Talk:Dan Schneider (writer)

This page seems too long

This page seems too long for someone who has never actually had anything published outside of his internet site. I would also be on the skeptical side about the number of visitors that the site may receive. I don't know that these statistics are very reliable. 24.8.113.215 (talk) 20:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Renaming

Both Dan Schneider (writer) and Dan Schneider (TV producer) are, in fact, writers. I suggest renaming this article "Dan Schneider (poet)" or "Dan Schneider (critic)" for better specificity. --JohnnyLurg (talk) 16:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

We should leave the article names as they currently exist. Dan Schneider (writer) is not merely a poet and Dan Schneider (TV producer) is mainly known for the the TV shows he produces. Renaming the articles would cause confusion.--SouthernNights (talk) 14:12, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

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Lots of Questions

This article seems to have a lot of problems. It seems unbalanced in favor of the subject, and in general it is very difficult to discern the relative significance of the subject. The subject's notability is an open question: he never appears to have been published. The only substantial coverage the subject has received was in some decades-old local arts community news. Claims about the subjects personal life seem to be lightly sourced and unverifiable. I think the article should either be rewritten substantially, or considered for deletion (once again). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbroderick271 (talk • contribs) 00:15, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

This subject's notability is not in doubt, with coverage of him in The New York Times, City Pages (at the time the sister paper of the Village Voice), and NPR. However, edits over the last few years have removed some of the information and citations which proved this notability. I have now edited the article to reinsert this information and citations, along with adding new citations to support the article and doing a rewrite to clean things up.--SouthernNights (talk) 01:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Awful article that reads like PR

 Schneider's film criticism was praised by Roger Ebert, who called him a "considerable critic".[30]

 In 2007, Ranking.com ranked Cosmoetica in the top half million literary websites.[19]

Of what consequence is this? Delete.

 In late 2006 Schneider further expanded his website to include an all film subsite called Cinemension.[28]

This citation is simply to the website that it discusses. Delete.

 Schneider has published his film reviews in a number of online publications. His reviews are also aggregated on Rotten Tomatoes.[29]

This also simply links to the Rotten Tomatoes page, which consists merely of five reviews.

The entire "Media coverage" section should be entirely deleted.

 Schneider's poetry has been praised by Waswo X. Waswo.[4]

What did Waswo say, exactly?

 Schneider was born in 1965 to an unmarried Minnesota mother. Given up for adoption in New York City, Schneider grew up with a working-class family in the Glendale-Ridgewood neighborhoods of Queens. According to his memoir and press accounts, at age six Schneider witnessed a murder, the first of many. During high school, Schneider was a gang member.[1][2]

The second reference is to a primary source, written by Schneider himself. The first reference to City Pages is a local publication and seems to only consist of a blurry image.

I accept that Schneider may at one point have been relevant and no longer is. But his thousand Twitter followers, and Youtube channel where most of his videos have about 100 views, suggest that this is a vanity article for a self-publisher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.109.228 (talk) 10:17, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I also just looked through the New York Time article, that supposedly confirms his notability, from 15 years ago. It contains a paragraph about him and seems to me to suggest that he's a contrarian kook whose poems show more quantity than quality.

I suggest that SouthernNights is himself Dan Schneider and shouldn't be allowed to edit this article. There are probably many more less-notable articles on Wikipedia, but this one should be reduced to a stub if not deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.109.228 (talk) 10:24, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Correct footnote 22

Footnote 22 appears to erroneously cite the Oxford University Press and publication date of 2016 for the cited work. The correct publisher is the Manchester University Press and correct publication date is 2013. See this link at the Manchester University Press website for the cited publication. [[1]]Pbtaylor2727 (talk) 20:03, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Citation issues and neutrality

I've found a few sources that I believe are being misrepresented in this article and may be contributing to an issue of WP:UNDUE weight that skews the article toward inflating Schneider's influence/impact.

