking that characterize everything that Wikipedia does. This will not change, and in fact cannot change given the basis for Wikipedia's existence. I can feel for Philip Roth. Like other serious figures in the West's cultural milieu, he has occupied himself with matters of substance and was clearly unfamiliar with the utterly unserious nature of everything that Wikipedia is and does, and always will be. Moynihanian (talk) 19:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, Wikipedia's silly, but its criterion for truth is actually not editorial consensus but verfiability -- and the problem is that, while people are rightly inclined to trust Roth and rely on his word, there are countless idiots keen to adjust pages about themselves and their works to fit their own, false senses of reality. It's hard to have a different rule for each one of them. Now Roth has ensured that his opinion is reflected in reliable sources, problem over.KD Tries Again (talk) 22:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Guh.. that's so wrong. His comment was always valid on that point, it was never a question of the comment itself, it was the reliability of an unknown person stating a familiarity to Roth ACTING for Roth. An figure, no matter the person behind the scenes, without identification is unreliable for any comment made. Doesn't matter who it is. There is a big difference on an author's take on the creation process and a proclamation of grandeur. Roth's comments are not self-serving and wouldn't matter if it was made on his own website, it would still be valid. The only burden is verification of the source, Roth is a reliable source for such views, no one else is. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the only reason Roth's perspective remains in the article is because Wikipedia knows how terrible it would look if they kept censoring him. The "problem" is not "over." The "problem" is fundamental and ongoing, and it is why Wikipedia does not have, nor will ever have, credibility within any serious academic institution operated on Western cultural lines. An institution that does not believe in the absolute primacy of truth and fact is, and always will be, at odds with the foundations of Western culture. Which, by the way, is certainly Wikipedia's right. But, in my opinion, this guarantees that Wikipedia will never have, nor will ever deserve, the status that many of its most ardent promoters clearly crave.Moynihanian (talk) 02:31, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Chris, you need to check out.[[1]]. Moynihanian, you need to figure out a criterion for truth superior to verifiability.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again

KD, you don't get it, or perhaps you don't want to. When you have an enterprise that does not recognize the independent existence or status of truth or fact, "verifiability" is meaningless. All you are "verifying" is the publication of data, without regard to its truth or falsity. Unless Wikipedia were to change (and actually implement) its perspective on this fundamental issue, Wikipedia will never and should never be regarded as authoritative about any subject by any serious researcher or academic. Moynihanian (talk) 20:01, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Roth Contradicts Himself?

After I reviewed the evidence, it appears Roth contradicts himself.

The 2008 Bloomberg interview that was his first explicit rebuttal about Broyard, Roth says [2]:

Hilferty: Is Coleman Silk, the black man who willfully passes as white in "The Human Stain," based on anyone you knew?

Roth: No. There was much talk at the time that he was based on a journalist and writer named Anatole Broyard. I knew Anatole slightly, and I didn't know he was black. Eventually there was a New Yorker article describing Anatole's life written months and months after I had begun my book. So, no connection.

But recently in The New Yorker [3], he says:

“The Human Stain” was inspired, rather, by an unhappy event in the life of my late friend Melvin Tumin, professor of sociology at Princeton for some thirty years.

He then goes on to talk at length about Silk.

And it is this that inspired me to write “The Human Stain”: not something that may or may not have happened in the Manhattan life of the cosmopolitan literary figure Anatole Broyard but what actually did happen in the life of Professor Melvin Tumin, sixty miles south of Manhattan in the college town of Princeton, New Jersey, where I had met Mel, his wife, Sylvia, and his two sons when I was Princeton’s writer-in-residence in the early nineteen-sixties.

Isn't this a good illustration that even primary sources, words right from the mouth of the sources, can be problematic and contradictory? -- Fuzheado | Talk 02:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think that we can be more charitable, that he may have misspoke or misheard in 2008, but yes all sources are more or less problematic. All one can do is carefully stick with what there is, at the time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

In an ideal world, one might ask Roth about that, and I can think of a few reasonable answers. In reality, it's just going to be fodder for the mob. Of course, primary sources can be wrong (though Bloomberg is a secondary source anyway). However, note this does not justify fetishizing secondary sources. Doctors can make mistakes, but they are far far better than quacks. The problem here is that scholarship tries to ask what's right, and the rules of Wikipedia ask what's widespread in the media, which can be very different (this point has been made above). Good scholarly practice is to weigh all sources carefully. Real Wikipedia practice is to edit-war relentlessly with the sources as tokens of status (ok, that's a slight joke, but only slightly). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I kind of noticed that apparent contradiction when I was looking at the sources. However, given the question it seems he was answering the implied question about whether the "passing as white" thing was based off someone he knew.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:30, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Seth, I think there might be the possibility Roth was answering a different question than the one asked -- that is, "Was the idea of writing about a black man who willfully passes as white based on anyone you knew?" In that case, "No," and the following explanation would be a reasonable and consistent answer. I'm in the process of writing something about this, simply to explain "truth finding" via verification is not easy or obvious stuff. Even with multiple reliable sources: a direct transcript from an interview, and the words from the author himself, these things can be confusing. I agree that piling on too much of the speculation about Broyard in The Human Stain article doesn't make sense, but do think that since speculation about Broyard was so prevalent and talked about in the years before Roth's clarification, that it merits a significant, though not overly weighted, mention in the article. -- Fuzheado | Talk 04:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We should not hold people to the letter of their statements, it is not a Wikipedia versus Roth matter either. Let's not harp on about such a statement, it matters little, the only thing that counts is that Roth has made a statement specifically in regards to the matter. Even if there was no mistake or misspeaking in 2008, Roth is entitled to keep his secrets or elaborate or word it in any way that he chooses. Even if he denied any connection previously, we should not be overly picky or hung up on that 2008 statement. Even though I understand the desire to defend Wikipedia or to call out the previous statement, its not worth creating a feud over this. Already this is getting too much attention.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:38, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree -- this is not a game of gotcha. In this case it's rather benign and straightforward. But consider the next case where it's not just an author's reflection on his own motivations, but rather an evasive politician, a lying felon or someone who changes his/her story to cover tracks. These cases are harder, and most outsiders would be surprised to see how conscientious and thorough Wikipedians can be in editing to get things right. Not always, but more than you'd expect, or more than what the news headlines say. -- Fuzheado | Talk 04:55, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

