Talk:Michelle Ferguson-Cohen

message: If GOOD sources can be found to substantiate some of the claims here, then I have no problem keeping this article.  The problem I have right now, is that the article is making unsubstantiated claims and the sources being used do not reflect what they actually say.  For example the Fay Observer does not substantiate the claim that she is the "the first commercially available childrens books for military brats and the first children's picture books for children coping with deployment."  That is such a ubiquitious description that it is probably true, but it needs a source or it is unverified original research.
"During the first deployments of the Iraq War, Ferguson-Cohen worked with Family Readiness Groups nationwide to host readings of the books and convey coping skills to small children faced with separation from their parents" None of the sources say that.  The sources are all links to list or trivial coverage.  This needs a reliable source---as is, it is pure original research.
"The books were the first commercially published children's picture books for military brats to be presented at the Military Child Education Coalition." This needs a fact and the significance needs to be explained.  
"Her books were recommended by many educational and child development experts." links to lists does not make this so, and reeks of OR.  You need sources to say so.
"Sought out by the press as an expert in the military community"  One of the links belies that assertion, the other doesn't really say anything.
"Ferguson-Cohen consulted with Sesame Workshop encouraging them to create programming and content to help military brats and inform their civilian peers." Again, a source is needed. 
If these claims can be substantiated with verifiable non-trivial sources, then this article might be salvageable.Balloonman (talk) 23:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: I went ahead and withdrew the AfD nomination.  Sbowers3 showed me she might be notable.  I'm not fully convinced of it... but I went ahead and withdrew it to give the article the benefit of the doubt.  Having said that, this article needs cleaned up and at least half of those references need to go!Balloonman (talk) 03:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Withdrawn AfD

