Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau article under dispute
Thank you, User:AniMate, for your commentary on the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau page. There you recommend to "merge the event into the article". I would agree, but the problem is that User:Lochdale is frequently deleting most of my edits concerning Elvis Presley. Some months ago, I tried to reinstate this version of the "male friendships" paragraph. But it was repeatedly removed by Lochdale. See [1], [2]. The same thing happened with the Griessel-Landau case, which once was part of the Elvis article. See [3].
I created the Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau article in order to solve the problem by excluding the material from the Presley page. As you are not part of the edit war, may I ask you to include the following paragraph in the FBI files section of the Elvis Presley article, if you agree:
As Elvis was a very popular star, the FBI had files on him of more than 600 pages. See Thomas Fensch, The FBI Files on Elvis Presley (New Century Books, 2001). According to Thomas Fensch, the texts from the FBI reports dating from 1959 to 1981 represent a "microcosm [of Presley's] behind-the-scenes life." For instance, the FBI was interested in death threats made against the singer, the likelihood of Elvis being the victim of blackmail and particularly a "major extortion attempt" while he was in the Army in Germany, complaints about his public performances, a paternity suit, the theft by larceny of an executive jet which he owned and the alleged fraud surrounding a 1955 Corvette which he owned, and similar things.
According to one of these accounts, Elvis was the victim of Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau of Johannesburg, South Africa, who was hired by the singer in Bad Nauheim, Germany, as an alleged specialist in the field of dermatology, but had made homosexual passes at the singer and his friends. When on 24 December 1959 Presley decided to discontinue the skin treatments, Griessel-Landau endeavored to extort sums of money from the singer. According to the FBI files, Griessel-Landau "threatened to expose Presley by photographs and tape recordings which are alleged to present Presley in compromising situations." An investigation determined that Griessel-Landau was not a medical doctor. Finally, "By negotiation, Presley agreed to pay Griessel-Landau $200.00 for treatments received and also to furnish him with a $315.00 plane fare to London, England." After having "demanded an additional $250.00, which Presley paid" and a further "telephonic demand for 2,000 £ for the loss of his practice which he closed in Johannesburg", the blackmailer departed to England.
I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable inserting that text into the article. Please don't be offended, but I still think you're giving undue weight to the allegations. While it is well sourced, the text isn't written in an encyclopedic fashion. If I can find a way to incorporate it, I will, though it will be much shorter than your proposed edit. You can probably tell from my contributions that I'm not a prolific contributor, but I will help if I can. The best advice I can give you is to follow the steps to dispute resolution and re-read the advice given to you be Nicholas Turnbull here [4]. AniMate20:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not of the opinion that I'm "giving undue weight to the allegations", as I am only citing what the FBI files say. If you compare it with the Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau article, it is only a very short summary of the main points to be found in the files (without "allegations"):
Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau
Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau was the name of a swindler and blackmailer who represented himself to be a medical doctor and skin specialist. At the end of November 1959 he was hired by Elvis Presley to make skin treatments, but in December 1959 he made homosexual passes at the singer and his friends. After Presley's decision to discontinue the treatments, Griessel-Landau claimed to be in the possession of compromising photographs and tape recordings and endeavored to extort money from the star. The case was dealt with strictly confidentially and referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Details of the case according to the FBI files
According to one of the best documented FBI files on Elvis Presley, the popular singer was the victim of Laurens Johannes Griessel-Landau of Johannesburg, South Africa, who was hired on 27 November 1959 by Presley as an alleged doctor specialist in the field of dermatology in Bad Nauheim, Germany, when the star was in the military service. During his skin treatments, which involved Presley's shoulders and face and took place in the singer's quarters, the man had made several homosexual passes at Elvis and his friends. According to the FBI files, Griessel-Landau
is alleged to have admitted to Presley that he is bisexual. His first homosexual experiences took place early in his life in the orphanage in which he was brought up. On 24 December 1959 Presley decided to discontinue the skin treatments. At the time that he told Griessel-Landau of this decision he also thoroughly censured Griessel-Landau for embarrassing him ...
This drove Griessel-Landau into rage and he decided to extort sums of money from the singer or to ruin his career. The case was referred to the FBI. Elvis "was interviewed on 28 December 1959 concerning his complaint that he was the victim of blackmail..." According to the FBI files, Griessel-Landau "threatened to expose Presley by photographs and tape recordings which are alleged to present Presley in compromising situations." An investigation determined that Griessel Landau was not a medical doctor.
Confidential treatment
Presley didn't take the matter to court. According to the FBI files,
Information concerning the subject was furnished to this office by the Provost Marshal Division, Hqs., U.S. army, Europe, with the indication that they wished to avoid any publicity in this matter since they did not want to involve Elvis Presley nor put him in an unfavorable light since Presley had been a first-rate soldier and had caused the army no trouble during his term of service.
Final negotiation
Because things did not turn out the way he expected, Griessel-Landau endeavored to play the case down in letters he wrote on 27 and 28 December claiming that he sympathized with Elvis and that he had decided not to take action against the singer. The FBI files say that finally,
By negotiation, Presley agreed to pay Griessel-Landau $200.00 for treatments received and also to furnish him with a $315.00 plane fare to London, England. Griessel-Landau agreed to depart to England on 25 December 1959 at 19.30 hours from Frankfurt, Germany. [But] Griessel-Landau did not leave as agreed, rather returned and demanded an additional $250.00, which Presley paid. A day later Griessel-Landau made a telephonic demand for 2,000 £ for the loss of his practice which he closed in Johannesburg, South Africa prior to his departure for Bad Nauheim to treat Presley.
Then the blackmailer
departed Rhein-Main Air Field, Frankfurt, Germany at 16.00 hours, 6 January 1960 on Flight 491, British European Airway for London. ... He is alleged to be seeking entry into the United States. No contact between Presley and Griessel-Landau has been reported since 5 January.
Further reading
In his book The FBI Files on Elvis Presley (2001), Thomas Fensch reproduces actual texts from numerous FBI reports dating from 1959 to 1981, which represent a "microcosm [of Presley's] behind-the-scenes life." The author reprints, in the appendix, many original documents as full-page illustrations, showing exactly how the FBI handled such cases. Pages 30-34 deal with Presley being the victim of Griessel-Landau. Among the documents the author provides are copies of the original FBI files concerning the case and letters from Griessel-Landau to Elvis and one of his secretaries.
I agree that the text you proposed is much shorter than the article I nominated for deletion. I still think what you proposed is too long. I'm sorry, but I can't support you on this. I'll take a look at the article, and I'll try to find a way to incorporate some of the information into it. AniMate21:05, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You may also take a look at other sections of the Elvis Presley article, for instance, the "Trivia", the "Elvis Lives?" sections, etc. which are full of fan stuff of the first degree.
Saying that article is a mess would be an understatement. It's full of fan "stuff," and I'll try to clean it up later tonight. As it is, I have too much to do right now, but I fully intend to work on this article. I can't even get through the intro without shuddering whenever I read "...rising from humble beginnings to extreme heights in popular music through charisma with a capital 'C.'" This is an encylcopedia, and even Elvis' biggest fans have to follow the stylistic guidelines. I'll work on it, but I have no intention of getting involved in an edit war. AniMate21:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't forget that the most complete version of the article is this one. Interestingly, shortly after my recent contribution to the Elvis article, which reinstated several sections deleted by vandals (see [5]), User:Lochdale appeared on the scene removing the passages he frequently removes (see [6], [7], etc.). Significantly, he did not appear earlier in order to revert the vandalized page. Onefortyone23:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh. I've removed plenty of vandalized text. Have you ever considered that you are constantly getting into these disputes (with numerous people) because your sole obsession is the Presley article. God forbid you ever focused on something important. Lochdale05:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You are wrong. Lochdale. As your contribution history clearly shows you did not remove vandalized text on 19 October. It also shows that you are primarily removing my well-sourced edits from the article. There is not a single paragraph of some significance you have written. I have not yet seen you contributing a single quote from one of the major books on Elvis. On the other hand, I have contributed much material to several important sections of the article: Elvis's youth, his music, his movies, his relationships, his male friendships, his consumption of drugs, his death, his manager Colonel Tom Parker, the allegations of racism, the Elvis cult, the FBI files on the singer, etc. etc. You can only remove passages I have written. That's the difference between us two. Onefortyone17:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've never felt the need to overpopulate an article on an entertainer the way you have. Your entire Wiki life seems to be focused on Presley. The real difference between us is that you have a baseless agenda. Regardless, I am comfortable with my edits and will continue to make them. Lochdale19:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your note. As I pointed out in my note, my comment was based primarily on the matters identified by the arbitrator who wrote the decision, who had picked up on one issue in particular. I wasn't saying there weren't other issues that could also be mentioned in the decision. Newyorkbrad21:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure if I am the right person for the LGBT studies project, as I am straight and not gay. However, I am historically interested in the closeted lives of several gay or bisexual Hollywood stars. Onefortyone22:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You do not have to be gay to be a member (I'm only half-way. :P ). We can and have welcomed straight members, so you're not alone. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the invitation. Perhaps it may be a good idea to join your project. I am frequently getting into trouble with some other users for calling some Hollywood stars bisexual or gay. Though my contributions are supported by many independent sources, these fans still think the stars were straight and endeavor to remove edits that say otherwise. Onefortyone23:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There can be an issue with that on Wikipedia. However, the amount of information you're putting in about James Dean is out of proportion to the rest of the article. Wouldn't it be best to have maybe two paragraphs explaining the allegations and gay iconity, rather than a page long exposition? