Talk:Gene Weingarten

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Query[edit]

Does anyone have any more biographical information on Weingarten? This seems pretty thin. Also, we could use a public-domain picture. betakate 21:12, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weingarten wrote about this page in his Sunday column. --JayHenry 17:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weingarten's perspicacity[edit]

Today's Weingarten column indicates that he came into Wikipeda and intentionally vandalized it with false information, then reported it in his column, both scolding Wikipedia for not catching his vandalism and chuckling about how easy it was to do. Then he attacked the User who chided him for the vandalism and published his Real Life information. Corvus cornix 19:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, well... he is a humor columnist... and it was funny. Besides he never would have published the RL information without permission. --JayHenry 19:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't find it funny, I found it arrogant and irresponsible, and I *hope* he got the other User's permission first. Corvus cornix 19:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, he had my permission SUBWAYguy 21:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It was silly, sure, and the 'let's vandalize wikipedia and see what happens' shtick is getting old, in my opinion, but I wouldn't call Weingarten's actions 'arrogant' or 'irresponsible.' He didn't 'scold' wikipedia for not catching his edits sooner, and I think that 'attacked' is a terribly strong word. Innacurate information was added to the article, it was found, and it was reverted, and the user who added it was asked nicely not to do it again. Which is, you know, kind of how wikipedia is supposed to work. And it seems Mr. Weingarten agrees: "All in all, the system worked. I'm impressed.." -- Vary | Talk 22:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Although I do have to note that this does not seem to be Mr. Weingarten's first foray into editing wikipedia. :) -- Vary | Talk 22:32, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Funny? Something Gene Weingarten wrote? I didn't think those two went together. Actually, I did read one thing he wrote that was humorous - I recall the style was a direct copy of his friend Dave Barry. Everything else comes across, to me anyway, as obnoxious, mean-spirited, or both. I guess humor is in the eye of the beholder. Fool4jesus (talk) 00:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The column in question[edit]

It seems odd that no one's linked to the column in question. Why argue about secondary source material? Click here for the URL for Gene Weingarten's column which ran Sunday, March 11, 2007, in the Washington Post (from washingtonpost.com). 64.236.128.27 17:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC) zetlan at gmail dot com[reply]

The column is already linked in the little box at the top of the page about the column. Do you see the box that says, "This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. See the 2007 press source article for details. The citation is in: Gene Weingarten. "Wiki Watchee", The Washington Post, March 11, 2007."?
If you click on Wiki Watchee it takes you to the article. By the way, what's up with the horrendous formatting on that article? --JayHenry 18:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
""I majored in psychology, but only because it was the easiest major," is Weingarten's description of his undergraduate college career at New York University. "I spent all my time as editor of the daily newspaper, and then dropped out with three credits to go, nearly killing my mother." He dropped out to spend months with a Puerto Rican streetgang in New York; this resulted in a cover story for New York Magazine, which launched his career." uh no 68.50.243.221 06:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think this is true. But if we can't find a reference for it, we'll have to remove. Does anyone have a ref? --JayHenry 14:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article exists. It's cited in Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang: "Weingarten, Gene. "East Bronx Story: Return of the Street Gangs." In New York Magazine. Mary 27, 1972" -- Vary | Talk 21:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've just removed a direct link to the 'wiki watchee' column. There's already a link to the 'Below the Beltway' archives in the external links section. We don't need direct links to any of Weingarten's columns that aren't referenced in the article, and the fact that this particular column mentions Wikipedia doesn't make it any more notable than any other. -- Vary | Talk 13:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Vary. There's a clear policy here too: WP:ASR#Writing about Wikipedia itself. And good job finding that Weingarten reference. I was pretty sure that was true. I'm guessing those quotes -- and indeed -- most of the article were sourced from his chat. It'd be nice if we could find links to at least put minds at ease about the unsourced quotes. I'll try to work on that at some point. --JayHenry 15:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Googlenope[edit]

I removed the text:

In the Chatological Humor chat of August 7, 2007, it was mentioned that his Wikipedia page had no mention of the fact that he is the inventor of the idea of the Googlenope, which is a phrase that produces no listings in a Google search. An interesting corollary is that once that Googlenope is written about, it is no longer a Googlenope. His page now mentions the Googlenope.

I don't think Googlenope is important to his biography. It was undoubtedly included because people thought it would be an ironic self-reference. Superm401 - Talk 20:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed[edit]

Footnotes 2 and 9 both cite the same article, but looking at the text, footnote 9 is intended to reference a different article. Dorfird (talk) 15:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Info box[edit]

Are Weingarten's religious beliefs important and relevant enough to be in the info box? At best this should be in the Biography section. 72.205.20.132 (talk) 02:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A note to Gene Weingarten[edit]

Dear Gene, I saw your article requesting a photo change.

Please could you upload a photo, that you own the copyright for, using this upload tool (you'll need a login), and release the copyright for it.

It can then be used to replace the photo here.