message: For example the Fay Observer does not substantiate the claim that she is the "the first commercially available childrens books for military brats and the first children's picture books for children coping with deployment." That is such a ubiquitious description that it is probably true, but it needs a source or it is unverified original research. This feature article was written by an FRG leader who claims that she did not "personally know of any other books" like these before. Because the statement comes from an independently verifiable sources it could work as a citation. Otherwise, I'm not sure how to verify the first claims besides my attempts at disproving them. Since you value Amazon as a source, I have used Amazon and some library catalogues as research. I don't know that this would be conclusive, but it's the best I can do to attempt verification:
* The first children's picture books for children coping with deployment: In fact, the next earliest publishing date I can find with a book about that topic is "A Year Without Dad" which was published in November 2003. The Second Edition of Daddy You're My Hero Paperback was published in Februrary 2003. There are obviously an abundance of books that followed the Daddy, You're My Hero! 2001 original edition publishing date. Which actually bears some fruit to the claim that she "pioneered a trend".
* The first children's picture books to feature a mother as a soldier: There is no other children's picture book with an earlier publishing date. "When Mommy was a Soldier" is the only other children's picture book I can find that shows a mother as a soldier and it was published a month ago in Feb. 2008.
* The first children's picture books for military brats and featuring military brats: Daddy, You're My Hero! may win by a technicality. My 'Daddy is a Soldier' was published in 2001, but not commercially available until 2002 as their publishing company New Canaan didn't exist until then.
* Books for BratsTM is the first children's book series for military brats: I still do not find any other children's book series or brand that is specifically devoted to military brats.
"During the first deployments of the Iraq War, Ferguson-Cohen worked with Family Readiness Groups nationwide to host readings of the books and convey coping skills to small children faced with separation from their parents" None of the sources say that. The sources are all links to list or trivial coverage. This needs a reliable source---as is, it is pure original research. Several of the authors appearances were referenced also there were a number of FRG, AUSA, and other official military newsletters citing the the use of these books for Deployment Resources. I'm not sure how else this can be verified.
"The books were the first commercially published children's picture books for military brats to be presented at the Military Child Education Coalition." This needs a fact and the significance needs to be explained. I have not found any source to verify this.
"Her books were recommended by many educational and child development experts." links to lists does not make this so, and reeks of OR. You need sources to say so. List of recommended resources by psychologists, medical professionals and library journals is precisely a written recommendation of the books.
"Sought out by the press as an expert in the military community" One of the links belies that assertion, the other doesn't really say anything. I'm not really sure how to verify this. She was interviewed as an expert for the Parenting radio show which is a civilian show. I'm unsure if you don't count the Fox News referenced feature on military moms and mother's day.
"Ferguson-Cohen consulted with Sesame Workshop encouraging them to create programming and content to help military brats and inform their civilian peers." Again, a source is needed. Found no source for this statement.
If these claims can be substantiated with verifiable non-trivial sources, then this article might be salvageable.Balloonman (talk) 23:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't read the entire post above (about to go home for the day) but regarding the comments about her books being the first to do something.  Again, it may be true, but in order to include it on Wikipedia, you have to show it from an independent source.  (EG Michelle/BooksforBrats or another source that is using her press releases isn't a reliable source on this claim.)  Likewise, your research, is not reliable it violates one of the core policies of wikipedia---no original research.Balloonman (talk) 22:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: Comment: This was originally posted on JSane's talk page
FYI: IP address 72.229.10.154 is also me. Sometimes I get logged out, but that is my IP address, so it's not related to the author. I can't vouch for the other IP address I'm afraid. Looks like it's in Atlanta or Florida. --JSane (talk) 19:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope you don't mind this clarification, it not meant to be hostile, but the posts that Hu hit you with are part of some standard templates. Hu12 possibly is unaware of AfD/discussions going on around this subject, but saw the multiple links that were added and appear to be spam and as part of some clean up patrol. Thus he tagged your page with some generic templates that address some questions/concerns that he might have because he doesn't know if you have a COI or not. Excessive linking is frowned upon.Balloonman (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Looking at the post above a little closer, there apparently is a bot (short for robot---electronic tool) that tries to identify accounts that may have COI issues based upon their edit history. Using that bot, Hu12 somehow tagged this article as one which may have COI issues based upon some algorythm. It probably hit the bots radar because of your recent additions of various links---and based upon taht it probably checked your edit history (and those of the other three accounts) and discovered that those accounts only edit on an extremely narrow band of articles.Balloonman (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: THANK YOU for your helpful response! So I was just trying to fix an article and contributed too much and now I made it worse, huh? After seeing this, I got curious about these claims and I went back in the history to see what the other COI "spams" were and after looking at the contributions from the Booksforbrats username and other Anon Address I see that Booksforbrats started the article in 2007 and appears to have been on the site one other time a month later. I use the term 'article' loosely, was about two paragraphs with no references or citiations. However, since then several of those contributions have either been deleted or verified by other editors, except the 'Sesame Workshop' statement in question and the claim she established the series to "encourage pride in the term Military Brat". So unless, those can be verified, I'd be fine with deleting them. The Anon IP address appears to have made one contribution. Editing the categories to include the author as a Military Brat. --JSane (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Follow-up comments---1) cross posting is often frowned upon, but if you are going to, it is best to indicate where it came from.  Some people get very touchy about their posts being cross posted elsewhere---especially, when they are unaware of it---even in benign situations such as this.  2) If you are going to copy text, it is best to copy it from the edit mode.  That way you capture any links or details that might be missed.  For example, when you copied text to Sbowers3 page, you missed the link that was included in the text.Balloonman (talk) 22:43, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Conflict of Interest

