Talk:Jeff Smith (chef)

Why have details about the scandal?
Why should this article have details about the scandal? The man is dead and the "scandal" has the status of rumor. As the article says he was never charged with a crime. I vote for deletion of this section of the bio stick to the facts and avoid rumor. It would be much more relevant to know that he started out as a Methodist minister and how he came from that backgorund to use wine with cooking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.22.28.83 (talk • contribs) 07:40, 2 February 2005

RickK - don't revert without discussion
User RickK reverted updates for the stated reason "the deleted dates were factual." But he failed to address the serious issue that the allegations associated with those dates were never proven and therefore this information amounts to slander. Moreover the external links added in the update gives any interested reader the information about the scandal without making the scandal part of the official Wikipedia record. Furthermore - by using "revert" rather than "edit" RickK has deleted relevant and important new information.

RickK has blocked his account from receiving emails so I challenge him to submit his ideas to the public scrutiny before making univocal deletions of another user's contributions.


 * I discussed it on the Talk page of the anon who made the changes. I didn't delete anything having to do with dates, I reverted the deletions about the accusations made against him.  Whether or not the accusations are true, they were made, and it is not proper for Wikipedia to ignore that fact.  RickK 07:50, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * If it were proper for Wikipedia to mention every accusation made against every public figure then every biographical page would contain the word "scandal." The fact that there were accusations without any charges trial or conviction means that mentioning htem here amounts to slander. It is therefore entirely appropriate for Wikipedia to relegate them to an external link as I have done. Deleting them is not vandalism - it's good editing. Please refer to guidlines.
 * Nice. Somebody whose first edit is to this page trying to explain guidelines.  The mention of the scandal is completely appropriate.  RickK 08:05, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * FWIW there were publicized charges, but no trial. Settlements were made out of court. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5405544/ --sparkit 08:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Narcissus claims that articles should not mention scandals unless they result in trials or convictions. There is no such rule on Wikipedia. If it's verifiable it's usually worth noting in the article. As shown in Jeff Smith's obituary, the sex scandal did receive media coverage. Rhobite 08:54, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Outside view
The scandal, whether true or not, seems to account for this person's show being cancelled. That therefore makes it noteworthy, and I think noting them as accusations against him (as the article does) is the appropriate way of doing it. violet/riga (t) 09:09, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

- Hi this is User:Narcissus14 responding - I have a couple issues that I'd like you to respond to that are making me uncomfortable:

(1) Those who have added the rumors to the article have not given any evidence. There is an external link to an article that is no longer available and the added words use phrasology such as "alleged" and "are believed" which are supposedly to be avoided.

(2) In this discussion forum the external link above (to the msnbc article) hardly substantiates the rumors - the headline says that the scandal ended his career and the first paragraph says so but there is not one sentence in the article that even attempts to substiate a causal link between the accusations and the ending of the show. We don't even know for sure that the accusations were made offically - there is no evidence cited. Maybe they were made privately or by someone trying to rake money from a multi-millionnaire? We're not given any evidence one way or another.

(3) The external link that I added - to a discussion forum of Frugal Gourmet viewers - allows all points of view to have a say while maintaining neutral POV - because the views retain the status of OPINIONS which is of course all they are.

(4) The claim that $5 million was paid has not been supported - not even by the MSNBC article mentioned in this discussion above. What's the justification for allowing it to stand?

(5) I was personally attacked and blocked from posting (including to this forum) for the stated reason of "vandalism and refusing to compromise" when my actions were demonstrably neither vandalism nor uncompromising: "vandalism" is defined as editing in bad faith but my edits were always in good faith; moreover between myself and those who disagree with me I am the only party who attempted any sort of compromise; moreover the one who banned me never bothered to engage in a meaningful discussion with me; he disagreed with me and that was enough reason to ban me when I was persistent. The only reason I reverted multiple times was to get his attention to see if we could talk this out; but he never replied to any of my comments and merely painted me as a "vandal" "uncompromising" and I belive he accused me of trying to "whitewash".