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dev920 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Some days ago, we have rewritten some parts of the James Dean article. I hope it is O.K. now. Dean's bisexuality is an important topic, as it deeply influenced his Hollywood career and it is undisputed that he was, and still is, a gay icon. Other users may contribute additional material to the other sections. They are still unsourced. There is much to be done. Onefortyone23:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your edits to List of bisexual people are appreciated, but please note that per Wikipedia's reliable sources policy, wiki sites can't be considered reliable sources, including Wikipedia itself. If a certain fact appears in more than one article/list, it's far better to copy/paste the references for that fact into both articles than to link to one article from another (as a source). Regarding James Dean's orientation, it is clearly controversial and as such I believe it fits better under the "Disputed" header in the list, as with any historical figure whose biographers are divided on the question (Eleanor Roosevelt, Alexander the Great etc.). Thanks. LeaHazel : talk : contribs13:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your information. However, I do not think that James Dean's sexual orientation is still controversial, as most Dean biographies and several modern gender studies published by university presses extensively deal with his bisexuality and his long-time friend William Bast has now admitted that they had a homosexual relationship. Onefortyone14:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Re your repeated insistence on prominently inserting the "Brando Unzipped" gossip about Brando having had an affair with Dean, I suggest you square this "information" with (1) the facts of Brando's life as chronicled in the wikipedia article on Brando, and (2) the documented eyewitness, first-person accounts of Dean's relationship to Brando, especially Dean's lasting awe of Brando and Brando's condescension toward Dean as reported by Kazan, Bast, and others, attitudes which don't remotely resemble those of a pair of ex-lovers. If you still feel this piece of "information" must be included just because it's been printed, I suggest you stick it somewhere at the end of the article under a new heading of "Unsubstantiated Gossip." I support your effort to keep the facts about Dean's bisexuality central, but citing books like "Brando Unzipped" only provides ammunition for those who would make Dean out to have been maligned by the gay lobby.KitMarlowe205:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have now included the said passage in the sexuality section, saying "It has also been claimed..." I hope this is satisfactory to you. Onefortyone15:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Better. However, I still think it's misinformation. I think Dean might have *wished* to have had a sexual involvement (involvement of any kind, for that matter) with Brando, but I think the probability of one actually having occurred is vanishingly miniscule. And a relationship like this would have almost certainly been hinted at or shared with Bast, who would certainly have mentioned it in his recent memoir. Dean went out of his way to clarify his relationship with Simmons to Bast because of the rumors and innuendos floating around. Dean would have been proud to call Brando his lover, let alone friend, or even nodding acquaintence, which even though Ella Logan apparently contrived to to get them together, Dean never, ever did...KitMarlowe222:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am in the process of responding to your message on my talk page. In the mean time, did Lochdale ever inadvertently expose his IP, such as editing while logged out and then logging in and signing? Thatcher13123:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have lifted your bans. Everyone you were edit warring with was a sockpuppet of Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo (talk·contribs), except Monkeyzpop on Randolph Scott, who is not a sockpuppet. I'm certainly prepared to reinstate the ban at Randolph Scott if you and Monkeyzpop can't work out your disagreement on the talk page. And in general, reverting across multiple revisions to restore your preferred content is a bad thing to do, even if you suspect the other editor is up to no good. Edits should be discussed on the talk page, and there are many ways of getting attention to a content dispute, such as contacting the various biography and celebrity wikiprojects, RFC and third opinion. Reasonable people may differ on whether even well-sourced information belongs in an article, and that is a matter for discussion and consensus, not edit warring. Thatcher13100:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo reported Onefortyone (talk·contribs) for probation violations at arbitration enforcement. I was curious about the number of single purpose accounts edit-warring with Onefortyone on multiple celebrity accounts, and asked Dmcdevit to look into it. He found the above list of confirmed sockpuppets. All are banned, except Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo who was blocked for a week pending review of the situation. Thatcher13100:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some diffs: Suzulu repeatedly removed large blocks of well-sourced material from Elvis Presley. See [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], etc. This user also mangled direct quotes from books. See, for instance, [18]. And he even repeatedly removed content from talk pages. See [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], or, using the IP 217.196.238.133, [24]. The same person also removed passages from Nick Adams. See [25] and, as sockpuppet MRMAGOO3, [26], [27], [28], and, as IP 203.202.144.22, [29], [30], etc. Mingy Jongo deleted a long paragraph from Elvis Presley. See [31]. MachoMax repeatedly removed large blocks of text from James Dean. See [32], [33]. There are many more examples of this kind. I would call this vandalism. In addition, User:Mr Zuckles called another user "you frickin pinhead". See [34]. This is certainly a personal attack. Onefortyone12:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Onefortyone: Hello there. My attention has recently been drawn to your editing on articles such as Nick Adams (and the other articles listed above). You and I have conversed at great length in the past, and I have advised you very specifically that material such as unsupported inferences across multiple sources (that is, original research built out of multiple references) and material relating to individuals' private lives does not belong in Wikipedia biographies. I have given you this advice multiple times, and I feel I do not need to remind you of this, as I suspect you are, by now, perfectly aware of the matter after having been told many times by myself and other administrators. I admit that as a consequence I am rapidly losing patience with you. The Onefortyone Arbitration case specifically refers to your use of sources to support original research, and inclusion of material on celebrities you consider to be gay; and it also includes the remedy that you may be banned from articles in the event of disruption, as you will know from the recent banning and unbanning undertaken just prior to this message.
I am, as a consequence, telling you for the final time to cease behaviour of inserting tenuous information about Elvis Presley's sex life. This information does not belong on Wikipedia, and more importantly, original research disguised by a veneer of references is also not worthy of encyclopaedic inclusion. Furthermore, I cannot tolerate your periodical edit skirmishes with users, regardless of who those users are or whether they are sockpuppets. As a consequence, should you continue this behaviour, I am left with no other alternative than to implement the following ban as per the Arbcom ruling:
Should you continue the behaviour mentioned above from now on, either in my judgement or that of another administrator, you will be banned from all articles on the topic of, or relating to, Elvis Presley and his associates. This ban will persist for a period of one month; violation of this ban will lead to blocks from editing Wikipedia in increasing severity. Once the ban has expired, future continuation of this behaviour may lead to a further article editing ban and, should you continue, ultimately a community block from editing Wikipedia under "Users who exhaust the community's patience" in WP:BP.
I sincerely regret having to take such action, as I would have hoped it would not come to this. However, as it stands, you leave me with little option other than to do so. Please take this as an opportunity to contribute in a sensible manner to these articles, and consider this your final warning. Thank you very much. Yours sincerely, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk)21:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply
Dear NicholasTurnbull, I do not understand the unfriendly notes above. As I can see from your contribution history, you seem to be not fully aware of what has actually happened.
You said that you have advised me "very specifically that material such as unsupported inferences across multiple sources (that is, original research built out of multiple references) and material relating to individuals' private lives does not belong in Wikipedia biographies."
First, would you please explain to me where I have included "unsupported inferences" or where I did "original research" concerning a Wikipedia article? Since the first arbcom case, all of my contributions are well sourced and I am regularly citing my sources. And if I am citing many independent sources (including published books, academic studies, articles in reputed periodicals, original letters by eyewitnesses, etc.) to support an edit, then it is not original research according to the Wikipedia guidelines. For a list of sources I am using, see [35].
Second, material relating to individuals' private lives certainly belong in biographies and also in Wikipedia biographies. You say on your user page that you are studying Computer Science and doing freelance software development and project management. It seems to me that you haven't much experience with writing biographies. Otherwise, you would have known that most biographers agree that details concerning a person's private life are part of every biography. Here are just two examples from Wikipedia biography pages you have visited some time ago:
Townshend met Karen Astley (daughter of composer Ted Astley) while in art school and married her in 1968. The couple separated in 1994 and Townshend announced they would divorce in 2000. They have three children, Emma (b. 1969), who is a singer/songwriter, Aminta (b. 1971), and Joseph (b. 1989). For many years Townshend refused to confirm or deny rumors that he was bisexual. In a 2002 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, however, he explained that, although he engaged in some brief same-sex experimentation in the 1960s, he is heterosexual. Townshend now lives with his long-time partner, musician Rachel Fuller. He currently lives in Richmond, England.
Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, as well as its importance to his life and music, has long been recognized, though any proof of it was suppressed during the Soviet era. Although some historians continue to view him as heterosexual, others — such as Rictor Norton and Alexander Poznansky — conclude that some of Tchaikovsky's closest relationships were homosexual (citing his servant Aleksei Sofronov and his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov). Evidence that Tchaikovsky was homosexual is drawn from his letters and diaries, as well as the letters of his brother, Modest, who was also homosexual.
During his education at the School of Jurisprudence, he was infatuated with French soprano Désirée Artôt, but she married another man. One of his conservatory students, Antonina Miliukova, began writing him passionate letters around the time that he had made up his mind to "marry whoever will have me." He did not even remember her from his classes, but her letters were very persistent...
Tchaikovsky could have tactfully attempted to dissuade Antonina. Instead, he replied that he could offer only gratitude and sympathy in reply to her love. He retained enough sense to have discreet inquiries made about Antonina from a friend. That friend returned with a highly unfavorable account of her. Even with this information in hand, Tchaikovsky allowed his feeling for drama and Fate to outweigh his common sense, and he hastily married her on July 18, 1877.
Within days, while still on their honeymoon, Tchaikovsky deeply regretted his decision. By the time the couple returned to Moscow on July 26, he was a state of near-collapse...
Tchaikovsky lived for years in the fear that Antonina would reveal publically the true reason for their separation. Anatoly tried talking her into accepting a divorce. She would not, however, consent to the necessary fiction, needed for grounds of divorce, that Tchaikovsky had committed adultery. Tchaikovsky's publisher, Pyotr I. Jürgenson, tried his best to intercede in the matter on the composer's behalf. Eventually in the summer of 1880 Jürgenson discovered that Antonina had taken a lover the previous winter and had a child by him....
Tchaikovsky himself never laid any blame upon Antonina. He considered his falling in with her, at a time when he had grown to be married for the sake of being married, as something to simply attribute to Fate. Tchaikovsky never lost his personal ideal of marriage. When Anatoly became engaged, the composer wrote him a warm letter of congratulations. There he confessed, "Sometimes I am overcome with an insane craving for the cares of a woman's touch. Sometimes I see a sympathetic woman in whose lap I could lay my head, whose hands I would gladly kiss...." Biographer John Warrack maintains that the terms of this letter reveal Tchaikovsky was actually far from the realization of a true relationship with a wife, and that what Tchaikovsky describes may be a vision of his lost mother. See Warrick, Tchaikovsky, 119-120.
Most Wikipedia biographies include such sections. See, for instance, Errol Flynn where the actor's private life and "post-death controversies" are intensively discussed. James Stewart, Marlon Brando, John Wayne and many other actors have their "personal life" and "controversies" sections. There is even a "Rumours and Controversies" section in the Mozart article. Could you please explain to me, what is so different with Elvis Presley?
Furthermore, you said that "The Onefortyone Arbitration case specifically refers to your use of sources to support original research, and inclusion of material on celebrities you consider to be gay; and it also includes the remedy that you may be banned from articles in the event of disruption..."
First, the arbcom says, "Onefortyone ... may be banned from any article or talk page relating to a celebrity which he disrupts by aggressively attempting to insert poorly sourced information or original research." As far as I can see, I have not violated this probation, as I have cited many published sources.