@Fuzheado - I hope you're not going to go down a apologism path of "Truth is hard, so Wikipedia can't be wrong (or should be excused for being wrong)." The following is a bit of soapboxing on my part, but in context, I'll ask for indulgence. One of my deep criticisms of Wikipedia, is that yes, while truth is hard, Wikipedia culture as a whole is downright inimical to truth. "Verification, not truth", remember? Note, this isn't just my critic's view. Even Jimbo "BannerFace" Wales talks about how Wikipedia editors should not be, in his phrase, "transcription monkeys". This incident is not quite Wikipedia at its worst, but it's ugly. The hostility to Roth and his biographer is very creepy, especially considering they were just trying to set the record straight. And their sin is clearly crossing the Wikipedia believers. What I fear is going to happen is that even if you intend here merely to make a mild philosophical point, it's going to be used by that same mean streak in Wikipedia boosterism, and be *turned into* a frothing rant of "Roth *contradicted* himself, got him, got him, GOT HIM!!!!". Maybe this doesn't matter (sound and fury signifying nothing), and Roth hardly needs me to defend him. But it really bothers me in terms of the responsibilities of scholarship. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 05:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

(semi-ec) I wrote the above paragraph before seeing your reply above. Sigh. Why do I bother? :-( -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 05:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

@Seth: No worries. I'm glad you left the reply here because you'd be surprised that I agree with you more than you'd think. I also +1 the comment you had in the other talk page lamenting Wikipedians who think outsiders should be able to read and digest policy here in one fell swoop and learn Wikipedia's norms lickety split. Being a conscientious newbie in Wikipedia is getting harder and harder. Some of this is policy overload, but much of it is just bad community dynamics that have grown over the years. -- Fuzheado | Talk 05:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, getting lost in all the combative rhetoric is the fact that new shit has come to light. Now that we are privy to all the new shit the article has been improved. This is a good thing, but we are acting like it is a bad thing.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:59, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

What I find intriguing is that in both this and the Haymarket Riot case, is Wikipedia's policy has evolved to require more proof and verifiability. That means it tends to move slower, and that's an inversion of the usual lament -- that Wikipedia moves too fast and without thought. -- Fuzheado | Talk 07:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see "more proof and verifiability", and the inversion is just because this is the inverse case of the usual problem. But it's the same structural problem, that Wikipedia favors mass media misconceptions. In the "usual lament", "Wikipedia moves too fast and without thought" to echo wrong mass media reports of new events. It then defends itself by saying it's no worse than the mass media. Here, Wikipedia "tends to move slower" to correct longstanding but wrong mass media reports. It then defends itself by saying it's no worse than the mass media. Observe here the solution was for the expert to get into the mass media. NOT for anyone to verify the identity of the biographer and then exercise educated editorial judgment and say the mass media was wrong, which would all be horribly unWikipedian. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 08:19, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Terms like "proof" and "verifiability" have no substance here. They are, at best, security blankets for Wikipedia "editors" who quite understandably want to believe that they are doing something worthwhile. However, when you have a publication -- this one -- that is explicitly organized on the idea that there is no such thing as "truth" or "fact" but only whether it can be "verified" that a piece of data was published elsewhere by an entity whose nature your crowd approves of, you really can't "prove" or "verify" anything. As soon as there's a dispute, you're at sea, and all the Wikilawyering in the world won't fix it. So you can go on and pile rule on top of rule and policy on top of policy, but no serious Western cultural institution will, or should, ever regard Wikipedia as authoritative. You can't be authoritative when you don't recognize the independent existence of truth, and its primary status. Moynihanian (talk) 20:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I've always thought and still think it's not authoritative because it has open editing. Everything else falls into place after that bit of knowledge. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:30, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Open editing exists in theory, but in practice Wikipedia is dominated by roving cliques of kids who don't know anything about the subject, whatever it might be. But those issues pale by comparison to Wikipedia's incompatibility with the basis of Western culture.Moynihanian (talk) 20:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

@Fuzheado - Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate it -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:23, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

No relation to Grandma Finkel, of course! Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

<-- I don't see a contradiction. The first question, ... based on anyone you knew? No. ... The second answer, ... inspired by an event in the life of .... I read the first as saying it's not a fictionalization of a real life, and the second that there was a real event (not life) that inspired a fiction. htom (talk) 00:17, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The book's author requests this article be corrected

Philip Roth, author of “The Human Stain”, just posted an open letter to Wikipedia in the New Yorker to point out a serious misstatement he found in this article, that he would like to have removed. Could one of this article's regular editors address his reasonable concerns, please? Thanks in advance. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 18:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

