Talk:Tale Ognenovski/Signed Articles/Stevan Ognenovski/Archive 1

Tale Ognenovski/Signed Articles/Stevan Ognenovski

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Unencyclopaedic

This page is currently problematic; it reads more like an advertisement. I have categorised it in the hope someone will improve it. John Stephenson 04:12, 6 August 2007 (CDT)

I don't believe the page is salvageable. I think it needs to be deleted and rewritten by someone without a vested interest in lionizing the performer. In fact, I can't seem to find any independent confirmation of notability. Michael Scott Cuthbert 22:14, 6 August 2007 (CDT)

Since there is a lot of information here, but the page itself is inappropriate in terms of style and bias, I think it qualifies for 'Cold Storage'. I will move it there. John Stephenson 02:26, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Done - see CZ:Cold_Storage/Tale_Ognenovski; Cold Storage articles are not editable. John Stephenson 02:34, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! Doing more research, there are some independent sources establishing notability, but nothing that supports the grandiose claims (greatest clarinetist, bagpiper, etc., in history) throughout the article. Rough Guide to World Music says that some of his compositions have become standards in Macedonia and that he was influential on the post-war sound. The one CD on Amazon is an independent production. Michael Scott Cuthbert 09:44, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Discussion above refers to a previous article which was moved to Cold Storage on 7th August 2007

Biased?

Is the only editor of this article, User:Stevan_Ognenovski, related to Tale Ognenovski? If yes, this article should be rewritten by an unbiased authority on the field of macedonian folk music.

If Mr. Stevan Ognenovski is indeed NOT related to Tale Ognenovski AND if he is an expert on macedonian folk music, then this article has to be reworked into something that can actually be called an encyclopedia article.

I would apreciate clarification from Mr. Stevan Ognenovski regarding this matter.

Thank you, Matthias Röder 17:21, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

A note to clarify that I suggested to Stevan that he could re-upload an article here providing it followed CZ guidelines. Editors/authors should establish how much he has adhered to these. John Stephenson 06:14, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

And yes, Tale Ognenovski is Stevan's father, as indicated on the website mentioned below. John Stephenson 07:59, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

And one more thing; Stevan has published a book on the subject. Although he cannot be completely unbiased as the son of the subject, he probably is something of an authority on him. I don't think this necessarily constitutes a conflict of interest. John Stephenson 08:07, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

Hi John! Thanks for your reply and the clarifications. In my view it is not acceptable to have an article written by the son of the article's subject. Imagine that the New Grove Dictionary had an article on György Ligeti written by his son Lukas. My initial response after reading this article was: this is advertizement and would never be published in any serious dictionary of music or encyclopedia. I suspected that this article was written by a close relative who is not only biased but also has a financial interest in the matter. (The website on Tale that is referred to from the article, features rather prominently links to various online stores that offer a CD with music by Tale. The copyright statement of this CD lists - amongst others - the author of this CZ article: Stevan Ognenovski.)

How do other authors and editors feel about this? Matthias Röder 10:38, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

I think this article, as it presently stands, is unacceptable. But I don't agree that it's impossible, or a breach of ethics, for a relative to write a bio article -- in many cases they naturally have more information available. True, they will have to keep original, unsourced research of out it ("Few people are aware of it, for it was a closely guarded family secret, but President Smith snored so loudly that...etc.), but they also have a legitmate interest in the subject and, if they can write in an objective, unbiased way, I see no reason why they shouldn't contribute. My own uncle, Waldo Peirce, was once a prominent American painter and well-known character. After his death in 1970 he has more or less vanished from the face of the artistic earth. There's an article in WP that I did about him that I am now entirely rewriting for CZ -- the new one will be longer, will have expert appraisals, sources, references, and far more footnotes, and will be somewhat more scholarly. I think it ought to be allowed to stand here, but, of course, if consensus feels I should, I will put it into a draft page for consideration. You can check out the WP article here -- it's been hacked at, of course, by other WP "editors", sigh, but even as it stands, I think it's an acceptable CZ article, with, perhaps, a little judicious editing of some overly colorful adjectives....

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_Peirce

Needless to say, I have no financial interest in anything mentioned in the bio. That, obviously, is a no-no, but, having said that, I think that, overall, there should *not* be a blanket ban on articles written by relatives, or contributed to by them. It should be decided case by case -- I don't think this is an issue that is going to arise very often. Hayford Peirce 11:07, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

I think this issue should be discussed at large by the community. Larry, is there a place on the forums where this issue could be talked about? Matthias Röder 11:19, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

I didn't realize that the author was the son of the subject of the biography. In that case, the son certain stands to benefit from positive words of praise. The article should be moved to the TI: namespace and noted on CZ:Topic Informant Workgroup. The article can be regarded as a contribution to the resource we have to work with, in creating our own article about Tale Ognenovski. But it seems fairly obvious that there is a conflict of interest here. Mind you, we do not wish to drive Stevan away; we want to make him a Topic Informant. --Larry Sanger 10:53, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your comment, Larry. I had no idea that the concept of Topic Informant existed. This seems to be ideal for this case.

It is obvious that Stevan has done a lot of good work with this article and I suspect that substancial sections of his article can be reused in the new version. Our priority now should be to recruit someone who is a specialist on macedonian music to write a new article that incorporated the information provided by Stevan. Matthias Röder 11:15, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

Yep, and I'd like to point out that another possible solution we should consider to the whole business of people using CZ to self-promote is to put their self-promotional material, even unedited (if it meets basic standards), on Signed Articles subpages. --Larry Sanger 11:38, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

Sources for this article

Most of this article has been copied from the following website: http://www.taleognenovski.com.mk/ Matthias Röder 17:21, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

Discussion above ('Biased?' and 'Sources for this article') refers to the article prior to its move to the Topic Informant namespace on 15th August 2007 John Stephenson 21:21, 14 August 2007 (CDT)

However, I think so long as Tale Ognenovski redirects to TI:Tale Ognenovski, questions of bias, lack of sourcing, perspective, etc., are still relevant. Perhaps it would be better to create a short article in the main namespace on Ognenovski which is as editorially neutral as possible and link from there to the TI namespace? I want to compliment Stephen Ognenovski for coming up with a second version of the article which has removed many of the major problems that the first version has. It is a great improvement. Michael Scott Cuthbert 02:32, 16 August 2007 (CDT)

Actually I don't think Tale Ognenovski should redirect at all. The purpose of the TI namespace is to serve as a resource for the TI Workgroup and for topic informants, where they can work together on articles that are then presented in the main namespace. The original conception I had for this namespace was that we could use it to let people to upload interviews and biased article drafts. We defeat this special purpose by simply redirecting material here.

I also think we should probably create a special TI template, to be placed on top of material uploaded in this namespace, that clarifies (in a somewhat similar way the Cold Storage template does) that this isn't an article but rather "source material," created by a Topic Informant, that is being used to construct a Citizendium article. --Larry Sanger 12:49, 16 August 2007 (CDT)