Talk:Brad Vice

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Untitled[edit]

I have deleted the result section, because even though the rest of the article has a bunch of citations to support everything else, this last section has no citation, and a Google search does not turn up anything at all about a result. 66.83.72.226 14:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fine with me. I don't know who inserted that info and unless there is a source it shouldn't be in the article.--Alabamaboy 17:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Undoing Qworty's Revenge Edits[edit]

I have made a preliminary effort to undo the damage done by Qworty (Robert Clark Young) and his sock puppets. The entry had a lengthy, overwhelmingly negative account of the "plagiarism" scandal (which most determined was NOT plagiarism). I've tried to remedy this - one source described the assault on Brad Vice as a "literary lynching." Andrew Leonard in Salon noted that Robert Clark Young's various attacks on Brad Vice (in signed articles, and in anonymous Wikipedia vandalism) were especially "ferocious." The entry is reading somewhat more neutrally now, but it will still take work. I have not read Vice's fiction, but from what I'm reading about him, he is very highly regarded: his notability as a writer hardly depends upon this one scandal. NaymanNoland (talk) 10:23, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As of now the plagiarism stuff is roughly half of the article. This gives it severly undue weight compared to the rest. Although I understand the desire to keep the detailed and lengthy defense of Vice's actions, I think this article would be better served by a very short description of the incident, more along the lines of what's found here: University_of_Georgia_Press#Controversy, and the last paragraph on Leonard's article. Thoughts? — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 12:35, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. That's what I initially intended - I just felt a bit nervous about surgery that radical. I think we have to come up with a different section head as well: having the word "plagiarism" in a subhead gives it far too much weight. Agree that "controversy" doesn't help - ideas? Maybe just the title of the book, moving everything about it into one section: award, reviews, controversy, etc? NaymanNoland (talk) 15:27, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea for the section title; I did that (in my "well-meaning" way) and did a little rewriting. My main worry about the section now is the paragraph about the new edition. The first sentence says it appeared in 2007 and then there are a bunch of quotes from an Oxford Review article, now a dead link, that describe it in the future tense. Very strange. Probably good to find a current source and figure out what happened.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The entry in fact reads extremely well now. And that section is now of the right length: it's clearly Vice's most famous work, and the section includes all that is positive about it, as well as what's controversial. Let's face it: this book went on trial, essentially, and was found innocent - the publisher went to the extraordinary step of REISSUING it, in an expanded edition. You don't do that with books that you still consider plagiaristic. NaymanNoland (talk) 20:44, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Correction: it wasn't the same publisher. Nevertheless, a publisher obviously weighed both sides of the argument, and determined that the book was well worth reissuing. NaymanNoland (talk) 20:56, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it reads so well. The paragraph on the reissue is chronologically incoherent and the one source is a dead link. Probably the reissue was reviewed somewhere after it came out. Anyway, carry on.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, how about "extremely better"... NaymanNoland (talk) 22:19, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Found quotations from both the Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews. The Booklist and SF Chronicle reviews aren't online, but the Booklist review is quoted at length (in full?) by Amazon - is that considered an acceptable source? NaymanNoland (talk) 05:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the reasoning for putting "later rescinded" into the lede, but I thought we'd pretty much decided not to give undue weight to the controversy, after Qworty's revenge editing made it the centerpiece of the entry. Putting it in the lede still seems radical, and frankly unfair. Maybe best not to mention the prize at all until the section about the book? Thoughts?" NaymanNoland (talk) 07:00, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot mention just the prize without noting that it was rescinded. Also, since the lead summarizes the article per MOS:LEAD, it will need to summarize something, so, if you wish to remove the prize. you'll need to replace it with other summary material of the article, which deals at length with the controversy. The controversy at base, is that Vice was accused of misappropriating text and ideas of another author without proper attribution -- both the Georgia Press, and his defenders, seem to agree that he did so, but differ on intent. The odd thing about the current text of our article is that it does not explicitly say how the story in question was handled in the reissue, presumably River press did attribute the original author in the reissue. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:51, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More than that: my understanding is that the reissue incorporated essays about the controversy. (I think. I'll have to go back and check.) Certainly nobody tried to sweep it under the carpet. My concern here is simply to give Vice a proper hearing, as it were: don't convict him of plagiarism in the lede. Which is what you do, obliquely, when you take the prize away from him as soon as you present it. NaymanNoland (talk) 09:56, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The Press that awarded the prize took it away from him. Alf was probably correct that the whole controversy section in the article should be edited down. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:06, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

