User talk:DGG/ES

Hi David,

I need help with the editing of the Errol Sawyer photographer article as it is threatened to be deleted at this moment by a certain Mbinebri. Errol Sawyer had already a dispute for months with him about his presence in the Christie Brinkley article. Sawyer discovered Brinkley in Paris but was not mentioned in the last New York Magazine article, September 2008. When Michael Gross interviewed Brinkley about her discovery in his book "Models: The ugly business of beautiful women", William and Morrow, Inc. New York, 1995, she said: ”I lived in a chambre de bonne with no telephone or bathrooms. It was so charming. The toilet was two flights down; the telephone was about a block and a half away. I had a little dog, and he had distemper. So I went to the phone to call the vet, and this guy, Errol Sawyer, this kind of loud, crazy black American photographer, said: “Oh, there you are! I spotted you one day at the telephone office, and I was hoping I would see you again because I’ve got a job, and the clients are looking for a girl just like you. Would you be interested? This is my address. I don’t have a telephone but you can just drop by" — And I went by, and he said: "Can you run home and put on something nice?” Christie is not very flattering for Sawyer but at least she says that he was the one who discovered her and introduced her later on with his pictures to John Casablancas of Elite Model Management in Paris. One page further in the same book of Michael Gross, Christie says: "In the meantime Mike Reinhardt went back to New York and told Eileen Ford about me." In the late seventies Christie went with her husband Jean-Francois Aillaux, after he got out of the army, back to New York and joined Eileen Ford Model Agency.

Mbinebri also takes out all the time "African" in front of -American photographer Errol Sawyer in the Brinkley article and he added that Patrick Demarchelier introduced her to Eileen Ford which is not true.

Now that Errol Sawyer has his own article in Wikipedia since one week, Mbinebri is doing everything to destroy it and have it deleted as he says himself that Errol Sawyer should not even be in. He also takes away the link from Christie to Errol Sawyer. He only wants to discuss on his own talk page but if you go to the discussion page in the Errol Sawyer article you can read some sentences of him too.

Can you please read the Errol Sawyer article l and give me good instructions for editing and also for deleting the tags? Can you maybe do this for me? The article was created by Decker but I edited further as I am an academic who studied art-history and architecture/building engineering at the Technical University in Holland. I am a guest professor in architectonic and urban design at TUD. Yes I am also Errol Sawyer's wife and agent and so honest to say so. A lot of people just go to the computer of a friend and edit. I cannot deal with people who tell me to come down from my high horse like Mbinebri

Thank you for your time and understanding,

Mathilde Fischer (talk) 15:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * what you need now is proof of the purchase (for the collections) by the various museum collections listed. DGG (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

But David, did you look at the present state of the article of Errol Sawyer with all the tags? This Mbinebri is not even looking at museum purchases, I am afraid. But I will try to get the proof of the purchases anyway. That will take some time. More than one week and then the article is deleted already!

Don't you have other suggestions for getting away the tags and the fact that Mbinebri took away "African" again in front of American photographer in the Brinkley article?

Mathilde Fischer (talk) 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC) Mathilde Fischer (talk) 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