• Schneider's "reviews have also been reprinted or excerpted in a number of places, including on the book Design and Truth from Yale University Press. and in The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates by Howard Bloom." Schneider's review was used as a promotional blurb in Bloom's book. Schneider's criticism isn't being assessed and legitimized by an author of reliable secondary sources such as Harold Bloom. I couldn't find any mention of Schneider in Design and Truth, but I was checking an early edition without many blurbs in the front matter.
• I've checked the 2005 and 2008 editions of the The Creative Writing Mfa Handbook: A Guide for Prospective Graduate Students by Tom Kealey. There's no mention of Schneider.
• The Sky Rained Heroes: A Journey from War to Remembrance by Frederick LaCroix, Synergy Books, 2009, page 274. Synergy Books is a self-publishing platform.
• Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web by Joseph M. Reagle, MIT Press, 2015, page 192. The book actually quotes James Berardinelli, who was a guest on Schneider's podcast. Cosmoetica is merely mentioned as the platform for the interview; neither Schneider nor Cosmoetica are subject to any substantial mention in the book.
• Literary and Visual Ralegh by Christopher M. Armitage, Oxford University Press, 2016. Same issue as previous. The author of an essay quotes from a poem by Kate Benedict published on Cosmoetica. Schneider and Cosmoetica are not any meaningfully discussed.
• Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry edited by Camille T. Dungy, University of Georgia Press, 2009, page 353. Same issue as two previous. The anthology includes a poem by James Emanuel that was originally published on Cosmoetica.
• Best of the Web 2009 edited by Lee K. Abbott and Nathan Leslie, Dzanc Books, 2009, page 324. Cosmoetica has an entry in an alphabetical index of online literary journals that includes the site's name, url, editor, and an email address for submissions. This is a bit like using Schneider's listing in the telephone book as a source.
• "His reviews are also aggregated on Rotten Tomatoes." This is partially true. Some of his reviews for CultureVulture.net between 2006 and 2010 were aggregated on Rotten Tomatoes. It's not as though Rotten Tomatoes aggregates everything Schneider posts on Cosmoetica.
• "Schneider's film criticism was praised by Roger Ebert, who called him a "considerable critic"." The reference claims Ebert's praise was published in the Chicago Sun Times. It was not; it appeared in the blog section on rogerebert.com.

There may be other issues as well. I have not checked all the sources yet; the Nebraska Public Radio story on James Emanuel, the Village Voice column (though I can't anticipate a quote in a horoscope being particularly substantial), and some of the newspaper articles are proving particularly difficult to track down. I do think this article needs extensive pruning to bring it in line with WP:NPOV.CoatGuy2 (talk) 05:31, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

One addition: I found the Star Tribune article "The Good, the Bad and the Poesy" from 2000 using the Thomson Reuters Westlaw database. That source is currently used to support the sentences:

"When Schneider was in his mid-20s, he moved to Minnesota to learn more about his biological family. While living in the Twin Cities, Schneider became involved in local poetry readings and poetry slams. Schneider became known for his poetry, ability to critique others, and criticism of academic-style poetry, what he called the incestuous nature of poetry, where writers praised each other's works in a self-promotional cycle."

The article is actually an announcement of a panel discussion that Schneider organized and it says this:

"An outspoken poet who has been banned from some local readings because of his intrusive outbursts, Schneider was the subject of a 1999 City Pages cover story that drew cheers from some locals who have grown tired of the prevailing poetry-as-therapy movement (nothing is good or bad, man, just from the heart or not)."

CoatGuy2 (talk) 06:52, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Unsourced additions

@SouthernNights: You recently added a list of Schneider's interviewees without providing sources for half of them. Please provide sources for you additions. You're an admin; I shouldn't have to remind you about WP:V. CoatGuy2 (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh for gods sake, I'm literally still in the middle of editing the article. I have citations I was working up to add. If you're going to engage in personal attacks I strongly suggest you reconsider.--SouthernNights (talk) 15:08, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

@SouthernNights: The page history shows that most of the issues I identified above are due to your edits over the years. For example, on 9 January 2018 you were the editor responsible for including promotional blurbs as "media mentions" of Schneider as well as the inclusion of other dubious citations. In 2007, you also included the inappropriate characterization of the Star Tribune article I identified above. Please have a look at WP:SPIP. CoatGuy2 (talk) 15:28, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

This is an old article that was originally created when Wikipedia had different standards and expectations for content. When I looked at your edits I was like, yeah, some of that makes sense now. However, I disagree that my edits were examples of self-promotion and publicity. If you want to work to improve this article, then let's work to improve it, not engage in personal attacks.--SouthernNights (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

And as an FYI, I used that Star Tribune citation back in 2007 to support this info: "Schneider became known for his poetry, ability to critique others, and criticism of academic-style poetry..." Today I would have written that differently and also would have placed the citation directly behind that statement, not at the end of the sentence where it made it seem like the citation was supporting the entire sentence. But that was a good-faith attempt to cite information 16 years ago when, again, Wikipedia had different standards and expectations for how we did things.--SouthernNights (talk) 15:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

@SouthernNights: The page history shows a different story though. In 2009, another admin large amounts of poorly sourced, trivial or biased content and you added all of it back in. That same admin tried to prune the article in December 2015 only for you to add much of the disputed content back in 2018.

