Talk:Victor Lewis-Smith/Archive 1

Untitled
I've added a couple of references to his Guardian restaurant reviews. Genius, especially the pie and mash and Little Chef ones. (ds (talk) 10:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC))

I've tried to remove some of the unverifiable guesswork such as "his friends" and bizarre accusation of Smith "concealing his appearance” in newspaper articles. Bobhoskinsbeautifulchild

Smith's critical-observational approach is similar to that of Chris Morris, the difference being that the latter is actually funny. Adambisset 12:27, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

An essential at the top of every comedian's wikipedia discussion page - one person saying they don't find them funny.

Maybe when it comes to TV shows yes, but I love his ES reviews. Silveralex 17:08, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Lewis-Smith's work is mostly scatalogical - to a degree that is pretty unique even by the standards of British comedy. Can anyone dig up some more biographical info?Piersmasterson 15:31, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

There are a couple of hoax phone calls missing. One where he calls Mary Whitehouse, as a sycophantic member of some moral watchdog, and tells her she's won £20000, and then insults her repeatedly, but uses the money to keep her hanging on. Genius. Also one with Michael Winner where I think Victor loses patience with Winners stupidity and screams the most profane of insults, relating to female genitalia, at him. And hangs up. Marvellous.

His work on Radio York has been overlooked ('phone calls and some interesting transport reviews). He also appeared as someone who 'phone James Whale when he was on Radio Aire. He would call under a number of different guises, one of which was Bimbo who purported to be an inmate at some local asylum.

Biography
If a biography has been commissioned, back it up with verifiable fact. Solicitation has no place in wikipedia - see WP:NOT --Princess Tiswas 17:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Same reversion carried out. 193.35.133.151 16:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Same reversion carried out a third time. 193.35.134.151 18:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Please add something about his writing of and involvement in There Are Dark Forces, Keith Allen's projected documentary about the death of Princess Diana. 86.177.105.111 (talk) 00:19, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Who is editing Victor?
There is a little spat going on at the moment between Dobbinsmee and Snegkrib. Maybe we can help.

1) Neither editor gives any information about themselves. In particular Dobbinsmee barely exists, having only contributed a few recent edits on Smith. This could be thought to be suspicious.

2) Particularly when one of the edits is labelled "unwikipedian grudge material" - we will revert this material, as we don't bear the subject any grudge but do believe it important to provide (sourced) clarification on what is an important element of the subject's biography (his somewhat controversial departure from the BBC, something which in his own writings he has often sought to obfuscate)

3) And, yes, "sourced" is important on Wikipedia. This page is appallingly sourced in the main - but we hope to help, once our material is in the public domain.

4) Therefore private information as to e.g. whether he produced an album (or not) should not be be included without the citation of an authoritative secondary source. We like the parts of the page sourced to UK newspapers; much of the rest is pretty dodgy.

5) As anyone who examines the history of this page will soon find, someone or someones is/are playing silly buggers. As an example from our own experience, for a short period we solicited material via email (people can still contact us but via Wikipedia): among a lot of interesting replies we got a couple of supposedly different people writing from different email addresses, but whose computer terminals had the same IP address and linked to someone with a great interest in this page (guess who!). So reader beware, particularly of editors with no history. VLSmithBook 17:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook

incorrect details in the phone calls section
I believe he calls ITV reception and poses as marcus garvey asking for hailey salassi, after the guard asks someone there if he is salasi he then goes on to say 'he will come in and when he does could you tell him I'll meet him in babylon and ting' a sample of which was used in a song by either 'the orb' or 'orbital'.

Secondly the call about general pinochet took place to a location in england, not New York.

Warning: VLSmithBook / Wikipedia
I would like to make an intervention, even if it seems jejune. This is for two reasons: first, it happens I have a little information about the so-called Victor Lewis Smith biography project and think it might be useful to issue a warning. Second, I believe this case draws attention to important weaknesses in Wikipedia.

I apologise in advance for the length of this note: I want to make a point rather than enter into debate, so will say all I am going to say now. I am no spokesman for Victor Lewis Smith (more on this later) but having just checked his entry and its history I feel I should say something.

Two writers appear here as contributors under the joint name VLSmithBook: they say (above) in relation to this page, "someone or someones is/are playing silly buggers". Gentlemen, if you are gentlemen, that is rich coming from you. Although I understand it is not traditional Wikipedia custom to include private information, this would seem an appropriate point to do so (I will also copy this to the Talk page of VLSmithBook).