the standard for Wikipedia is whether the notability is recognized by the general world, not the intrinsic quality of the artist. The only solid things to go on, are multiple works in permanent collections of major museums, or full-scale reviews of individual shows in major publications. The museum part can often ly be documented by the sites for the museums. We also need firm publication information for books, to show they are not brochures for shows. For the article in Pf--we need information about reputation of the journal, and the length of the review, and the status of the reviewer. The relevant issue does not seem to be on line. The length of the review is critical--if it's just a mention it will not count for much. The only thing to fight for at the moment is the retention of the article--if it stays, then it will be worthwhile to discuss the tagging. I do not consider that discovering Brinkley is significant notability. I cn help defend it, and others will comment, but we need clearer evidence. DGG (talk) 23:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I really appreciate your help. I wrote already to MFAH and Schomburg Library and I hope to hear from them soon. I am still looking for the right person to write at the Bibilotheque Nationale in Paris. We saw already Errol Sawyer on line in the archive of MFAH a while ago so it is a question of time. I understand your approach. The book covers that are pasted in the article are not yet published. I worked for 2 years on the dummies and we are looking for publishers right now. Do they need to have another name? It is allowed to paste pictures in articles in Wikipedia. PF (Professionele Fotografie) magazine is a very respected magazine in Holland and you can find it on line. In the archive you find: Errol Sawyer, 2001 and the author Herman Hoeneveld but you cannot see the actual article itself. This is mentioned in the references in the article of Errol. The article in PF contained one page A4 of text and 7 pictures of Errol on 7 A4 pages. In total 8 A4 pages. Herman Hoeneveld was a very respectable writer who unfortunately passed away. You can find a lot of info about him on the Internet but he does not have his own website or is mentioned in the Wikipedia. Do you want me to scan the article in order to put it in the Wiki? As the Wikipedia is an International Encyclopedia, I don't understand the tag that all references should be in english. I wish we did not even have to mention Christie Brinkley at all but the book of Michael Gross seemed to be an important prove of Errol's existence before you came with the idea of the museum collections. On top of that she insults Errol. She for sure attracks strange fans and visitors. Do you also have a normal e-mail address I can write too because I am afraid to take too much space in your user talk. In Holland it is 1.30 in the morning and I take a break of the Wiki obsession. I will write you as soon I hear from the musea. Let's hope we can save the article. It was already deleted once before. Thank again for your good advise. Mathilde Fischer (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) For the books that have not yet been published, say so. Change the article immediately & do that.
 * 2) for the PF article say in parentheses in the footnote: 1full p of text and 7 illustrations on 7 full pages. It would not hurt to count the words approximately. Add this now. The article is under copyright and can not be put in the Wp in tact. A scan in such a way as to show the layout with the pages as a thumbnail, just maybe, but you certainly can make such a scan & put that on the talk p. at least temporarily.
 * 3) It is not true that all refs have to be in English, but it is true that English references are preferred when available. As a general rule, both the best references regardless of language, and the best references that happen to be in English should be used.
 * 4) You can email me from the link at the top left of this page, the one that says "Email this user" . But do not worry about space--when the matter is handled it will be archived.
 * 5) If the article should be deleted, I will move it to user space for you to work on further. DGG (talk) 01:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * In the interest of seeing a worthwhile article pass the AfD (assuming it does, which is of course no guarantee), I'll offer my opinion here that looking for proofs-of-purchase for an artwork or two is a waste of time. It'll only be original research and probably won't be enough to satisfy WP:CREATIVE.  The main issue here is the lack of reliable secondary sources to establish the notability of Sawyer or any of his works (and this is the ultimate criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia).  As someone who once had a great passion for photography, and still do to some degree, I know there are a number of photography-oriented magazines, and if Sawyer truly is notable, he would surely have been featured at some point in at least one of them.  A single interview in Popular Photography would probably provide everything needed to wipe this extended melodrama from Wikipedia.  Otherwise, it only strengthens my view that Sawyer is likely non-notable to see it's taking such lengths to try and scrape together a valid assertion of notability.    Mbinebri   talk &larr; 01:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It is not "proofs of purchase" it is rather "proof of being in the permanent collection", which is one of the key requirements of BIO (creative professionals). I have had no particular trouble in demonstrating it from museum websites in the US. " is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums" -- from the page you cite. DGG (talk) 02:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * and, FWIW, I see no reason at all to assume that every notable photographer gets an article in PP, a magazine for amateurs. The Dutch journal cited seems, in fact, much more professional, and I would count its reviews very much more seriously. DGG (talk) 02:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Take your pick of which magazine it is, but for a notable career that has spanned decades, articles and interviews from magazines would certainly exist. I would think a photog's agent would save them if they did.  I must have missed this Dutch journal mentioned.  Which reference in the article is it exactly?


