Talk:Lord & Taylor/Archives/2015

New picture
I changed the old picture of the Bridgewater Commons Store to the Oak Brook, Illinois store that I took a picture of when I went there this past June. The Bridgewater store does not look like what was up any longer, so I decided to post a more current picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Folbrekr (talk • contribs) 14:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Headline text
If you look on the Lord and Taylor official website, it says the current locations, and up until about a week ago, the article was fine. The version I continue to re-edit to is the original article. I love Lord and Taylor. My family works for them. I have lots of books that tell me information on this. E-mail Richard Baker, Chairman of Lord and Taylor, to prove that I am correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yankeyfan315 (talk • contribs) 20:08, 11 December 2006
 * Okay, I went to the website and I added citations to the article for all of the current stores. You're going to have to add citations for closed stores and other details from your other references that I don't have access to (I doubt that the company's chairman would reply to anything I would write, if I cared to bother him). Per Wikipedia's policy on verifiability (WP:VERIFY), uncited material could be considered original research (WP:NOR), and may be subject to deletion by other editors. I don't want to delete any of your stuff, but you can't cry foul if you don't cite your sources!! --Elipongo (Talk 04:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Edit wars
I don't know what I stepped into the middle of here. Yesterday I added some wikilinks to some shopping malls here in Connecticut- I didn't add them randomly but rather I made sure to match the format of the rest of the listings. Today, I see that my edits were collateral damage in a huge revert war between 72.82.212.127 (Talk) and Yankeyfan315 (Talk|contribs). Also Yankeyfan315 seems to have blanked out all of his own comments on this very talk page, though I suppose that is his perogative. Now, 72.82.212.127 seems to have put a lot more effort into this page than would the typical vandal, so my first impulse would be to Assume good faith, because the fact is that neither editor's contributions have citations so that someone like me who isn't an expert on shopping malls can't evaluate the accuracy of the edits here. I think that everyone needs to stop and take a breath here. If, however, this page keeps popping up on my watchlist, I may ask an admin for a comment. --Elipongo 02:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Formatting
Unless anyone has any objections, I'd like to change the formatting of the article by removing all the MSA references and simply sorting the stores alphabetically by city & state. I think the current setup makes the article much harder to read, and a change would make things easier to navigate. I would apply this in the former stores section too, placing which restructuring event applied into parenthetical remarks for each store. A good example of what I'd like to end up with can be seen at Macy's East, except that they still have the closed stores sorted into MSAs. Thoughts or comments, anyone? --Elipongo (Talk 21:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism
I listed this page at Requests for page protection, but the request was declined (so far) because it wasn't clear to the admin that the edits were of false information. Fair enough because I couldn't tell at first myself. It says over there that further discussion should take place on the article's talk page, so here I go. I myself couldn't tell the fact from the fiction in this article, however, once I used the Lord & Taylor Store Locator on their website to verify and add citations for all the current locations, I knew any subsequent changes to THAT section were false. The anonymous user 141.150.233.178 (Talk) quickly made this change that included a clumsy attempt to falsify a citation. After that change was reverted, anonymous user 72.82.212.127 (Talk) made this change which included a more adept attempt at a false citation- however if you plug in the URL in his/her citation you come to a blank page of the Lord & Taylor website because the MO stores have all been closed. Other changes by these users have been along similar lines. No more changes have been made to the page today, but I'm leaving for work and most of the changes seem to be made during that time. We shall see what happens. It may be a better answer to the problem to block the IPs than to semi protect this article since it seems he/she/they are pulling sneaky vandalism in more than one department store article. --Elipongo (Talk 21:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

the Lawrenceville NJ store
used to be a Bambergers, not a Hahne's. ThuranX 20:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Then, as per WP:SOFIXIT, go ahead and fix it. However, due to the heavy vandalism on the page lately, you might do well to have a citation (WP:VERIFY) for your assertion though.--Elipongo (Talk 06:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Lawrenceville comment above incorrect
the store mentioned above is not a former Bamberger's...the Macy's in Lawrenceville is the former Bamberger's. If you need me to provide additional information, I can. The Lord & Taylor store is indeed a former Hahne's. As for the vandalism to this page, it IS vandalism. Unfortunately, I am still somewhat new to Wikipedia so I am leaving the debate/resolution of that to more expereinced users. PanzaM22 Mike 20:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

