Talk:Robert Taylor (American actor)

24.144.10.11 (talk) 16:55, 24 July 2015 (UTC)P. GREENWAY == ROBERT TAYLOR DID NOT CAUSE LESTER COLE TO GO TO PRISON. THIS IS FALSE. ==

Untitled

The section of the article on Robert Taylor which deals with his politics has false statements that need to be corrected. He did not cause the imprisonment of Lester Cole and this should be taken out of the article. Here are facts which you need to consider:

1. The HUAC testimonies of 1947 were carefully covered by the New York Times and these articles can serve as valid resources. There are also many records of the actual testimonies which can be easily obtained. 2. Several people, including studio heads, gave testimony before Robert Taylor. 3. The name of Lester Cole had already been mentioned in earlier HUAC testimony before Robert Taylor gave his testimony. 4. Lester Cole was already on the docket to be called to testify before Robert Taylor gave his HUAC testimony. 5. Lester Cole was sent to prison because he refused to cooperate with the inquiry and answer questions and thus he was in oontempt of court. This was his choice and not caused by Robert Taylor. 6. Lester Cole DID have known communist ties and these hearings were about this. Robert Taylor was not responsible for this. It is reckless of you to imply that Robert Taylor caused Lester Cole's imprisonment when facts do not support this. 7. Robert Taylor was subpoenaed and had no choice but to give his testimony and tell the truth. 8. Had Robert Taylor never been called to testify, Lester Cole would still have been called and would still have gone to prison.

You should removed the line that implies Robert Taylor caused Lester Cole's prison time. This is slanderous to Robert Taylor.

I Agree and have removed the line: "In consequence, Cole was sent to prison and was never able to write again under his own name." Cole was imprisoned for contempt of congress, not because Taylor spread rumors about him as the removed sentence makes it appear. Dan D. Ric (talk) 02:18, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Death records

There is now an undue emphasis (see: WP:weight) on one section of the article. Please note that editors have been trying to come to a consensus as to how the death of Robert Taylor should be described. I am of the opinion that a brief mention and one reliable source is all that is necessary. Comments? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:31, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Google and sourcing

Just a short note on the appropriate use of Google kinks in WP.

• Don't link search strings, usually Google gives you a result with an id and a page number which is all you need to link the the page. The search string after that is not required fir linking purposes and just gives a longer messy url making WP source text harder to read. If you just want to link a book without a particular page, the url with the id only is sufficient.
• Avoid linking Google if the referenced section or pages are not available online, that is if it is not part of the restricted preview. First of all many fellow WPns somewhat frown on excessive Google linking in general, but more importantly without the option to verify the article's content directly the Google link is of little or no benefit to readers. If you want to provide some additional (statistical) data on the reference, link a library catalog entry instead of Google. In addition such functionality is already provided via the linked ISBN anyhow.

A general comment on the current sourcing. The seems to be heavy reliance on the smaller not particularly reputable newspapers for much of the content. While for the content they source that seems somewhat acceptable, they nevertheless should in doubt be replaced by better sources at some point.

Also the Axel Madsen book (iUniverse) is of a self publication/book on demand type, which are generally not accepted as sources in WP, unless the have been written by a renowned expert and have received positive (which usually not the case).--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:18, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Axel Madsen is actually a very legitimate and highly respected biographer. The recent trend of authors, even well-known ones, choosing to take their works into the realm of self-publishing is not uncommon, as the role of the author versus publisher can often be vexing. One author I know had her first novel completely rewritten in the editing stage, with a new title grafted on and generally felt that the entire process of publishing was a combative and stressful period. Axel passed away in 2007, so that any decisions as to re-publishing his original works were probably made via his estate. The reason for using Axel's google books link is that it is an additional verification of the actual quotes, although it's a comme çi, comme ca issue to me. The over-linking of many common words in the article revisions has been noted by another editor, and should be limited. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I have found that linking to Google preview of books is of limited usefulness, as which pages are available differ from place to place (pages you can view in the US might not be available here in Canada, for example) and from IP to IP (stuff I can see at work I can't view at home). Also, I have noticed that as soon as we cite a particular page of a book, that page is no longer available for Google previewing. -- Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 15:21, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

True enough, it is often an additional source of information, but editors who have recently edited some film articles, do "like" the way that contentious statements can be checked. If they are there, I leave them, but try to use more reliable sources as an alternative. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

As I've written above self published material may be used on occasion and is not banned per se, however its usage is restricted to well founded exceptions. Looking at Madsen,he seems to be be qa legitimate journalist, however the quality on his work seems somewhat mixed (see [1]). Taking to account that this article is about Hollywood topic, wwhich tends to be subject to rumours, halftruth, falsehoods, outrageous exaggerations, solid sources are particularly important. So imho simply being a Hollywood journalist is not cutting it here, there should be at least some positive reviews of the self published book for it to beused here.

Note that there is nothing wrong self publishing as such (in particular for novels), that is up to the preference of authors and maybe its readers. However in the context as sources for WP, in particular in the additional absence of external reviews, self published material is problematic as we lack independent (formal) evidence to assess the reliability of the material. Reputable publishers used to and to degree still do weed out most nutcases and clearly wrong material and they perform some limited proof reading/fact checking. This provides us with some hint at the reliability (together with reviews and the reputation of the author).--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I have a number of Madsen biographies, and, generally, his work is non-contentious, even when dealing with a tricky subject such as Barbara Stanwyck and her life with Robert Taylor. He is not one of the slavish, fan writers nor is he an academic writer, he could be classed as more in the style of the popular documentarian. I believe that the aforementioned book went out of publication and was re-published in its original form, albeit via an on-demand publishing house. There are a number of reviews of the book, most complimentary, but Stanwyck was typically a difficult subject to nail down. See: <http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-017997-7> FWiW Bzuk (talk) 16:37, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

If that is indeed the case, it would be good idea to provide the original publisher as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:16, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@Diannaa: It is true that the (restricted) preview various based on location (due to local copyright laws) and the accessibility may chance eventually over time. Nevertheless it is often relatively stable and still provides a large fraction of the readers with direct to the cited sources and hence beneficial many readers and the article itself, though not for every individual reader. Directly linking the source also helps to cut short many contentious argument about source and its content and it provides other editors and proofreaders with easy and efficient (one click) verification, which helps to maintain and improve the article. Hence (restricted) previews tend to be accepted and used by many editors, whereas mere snippets or links without access are not (or at least signficicantly less so).--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:15, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Robert Taylor (American actor)/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

All sections need expansion ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 07:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 07:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 04:42, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Page Formatting

Something seems a bit off with the formatting right now; I just saw a ===Politics=== tag, tried to correct it but that seems to not have worked. No idea who added that tag before. 2A02:8388:1604:CA80:F462:6A60:DEA:83A0 (talk) 10:19, 19 August 2018 (UTC)