Talk:Dick Button

Flying camel?
Button did so many firsts. The photo of him competing in the Olympics at an outdor arena is great. How the standards have changed. I wonder what they did without a Zamboni. One spin description that is missing is the flying camel spin. Despite a name change it still isn't in Wikipedia. Kd4ttc 23:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The pages for figure skating elements are still a work in progress. I've been doing writeups as I have time, but right now I'm just too busy.  Maybe after the Olympics?  BTW, re the name change, the convention we're using for elements is "foo spin", "bar jump", "baz turn", etc instead of just "foo", "bar", and "baz".  Dr.frog 23:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Head injury
Since someone felt the need to air the incident in Central Park, I took the liberty of clairflying this incident. It was not a random bashing and although it was unfortunate what had happened to him...he was from the neighborhood and know of the possible dangers of jogging at night. He is not without responsibility?


 * Your "clairflying" [sic] was purely speculation without a reliable source, and has been removed per the Biographies of living persons policy. The contemporary New York Times coverage of the attacks was very careful not to identify Button as gay or assign any motive to his presence in the area other than that stated in the article: namely, that he was passing through the area while jogging and had stopped to watch a fireworks display when he was attacked around 9:30 pm on July 5, 1978.  Quote from the NYT (July 8, 1978):  "But the police were at pains to point out that there was no specific indication that people who frequented the area or those who were victims of the attacks--which apparently took place suddenly and at random--were in fact homosexuals."  Dr.frog 03:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Since there was no need to mention the bashing to begin with, i shall remove the lines alluding to the bashing. This is only fair. Whoever posted the bashing was telling everyone that Button might be gay?. The incident is not relevant to his Bio to begin with and is therefore shall be removed.


 * Nobody posted any "bashing" of Button in the article. Button was the victim of a high-profile, well-documented hate crime.  Whether he is gay or not, I have no idea.  FWIW, the article also mentions that he was married for a time.  Should we delete that, too, because people could interpret that as meaning Button is not gay?  Documented facts are documented facts; the article as written merely reports them and doesn't attempt to draw any particular conclusions either way.  Dr.frog 19:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I only questioned the reason "why" this paragraph was inserted? It is an "incident" and by definition, an "incident" is singular and non-repetitive. Therefore, in the over all scheme of things, mentioning this incident almost 30 years later is superflous and does not add to the enlightenment of his life or achievements. This inclusion is not objective as it "inadvertedly" adds speculation.


 * It is as relevant as Dan Rather's "Kenneth, what's the frequency?" attack, and should be mentioned. However writing that he "is not without responsibility" is despicable victim-blaming.  The only ones responsible are the thugs who perpetrated the crimes.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.218.4 (talk) 14:59, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

This is why I forbid my students from citing "Winkipedia" as either a primary or secondary source of information. There is entirely too much melodrama, subjectivity, revisionalism and political correctness spewed throughout Winkipedia for it to be useful as a primary or secondary source of research information. It is unreliable as there are far too many individuals who are allowed to post and far too many monitors who do not possess the necessary grammatical, educational, or intellectual skills to ensure accuracy and truth.

Furthermore, if the person who took exception to what I inserted, would have read carefully and understood proportionally, he or she would have known what I questioned and why I questioned it.

The attack on Button was front-page news at the time it happened. It was a notable incident in his life, and was well-documented by reliable sources. As for being a "singular and non-repetitive" occurrence, Button also sustained a second serious head injury from a fall on the ice in 2001 that left him hospitalized for several weeks. Some folks did wonder if the seriousness of the second injury was due to his previous skull fracture; I have not had time to track down references for this, so it is not yet mentioned in the article.