Second, in a similar case of 2006 the arbcom said that my former opponents "Ted Wilkes and Wyss have repeatedly insisted on an unrealistic standard with respect to negative information regarding celebrities that is current in popular culture, gossip and rumor Talk:James Dean#Removal of "Rumors" section and Talk:Nick Adams#Rumors, gossip or speculation contravene official Wikipedia policy." Therefore, according to the arbcom, "Ted Wilkes and Wyss are banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality," and they were both placed indefinitely on Wikipedia:Probation.
Third, as you only refer to the older arbcom decision of 2005, you seem to be unaware that there was another, more recent arbcom case concerning the Elvis Presley article. Would you please have a look at this newer arbcom decision which confirms that my "editing has substantially improved from that in the earlier arbitration cases. A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content." Furthermore, the arbcom says that my opponent Lochdale "has removed large blocks of sourced material from Elvis Presley" and that he "shows evidence of misunderstanding of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view." Therefore, Lochdale is the person who is now "banned indefinitely from editing articles which concern Elvis Presley." (For more details, would you please contact Fred Bauder and the other arbcom members.)
You further said that I have inserted "tenuous information about Elvis Presley's sex life. This information does not belong on Wikipedia, and more importantly, original research disguised by a veneer of references is also not worthy of encyclopaedic inclusion."
Sorry, the "tenuous information", as you call it, is to be found in many books and articles which were all cited in the text. Did you realize that my contributions to the Elvis article didn't deal explicitly with Elvis's sex life. Concerning the Elvis Presley article, I have added material to the sections on
Presley's political beliefs (see [111], [112]), etc. etc.
This endless list shows that I have added much material to all sections of the article and also written a critical section on the Elvis cult which has now been totally deleted for inexplicable reasons and despite the fact that other users were of the opinion that it belongs in the article. As far as Elvis's relationships are concerned, it is my opponent, presumably a member of an Elvis fan group, who frequently claims, without providing sources, that Elvis was a womanizer who slept with hundreds of women. However, the many sources I have given, among them Elvis's wife Priscilla, say otherwise. They all support the view that Elvis wasn't overtly sexually active. Certainly information about the singer's personal relationships, which is part of most Elvis biographies, should be included in a Wikipedia article, especially in view of the fact that Elvis has been called a sex symbol. It may be your and Hoary's personal opinion that you do not want to read such details in a biographical article, but most other Wikipedians, particularly those writing biographical articles, think otherwise.
You also said that you cannot tolerate my "periodical edit skirmishes with users, regardless of who those users are or whether they are sockpuppets."
Sorry, one or two Elvis fans who are using many different sockpuppets are frequently endeavoring to suppress any critical voice from the article. Therefore, they delete large blocks of information. See, for instance, [113], [[114]]. They also mangle direct quotes from books and remove commentaries by other users from talk pages. This is not acceptable. And this was also the opinion of the arbcom. Onefortyone22:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
User:Northmeister seems to be identical with, or somehow related to, User:Ted Wilkes alias multiple hardbanned User:DW. I cannot assume good faith any more. These are the facts:
A devoted Elvis fan (see his user page) such as Wilkes, Northmeister repeatedly deleted well sourced material from Elvis Presley (see [115], [116], [117]), Graceland (see [118], [119], [120]) and Memphis Mafia (see [121]) that was not in line with his personal view of the megastar Elvis Presley. Similar material was frequently removed by Wilkes in former edit wars.
Northmeister has copied from old talk pages blocks of material which had already been discussed exhaustively two years ago and placed it in the current Elvis talk page in order to harass user Onefortyone. See [122]. This is exactly the same material that multiple hard-banned user Ted Wilkes alias User:DW alias IP 66.61.69.65 alias IP 24.165.212.202 frequently removed from talk and article pages in the past. See [123], [124]. Query: why should Northmeister be so interested in this old stuff if he was not deeply involved in the edit wars at that time?
Northmeister falsely claims that user Onefortyone is identical with another user who edited under the IP 129.241.134.241 and was also part of edit wars with Wilkes. See [125].
The expression "Elvis Mafia" mentioned by Northmeister here, was only used once by me in this edit of 24 April 2005 in the course of a heated dispute with Ted Wilkes's IPs ! Query: how should Northmeister, who, according to his contribution history, first visited Wikipedia on 5 February 2006, know that I posted such an expression more than two years ago, if he was not involved in the dispute at that time? It should be noted that the said edit of 2005 was immediately deleted by IP 66.61.69.65 alias Ted Wilkes. See [126]. This means that Northmeister must be identical with multiple hard-banned user Wilkes alias User:DW and his IPs and other sockpuppets.
Northmeister reappeared removing Elvis-related topics at exactly the same time when the many sockpuppets of user Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo were revealed as edit warring with user Onefortyone on the same topics. See [127].
More significantly, Northmeister addressed Onefortyone in this heading on the Elvis talk page as a user from Duesburg. The only other user doing so was Ted Wilkes with his IPs and his sockpuppet, User:Duisburg Dude, a user identity that was only created in order to harass me and also repeatedly deleted my contributions (see [128], [129], [130], [131], [132], [133], [134]). Consequently Duisburg Dude was banned from Wikipedia on 6 August 2006.
To conclude: Northmeister's recent edit certainly proves that this user must be identical with hardbanned user Ted Wilkes alias Duisburg Dude alias User:DW alias alias IP 66.61.69.65 alias IP 24.165.212.202.
It should be further added that Onefortyone was on heavy fire by Ted Wilkes and his sockpuppets from 2005 on, and it was Wilkes who requested this arbitration in 2005. However, there were subsequent arbcom cases concerning the same matter (see this case of December 2005 and this newer arbcom decision) which proved that Onefortyone's edits are O.K. Consequently, Wilkes was banned from the topics in question. For instance, in the case of 2006 the arbcom said that Ted Wilkes has "repeatedly insisted on an unrealistic standard with respect to negative information regarding celebrities that is current in popular culture, gossip and rumor." Therefore, according to the arbcom, Wilkes was "banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality," and he was placed indefinitely on Wikipedia:Probation. If Northmeister is identical with Ted Wilkes, who was banned from Wikipedia for one year, he has clearly violated his probation. The third, more recent arbcom case concerning the Elvis Presley article confirmed that my "editing has substantially improved from that in the earlier arbitration cases. A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content." Furthermore, the arbcom said that my opponent Lochdale, who, to my mind, is also somehow related to Ted Wilkes, "has removed large blocks of sourced material from Elvis Presley" and that he "shows evidence of misunderstanding of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view." Therefore, Lochdale was "banned indefinitely from editing articles which concern Elvis Presley."
IP 209.247.5.139 also seems to be identical with Northmeister and Ted Wilkes. Wilkes repeatedly claimed in the past that my edits were "outright fabrications" and that I am a liar, etc. IP 209.247.5.139 is also talking about "outright hateful fiction" and "lies" about Elvis. See [149]. Like Wilkes, IP 209.247.5.139 denigrates sources he doesn't like (see [150], [151]) and applauds Northmeister's deleting tactics. See [152]. Like Wilkes, he attacks user Onefortyone: "It's clear what his intent is, (smear) and it shouldn't be tolerated in Elvis Presley's page or anybody else's" [153]
Northmeister now continues to whitewash Elvis-related topics removing well-sourced material from the Memphis Mafia article. See [185]. Similar material was frequently removed from older versions of the article by Ted Wilkes. See, for instance, [186], [187], [188], [189]. Northmeister even removed the same external links that Ted Wilkes repeatedly deleted in the past in favor of two websites of Joe Esposito and Jerry Scheff. See [190], [191], [192]. Significantly, Northmeister now put exactly the same two external links in first place that Ted Wilkes preferred. See [193] and [194].
Northmeister put material about Bush's and Koizumi's visit to Graceland in first place on Graceland which was formerly included by banned user Lochdale (alias IPs 192.136.45.2 and 200.30.130.19), who is also somehow related to Wilkes and frequently removed contributions by Onefortyone from Elvis-related topics. See [195] and [196], [197], [198], [199], [200].
Other users criticize that important and well-sourced paragraphs I have written have now been deleted from the Elvis article. See [201].
This edit shows more than a thousand words which kind of trivial information Northmeister wishes to have included in the Elvis article.
All this is certainly not a coincidence. To my mind, there can be no doubt that Northmeister and presumably some other IPs and sockpuppets are identical with, or related to, Ted Wilkes alias multiple-hardbanned User:DW. Northmeister, as a supposed sockpuppet of Wilkes, clearly placed material related to Elvis Presley'a alleged homo- or bisexuality in Talk:Elvis Presley (see [202] and removed a well-sourced quote dealing with Natalie Wood's remark that Presley and the Memphis Mafia members might be homosexual (see [203]). This means that he has clearly violated Ted Wilkes's probation. The arbcom says that Wilkes is "banned from making any edit related to a person's alleged homosexuality or bisexuality". See [204]. May I ask some administrators to put a stop to the disruptive behavior of this user. Onefortyone17:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note that while Wilkes used to edit from Memphis, checkuser shows that Northmeister is editing from somewhere else in the US (per IRC chat with Dmcdevit). Obviously Wilkes could have moved, or found another way to access Wikipedia, so the determination should be made by behavior, not technical evidence. Unfortunately I will be largely inactive until Monday so I can't do much to investigate this myself at this time. Thatcher13118:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ted Wilkes alias DW has used many different IPs in the past. Therefore, it is quite clear that he must have found several ways to access Wikipedia. To my mind, he has also created many more sockpuppets he can easily use when some others are blocked. This would also explain why my edits are frequently deleted by new sockpuppets. Onefortyone11:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are several big questions to be answered, like: are other users allowed to remove large blocks of well sourced material from article pages simply becaue this material is not in line with their personal opinion? Are users allowed to include hyperlinks to fan sites in Wikipedia articles? Are other users allowed to use different sockpuppets in order to harass others and to avoid the 3RR and remove well-sourced material they do not like? I don't think so, but this is what my opponent(s) frequently do(es).
