Talk:Robbie Waterhouse

BLP
This article is a stub and needs expansion. The subject had a high profile prior to the Fine Cotton affair which needs focus. Warerhouse has a stake in tomwaterhouse.com which can be included, and has entered the More Joyous feud between Singleton and Gai Waterhouse. FlatOut 01:24, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

More Joyous
Does anyone feel like having a crack at a summary of the More Joyous allegations? FlatOut 03:23, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Why does there need to be any mention of the More Joyous affair on Robbie Waterhouse's page? He is a very minor player, at best, in this matter. It best rests on the pages of his wife and son, and on Singleton and Andrew Johns', etc. Rangasyd (talk) 16:46, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough, I agree. It's not notable. Rangasyd, Good work on the expansion of the article. FlatOut 00:13, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

BLP article intended to disparage
Thanks for having a look at this one and inviting me to submit my concerns.

I lodged this G10 complaint since my assessment of this short, but entirely negative piece, appears to have been created primarily to ‘disparage’ Robbie Waterhouse.

I have a number of concerns that Wikipedia guidelines clearly rule out, particularly when it comes to BLP articles.

First, this article appears to be a coat rack article WP:COATRACK that seems to be leveraging a perhaps known, but not key, participant as a sort of sweeping attempt to demean gaming in all forms. In particular, this page hosts irrelevant information about personal business investments the sort rarely seen on Wikipedia, even for articles for genuinely noteworthy businesspeople. This is in the ‘Business Interests’ section and discusses a company called ‘NT’, which itself has not been deemed important enough to be housed on this encyclopaedia. This content, particularly, is not-encyclopaedic and Wikipedia is not about tracking people’s investment portfolios, particularly those in which they have no day-to-day involvement.

Secondly, the page lacks balance. While it is short, the article gives disproportionate weight to a 1980s racetrack misdemeanour, which appears, based on the brief mentions online, to have resulted in a ban from a racetrack. In fact, the page appears to be predominantly concerned with this incident, despite the incident having a Wikipedia entry of its own called ‘Fine Cotton’.

Further to this point, the article gives the impression that had the ‘Fine Cotton’ incident had not taken place, then there would be no substantial need for a Wikipedia page on Robbie Waterhouse.

The Notability (People) guidelines, ‘WP:BLP1E’, states that an article should be removed ‘If that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual. Biographies in these cases can give undue weight to the event and conflict with neutral point of view. In such cases, it is usually better to merge the information and redirect the person's name to the event article.’

It is through the highlighting of this one event and the absence of anything else notable that indicates that Robbie Waterhouse’s Wikipedia page has arisen solely from this incident. Presumably, if Robbie Waterhouse was notable enough to have his own entry then there would be other aspects of his life and career included on this page.

My assessment that this article is designed to disparage is supported by the ‘info box’. The info box is constructed with intent to negatively frame Mr Waterhouse. The fields ‘Criminal Charge’, ‘Criminal Penalty’, ‘Criminal Status’ are all chosen to draw attention to his alleged criminal status. Incidentally the field ‘Criminal Status’ reads ‘Time Served’ – not only is ‘Time Served’ not a criminal status but it is factually untrue.

Incidentally, the field ‘known for’, answered with ‘Fine Cotton Affair’, supports my earlier observation that this article is written like a news piece about one particular event. The page ‘Wikipedia is not a newspaper’ supports this by saying ‘While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion’.

As a whole, the ‘info box’ sets a non-NPOV tone from the top of the article.

There are also a series of factual falsehoods that are present on the page.

For the following there is one source; number 4.

‘In 1992 the NSW District Court sentenced him to eight months of periodic detention, that was served at Long Bay Correctional Centre. Waterhouse pleaded guilty to giving false evidence under oath to the Racing Appeals Tribunal in December 1984 in connection with the Fine Cotton affair.’

‘The source linked does not specify that gaol time was served by Robbie Waterhouse’ and it is generally confusing.

For the following there are two sources; numbers 5 and 6.

‘In November 2002 his licence was suspended for a period of nine months by the NSW Supreme Court after he appealed an initial disqualification of two years, on the charge of 'Conduct prejudicial to the image of racing' in relation to writing bets taken at inflated odds.’

Source 5 reports on a charge, and not a conviction or courtroom result.

Source 6 does not relate to the preceding sentence about a 2002 NSW Supreme Court revoking or Robbie Waterhouse’s license.