October 8 edits and October 11 reversions[edit]

October 8, I edited this article to bring it up to date. I also removed unsourced material from the earlier revision.

My edits were well cited. All reliable sources. There was no original information.

Note the Denver Post article HERE, the faculty web profile HERE, and one of several Tuscaloosa News articles HERE.

I created an info box, which was an improvement for the article.

I sought out precedent in Wikipedia articles on how to structure the article, and what language may be appropriate given the nature of the article's subject. Keane, Jayson Blair, and James Frey articles were particularly useful.

I worked to make the article impartial and fair, considering the subject is a living person. I have been aware of the BLP for a very long time. Nothing was added that had not been printed in the articles above, or other very reliable sources.

October 11, user:SouthernNights reverted all of the work. He stated in his explanation, "Remove unsourced negative and original information (per BLP guidelines). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons for more."

Problems:

1. My edits were very well sourced, using reliable sources, and included no original information. Where I repeated the language from the news sites, nothing was taken out of context. When there was paraphrasing, there was no fabrication or "spin." I encourage all to review the sources and compare with my edits.

2. I don't feel the edits were negative. I suppose whether the edits are negative is a matter of perspective. Being notable for something that isn't positive is negative for the subject. However, without the public plagiarism issue, is the subject notable enough to have a Wikipedia article? I have not been able to find evidence he has been published since 2005. Again, I looked to the Keane, Blair, and Frey articles for guidance.

3. user:SouthernNights' Oct 11 revision actually contains large amounts of unsourced material. The second paragraph of the "Biography" section is unsourced. All of the section "Writing" in that revision is also unsourced.

I have taken particular interest in this article, as it pertains to Southern literature. I'm proud of the work I did to bring the article up to date. I am restoring my edits. If anyone would like to further discuss, I have put a watch on this talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FriedGreenTornado (talk • contribs) 01:15, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nov 26 edits and subsequent reversion[edit]

On Nov 26, user:SouthernNights removed material from my Oct 11 reversion. SouthernNights stated "(Removing unsourced info per BLP. Unless you have a reliable source for removed info it can't be in article.)"

2 phrases were affected:

1) Jason Sanford was originally described as "a friend of Vice." That description has been removed in the Nov 26 edit by SouthernNights.

My inclusion of this was from an amalgamation of sources which state Vice's friends came to his defense. The Salon article stated this. Similarly, This entry in AdWeek also mentions the same. Though, it refers to Sanford as a "fan," not a "friend."

Perhaps "fan" is more appropriate term. So, I thank SouthernNights for pointing this out.

I'll change "friend" to "fan." Also, I'll add a little more information about Sanford, who may not be a familiar name to the typical reader of the article.

2) SouthernNights removed "his Ph.D. from Cincinnati was called into question" from the biography section.

I'm not sure why he did that.

I point specifically to the Denver Post article, which states, "To make matters worse, the University of Cincinnati, where Vice received his Ph.D. was investigating charges that he had similarly plagiarized his dissertation, which included some of the same material."

This is very clear cut. And, I will be reverting this.


FriedGreenTornado (talk) 00:18, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's a big different between saying someone is a fan of an author's work and that someone is that author's friend. Thanks for correcting this. As for the Ph.D. info, I removed that because it was unsourced. Now that we have a reference for the information I'm good with it being in the article. I also inserted the reference next to the info in the article.--SouthernNights (talk) 22:06, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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