I was approached a while back on behalf of the VLSmithBook project (which incidentally I see has already been the source of some discontent on Wikipedia for not being handled in an appropriate manner). No doubt I am one of many who received similar invitations: in my case I met Victor Lewis Smith some years ago, and in a way which led VLSmithBook to make the connection, as well as assume he and I might still know each other (we don't). Although their project seemed, at first sight, reasonable enough, I did not have the time or interest to assist: I explained I had no up-to-date information and did not want to tell tales from the past. With hindsight I am glad not to have got involved, as from examining this page and its history, VLSmithBook seems to be a mischievous project, quite possibly not the "book" or "biography" announced, and certainly one which seeks to embarrass others. For this reason I regret passing on one small piece of information (the name of someone with whom I understand Victor Lewis Smith is still in contact) as I think VLSmithBook has since done him a disservice.

I am happy to use this semi-public, semiformal way of telling VLSmithBook this, as a general warning to others: do not contact these authors (rather controversially they use their VLSmithBook Wikipedia User page to solicit contributions) and if they contact you, ignore them. They say they do not bear a grudge against Victor Lewis Smith: maybe they are telling the strict truth. However it should be born in mind that he has a history of insulting and hoaxing people, as well as fighting tough court cases, so it is worth considering if VLSmithBook may in some way be inspired or even funded by those who do bear grudges.

The other reason for my writing here is a more abstract one, related to what seems to be a weakness of Wikipedia. Some time ago I made a brief, factual and I believe uncontroversial contribution to this page. This is my other regret - not because of the content of what I added (putting right factual errors) but again because of the use VLSmithBook and others are able to make of all and everything which appears here. The weakness of Wikipedia is that distasteful and invasive material from VLSmithBook, although deleted now, is still held by Wikipedia and can be found if searched for, and indeed for all I know it may even continue to be thrown up by Google.

Let's say someone publishes untrue, libellous nonsense about a living person on Wikipedia. This is then duly and correctly deleted. But the VLSmithBook example shows how material which was once made publicly available on Wikipedia can stay online for ever. No wonder Larry Sanger, cofounder of Wikipedia, has gone on record as saying Wikipedia suffers from a lack of public perception of credibility, and the project gives too much space to "difficult people, trolls, and their enablers".

Victor Lewis Smith has no need of my defence: he is a tough media professional who has poured scorn on others for considerable financial gain throughout his career. Indeed there will be those who argue that if you give it out you must expect to take it. However it is worth being alert to this general structural weakness within Wikipedia - and to the unappetising activities of VLSmithBook in particular. Having got this sermon off my chest, I'll be staying away from this page from now on - and indeed from Wikipedia itself, as much as it is possible to ignore something so heavily promoted through Google. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.125.98.22 (talk)

Wikipedia standards
We agree that the page does not currently meet Wikipedia standards. There are very few references; there is a lack of attention to NPOV in many places; and many facts appear to be sourced to the subject's own website or simply to be wrong. In fact the article starts with nonsense: the words "born 1961" are wrong, surprising as there are people claiming to edit the page on the subjects behalf. But we suppose that when dealing with a well-known hoaxer one must expect these things.

We recognise that primary sources are not welcome on Wikipedia, and that the full birthdays of semi-public figures should rarely be given (unlike the people who have put most of this page together, we have read the Wikipedia guidelines on biographical articles on living people). So we will not give his full birthday here, as our souce is a primary document. However for the purposes of establishing our credentials (and the weakness of this article) let us simply state that we have in our possession a legitimately obtained legal document from 1993, signed by Smith and his cowriter Paul Sparks, where Smith says he is 36 years old. If he was 36 in 1993, he was not born in 1961. VLSmithBook 14:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook
 * The acid test is whether the information can be verified. Veracity, or lack thereof, is moot in the absence of reliable sources. I have no doubt that what you write is true - It is as yet, however, unsubstantiated. - Tiswas (t) 14:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed - however the same goes for not only that "1961" but a couple of dozen or so other statements in the article, currently unsubstantiated. VLSmithBook 14:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook

Vandalism
TheoremMaker, we will follow the best traditions of Wikipedia and assume you are not aware of what you are doing. We understand from your user page that you are an intimate friend of Victor Lewis-Smith, therefore it is possible you may have been led to do foolish things in a desire to please him. Please be more careful.