List of stores
This is really undue weight and quite a pointless list of information. It would be much more concise to say that the store has x stores in y states. The list should be removed. --Wafulz 22:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with above. It seems conceited, so that people can brag that their home states have L&T. The former locations is even worse, it's no where near complete and never will be.  Chantessy  14:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars, Vandalism, and List of stores
It seems the only way to "prove" the vandalism occurring on this page is to provide citations for every store list, both current and closed, and when the unregistered users try to modfiy that cited information, this can be a clear cut example of abuse. Elipongo and others have done a great job of listing the stores that are currently open, and the stores that closed in 2006, with citations. I have a citation for the stores that May Company divested in 2003 but am still somewhat new to using Wikipedia and would rather leave major updates to more experienced users. The URL for this citation is http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_147298.html If another user can use this citation and update the 2003 divesture list, that would be great. As for the comment by Wafulz that lists of stores are undue weight, most major department store Wiki pages provide lists of stores, with square footage if possible. This is the norm on Wiki from what I've seen this far. PanzaM22 Mike 00:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the URL Mike, I'll try to get that into the article shortly. As for the vandalism, the admins have started applying blocks to the two offending IPs. They have to go through the process of lengthening blocks in hopes that the user will reform his/her ways, so in the meantime keep the article on your watchlist. Also I agree with you that the standard for department store articles includes lists of current and former stores. I think the list on this article could be cleaned up some as I delineated above, but the lists should stay until the consensus changes on WP:RETAIL. --Elipongo (Talk 04:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

New IP address at it
A new IP address is adding incorrect information. Fo those of you that don't know yet, it seems the user is a 15-year-old autistic boy. I've pasted below a discussion on Sandstein's Talk page. Clipper471 01:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC) "The anon you blocked for (as I understand it) persistently adding out-of-date info to the Lord and Taylor articles? He's an autistic 15-year-old who genuinely thought he was doing the right thing; I've been in correspondence with his mother via OTRS." "As you can imagine, the 15-year-old is quite upset about his block - he's fixated on department stores throughout America - and so his parents were asking what if anything could be done." "What I have proposed is that iff his parents feel that they (and the staff of his school) have been able to properly explain to him how to behave on WP (for instance, the importance of accepting that some sources can become outdated or otherwise unreliable), I will unblock him early, and encourage him to register an account so that we may more easily communicate with him in times of need." "I will only do this if you are in accordance, since I don't want to do a wheel war or anything like that. Okay? DS 01:32, 23 December 2006 (UTC)"
 * "Thank you for the message. I have no objection at all to what you are proposing, if you are willing to closely supervise this editor's behaviour; I'd be glad to help out too. But it might be necessary to tell his parents that Wikipedia is not therapy. The requirements of the encyclopedia come first, and if he persists in adding wrong information to Wikipedia, he'll be mercilessly re-blocked. I'm frankly not very optimistic that we can get a 15-year-old autist who appears to be unable to communicate with other Wikipedians to be a productive contributor, but who knows? Maybe he'll change his fixation to something useful, such as article cleanup. Best, Sandstein 07:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)"
 * Why do all the fireworks seem to go off around here during Shabbat?