There are no regular editors. I (and one or two others) have already fixed it. Could the WMF introspect on its incompetent and damaging editorial policies please? Thanks in advance.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:02, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I came here to make this correction (having read of the problem on Wikipediocracy, which is not the first time that sort of thing has happened), and am glad to see someone has already addressed it, probably better than I might have. I'd be interested if anyone has a link to the original discussion where the correction was requested and declined. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

This is rather ridiculous that it ever had to happen. Who better to know the inspiration for the book they wrote than the author themselves? I'm glad that Roth got the statement published, because that certainly gives it more oomph in our regard, but it shouldn't have been necessary to make the initial changes in the first place. Who was the administrator that refused to change the page? Silverseren^C 19:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for your prompt response! Much, much appreciated. I also added the new article feedback form at the bottom of this page, in case the author wishes to make any more comments in the future -- these can be viewed on this feedback page. Bali, can you clarify what you mean about the WMF's 'editorial policies'? We are here to support the community's existing policies, and am not aware of any internal editorial policies. Cheers. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 19:31, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Where did Roth's discussion take place? Clearly it didn't happen here on the talk page. Is there an OTRS case that can be viewed? Considering the scrutiny which will likely result from this public chastisement, I believe we should make what happened more transparent. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 19:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Mr. Florin. I know the WMF has absolutely no interest in imposing reasonable standards for generating actual encyclopedia content. The "community" is a dangerous fiction, useful as it is to dismiss criticism. I would like more people to understand that the WMF that raises so much money takes no responsibility for the contents of one of the most popular websites on the planet. It's supremely depressing. ADDING: There was no "prompt response." The problem had already been dealt with by the time you showed up here. You didn't even read the article to see that.Bali ultimate (talk) 19:52, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Fabrice, my suggestion would be for the WMF to stop the encouragement of the axis of Wiki evil, wiki-lawyers, wiki-fascists, and wiki-nazis. Just a suggestion. Also, shitcan everyone above the level of wiki-editor and start over with your faux scientology arb-comms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.106.45.56 (talk) 20:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

No banned users allowed. Out. Silverseren^C 20:47, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hell ya! --KlickitatGlacier (talk) 21:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Guessing none of you actually looked at Florin's user page or looked at his efforts at Wikimania 2012, you just assumed he was BB. Great job on the research!! Nasa-verve (talk) 22:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I did look at his user page. I also read his comment on the New Yorker's website. However, I did not look at his work on Wikimania as I did not consider it germane to the discussion. ;-) --GentlemanGhost (talk) 23:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems that everyone (here on WP and those posting comments on the NY'er article - 25 so far) is missing the point that (1) over 2-1/2 weeks ago, Philip Roth's self-proclaimed biographer made two IP edits to correct/remove the Broyard reference, which is always suspect and has a high chance of being reverted on WP, especially when there is any suspect of Conflict of Interest (for better and for worse). (2) Each of these removal attempts were reverted by two Wikipedia users who had over 9,000 and 82,000 edits each. The two "attempted removal" edits and subsequent reverts occurred within 30 minutes time. (3) And thirdly, the second revert by a well seasoned WP editor (82k) was followed by the addition over 2 hours time of nearly 6k characters of text, of which about half, contained references to support Roth's inspiration by Broyard. If you read these additions, you can understand why Roth when to the extent of writing 15k characters in his Open Letter to Wikipedia in the New Yorker. (There were no further edits until after the release of Roth's open letter.)

What follows is the full timeline with links to the edits:

• Aug 20, 3pm - Self-attested biographer removal attempt 1 by IP edit with summary:I have removed the reference to Anatole Broyard, at Philip Roth's insistence. I am his biographer.
• 1 minute later, edit reverted by User:Jprg1966 with summary: Can you verify that? (TW)
• 20 minutes later - Self-attested biographer's 2nd removal attempt from same IPv4 24-bit subnet (likely same person) with summary: Once again, I removed the reference to Anatole Broyard. It is wholly inaccurate and therefore pointless. I am Roth's biographer, and have removed it at his request.
• At this point it gets interesting.
• 6 minutes later, User:Parkwells makes a series of 21 edits starting only 6 minutes after the 2nd removal attempt. These 21 edits are over the course of just over 2 hours time. These 21 edits add nearly 6k characters of text, by my estimate, nearly half of this new text contemplates the potential inspiration from Broyard. These edit comments include: add more on comparison with Broyard and Add cite for inspiration by Broyard and Cite source for comment about Broyard and Add cite for Taylor on Broyard and quote and finally Add cite for Roth on not knowing about Broyard. This editor must have felt like he was sleuthing!
• You must read the end result of the 21 edits yourself, click here. (By the way, there were no other edits on this article, until after the New Yorker letter by Roth was published.

