Talk:F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

message: (moved from  User talk: Tvoz)
As the manager of Nitrateville, an international discussion site for silent and early sound film, I think I can say with confidence that there is NO ONE in the archivist, teaching, scholarly, or collector world who believes the late F., Gwynplaine Macintyre's claims of having seen so many lost silent and early sound films in the hands of some mysterious collector.  It is quite obvious that he worked from contemporary accounts... not least because he occasionally repeated their errors.  I understand that the foregoing is not, in itself, evidence, though as usual Wikipedia's sense of what IS evidence is curious (when Lokke Heiss, a prominent figure in the field, says it on Nitrateville it's not good enough for you, but when Thomas Gladysz, another prominent figure in the field who has also posted on Nitrateville, says it on his own blog, it is, somehow).  But okay, we accept that Wikipedia has its own eccentric standards.
But the Macintyre page was at a reasonable point that gave the casual reader a fair sense of what reality is.  It read: 
"Many silent film critics and fans believe the reviews to be elaborate jokes, others have accused MacIntyre of muddying the historical record by publishing fake reviews."
This is indisputably true.  If you won't accept the thread with Lokke Heiss in it as evidence of the claim that his reviews were bogus, at the very least it is prima facie evidence that PEOPLE IN THE FIELD believe them to be bogus.
But that wasn't good enough for you.  You changed it to: 
"Some silent film critics and fans believe the reviews to be elaborate jokes, others have accused MacIntyre of muddying the historical record by publishing fake reviews, although they have no actual evidence of this."
First of all, this is wrong.  People have cited examples of Macintyre getting details wrong in the same way as contemporary reviews: http://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?p=39461#39461 (read the next two as well)
But more than that, it's an absurd standard of proof that injects your own bias into the equation.  "Some have accused Barack Obama of being a secret socialist, although they have no actual evidence of this."  Well, they might and they might not, but in any case, it doesn't affect the truth of the first statement, which is that some HAVE accused him of that, rightly or wrongly.  You're taking a fact (lots of people think Macintyre's reviews are crap) and inserting your own view (you can't prove he didn't see films no one else can see under circumstances that sound more like a cheap mystery thriller than reality!)
The question is, why are you so determined to cover for Macintyre's fraud?  I'm not saying Wikipedia has to make a judgement that his reviews were fraudulent, can't it simply reflect, accurately, the universal belief in knowledgable circles that they were?Mgmax (talk) 00:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: My bias?  The "universal belief in knowledgable circles"? Really, your out of control comments suggest that you are not an objective editor on  this topic. Unlike you, I have no dog in this fight - I am merely looking at the sources and trying to keep the POV commentary out of there. With all due respect, your site, Nitrateville, is a discussion board, not what we consider to be a reliable source.  The Louise Brooks Society blog, provided by some other editor as a source, is only marginally better, but also a weak source.  The whole matter of whether or not he wrote the film reviews - which you added to the article - is speculative and probably none of that speculation should be in there, but since the veracity of the reviews has been raised, I was willing to say that some critics have raised questions, but I now am inclined to remove the whole comment.  I actually don't see reliable sourcing to support "many", or "universal" or any evidence to support your belief that his reviews were fraudulent.  I don't claim to know one way or the other, but I am not the one with a POV on this - I'm afraid you are. And I am not the only editor who has reverted your POV additions.  So please stop accusing me of "covering for his fraud" and commenting disparagingly about my editing - if you are interested in improving the encyclopedia, try doing it with less attitude and more civility.  Your way is not going to work. Tvoz/talk 04:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are you perpetuating F. Gwynplaine Macintyre's falsehoods? 

message: This is replying to the person above who accuses FGMacIntyre of "self-hagiography" and a "shameless" inaccuracy. MacIntyre did not write his own Wikipedia entry: _I_ did. I attended his writing course at 2Kon (Glasgow, 2000). MacIntyre gave me some solid info on how to break into professional publishing, and soon afterward I made my first pro sale. I asked FGMacIntyre for a list of his publication credits, and I used that as the basis for his Wikipedia entry without his knowledge. When I met MacIntyre again later at the NASFiC, I showed him a printout of his Wikipedia bio. He asked me to delete about half the information, but didn't say why.
The NYTimes _did_ interview MacIntyre, referring to a letter he wrote in their July 24, 2005 issue. (I had to look up that date.) Did anybody here ever write a letter to the New York Times? They have a fact-checking department that's so thorough it even verifies letters to the editor. You have to include a phone number with your letter, or they won't consider publishing it. FGMacIntyre wrote a letter to the NYTimes that they wanted to publish, but first they wanted more information. Someone from their Editorial department phoned him and asked him questions for 27 minutes so they could verify what was in his letter. MacIntyre showed me his phone logs, which he saves -- I verified the following: (1) in early July 2005 he received a lengthy phone call from the New York Times, (2) the phone call came from their Editorial department, not the Circulation department (so they weren't phoning him to sell him a subscription). Now if the New York Times phones somebody and asks him questions for 27 minutes I would definitely describe that as an "interview". But if you think there's something "shameless" here please take notice that I wrote FGMacIntyre's Wikipedia entry without his knowledge until afterward. Any misstatement is my error, not his decision. My name is Steven Davies and I will always be thankful to Mr. MacIntyre for helping me get published.Evensteven99 (talk) 08:53, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Not "self-written", interview genuine

message: There are reports circulating among fandom -- see, for instance, http://file770.com/?p=4037 -- that a recent suicide in Brooklyn was F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre.  In particular, there's concern among the SF community based on several posts that "Froggy" (MacIntyre's nickname) made on the online SFF.net discussion boards recently.  (I'm not going to copy/paste the rather lengthy threads here, but anyone with an SFF.net account can find the two threads in the sff.discuss.community-news forum.) SeattleSparks (talk) 16:36, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The police have confirmed that it was him. Should have known, after his last post on SFF.net. --Orange Mike  |  Talk 00:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Not exactly - the body has not yet been positively ID'd.Tvoz/talk 04:41, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Suicide?

