Talk:David Rakoff

Untitled

He provided the voice of Thomas Jefferson for The Daily Show's America the Book: The Audiobook. Might want to mention that? (go ahead and disagree with me) 69.12.130.233 09:30, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

A grammatical error: In the third paragraph, the wording makes it Rakoff's writings, not Rakoff himself, that are being described as openly gay. Profcumquatt (talk) 02:03, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added quite a few links to this article. The length of the list may appear disproportionate to the length of the article, and so violate the external links guidelines. But I am working on some major edits to the article, which I hope to upload in a few days and which will reflect the number of links. Could any culling of my links wait until then?Ethel&bobby (talk) 13:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Pending expansion

The links have turned this article into a valuable resource indeed—perhaps the best one on the Internet for this topic. I look forward to the expansion of the article text; I'm sure we can wait! Tony (talk) 08:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Removal of matter under "Early jobs"

I think I broke a rule by re-instating some material that another person removed rather than discussing it first. Sorry. But I do not understand why it was removed, the notation says "references removed" but part of the text (which was accurate and verified) was removed. Could we discuss why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethel&bobby (talk • contribs) 04:33, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup

There are a ton of things on this page that don't really belong here. Seriously, does it need to be said that he hates jam and that he can tell who's Canadian? It all sounds like a fan just took memorable things from This American Life and made sections about them. It's a total mess. Jkdeadite (talk) 12:14, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Ethel&bobby (talk) 09:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

This article is so long, it is hard to believe it isn't a joke. Scrolling through to the bottom of the page takes forever - seriously needs some thinning. 24.20.205.42 (talk) 22:05, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I found this page on Special:LongPages. I'm going to start the trimming as soon as I have enough time. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 21:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Would there be any objection to removing the entire section titled "Other interests"? None of it seems to be related to why Mr. Rakoff is famous, just little bits of trivia about his life. 128.223.131.109 (talk) 21:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I tried to omit "Other interests" and Cluebot automatically re-inserted it. I tried again.Ethel&bobby (talk) 00:12, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

In view of all of this, why did User:Ronhjones revert a trimming back of the more trivial information?Tony (talk) 01:20, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

We got it down from 216kb to 108kb. Cut it in half! — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 00:26, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, why have more information when you could have less? Waidawut (talk) 12:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

This article needs serious rationalisation

I haven't listened to this recent radio interview by Rakoff, but I believe that after 17 minutes the interviewer asks him about his Wikipedia page, and that he says it's disturbing long and horrifying, "like you had gone to someone's home for brunch, and you went to the bathroom and you took a wrong turn and you went into a room and all the walls are plastered with surveillance photos of you and severed chicken feet and bloody messages on the wall." He says it's both exhaustive and unanalytical.

Hahaha, that's very David Rakoff. I feel like I'm sitting in his Emmy-Award-winning short film. Nice to know he can be his artistic self about this article. He doesn't have any final say, of course, but I don't disagree with his basic point. Can editors collaborate to reduce this very long article, please? Tony (talk)

I'm putting some effort into discriminately removing unneeded information, and making the page more encyclopaedic. I think one of the first things which needs to be done is to either split or cut the (massive) bibliography from the article. It's a significant contributor to the excessive page. A lot of the stuff on the article is actually suitable content, so large-scale content removal isn't going to do the trick. If you can give me a few days, I'll get this into shape. Any opinion concerning whether to split or delete biblio ? Claritas § 16:12, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• I've taken 30,000 bytes off it. Claritas § 16:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that my edits to the biograpy were appropriate. The biography is too detailed for an author of this stature. And it's a little creepy to discuss how he felt about his childhood. I do not understand what Claritas' definition of "discriminately" editing is. Since expanding this article in March, I have been under pressure to reduce it. So I reduced it, and someone keeps reverting all my edits without discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethel&bobby (talk • contribs) 23:47, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I have taken some more fluff out of the article. I am motivated by the fact that Rakoff himself has said he found the level of detail disturbing and horrifying. Even though I'm sure he was partly kidding about his level of distress, I can see how many parts of the article would seem creepy to a person who assiduously protects his privacy (and that of his family) in his written work. I wrote the bulk of the article myself, as a joke - to see how long I could make it, but I now feel obligated to remove matter than anyone would be troubled by. I think the article is now (in length and matters covered) more along the lines of articles for other writers of his standing and importance. I do not think that the bibliography needs to be split, now that the article itself is much shorter. Bibliographies are never creepy.Ethel&bobby (talk) 00:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Ok. The article's a more reasonable size now, and could simply do with some prose tweaks etc. Claritas § 06:33, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Claritas. Much much better. Ethel&Bobby, what do you think? Tony (talk) 14:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Links.

There need to be more internal links in the article, specifically in the introduction. I don't really feel like adding them myself at this point in time. See WP:LINK for guidance. Claritas § 18:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Claritas, I can't see any opportunities for useful, high-value links in the (rather short) lead. "This American Life" will, of course, itself link to PRI. Readers are more likely to click on links when they are selective, in my experience.

BTW, just a few radio interviews and a new book, and looky, this is a much-viewed article. Looks in OK shape, actually. Tony (talk) 11:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Information on his current health problems

I know that he has some form of cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy, but I don't really have any other information. Could someone who knows update the article to include this information? Thanks! Rioux15 (talk) 03:30, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

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