Talk:Don Boyd

Trying to get this page to fit standards and because this is the first time I have used wikipedia, I would be very grateful for your help. For example, should the page include a list of Don Boyd's films? Should the page be broken up in stages - Early Life, Early career, Academic Career etc....I dont want to make it too fussy but Boyd has had a very varied career to date, and my principal sources including the very big datbase and archives at Exeter, and the BFI library provide so much info - Thank you...Limuru —Preceding unsigned comment added by Limuru (talk • contribs) 12:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * One of the tags that you removed stated that the article could do with sections (what you call stages), so yes it would be much better to have sections. With regard to the content it really isn't being fussy adding content and sources, that is great that you want to and it would improve the article. At present there are only four sources though and it could do with more. Please note though that the tags at the top of the article that you removed, should only be removed once the issues are actually sorted. I have therefore restored the tags as they are a way of notifying other users that the article requires work doing on it. Thanks and have fun. ♦Tangerines♦ · Talk 15:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for this. Most helpful. I have removed some material and added other references but the quality of the sources I have tried to quote are as good and comprehensive as thet get: The British Film Institute, the University of Exeter and Don Boyd's papers in the Bill Douglas centre, and The Guardian newspaper's own rigorously edited profiles. and of course imdb which has the largest and most comprehensive database of information about film directors which exists. I have looked at other biographies of other British directors and these quote very few sources and in some cases seem as if they have been written by publicity agents...I have tried to restrict this article to the barest of facts, and to put Boyd's  career into context for anyone reading the entry. I can always contact him personally to verify information if really necessary - he is a very approachable man as witnessed by the wealth of information available to the public in the papers he has donated to The University of Exeter.
 * The wealth of information included in the Bill Douglas Centre also includes (in the public domain via Stephen Fry) a wealth of information about his abortive film 'Gossip' as chronicled elsewhere by Exeter's Dan North, the whole saga of which must be familiar to you as dedicated observer of Don Boyd. Why wasn't that included? And did you really remove an admin's tags? 81.178.38.169 (talk) 09:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

as for the sections, short of a very comprehensive artcile which would be inappropriately long, I have tried to condense it to give a sense of Boyd's career and unique status in Britsh cinema - this is certainly borne out by all the references and by the reviews and other material available in inteviews and cuttings in the libraries in London and in Exeter where I have researched him.

His opinions have been voiced very publically both in the press, and at media industry meetings. eg He recently he wrote an article about documentary in the Guardian for example. This was the basis of my suggestions concerning his status as a commentator but i have removed these - (I can't imagine that he would take offence!). Limuru (talk) 17:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)Limuru


 * The article reads like a self-publicising puff (indeed 'written by a publicity agent' to me) and it's not encouraging to see a reference to it in Don Boyd's LinkedIn entry. In its original version up to about a fortnight ago it had been lifted directly from the University of Exeter web site noting his honorary doctorate, not a very neutral POV source I suggest. There are omissions. His role as producer in the $24 million (perhaps £, can't remember offhand) heavily criticised budget disaster of 'Honk Tonk Freeway' (memorably described by Barry Norman as possibly the best movie ever to feature a pink elephant on water skis) for example and the disaster of 'Gossip' where according to Stephen Fry he was the only chappie to get paid. It needs a lot more work and Limuru's gushy adulation above does not read well to me. The article fairly comments that his films have yet to receive the commercial success of some of his contemporaries. What about critical success? Who in fact likes his films other than (perhaps) his aunt Ethel? 81.178.38.169 (talk) 08:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Issues concerning "Visiting Professor", "Honorary Pofessor" etc.
In its current incarnation the article describes Boyd as an 'Honorary Professor', a title apparently supported by the University of Exeter web page cited there. Previously (i.e. last week) the article described him as 'Visiting Professor', a title also apparently supported by this University of Exeter web page but queried by me in an email to the University and which has so far gained no response (but does at least seem to have resulted in the present significant edit of the article).

Contributors (perhaps University of Exeter underlings) would be doing Wikipedia a service if they made clear the basis of titles such as 'Professor' they bestow upon their objects of desire and favour. A ['visiting professor'] is an actual professor in tenure, or at least an academic with that status (minimally a DSc or PhD), who is visiting a university usually to undertake or oversee research. Don Boyd is not one of those.

As for 'Honorary Professor' I'm not aware that we do those in the UK and in any case such an exalted title from so august an insitution as the Exeter School of Film Studies would surely deserve a web page all to itself. I suspect Don Boyd isn't one of those either and have emailed Professor Neale (who would appear to be an honest to goodness professor of English associated in some way with the film studies crew) querying that as well.

