Talk:Rich Iott

Nominate this article for DYK
Just a suggestion. __meco (talk) 00:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have nominated the article naming User:KeptSouth as article creator. I'm unsure if this is correct attribution since this article went through a series of name changes during its inception. Consequent to that I also question whether some of the article history has been corrupted not appropriately showing all users active in the earlier stages of article editing. Perhaps someone with administrator privileges could do some investigation into this? __meco (talk) 08:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Flatterworld added a merge tag to this article proposing to merge it into United States House of Representatives elections in Ohio, 2010. Such a merge would not be in keeping with the Ohio elections article as the elections article contains absolutely no biographical information on any of the candidates. Flatterworld also seems to be saying that this bio does not contain a link to the elections article but it did at the time FW made the remark and it still does. It is in the very first sentence of the article. No valid or even arguably valid reasons have been given for a merge. KeptSouth (talk) 08:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Removing the Merge tag on both to and from articles was wrong. It also deleted the link to my reasons for requesting a merge, so this section is left with your 'interpretation' of what I did or didn't say and its validity. That's called 'being rude and insulting'. Still, I will assume good faith and that you never looked to see what similar candidate articles are supposed to look like, or you only noticed other 'fluff articles' which Jerzeykydd created in about five seconds each. On your first point, a 'merge' would indeed 'merge' the material which isn't already present in the election article. It's irrelevant whether or not any other District's election in the election article does it that way or not. I suggest you look at the House election article for Virginia to see an example of another candidate who is also not notable except for the event (the election). Since you're obviously looking for an excuse to be angry, I took the time to fix this article so you might better understand what a 'fluff' article is, and learn what a 'non-fluff' article is supposed to look like. It's not about whether the candidate is 'fluff', it's about whether the article is 'fluff'. There's a difference. 1. We avoid slang and a conversational tone. We are an encyclopedia. (I corrected some of this, not all.) 2. 'Candidate' is not a synonym for 'nominee'. We use the correct term, in this case he's the Republican nominee. 3. The infobox is for summary info. He is a businessman in the infobox, and the full details of his business career are to be included in the body of the article (which you did). 4. Non-partisan voter information is included in External links. In his case, Project Vote Smart, FEC and Open Secrets. Obviously his official campaign site is listed and clearly identified as such. 5. Relevant categories are included. In his case. the Tea Party movement is apparently relevant as you noted it in the lede. 6. The campaign section starts with the date followed by the type of campaign. We don't separate the primary from the general except in very long and involved articles such as some presidential candidates. 7. We use a 'See also' link immediately following the title, for the actual election article, as opposed to burying it in a link in the lede or body of the candidate's article. The election article has the material on polls, forecasts, campaign contributions, etc., and we want our readers to easily find that if they're interested. 8. We mention ALL candidates who are listed on the ballot, which can usually be found in the Secretary of State website. I include this at the top of the External links section of the various state election articles, including a sub-link to the actual candidate list if it's difficult to locate. In this case it's here. Withdrawn candidates are mentioned as withdrawn, as they did earlier qualify, and we want our readers to know what happened to them rather than simply deleting them. 9. Military service generally gets its own section.
 * His notability at this point, because of the re-enactment story coming out yesterday, is more than it was when I suggested the merge. The need to address that controversy (reporting the facts and his response) obviously takes up more space. I don't have strong feelings about any nominee articles existing or being merged, I simply don't want to see this plethora of poorly written articles flooding Wikipedia in the month before the election. I have no interest in immediately merging and redirecting any article which is updated to cover the material I listed above. Some may well be merged after the election if the person loses, but there's no need to rush on that beforehand. However, those which do not follow that pattern aren't any more useful than the person's own campaign site, so unless the person is truly notable otherwise (holding state office is an automatic 'notable'), in which case s/he probably already has an article, there's no reason to keep the 'candidate campaign' articles if no one (other than myself) can be bothered to fix them. I hope that clarifies things for you. Flatterworld (talk) 00:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I found a merge tag on the article, and no discussion on the talk page. I did not delete a link to your reasons; the only reasons you gave for affixing the tag were in an edit summary that I actually linked to and discussed.(see 1 above). Your edit summary states: "yet another ridiculous fluff article with NO links to the election article with has actually useful information for the voter". I responded to your assertions, found them to be unsupported, removed the tags, and continued to improve the article which was only about 24 hours old at that point.


