Talk:Nik Russian con

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Good articleNik Russian con has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 4, 2011Peer reviewReviewed
August 15, 2011Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 31, 2011.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that in 2002, a British man working in a bookstore conned 30 people into leaving their homes and quitting their jobs?
Current status: Good article

Payoff?[edit]

The article does not make clear how Russian planned to profit from this hoax. Absent some transfer of funds, I don't see how this qualified as a swindle. Can someone with knowledge of the case make this point clearer? Robert A.West (Talk) 21:06, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that Russian's intention with this hoax was necessarily to make money. In my (unqualified) opinion, he was something of a megalomaniac, and seemed to believe that, if he could get these people to begin his task and film them, then a TV channel might eventually pick it up and commission the show. I'll have a look over my sources and see if any of them can back that up, as at the moment, it's really all just my own opinion and original research. The article is titled as the "Great Reality TV Swindle" simply because that was the title of the documentary that was filmed about the hoax, and it's how most of the media referred to it. A Thousand Doors (talk) 16:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OIC. I never saw the documentary, so just ran across this article, and the title sounded strange. Thanks.Robert A.West (Talk) 20:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hoax hoax?[edit]

After watching this documentary I came away with the strong impression that the entire thing was a hoax - I seem to recall that at least one of the "contestants" was a jobbing actor, and there were a couple of things that didn't add up, though it's too long ago to remember anything specific. 212.9.31.12 (talk) 11:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually quite a good question – I was wondering that myself. But I haven't been able to find any reliable sources that say that it was all fake. The best I could find were one or two TV reviewers speculating that it might all be fake and a few comments on YouTube wondering the same. Personally, I don't think that The Independent would've published such a long article saying that it was all true unless that it really was. Also, I suppose that jobbing actors are exactly the sort of people who might apply for a reality TV programme – most of the contestants seemed to want to become actors or TV presenters or to set up fashion labels. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 17:53, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Great Reality TV Swindle/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:35, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will review this one.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:35, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LEAD

The LEAD leaves the reader wondering the following:

  • Were there any law enforcement actions?
  • Any judicial rulings?
  • Any monetary penalties?
  • As best as I can find, no to all three. It's mentioned later in the article, but, as Russian hadn't actually taken any cash from his victims, he hadn't technically committed a crime. A civil case wasn't pursued due to a lack of money. I have added this information to the lead.
  • I guess he wasn't really working within the book industry - he had a low-paying job at a single branch of a much larger chain. I have now specified this in the lead.
  • What other names does the press use to refer to this incident? They should be included in the first sentence in bold.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've checked the sources, and there wasn't really any other name by which it was referred - if it was called anything, it was called the Great Reality TV Swindle. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 22:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Background
  • Do you have a year for "He studied English at Goldsmiths, University of London, but dropped out before the exams"?
  • No, unfortunately. I would hazard a guess that it was circa 1998, but I can't find any sources to verify that.
  • This sentence is runon: "He had set up businesses and written unpublished novels, before he took a job working at a branch of Waterstone's in London and then decided that he wanted to produce his own reality television programme."
  • Rewritten.
  • Do you have a citation for "Most British reality TV programmes at the time centred on a team of people trying to accomplish a specific goal or target"?
  • Added.
  • "Featured" is the verb, surely?
  • I mean it needs to be is featured, was featured, or has been featured to be grammatical in this context.
  • Changed.
  • Done.
Swindle
  • Russian set the contestants tests during the audition phase; some of the tests measured how they responded to practical problems, while others measured their psychological responses. I've changed the word "set" to "given" - is this an improvement?
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    On hold for some basic revisions.
Thank you very much for the review! A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 20:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great work. Thanks for your patience. I can now pass this article.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's great, thanks Tony! And thanks again for the review! A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 00:31, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The premise of this article is wrong[edit]

The Great Reality TV Swindle was not a con. Project MS2 was the con perpetrated by Nik Russian. The Great Reality TV Swindle was the Channel 4 documentary made about the con. Since this article has undergone (and passed) a GA review with this somewhat glaring error, I want to take caution in fixing it, but I really feel it must be fixed. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:50, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since the documentary itself is only mentioned in the "Media reaction" section, and the rest of the article focuses on the con itself, I recommend that we move the article to Project MS2, and correct the lead to note the correct context. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:53, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiDan61: I think that "Great Reality TV Swindle" is still the correct name for this article, per WP:COMMONNAME. With the exception of the Vice article, none of the sources even uses the phrase "Project MS-2". I know that there's a new documentary series about the con coming out soon, and subsequently a couple of new articles have recently been published that refer to it as "Project MS-2". Nonetheless, I still reckon that "Great Reality TV Swindle" is the name by which most readers would search for an article about the con, and renaming it too soon risks violating WP:RECENTISM. Happy to review further down the road, though. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 15:16, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@A Thousand Doors: The problem is that the article states The Great Reality TV Swindle (aka Project MS-2) was a con. I suspect the makers of the documentary film would take offense at that. Project MS-2 was the con; The Great Reality TV Swindle was a documentary film. The lead gives blatantly wrong information. I don't know how well known this event is in England; here in the States I'd never heard of it before encountering this article, so I don't know that WP:COMMONNAME applies. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 15:40, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiDan61: WP:COMMONNAME is part of Wikipedia policy, so I think it applies. My point is that, if anyone (whether in England or elsewhere) is going to search for an article about this con, the Great Reality TV Swindle is almost certainly what they're going to search for, not Project MS-2. All the same, I've had a shot at rewriting the lead here, let me know what you think. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 16:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@A Thousand Doors: WP:COMMONNAME applies when an article subject is most commonly known by a particular name. Since the topic of this article is not commonly known, no "common name" exists, and the article title should properly reflect the topic. In this case, the topic of the article is the con, not the film made about the con. WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 17:03, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 4 October 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 09:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Great Reality TV Swindle → Project MS-2 – This article describes a con in which a person (Nik Russian) purported to be producing a reality TV show named Project MS-2 (see this Vice article) when, in fact, he had no funding or backers for such a project. The Great Reality TV Swindle was a Channel 4 documentary about the con, and is only mentioned in passing in the "Media reactions" section of the article. (See this Guardian article and this blurb from the film's production company). This move is both a technical request (there is already a redirect at Project MS-2 to this page) and a non-controversial move request, as the creator of this article disagrees with the re-titling. (See prior discussion at Talk:Great Reality TV Swindle#The premise of this article is wrong.) WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:51, 4 October 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose For all the reasons that I've already listed here. "Project MS-2" is not the common name for this con. For better or worse, the article's current title is. This is demonstrated by how only two of the article's sources (Vice and Sheffield DocFest) even mention that name – the rest all use "Great Reality TV Swindle". Additionally, "Project MS-2" is clearly not the name that readers use to search for information about this subject. In the last 12 months, "Great Reality TV Swindle" has averaged 24 pageviews per day, whereas "Project MS-2" has had only 17 pageviews in total. If it were the common name, we would expect to see considerably more. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs)
Note: WikiProject Television has been notified of this discussion. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose
google "Project MS-2" has only 28 results referring to The Greatest Show Never Made or Great Reality TV Swindle, the other 35 are biology, computer, and government related.
.... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 01:22, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment[edit]

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment ? last evaluation was 12 years ago

User:SD0001/GAR-helper
.... 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 07:07, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which of the good article criteria do you feel that this article doesn't currently meet? A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 10:48, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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