Just one example. Northmeister first removed this passage from Graceland claiming that the commentary was "not appropriate for opening" in order to substitute this one concerning trivia about Bush and Koizumi's visit in its stead. If the first commentary is "not appropriate for opening", then the other one he included is? I don't think so. Therefore, I have moved this material to another section of the article. I even created a new section entitled "National Historic Landmark". What happened? Northmeister repeatedly reverted the article to the version he prefers. See [205], [206]. He even says in the edit summary, "revert second reversion by user onefortyone ... without discussion." For the discussion, see [207]. It should also be noted that Northmeister mangled some direct quotes by removing these passages from the article. This is not O.K., and it is certainly no coincidence that the same deleting tactics were used over and over again by Ted Wilkes in former edit wars. Onefortyone11:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could it even be that User:Rikstar is identical with Northmeister? I hope not, but what looks very suspicious to me are some edits of 22 May 2007 concerning the Elvis Presley article. This edit by Rikstar included double content. Therefore, it was immediately removed by Northmeister in the very next edit three minutes later, as if Rikstar corrected himself by unintentionally using another user account. Significantly, all subsequent edits were again by Rikstar a few minutes later, except for an edit by User:Steve Pastor, who also seems to be somehow related to Northmeister (see above). Northmeister did only one or two other edits that day, one of them removing, as usual, sourced content from the Elvis page. See [208]. Interestingly, some hours after Northmeister had posted his negative statement about Onefortyone on 19 May, Rikstar also took the opportunity to formally register his "own dissatisfaction with Onefortyone" on the Elvis talk page, thereby (?unintentionally) removing the name Onefortyone from an edit by IP 209.247.5.139 against Onefortyone, as if he wanted to add some further details to this edit of IP 209.247.5.139, but changed his mind in order to put a comment by Rikstar in its stead. See [209] and [210]. All this looks very suspicious, because all these users are now very active rearranging content and removing critical material from the Elvis page and attacking Onefortyone, simply because the latter would like to include some well-sourced material in the Elvis article that is not in line with the opinion of the fans. Onefortyone17:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The following commentary by Rikstar only seems to confirm the suspicion that they endeavor to prevent me from doing further edits that are supported by reliable sources: "As for 141... I'm amazed he's been allowed to wreak such havoc. I foresee only problems resulting from any involvement on his part. ... if he ever tries to justify the inclusion of any patently inappropriate material by protesting 'But it comes from reliable source so it should be included!!!', or accuses the rest of the world of denying unsavoury truths, I'll probably scream and will see about taking the matter further." See [211]. Onefortyone22:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is much evidence that I am still the target of my old opponent Wilkes and his new sockpuppets. See also this older statement by administrator Redwolf24 who said that Wilkes and Wyss were harassing me, "and I've seen them go out of their way to revert him." The arbcom was of the same opinion. To my mind, it is no coincidence that the same deleting tactics concerning the same topics now continue. The arbcom clearly says that "Onefortyone's editing has substantially improved from that in the earlier arbitration cases. A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content. To a greater extent he allows the reader to draw their own conclusions." See [212]. So why are my edits frequently removed by one or two other users? The problem is that there seems to be no administrator who is willing to take the trouble to carefully investigate all the diffs I have given above and all the sources I have used, as this certainly will take a lot of time. The messages I put on the administrators' noticeboard have been automatically removed some days ago. Nothing happened. I am using several independent sources for my contributions, among them standard biographies, books on the rock 'n' roll era, publications by eyewitnesses, modern university studies, journal articles etc. etc. (see [213]), but my contributions are frequently deleted. Instead, the other editors are including hyperlinks to fan sites in the article. Is this O.K.? I don't think so. I am at a loss what to do. Onefortyone18:43, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently user:Northmeister wasn't informed of this matter so I've posted a note on his talk page. I've known of Northmeister since he first started editing. I also had some familiarity with Wilkes. While I haven't reviewed this Elvis Presley material, I don't see any other behavior in common. ·:·Will Beback·:·05:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been around long enough to recognize Wilkes, although you make a good case that they are at least behaving similarly. Unless you can find somone who is familiar with DW/Wilkes from before who will agree with your allegation and support a ban, you will have to deal with this user through the normal dispute resolution method, starting with RFC and mediation and possibly ending up at arbitration. Thatcher13114:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Could it even be that User:Rikstar is identical with Northmeister? I hope not"... You can sleep easy at night, 141, I'm not, but will you believe me? I'll swear on The Bible if you like. Then again, I am an atheist. But seriously, I only have problems with inappropriate material and, hand on heart and with all due respect, quite a bit has appeared in various articles from your good self. Your wikipedia history, to any neutral person, would seem a little bit controversial and perhaps a reliable source from which to conclude that some of your edits have been inappropriate. Rikstar00:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I must admit that several of your contributions to the Elvis article are indeed improvements. However, the article still requires a lot of cleanup. You are right, in 2005, some of my edits were somewhat controversial, but this has changed since then, as the arbcom has confirmed. Interestingly, another user said on the Elvis talk page,
The article seems a bit too fan influenced. I wish that some of the input by Onefortyone [214] (biased though he may or may not be) got more air time. Elvis was wonderful, but an encyclopedia article, especially a wikipedia article should be brutally honest. --Timtak15:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that a good deal of your objections to edits you listed under this heading in the Presley discussion page have been addressed: His father's laziness, Gladys' s booze problem, Parker's influence and reputation, Presley's sex life (or lack of it), his adultery, etc. Other points not flattering Presley have also been included: the Nixon meeting and his intent to have Mike Stone killed. In the absence of further details from you, your assertion that the article "still requires a lot of clean up" does seem gratuitous. Rikstar05:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Sorry, LaraLove, I simply forgot to sign in. This contribution to your talk page was a summary of some points which were insufficiently discussed on Talk:Elvis Presley. As everybody can see, my behavior was not disruptive. However, it seems that I have still some problems with some other users, as Rikstar's reaction shows, because I have a more critical view of Elvis, the Elvis cult and the world-wide Elvis industry than most other contributors to the Elvis article. See also [215] and [216]. I must admit that Rikstar, during the last few weeks, has improved the Elvis article and even included some of my suggestions, but the objections I have raised against the present state of the article are still valid and not minor. Onefortyone20:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)"[reply]
The above post has been noted. It is unfortunate, and convenient for you, that you didn't also put up my response to the original contribution so LaraLove could judge them together. It is also noted that you include a link to totally false allegations about myself and Northmeister being one and the same. I have denied this, you haven't responded, let alone apologize for smearing my character and reputation. And now you repeat the claim. Rikstar23:04, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have only raised the question whether you may be identical with Northmeister, as there were some suspicious edits, but I also said, "I hope not." So what. Although several of your contributions did indeed improve the Elvis article, there are still valid questions concerning its content. Onefortyone23:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is unfortunate, and convenient for you, that you didn't also put up my response to the original contribution so LaraLove could judge them together. Rikstar07:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Peace, Love and Harmony
Hello Onefortyone, how are you? I've been thinking (I know, you might not think I do much, given the crummy, biased state of this article)... If the Presley article is so POV and controlled by biased Elvis fans as you claim, then feel free to make all the edits you like. Your ideas seem to be wasted just appearing on the talk page. You are obviously intelligent, erudite and can write excellent prose that is unimpeachably cited. Other people are freely editing the article, so why don't you? If there is a problem that does not allow you to do this, please state what it is, and maybe I, and others, can help. Thank you. Rikstar11:44, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do you remember what Northmeister, who seems to be identical with my old opponent User:Ted Wilkes, recommended on 20 May? He said, "I proposed ... that he [Onefortyone] submit his contributions on the talk page and allow other editors to comment or revise before putting them in - thus showing good faith with us that he wishes to help and not obstruct our intentions..." See [217]. This is exactly what I am doing in order to show good faith. That's why I have not yet included additional or alternative material in the article. I am certainly not free from prejudice against some contributors such as Northmeister, but I have watched the article, collected some additional material and tried to make some suggestions on the talk page. However, I am not satisfied with the reaction of the Elvis fans who, in my opinion, still dominate the article. Northmeister has still a biased view. Although I must be thankful that you, Rikstar, have considered at least some of my suggestions, your view is not neutral. As several of your contributions (including "warnings" and attacks against me) show, you are still on Northmeister's side. I have not yet seen you posting a critical remark against this user, though he has a rather dubious contribution history. See his frequent edit wars with, and personal attacks against, administrator Will Beback and other users whose opinions are not in line with his personal view: [218], [219], [220], [221]. He was even blocked several times by different administrators for WP:3RR, incivility, disruptive behavior, etc. in the past. See [222], [223], [224], [225], [226], [227], [228]. See also these comments: [229], [230], [231], [232], [233], [234]. In the last arbitration case concerning the Elvis article, the arbcom has clearly confirmed that my "editing has substantially improved" and that a "sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content." The arbcom also said that my opponent "has removed large blocks of sourced material from Elvis Presley" and that he "shows evidence of misunderstanding of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view." Therefore he was "banned indefinitely from editing articles which concern Elvis Presley." This should make all Elvis fans think before removing my edits or posting attacks against me and my well-sourced contributions on this talk page. The problem is that most unbiased Wikipedia users are not interested in Elvis Presley, his music and personal life. Query: who is still interested in the singer? It is certainly not the younger generation. It is primarily our grandfathers' and grandmothers' generation who grew up with rock 'n' roll music. When this generaton dies out, EPE will have real problems to make money, that's for sure. Be that as it may, I will contribute additional material to the Elvis article in the near future. But you can be sure that Northmeister will be the first to remove these additions, and it is to be feared that the former edit war will continue. Onefortyone14:37, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"See his frequent edit wars with, and personal attacks against, administrator Will Beback and other users whose opinions are not in line with his personal view..." - Bah Humbuger! I see you spent valuable time trying to dig dirt on myself - continue, it's fun to relive old memories from time to time. However, I strongly urge you to put such edits of the past (there goes another memory) IN CONTEXT. Example - The NOR debate (where I was blocked for overdoing reverts) was an attempt by SlimVirgin to go around consensus and talk and actually change policy on their own. Other editors agreed with me - some did not. Through this debate a member of the Arbcom actually took me under his wing - knowing what was going on - and I agreed to stay away from the NOR debate. That and much more for one of your DIGS. Willbeback - well thats a long sad story of personal attacks, wiki-stalking by Willbeback because that editor felt I was a member of the LaRouche click - which again Wikipedia (who knows my full history from disclosure) understands to be false - but this user continues his games. Good DIG - though. Onefortyone, what you don't understand (and the above quote you made from me indicates this) is that from day one I tried to work with you and you refused to work cordially and to accept anything but your view and your interpretation of data. That is also fully recorded - GO DIGGING! Despite this I continued to offer you a way to contribute and help us out and you come back with calling me a sock-puppet of your advesary as you say "Ted Wilkes". Although, I find your display above offensive - I am supportive of Rikstar extending a hand with you. He's done a great job with the Elvis article, including the inclusion of critical material and is to be commended for his work. I've stayed out of the limelight so-to-speak except on rare occasions. Will I delete your material - NO, if you work it out with other editors - YES, if it is simply the same stuff as before that is already covered or was already discredited. I want you to be happy editing Wikipedia - so go for it. --Northmeister01:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Northmeister, how you tried to work with me is seen by your frequent removals of well-sourced material from Elvis related articles and your personal attacks against me on the Elvis talk page (see [235]). As for the Elvis article, I still don't understand why there shouldn't be specific, brief sections on Colonel Tom Parker (who had so much influence on the singer's career), on the members of the Memphis Mafia (who spent day and night with him for more than two decades) and on the Elvis cult at Graceland (and elsewhere) in the main article on Elvis. Onefortyone14:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Stop and smell the roses. The memphis mafia has their own article, and so does Tom Parker. He is mentioned in the Elvis article in the appropriate way considering length issues. There is much in the article that is critical and I prefer it remain there. Your idea of those who are fans of Presley being a cult is unfounded and a slur, if not a personal attack on people who are. It is this type of POV pushing that gets you in trouble both now and in the past. Step back and realize I am not your enemy and don't take things so personally. IF you can come up with a reliable resourced bit of material not already covered at the Elvis article or elsewhere due to length issues - go right ahead and edit. --Northmeister22:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your obsession with Elvis and homosexuality and allegation of sockpuppet