Anyways, the Autism certainly does explain a lot of the rather puzzling editing that has been going on here. I'm still not too sure about his falsification of citations, though- but I suppose that Autism can lead to what seems like unpredictable behavior to the rest of us. I too hope that we can make a Wikipedian out of him, but the collaboration that is what Wikipedia is all about is exactly what Autistic people have trouble with. There is a category of Autistic Wikipedians Category:Wikipedians on the autism spectrum, perhaps they can be of some assistance with this? --Elipongo (Talk 18:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection
OK, we now have three IPs with the same disruptive editing pattern: That's enough to semiprotect this page for now, at least until the situation with the possibly autistic editor (see above) is resolved. DS, I assume you are managing this case - feel free to undo these protections and blocks as soon as you assume this editor is no longer a likely threat to Wikipedia. Sandstein 07:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Confirmation?
Okay, just to make 100% sure I understand the problem: he was incorporating outdated material, right? Information that was accurate several years ago, but is no longer: to wit, the list of franchise locations should only include those franchises which currently exist, and not those which went bankrupt in 1997 or whenever. Correct? DS 18:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Essentially, yes; he kept on moving stores closed during the last re-organization of the company back into the list of current locations. He also kept on adding in stores to the list of former locations that never existed. However, one additional thing should be noted- once citations were added to this article he changed what he had been doing and started to add falsified citations from the sources we had found; see here for an example. I'm not sure how his Autism would make him do that, but I'm obviously no expert. I'm wondering if we might not be able to enlist some help from those Wikipedians who have Autism self listed at Category:Wikipedians on the autism spectrum. Good luck with this, I hope it works out. --Elipongo (Talk 19:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Status report
sigh This is going to take a while, what with the holiday break. We're definitely going to have to leave the article semi-protected until I can re-establish contact with his parents. DS 19:14, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

What was the purpose of this?
I don't see a clear purpose in just editing this page with false information. It is clearly evident which locations are open and closed, and people who chose to think otherwise must verify this. Even after providing internal citation, the perpetrator continued to post false information. Does anyone have a clear motive for why the boy did this? Yankeyfan315 00:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC) By the way, I am updating the total square feet of each store, rounded to the nearest 100. The page for the mall that each Lord and Taylor is in contains the square footage of that store. Yankeyfan315 01:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we all share your frustration with this case. Assigning motivation to some of the things that people with Autism do can be difficult for the rest of us. Some of them seem to live in a different perceptual world and have a great deal of difficulty in relating and communicating with other people. If someone has trouble relating to people as people when face to face, how much harder is it for them when using a keyboard and a screen? It may be that this young man saw Wikipedia as a sort of a videogame and never considered that there are other people out here with more recent information than him. We can't know for sure until DS gets back in touch with his parents, and maybe not even then...
 * Thanks for the source(s) of the square footage- I (or someone else) will be getting on citing those. Have a great day.--Elipongo (Talk 20:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I've heard back from the young man's mother: "After much discussion with my husband and the fact that my son keeps insisting that what he puts on there is or was correct, I think it probably best if we keep him logged off. I would check the listings that he edits though because he may very well be correct. Do you only have current or do you have items listed that were in the past? He knows where every store was and is but he doesn't always get that it was in the past and not in the present." I'll admit that I really don't know the first thing about Lord and Taylor, their past and present locations, etc. DS 02:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