 * As for being able to verify works in U.S. museums by their websites, surely the same can be done for museums abroad to verify any claims. Has someone checked?    Mbinebri   talk &larr; 02:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * My experience is that it is very much harder for most non-US museums, but possibly worth the effort.DGG (talk) 16:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Vincent van Gogh could never have come into Wikipedia. That is for sure. A lot of serious genuine and very good artists did not have a lot of publicity during their life time. In Errol Sawyer's case the reason is very simple. Read it in his activism chapter. I changed the titles of the book covers, I put external links to the collection of MFAH but they only have 2 pictures. Schomburg has 40 pictures but they are very slow, it seems. We are waiting for a response of Bibliotheque Nationale Paris and V & A in UK. I also put a link to the collector Eric Franck who bought about 20 pictures in 1998. He is the brother of the widow of Henri Cartier-Bresson. I regret that Robert Earls Sawyer's quotation is out but maybe we can do something about that too in the future. He was a genuine and very important artist. The first black playwright to perform at Miami Beach, Florida; the first black playwright who wrote a black soap opera etc.. In Holland they made a television program "Spoorloos" about the search after Errol's father of 30 minutes and it was very well received. You see and hear an actor talking about his performance in his play "Breadwinner" and you see his grave and family, his obituary, posters of his plays etc. Do you think I should mention this television program too in Errol's wiki? You can watch it on Internet too but I never did it. We have a dvd of it. I just noticed that Mnibri took African out again in front of -American photographer. Obama describes himself as African-American or black too.

As soon as I have more result, I will let you know. thank you very much for your patience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathilde Fischer (talk • contribs) 14:39, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I just added the link to the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. They have in total 37 pictures of Errol Sawyer. But at La Bibliotheque Nationale you still have to fill in the information: Sawyer, Errol, before you see a result. Do you think that this might cause a problem for people who have problems with reading? You should know how much problems I have with my students when I want them to go to the library to read books. They all just want to browse on the Internet. I also have 2 tifs of the image of the screen of La Bibliotheque de Paris saying that Errol Sawyer has 37 pictures and and one with Errol Sawyer has 1 picture. Do you think I have to attach these too? We are still waiting for more info of the Schomburg Library, which has 40 pictures.

Now I am going to scan the PF article. Amazing that Mbineri did not read this. It is a very prestigious magazine for Professional (Professionele NL) Photography (Fotografie NL) and Herman Hoeneveld was such a respected man. In fact Mbineri owes me an apology.

You know, David, I thought that it would make people really happy to read the article of Errol Sawyer in Wikipedia. He is such a good role model for all black children. But now I am very sad and disappointed because I realize that there is still so much hatred and jealousy in this world. (especially in the Fashion World) By the way, Errol Sawyer refused to cooperate with E-Entertainment when they suggested to fly out to Amsterdam, in 2006, to interview him about his discovery of Christie Brinkley because he does not like hagiographies. So he could have been (more) famous.. Maybe that is not what he is looking for. Respect and recognition as an artist? Yes.

How far are we away from being deleted right now?