You ask on the Elvis talk page whether I am a sock puppet for another user. I am not. And I object that you should respond to my post by trying to cast aspersions on me. But then that's what you do. You cast aspertions. Hence your constant attempt to edit the Elvis article to show he was homosexual. WHO CARES? Even if he was that isn't what he is famous for so an article about his life and work wouldn't warrant such a claim. But even if it did, your attempts at changing every sentence on the article to gay innuendo is just plain daft and your constant attempts at doing this are simply annoying. Get over yourself and learn to listen to the consensus. Fooey-fooey-flop-chops07:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Graceland
Let's take a different approach to this article. You keep reverting my edits and that can only cause edit wars. Let me know why specifically you object to my edits so we can address concerns in common, open, and cordial manner. Per the Presley page, I support your recent edit, but removed it to talk it over in the talk page; if you revise it per my objections then place it back into the article - it would be fine (see Elvis Presley talk); I also feel chronologically it doesn't fit where its placed - but until we find a fit I have no problem with its placement for now. The title change can stay 'Musical influences and preferences' until we find a better place as well. What do you say, lets work on your edits. --Northmeister13:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Recent edit
Onefortyone, please restore the recent edit I made in good faith by reverting yourself. If you have objections - lets discuss them cordially on Talk. I was really pleased with your sense of balance with your compromise - it shows you understand my intentions better now. It's not completely your material - but rewording or summarizing it and placing it where it fits best that I have concern over. Thanks for the forward move. Let's continue this by my suggestion above. I feel the material belongs in 1968 and does not warrent yet another subsection. We're trying to achieve featured status and TOC is important. --Northmeister00:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good Job
The Resilient Barnstar
A Resilient Barnstar for learning and improving from criticisms, and not letting mistakes or blunders impede your growth as Wikipedian. I'm really impressed. --Northmeister02:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Recent Elvis edits
Hello 141. I hope you can help. Your recent edits (see 2nd paragraph onwards in "The influence of Col. Parker and others") need inline page citations regarding the books you have sourced. This will standardize things and make any rewrite easier - not that I am proposing anything major. Thank you. Rikstar12:42, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you have noted my post in which I describe you as a user of intelligence, excellent communication skills and in possession of invaluable resources. I am genuinely both baffled and saddened that you cannot work positively with other editors on the Presley article. Rikstar (talk) 11:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rikstar, you claim that I cannot work positively with other editors on the Presley article. Did you realize that I do agree with many of your edits, as they indeed improve the article. May I thank you for your effort in making the article better and shorter in places. I only disagree with some of your edits, as you have totally deleted critical material that I think is important. Therefore, I have reinstated in an abridged form those parts of the text that I find relevant. Interestingly, the parts that you think should "go (and no doubt reappear) because of space limitations" are in most cases well-sourced, critical commentaries on Elvis, his career and his life. I have quoted from mainstream biographies, university studies and other reliable sources in line with Wikipedia policies. LaraLove says, "If a reliable source states it as fact, include it." Timtak wishes "that some of the input by Onefortyone (...) got more air time. Elvis was wonderful, but an encyclopedia article, especially a wikipedia article should be brutally honest." Egghead06 says, "this article needs to show both sides with suitable references and let the reader decide". Onefortyone (talk) 17:56, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your note. I am not such an expert on Elvis to be able to judge what should be included or excluded. That is a matter for consensus between editors. Perhaps I thought Pastor John was trying to exclude that particular nugget for the wrong reasons, and maybe I was wrong. My own involvement in this article only arises because of the contributions of one editor, and as far as content goes, I have no views one way or another. LaraLove does seem to be trying to pull this article into some shape, however, and deserves some cooperation. The last thing I am going to do is enter into content debates unless they become policy issues. I wish you well with the article and look forward to it becoming a GA once more. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 00:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You posted the following:
The main problem is that there are some Elvis fans who endeavor to exclude well-sourced information they do not like from the Elvis article. This is a long story. See also [236].
You continue to make unfounded accusations to the uninitiated of sockpuppetry. These have been repeatedly denied and haven't been proved by a shred of evidence in my case. It's about time you proved this, or stopped making such accusations forthwith. On the other hand, your own predilection for sensational, single source, sexual claims is well documented. You have highlighted the Dee Presley claim (Elvis/Gladys had sex) before, so why isn't that in your Early years draft? Your user page states: "Therefore, in my opinion, it may be O.K. to mention this material in a Wikipedia article." If it would be rejected by other editors, could it be because it isn't one of the "reliable sources" you go on about? Rikstar (talk) 10:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am still of the opinion that there are one or two Elvis fans endeavoring to suppress critical information and that Dee Presley's "The Intimate Life and Death of Elvis Presley" includes some interesting information from a family member's point of view. The statements by Elvis's stepmother have been cited in Greil Marcus's book, Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives (2000) and by Professor David S. Wall in his critical article on the world-wide Elvis industry. Both Marcus and Wall are reputed authors and experts on Elvis. The latter has also demonstrated how Elvis fan groups have suppressed Dee Presley's book. Therefore, it may indeed be O.K. to briefly mention this material in the Wikipedia article on Elvis. Onefortyone (talk) 19:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Prof. Wall criticisms about the 'Elvis industry' are in the main article - I made sure they were included because I am well acquainted with uncritical fan worship - and I hate it. However, space, ease of reading, etc. meant they were put in an important footnote. Rikstar (talk) 14:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have had a quick look at the talk page. I have an idea who User:GiantSpitoon might be, it fits a pattern. However, this is an edit war I do not want to get involved in, not having the time to do so. However, LaraLove has edited recently, so will have seen this, as will Rikstar. I suggest if you can't reach agreement amongst yourselves, a request for comment might be in order, possibly with page protection if the reverting gets out of hand. I'm not such an expert to decide how relevant it is to the article. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 20:50, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Pastor has already hit my radar. He will go into the pot along with the rest of the socks. Meanwhile, just try to keep it cool & keep Rikstar & LaraLove up to date with what is going on. Beware of WP:3RR, however; better to leave them to stew & let the committed editors thrash it out on the Talk page. Any nonsense there will be heads-up in an RfC. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 03:37, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not one for sending round pretty pictures, but after my recent RfA, which passed 68/1/7, I am now relaxed and this is to thank you for your support. I will take on board all the comments made and look forward to wielding the mop with alacrity. Or two lacrities. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 21:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Time Out
Hellow Onefortyone,
Thankyou for your recent comments on User:Rikstar's Talk Page. I would just like to point out to you, that the mistake on Fort Worth was made by me,not my source. I initially did write Fort Hood and changed it,due to tiedness,I was relying on my memory,which is definetly a big no no. Hence my decision to wait until I have finished with my heavy work schedule in a few week,before contributing any further discussion with this article.--Jaye9 (talk) 02:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored the page as requested - it shouldn't have qualified as CSD as there are multiple authors (my fault for not checking properly). Could you have a look at it and remove any copyvios. Thanks. — Tivedshambo (t/c)22:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Elvis citations
In his book, Elvis: The Final Years, Jerry Hopkins writes: "Elvis' health plummeted as his weight ballooned." At a University of Maryland concert on September 27th (1974), band members "had trouble recognizing him. ... 'He walked on stage and held onto the mike for the first thirty minutes like it was a post. Everybody was scared.' Guitarist John Wilkinson ... recalled, ... 'He was all gut. He was slurring. ... It was obvious he was drugged, that there was something terribly wrong with his body. It was so bad, the words to the songs were barely intelligible. ... We were in a state of shock.' "
It could well be that I included this passage. I'm not sure. However, I don't remember the page number. Similar material can be found in Kenneth T. Jackson, Karen Markoe and Arnie Markoe, The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (1998), p.435. Onefortyone (talk) 00:34, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, Onefortyone, and I mean that because you appear to be a very well sourced editor most of the time, but for this current situation I can't agree at all with the line about Finstad and her publishers backing the claims AFTER the case. As a gesture of goodwill, I'm willing to drop the whole thing if you place the sentence before the result of the case is revealed, and that you make it very clear that it was a statement made during the case, not after. The way you are currently writing it makes it look as if Finstad and her publishers backed the claims even after Currie Grant lost the case. I hope that this is satisfactory with you, also. ElvisFan1981 (talk) 23:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Recent edits
Yawn. You should be fully aware by now that contentious edits should be discussed on the Talk page beforehand. Whereas reliable sources may appear to be so, there are other sources, and then it comes down to discussion amongst editors. Please take proposals to the Talsk page before you are blocked for disruptive editing, and please take a look at WP:TRUTH. I know it's complicated, but I, for one, am not prepared to tolerate unilateral editing. Rodhullandemu01:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. What are you talking about? I have only reinstated in a somewhat abridged and rearranged version what has been removed by user ElvisFan1981 some days ago. See [239]. Do you think that this removal of large blocks of information written by me, Rickstar and several other users some years ago was O.K.? Onefortyone (talk) 01:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your edit summary did not make that clear, so it was not surprising that I may have misunderstood your intentions. This is one of the more contentious articles we have, and my experience of this goes back almost as long as I've been here. Accordingly, I am somewhat worn down by constant disputes where they should not exist, and ideally, I would just drop them from my watchlist. Unfortunately, I am driven by "doing the right thing", despite that in about a week's time I will yet again be spending Christmas alone, unlike yourself, without family or friends, in straitened circumstances, and even possibly without food or electricity. But you just carry on, because I'm only here because I do believe in spreading knowledge, whatever it costs. Rodhullandemu01:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I may have once been involved in the edits you mention above, but that does NOT mean I agree with their inclusion now, and I resent any implication that I might approve of your recent actions. I have posted this on Rodhullandemu's talkpage: "I am sorry to see you acquiesce regarding 141, though your current circumstances are worrying and can hardly help. If any previous editors were left on the Presley article, they would not agree with 141's reinstatement of removed material. Recent, new editors, called in by 141 apparently as mediators, have not backed his tired claims of 'whitewashing', AND one has made the repeated call to reduce the article's length, which is exactly what ElvisFan1981 was bravely attempting to do. I wish you well." Rikstar40909:22, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another user said on the Elvis talk page about the recent removal of well-sourced material, "firstly, more discussion should be had, this isn't your page, and a lot of information has been put through a work of a lot of people over time. I find that in your attempt to do good and remove unnecessary information you've also removed vital information..." Onefortyone (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Onefortyone! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 3 of the articles that you created are Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. Please note that all biographies of living persons must be sourced. If you were to add reliable, secondarysources to these articles, it would greatly help us with the current 3 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:
It always helps to know if one is dealing with someone who is essentially honest or essentially a big, stinking liar. So tell me, friend, exactly what was your basis for attributing that "aggressively bisexual" quote to Penelope Houston. Please tell me in detail how you went about that. DocKino (talk) 22:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are right in suggesting that I discovered the source on the internet. I simply was of the opinion that the editor of the journal has written the article. That’s all. Sorry for the mistake. However, I still do not think that the author’s name is of much importance, as the passage was accurately cited, but I take your note that his name might be necessary in a featured article. Thanks again for adding it. Query: as a film expert, you seem to have access to specific resources. So why did you remove my contribution? Instead of removing it you could also have added the correct author’s name. In many other cases, you are also simply adding what is missing. Onefortyone (talk) 23:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It must by now be obvious to you, as it is to your fellow editors at Elvis Presley, that there is no support for your proposal to dig up as much dirty trivia as possible on the artist and present this in the Legacy section or elsewhere in the article. OneFourOne, I have nothing personally against you; we do not know each other, other than via Talk:Elvis_Presley, but I am asking you now to please stop
Posting the same proposal over and over again on the talk page,
Diverting the thread of other conversations back to your proposal with edits such as this;
Making edits such as this to the article in an attempt to force your agenda against consensus.
