Talk:Dominic Lam (physician)

Hoax?
Specific questions for RFC,

1. What is Wikipedia policy on suspected hoaxes to reliable third party sources?

2. Is the discussion of such an allegation without direct evidence a BLP issue?

--ThePaintedOne (talk) 12:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I've integrated the four citations above into the article, and since they appear to be of good quality I've removed both the OR and CITE tags. I also expanded the timeline section based on the timeline provided in the Inano citation. (this is a pretty close paraphrase in places so may need further rewording).

There is still the question of whether all this is a hoax, as tagged by the article creator? I don't beleive it qualifies as a wikipedia hoax, as the info is clearly cited in reliable sources. The broader question is whether those sources have been the victim of a wide ranging and elaborate hoax? This is very hard to ascertain, unless the article author has reason to beleive otherwise, as was suggested by their edit summary when they put up the hoax tag. It has to be noted that if this is all genuine, Dr Lam is a pretty incredible person, having excelled in art, science, medicine and business! (Possible Frankenstein?) I believe that as it stands, the article should stay as it appears to have reliable sources, I can see no direct evidence of a hoax and if the sources are correct the individual is very clearly notable. This should be reviewed in the light of any future information that comes to light. Note, all of this talk of a hoax is pure speculation, based on the article authors comment. I am concerned that discussing such a hoax may itself become a WP:BLP issue if we are not careful. (Copied to AfD debate) --ThePaintedOne (talk) 12:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The more I look into this, the less it looks like a hoax. I'm still vaguely wondering if there are two Dominic Lams, one a scientist and one an artist, but I can't see any references that distinguish between them so there's no evidence of that. Having gone to the L'Oreal site and independently searched for and found a reference to him winning the award claimed, I find it hard to beleive that this is a hoax as far too many notable organisations would need to have been taken in over a long period of time. I think at this point he should be treated as the genuine article and the citations valid, unless someone can point to an obvious discrepancy that casts doubt on some of this. In that light I'm going to remove the hoax tag, as I can't see anything beyond an unsourced claim from the article author that justifies it.--ThePaintedOne (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110423061619/http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=5&art_id=103781&sid=29919272&con_type=1&d_str=20101014&fc=4 to http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=5&art_id=103781&sid=29919272&con_type=1&d_str=20101014&fc=4
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110707025803/http://inano.tongji.edu.cn/Nano_Art/modules/en/jxsz_lwj.shtml to http://inano.tongji.edu.cn/Nano_Art/modules/en/jxsz_lwj.shtml
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110727090921/http://www.loreal.com/_en/_ww/loreal-art-science/previouswinners.aspx to http://www.loreal.com/_en/_ww/loreal-art-science/previouswinners.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100719154649/http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/author/default.asp?aid=30 to http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/author/default.asp?aid=30

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Presidential Medal of Merit?
This claims Lam was awarded a Presidential Medal of Merit. The thing is, there doesn't seem to be such an award on the Medal of Merit disambiguation page. There's the Medal for Merit, which according to its article was last given in 1952. There's the Presidential Medal of Merit (Philippines), which doesn't fit the description and wasn't named that until 2003. The Congressional Medal of Merit is for ages 14 to 23. So what is this referring to? None of the online sources I've found offer any details. Nick Number (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

–Vmavanti (talk) 02:31, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I looked for something online, too, but couldn't find anything. Could this be a problem caused by translation? Some places say he received a Medal OF merit, others Medal FOR Merit. The highest civilian honor is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but he didn't receive that award.


 * I have removed the claim for now given that it was sourced only to a PR piece and no other evidence has been provided, or can easily be found. If such evidence can be found, it could be reinstated. Melcous (talk) 04:10, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Major problems with verifiability
I have gone through this article and removed numerous unsourced claims, as well as claims that are only sourced back to Lam himself. I have concerns that this article has been tended for years based on spurious PR claims rather than reliable, independent sources and I have to admit I am starting to wonder (as was raised 7 years ago) whether there is some kind of elaborate hoax going on here. Melcous (talk) 12:18, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Update to article
I have started updating the article. The person is notable, but the article and source on the web are full of puff. I working through it at the moment and have discovered some reliable sources, e.g. the who. I have also sent an email to Baylor and the Harvard medical school to confirm he worked there. scope_creep (talk) 10:43, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I now have references to support about half the article, which can verify it. The article will be much smaller. I discovered the Houston bio company was correct. scope_creep (talk) 07:01, 29 June 2018 (UTC)