message: In my opinion, this article makes a better case for establishing the notability of the person's works than herself.  It's curious in the extreme to me that there are apparently no articles on the books themselves, as they are the typical focus of the majority of references currently employed by the article.  Since she is called the "Dr. Suess for military brats", it might be useful to compare and contrast this article with Dr. Suess.  Even though a sliver of notability has been attached to the books, by pointing out they are recommended by some local mental health professionals, it might be useful to note that the books themselves appear to be of minimal importance to the publishing industry, unlike the works of Dr. Suess.
We need to ask and answer the question, "How much notability attaches to a person whose major contribution is two books that are 12 pages each?"  Then we need to assess the impact of those 24 pages.  One measure that this article currently ignores is some objective determination of sales strength.  One way of doing this with books that are long past the heyday of their original issue dates, is to take a look at the Amazon.com Sales Ranking  
*Daddy, You're My Hero has an Amazon.com Sales Rank of #2,286,916 in its (long out of print) paperback form, while it's hardbound 1st edition sits at #338,977 and the 2d edition at #1,107,927.
*Mommy, You're My Hero has an Amazon.com Sales Rank of #1,845,943 for its paperback form, with #751,496 for its only hardbound edition to date. 
::::::Amazon is not a notability standard. However, please use accurate numbers instead of rankings for out of print editions and reference where you got these numbers. In addition,you are referencing the sales ranking incorrectly in terms of its import to sales, particularly for an early education title. These numbers are simply wrong for the most recent editions of the books and do not reflect the sales of the books. Please search Amazon more carefully. You will also note the Daddy, You're My Hero title is currently sold out.--JSane (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not significant there is no library binding of a work published by a small press, particularly one available in most educational and library catalogues. It's also not relevant to compare every children's book authors sales to Dr. Seuss' on Wiki. That is not a Wiki standard nor a publishing standard. --JSane (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Your comments suggest that any content geared toward a minority population is not relevant or notable by Wiki standards. I would disagree with your assessment and find it too narrow particularly in the world of literature. --JSane (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Our job is to debate notability by Wiki standards which has already been done. I question your objectivity based on this statement. You seem personally upset that the author of children's books meant for military brats is the topic of this article. Please reference your statement about "comercially mediocre". Citations are required. It is certainly within your rights to feel we should not be 'expending energy' here, but if you feel that way I'm not sure why you spent so much time writing this derogatory post. --JSane (talk) 08:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

text: After a long Wiki-break, I find it hard to believe this mess is still going on. It's becoming clear, people without any interest in or knowledge about publishing or children's books are going after this author for some political reason. I have scoured Wiki's children's book authors and have found this article to be one of the best citedI've encountered.
* First of all, the author was called "Dr. Suess for Military Brats" by the press and a citable reference to the Washington Times has been noted.
* Secondly, if we're going to compare this children's book author's notability to Dr. Seuss, in order to be objective, we must do the very same for all other children's book author on Wiki. These are not Wiki's standards for notability.
* Furthermore, if you're going to use Amazon numbers, please use numbers from a current edition of a book. This book is in its third edition, which is a pretty good indication in publishing circles of a success. You have to sells tens of thousands generally to ensure this event in the publishing world. If you to quote sales rankings from Amazon as a standard for notability, yet you use the rankings from a old and discontinued editions. It makes no sense. Also, your concept of sales vs. rankings in terms of publishing success, make no sense. You are making a leap about book sales and Amazon sales rankings that don't make sense particulary for educational texts. This book is often sold as an educational text and through non-profit organizations and FRGs. Those sales are not indicated via Amazon. If you are going to engage in judging a book by publishing success, please educate yourself on the matter first.
* Why don't you compare this article to other articles on children's book authors in Wiki? If you had done your research, you would see this author is fairly substantial in terms of cited references and press commentary.
* Furthermore, the publishing world has acknowledged this is not a "fairly narrow population" at this stage, with almost 2 million military brats out there and major publishers as well as the Children's Workshop creating content for this market. That sounds like a personal assessment, rather than the assessment of the publishing world.
* The relevance of these books is that they were pioneers in books specifically created for military brats. Military Brats and deployment did not exist only during the Gulf War. This is a viable and important community that has heretofore been neglected in the publishing world. The children's book world also acknowledges pioneers of books written for Native American children and children of gay parents (see above).
* You attack the notability of the author based on the fact that there is no Spanish edition of her books. If this is a standard by which we are now judging all children's book authors on Wiki, that needs to be established as a policy.
* The author's notability was not confirmed based on any "awards" in fact, the awards were deleted from the article prior to it's acceptance to "keep". They were included again as a reference, since they were the first children's books to receive a military writers' award.
* I'm confused about the reference to a 24-page book "series" what does that mean? The book series includes two books that are board books for children. I think if you are going to reference publishing terms as defense for your claiming the books are viable, then please use them correctly.
* If you believe an article on the book series is relevant as you claim, I suggest you start one. I will be happy to contribute, as I'm sure will others with an interest in this area. 
This post shows an incredibly lack of objectivity. I have great difficulty seeing how any of the standards by which this Czech person is judging this article is relevant to any other Wiki article or any Wiki article on a children's book author. If they are suggesting that these are the new standards by which all children's book authors be judged on notability and we change the policy on notability, that is another story. For some reason everytime a reference or citation or source is added here that helps the article or defends a statement, it is summmarily removed. That is not objective editing.
--JSane (talk) 06:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on your standards vs. Wiki's this children's book author Leslea Newman is also not notable. Her only award is from a niche community and the audience of gay mother's would not be considered a large enough audience for you. The books Amazon ranking has ranged from 100,000 to 2,000,000 depending on the day or edition. I HEARTILY disagree with you on your assessment and believe that Leslea Newman and Michelle Ferguson-Cohen are both notable authors. --JSane (talk) 06:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

