Talk:Hickory Wind/RFC on Authorship

RFC on Authorship Controversy
Should the following paragraph (see below) be added after the second paragraph in the Authorship Controversy section?

A 1993 Orlando Sentinel article, published 9 years before Ms. Sammons's initial public claim of authorship in 2002, profiled Sylvia Sammons, a 42 year old blind female folk singer from North Carolina who local city officials were concerned was panhandling in a Mt. Dora, Florida, public park; the article described Ms. Sammons as having been "a professional singer and guitar player for 12 years on the coffeehouse circuit," or beginning in 1981 - 13 years after "Hickory Wind" was first released by The Byrds.

Please answer Yes or No or the equivalent in the Survey with a brief statement. Please do not reply to other editors in the Survey. That is what the Discussion section is for.

Reason to Add Paragraph
From a 10,000 foot view, the section to which the proposed paragraph applies – titled “Authorship Controversy” – should be deleted as a quintessential minority viewpoint from a single source given undue weight (up to and including multiple detailed paragraphs drawn from that single source). A song was first recorded and published (by two co-authors) in 1968, and 35 years later, an article appeared claiming a blind female folksinger from the southeastern United States actually wrote the song, and one of the registered authors (who died in 1973) plagiarized it from her (apparently by listening to her publicly perform it in 1963 at a coffeeshop). No legal or other proceedings were ever brought, and no followup investigation appears to have been done beyond the late arriving 2002 claim. This is a quintessential minority viewpoint.

At some point after 2002, another relevant source emerged (likely via digitization of newspaper archives): a 1993 newspaper profile of a blind female folksinger from the southeastern U.S. with the same first and last name as the originator of the 2002 “authorship controversy.” In that interview, the woman – who is almost assuredly the same person, though the 1993 article could not confirm such a fact, as it predated by 9 years the initial 2002 claim about authorship of a 1968 work of art - provided an age for herself and professional history (she boasted to having been a folksinger since roughly 1981) that are inconsistent with comments made in the 2002 source.

I will try not to rehash policy arguments made elsewhere during this discussion, except to say: If the 2002 data is included, I propose the 1993 data should be as well. It is relevant to the alleged controversy, and the proposed paragraph draws from a single source and then uses simple calculations – which are allowed under OR – without specifically asserting the 1993 blind female folksinger is the same person as the 2002 blind female folksinger with the same name. Prior inconsistent statements that are credibly attributable to a claimant are admissible in courts of law around the world, but not Wikipedia?

If the OR policy simply means that no relevant data that happens to precede a so-called “controversy” is allowed because it occurred prior to and thus did not formally address the “controversy” itself, then the policy should be amended as too rigid. Otherwise, the current OR policy privileges controversial, minority viewpoints that, by their very nature of being a minority viewpoint, did not take hold enough to be subjected to subsequent scrutiny in later sources.

Again, the proper solution may simply be to delete the section itself, but if it remains in place (and the singled-sourced minority viewpoint “controversy” is provided multiple expansive paragraphs), then the proposed paragraph discussing the 1993 profile should also be included.

Finally, let me say that I have enjoyed this sincere, vigorous debate, and learned things in the process. Thanks to all. Eldanger25 (talk) 20:48, 28 October 2023 (UTC)