Talk:Oliver Stone

FOIA release for his service record

Here is the public portion of his Army record received from NARA via an FOIA request, which shows the awards listed in the article are accurate. https://imgur.com/a/Q7lEmk9 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.106.54.244 (talk) 21:55, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Bucha denial

Is it true and cited that Stone put out a tweet denying the Bucha massacre? If so, I feel this is important information that should be included. 174.251.241.214 (talk) 18:31, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing

There has been some discussion about whether we should use The Daily Beast as a source, since the noticeboard says "Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons". Two separate DB articles are used in Oliver's BLP. (There are three separate references to the DB because one reference is a duplicate). Among other things we use the DB references for the statements

• "journalist Michael C. Moynihan accused the book of "moral equivalence" and said nothing within the book was "untold" previously.
• Victor Marchetti was "an antisemitic conspiracy theorist".

The first is badly written. How does a book have "moral equivalence"? The description of Marchetti in the second statement does not appear in his wiki-bio.

Anyway, there are other issues with sourcing in Oliver's bio.

• Newsweek (post 2013), a doubtful source, is used as a reference four times, including for the statement that Oliver promotes conspiracy theories.
• YouTube is used as a source in five places.
• The reference to "Télématin" (France 2) with a date lacks the necessary detail to allow verification.
• There are two separate references to the same "Famous Failures. Yale Daily News" article
• We use an article by a Forbes contributor (Jim Clash), which is regarded as generally unreliable.
• Three separate articles in the generally reliable IMDB are used as references.
• Facebook is used once
• A generally unreliable HuffPuff contributor article by Robert Orlando is used as a source
• An article in the generally unreliable Rolling Stone (for politics and society) is used as a source in two places.
• Twitter is used as a source twice to make claims about third parties
• Fox News, which is generally unreliable for politics, is used as a source
• A blog in the Wall Street Journal is used as a source
• The generally unreliable IB Times is used as a source
• The best for last. One article from The Daily Stormer is used as a source. The statement for which it is used is uncontroversial.

Burrobert (talk) 12:59, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

That's quite a lot of problems. I looked into the last one first, nearly had to vomit, and removed it. Planning to take a closer look at the other ones soon. Rsk6400 (talk) 15:28, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

A lot of weeding needs doing to what at present is an article in a very poor state. If something is cited only to ibtimes and no other source is easily located for the same info it should be removed immediately. Agree that the Daily Beast is not a good source for contentious statements. In addition one poor source is not sufficient to make this a defining characteristic. Cambial — foliar❧ 15:59, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

The Facebook source seems to be unproblematic, since the post is by Stone himself and is IMHO uncontroversial. Rsk6400 (talk) 15:33, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Many of the unreliable sources are being used for uncontroversial material. However, we should not be using Newsweek to say "some critics accus[e] him of promoting conspiracy theories". There are other sources for this statement. In addition, the statement does not capture the way in which the sources use the label "conspiracy theorist".

• The The Seattle Times says Stone is "the conspiracy theorist film-maker of our time"
• The Chicago Times says "master film-maker/agitator/conspiracy theorist/rebel Oliver Stone"
• Vanity Fair says Stone is "the American cinema’s reigning conspiracy theorist, Stone ... has singular standing to reimagine a chief executive whose actual over-the-top actions have sometimes managed to make even the wildest conspiracy theories seem tame".

So the term is not being used in a critical way, rather it is describing the nature of his film-making. Afaict, this fairly prominent element of his film-making is not mentioned anywhere in his bio, despite there being multiple sources here mentioning it. I suggest we rewrite the sentence to incorporate this element. Burrobert (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I don‘t understand how the term „conspiracy theorist“ can be used or understood in a non-critical way. All conspiracy theories, including those spread by Stone, are harmful. From the context you gave, I suppose that the three papers want to say that Stone is able to present those theories in an entertaining way. Rsk6400 (talk) 13:40, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we should describe him as "the conspiracy theorist film-maker of our time" and a "master film-maker/agitator/conspiracy theorist/rebel" and let readers decide what the sources' intentions are. Burrobert (talk) 14:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Have included the relevant quote from each of the sources so that readers can see the context within which the label is being used. Burrobert (talk) 13:57, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

That's an improvement. Thanks. Rsk6400 (talk) 14:56, 30 November 2023 (UTC)