He has yet another IP
I noticed some vandalizing of pages today, all pertaining to locations of Lord & Taylor stores, mostly at Wiki pages for malls. The IP he is using now is 72.82.180.179 I reverted his vandalism but I do not know how to warn him for doing this. The pages he vandalized are Southpark Mall (Colonial Heights, Virginia), St. Louis Galleria, and Short Pump Town Center I am not sure what any of you want to do about this, but I wanted to notify the people who have been warning/blocking his IP's. Mike PanzaM22 03:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem comes back to what we had at first on this page- editors can change material that doesn't have citations w/out repercussion unless it's obvious vandalism. In the couple of 72.82.180.179's edits I just looked at, it's not so obvious. Of course, it's easy enough to visit the malls' websites and check- but that doesn't count as a citation.
 * We're just going to have to go through these articles and provide citations like we have been doing here. Funny, but in a way this boy's persistent erroneous edits are improving the articles by forcing us to properly cite the information found in the articles. --Elipongo (Talk 04:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry for updating information believed to be false
I am sorry for adding information that seems to be false to the square footage of the stores. Other sources, for example, the wikipedia page for the Livingston Mall, state different square footage of the locations than does the May factbook 2005. I shall change everything back immediately. Kyle Yankeyfan315 04:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Great Idea!
Putting the lists of stores in click-to-see/hide fields is a brilliant solution! My compliments to you Clipper471! I think this article is fast becoming what could be used as an example article for WP:RETAIL. --Elipongo (Talk 02:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Lippincott additions
Hi, I'm new to adding info to Wikipedia so I hope I have done reasonably well. I added info about my late father, William J Lippincott, the former president and CEO. Sorry I deleted Joe Brooks altogether; that was accidental. My father was no fan of him but he deserves his place in history. My father's version of the store's expansion during his tenure seemed to conflict with Joe's so that is why I added what I did. I also see that in another New York Times article when he retired (http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F50710FE355A0C778DDDA90994DE484D81), Joe takes credit for making the Rose the store symbol while in this Wiki article, Dorothy Shaver is given credit. That would fit in with my father's estimation of Joe Brooks whom he called a son of a bitch. Anyway, I hope my info is now acceptable both in content and style. I appreciate all of your efforts to make it look good and the correct style. Cheers, John Lippincott —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lipwak (talk • contribs) 18:31, 10 February 2007 (UTC).
 * PS It may have been the Millburn store that he managed but I will check on that and it realy isn't that important anyway. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lipwak (talk • contribs) 19:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC).
 * Please provide a link to a source that doesn't require a subscription. Clipper471 05:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello John, and welcome to Wikipedia. I'm glad to see you here and contributing. I can see that you're finding out that it can be very hard to contribute to an article with which you have personal involvement without tripping up over Wikipedia's Neutral point of view, No original research and Conflict of interest policies. I've watched a few people do it in a few different ways, and the way that seems to work best and cause the fewest problems is for the person to give source information on the article's talk page and let the other editors do the actual editing for the most part. I should point out that you're way ahead of the game compared to a lot of people because you've been honest and upfront about your identity and your relationship to the subject of this article. Thanks again for helping out and contributing and have a great day! &mdash;Elipongo (Talk 01:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The problem now is that I can't supply another web-based article that doesn't require a subscription. The article I am referring to, his obituary, was only in the NYT. I don't know of another web-based article that mentions the points I wanted to make. Maybe they are out there but I haven't found them. So I guess I just have to let it be it can't be substantiated, then I am out of luck. (I would think this would be a problem for many subjects that aren't in evidence on the web such as personal histories or in this case a subject that is just not that well substantiated on the web. (PS Sorry for posting this way but I didn't see how to simply add this otherwise. Lipwak 05:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sources needn't be web based. If you give us the date/edition information we can probably get a copy at a library. Thanks! &mdash;Elipongo (Talk 06:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Great. Thanks! The obit is dated 5/7/92. It's in the Metro section, page B17. I would also point to a January 11, 1972, Tuesday Section: BUSINESS/FINANCE, NYT article titled: New Lord & Taylor Team Plans Expansion; New Team at Lord & Taylor Planning Expansion. Seven new stores in four years was the plan. My father had just been appointed president, (see NYT article dated 1/7/72, appointment effective 2/1/72). Joe Brooks had not entered the picture yet. Mel Dawley, Harry Murray, Joe Johnson are all pictured as is my dad. Cheers, John Lipwak 17:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll see about looking them up. Give me some time to carve library time out of my schedule. Thanks for helping! &mdash;Elipongo (Talk 18:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Glad to see it was added. PanzaM22 18:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)  Mike

Fair use rationale for Image:LT logo.gif
Image:LT logo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use. Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page. If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 23:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Alfred Einstein
The article states: In 1953, Lord & Taylor presented an award for independent thinking, which Alfred Einstein won for his "nonconformity" in scientific matters. Alfred Einstein was a musicologist, not a scientist. Can anyone verify that L&T presented an award to Alfred Einstein and not Albert Einstein, the noted physicist and scientist? abl (talk) 14:50, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Source about old NYC building
I found: WhisperToMe (talk) 18:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes/The Former Lord & Taylor Store; A Ghost at 20th and Broadway Is Getting a New Life." The New York Times. May 7, 1995.

Dissolution of HBTC
Hudson's Bay Trading Company has been dissolved. Lord & Taylor now operates under Hudson's Bay Company, with Canadian CEO of The Bay Bonnie Brooks at the helm.  Trappy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC).

HBC's purchase of Saks
Lord & Taylor's parent company, Hudson's Bay Company, recently purchased Sak's Fifth Avenue. Not sure how this may play out in this article, but would Sak's still be considered a competitor? Trappy (talk) 01:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)