Thank you,

Oncenawhile

Gene, I posted this comment on the WaPo article also. Most of this is really easy, please do the following and explain it all to your fellow Wiki-photo-victims!
1. take a selfy or have somebody else take a photo of you with the firm agreement that you own the copyright.
2.Post it on Flickr with a free license, e.g. Creative Commons CC-BY; OR post it yourself to Wikimedia Commons (free license required - and note that you or the uploader has to own the copyright)
3. On the Wikipedia article's talk page (here), identify yourself and request that the better photo be included. It has to be a request, but we Wikipedians like good photos too and will probably comply. BTW would the Washington Post allow D.Trump to dictate what photo you use for his stories?
4. If all else fails call your agent, or maybe just the social media person at WaPo, and have then explain how easy this is. Just remember - free license given from the person who owns the copyright.
Contact me at my talk page if I can be of any help (hit "smalltalk" below). This should take 10 minutes if you already have a photo on your computer where you own the copyright.
This type of complaint is pretty common and I'd love for you to get the word out that this problem is really, really easy to fix.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:30, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
PS - after you upload the photo, we can try a video which is a little bit harder. What would you talk about on the video? How about "how anybody can upload a photo for the Wikipedia article about them?" Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:34, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I replaced it with another picture of him in a suit (also from Flickr under the Creative Commons license). I have no clue if he likes this one better (not that it matters). But at least it's more professional looking.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:09, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Esprit15d:, thanks for stepping in! However, this particular picture is licensed on Flickr as CC-By-NC − an unfree license as it has a non-commercial clause. As such it cannot be hosted on Wikimedia Commons. Jean-Fred (talk) 16:29, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. I missed that. I only saw the CC 2.0. I'll revert. Sadly, there are no better pictures on Flickr, and I'm not up for combing the interwebs.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 18:24, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might be just as easy for an editor to go to their headquarters and take Gene's photo at 1301 K St. NW One Franklin Square in Washington, DC. I'd love to go myself if time permitted and it wasn't a 3,000 mile trip.Tinkermen (talk) 18:30, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. I wish he would just post a photo somewhere and release it into the public domain. This is easy to fix. I wonder if he's ever been photographed by the White House. I'll look into it.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 18:33, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nope.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 18:37, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, it seems that the Flickr user changed the license to CC BY-SA 2.0, I closed the DR on Commons as kept and replaced the image. Regards. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 02:04, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay now people (ping User:Mr Ernie, User:RunnyAmiga) are removing the new image, did Gene say anything about the new image? Regards. --Thibaut120094 (talk) 00:35, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Thibaut120094: Eh? I didn't remove anything. He was on Twitter yesterday talking about this and he seemed open to just getting an amateur picture and uploading it. RunnyAmiga ※ talk 00:42, 2 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, Fuzheado is talking to him on Twitter: [1]. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:27, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Yamla: Do your thing.

Citations in article[edit]

The majority of the citations in the article are written by the subject of the article, so I am going to try and strip these -- or move them to selected articles in the Works and publications section -- and make this entry better, hopefully. It is in pretty terrible condition given his career. Also, quite frankly, I hope it will eliminate future articles by Weingarten where he whinges about his Wikipedia entry. -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 11:14, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I got it down to 17 out of 44 citations as of 17 Oct 2016. I think that the article is in much better shape now. Whew! -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 07:14, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Strong work. That is a major POV violation.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 19:22, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Esprit15d: Thank you! Agree it was/is problematic, but it's difficult because Weingarten is so prolific and his writing is chock full of Wiki-friendly info. I'm sure there's loads more but his career is very firmly in that awkward period before the internet, so I would need major research access to add his earlier career work here. This was just google-search friendly stuff. Hopefully at least this is more balanced and reflective of his career. :-) -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 19:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do have access to some online resources. I will see if I can refine the article with third-party sources when I get a chance.--14:43, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
@Esprit15d: That would be amazing. His work in the 1970s and especially in the 1980s -- before he got to The Washington Post, is woefully under-developed. I am sure there is a lot of pre-internet info is out there. I can access some online databases via NYPL from home but if you can gather deeper resources that would be great! Keep me posted! -- Erika aka BrillLyle (talk) 15:57, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Links[edit]

I am trying to work on the article and improve it, but these links are all written by the subject so unless there are specific things in them that make them notable, they really don't belong in the article. I am pasting them here for posterity.

Humor column[edit]

I like Mindy Kaleing a lot. She's a real talent. And Rushdie's bravery is beyond legendary, and far greater than my own. Still, to question the factualness of a humor piece (not a news aricle) because it essentially says, "I don't like what you people eat," and expect and essentially demand its reaction is to give into the idea that humor is essentially evil and wrong because it makes fun of people and things. They of all people should understand that people have a right to do this and to say things generally that others disapprove of and disagree with. Nothing should require a retraction when it is based "What you people eat tastes funny and I don't like it." I realize their are complexities to Indian food as there are to all foods, and since for humor to work it has to contain an element of truth and therefore to me it is not really all that funny, but I am far more offended by demands for censorship based on nothing more than this than I am the item in question, especially given some of their sources. 2600:1004:B10D:BFBB:0:4D:28CC:1901 (talk) 16:40, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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