 * Based on your recent objections above, I will add a few more points. At the time you affixed the merge tag, the article contained information about Iott's life, AND his campaign, AND the recent controversy. It had 6 references, and generally complied with the MOS. It already met the basic criteria as a stand-alone article but it was being continually improved, therefore, I do not see how it was a candidate for a merge. Also, there were already many references in the media to the Nazi uniform thing. The story did not come out on the 11th as you assert; it got national media attention beginning on October 9. On the morning of October 10, the second most powerful elected Republican, Eric Cantor, already "repudiated" Iott's hobby on two national broadcast networks - CBS and FOX. Therefore, it was clear that notability criteria were already met. If you thought that the issue of a major party candidate actually dressing up in a Nazi uniform was going to go away very quickly, you were mistaken.


 * You state it is "rude and insulting" to delete a link to your reasons for requesting a merge, but I did not delete your reasons; I actually linked to your edit summary in my discussion and that is the only place you gave your reasons. Then you say, somewhat ironically, that my work on the article shows that I have "never looked to see what similar candidate articles are supposed to look like" or that I based my work on another editor's articles created in about 5 seconds each. That simply is not true, the article did have sufficient text and sources, was the result of several hours of reading and editing and was even classed as "start" level, not stub. You also say that I am "obviously looking for an excuse to be angry", but my short discussion at the top of this section where I describe why I removed the merge tag, is objective, non personal and to the point. I am only responding to these accusations because the number of false accusations you have made and the length and vehemence of your responses indicates to me that perhaps you are trying to establish some sort of false record.KeptSouth (talk) 11:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * KeptSouth, if you bothered to read the Merge tags, they each include a link to 'Discuss' - which is located at the merge-to article's Talk page. It's really not difficult to click on that link and read the discussion there. Clearly you couldn't be bothered to do that, you just blew your top and deleted it. And yes, the discussion is still there where it belongs. Of course I consider your actions rude and insulting, and imo you sounded, and continue to sound, very angry. I didn't merge, delete, or redirect the article, I simply tagged it for discussion - and you incorrectly deleted the tags. imo your time could better be spent improving articles instead of ranting and raving at someone who improved this article so that it wouldn't be such an embarrassment to Wikipedia. See Talk:Stephene Moore. Flatterworld (talk) 19:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

<--[outdent] Actually, the short section you started titled "Rich Iott" on the elections article talk page was not obviously a merge discussion on October 11. What you said over there is essentially the same statement as your edit summary where you added the tag. I discussed your edit summary over here, creating an obvious discussion section titled "Merge proposal" and I linked to the elections article and your edit summary. I may have made a technical error, but there were plenty of links that made up for it.

In any case, what should really matter is the substance of your complaint, and the fact is:
 * the article did not meet merge standards at the time you placed the tag,
 * it was a new article,
 * I continued to improve it, and
 * it was even less of a candidate for a merge at the time you continued your objections on October 12. This diff shows the improvements made in the interim, before you continued to object to the quality of the article.
 * in no way was the article a mere repetition of the candidate's website, as you mistakenly claim.

In in addition to improving the article, I have tried, to the best of my ability, to answer all your objections and mistaken assertions. If you wanted to re-add the merge tag at any time you were always free to do so.

For the record, I never edited the Stephene Moore article.- Regards- KeptSouth (talk) 14:41, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Definition of a "fluff" article
@Flatterworld - you say you "took the time to fix this article so [ I ] might better understand what a 'fluff' article is, and learn what a 'non-fluff' article is supposed to look like." These are the simple changes that you made that presumably turned the article into non-fluff:  - you replaced the word Democrat with the letter D, shortened the profession description, divided the short "Biography" section into two sections, combined the primary and general election sections into one section, and added a category. To me, the changes appear to be stylistic, sometimes trivial, and sometimes a matter of personal style, rather than substantive. Perhaps you can clarify what you mean by "fluff" by giving a reasonably short definition?

