Talk:Reuben Greene

Death
I have reverted the edits that reported his death as I can't find any obituary or news item. -Racklever (talk) 12:50, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

This is really insane. Just because his death was not reported in a newspaper, does not mean he did not die. For your information, he died in a squalid Flushing apartment from a heart attack and was found by the maintenance man because delivered food was still on the door knob and the door was ajar. Apt. 3C, The Lafayette, 138-70 Elder Avenue, Flushing, NY 11355. I was the person who reported his death to authorities and have his death certificate. Believe me, he died. And, it is disrespectful that you continue to post his age as 74 when he passed away at the age of 73. - Ruben Green, Jr.38.98.247.82 (talk) 16:46, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

His birth name was Reuben Green. He changed his last name to Greene once he became an actor for union reasons.

Death of Reuben Greene
I updated this page to reflect the fact that my dad passed on February 10, 2012. I was the executor of his estate. I updated the page to reflect the fact that he passed in Flushing, NY on this date and was survived by his wife, Delores Green; me, Ruben Green, and my half-sister, Helena Green of New York City. Somebody, I don't know who, erased my edits. I would like to have them restored.

Ruben Green — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.139.12.141 (talk) 16:32, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * We usually need a reference for a death, such as a obituary, before changing the article. The bare minimum would be the name of the newspaper and date of publication. If you have any questions ask at Help desk. --Racklever (talk) 11:14, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Very curious. I've been wondering about this as I can't find any reference anywhere on-line and you would think that an actor, although his public career may have ended some years ago, would have an obituary in some published source.  I'm also curious about the spelling - was Greene his stage name? Deb (talk) 12:07, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Death
I edited this page to reflect the fact that my dad died on February 10, 2012. It was removed because whoever edited the page could not find proof he had died. Yet, you leave a post that says he is currently teaching acting with a reference to a completely different individual. This entire page is very disrespectful to my father's life and death.159.63.4.3 (talk) 16:22, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, it is not all that uncommon for people to falsely or incorrectly claim that someone has died and change Wikipedia articles accordingly. Therefore Wikipedia tends to be careful about allowing such claims and generally expects some type of reliable source to verify the claim before it can become part of the Wikipedia article.  For now, I have removed the statement about him currently teaching and removed the age from the box.  The article should now be not making any claims either way about whether he is living or not.  Gnome de plume (talk) 16:48, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Now Anchestry.com states that a Reuben Greene died on February 10, 2012. You already stated that in February 2012, long before it was on Anchestry: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reuben_Greene&diff=482733371&oldid=482347489 If yours would be a fake claim, that would be a very huge coincidence - I definitely believe you. --Clibenfoart (talk) 09:53, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Mr. Green Jr: I had a similiar case on my article about Paul Gregory, where persons who knew him wrote about his death in Wikipedia but there was no official obituary (in the end they were right). I believe you and tried to reflect what you wrote on this Wikipedia discussion page in his article, so that people know that he is possibly no longer alive. However, it's also understandable that your edits were removed, because there were a number of fake death claims on Wikipedia which can also hurt people (people like Reuben Greene who are somewhat but not really famous and have moved away from the spotlight long ago are perfect victims for that, for example the fake death claims of Loni Nest and Martha Stewart a few years ago).
 * Perhaps a solution could be to get into contact with some gay magazines or Crayton Robey, the director of the Boys in the Band documentary who searched for your father so that they can post or write an official obituary (https://www.facebook.com/crayton.robey). --Clibenfoart (talk) 15:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

While appreciating the discussion above, we simply can't have Wikipedia articles referring to their own talk pages or explicitly referring to their own information as not based on reliable sources. There's a problem with both WP:SELFREF (Wikipedia articles can be mirrored by websites where talk pages don't exist) and WP:OR. We can do only the best we can do based on reliable sources.

It occurs to me that if someone was born, say, 150 years ago, it's fair to treat the person has no longer living and at least write of them in the past tense (in this case, change the lead to begin "Reuben Green was a ...") even if there is no documentation of their death. I'm wondering whether there's been a discussion of that higher up in the Wikipedia project namespace. I'm also figuring this isn't the only case of a person under 100 about whom there's an article with no information about their death, so I wonder whether that's been discussed "upstairs". Largoplazo (talk) 01:45, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It turns out this is covered at WP:BDP. Paraphrasing, Anyone born within the past 115 years is treated as a living person unless a reliable source has confirmed their death. Largoplazo (talk) 17:17, 14 October 2020 (UTC)