User talk:WWB Too/Steve Scully

Initial comments

• Two sources are unfamiliar to me, and I'm wondering if they meet WP:RS--specifically, #1, FishbowlDC, and #10, CableFax. Can you tell me a little more about these. I know this isn't exactly fair, but the formatting on FishbowlDC looks a lot more like a blog than like a reliable media outlet with a trustworthy editorial board. However, I could very much be wrong. Do you have any info about those sources? The first Fishbowl DC only covers his date of birth, losing it would not be too tragic (that's not critical info). And on CabelFax, in my opinion the statement it's linked to could remain even without a cite--it's not a very controversial statement to explain how the class was aired, and even local television listings must exist that could in principle verify it (even if they're not actually available).
• Personally, I don't like giving the names of children except when those children have themselves been discussed in reliable sources; for me, it crosses WP:BLPPRIVACY. Others disagree though, so I won't push the issue, but personally I'd rather see that sentence state "They have four children, one of whom was adopted".
• In the Background, I would remove the phrase, "briefly debated becoming a lawyer"--that feels trivial and gossipy to me.
• In the WHCA section, do we need the sentence, "Until her death, Scully's mother accompanied him to most WHCA dinners throughout the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama.[4]"? This feels very "human interest" to me, and not very encyclopedic. There's no policy-based reason to remove it--it is covered in a reliable source, but to me it feels out of place, almost WP:UNDUE, because it's info about his mother, not him. But I could be persuaded otherwise.

Let me know your thoughts on these; as I said on the WIkiproject: Cooperation page, the rest looks like a substantial improvement over the current article. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:35, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

If you don't mind me commenting just on point number one, and i'll leave the article formatting and content issues to WWB. CableFAX is a cable television trade industry magazine that has a fair number of readers (considering it is a trade magazine) and has an editorial board. See the About page.

As for Fish Bowl DC. Yes, it is a blog, one of the blogs under Mediabistro.com, written by media professionals. The writer in this case, Betsy Rothstein, is an accomplished journalist (mainly gossip journalism, but hey) who was an editor for The Hill for a significant number of years. So, she would essentially count as an "expert" in the sense that she is an accomplished journalist, so you can trust her for basic information like this. Silverseren^C 06:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a good enough answer for me! Seems like the sourcing is all good, then. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• Silver is exactly right on Fishbowl and CableFAX; the funny thing about Fishbowl is that it fairly well establishes his birthday, but not necessarily his birth date. Although it strongly implies 2010 was his fiftieth, and this matches up with the year already in the article, I placed the citation next to the "September 17" rather than the "1960". A reliable third-party source may well exist somewhere (though I couldn't find it) but it doesn't seem to be a disputed point.
• I took out the sentence about Mr. Scully considering a legal career; on reflection, I agree that it isn't necessary.
• It so happens Mr. Scully's children are discussed by name in the newspaper article provided for the section. This includes his deceased children, which are important as the basis for his public involvement in organizations fighting SIDS.
• I'd like to make the case for retaining the bit about taking his mother to WHCA dinners. I think it speaks to how he conducts himself in his professional career—he was the one who brought her, after all—and of all the "color" I removed from the current article, this one seemed to me the least out-of-place. But I'm open to other opinions. WWB Too (talk) 16:00, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I know my position on children's names is a bit off of consensus, so it can stay. And on his mother...well...after I make the move, I'll start a section on the article's talk page--it's a borderline issue, and since it's in the current version of the article, that implies at least one other editor agrees. I'm going to perform the move now. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)