If we're being honest with ourselves, there's one independent secondary source that offers significant coverage of Schneider: the 1999 City Pages profile. There are a couple of blog/opinion style pieces if you add in Ebert, Flashpoint, QLSR and Web del Sol. The rest is largely fluff. CoatGuy2 (talk) 16:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. Per Wikipedia:Notability (people), "multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability" and that's what many of the sources in the article do. So no, they're not fluff.--SouthernNights (talk) 16:30, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

It looks like multiple users have been disagreeing with you on this point for approximately 15 years. What you characterize as "multiple independent sources" have included self-published books, passing references to Cosmoetica-hosted interviews in bibliographies, and promotional blurbs. The content standards on Wikipedia haven't changed that drastically since 2018 for this to not be fluff. CoatGuy2 (talk) 16:32, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, re: promo, publicity and NPOV: the article only quotes the times people call Schneider "significant" or "considerable", but does not include other characterizations, such Web del Sol's "Dan is an epidemic. His website and others like it are a disease... Cosmoetica exists solely as Dan's testament to himself that he does, in fact, have an interior monologue" or David Mura's comment in City Pages questioning why the journalist was even taking the time to write about Schneider. I'm not saying that these quotes should be included, but the page definitely skews toward positive appraisals of Schneider and statements of his significance.

It's telling that this article is a litany of every time Schneider and Cosmoetica have been mentioned on the web and in print, no matter how slight a reference. Articles such as Harold Bloom or The Paris Review don't include every time someone has characterized them as "important", because longstanding significant coverage exists across a breadth of independent sources and implicitly supports those subjects' notability. The same can't be said for Schneider, so we're stuck with this odd article that reads like a litany of overtly promotional blurbs about how important Schneider is. CoatGuy2 (talk) 16:31, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Schneider isn't Harold Bloom and Cosmoetica isn't The Paris Review but he still meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. You're making a false comparison there, just as you made false accusations by going through the article's history to attempt to smear me as doing things I didn't do. For example, this 2009 edit you mentioned was me simply disagreeing with a fellow editor. But when that same editor six years later reworked the article, I was good with most of that editor's work. Then a few years later I thought that some of that deleted info might be useful and added back in a single paragraph of cited info. That's how Wikipedia works -- people go back and forth and work together to improve the article. I get it, you disagree with me and that is what it is. But I'm tired of listening to you make false accusations about my editing in violation of assuming good faith. As I said, I'm good with most of the work you've done on the article. I've made a few edits to put back in information you removed or that I feel should be in the article. But unless you have something relevant to say, I'm not going to keep arguing in circles with you.--SouthernNights (talk) 16:52, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

CoatGuy2, SouthernNights, I suppose I'm somewhere in the middle. SouthernNights, I think you're clutching at straws (or footnotes and other minor mentions) in that list of interviewees. I think that paragraph should be cut. It's like the Bly event, which is seriously overplayed here, and I think that should go to. More importantly, I think these four sections, except maybe that website, should ALL fall under the same "Biography" heading: this is unconventional and unproductive for someone who is not Harold Bloom. And "Media coverage", we really shouldn't have that at all: it's resume writing, basically. Those sources can be used, maybe, for the article text, but not to say "look who all wrote about him". Drmies (talk) 17:11, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm actually good cutting the list of interviewees, but what I want to leave in is the James Emmanuel interview info b/c it's received a lot of coverage and resulted in Emmanuel receiving renewed attention toward the end of his life. I thought having the other interviewees listed was a nice way to segue into that info, but if others have a better alternative I'm open to that. Also, I agree about deleting the media coverage section. I no longer create those in articles. Perhaps we could add a "critical response" response section instead?--SouthernNights (talk) 17:18, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Drmies: I went ahead and nuked the media coverage section and created a critical response section. Let me know what you think.--SouthernNights (talk) 17:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