There is no question, in my opinion, that these textual additions could be seen by Roth as Wikipedia editors digging in their heels and being contrarian. At first reading Philip Roth's open letter in the New Yorker caught me as petty to go to the great lengths to prove he was not inspired by Broyard. But now, after seeing these edits to the article to support the opposite firsthand, I actually understand the depth of his feeling. But I also can understand the actions of the WP editors as well, trying to bolster the status quo of the article by filling in references to support the previous position. I believe it was something to push against, as it were! :) Nasa-verve (talk) 21:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

What's more troubling to me is that Roth was told that he is not a valid source. And yes, preemptively, I understand about the difference between primary sources and secondary sources. But only Roth can speak to his own motivations. Anyone else is merely speculating. And speculation should not be part of a good encyclopedia article. However, the reported discussion between Roth and the Wikipedia representative did not occur in the article space or here in the talk space. I can only assume that it happened through OTRS or some similar conflict resolution system. I think those communications ought to be exposed to the light. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 21:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

After re-reading Roth's letter, I have no idea what exactly is meant: my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.” Wait, did Roth's interlocutor literally get a letter in the snail mail from "Mr. WP Admin"??? This feels so 1980's. Very confused. Anyone who has access to OTRS want to shed some light? Plus, did Mr. WP Admin actually check the 21 edits to bolster the article against him? I am guessing not. Nasa-verve (talk) 21:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I cannot find an OTRS ticket about it. I do not know where the author got this information.

Anyway, I believe it is time for us to revisit the way we handle the following two things, which has already troubled me in the past, but for which I have never come out and tried to make a change (as someone who has a lot of edits on English Wikipedia, I consider myself at least somewhat knowledgeable about the subject, even if I am not as wise as some who have been here for longer):

• Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy - there is absolutely no reason to be discouraging people from editing articles for subjects with which they are closely acquainted unless they are doing so in a way that puffs up the subject or consists of advertising. I have seen too many times an editor bite someone who was correcting a small issue because that person had a conflict of interest. I realize this can get sticky - but a person who changes his/her own birthdate, for example, and cites a reliable source - this is not a conflict of interest, and we do no favor by plopping a warning template on the person's page. In fact, this can be even worse if the person has a username which is their real name, because now User talk:Joe Shmoe has a big notice on it that says "this doofus was trying to spam by editing his own article."
• Wikipedia's policy regarding secondary sources is too stringent. When providing analysis of a subject, it is good to have an impartial secondary source, but when quoting simple facts, there is no reason we should not be able to quote directly from the source, unless that source is suspect. If the author's website gives his/her birthdate, then that is a reliable source. In fact, it is more reliable than a secondary source.

These ought to and need to change, and I hope this rebuke in a major publication is enough to get people moving on the issue. I for one am ready to bring the issue up wherever it may be to bring about the change. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 00:00, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with everyone who's saying that this policy looks silly, but on reflection, think it is the right thing. Let's agree that Roth is the best source on his own motivations. Given that there are other sources, it is helpful as an encyclopedia to get him to commit his perspective to a citable source. Imagine that this was a more contentious issue; would we accept the author's opinion that this is an excellent book when it's panned by the critics? We'd use the preponderance of evidence rule to push back on such a thing. So while this looks as silly as a skilled author like Roth can make it look, I'm not convinced that that's an argument to revise wikipedia policies. (Emergentchaos, 12:16 08 September 2012 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emergentchaos (talk • contribs)

There was nothing wrong with the article whatsoever, nor with the way policy was applied in this case. The section in question was about the reception of the novel, not an endorsement of Kakutani's theories. It reported in an entirely NPOV manner the take of a critic writing for the most respected newspaper in the country. If her speculations were unfounded, that is an issue for the New York Times, not wikipedia. For that matter, the fact that Roth contested the claim was already noted right there in the section. If Roth objected to wikipedia even acknowledging Kakutani's published review, the solution is not to have the material deleted, it is to cite acceptable sources to further highlight his objection.Sylvain1972 (talk) 00:22, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

But instead we apparently bit him. Again, there's a problem if we're telling him that he is not an acceptable source on his own work. After the initial edits, the rest of this seems to have played out in another space. I reiterate that Wikipedia ought to disclose that exchange. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 00:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Sylvain. I was not adding the cited sources to reject Roth's contention that he did not know about Broyard, but to show that critics at the time of his book's publication thought of Broyard and discussed him in relation to the novel. He was a public intellectual who would come to mind, given some of the circumstances in the book. As you said, Roth's argument is with the NY Times and other critics, not with WP, except to the extent anyone told him that he couldn't comment on his own work.Parkwells (talk) 00:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The points that keep being missed, or undervalued by Wikipedia, is that there are a surprisingly large number of instances where a very good expert source should trump lackluster erroneous references. It demonstrates that while WikiEditors give lip service to accuracy, what they really love is process. The process of reverting changes based on policy-centric rules, with little or no regard to the content. The idea that this is a community of contributors is now such a laughable farce it makes me ill. Oolitic (talk) 14:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I think the solution is ok as far as pleasing Roth about what he says about his own book, but are we saying editors can't use what critics write about a book? and show why they wrote it? The parallels with Broyard are obvious, especially as information about him had been more widely revealed about this time. It does not take anything away from Roth to use those sources to show what the public discussion was at the time the book was published. It seems there are two different issues here.Parkwells (talk) 00:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The fact that he is the author doesn't give him the right to delete the accurate references by wikipedia to what Taylor and Kukutani published in very reputable publications. His refutation of their speculation was already noted by the article. It was already right there! If it wasn't, that would be a different matter.Sylvain1972 (talk) 01:21, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The points that keep being missed, or undervalued by Wikipedia, is that there are a surprisingly large number of instances where a very good expert source should trump lackluster erroneous references. It demonstrates that while WikiEditors give lip service to accuracy, what they really love is process. The process of reverting changes based on policy-centric rules, with little or no regard to the content. The idea that this is a community of contributors is now such a laughable farce it makes me ill. Oolitic (talk) 14:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand that the critical reception of the book is notable in and of itself. The critics may have been erroneous in their speculations, but those speculations did happen, they were widespread and significant, and there is no reason for wikipedia to erase all mention of them just because it displeases Mr. Roth that they ever occurred. I don't know why that is so hard to understand.Sylvain1972 (talk) 00:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a burden of verifiability not truth, it does not seem from the edits in this article that a good faith attempt was made to identify the identity of the biographer or Roth himself. Masquerading around as someone is easy until you have to cough up some form of proof, saying something doesn't make it true. Even more perplexing is that the improvements to the article clearly note the speculation and Roth's dispute of it. While the New Yorker article is a bit dramatic, its a single POV that seems to be removed from the incident itself. Afterall, it wasn't Roth who attempted to correct the matter, but someone acting on his behalf. A clear COI and verifiability issues, it comes up from time to time, but I am not seeing an actual attempt to fix the problem and given that the IP has a history of vandalism, little faith can be placed in such a comment. See the diff in which the IP replaces the Transformer's page with 'Ninja turtles are better than transformers!' [4] and continues to vandalize even now. Diff [5]. Judging from the history and event itself, there was little stock in the anonymous editor with a history of vandalism on that IP address. Sad it happened, but it was not the right way to go about it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:51, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Check the IP editor here. 166.147.72.32 (talk · contribs) How was this missed, thus far? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:56, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The other IP address apparently used by the editor is here, also with vandalism tags on it. 166.147.72.21 (talk · contribs). Both these addresses are in the same /24 range registered to AT&T Wireless [6]. Can we assume that this is a heavily-mobile dynamic range? Odysseus (talk) 03:33, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I see nothing on either of the IP's talk pages related to either of these edits. Magog the Ogre (t • c) 03:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Its under 'contributions', you can see for yourself. The talk page is just the warning and doesn't directly make the link visible. The IP hasn't been blocked, but the history of vandalism is obvious, is it the same person, doubtful. If someone was looking, they might have considered this a new style of vandalism, but I do not believe they are the same person who made these edits. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:07, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