Mathilde Fischer (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If it is deleted, I will help you trim it down on your user space to something that is probably supportable. One of the curious things about Wikipedia is that no decision is ever final.  DGG (talk) 02:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, David. how come I can still edit it? Is it already in my user space?Mathilde Fischer (talk) 02:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * If the decision is to delete, then it will be moved. The decision will be made on thursday, probably.DGG (talk) 15:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Deleted for now, but see this suggestion. -- Hoary (talk) 02:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It is deleted but I cannot find it anymore. Errol has in total 104 pictures in different museum collections worldwide. Because he lived a long time abroad, there are not a lot of publications about him in english in the USA. James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Chester Hjmes and Boford Delaney also lived abroad. Errol made a beautiful picture of Boford in Paris, 1973. They took away "African" again in front of American in the Brinkley article and I wonder if Errol can get protection against this kind of editing. Knowing that I am not a good editor myself yet, I dare to say that the present system of editing does not really work. It is a jungle and vulnerable people like black artists need more protection. Mathilde Fischer (talk) 03:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * this sort of rhetoric will not be helpful--it is what aroused the antagonism against the article in the first place. The article can probably be improved and reinserted, but I will not assist in this if you start accusing people of racism. I will in a day or two move it into your user space and let you know. Things are too heated at the moment. DGG (talk) 04:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It can't be found because it's been deleted (although DGG is, unusually, still able to find it). I too think that the article can be improved, and I can even imagine that it can be improved to the point where it would arouse none of the opposition that it has already aroused and no other substantial opposition either. I urge you to read "WP:COI" and carefully consider its implications before DGG places the deleted version of the article anywhere. Incidentally, there's no requirement that the sources for an article should be in English (see this), and for that matter an entire article may even be sourced from material that's all in a single language other than English. -- Hoary (talk) 11:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Analysis of deletion and tags:

1. Third party publications: PF article (1 page of text about the photographer and 7 pages with his pictures) and a lot of his pictures published in other magazines.

2. Original research: only sources of other people used.

3. COI: it is very easy to use a pseudonym or to use the computer of a friend. As we don't think like business men and we don't aim for name, fame and money in the first place, I never thought editing my husbands article would cause so much trouble. Besides I have my own career as an architect/building engineer and I am working on a thesis "Learning from Utopia" about urban utopias so I am not really concerned with COI. But maybe it is better to lie in the future.

4. News release; this you can say of every article if you have a prejudice. This article was meant to release news or information about an artist who is worth to mention in an Encyclopedia on the Internet.

5. Only english references: Wikipedia is international.

6. Notability: we just learned that the Schomburg Library of Black Culture purchased 47 prints of Errol Sawyer. There are in total 113 prints in collections of important musea and galleries.

I am amazed to read that some editors could not find the PF article on the Internet and I think it is a good idea to scan it and ad it to the article if it will ever be on again. About the motivation of the deletion: I could not find exactly the subjects/tags back in the discussion and I actually don't understand the abrupt deletion. If deeds like this are possible, I wonder if it is worth it to put the article back on at all. It was a lot of work and it was supposed to inform people about an important artist who paid his dues during 40 years and who starved for integrity and it is deleted by a 22 year old who shows in his curriculum no knowledge about art at all. On top of that I may not express the fact that Errol Sawyer encounters racism which is in fact the story of his life! The beauty of it all is that, while he was not able to work as a fashion photographer as he had wished, he built up an amazing portfolio of fine art and documentary pictures so after all he is best of. (All black Vogue did not contain the picture of one black photographer and Christie Brinkley probably never ever worked again with one black photographer after she was discovered by Sawyer). What Errol Sawyer did in the Christie Brinkley article was only setting the records straight as he reads books instead of gossip magazins. And yes indeed, Christie is not really important for his career at all as a fine art photographer.

Maybe DGG or Hoary can advise me about a possible future of the Errol Sawyer article.