Although you refer to WP:BLP you appear not to be aware that your actions fall foul of other, equally important, guiding principles (check for example Editing policy):

•	Comprehensiveness

•	“the submission of rough drafts should also be encouraged as much as possible”

•	“try to preserve information”

You have just removed (not edited) large sections of the article. In so doing you have FAILED TO PRESERVE INFORMATION, and important information at that. Here are ten things you have removed:

1.	The fact that – and one possible reason why – VLS was fired from the BBC

2.	The details of VLS’s dispute with Chris Morris

3.	The only indication in the article that there are serious concerns about the merit of much of VLS’s work (the Sunday Times article, which we have read in full, is an extended discussion of VLS’s dubious legality/morality and deserves to be cited)

4.	Any mention of the row around VLS’s documentary with Dudley Moore, about which several lengthy newspaper articles were written

5.	The fact that VLS has recently taken funding from Rupert Murdoch in order to make a documentary featuring Murdoch himself

6.	The ending of his celebrated TV column

7.	Any mention of the important issue of VLS’s use of what in Hollywood is called “repurposing content”, in other words reusing material, something which has caused public comment throughout his writing career (we only cited two recent examples out of many)

8.	The “ability” of his co-writer (and incidentally witness at the VLS “wedding”) to use exactly the same words as his master when “co-writing”

9.	Despite VLS’s use of lawyers to defend the claim that his criticism has been unbiased, there was a recent and astonishing case which suggests otherwise (this was exposed by the Guardian newspaper)

10.	Any hint of the long history of VLS’s abusive and threatening behaviour (of which, incidentally, we have a lot of evidence: you will notice that another “friend” of VLS has even threatened us with police action on these pages).

Your biggest misunderstanding of Wikipedia, however, is that you have repeatedly shown yourself unaware of the principle of verification. We have written on this before, and sought help from other editors for the numerous “facts” currently included which the reader has no way of verifying. To quote Tiswas above, we have no doubt that it is true that, for example, your university friend did something “after graduation” – but on Wikipedia you need to be able to demonstrate the truth of this without resorting to primary sources (in other words, where has this been published so we can check it?)

For our part we have restricted ourselves entirely to notable material which has appeared in national newspapers. This is strictly according to Wikipedia best practice.

We will therefore revert what you have removed (you should edit according to the guidelines of Wikipedia rather than remove) and removed a few of your unverifiable additions to the article. Please try harder if you want to improve the page. VLSmithBook 05:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook


 * Hey, John Warburton – that’s a very useful start, thank you. But there are still problems. We left it a couple of days as we hoped you would do more work along the same lines: it is good to have someone as Wiki-experienced as you improve the page (not impressed with the way you stuck in yet more unverifiable claims, though, as you surely know better).


 * But sadly it seems you ran out of steam, and so (as with TheoremMaker above) have left important encyclopaedic elements out of the page (1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 from the above list, as well as our improved version of the heading).


 * So we’re putting back what you pulled out, so people can work on those sections to make them better (and hopefully not just by crassly removing them, which goes against many Wiki-guidelines).


 * By the way, you offer no explanation for what looks like vandalism. Are you by any chance John Warburton (different link!), who according to his page has been a long-term employee of VLS? Our vested interest is obvious (produce a balanced page about a controversial figure, who is by no means universally admired); the vested interests of some of the other editors of this page are not so transparent.


 * And feel free to contact us away from the page if you want (if you’re John Warburton you know how to do that). VLSmithBook 17:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook

WP:A
A number of the editors of this page are either intimate friends of the subject or his paid employees. This would be less of a problem if they restricted themselves to legitimate edits. If we went through the text as it currently stands and strictly applied WP:A, much of the article would disappear, a point we have made before (we use "credible published materials", see WP:A, some other editors do not). Today we removed three irksome examples (as per WP:A):


 * 1: The birth year of 1961 - we know this is wrong, it has been tagged for months and yet no one has come up with a source, so it's gone.


 * 2: The recently added line about a log of phone calls goes right against WP:A: just as we can't refer, for example, to his birth certificate as having "been viewed", this also has no place on the page.


 * 3: How can one prove there have been no complaints? This could be tagged but the point is just as clear in our slightly reduced version.

VLSmithBook 14:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook

Missing material
This story (from The Times, hardly a controversial source) has been removed a couple of times from the page. We believe it provides insights into the subject otherwise not featured on the page, and so would be interested to hear comments from independent editors (i.e. not friends, employees etc) as to whether it should go back or not:


 * The Times reported (16 August, 2006) an email sent by Arthur Smith, of Grumpy Old Men, to the Editor of the Evening Standard following an alleged meeting with Lewis-Smith in Edinburgh that month:


 * "Dear Editor, I was taking the air in Edinburgh this morning when I spotted a middle-aged white man with dreadlocks whom I knew to be Victor Lewis-Smith. After some insincere pleasantries, I said, 'Do you know that line about the double act with two straight men?' He nodded and I said, 'I thought you did because you must have used the joke about 30 times in your column'." "My guess is he was stung by this," Arthur Smith continues, "because he stood up and said, 'How dare you talk to me like that in front of my wife and child!' And then (in front of his wife and child and various shocked-looking Edinburgh ladies), '**** off you ****. Next time you're on telly I'll do you in my column'."

VLSmithBook 14:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)VLSmithBook