From others' comments on the talk page it's clear that you have been pushing this agenda, on your own, for a period which can be measured in years, never gaining support, often demoralising your fellow editors. For instance this can be seen
here,
here,
here,
here and
here.
You have made your point. Others have considered it: they have responded accordingly. The article is now judged by all others in the debate to present an accurate balance of positive and negative aspects concerning the artist. There is no support for your agenda. Your persistent disruptive behaviour on the talk page does nothing to help your agenda; please now refrain. PL290 (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is very interesting that you are only citing commentaries by my opponents, most of them Elvis fans who, for a long period of time, endeavored to suppress more critical information about Elvis Presley in order to whitewash the Wikipedia article. All of my contributions are well sourced, but in many cases they are removed by my opponents simply because they do not like a more realistic view of the singer and his life. Onefortyone (talk) 13:47, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Still waiting for all those 'Elvis Fans' to start removing the following:
"trashy"
received a C in music in eighth grade.
his music teacher told him he had no aptitude for singing
"she didn't appreciate his kind of singing."
"mama's boy".
he failed an audition for a local vocal quartet, the Songfellows.
"They told me I couldn't sing."
Bond rejected him after a tryout, advising Presley to stick to truck driving "because you're never going to make it as a singer."
Presley came by the studio, but was unable to do justice to it.
nervousness at playing before a large crowd led Presley to shake his legs as he performed
Presley made his lone appearance on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry on October 2, eliciting only a mild response.
Presley had another attack of nerves during the first set, which drew a muted reaction.
"It was almost frightening, the reaction that came to Elvis from the teenaged boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him. There were occasions in some towns in Texas when we'd have to be sure to have a police guard because somebody'd always try to take a crack at him. They'd get a gang and try to waylay him or something."
the shows were badly received by critics and the conservative, middle-aged hotel guests
"Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States. ... [His] actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph."
Presley's gyrations created a storm of controversy. Television critics were outraged
"Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability. ... His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner's aria in a bathtub. ... His one specialty is an accented movement of the body ... primarily identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway."
popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley. ... Elvis, who rotates his pelvis ... gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos".
"unfit for family viewing"
To Presley's displeasure, he soon found himself being referred to as "Elvis the Pelvis"
"Allen thought Presley was talentless and absurd... [he] set things up so that Presley would show his contrition"
the criticism to which he was being subjected
a judge in Jacksonville, Florida, ordered Presley to tame his act
"We just can't have this on a Sunday night. This is a family show!"
Crowds in Nashville and St. Louis burned Presley in effigy.
The movie was panned by the critics
"the trouble with going to see Elvis Presley is that you're liable to get killed."
Villanova students pelted him with eggs.
Frank Sinatra [...] condemned the new musical phenomenon. In a magazine article, he decried rock and roll as "brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious. ... It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells phoney and false. It is sung, played and written, for the most part, by cretinous goons. ... This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore."
Moore and Black—drawing only modest weekly salaries, sharing in none of Presley's massive financial success—resigned.
His films were almost universally panned; one critic dismissed them as a "pantheon of bad taste."
the quality of the soundtrack songs grew "progressively worse".
"The material was so bad that he felt like he couldn't sing it."
the numbers seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll."
"Presley isn't trying"
as with artistic merit, the commercial returns steadily diminished.
The flow of formulaic movies and assembly-line soundtracks rolled on.
the Clambake soundtrack LP registered record low sales for a new Presley album
"Elvis was viewed as a joke by serious music lovers and a has-been to all but his most loyal fans."
Of the eight Presley singles released between January 1967 and May 1968, only two charted in the top 40, and none higher than number 28. His forthcoming soundtrack album, Speedway, would die at number 82 on the Billboard chart.
he was nervous: his only previous Las Vegas engagement, in 1956, had been a disaster.
Paul McCartney later said that he "felt a bit betrayed. ... The great joke was that we were taking [illegal] drugs, and look what happened to him", a reference to Presley's death, hastened by prescription drug abuse.
"ten painfully genteel Christmas songs, every one sung with appalling sincerity and humility"
"[Presley's] sin was his lifelessness"
Presley and his wife, meanwhile, had become increasingly distant, barely cohabiting.
an affair he had with Joyce Bova resulted—unbeknownst to him—in her pregnancy and an abortion.
Priscilla relates that when she told him, Presley "grabbed ... and forcefully made love to" her, declaring, "This is how a real man makes love to his woman."
he became obsessed with the idea that the men had been sent by Stone to kill him. Though they were shown to have been only overexuberant fans, he raged, "There's too much pain in me ... Stone [must] die." His outbursts continued with such intensity that a physician was unable to calm him, despite administering large doses of medication. After another two full days of raging, Red West, his friend and bodyguard, felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing
Presley was becoming increasingly unwell. Twice during the year he overdosed on barbiturates, spending three days in a coma in his hotel suite after the first incident. Toward the end of 1973, he was hospitalized, semicomatose from the side effects of Demerol addiction. According to his main physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Presley "felt that by getting [pills] from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something off the street. He ... thought that as far as medications and drugs went, there was something for everything."
his failing health
Presley's condition seems to have declined precipitously.
"He fell out of the limousine, to his knees. People jumped to help, and he pushed them away like, 'Don't help me.' He walked on stage and held onto the mike for the first thirty minutes like it was a post. Everybody's looking at each other like, Is the tour gonna happen?"
"He was all gut. He was slurring. He was so fucked up. ... It was obvious he was drugged. It was obvious there was something terribly wrong with his body. It was so bad the words to the songs were barely intelligible. ... I remember crying. He could barely get through the introductions"
"I watched him in his dressing room, just draped over a chair, unable to move. So often I thought, 'Boss, why don't you just cancel this tour and take a year off...?' I mentioned something once in a guarded moment. He patted me on the back and said, 'It'll be all right. Don't you worry about it.'"
he was now widely seen as a garish pop crooner: "in effect he had become Liberace. Even his fans were now middle-aged matrons and blue-haired grandmothers."
some suggest the singer was too cowardly to face the three himself.
Presley's drug dependency
his interest in spending time in the studio waned
the recording process was now a struggle for him
"If he felt the way he sounded", Dave Marsh wrote of Presley's performance, "the wonder isn't that he had only a year left to live but that he managed to survive that long."
"Elvis Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self. Hugely overweight, his mind dulled by the pharmacopoeia he daily ingested, he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts."
In Alexandria, Louisiana, the singer was on stage for less than an hour and "was impossible to understand".
In Baton Rouge, Presley failed to appear: he was unable to get out of his hotel bed, and the rest of the tour was cancelled.
accelerating deterioration of his health
In Rapid City, South Dakota, "he was so nervous on stage that he could hardly talk", according to Presley historian Samuel Roy. "He was undoubtedly painfully aware of how he looked, and [that he] could not perform any significant movement."
fans "were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment, but it all seemed to go right past Elvis, whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his spiritualism books."
gripped by paranoid obsessions that reminded Smith of Howard Hughes
the first exposé to detail Presley's years of drug misuse
he "was devastated by the book. Here were his close friends who had written serious stuff that would affect his life. He felt betrayed. [But] what they wrote was true."
he suffered from multiple ailments—glaucoma, high blood pressure, liver damage, and an enlarged colon, each aggravated, and possibly caused, by drug abuse
addiction to painkillers
his voice was "variable and unpredictable" at the bottom
"Drug use was heavily implicated" in Presley's death
A pair of lab reports filed two months later each strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death; one reported "fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity."
"In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis's name."
there is little doubt that polypharmacy contributed significantly to Presley's premature death.
many white adults, according to Billboard's Arnold Shaw, "did not like him, and condemned him as depraved. Anti-negro prejudice doubtless figured in adult antagonism. Regardless of whether parents were aware of the Negro sexual origins of the phrase 'rock 'n' roll', Presley impressed them as the visual and aural embodiment of sex."
a rumor spread in mid-1957 that he had at some point announced, "The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes."
Though the rumored remark was wholly discredited at the time, it was still being used against Presley decades later.
The identification of Presley with racism—either personally or symbolically—was expressed most famously in the lyrics of the 1989 rap hit "Fight the Power", by Public Enemy: "Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me / Straight-up racist that sucker was / Simple and plain."
resentment over the fact that Presley, whose musical and visual performance idiom owed much to African American sources, achieved the cultural acknowledgment and commercial success largely denied his black peers.
Respected songwriters lost interest in or simply avoided writing for Presley because of the requirement that they surrender a third of their usual royalties.
"Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it."