If you read the New Yorker article a bit more carefully, you can see that Roth, or rather his "interlocutor" was contacted via a letter on August 25. I think what happened here at the article was normal and reasonable Wikipedia procedure. But this other communication outside of Wikipedia space seems more suspect. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 04:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

This whole thing is really confusing. The first question that we really need answered is who is the administrator he is talking about? Because getting in contact with them would be helpful, i'm sure. Silverseren^C 04:57, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Re the recent New Yorker piece by Roth: shame, Wikipedia. Shame. When will you all grow up and join the real world? --Larry Sanger (talk) 05:06, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

And your admonition helps people how, exactly? --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 05:21, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

My contribution to this article was, as you can see, very fleeting. Still, I object to editors here calling for changes in Wikipedia policy. It occurs to me now that in my edit summary I asked the wrong question. It should not have been "Can you verify that?" It should have been (in more polite words) "So what?" At the time I made the reversion, I think I was more worried about somebody acting as an impostor.

What I should have done was say is that we are a tertiary source for information. Salon.com wrote an allegation. Roth objected. We reported both of those in the article. As accomplished an author as he is, he has no right to scrub this article of discussion he does not like. Roth makes it sound as though the article took the position that he was inspired by Broyard which it never did. The article was fine as is and this is all very unfortunate. --Jprg1966 ^(talk) 05:18, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. While Wikipedia is capable of making egregious errors, the spin here reeks of pure politics. No one but Roth can speak to his treatment by Wikipedia, of course. (As problematic as talking about Wikipedia monolithically is...) Beyond that, we are left with the odd implication that Wikipedia is somehow at fault for reporting literary criticism (such as it may be). Imagine if the "author's truth" under discussion had been much more subjective; would we be expected to delete sourced interpretation because the author had reported that it was "wrong, all wrong"? (Surely Larry Sanger, a philosopher by training if I remember correctly, could add to the discussion and point out such subtleties, rather than tacking on an extraordinarily transparent scold for political points?) If the scolding is about Roth's treatment, then once again, very few are in a position to comment, because very few know how he was treated. Riggr Mortis (talk) 06:02, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't comment on the behind the scenes. I've added the names of the people cited who had commented on Roth's book and linked it to Broyard - all reputable writers, published in reputable venues. Is WP not to report on what critics write about books? This seems very odd. We noted that the author said Broyard was not his inspiration, so there was no "correction" to be made. The critics addressed the issue that some readers might think of Broyard, for obvious reasons. The article as is sounds like a political solution, not addressing the initial caution re: IP/vandalism issue. Parkwells (talk) 12:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The fundamental issue that should be considered is not the right of a person to influence their own wikipedia pages, but the right of editors to quote secondary sources which do not possess the criteria of reliability, over and above the use of primary sources whose verifiability is not in doubt. A literary critic's view of a book character is of itself a valuable and interesting contribution to public debate about a book, and should be included in this article for that reason, in a selection of literary interpretations. However, and this is critical, it cannot be used to substantiate an interpretation as a valid one if the author themselves says it is not true, without specific and direct qualification. The literary critic, whatever their view, has absolutely no claim to authority or understanding of what was inside the head of the author, and thus cannot stand as a credible secondary source that overrides the obvious reality. To give a deliberately absurd analogy, for example, WP does not have a section entitled "Alternative Opinions about the existence of the Holocaust" on the Holocaust page, because while those opinions exist, and have secondary sources on the internet to cite, we all know they are not valid opinions as they are not based on sound primary evidence. Some editors, perhaps involved in this page, seem to have taken offence (and implied ownership) over this incident. Instead they need to learn from it. In a real academic context, such an article would be rejected quickly under peer review. Claims that Mr Roth has a greater platform to 'bully' wikipedians ignores the fact that noone was willing to make a sensible amendment up to and until Mr Roth or others took this action, and that the article was indeed poorly sourced as indicated. 'Circling the wagons' is not going to help, nor alleging that Mr Roth or anyone else is demanding wholesale revision of absolutely everything, that WP is suddenly banned from quoting opinions of critics (this must absolutely remain) or that this means the end of Freedom of Speech. Do what WP does best, collaborate, edit and amend where needed.Ethdhelwen (talk) 13:15, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it is possible to mention all important elements of critical reception and explain them in a non-controversial manner, it would definitely contribute to a better shape of the article and prevent further confusion. The inspiration has been misinterpreted by notable literary critics → the misinterpretation has been clarified by the author ... well, but the misinterpretation still is a part of the critical reception. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:01, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