Also, of interest is that the bottom three ‘Further Sources’ are just newspaper segments about Robbie Waterhouse – further indicating how similar to tabloid news this page is.

Thanks, please let me know your thoughts.

RLock83 (talk) 06:57, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Gosh. All that is really hard to read and comprehend; and not laid out at all very well. Please, let me summarise what I have interpreted from the above; and then below that, my responses to each of those issues. I understand from all the above that RLock83 has reviewed the article and assessed that:
 * 1. WP:COATRACK is implied through edits on the Waterhouse article that relate to a perceived bias for all forms of gaming/gambling, and in particular, horseracing from an editor or editors unnamed. Some of these edits relate to the business usage of the term NT;
 * 2. The page lacks balance and that the article is short;
 * 3. The article gives the impression that had the ‘Fine Cotton’ incident had not taken place, then there would be no substantial need for a Wikipedia page on Robbie Waterhouse;
 * 4. The use of a "criminal person infobox" supports the argument that the article is designed to disparage Waterhouse, with various fields used to support this claim;
 * 5. There are a number of factual falsehoods, namely:
 * a. source 4. does not specify the gaol time, despite the article claiming that it specifies a term
 * b. source 5. reports on a charge, despite the article claiming that it reports a conviction
 * c. source 6. does not report on a suspension of licence, despite the article claiming that it does.
 * 6. There are several newspaper segments about Waterhouse that do not appear to be of significant relevance to the article.
 * If I've missed anything, or misinterpreted something inappropriately, please let me know. Thanks - and now my replies, below. Rangasyd (talk) 10:30, 25 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Now, please let me answer the above, as I have had a minor hand in editing the article.
 * 1. NT is a common Australian abbreviation for the Northern Territory. The company is called Tom Waterhouse NT. That's the name of the company. It is typed that way to differentiate itself from Tom Waterhouse, the person. As an editor, I have no bias to gaming/gambling/horseracing; but then I didn't write the whole article. If there is a particular turn of phrase that could be edited differently, change it or make a suggestion here, for discussion. However, I think that it is a sweeping statement to imply that WP:COATRACK is evident.
 * 2. Agree that the article is short. It mentions the pedigree of Waterhouse, his family, including his wife and son, and for such a short article, it contains seven in-line references and four articles for further reading (with some deadlinks). The principal content is his involvement with the Fine Cotton affair, which is a longer article, but not substantially so. There are articles on Wikipedia that are shorter, and for people perhaps less or more notable.
 * 3. Agree. Without the Fine Cotton affair, Waterhouse would have been the son of a bookmaker, husband of a horse trainer, son-in-law of another horse trainer, and the father of another bookmaker. There is some notability about being involved in the horseracing scene - whatever that is - but it's not THAT notable to justify inclusion by itself on Wikipedia.
 * 4. Agree. See 3. above. Waterhouse would not be notable unless the Fine Cotton both happened, and he was charged and convicted; and his licence suspended. Whilst he was relatively promient in the media, that is not enough to justify inclusion and the criminal infobox may be perceived by some as his most notable characteristic. Is the solution infobox person?
 * 5. I have no issues with a., b., and c. There are probably media articles that can verify the statments (or not). If they're available, use them. With source 6., it's interesting to see its dated March 2002, and the article refer to an event in September 2002. This seriously needs revision.
 * 6. Agree. All the Futher reading newspaper articles should be reomved. The book by Ellicott should remain.
 * So, in summary, I agree that this Waterhouse article is perhaps mainly relevant to his involvement in the Fine Cotton affair. However, his involvement in the racing scene and the promience of his family's interests in hoseracing may justify WP:NOTABILITY guidelines. If the tone could be eidted to focus on the individual and his contribution to the industry, but not in a flowery way, that would be a good outcome. The other matters are procedural (such as replacing infobox, ensuring that the citations match the statements, and removing the surplus further readings.