Mathilde Fischer (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * just wanted to mention that you cannot scan copyright material and place it on WP, and will need to find some other way of linking. There is no point in attacking other editors; we all of us sometimes are wrong, whether young or old. There's been some excellent well-judged work here by people as young a 11 or 12.  The way to think of it, is to try to write a article with adjectives at all, just presented what he can be shown to have accomplished. WP is not a place for tributes to people, but for providing information. The original article was a little too expansive and admiring, which tends to give a lasting unfavorable impression here. Please realise that every less-than-notable photographer (and other artist, and businessman, and dentist, and whatever), tries to use Wikipedia for publicity--and this is true no matter how much their intrinsic merits may deserve publicity. . To the extent we let this happen, we are no longer a reference source worth the using. This tends to give us an understandable tendency to look skeptically on articles that give even a slight appearance of being written for that purpose, especially when they are written by the subject or those close to the subject.  In a few days, 'll copy the article to a subpage of your space here--which I can do as an administrator--and then I will help you work on it, to provide information about verifiable accomplishments. Please give this while without concrning yourself about it, and remember that  there is no guarantee of justice in this world, or in this encyclopedia. Humans make mistakes, and groups of humans also.  DGG (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * 3. On COI: This is an encyclopedia. You are welcome to write an article on yourself, your business partner, your spouse, etc, IFF you do so in the same way that you'd write an article on somebody you'd never met. But the better approach is not to write that article: if you are or the person in question is sufficiently notable, then somebody else will eventually write it instead. (If you're interested, I have written bits and pieces of articles on various people I have met, but I have done so in exactly the same way in which I approach articles on people I've never met. I am also the primary author of articles on two people I now know moderately well, but I got to know both after starting their respective articles -- I was sufficiently interested in their work first to write it up, and then to meet its creators -- and I now know a lot more about the two than I have ever read anywhere, and because I haven't read it anywhere I do not insert this extra material.)
 * 4. On a resemblance to a press release: You say: News release; this you can say of every article if you have a prejudice. Well, anyone can of course say anything. I'll say that while a number of articles smell like press releases, most do not. If you find one that does, feel free to add "" to the very top of it. If it's an issue (and it shouldn't be), I am if anything prejudiced for Sawyer because his work, as glimpsed in the little graphics within the article, looks interesting. (I can't derive anything from his websites because they require Flash, which I refuse to install.)
 * 5. You say: Only english references: Wikipedia is international. Yes. (I have already addressed this point above.)
 * 6. Let's have evidence that the museums have the prints in their permanent collections.
 * 7. I am amazed to read that some editors could not find the PF article on the Internet. I'm one of the "some editors". I'm willing to believe that my internet skills are inferior, and/or that I understand even less of Dutch than I thought and was therefore unable to use the Dutch-language interface of the search page that you pointed to. (Crusio can read Dutch and did find a mention of the article, but he too couldn't find the article itself.) Incidentally, if you want to link to a page that you fear may soon be moved or deleted, you may wish to use WebCite to create a copy of that page; link to the original page when possible, but be ready to switch the link whenever necessary.
 * [DGG, if you are reading this, could you please archive and remove a couple of hundred kilobytes from the top of this bloated talk page? Thank you!] -- Hoary (talk) 01:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Dear DGG and Hoary, Thank you for your encouraging reaction. I will gather new munition and get back to you soon. I realize we have been selling Errol short as he has his fine art pictures published in Sun Magazine (USA) and the Filosofie Magazine (NL) too besides PF. I will have to look for the references on the net. The numerous requests of students, worldwide, who want to use Errol's work in their papers, we always honor but they cannot be mentioned, of course. MFAH and La Bibliotheque Nationale have digitized archives so you can easily find Errol's work but the Schomburg is in the middle of digitizing right now. Mary Yearwood, the curator of photography, can be contacted and she will be very helpful. The same goes for gallery owners Peter Franck and Fadi Zahar of La Chambre Claire Gallery in Paris. V & A we still have to find. So it will take a little time but with your help I am sure we can work something out. Mathilde Fischer (talk) 16:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * further discussion will therefore be postponed. DGG (talk)`

Please, let me know when you have copied the article in the subspace and kindly explain how I can access it. It is always good to take a break and to reflect:

"Reculer pour mieux sauter"

