User talk:Billpress

Welcome to WIkipedia and thanks for your recent edits to OneTaste. I recognize that this a controversial topic and one in which you seem to have been directly involved. You may wish to acquaint yourself with some wikipedia guidelines, especially:

WP:ORIGINAL

WP:RELIABLESOURCES

Unfortunately letters to the editor, blogs, review sites and other firsthand accounts are not generally wikipedia level sources. Is a way for you to correct the inaccuracies you're trying to fix here by referencing reliable third party sources?

Voila-pourquoi (talk) 18:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I respond. Do I just type here? I'll try that. Please let me know if this is not right.

I've corrected the article to remove the reference to the letter to the editor. Instead, I refer only to the blog entry that I wrote to correct the misquote in the NYTimes article. It's important to me that our reasons for leaving are correctly represented, and I am the sole authority of that. I believe a reference to my statement to that effect should be considered an authoritative source.

(I forgot to sign it -- with four tildes?)

Billpress (talk) 20:48, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that user talk pages are a good place to discuss mechanics of how to do stuff. The article talk page would be a good place to discuss the subject of the article. It's up to you.

Did you get a chance to read up on WP:ORIGINAL and WP:RELIABLESOURCES? Another relevant guideline here is WP:V. I don't think an editor can assert "I am this person and therefore my blog post is an authoritative source."

Voila-pourquoi (talk) 19:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I did read those. Thanks. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ABOUTSELF#Self-published_and_questionable_sources_as_sources_on_themselves, "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves." My edit (and my referencing my blog) is not for any purpose but to clarify what I did (and did not) say.

I don't really know how Wikipedia is organized. Are you just interested in this page or are you the official editor? Also, have you been involved in One Taste or with Nicole? It's helpful for me to have context in this conversation. Thanks.

Billpress (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. That policy you cite goes on to say “usually in articles about themselves or their activities,” and then “so long as it does not involve claims about third parties.” e.g. the OWS website can be used as a source for some facts about OWS, but not for facts about Chase bank. True though they may be :)

No, I haven't been involved with Onetaste or Nicole. I follow this article because I care about the subject and it tends to be the target of vandalism and of very biased / unsourced edits from both fans and critics. Wikipedia has no “official” editors, just editors with varying degrees of experience and I’m far from the most experienced. But I'm pretty sure that your edit and source as it appears is liable to be reverted by other editors / bots. I assume you are the person you say you are, and you're acting in good faith to correct how your name is used on Wikipedia. But I don't know the best way to do so.

We should probably move this conversation to the *article* talk page to get more input. Is that OK?

Voila-pourquoi (talk) 07:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I see your point about claims about third parties, which my post definitely contains. I don't agree that "usually in articles about themselves" means "always". In this case, as you point out, it involves my correcting a misquote of me. So while the article is not about me, that section of it is. I think I deserve the right to correct, as you put it, how my name is used on Wikipedia.

I think there are two options, both of which would, in my opinion, be consistent with the policies we've been talking about:

1. Make a new blog post that simply states that I was misquoted and reference that. I can link, in that blog post, to the original blog post with the corrected quote. I believe this would be consistent with Wikipedia policies, since the reference itself makes to claims about One Taste or Nicole.

2. Remove my and Elana's quote from the article.

Believe it or not, I would prefer not to do the latter.

I can imagine that the article has been the source of vandalism. I really cannot convey how different what's at the heart of the organization is from the picture painted in this article. My wife and I were central players at the organization's formation (after Nicole split off from Erwan Davon and the Pleasure Course, though we were involved back then, as well). My wife was the energy to Nicole's vision that got the One Taste center on Folsom physically opened, and she and I helped create and were co-teaching the first courses with Nicole and Rob.

I wish it were a place about sensuality, expression, and empowerment. Unfortunately, something very ugly is happening there, and it was nothing to do with sensuality (which is the very essence of light). Someday, I will have to write an article of my own. Until then, I hope to be in this article so that those who go through the experience we went through have a place to go. We've been there for a few people who have since left, but we already knew them from before. Something here is needed.

I'm a little wary of bringing this to the article chat page. I expect it to get heated and ugly. As you said, there are strong feelings on both sides. Those who are there are typically fiercely loyal (I'll leave it at that), and those who have left have, depending on how close they were to Nicole, sometimes had to work through years of recovery.

How long have you followed this article? Any sense for how this conversation would play out there?

My preference is just to go with option 1, which seems consistent with the guidelines, and then to deal with the editor reverts on a one-by-one basis, as you and I are doing.

What do you think?

Billpress (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like you had a very difficult experience with One Taste and one that isn’t accurately reflected by most of the press coverage. People sometimes try to use wikipedia to correct gaps or biases in “mainstream media” but I don’t think that’s it's function. Authoring an article of your own like you mention sounds much more constructive. I’ve tried to keep this wikipedia article balanced, i.e. with pros and cons in proportion to how its depicted in reliable sources. I’m not sure I understand the option 1 that you’ve described well enough to give feedback.

Here’s what I suggest: post a succinct summary of the quote/source question on the Reliable Source Noticeboard RS/N, where a more experienced editor or admin can help find a solution. Other than that I have to say I’m out of my depth on this question.

Voila-pourquoi (talk) 02:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Thanks. The RS/N page itself seems very formal. Should I use the chat page or should I try to frame it in a way that would fit with the formal structure of that page? Any suggestions would be appreciated, since, as you can tell, I'm a bit of a newbie here.

Billpress (talk) 03:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what's so formal.. I think the talk page of RS/N is for general conversation about sources. We have a specific question that should be on the main page so I've added it here. Feel free to add your own comments or corrections you want directly beneath on that section.

--Voila-pourquoi (talk) 04:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I was referring to the five steps listed at the top. I suppose I should have gotten past that and how others bring up topics there. What you wrote is spot on. Thanks for taking care of that. I look forward to hearing what people write.

Billpress (talk) 04:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The solution proposed on RS/N works for me. If it works for you then I'd like to do it soon, rather than leave the page in its current state. I'd also want to put a pointer on the article talk page to these discussions (here and on RS/N) so other editors can follow and participate.

--Voila-pourquoi (talk) 01:00, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've edited the page. I'm good with the suggestion of leaving the URL field blank and instead linking explicitly to my blog, but it wasn't clear to me how to do that.

I appreciate your help.

Billpress (talk) 06:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)