Also you seem to be applying absolute rules as to the titling of sections, the exact content of an infobox, etc. Can you give me some links to your sources for these absolute rules? -Best regards-KeptSouth (talk) 11:18, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Here are some excerpts from your comments, which will show you what I mean by absolute rules. Your comments are nearly all gratuitous, in my view, because they mainly deal with non issues or items that were already in the article, as you would have liked them to be. In any case, I hope you will try to see there is some sort of compulsory and overly judgmental tone here: ''"2. 'Candidate' is not a synonym for 'nominee'. We use the correct term... 3. ... He is a businessman in the infobox... 4. in External links.... his official campaign site is listed and clearly identified as such. 5. Relevant categories are included... 6. The campaign section starts with the date followed by the type of campaign. We don't separate the primary from the general except in very long and involved articles such as some presidential candidates. 7. We use a 'See also' link immediately following the title, for the actual election article." ''

In any event, major theme of your 8 part list is that things have to be done a certain way. And this is extremely inconsistent with your justification for merging a bio for one candidate, Iott, into the election article where you said ''"It's irrelevant whether or not any other District's election in the election article does it that way or not." '' KeptSouth (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Military service may not be the correct term
As I understand it, the Ohio Military Reserve, despite having the word Military in it, is not quite the military. Consider this recent debate exchange between Kaptur and Iott as reported by the Toledo Blade:

"During the debate the Iott was asked about a $500 campaign contribution to the Republican National Committee, on March 19, 2010, that listed the state of Ohio as his employer and his occupation as solider. Iott first responded by stating he doesn’t recall that and would need to be shown documentation.

Upon seeing the documentation he said he couldn’t explain why it was listed the way it was.

“I am a soldier of the state of Ohio, a member of the Ohio Military Reserve and that is true, but that would not be my employer … I don’t know how it got that way,” he said.

Iott said the Ohio Military Reserve is undergoing a change to become an active part of the justice department.

Kaptur said Iott was not a solider and stated she’s never understood Iott’s military background and asked him to explain if he was ever an active duty member of the military or a veteran.

“I have never claimed to be a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces. And I have never served in the U.S. Armed Forces. All of my service has been in the state government,” Iott said. Iott blames Kaptur for leaking ‘Nazi’ photos, October 11, 2010 Toledo Blade"

I also understand the brigade is completely civilian, is unarmed and has never been activated in its history. For these reasons, but especially because of Iott's statements above, I am changing the section title to "Public Service and Philanthropy" KeptSouth (talk) 21:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree, "Military Service" isn't really an accurate or appropriate section title. It isn't really a philanthropy either, as the OMR is actually a State Defense Force organized under 32 USC.  I think that given the circumstances, rather than rename the section "State defense force service", it would probably be better to just merge the paragraph in the section above titled "Career."  I will be WP:BOLD and have a go at smoothing it in.--AzureCitizen (talk) 22:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Executive producer
Are we sure that the Richard Iott in IMDB as an executive producer of 11 films is the same as this person? A profile in the local newspaper mentions his various business enterprises, but makes no mention of him being a film producer. I strongly suspect that they are different people and will remove the material unless someone can find a reference that says the candidate is a film producer.  Will Beback   talk    23:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, he is the same person. A profile is an abbreviation of a person's resume and activities. Just because one profile does not include this information, that does not mean it is not true. There is already a reference in the article that says he is a film producer and lists two film titles that correspond that correspond to the ones in the IMDB profile. It is currently [9]"Toledo's Black Swamp International Film Festival Debuts. There are several other local media references that say he is a film producer and these are easily found through a Google search. Further confirmation: If you go to Iott's website, you will see there is a Jewish friend and business partner from LA who vouches for Iott's lack of anti-semitism, and he is listed as co-producer or director on many of the same films. -Regards- KeptSouth (talk) 08:59, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. I see this page: That's the only one on his website that has the word "producer" on it. His Votesmart profile doesn't mention it either. It's odd to leave out a significant business accomplishment. However the blogosphere seems to have agreed on it so I guess it's true.    Will Beback    talk    09:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Blaning the page? Removal of whole sections?
Rbiacs, can you please explain what you are doing and why? Night of the Big Wind talk  16:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)