Mathilde Fischer (talk) 00:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

About the motivation of the deletion: I could not find exactly the subjects/tags back in the discussion and I actually don't understand the abrupt deletion. If deeds like this are possible, I wonder if it is worth it to put the article back on at all. It was a lot of work and it was supposed to inform people about an important artist who paid his dues during 40 years and who starved for integrity and it is deleted by a 22 year old who shows in his curriculum no knowledge about art at all. On top of that I may not express the fact that Errol Sawyer encounters racism which is in fact the story of his life! The beauty of it all is that, while he was not able to work as a fashion photographer as he had wished, he built up an amazing portfolio of fine art and documentary pictures so after all he is best of. (All black Vogue did not contain the picture of one black photographer and Christie Brinkley probably never ever worked again with one black photographer after she was discovered by Sawyer). What Errol Sawyer did in the Christie Brinkley article was only setting the records straight as he reads books instead of gossip magazins. And yes indeed, Christie is not really important for his career at all as a fine art photographer.

Maybe DGG or Hoary can advise me about a possible future of the Errol Sawyer article.

Mathilde Fischer (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * further comment in 24 hours. or 48, or maybe Monday. enough of this for the moment, please. DGG (talk) 02:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I just read your comment on my talk page. Hoary advised me to delete text in your user talk and I followed up on that while I should have asked you first. I apologize. I wanted to paste the text back in and I saw that you had done it already. Thank you. I think it is good to delete or shorten text, after a problem is solved. I took a grab shot of the screen of the PF magazine that mentions the article of Herman Hoeneveld of Errol Sawyer. But you have to understand Dutch to fill in the question form and their website is slow.

I am still worried about Errol's article being back on Internet because editors like Mbineri and Robby seem to be very disrespectful towards Errol because they cannot suffer the idea of their icon Christie Brinkley being discovered by Errol. They only edit model sites. They started to put all the tags and then they disappeared. I would really like you to look at their language on their discussion page. I still wonder if Errol's article can get extra protection. Can't we put a lock on it? I also think that it is really good that everyone can put an article in Wikipedia but that the editing should be approved by a board of specialists in their particular field before it is applied on the Net. In a normal Encyclopedia, you also have specialists in every topic who write in their field.

I really regret working with my own name and I wonder if I am not better of with a pseudonym--Mathilde Fischer (talk) 03:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It is sad to see you spreading more petty lies.
 * 1. Christie Brinkley is not my "icon". In fact, I came across the article by chance and I don't really care who discovered her. I'm just trying my best to do this Wikipedia project good.
 * 2. I do not "only edit model" articles. Actually, it is quite the contrary. My interests lie elsewhere. Fortunately, everybody can check for themselves.
 * Interestingly, though, all you have ever "contributed" to at Wikipedia are the entries for Christie Brinkley and your husband's.
 * 3. Talking about people being "disrespectful": My username here at Wikipedia is Robby.is.on, not "Robby" and it's "Mbinebri", not "Mbineri".
 * It appears you still haven't confronted yourself with the COI problem. I'm not sure whether I have encountered such a self-centred and ignorant "grown-up" in my life. --Robby.is.on (talk) 06:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Errol Sawyer article
How big is the chance that Errol Sawyer's article will be deleted again in the Wikipedia?

Errol Sawyer has in total 112 pictures in important museum and gallery collections:

La Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France: 37 pictures.

Schomburg Library of Black Culture (not digitized yet), NY, USA: 47 pictures.

MFAH, Texas, USA: 2 pictures.

Erik Franck Gallery, London, UK: 21 pictures.

Fadi Zahar, La Chambre Claire Gallery, Paris, France: 5 pictures.

A lot of his pictures are published (fashion/beauty and documentary/fine art) worlwide.

There is an important article written about him in the Dutch PF (Professionele Fotografie) magazine.Their server is slowly.

5 books with his pictures are in the process of being published:

1. Paris 1971-2003 contains 64 black and white pictures.

2. New York 1971-2007 contains 96 b & w pictures and 12 color pictures.

3. Amsterdam 1988-2008 contains 60 b & w pictures.

4. Peru and Ecuador 1968 contains 30 b &W pictures and 6 color pictures.

5. London, Children 1973 contains 40 b & W pictures.

--1027E (talk) 05:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)