Talk:Wendy Northcutt

Vanity?

This article seems pretty silly to me. Her only claim to fame is running a site falsely advertising itself sa the originator of the Darwin Awards when they had been around a long time previously. I don't think this person is notable in the slightest. DreamGuy 23:34, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Notable

I think this article is notable. Several books have been published, where Northcutt is credited as the writer or the editor; I have heard of her without having ever visited the website.--Carabinieri 11:08, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Bestselling Author

Northcutt is a best-selling author. I don't know whether she created the awards, but she definitely brought them to national attention, and made sure they stayed there.--Mike Selinker 06:38, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Wendy Herself

I'm Wendy Northcutt, and I was delighted to see an article on WikiPedia about me. I think there should be a article about me. It will be particularly useful as an obit for my spectacularly stupid demise. I encouraged the spread of the Darwin Award meme, turned the Darwin Awards into a community of contributors and moderators, and kept it intelligent by encouraging debate and rejecting common idiocies. Whoever wrote this (based on my book bio) did a very nice job, thank you!--Wendy 05:26, 07 December 2005 (UTC)

this article isnt neutral. there are no sources.

wendy shouldnt write her own entry.

i think the reason this entry is up here

is because if consult the history, youll see that wendy had a hand in editing it.

First, whoever is making anonymous edits would do well to learn the "four tidle" custom. It is advised that comments be ended with a series of four ~ marks to produce a signature, as we see on most of the comments here and elsewhere. As to the significance issue (i.e. the reason this entry is up here,) I thought that was clearly settled. Basically, the reason she merits an entry is because her work is available in most of the nation's (if not the world's) large general interest book stores. Is there any particular reason an open encyclopedia should lack an entry for a writer so widely read? Demonweed 23:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is an NPOV vantiy page. I agree with the other user

lines such as "she's a leading authority on novel ways people remove themselves from the gene pool"

are not npov. they are meant-to-be-humourous compliments for something that is, without question, a novelty.

the fact that she was added in as the author of the movie is typical of this and the darwin award page.

which like many wikipedia articles related to popular culture has, through editing, become a product pitch.

The Snopes debate

The recently added URL may be relevant enough to allow in the Darwin Awards article, but it shows a profound failure of reading comprehension to claim that it is a critique of Wendy Northcutt's work. The list discussed in that document was not produced by her. In fact, her site correctly lists the Metallica story as an urban legend, and makes no mention of several others on that list. Mistaking critique of it for critique of her work could be an honest error, but is it an error nonetheless. Demonweed 10:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Snopes says: "The various "Annual Darwin Awards" e-mails (such as the one which is the topic of this article) do not originate with DarwinAwards.com; they are put together by persons unknown." So whoever added the Snopes comment didn't even read the Snopes article. Greg 13:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Background

I can only assume that Ms Northcutt's bio details have come from the books she herself wrote. This article, like any other article needs verifiable citations from independent and reliable sources. - I@n 18:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I see the point about self-published books or websites, but this is a best-selling author published by a reputable publisher. Are we going to doubt every bio of every author unless they have a published biography? Very few authors do. I can see how you end up deleting so much content, though. Greg 22:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

My changes 10/14/06

Hi, I put the interview back in by reverting and then rewrote Greg's latest edit back in although my wording was slightly different from his-(but if he prefers his it's ok.)My wording is "according to the short bigraphies in" whereas Greg's is "according to the bio in" As to the interview, I hope everyone agrees it's good content and is balanced. It's certainly doesn't make her out to be a monster. Regards,Rich 02:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

So let's get this straight: the whole point of the very selective CNN interview quote was to push the idea that the Darwin Awards is unethical -- look at who inserted it originally into the Darwin awards article. There is plenty of other interview content available, but the only part that was quoted was this part. Balanced? Riiight. Greg 23:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've put in quotes from a third interview that I found on Northcutt's website.- By the way, I don't agree with most of what she's doing but I don't think she's a monster.- Would you prefer a different quote selection? Put them in and let's discuss it. Regards,Rich 22:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I think deleting the CNN interview excerpt would be in order, since it was intended to be NPOV. Either that or including most of it. I don't see what the other interview quotes really add to the article, but at least they aren't trying to advance a "Wendy is evil" agenda. Greg 02:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

How can you object to an entire interview? Is it becaues you think the most arresting quote in the CNN interview makes her look evil? But they are her words, and the 3 interviews as a whole give a far from evil portrait of Northcutt, as well as making the article much more interesting. That's my opinion. But I'm taking this article off my watchlist for now, I don't have the time or energy for it. Regards,Rich 07:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I am ojecting to presenting only a selective quote from the interview. I am fine with pointing to the whole interview, or quoting the whole interview. I am objecting to quoting only part of it. Note that I added a bunch of additional interviews to the article. Greg 08:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You seem to speak for her here. You make me think that though she can dish it out pretty well, she can't take it.Rich 08:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I speak for myself; it's fair to say that I think the Darwin Awards are funny. If you have that kind of attitude in your head, maybe you shouldn't be making decisions about the article? Your line of "In this interview, Northcutt perhaps showed humility" is one of the all-time bad bits of NPOV text on Wikipedia. Yow! Greg 14:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The insanity of people who think Wendy Northcutt is "evil"

Wendy merely makes money and garners fame selling products based on humorously celebrating the deaths of people who are proclaimed to have demonstrated insufficient genetic fitness. How could anybody possibly consider that "evil"? Nancymc 23:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

doesn't belong on wikipedia

this page really doesn't deserve an entry. furthermore, the picture with half her face covered is so self-indulgent on wendy's part.. why doesnt she photoshop her picture next

really lets make this a candidate for deletion.

I don't think people think wendy is evil- just that her originally self authored wikipedia page was vain and self indulgent

i could provide the quotes

but people clearly dont think she's evil

for a long time this was simply a biography that did not fit npov or wikipedia guidelines.

mainly, because wendy wrote flattering statements about herself on her own wikipedia page.

THIS ARTICLE SHOULD BE A CANDIDATE FOR SPEEDY DELETION

this wikipedia not a repository of everything that exists

i dont believe that this person is noteworthy enough for their own wikipedia page

at the very least a few sentence from this page should be added to the darwin award page and then this one should be deleted

i have seen pages of far more noteworthy people being deleted.. furthermore there is a paucity of references