Gay bashing reference
You might look at this article. Dr.frog (talk) 05:04, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Button was undeniably the victim of a hate crime, even if he was just in in the wrong place in the wrong time and not one of the intended targets of the gang. Note the quote above from the NY Times:  "But the police were at pains to point out that there was no specific indication that people who frequented the area or those who were victims of the attacks--which apparently took place suddenly and at random--were in fact homosexuals."  When I drafted the text for the article I tried to make it clear that the attacks were random and avoid any implication that Button himself was gay.  (As you say, there is apparently nothing in the public record about that.)  Can we try to come up with some alternate wording that does not try to disguise the true nature of the crime that was committed against him?  Dr.frog (talk) 05:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)


 * You wrote ". . . I believe any mention of a gay-bashing hate crime would lead most readers to jump (unfairly) to the unspoken conclusion that Mr. Button is gay." Your statement suggest biases that are leading you to edit the article in a manner that makes it less accurate by leaving out widely discussed and reported facts (the gay bashing background to the attacks).  The Wikipedia article as it stands does not state that Dick Button is gay.  Your statement suggests bias on the subject of gay people due to your use of the words "jump (unfairly) to the unspoken conclusion that Mr. Button is gay."  Using "(unfairly)" is a strong indication that you are biased, as "unfairly" has negative connotations, i.e., Dick Button could be gay, straight, bisexual or asexual, but you are apparently making a value judgment that it would be bad if Dick Button is gay and that it would be good if Dick Button is straight, bisexual or asexual.  --Rentir (talk) 05:21, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Your comments above unfortunately make it appear that you are not following WP:NPOV and WP:BIO. You wrote ". . . I believe any mention of a gay-bashing hate crime would lead most readers to jump (unfairly) to the unspoken conclusion that Mr. Button is gay."  Practically all (if not all) news accounts of the attacks are very clear in stating the attacks were intended against gay people.  The police, court system, and at least one defense attorney for the attackers all said the attacks were a deliberate attempt to attack people the attackers thought were gay.  Nowhere in the article does it say that Mr. Button is gay; the article says the attackers knew nothing about Mr. Button's sexuality and that the victims of the attacks targeted at random simply because they were in an area of Central Park where the attackers believed gay people congregated.  There is no reason for the article to ignore the several news accounts that highlight that the attackers intended to attack gay people.  --Rentir (talk) 14:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article as it is written now does not state that Dick Button is gay, it simply provides a brief summary of the NY Times articles that it cites on the attack on Dick Button on July 5, 1978. In regards to the assailants targeting of gay people, the NY Times articles, including one from July 28, 1979, are very clear in repeatedly mentioning that the assailants were targeting people they thought were gay, that one assailant confessed to having had a fight with a gay person ("fag" is the word that the article quotes as being in the confession) earlier that day, and that the attorney of the assailant who confessed to having had had a fight with a gay person earlier in the day told the jury that the assailant had returned to the park to seek revenge. None of the news accounts say that Dick Button is gay, none of the news accounts say that Dick Button is not gay; the news accounts are silent on Dick Button's sexual orientation, and so too is this Wikipedia article. --Rentir (talk) 04:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Dr.frog, you should check the five actual NYT articles in the footnote (4 from July 1978, 1 from July 1979). The fireworks reference is not in the NYT articles. It only appears in the YahooGroups posting and there it is someone claiming to summarize the NYT articles, but the fireworks reference is not in the articles, i.e. the YahooGroups posting is not an accurate summary of the NYT. The YahooGroups posting is not a reputable source, while the NYT is (anyone can anonymously post anything they feel like to YahooGroups). The NYT is explicit in reporting that Button was purportedly going to meet a cabinetmaker on 57th Street and 7th Avenue. --Rentir (talk) 07:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have read at least some of the original articles, although it was many years ago now, so my memory may be rusty. There is also a second, more detailed summary of the entire sequence of articles posted by another person here, with a direct quote from the July 8 article that Button was "jogging through the park and stopped to watch the fireworks."  It seemed to me that the different NYT articles were a little muddled on what Button was doing in the park (and perhaps Button himself was muddled about it afterwards, given the nature of his injury), but the jogging comes up repeatedly, at least.  Dr.frog (talk) 08:06, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

People, this entire dialog is ridiculous. You all are so concerned about whether the article implies directly or indirectly whether Dick Button is gay or not that you have made the assertion directly or indirectly in this discussion whether he is gay or not. Leave it alone already. The mention of the attack lends more credit to his being a spokesperson for The Brain Injury Association of America and that is it. Douglb1 (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

This article is full of dead links!
The first three links given in the "External links" section (ABC Sports biography of Dick Button; Dick Button's U.S. Olympic Team bio; and Olympic.org Video: Dick Button lands the first double axel) don't work. Worse, the first two of those are extensively used as sources for the article, being cited a total of 11 times. Krakatoa (talk) 05:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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