Talk:Joe Rollino

Article

Fox has an article about the death of man. Agre22 (talk) 15:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)agre22

Forrest Gump

The scene described in his military service sounds very similar to the Vietnam scene in Forrest Gump.--MartinUK (talk) 14:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Age?

According to the SSDI Rollino was born in 1916, making him only 93 at the time of his death: [1]. If there are no objections, I'd like to correct this in the article. Canadian Paul 00:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Goodness, gracious...reliable sources all over creation reported him as 104. The link you provide is a form letter request, not a source. If you have real sources that claim a different date of birth, we can examine them, but otherwise, such a change would be inappropriate.  Frank  |  talk  03:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, no need to be so rude. Yes, maybe I was a bit hasty in suggesting that we change everything in retrospect but still... Anyways, the link I provided is a convenience link to a source, an easy way to replicate the otherwise unlinkable details that you can find by searching for him here. The United States Social Security Death Index is a "real" source, and a reliable one at that, as it contains an official record of his lifespan for the U.S. government. As for the other sources listing 104, of course they would. It's a good story and it's what the family told them, so why not print it? Yes, the SSDI makes mistakes, but not often. Perhaps, however, it would be more appropriate to leave one or the other in a footnote, but a 12-year discrepancy between what he claimed (did he ever offer anything to prove that he was 104? If so, then that might have been a better rebuttal; as I said, the SSDI does make mistakes) and the official records is worth noting. As Carl Sagan said, exceptional claims require exceptional evidence - the idea that there was a 104-year-old man out there that was that healthy was what made me check out the SSDI database in the first place. Why is a journalist, who has no need to fact check his age, more reliable than the official records? Canadian Paul 04:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If the SSDI source can be verified (I'm not an expert in that database), I think including it in the article would make it more interesting. State flatly that the database says he was 93 and the media sources say 104. I don't believe the supposition that the media sources necessarily accepted the family's claims at face value. I suspect the New York Times obituary writers are in the habit of checking facts against multiple sources, and they are smart enough to know that age 104 is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. But if the precise original source for each media outlet can be verified, mention it.

What would be wrong with the infobox saying "Age: 93¹ or 104²" and providing an explanation in the article?--Dbratland (talk) 06:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Not sure why you felt I was rude, Paul, but that wasn't my intent. However, I want to be clear about sourcing: the SSDI index is not suitable. First of all, the link you provided is to a third-party, not directly to the government's database. Second, as you point out, the government does occasionally make mistakes. (It wouldn't be surprising in the least in this case, since he would have been 19 (or 30) when SS numbers were first even available, and he might have gone decades before acquiring one at all. It was not always a requirement for US citizens to even have an SSN, as it is today.) Third, since the database is maintained by a third party, the chance for mistake is even greater, as a different group of people must then shoehorn a data export into a new database - a process which is fraught with potential for error. Fourth, even if we assume the SSDI is spot on, it's still a WP:PRIMARY source, which is not generally acceptable around here, and especially when it conflicts with everything else that is reported.

I am not saying I know that the SSDI is wrong, nor am I saying the published sources are right. Furthermore, you raise a good point regarding 104 being a "good story". However, one of our goals around here has always been verifiability, and it has never been strictly about truth. One hopes the two align as often as possible, but given that so many thing are open to interpretation, verifiability wins the day according to Wikipedia policy. You have found a string to pull - let's see if it leads anywhere or not.  Frank  |  talk  11:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Just to complicate matters, the link to the newspaper reporting a 'Kid Dundee' fight is dated 1916. This would make him eleven years old even taking the earliest birthdate. So either that's a different Kid Dundee, or he wasn't Kid Dundee, or he was actually older than he claimed. 195.149.121.121 (talk) 14:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The Kid Dundee from 1916 was based in Pennsylvania, not New York. Also, Rollino's WWII records and other records show him as being born in 1916 or around that time. It's extremely unlikely that an 11 year old would have been able to fight, box, and weightlift. As for reliable sources saying that Rollino was 104 at the time of his death, many reliable sources also said that Kamato Hongo and Carrie White were 116, and that Shigechiyo Izumi was 120. Hongo and White have later been debunked, while Izumi's case is now officially discredited. If someone relatively famous died who inflated his age a while back, it's entirely possible that the family would go along with it. Therefore I am putting both 1905 and 1916 as possible birth dates for Rollino for the time being, though I do think that 1916 is more likely to be correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.25.2.30 (talk) 01:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Charges for his Death

Just curious, but why was the reckless driver that killed him not charged at all? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.164.79.11 (talk) 17:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)