Talk:Dan Pallotta

Article problems

I'm beginning to believe that Pallotta will have attracted some attention during his career. However, the article at present is cited mainly to primary sources, rather than sources that are reliable and independent. This has led the article to be written from a one-sided, promotional point of view. Large parts will either need to be re-written and/or sourced to reliable secondary sources.

There are also some sections that stray off the topic, Dan Pallotta, for example extreme levels of detail about the design of his company's offices, and legal litigation with his company. I've removed the section about the law suits entirely, becasue is was unduly long and cited to sources linked to Pallotta. Sionk (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality

I concede that this particular concern is primarily rooted in my subjective opinion, but the overall tone of the article seems based, to some degree, in a desire to minimize public criticism of/controversy (however mild) surrounding its subject, specifically by willfully highlighting more positive information in such a way as to refute, while not even implicitly referring to, those very criticisms. Absurdist1968 (talk) 00:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Sources

This 2002 article in the SF Chronicle] is very lengthy and an excellent one to incorporate into the Wikipedia article (when someone has time). Sionk (talk) 02:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem resolutions

Insofar as his notability, there is now a mention about Pallotta speaking this year at the TED conference. To be even considered for this you have to be a leader in whatever area you work in. The legal issues with Avon are now sourced to publicly available court documents by an arbitrary mediator. Removing the litigation material actually makes the article more one-sided as it would thus fail to express the contentions Pallotta has faced in his work. Alirawker (talk) 20:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Court case

Unfortunately Wikipedia policy simply does not allow this. Court documents shouldn't be used as the only sources (see WP:PRIMARY). They should be used absolutely sparingly and backed up by reliable, secondary coverage (for example newspaper articles). On top of that, this court case was indirectly related to Pallotta, as it was a dispute with his company, not him. If you have an axe-to-grind with another company, do so elsewhere, not on Wikipedia. Sionk (talk) 20:36, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Frankly Sion this policy, although not yours, is totally ridiculous. Basically it suggests that wikipedia users are not capable of interpreting data unless it's done for them by some other person. As if newspaper articles are never suspect in their interpretations and are driven by any sort of motivation other than truth. I hold three masters degrees and a PhD in English and Comparative Literature, written dozens of published academic articles and teach in the Humanities at a prominent university in America; if one of my students tried to do this, they'd fail my class. This sort of policy is exactly why the academy still considers wikipedia illegitimate and a shoddy source for information. Like I said, I get that you probably didn't come up with this policy, but you must see how flawed it is. Research is done with primary sources. You always go to root. That's just basic first year scholarship. Secondary sources by definition are interpretations. And that further corrupts the data. Also, I have no axe to grind with anybody. I'd appreciate you keep such personal attacks and interpretations elsewhere, not on Wikipedia. Unless of course you come up with some secondary source to validate this aspersion. Alirawker (talk) 20:48, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I think you might be misunderstanding something. Wikipedia is not a collection of research papers nor is it a scholarly journal. Its an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias are meant only to present information, not interpret it. So the Wikipedia policy that says that "wikipedia users are not capable of interpreting data unless it's done for them by some other person." is in fact, justified. However, if you do disagree with the Wikipedia policy, there are certainly places to discuss a movement to change consensus. If you could convince others that your points are valid at that things need to change, they very well might. For the specific concerns you bring up, I'd suggest creating a discussion at the talk page for the original research/primary sources policy. You might also try the village pump to get some general discussion going. We appreciate your presence here on Wikipedia and believe you could make a valuable contributor. Bensci54 (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Bensci54 is correct as to Wikipedia policy as it applies to this article, and why Wikipedia policy must be that way in general. The story of a person's life here on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, should sum up what reliable, secondary sources say about that person's life. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 17:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)