OOI, which edit had the text "allegedly inspired by the life of the writer Anatole Broyard" as reported in the open letter? Plus I agree with Sylvain1972, this issue is nothing to do with who or what is a reliable source, as the original comments were clearly attributed to a review. Perhaps there's a fair debate on whether such negative criticism is relevant in the article, but that's separate from the claims made in the open letter.

And the inflammatory comments below are just absurd. It happens everytime there's some minor criticism against Wikipedia, even if it's completely bogus as appears to be the case this time - everyone who's ever edited on Wikipedia, but then run into a disagreement with another editor, crawls out of the woodwork to say how this is proof of how awful Wikipedia and its editors are. Well here's the thing - if you've edited Wikipedia, including the people throwing insults below, you too are a Wikipedia editor by definition. The idea that Wikipedia editors can be grouped neatly into "Wikipedia and evil editors who control it trying to make life hard for people" and "Poor little people just trying to edit Wikipedia but then get reverted" is laughable - all of us have run into disagreements at some time, and indeed, many of the people causing trouble may then be the ones who now complain how awful Wikipedia is. Indeed, you get people arguing from opposite sides - one person criticises Wikipedia because someone wrote something rubbish, and then that person criticises Wikipedia, because the rubbish he wrote was reverted...

Imagine if User:Jprg1966 had instead wrote an open letter in the New Yorker, whining that his perfectly reasonable revert was again reverted, and that this was proof of how rubbish Wikipedia was, because Wiki editors like Roth were sitting in their basements trying to ruin articles... or maybe we could grow up, and realise we're all just as much "editors" here, and discuss the issue like adults. Mdwh (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

EXPUNGE!!!

Now that the whole thing has been revealed for the complete Kafka-esque farce that it was - via the New Yorker - I would suggest that all references to the episode be expunged other than an aside reference to the New Yorker article itself at the end of the article without any elaboration at all. Something like, "The author felt compelled to have errors of fact about this article corrected." - ref NY magazine blah, blah. If anyone feels sufficiently anal about retaining it then create a separate article "Wikipedia Editing Wars - The Curious Case of The Human Stain" ... with an appropriate reference in the article, of course Alanbrowne (talk) 22:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Really this shows clearly what utter idiots comprise the Wikipedia universe -- dildos who spend all day finding some obscure reference to elevate their edit total with

WHEN THE PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR TELLS YOU YOU ARE CREATING BULLSHIT OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH ABOUT HIS WORK, YOU BELIEVE HIM, YOU IDIOTS.

DELETE THE ENTIRE STUPID EPISODE AND GET OUT OF THE BASEMENT FOR A CHANGe, mushrooms — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mover2100 (talk • contribs) 01:00, 9 September 2012 (UTC) It is vital that this episode remain and be talked about even more. Why is it Wikipedia won't even accept the truth "from the horse's mouth" as it were? You can always mention any controversy, if there is one, as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.72.186 (talk) 07:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC) From the comments section of the aforementioned article: " What happened to Roth is actually a rather minor illustration of a huge problem. Wikipedia has essentially become a playground for academic "toughs" who control the site's "authoritative" articles, smearing their opponents and frequently presenting the purist poppycock as if it were respectable scholarship — just as arrogant deans and dons at lesser-rate institutions like New York University spend much of their time black-listing anyone who disagrees with their fashionable perspectives, instilling an atmosphere of anti-intellectual cowardice through petty back-biting and less petty job insecurity (remember the demise of tenure?), and even resorting to the violence of the law, subjecting members of the public to criminal prosecution and imprisonment to suppress criticism of academic misconduct — as is well illustrated by this astonishingly abusive case, about which no one dare say a word on account of the likely "collegial" consequences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.72.186 (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I concur with the statements here regarding the idiocy that gets created by self-agrrandized TSA-style involvement of editing information on this site, especially when it comes RIGHT FROM THE SOURCE; it just shows how lost editors here really are and to what ridiculous lengths they can go in trying to make an incorrect bureaucratic point. This kind of scenario has actually happened several times before. Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 01:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

YOU DO NOT KNOW MORE ABOUT ROTH'S WORK THAN ROTH -- MAYBE KAFKA WOULD APPRECIATE THIS IN SOME SICK SENSE, BUT IT EXPOSES THE TINY MINDS WHO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN STAY HERE ALL DAY FORCING THEIR IGNORANT VIEWS ON PEOPLE FOR THE SAKE OF UPPING THEIR EDITING TOTALS — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mover2100 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA REVELS IN REFUSING TO TAKE THEIR INFO STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH. THEY PREFER THE OTHER END. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mover2100 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