The basis of all this seems to me that Don Boyd was awarded a DLitt for his contributions (presumably) to the film industry. The University of Exeter has already attracted attention for referring to the recipients of this honorary degree as 'Doctor'. Is it really a 'Professor' you get now and how much do they start at now I do wonder?

I would point out that this article as originally posted before its recent timely edit was a near word for word copy of the University of Exeter web page linked above and again here. That strikes me as not a very happy example for Wikipedia and especially so in connection with Don Boyd's notorious 2001 abuse allegation which I notice has been so very sensitively addressed in the current revision. At least the editor might have lifted the image from the Exeter web page for Wikipedia. 81.178.38.169 (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Following enquiry to the Vice-Chancellor's office (which is what it took to get the info) I learn that he was indeed appointed Honorary Visiting Professor in the College of Humanities between 2005 and 2008 [added: thus incidentally a nothing at a time (January 2011) when he was described as either a 'Visiting' or an 'Honorary' professor and his LinkIn entry referenced his Wikipedia article 81.178.38.169 (talk) 12:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)]. I have edited accordingly. Neither 'Honorary' nor 'Visiting' but 'Honorary Visiting' professor if you please. There should be a Wiki page on that. 81.178.38.169 (talk) 18:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The point is that apparently the University of Exeter awards this honour not just to acedemic 'but also to senior and distinguished figures from industry who make a valued contribution to the academic life of the University'. Well so, but it's not generally the practice to do that (the convention remains for most that the recipient must qualify for the appropiate chair in the awarding university) and it would greatly help if the University of Exeter published their protocols for their honours. If I understand the timeline right Boyd's valued contribution to the academic life of the university was to deliver a few lectures at the Bill Douglas Centre and to offload his early business and personal papers chronicling some 30 years (at that time) of his film career to the Bill Douglas archives (and see my comments above about 'Gossip'). I mean I'm not getting at him really but I do venture to suggest that a dispassionate observer would not be so fantastically impressed. Really. In a dispassionate view, I suggest, there are issues here which need to be addressed in a wiki bio about him. 81.178.38.169 (talk) 09:46, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Limuru
The original contributing editor here was 'Limuru' who does not have a talk page I can find. 1 Limuru is the name of a town in Kenya with an traditional British expat community. 2 Don Boyd was brought up mainly in Kenya before being sent to boarding school. 1 + 2 Only connect... 81.178.38.169 (talk) 20:10, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The cutting of redundant, selective, prejudiced material; thinly disguised malicious attacks on the reputations of Boyd and the University of Exeter
I am sorry to see so many of my own edits removed. I shan't revert them. 81.178.38.169 (talk) 21:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Message to 94.195.195.20 re: Blanking of Don Boyd article
Would you care to explain your blank 'The cutting of redundant, selective, prejudiced material; thinly disguised malicious attacks on the reputations of Boyd and the University of Exeter' of the Don Boyd article, a little more fully on the article's talk pages? That would be gracious of you.

You left the article in an unsatifactory condition incidentally. I had to spend time repairing it and restoring references.

There are now a number of significant lacunas in the article that really need addressing, amongst which 1 the notorious abuse allegation coinciding with the release of his (co-scripted Nick Davies) failed film  My Kingdom 2 his relationship with Exeter university 3  Gossip and his subsequent 3 year ban from filming 4 the delicate question of his critical reviews.

I don't have time to get involved in an edit war just right now but I'm dismayed that all that time I and a number of other experienced wiki editors spent on this (originally) disgracefully self-serving article plainly contributed by Boyd himself (possibly his daughter) or an agent of theirs as Limuru, which in its original form was a word-for-word copy of the University of Exeter's webpage recording his Honorary DLitt and was linked to his professional profiles on networking sites, has gone to waste.

Perhaps you might care to fill these in yourself now. I should be curious to see how you handle the material. In the end he's not very notable and necessarily the material is selective. Can you, for example, find a single good quality (I mean a newspaper or journal) review for his novel Margot's Secrets? I couldn't, despite a Cannes 2010 launching party for it attended by the likes of Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC. I shall look back a few weeks hence, at a less busy time for me, to see how you've fared, re-supplying deficiencies myself.

You were quite wrong, prejudiced yourself, to brand these edits as 'malicious'. They simply reported the facts of the matter. I take it you must be aware that Don Boyd is involved with young people taking their first steps in their film careers at both the London Film School and the University of Exeter's Department of Film Studies? They deserve a frank and fair appraisal of self-styled grandees of the film industry such Don Boyd they come into contact with, free from the luvvy old boy croneyism that so taints, distorts and retards the British film industry Boyd claims to champion. 81.178.38.169 (talk) 23:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)