A couple issues, SouthernNights. The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature includes Cosmoetica in the Illinois section and ranks the publication as significant among a few other non-academic Illinois lit mags, so I reverted this edit [2]. Also, the City Pages article explicitly mentions the restraining order twice: 1) "Within a few years of his arrival in Minneapolis, Schneider was kicked out of the Unitarian Society, barred from a poetry group, and slapped with a restraining order." and 2) "A woman in the group eventually sought a restraining order against Schneider--'I'd given her a few love poems,' he says, 'What can I say? My love life has been pretty checkered'--and he ended up in court. 'She brought a couple people from the group with her for support,' Schneider claims. 'But this judge who looked like Fred Gwynne, the guy who played Herman Munster, threw 'em out, and it was just me, this woman, Munster, and a stenographer.' The judge slapped Schneider with a civil bill of restraint." Despite your edit description, the City Pages article seems pretty clear to me. CoatGuy2 (talk) 18:11, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

CoatGuy2: First, the citation in Dictionary of Midwestern Literature is indeed in the book's Illinois section. However, the text there doesn't qualify the phrase "significant literary magazines" by limiting it to only Illinois, which is what having that phrase in our article does. Instead, the original text reads "Other significant literary magazines include Cosmoetica..." The sentence in the Wikipedia article already credits the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature so if you're worried about locating Cosmoetica to a place, the midwest in the title does that.

As for the restraining order, that information raises Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons concerns. When adding negative information like this to articles it's better to have multiple reliable sources to be safe. Since we only have one source, I believe it should be left out.--SouthernNights (talk) 18:23, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

1) Omitting "Illinois-based" could easily mislead a reader regarding the nature of Cosmoetica's significance, which book firmly places Cosmetic's significance within an Illinois-specific context. The mention of Cosmoetica occurs in a section that solely discusses literary magazines based in Illinois (which is different than the Midwest); the omission of context of the section creates unnecessary ambiguity that implicitly overstate the site's significance.

2) Re: the restraining order. This is precisely the problem with the article. There's only one independent secondary source that discusses Schneider's biography at length. Apparently he's notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, but not notable enough for said Wikipedia article to say anything negative about his biography. What a luxurious position for our man! CoatGuy2 (talk) 18:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Show me where in the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature it specifically states that any of the literary magazines they're discussing are significant only within a Illinois-specific context. Otherwise you are misstating what the citation says. As for negative info, there's plenty of that already in the article. But some negative information requires more reliable sources before we place it into any article on Wikipedia. --SouthernNights (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Every single literary magazine in that section is Illinois-based. Cosmoetica is explicitly noted as being in the Bloomington-Normal area of Illinois. It's a half truth to omit the info, but tell you what: I'll drop "Illinois-based" if you agree to also remove "significant" from the sentence. After all, being included in the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature implies its significance, no? CoatGuy2 (talk) 19:59, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Since CoatGuy2 now appears to be flooding the article with negative info and their comments above indicate a bias against the article's subject, I'd like to hear uninvolved editors like Drmies chime in. I think the current version here is balanced without raising overly negative BLP concerns.--SouthernNights (talk) 19:57, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry mate, but I think the quotes you chose to excerpt from those critical assessments are so short that they aren't even meaningful. For example, "The online literary journal Web del Sol called him an 'epidemic'". How is that useful for a reader? What does it even mean? And you can accuse me of bias (I'm not; I'm concerned about this article's longstanding NPOV issues), but when I point out your 18 year history of editing this article to only present overblown, positive info about Schneider, it's a "personal attack"? CoatGuy2 (talk) 20:04, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Southern Nights, the "epidemic" without context was not useful. Neither was "there's cranky and there's Schneider", which sounds like a complement. But all of that came from really non-notable people, publications, etc. I removed it. This is not the place to rehash or continue this kind of stuff. Drmies (talk) 20:08, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Drmies: I'm good with your edits. --SouthernNights (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me too. Sticking with notable people and publications for critical appraisal will be a good principle to follow in future. CoatGuy2 (talk) 20:43, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

This is going to shock you, but I totally agree. SouthernNights (talk) 22:19, 1 October 2023 (UTC)