COMPOUNDING FOOLISHNESS REVEALED TO ALL WITH THUGGISH BEHAVIOR -- THE EDITOR DENYING ROTH HIS PLACE AS A *PRIMARY* SOURCE IN DEMANDING *SECONDARY* SOURCES TO BELIEVE HIM -- THE EDITOR INVOLVED SHOULD RESIGN IN DISGRACE " Please stop attacking other editors, as you did on Talk:The Human Stain. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. This is not acceptable. [1] Refrain from such outbursts and making general attacks on editors as a whole. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:53, 9 September 2012 (UTC)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mover2100 (talk • contribs)

What Correspondence?

Vejvančický, indeed. Roth wrote a book. For influential published critics it evoked an association with a person, and speculation on inspiration. It was not, however, inspired by that person's life. This is all factual. The odd thing that remains is what Roth is talking about with his "correspondence" with a wikipedia editor, as no such correspondence has been produced, and such seems odd. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the problem is that a part of the story was apparently handled off-wiki and it is difficult to verify who said what and where. Btw, when you look at Parkwells' last edit from 20 August, you will see that his additions are excellent, totally neutral, and cover the story from both sides. But nobody cares. It looks that everyone is busy yelling about Wikipedia's idiocy. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Perfect example of why Wikipedia is bleeding contributors daily. It's populated by hordes of obsessive nerds with no lives outside the encyclopaedia, more interested in never being seen to be wrong and always getting their own way, than collaborating in good faith to produce the best article possible. I've often suspected that this is why Wikipedia has so few female editors - women just end up saying I've got better things to do than argue online about something that could be changed a month after the matter has apparently been settled.

Of course, I don't mean every editor, but all of us have run into these frustrating individuals who suck the pleasure out of contributing, at some point or another. Saint91 (talk) 15:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

By 'bleeding contributors' daily, I think you'd be surprised to realize that June 2012 was down 3% but July 2012 was up 5%. [7] No data on august yet, but who knows if the reforms going through will boost retention. Wikipedia does have its problems, it is not a utopia, but this entire matter has not been uncovered in its entirety. Anyone can write anything on Wikipedia anyways, most vandalism is removed quickly, but many obscure pages have little editorial work and most are not checked if the edit is missed. False information is easy to insert and easy to miss on some of those pages, most vandalism is quickly reverted, but if it isn't it can linger for a long time. This is not one of those cases, and I wonder if the biographer followed the steps for COI or other requests. Though I'd like to point out that under WP:SELFPUB Roth probably didn't count for #4, which is "there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;". The IP edits which have a history of vandalism clearly have a reasonable doubt, the off wiki matter is unknown, but typically if it was Roth or someone connected with Roth, proof of identity would have been fine. I do not think the identity was ever confirmed and whoever had to respond to it was playing it safe because of that fact.

You can't just say 'I'm Roth's biographer, I demand this be fixed', the proof of identity is the difference between crazy crackpot, vandals, speculators and the real McCoy. For privacy matters the conversation probably will never be released, but we do not know the whole exchange and can only speculate, weakly, as to what happened. The only thing I can say is that, it looks like this because we only have one side of the story. Don't forget that the Wikipedia biography controversy was over a hoax that went uncorrected; it is hard to be on top of everything here, but when it was reported action WAS taken. So its not like Wikipedia doesn't care about mistakes, its just that they aren't discovered quickly and removed, if they are found by another party that party then either makes contact to correct it or makes a comment about it to have it corrected. This case seems to be an attempt to scrub a valid comment from reliable sources out, even though it is verifiable. Coming from an account that has a history vandalism the first two attempts didn't seem to be good faith attempts. The second off-wiki one, may have been lacking, but who knows? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Showing a small sample (June and July) of the overall dataset will often give a false representation of what is actually happening over a longer interval. This interesting article shows active editors over time. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/3-charts-that-show-how-wikipedia-is-running-out-of-admins/259829/ As you can see, wikipedia is in fact bleeding contributors daily. While maybe not the equivalent of an arterial bleed, it is certainly a large venous haemorrhage. Harlequinn (talk) 08:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

From the look of that graph, it appears to be leveling out, actually. And the graph of promoted administrators is going to look quite different after last month, since we had more than 10 promoted. Silverseren^C 00:20, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Age of reason