(6) I left my original critique of the rumor-mongering on this discussion for many weeks (or was it months) with nary a reply before I took action and deleted the unsubstantiated and possibly false rumors and added relevant material. I was accused of vandalism for removing "factual" material. Even the "outside view" above is unable to say that the scandal "seems" to account for the show's cancellation. Based on what do you say so? On this MSNBC article? If that's all you have to go on - would it not be more fair (accurate) and decent to say something like "rumors of a pending sex scandal led to the show's cancellation" without going into lurid details which have not been substantiated as factual? Why would that not be enough?


 * Wikipedia isn't a courtroom. We don't prove things here, and we don't require proof of guilt before we report about an alleged crime. Media coverage is enough. However, we should be careful to cite our sources. I'm not sure where the $5 million figure came from. Unless that can be cited, it should be removed. I don't think RickK was right to block you, but your behavior was still unacceptable. You removed all description of the sex scandal, as well as a link which served as a reference. In my book, deleting text along with citations is a bad thing. The $5 million part should be cited or removed, but the rest should stay. If you'd like to be more productive with your time here, why not focus on adding positive information about Mr. Smith instead of removing information which bothers you? Rhobite 17:22, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Can I just state here for the record that I liked The Frugal Gourmet and used to watch it all the time. I just don't think deleting the information that Narcissus is deleting is appropriate. RickK 05:53, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * I've done a search and cannot find any media source (other than private weblogs) that cites $5 million or any dollar amount of a settlement.


 * Looks like someone is adding (again) unsubtantiated rumor - and it looks malicious. Deleting (temporarily) until they can re-write with sources. We've been here before.


 * The settlement amounts are listed by the Kitsap Sun, 1/1/1999: https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1999/01-01/0027_frugal_gourmet__chef_settles_with.html and Lewiston Tribune, same date: https://www.lmtribune.com/nation/world/frugal-gourmet-reaches-settlement-with-seven-men-over-allegations-of-sexual-abuse/article_86c07d11-cf14-5cb4-8cba-79090140faa1.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.77.205.6 (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

rough outline of facts
He got a cute boy assistant on the show and started talking a lot about him and then he went travelling with him and had travel photos and it seemed a bit of an odd man on boy tangent for a food show and then it went off the air. This can be based entirely on scripts or videos or reviews of the basic show content. Enough was in the public eye to leave a lasting dark mark. There should be some way of saying this based on just the facts that were in the open since the whole problem was too much visibility and focus on that. -- M0llusk 03:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Personal observations are not the basis for an encyclopedia article. We need to stick to reliable sources. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 23:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

General Note to Wikipedia Writers
Before the multi-billion dollar empires of Martha, Emeril, et al, Jeff Smith was a seminal voice of the foodie revolution, always finding new ways to tempt Americans to explore new foods, drinks, and cooking techniques. I know it's tempting to get hung up on a scandal, but the guy meant a lot more to our culture-at-large then one would suspect from the length and content of this article. Why mention it? Because this article is a good example of why I think Wikipedia will forever be a quixotic quest...nonetheless, I admire your passion, and I wish you luck. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.29.55 (talk) 21:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't follow your reasoning. It's a quixotic quest because it mentions the scandal? That's not how I see it. To my mind, the thankless but attainable task is balancing all aspects of his cultural significance, including the scandal. I don't see how censoring the article improves it. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 23:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The scandal should definitely not be censored, and as of writing this comment it's not, but weird scandal aside that was a damn good show, and the food looked damn good too... He was definitely quite knowledgeable about not just cooking, but the history and culture of food, and this is what made his show popular and memorable. The article really should make some more mention of what he cooked on the show, and maybe what kind of thought he put into the recipe books...Spettro9 (talk) 16:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Generally speaking, articles about authors have at least a partial bibliography. It does seem a little biased towards the scandal rather than the body of his life.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Redundant Citation
I just "fixed" a long dead citation link but in doing so I used the same page used for citation [4], which does support the statement but in doing so it created a duplicate source. I'm not that great at editing citations obviously so perhaps someone better at that can fix it so there's only one source for both citations? In the meantime at least now citation [1] supports the facts stated and is better than a dead link IMO. SentientParadox (talk) 01:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)