Talk:W. C. Handy

Plagiarism & Copyright Violation
Because it was absent and therefore unclear how or from where the information on the page was originated, the authenticity and veracity of the information contained therein could and therefore was legitimately called into question. It was my opinion that the page as it existed was entirely and wholly plagiarised. There was not one shred of original material, nor did the article add any understanding or history of the subject. Because of those issues, and in accordance with Wikipedia policy on copyright violation, plagiarism and citation, I chose to wholly delete the offending material and completely rewrite the article, citing sources and external links as references. The current article is more fully and completely about the subject, and neither cites personal opinions about the subjects' work as did the previous and original version. The average visitor after reading the article should be able to have at least a fundamental, if not good, understanding of the subject. K. L. Bardon 04:55, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

W.C. Handy was not plagiarized
Dear Kevin Bardon, you have it backwards. The Handy material, originally written by me, appears to have been plagiarized from Wikipedia, not the other way around. The words, concepts, phrasing, everything, is original with me. Such as,


 * His songs don't always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses and lovely melodies.


 * Handy was a trained musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined material from several performers. He loved this simple early music. Still, it is unquestioned that he brought his own transforming touch to it.

Maybe you don't like it, but I wrote every word of that, most of while listening to Louis Armstong Plays W.C. Handy. If you want to add additional biographical information to the article, that is fine, but the material I wrote on Handy's artistic accomplishments is going back in. I have a good reputation in Wikipedia. I have originated many articles and contributed to many more. I have been a writer all my life and I don't steal my stuff.

I'm sure you acted sincerely, if precipitately, but you are in error. Sincerely, Tom Parmenter, Ortolan88 05:11, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC) PS - By the way, no more personal insults, if you don't mind. Tom P.


 * I have watched the development of this page for over 2 years and have made a few contributions to it here or there. It is most certainly not a copyright violation. (And if it were, Kevin L. Bardon, you are going about challenging it in the wrong way; see Copyright problems.) As Wikipedia text is released under GFDL, there are many mirrors of Wikipedia articles. Mr. Bardon, I'll assume the best of intentions from you, and I can see that you've added some good new information here, but your mode of attack here is a bit of a problem. You need to improve the existing article (which was not bad) rather than scrapping it. Also, you have made a number of awkward mistakes (as is not uncommon for new users)-- but some of these have thrown off the usability of the article, for example, do not use html, and your attempt at external links are formated in a way that makes them not so-- try clicking on them and see. Review the info on such pages as Welcome, newcomers and the Manual of Style for writing and editing tips. If some of the worst of the problems you inadvertently put into the article aren't fixed soon, I'm going to revert this article-- understand that your work will still be in the page history, so you can access anything you did that should be properly readded to the article. Sorry if I sound abrupt here... but, well, so did you in the above comments. Let's take a deep breath, remember Civility, and collaborate on improving the article. Best wishes, -- Infrogmation 07:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, Kevin L. Bardon, for your much good work adding new information here. I've gone over the article and I think taken care of the markup problems. I also readded some info from the older version that I thought should go back in, such as the link to Black Swan Records, and noting that Handy was not the first to publish a 12 bar blues (which perhaps is a point that could be expanded on). Some of this might be more smoothly integrated into the narrative than it is now. If you have any questions about any of my edits, please feel free to ask. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 20:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the interesting clarification of the link (or actually lack of one) between Handy and Black Swan. I didn't know that-- and it seems that a number of discographies and writings about early 20th century US record labels have wrong info on that point. Recordially, -- Infrogmation 18:40, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Cleanup
I did some stylistic cleanups on the article. It is a good article — I found it educational — but it still seems to have some problems with organization and flow. I would help some more, but I'm supposed to be busy with term papers this week. —LonelyPilgrim 20:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Especially since there have been plagerism allegations - you need to cite your sources for facts stated
One reference at the bottom is not enough. It looks too much like original research WP:OR which is forbidden by Wikipedia. Please check WP:V and WP:CITE to reference your article for the sake of its credibility. Thanks. Mattisse(talk) 02:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The St. Louis Blues
A proposal is currently ongoing to move the article on the hockey team currently at St. Louis Blues (hockey) to St. Louis Blues, currently a disambiguation. Anyone wishing to state an opinion on the matter may do so at Talk:St._Louis_Blues_%28hockey%29. -- Infrogmation 22:36, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Longstanding problems with OR
As most of the article consists of quotes from two editions of Handy's autobiography, it appears to be an example of OR - original research. Rather than relying on what scholars have written about Handy, editors have made their own choices of numerous quotes from his autobiography to describe his life in his words - he is the subject and this is a primary source. This ends up being mostly his own account of his development, not per WIKI policy of using reliable, third-party sources ABOUT a subject.Parkwells (talk) 23:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The OR problem should be fixed, since the article persists in perpetuating the self-promoting myth from Handy's autobiography that he is somehow "the father of the blues". Trilobitealive (talk) 02:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

One source would be, W.C. Handy : the life and times of the man who made the blues, which I just returned to the library. Steve Pastor (talk) 19:27, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

There are 2 books and a journal article listed in Further reading. Perhaps they could supply inline citations. They are not cited now. - -Prairieplant (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

There are 2 books and a journal article listed in Further reading. Perhaps they could supply inline citations. They are not cited now. - -Prairieplant (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2019 (UTC)