Presley had no feel for business
any ambitions the singer may have had to play such parts were thwarted by his manager's negotiating demands or flat refusals
"the process known as Elvis Presley"
"Surrounded by the[ir] parasitic presence", as journalist John Harris puts it, "it was no wonder that as he slid into addiction and torpor, no-one raised the alarm: to them, Elvis was the bank, and it had to remain open."
"But we all knew it was hopeless because Elvis was surrounded by that little circle of people ... all those so-called friends".
"If we hadn't been around, he would have been dead a lot earlier."
"no one knows how lonely I get. And how empty I really feel."
"rumor had it that into his skin-tight jeans was sewn a lead bar to suggest a weapon of heroic proportions.'"
a boyhood friend of Presley's who claims the singer used a cardboard toilet roll tube to make it "look to the girls up front like he had one helluva thing there inside his pants."
Ed Sullivan's declaration that he perceived a soda bottle in Presley's trousers during his earlier television appearances
"a peculiar feminised, objectifying version of white working-class masculinity as aggressive sexual display.”
choose his dating partners with publicity in mind
most of these relationships were insubstantial
"All the talentless impersonators and appalling black velvet paintings on display can make him seem little more than a perverse and distant memory."
So you once again ignore the point being made. And nice twist of an argument! I say the game's up that you're playing, and you tell me I was playing the game! Now that is interesting. Rikstar40917:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Rikstar, you are the Wikipedian who is talking about a game being played. I do not understand my well-sourced contributions as part of a game. Onefortyone (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Elvis and Probation
Hello and good day. I want to raise a concern that your recent behavior on the Elvis FAC and surrounding pages is skating dangerously close to the behavior that landed you at ArbCom and has gotten you blocked several times. In particular:
Making unsourced claims such as "Elvis’s music wasn’t favored by the middle and upper-class youth" and advocating for their inclusion in the article.
What are you talking about. All of my contributions are well sourced. One of these sources emphasizes that new Hollywood heroes such as Presley “became important models for rebellious young men from working and lower middle-class milieus”, whereas the group identity of highly educated middle- to upper-class youth was more “based upon cultural consumption and physical styles that advertised the fact that they - unlike their ‘social inferiors’ decked out in leather jackets and jeans - enjoyed elevated European-style tastes.” See [240]. Onefortyone (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Asking for sourced claims to be removed from the article.
I have only asked for the revision of a passage including the questionable claim that Elvis, in 1956, was the most famous person in the world. Onefortyone (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Canvassing and asking known opposition to come to the FAC page.
While I won't take administrative action because of my involvement at the FAC, I won't hesitate to seek to have you banned from the Elvis FAC page and from the main article if you persist. You've made your position known—please limit further commentary to concise objections based on reliable sources. Longer rants that include your interpretation of various sources are inappropriate. Also, please stop the canvassing immediately. --Andy Walsh(talk)16:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your scare tactics are very interesting. However, much more significant are DocKino's recent personal attacks against me on the Elvis talk page. See [241]. I have not yet seen some kind of excuse for these unjustified attacks. For several years I have been the target of attacks by lots of Elvis fans, simply because I have a more critical view of the singer. Some of these fans even took me to arbitration, that’s true, but they were all banned by arbcom decision, because my “editing has substantially improved” in comparison to some of my earliest contributions. As the arbcom says: “A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content. To a greater extent he allows the reader to draw their own conclusions.” Arbcom member Sam Blacketer even says, “his more recent additions appear to be reliably sourced .... While the talk page can get heated at times, I am very reluctant to sanction an editor merely because they happen to be in a minority.” Onefortyone (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for responding. Rather than deflecting the conversation to someone else's behavior, I'd prefer you address your own. I acknowledge that a portion of your edits, or even a majority of your edits are reasonable. It's the ones that are not that are problematic. If you believe there is a problem with DocKino's behavior, I encourage you to raise the matter at the appropriate venues. Also, I'm not trying to "scare" you, I'm trying to let you know that we would all like to coexist in this project and on that FAC page without enduring these unseemly battles. --Andy Walsh(talk)01:51, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can see, there is a current content dispute. My argument is that the Elvis article has not yet reached featured article status because some of the points I have raised have not sufficiently been addressed. That's all. Onefortyone (talk) 02:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My wish for future Elvis-article
Sorry for my late reaction. My wish is more reality and less fansite-talking. I am an Elvis-fan, but I don't think of Elvis as a pioneer, because Chuck Berry and Little Richard had more influence than him. I just think that Elvis was just being a great singer and a good actor. Nothing more than that, nothing less than that. Oh, and by the way, someone told me that Elvis was a movie-fan, and that he liked Rebel Without A Cause, The French Connection and Monty Python. Is this true? Maybe you can tell something about it in the article. IGG8998 (talk) 08:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a group of editors at Talk:Elvis Presley appear to be stonewalling the inclusion of this cause of death theory with the spurious claim that Elvis personal physician can be totally discounted, I think perhaps the time as come to make a request for comments to the Wikipedia community at large. See also Wikipedia:Dispute resolution requests for more on the various means available for dispute resolution assistance. __meco (talk) 23:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are right in your opinion, Meco. The attitudes of the other users speak volumes. Here are some interesting discussions of Nichopoulos's book I found on the internet: [242], [243], [244]. See also this source provided by administrator Fred Bauder. Onefortyone (talk) 13:00, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The ex-doctor's self-serving opinion on Elvis' death could be considered for the article, provided you balance it with sources making the ex-doctor's checkered situation crystal clear, so that the readers won't place undue weight on the ex-doctor's opinion. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 14:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Given your repeated attempts to force WP:OR and poorly-sourced rumours into the Elvis article, and the fact that has already resulted in actions being taken against you, I presume you are well aware of the possible consequences. I will ask you one time, and one time only to restore the collapsing of the talk page section that you have recently reverted. Should you not do this within a reasonable time period, I intend to raise the issue at AN/I and ask that you be permanently topic banned from all articles relating to Elvis. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:01, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are either joking, or you are unaware of the fact that the accusations of some Elvis fans are unsupported, as all of my contributions are well sourced. I am an Elvis expert, but for several years I have been the target of attacks by lots of Elvis fans, simply because I have a more critical view of the singer. Some of these fans even took me to arbitration, but they were all banned by arbcom decision, because, according to this arbcom case, my “editing has substantially improved” in comparison to some of my earliest contributions. As the arbcom says: “A sampling of edits shows reference to reliable sources without overstating of their content. To a greater extent he allows the reader to draw their own conclusions.” Arbcom member Sam Blacketer says, “his more recent additions appear to be reliably sourced .... While the talk page can get heated at times, I am very reluctant to sanction an editor merely because they happen to be in a minority.” As for Elvis's identification with the Jews, I have provided several reliable sources. Onefortyone (talk) 00:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that you do not respond to DocKino's name calling. Answering with facts or citations will be much more effective. Perhaps you could list a count of how many editors are supporting your view vs how many oppose? Steve Pastor (talk) 22:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Go ahead and post all pertinent information. We'll see where we are eventually, as far as what other editors think, based on the information presented. Steve Pastor (talk) 01:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First thing I did was see when that eBook was published, because some of it sounded VERY familiar. I was able to look at the references, and wikipedia articles, including my edits, are the main source!!! So, this one doesn't work. Be sure to read Elvisfan's comments on the Elvis/Perkins sound bite. While I agree that the sound changes, it could have merely been Elvis leaning closer to the mike to address the comment to Sam Phillips. I should let ElvisFan know. Have more items to add now that I got back to this whole issue. Steve Pastor (talk) 01:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Warning: Pattern of personal attacks
Please do not attack other editors, as you did at Elvis Presley. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. Keep your personal aspersions out of edit summaries. Further such behavior could well get you blocked.—DCGeist (talk) 21:26, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not attack other editors, as you did on User talk:Steve Pastor. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Your personal attack on me is no less a personal attack just because you made it on the Talk page of a third party. If you continue this behavior, you will most definitely be blocked.—DCGeist (talk) 21:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
DocKino RFC
Thanks for weighing in. While I think we should just stick to the uncivil edit summaries at that RFC and reserve the question of sockpuppetry for another discussion, your comments certainly got me thinking. I had one interaction with DCGeist back in August 2010 on the Sound film article. A section of the article had referred to a Western (genre) movie called "Points West" as an "oater." I replaced "oater" with "Western", saying in my edit summary there was no need to use such an arcane term when a more generally understood one was readily available. DCGeist reverted the edit with the summary "restore--avoid off-echo with "West", five capped words in a row; term is era-appropriate and linked for those unfamiliar". I reverted his revert, saying " link to "Western" doesn't mention oater, & multiple capitalization not a concern". He rereverted, saying "try again: we're not having "Western 'Points West'"." "We're not having" - can anyone say "page ownership? I went to the Talk page to discuss. Mentioned I could not find a working definition of "off-echo", and that any concerns about that or multiple capitalization were subordinate to distracting the reader by using such an arcane term. DCGeist piped in with "I'm sorry you're confused by "oater" and "off-echo". I'll make this simple: "Western 'Points West'" sounds bad. It's poor writing. If you find "oater" intolerable, you will have to think harder about recasting the sentence." Fortunately three other people weighed in and totally agreed with me that "oater" had to go, and no one agreed with him, so it didn't go any further, however, so many similarities between DCGeist and DocKino - being overly pedantic about how the text is phrased, as well as edit warring (for which DocKino has been warned many times) because of it, condescending, derisive edit summaries and talk page comments. Of course, I am sure there are a lot of people who show that behavior pattern, but it is worth looking into. Mmyers1976 (talk) 16:14, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi 141. I just noticed that the "diff" you added HERE is not actually a diff. It is a link to a thread started by DK, but it isn't the actual diff. At RfC, Users are asked to supply actual diffs rather than links to whole articles or Talk pages. I suggest you replace the link with the diff. Regards. Dolphin(t)02:38, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that the page was nominated in error, contest the nomination by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" in the speedy deletion tag. Doing so will take you to the talk page where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but do not hesitate to add information that is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Eeekster (talk) 02:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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Resumed disruption of celebrity related articles
Checking your talk page for a while, I have found that you have been warned infinite times by many users to stop disrupting the celebrity articles with your obsessive thoughts about their sexuality and relationships, furthermore it seems like you went ahead of it when you made these few edits [246][247] recently. None of your quotes are actually backed by the author that you have asserted, nor they are mainstream enough to present as fact. I caught your attention from other article but after checking your recent edit history as well as the talk pages, I am only seeing you edit warring for the content that has been long disapproved on talk pages by other editors on these same articles[248][249][250] where I have recently removed your mass amount of gossip synthesis, solely published on gossip forums.