message: Why has the information about the extremely unusual materials removed from the crime scene been redacted?? The New York Times is "The Paper of Record" and does not casually go around slandering the recently deceased with false accusations. What was found in this individual's apartment was apparently unusual enough to warrant the graphic description highlighted in the article. Apart from certain small science fiction fan circles this man is now known by the general public primarily as a result of the manner of his suicide/attempted murder and by the extremely odd circumstances of his life and the sexual devices apparently found in his apartment. Surely that is most relevant to this article? 66.65.49.220 (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Not redacted, just removed because it is cherrypicking the most sensational detail out of many, many details in that article, and that is not the way we write articles. There is no demonstration of why anyone thinks this is more notable than anything else mentioned in the source.  And it is only your opinion that the "general public" has in any way focused on the alleged paraphernalia.  The news reports actually focused on the fire and suicide.  And by the way, where does "attempted murder" come from? Tvoz/talk 02:31, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It will be back....not that important to me but the NYT's article and subsequent public revelations about the case will definitely shape general public perception of this man more than his writing ever did. The entire article was about the extremely eccentric nature of this man and the strange life he led behind closed doors. It was most notable for the NYT to highlight such sexual matters and that should tell you that what was found was well beyond the pale. But no matter. As for attempted murder - THE MAN COMMITTED SUICIDE BY SETTING HIS APARTMENT ON FIRE IN A BUILDING INHABITED BY MANY OTHER PEOPLE. Many others would have died were it not for the NYC Fire Department. Enjoy the hagiography.....lol 66.65.49.220 (talk) 13:44, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  You seem to be editing this article with a bias regarding the subject. If indeed other reliable sources surface that highlight this particular matter it might be more appropriate to add to the article. Right now only one source for this has been offered, and we're talking about 13 words out of a 2500+ word newspaper article, mentioned in passing without comment or analysis by the writer of the article. We've included some of the things from that article, but you're pushing this matter of "devices" as more notable than its lack of prominence in the article would suggest and which you haven't justified beyond your own opinion of it.  As for murder, you are jumping to a legal conclusion that may or may not have been made by the police had the person who set the fire survived or been discovered.  I might even agree with that assessment, but right now it's an inflammatory word, pardon the pun, and use of it demonstrates a POV that is noticed.  So I think we wait for more objective, reliable sources before going ahead with this. Tvoz/talk 19:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sexual Paraphilias

message: It is admitted elsewhere on this page that the Wikipedia entry on the late Mr. MacIntyre is largely written by an acolyte of his based on information supplied by Mr. MacIntyre, or more likely, Mr. MacIntyre himself.
It is a matter of public record that MacIntyre's life was marked by significant degrees of self-invention and by internet hoaxing.  No silent film expert takes at all seriously his claims of having seen hundreds of lost films no other film historian has seen, for instance.  (See discussion on Nitrateville or the recent piece by Thomas Gladysz at Salon.)  It's obvious that he was writing pastiches from surviving reviews and publicity.  It is very likely, for that matter, that even his claims of being Scottish, abandoned by his family, a twin, etc. are wholly invented; in a NY Times piece (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/remembrances-of-the-enigmatic-froggy/) there is at least one person who remembers him speaking with a plain New York accent before affecting the Scottish one.  Likewise, it is quite probable that the second paragraph, about working on British TV, is completely invented, and so is the reference to him working on Kosinski's Pinball.  It's an open question whether there's more in this entry that's false than is true.
And yet Wikipedia allows this almost certainly fraudulent account of his life to go unchallenged; a single sentence of "caveat emptor" I added today was promptly removed by someone.  ("But because of his long career as an internet hoaxer (notably his many "reviews" of lost films on the Internet Movie Database), almost no facts about his life other than his known publications can be considered certain, including his country of birth and real name.")  
In short, Wikipedia has been had by a self-aggrandizing fabulist, and is an active participant in continuing his deceptions.  Someone ought to rigorously rewrite this piece drawing only on what can be authoritatively verified by means outside the control of the late Mr. MacIntyre.  Then someone needs to make sure that falsehood doesn't immediately correct the truth back to falsehood.Mgmax (talk) 22:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes - quite agree.....should be pared down to documentable facts regarding the arson/attempted murder, the bizarre sexual materials, and the man's Munchausen-like fabrications. There appears to be a sci-fi internet fan cabal at work here. 66.65.49.220 (talk) 23:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can certainly confirm the fake IMDb reviews: at least six or seven times when I have seen a 'rare' film, I have discovered that a review has already been posted under the name of F.Gwynplaine MacIntyre containing factual errors that make it clear he had never actually seen the picture in question.Igenlode (talk) 01:25, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  MacIntyre's Self-Invention, or: Wikipedia's Been Had 

message: I have removed the line claiming there is no evidence that his reviews are fake.  There is in fact substantial evidence that he wrote fake reviews.  Many of his reviews contain details that are known to be 100% in accurate.  I think it is also very very clear that he wrote much of this article himself.  Since all of the crazy edits that were performed in the past have died with him.
71.52.31.6 (talk) 05:10, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Reviews

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title: Assessment comment

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