You know, I'm still a bit confused on how he "claims" he contacted Wikipedia, wether he took it to a talk page or sent a letter to the big wigs, (I didn't read every comment above, so if it was covered already, sorry) but we really can't have some random user account, or worse an ip, coming here and telling us he is the "author" and demand us make a change. The request for a source for the information was the correct response, if that is what really happened. It blows me away that in one breath, the media bashes Wikipedia for having mistakes, then in the next breath, bash Wikipedia for having a policy that requires reliable sources. The reliable sources are what makes Wikipedia, well, reliable. If the author came here and was asked to provide a source, then you would think that he would be very capable of providing one. Who else knows the sources on this book, better than the author? This looks like unneeded WP:DRAMA.--JOJ ^Hutton 23:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I think this was an example of good Wikipedians applying Wikipedia policy. People try to self-servingly edit their own Wikipedia pages all the time to make themselves look good. Editors are all volunteers who are supposed to cite published sources when making any edit (not that that always happens but it should). Here the page cited 3 separate New York Times for the assertion. If some guy emails me saying he is Philip Roth, how is some random volunteer supposed to know if the guy is Philip Roth? You can't expect our volunteers to be able to do a credible investigation to figure that out. And if we accepted private emails as sources, I think that that hurts the verifiability of the project, which (like any scholarly citation) should allow people to verify what they read against the published sources. Seriously if Editor 1 had agreed to Roth's request, and then Editor 2 comes along and tries putting the assertion back in the article, those two editors would get in a flame war where Editor 2 said "I have three published sources" and then Editor 1 says "Well I have a private email from Philip Roth" and then Editor 2 says "Yeah sure you do bozo" - the matter would then be referred to arbitration, where the arbitrators are going to side with Editor 2 because Editor 1 has no way to let other editors verify the accuracy of his statement. Adam sk (talk) 20:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Roth wrote that he contacted Wikipedia through an intermediary and received a letter back on August 25 (a date after the contentious edits took place here). This is the missing puzzle piece. Of course, you can choose to believe that Roth is lying about this, but personally I don't think so. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 20:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, so which is actually the problem? Is it that it's hard to verify when somebody tries to say they're a famous person, or is it that people may have a conflict of interest when editing wikipedia articles related to them? If it's the latter then wp still shouldn't accept any changes based on what Roth says, as it has done; if it's the former then wp shouldn't tell people they can't provide primary source information due to the risk of conflict of interest. Of course, some situations might be one and some might be the other, but at the moment wp policy confuses the two issues and that leads to unnecessary incidents like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.247.99.194 (talk) 18:21, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Ars Technica commenters are awesome.

Ars Technica wrote an article about this. But the best part, in my opinion, is the commenters. Ignoring the usual Wikipediocracy people who are easy to spot, pretty much every single Ars Technica commenter is backing Wikipedia and pointing out how Roth was in the wrong here and why he was in the wrong. They are also pointing out the important fact that there was never a "misstatement" in this article, there was only the opinion of a literary critic. And since we also had in the same section the statement that Roth disagreed with the literary critic, there was never an issue in the first place. This is all just hype on Roth's part, hype by someone who doesn't actually understand how writing an encyclopedia works.

P.S. You should really not feed the Wikipediocracy members in the sections above. It just makes them more rabid. Silverseren^C 08:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• Also here: "Author Roth rebukes Wikipedia over Human Stain edit". BBC News online. 8 September 2012.

Andy Dingley (talk) 08:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• I wouldn't necessarily say they're backing wiki. This seem a popular sentiment: "Wikipedia has a history (and has gone on record) to note that their articles are not based on fact. They are based on the most common belief. Granted there are cases where facts and common belief is one and the same ... it's too bad Wikipedia does not stick to facts. We sure could use an online wiki that does that ...". The fundamental reason why people feel something like wiki is useful is the quality of the summary, NOT because someone said something once. Quality summaries are written by people who know what they're talking about, vs. random collections of things that happened to be typed. It's only a happy coincidence that there are more people who know what they're talking about motivated to write on them than there are those who believe random collections of stuff barely better than heresay is valuable and whatnot. Agent00f (talk) 08:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Similar reaction to a particularly petty article at Gizmodo. Яehevkor ✉ 09:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Before the furor, the article was based on fact, as in: published reviews by four reputable writers about the possible Broyard link, and Roth's published cited 2008 statement that that was not his inspiration and he hadn't known Broyard's life story. His argument is with those literary commentators, whom he accuses of "gossip". Did he write to all of them or their publications (three were published in the NY Times) at the time and tell them to "retract their errors"? I doubt it.Parkwells (talk) 12:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Claiming that the article was "based on fact" because it quoted people who said false things, and it is true that they said those false things is Wikilawyering and violates common sense. A normal person who read that article would have assumed that, the way Wikipedia presented it, those claims were true. Just because we attributed the statements to critics and didn't actually claim ourselves that they were true doesn't change how we presented them and the impression created by our choice of presentation. People would read the article and come away from it believing something that is not factual; that is not "based on fact", regardless of any technicalities about yes, someone really did say that. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not at all the same thing. I mean, say there was a politician who had creationist beliefs, and a newspaper reported that he had those beliefs, then a normal person would see that as the same thing as the newspaper saying creationism is true? Hardly. It's reasonably to report people's beliefs all the time, and this is especially true in an article for a book: it's normal for Wikipedia to quote people's reviews on a book, which isn't the same thing as claiming them to be true. Now yes, there's a fair debate to be had on whether such criticisms are notable to be in the article. But that's not the claim made in the open latter. Mdwh (talk) 16:03, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Except for the fact that Roth's rebutal was there *the whole time* for all the world to see and evaluate for themselves.Sylvain1972 (talk) 03:29, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

It does seem as if all someone has to do is create a web site entry and Wikipedia will accept an allegation, but won't accept a similar statement from someone who was there, created something, or lived a life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.72.186 (talk) 07:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Not many people have the ability to reliably publish information at the drop of the hat. You couldn't just put an article up on your own website and it'd instantly become usable as a source. Mr Roth was able to have his story published by a reputable (I presume) magazine which is subject to editorial control and fact checking etc. He was possibly able to do this with his status as an author and intellectual. Billy-Bob the mechanic from Wyoming probably wouldn't be able to do that. Яehevkor ✉ 10:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)