You are wrong. All of my edits are well sourced. The only problem is that some Elvis fans do not like what is written in these sources, among them well-known Elvis biographies and academic studies. Onefortyone (talk) 22:43, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Before reverting you on these few articles, I had spent considerable time in verifying your edits myself, also counted that how many times they have been removed, and I realize that your editing becoming far more disruptive than what I had assumed. Typically, it can be said that you have simply edit warred too much during so many years, after you got reverted on these articles and you have tendentiously reinserted the defective material whenever you saw your opposition inactive on wikipedia. If we have to talk about the credibility of your material, we don't have to go very far, just need to read this most recent edit that you have made by using a source from 1995, and it is not even citing "Graceland" anywhere. Graceland is still second though.[252]
I admit that I hadn't checked a few of your edits that closely when I was reverting, such as those of Nick Adams, Presley, when I was reverting you, later I had no doubt that you have been using either false or self published trash for false information, such as [253], using a source The Gossip Columnist,[254] and your edits on other three articles are based on these useless sources. After that I looked into this more and found that my reversions of his edits your correct, at first I thought that you are following the IP's edit history and indeed trolling (calling fair edits a "vandalism"), although soon after visiting your talk page I found that you have been a long term disruptive editor of these articles. Already mentioned above, that you never had consensus for these edits either.
I have probably wasted time in typing this out, because your usual tactic is to ignore all warnings. Having a look above at your talk page. It is full of warnings from Laser brain, AndyTheGrump, User:Baseball Bugs, DCGeist and some other editors in just five years and you have done nothing other than ignoring them and continuing your disruption.
In short words, these authors use sentences like "Nick, who was also rumored to be bisexual", where as you are simply considering them to be fact enough to edit war over them. Many popular celebrities and people like even Lincoln, Hitler, Gandhi, Washington, were "rumored" to be bisexual, does it means that we should feed such gossips?
Your statements are an exercise in WP:I just don’t like it. We should base our arguments upon what independent sources say, not upon our personal likes and dislikes. I have cited several independent sources, among them mainstream Elvis biographies and academic studies. Dakota's book is important, as he was an eye-witness, who worked for Nick Adams. You have deleted content because you don't like what these sources say. However, content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view, based on published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered. Your personal opinion is unimportant. You may not like the content, but if it is well sourced, it generally carries more weight on Wikipedia than your personal opinion. Therefore, I do not accept your recent edits, as these edits have only removed well-sourced content that is not in line with your personal opinion. Onefortyone (talk) 21:58, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not going to be applied if removal involves content that has violated policy itself. Neutral point of view doesn't means that you get to add both facts and misconceptions/lies at once. Canvassing[255][256] is not going to help your case either. Excelse (talk) 10:54, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Query: did user Excelse present irrefutable arguments for his massive removals of content? No, he didn't. Where are his reliable sources contradicting my edits? I have cited many independent sources supporting my view. And this is what counts on Wikipedia, not the personal opinions of some Elvis fans. Just one example. Concerning the death of Elvis, according to many independent sources there can be no doubt that the singer died while using the toilet in his bathroom. Here is a clear statement by Greil Marcus from his study, Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession (Harvard University Press 1991): "Elvis died on the toilet" (p.154). Some other sources:
Dylan Jones, Elvis Has Left the Building: The Day the King Died (New York and London 2014), chapter 2: "The Day Elvis Died: "Elvis Presley died aged fortytwo on August 16th, 1977, in the bathroom of the star's own Graceland mansion in Memphis. Sitting on the toilet, he had toppled like a toy soldier and collapsed onto the floor, where he lay in a pool of his own vomit. His light blue pyjamas were around his ankles."
Joel Williamson, Elvis Presley: A Southern Life (Oxford University Press 2015): "For some reason—perhaps involving a reaction to the codeine and attempts to move his bowels—he experienced pain and fright while sitting on the toilet. Alarmed, he stood up, dropped the book he was reading, stumbled forward, and fell face down in the fetal position. He struggled weakly and drooled on the rug. Unable to breathe, he died." (p.18)
Alanna Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia (1995): "BILLY SMITH: ... we never really wanted to say this, but Elvis was actually sitting on the toilet, with his pajama bottoms down. His colon was bothering him. And he fell over, and, best I understand, he crawled several feet. So this was not an instantaneous death. Or a painless one. They know that from all these little hemorrhages he had from the waist up, where the blood vessels had burst after he fell. That goes along with a drug death." (p.719)
Victor Pross, "Elvis Presley: Universal Rock Icon", in Icons & Idols: Pop Goes the Culture (Bloomington, IN 2009): "Elvis Presley died, at age 42, in 1977 in Memphis. It was an ignominious tumble off a toilet into a pool of vomit, but it heralded perhaps the most glorious resurrection in pop culture history." (p.11)
Joel Williamson, "Graceland", in William E. Leuchtenburg, American Places: Encounters with History (Oxford University Press 2000): "It was … a wall-to-wall red rug in an upstairs bathroom with threeinch pile in which Elvis died face down, having risen from his reputedly wallhung black ceramic toilet with a seat padded in imitation black leather and having collapsed in the proximity of teddy bears, empty syringes, and an illustrated book of Asian derivasion that coordinated the birth dates of men and women with certain cosmically optimal sexual positions."
Frank Coffey, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Elvis (1997): "Hospital officials present at the autopsy later admitted that Elvis died from polypharmacy— multiple drug ingestion. Other examinations of the evidence have yielded other plausible causes of Elvis' death, including: a phenomenon called the Valsalva maneuver (essentially straining on the toilet leading to heart stoppage — plausible because Elvis suffered constipation, a common reaction to drug use); anaphylactic shock (caused by either an extreme allergic reaction or reaction to potent — i.e., street — drugs); even suffocation (after blacking out) on the thick carpeting of his bathroom." (p.247)
Charles Reagan Wilson, "The Death of Southern Heroes: Historic Funerals of the South," Southern Cultures, Volume 1 (Duke University Press, Fall 1994), p.17: "Presley died at Graceland of massive drug abuse that led to heart failure while he sat on the toilet reading a book on the Shroud of Turin. He was discovered face down on the plush red carpet."
Joshua A. Perper and Stephen J. Cina, When Doctors Kill: Who, Why, and How (Springer Science 2010): "Most sources indicate that Elvis was likely sitting in the toilet area, partially nude, and reading when he collapsed." (p.211)
John Voelz, King Me (Littleton, CO 2010): "I was a kid when The King died on his throne. On August 16th, 1977, Elvis Presley died in his Graceland mansion. On the toilet. Well, on the floor. After he fell off the toilet. Not a very “kingly” way to go." (p.10).
Warren Allen Smith, Who's who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-theists (Barricade Books 2000): "Two who literally died 'on the throne', as the toilet stool is sometimes called, were singers Judy Garland and Elvis Presley." (p.1098)
Last but not least, here is what reputed Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick says about Elvis's death at Graceland:
The only thing that appeared to have been missed, aside from the empty syringes, was the book that Elvis had in the bathroom with him when he died, a study of sex and psychic energy that correlated sexual positions with astrological signs. Warlick found a stain on the bathroom carpeting, too, that seemed to indicate where Elvis had thrown up after being stricken, apparently while seated on the toilet. It looked to the medical investigator as if he had "stumbled or crawled several feet before he died." ... nine pathologists from Baptist cond acted the examination in full knowledge that the world was watching but that the results would be released to Elvis' father alone. ... Francisco announced the results of the autopsy, even as the autopsy was still going on. Death, he said, was "due to cardiac arrhythmia due to undetermined heartbeat." ... But there were in fact at that time no results to report. The autopsy proper went on for another couple of hours. Specimens were collected and carefully preserved, the internal organs were examined and the heart found to be enlarged, a significant amount of coronary atherosclerosis was observed, the liver showed considerable damage, and the large intestine was clogged with fecal matter, indicating a painful and longstanding bowel condition. The bowel condition alone would have strongly suggested to the doctors what by now they had every reason to suspect from Elvis' hospital history, the observed liver damage, and abundant anecdotal evidence: that drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease who had been "mobile and functional within eight hours of his death." It was certainly possible that he had been taken while "straining at stool," and no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to have had a mild allergy of long standing. The pathologists, however, were satisfied to wait for the lab results, which they were confident would overrule Dr. Francisco's precipitate, and somewhat meaningless, announcement, as indeed they eventually did. There was little disagreement in fact between the two principal laboratory reports and analyses filed two months later, with each stating a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy, and the BioScience Laboratories report, initially filed under the patient name of "Ethel Moore," indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity. Codeine appeared at ten times the therapeutic level, methaqualone (Quaalude) in an arguably toxic amount, three other drugs appeared to be on the borderline of toxicity taken in and of themselves, and "the combined effect of the central nervous system depressants and the codeine" had to be given heavy consideration. See Peter Guralnick, Careless Love:The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (1999), pp.651-652.
I have not yet seen Excelse citing reliable sources that contradict these views from mainstream biographies of Elvis and academic studies. But he has removed well-sourced content. Onefortyone (talk) 19:53, 7 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
A new Ted Wilkes seems to have reappeared on the scene
It seems that a new vandal, this time from India, has started new edit wars, removing well-sourced content primarily from Elvis-related articles. See [257][258][259]. However, the tendency of their contributions is all too visible. Onefortyone (talk) 23:42, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Mentioned
A user has complained about your recent edits of Presley-related articles at User talk:EdJohnston#Onefortyone. You can respond there if you wish.
I also take note that you are still subject to an article probation remedy from 2005. There was an arbitration case at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Onefortyone. You were placed on probation regarding biographies of celebrities. "He may be banned from any article or talk page relating to a celebrity which he disrupts by aggressively attempting to insert poorly sourced information or original research." You'll be well advised to be sure you get consensus for any controversial changes to Presley-related articles. I note that people have also been blocked for making incorrect charges of vandalism, so you should be careful on using that word. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:11, 5 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This arbitration enforcement warning is in response to this AE request which related to the probation on which you were placed, it may be appealed by following the process here. You are warned that even if you believe that other editors are acting inappropriately it is never acceptable to make personal attacks ([260][261]) and inappropriately labelling edits as vandalism or inappropriately labelling editors as vandals ([262][263]). You are also warned that any further edit warring ([264][265][266][267]) will result in sanctions unless clearly covered by an exemption. Your use of Wikipedia as a forum[268] is also ill-advised and should be avoided. You are explicitly warned that any further misconduct in the Elvis Presley topic area (not limited to what is described here) will likely result in an indefinite topic ban and/or a block. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 05:46, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, Onefortyone. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
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