text:  Always a voice of reason Sbowers3 :) Perhaps "attack" was a bit strong. I'm just wondering what the point and motivation of this post was. There seem to be few relevant arguments about actual sourced information in the article, and how many times are we going to do this notability and COI debate? --JSane (talk) 03:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objectively analyzing notability 

message: Okay, there's a long answer to the original comment. Here's a short answer. The analysis of Dr. Seuss vis-a-vis Ferguson-Cohen is original research and so not relevant. What is relevant is that a reliable source drew the analogy to Dr. Seuss. The subject has more than enough references to demonstrate notability, without overanalyzing the Dr. Seuss comparison.
And JSane, "attack" is much too strong a word to describe CzechOut's comments. He asked a legitimate question. I doubt that he came here with any kind of a "political" agenda. Many Wikipedians wander around and comment about all sorts of things they happen to run across. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Always a voice of reason Sbowers3 :) Perhaps "attack" was a bit strong. I'm just wondering what the point and motivation of this post was. There seem to be few relevant arguments about actual sourced information in the article, and how many times are we going to do this notability and COI debate? --JSane (talk) 03:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Short answer

message: Removed Military History tag as article is out of scope. --dashiellx (talk) 01:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Michelle Ferguson-Cohen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080318234318/http://www.fayobserver.com:80/article?id=254810 to http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=254810
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080104172724/http://lifetransformed.org:80/publicity.aspx to http://lifetransformed.org/publicity.aspx
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070507210238/http://www.bragg.army.mil:80/AFVC-A/FRG/DeploymentResources.doc to http://www.bragg.army.mil/AFVC-A/FRG/DeploymentResources.doc
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080120001900/http://home.kc.rr.com:80/milhmschlhq/military_deployment.htm to http://home.kc.rr.com/milhmschlhq/military_deployment.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 18:23, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Michelle Ferguson-Cohen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110714110901/http://www.moguard.com/FamilyReadiness/modules/DownloadFile.asp?DocITEM=190 to http://www.moguard.com/FamilyReadiness/modules/DownloadFile.asp?DocITEM=190
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110720000058/http://4h.missouri.edu/go/programs/military/manual/communitypartnersguide.pdf to http://4h.missouri.edu/go/programs/military/manual/communitypartnersguide.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Michelle Ferguson-Cohen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=254810
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080318141912/http://www.yuma.army.mil/garrison/sites/directorates/mwr/acs-deployment-readiness.htm to http://www.yuma.army.mil/garrison/sites/directorates/mwr/acs-deployment-readiness.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 13:04, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Michelle Ferguson-Cohen. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added  tag to http://www.bookcatcher.com/news/news-123106-01.php
*Added  tag to http://www.bookcatcher.com/news/news-123106-01.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120210164841/http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/content/1604.cfm to http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/content/1604.cfm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080828022956/http://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200701/BTJAllen.asp to http://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200701/BTJAllen.asp
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070913045941/http://www.nmfa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=books_for_children to http://www.nmfa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=books_for_children
*Added  tag to http://www.mrdad.com/store/radio.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 11:17, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified