Talk:Emily Giffin

Controversy Section

The controversy section keeps being removed with no explanation, despite numerous citations and references backing up the information presented. Perhaps the page needs protection? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.24.248 (talk) 22:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Blogs are completely unacceptable sources of negative content on a biography of a living person. I have protected the article from edits by new and unregistered users to prevent it from being re-added. Anyone who returns this content without actual reliable sources risks being blocked. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

There are LITERALLY screenshots of the things she wrote. 68.129.197.234 (talk) 14:47, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

In addition to the blogs there was a news site reference, which counts as a reliable source. (TimesUnion.com) Also, it appears you misspoke: "Anyone who returns the content with actual reliable sources risks being blocked"? Don't you mean the opposite of that? Don't we WANT reliable sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.24.248 (talk) 23:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

You'll notice on the timesunion page, the prominent "blog" at the beginning of the URL. It is not part of the editorially reviewed news on their site. It's the blog of one of its staff. And thank you for pointing out my mistake, it is now corrected. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Would this article on The Atlantic satisfy the verifiable source requirement? http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/08/things-get-mean-when-everyones-critic/56241/ Shiafreeziah (talk) 19:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

That article is a reliable source. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• I removed the section because it was pretty non-neutral. Phrases such as "mocking the reviewer and calling him/her a "psycho"" and calling Corey Doyle "influential" really made the section skewed against Giffin. Doyle could well be considered influential, but when paired with the previous phrasing it's written more like an attack section than a neutral and encyclopedic section. I'm also not sure that one reliable source makes the entire controversy worth reporting on, considering that most of the reporting has been done by blogs that are ultimately non-notable. I don't see any depth of coverage of this incident in reliable sources. This hasn't been as extensively reported on as much as some of the other highly visible author arguments out there. I really recommend working on the phrasing for this section in the talk section before moving it to the mainspace. I just don't really think that this scenario is notable enough at this point in time to warrant including on Giffin's article. Should it have been reported on by the blogs? Sure, why not? But put here? No, not just yet.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 11:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
• I'm not sure I understand your reasoning. The Atlantic Wire article clearly states that the husband called the reviewer a "psycho", so I don't see how that's not neutral--it's just a fact. As for "influential", I was basing that on Doyle being a member of the Amazon Vine program (also mentioned in the article), which is reserved for an elite group of reviewers. I'm happy to revise the section to ensure neutrality, but I'm not sure the examples you cite are biased in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.177.24.248 (talk) 14:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I always forget to sign in talk pages. CagedFury (talk) 14:19, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

How about this? It's shorter (to reflect TokyoGirl79's concerns about notability), and I feel it's more neutral:

In August, 2012, a controversy arose when Giffin's husband responded to a negative Amazon review, referring to the reviewer as "psycho", prompting many reviewers and commenters to take sides. The controversy intensified when one Amazon Vine reviewer, Corey A. Doyle, changed her four-star review to a one-star review and was then harrassed with anonymous phone calls, including one that was "an exhortation to commit suicide".

Giffin later delivered an apology, through her publicist, to The Atlantic Wire, in which she stated "Although I have never willfully hurt another through social media, I understand the impact of my posts last week and apologize to any and all who were affected by them."CagedFury (talk) 14:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

• I'm still just concerned that this is so brief an episode in the overall life of the author that it's not really worth including, especially when you figure that only one reliable source has bothered to comment on it at all. I honestly don't think it should be added at all to the article. To be fair, I'm going to bring this up on the admin board and get some various editors in on this and see what they think. I just don't see a depth of coverage about this event to where I think it's really worth noting about the author. One lone source doesn't really make me think that it's important enough to cover on her article. It's not like Victoria Foyt and Save the Pearls, which got about a dozen or so articles about it in various reliable sources.

That being said, if it is decided that it should be added we need to figure out how to add it. The re-writing of it above is a good start, but it still has one or two weasel words in it. While I think that the Giffins were jerks for doing what they did, any reader coming into the article should not be able to guess which side I'm biased towards. So here's what I'd write: "In August of 2012, Giffin posted a facebook comment about a remark her husband made on a negative review. Some readers felt that the remarks, in which Giffin's husband referred to the reviewer as "psycho", were unjustified while others defended them. One Amazon reviewer changed her review and rating to reflect her view of the book after hearing of the remarks, which resulted with her receiving several harassing phone calls." That's pretty much a whole synopsis of the scenario and is relatively neutral. It's not perfect, but it gives a synopsis of everything without being pro or anti Giffin. But like I said above, I just don't think this is worth mentioning on the author's article because there's no depth of coverage of this. If there were a few more reliable sources I'd say otherwise, but there just aren't. The literary news sources as a whole seem to have just rolled their shoulders and shrugged at hearing all of this.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 17:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

(Uninvolved Editor Comment) Personally, I would leave this information out unless more reliable sources pop up talking about the controversy. If you do include the information, I do agree that it should be written as neutral as possible. Also, I like Tokyogirl's condensed version. That's my two cents. LlamaDude78 (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused by how one online-only newspaper's story on an author's grudgewank site merits a "controversy" section on the Goodreads article, but a similar situation gets squashed when it involves this author. What's the criteria for what is significant and what isn't?Shiafreeziah (talk) 21:48, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

By the spirit of WP:OTHERSTUFF, we don't decide what should be in this article, by looking at flaws in other articles. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Tokyogirl above uses a comparison to a similar situation to illuminate her argument concerning this article. I'm doing the same. I want to understand the difference. What you linked to cautions against false equivalence (X exists, therefore so should Y.) I want to know what constitutes significance. I don't see how you can discuss that without using similar cases as examples.Shiafreeziah (talk) 00:36, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Significant would be if it changed the course of Giffin's career. For example, if her publisher backed out of a previously agreed major book deal because of it, and Giffin had to write books about orcs instead as a result. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

• In the case of Goodreads, it is significant enough to include because it received coverage from several different sources aside from the typical blogs and whatnot. The Foz Meadows entry might be a little debatable as to whether she's notable enough of a person to warrant being a RS, but Ray Garton certainly is notable enough to be considered a RS. That the site has also changed its rules to address some of the arguments posed by several users doesn't hurt either. The coverage is light, but there's enough of it to justify adding it to the article about the site. In this specific case (Giffin) there is only one reliable source to show notability for this incident in her career. I just don't see it having lasting significance at this point in time. It could potentially come back up to haunt her in the future but we have no way of knowing that. I just think that right now adding anything about this would be too much of a knee-jerk reaction to hearing about it. If you could find just one or two more sources then I'd be willing to say that this could potentially be added to an article about the book, but not in the author's article at this point in time.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 09:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

After I've had some time to read this thread and this "controversy", I can safely say that America is getting out of hand. Since when did social media banter actually become news? This whole thing is laughable, and is worth as far as my 3 sentence comment merits it. rock8591 15:08, 20 October 2014 (UTC)