Thanks for looking over my assessment; my apologies for the layout. I will respond to each of the issues using your numbering.
 * 1. My chief concern about this section was why sections of a person’s investment portfolio are included in an encyclopaedia. This is particularly important when these investments are not day-to-day business activities.  I still think that Wikipedia is simply not the forum for listing stock ownership.
 * 2. I agree that there are balance concerns, stemming largely from the fact that no consideration has been given to his other bookkeeping activities, despite him being labelled as ‘prominent’ in that field. I will put in some research over the weekend to see what I can find on this one.
 * 3. I agree that the article does not meet the guidelines for notability in its current form and that the single Fine Cotton incident is the defining feature of this piece. Perhaps this article should just be merged into the ‘Fine Cotton’ article?  Incidentally, it is particularly important that this false information about a supposed criminal conviction is removed sooner rather than later because, as the Australian Human Rights Commission specifies that that, in itself, is a crime. :https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/human-rights-comparative-table-legislation-spent-convictions
 * 4. The infobox is clearly the worst of the lot on this page. I will remove the offending aspects, mentioned in my previous submission, and we can go from there.
 * 5. I similarly get the impression that these pieces, particularly the ones on the rudimentary blog sites ‘Bookmaking.com.au’ and ‘letsgohorseracing’ are incredulous. There are also problems with all three in conveying messages that are wrongly applied in writing on the Wikipedia entry.
 * 6. The Ellicott book is a genuine publication; but the other three are tabloid news and not the best place to form content for an encyclopaedia.

Overall, I will make the changes that we need to in the short term to make this page compliant with BLP rules and, especially, the HRC legislation. I will remove the agreed false and tabloid articles. Please let me know if anyone has any objections. We will pick this up next week to work toward restoring balance with meaningful aspects about his prominent ‘racing identity’. There’s a bit of work to be done though it shouldn’t be too difficult. RLock83 (talk) 05:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Hey, RLock83 and Rangasyd, do you all stil need admin help? Seems like you're having a fairly productive discussion. If you're looking for a neutral 3rd opinion on the article, I suggest the 3rd opinion request board. I'm going to nowiki the admin help template for now, feel free to restore it or ping me if you need admin assistance. Best, Keilana&#124;Parlez ici 08:45, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * RLock83, I'm okay for you to go ahead with the edits, as proposed above. As to the investment, I think that that the editor may have been implying that despite Waterhouse being 'warned off' racecourses, he holds interests in the bookmaking through his son's company. The significance of that is, well, questionable. Keilana, thanks; I think we have the matter in hand. Cheers. Rangasyd (talk) 09:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Sherford, Hi There, please take a look at this talk page, there is general consensus of late that older versions were written without NPOV in mind, the info box was particularly telling in this, as was the lengthy false and libelous claims about criminal activity that were included. There is even further discussion about the relevance of his investment options on this page. Rangasyd,Keilana RLock83 (talk) 04:10, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I completed the BLP-cleanse by removing the Fine Cotton section, which was unsourced in key parts. Examination of the other participants said to be involved, particularly Hayden Haitana and John Gillespie, who are argued to be key arrangers and they do not have Wikipedia pages at all - even though they gained substantially more notoriety than Robbie Waterhouse over this issue. This is probably fair enough that they aren't given Wikipedia articles, but again calls into question the need for a Robbie Waterhouse page at all. In any case, I found the phrase 'warned-off' to be odd, and a weasel word, I'm not really sure how it's relevant, particularly since it's not a public matter at all, but a presumed statement by the now defunct Australian Jockey Club. Does anyone have any opinions still on the listing of Robbie Waterhouse's personal investments here? I don't think they ought be on this forum RLock83 (talk) 05:26, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I should add that I think the placement of 'former bookmaker' in the info-box as 'occupation' isn't quite right. He either is a bookmaker as his occupation now, or he isn't. RLock83 (talk) 05:29, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * 'warned-off' may be odd, but it is not a weasel word, and most certainly is a public matter. It means you are banned from entering something, in this case any premises associated with horse racing.DancingFool (talk) 04:57, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I think RLock83 is just a little too keen to 'sanitise' this article. Fine Cotton affair was again in the news http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/the-horse-racing-scams-that-stopped-the-nation/story-fnat7jnn-1226513078978 and Waterhouse was mentioned, again.Sherford (talk) 08:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a tabloid paper designed to prop up unresearched scandals involving John Gillespie and Hayden Haitana. We know the media loves to deflect attention to cause scandal. Wikipedia is not one of these places. RLock83 (talk) 03:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a tabloid paper. As such a researched article (with accurate citations)should not be repeatedly whitewashed. Mr Waterhouse is a notable person. The Fine Cotton affair is one of the reasons for his notability. Maybe RLock83 you might like to write an article about Mr Gillespie and Mr Haitana Sherford (talk) 08:18, 12 November 2013 (UTC)