Talk:Nic Potter

With Jeff Beck

The article states that in the 1970s Potter played with Jeff Beck. When was that? On what album(s)? Mark in wiki (talk) 06:42, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Guardian article

Is this something we can do something with? http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/22/nic-potter Should we mention the disease that plagued the last two years of his life? Mark in wiki (talk) 18:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Certainly (to both questions). Pick's disease is not that well known. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:13, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, The Guardian does a lot of music articles, and is a frequently used reliable source for pages here. I can't see anything contentious in that article. I'd go further and say we should mine that source for any other facts that are not present in the article. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:38, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Photo

Just a heads up, I've asked Paolo Carnelli, who took a really nice photo of Nic c.2006, and can be seen on the main VdGG fan site, if he doesn't mind licensing a lower resolution crop as CC-BY-SA for this article. If I hear anymore, I'll let you know. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:30, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

First departure from Van der Graaf

the singist (talk · contribs) has removed reliably sourced information (from Mojo Magazine) twice. To avoid an edit war, I am bringing the discussion here. The event of contention - the reasons for Potter's departure from the band in 1970, are backed up in Christopholus & Smart p.77, where Potter himself said "I was a bit mixed up about everything. And the other guys were all a bit older than me and perhaps able to cope a bit better at that time with the intensity of the situation and the music". This isn't quite what the Mojo source says, but it's along the right lines. Can we get a consensus one way or the other on whether or not to keep the sourced information? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:29, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I would certainly keep it. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

The info is sourced and relevant and needs to stay. Mark in wiki (talk) 09:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

(Besides, Wikipedia is not about what is/was true, it's about what is verifiable.) Mark in wiki (talk) 09:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I have to say my opinion on this depends on the user who removed the information being who I think he is.... Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

HI, Peter Hammill here and it was indeed I who removed the reference. I know that madness lies the way of trawling through Wikipedia references and I don't normally do it. In this instance Guy Evans pointed this one out to me, also quite perturbed by it. Simple facts are that Jim and Phil's quote is entirely accurate BUT the Mojo stuff isn't. Nic wasn't worried about VdGG moving in a more experimental direction (whatever that might have been) and, specifically, neither I nor the band were involved in the Occult at the time of Nic's departure. Hope you can all understand that, especially after Nic's death, having this kind of tabloid speculation up there isn't really helpful or respectful to anyone. But I'll now leave it up to the wider community to decide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The singist (talk • contribs) 10:16, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that there is no way of editors being able to verify their identitiy, apart from in some notable cases, of course. This does not seem to be a case of WP:COI, and if we can't believe this editor, I'm not sure who we can believe. I'm quite prepared to take advice from someone who ought to know better than most. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Martin - we can't prove that "The singist" is PH, but since I've directly told Phil Smart (co-author of the book and maintainer of vandergraafgenerator.co.uk) about this article (regarding getting a good free image of Nic), and since this article appears right at the top of a search, I'm quite prepared to believe that it is. Removing information that a subject knows to be false but a source reports true is a fairly common action, and a milder version of WP:DOLT.

Peter. I can't speak for everyone, but I think all the regular editors on the Van der Graaf articles were all sorry to hear about Nic's passing at such a young age, and felt his article should be improved to be a complete and correct retrospective of his life. We have a very strict policy on biographies of living people, which does not change simply because a subject is deceased, and a key point in this policy is "We must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources." As well as the book source, a further interview with David Jackson here confirms the events in the book, so I think we should go with that.

It's interesting you describe Mojo as a "tabloid source", as I had always been led to believe that it was a responsible journal with good editorial control (and hence a "high quality source" as described above). This may lead to further potential problems in other articles that cite it - not least the article on Van der Graaf Generator itself, which is currently a good article ie: one assumed to meet significant editorial standards to be trustworthy and correct. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:42, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello again...I didn't mean that Mojo is a tabloid or unreliable (well, any more or less than any other Music Mag), rather that the "Occult" stuff belongs in that sort of sensationalist category. Thanks for the care in trying to get things right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The singist (talk • contribs) 10:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)