Talk:Ivan Massow

message: I have made some adjustments to this article, as I suspect that again this is Ivan's self publication at hand. I was a close friend of James (Jamie) Knight for many years before he met Ivan, we grew up together in the same area, I loved Jamie, and do to this day. Ivan caused great offense to many of Jamie's friends, his death was a great and terrible shock, the grief a suicide causes to friends, but more importantly to family, is the greatest of sadnesses. Jamie was only with Ivan for a matter of months, not as the article pertains a 'long term boyfriend'. Ivan excluded Jamie's friends from his life, he was, we felt, too good for us. Jamie was already in an extremely vulnerable situation before he met Ivan, and in the FEW SHGORT MONTHS he was with him, we found it almost impossible to see him. When he died, Ivan hijacked the funeral, where we found ourselves excluded at the back of the church. We had utterly no say in the proceedings. At his parents home, Jamie's mother asked another great friend of Jamies to make a speech next to a tree that we planted in the family garden for Jamie. In the middle of this speech, Ivan, (unable to handle the fact that Jamie actually had a history and a life before he met him), stormed off saying 'there's a time and a place for this'!!!!! Saying that we were disgusted, at a moment of such grief, emotion and sensitivity, would be an understatement. To read into this behaviour, it's obvious that Ivan could not handle the fact that Jamie actually had real relationships outside of his, albeit very short one, with Ivan. In the years after Jamie's death, Ivan constantly publicised his grief over Jamie in the media, and caused even more offense by stating that Jamie had been found in a pool of blood where he died. This was certifiably and utterly untrue. To me, Ivan is a Walter Mitty type character, strangely soulless. I'll never forget the insult he handed us over Jamie, and I hope that he reads this.--Bouphos (talk) 03:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This article could do with gutting. It harps on far too much about Massow's "good looks" and "charisma", both of which are debateable. Despite his ALLEGED benefits to the gay community (that seemed to benefit himself more than anyone else), Massow was also got a lot of bad press for being a Tory.79.66.119.207 (talk) 16:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Looks? Charisma?

message: I have essentially gutted the article, a virtually unsalvageable, inchoate mass of original research, subjective commentary, uncorrected vandalism, BLP violations, and likely accurate but thoroughly unsourced factual claims.  It shouldn't be very difficult for editors generally familiar with the subjects involved to expand the article in compliance with applicable policies, but given the long time that the utterly unacceptable text was allowed to stnad, that wasn't likely to happen without some drastic prodding. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 15:41, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  August 2009 

message: Here is a suggested new wording for the business career section (part of the hopefully now finished edit-warring):
Despite massive publicity, Massow Financial Services was not financially successful, recording a £700,000 loss in 1998-99 and £465,777 the following year, and in 2000 it was merged with another prominent gay IFA firm, Rainbow Finance of Oxford, run by Louis Letourneau, with expectations that turnover would rise from £2M per annum to over £3M, but the merged firm went out of business within one year. Massow's salary was £245,768 in 2000 and £387,000 in 1999.One-time political golden boy saves his ailing firm. Daily Telegraph, 6 October 2001. Massow bought the business back from the Receiver with Letourneau claiming that the merger had happened after Massow had endured two years of heavy loses and that he had been made a scapegoat for Massow's failures.
Between 2003 and 2004 Massow was Director of another financial adviser firm, this time a tied agent of the Zurich Advice Network (previously Allied Dunbar), but that too ended in acrimony after predictable problems arose in underwriting for insurance the gay clients in which  Massow specialised. Massow accepted £330,000 in order to become an agent for the firm in a move that was seen as an about-turn at the time as he had previously campaigned against what he saw as Allied Dunbar's anti-gay underwriting practices. A long legal case followed which, ultimately, Massow lost.The fall and rise of Ivan Massow. The Guardian, 2 September 2011.
-  does anyone have any objections? Or parts they'd like added? Fayedizard (talk) 11:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The last section could do with a bit of rewording. Why were the problems that arose "predictable"? Who saw his move as an about turn? Valenciano (talk) 11:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

text: I would perhaps consider changing "Despite massive publicity" to "Despite significant publicity" - it is more measured. Also the string of words comprising "in a move dispute previously campaigning against what he saw as.." is difficult to unravel, in fact I can't work out what it means. On a general note please remember that originally you were going to let the unsourced version of the article stand just for a couple of hours - that period has long passed. I am concerned that LisaThorne has made no attempt to engage in this discussion, and am of the view that she may not engage as long as the article version is one that she is happy with. Please put up the new text, amended slightly if need be - it is all sourced. If LisaThorne has objections, she should comment here, not just revert as before. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 23:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Re the section that you can't unravel, I would suspect it's a simple typo and "dispute" should be "despite." So the sentence should read: "Massow accepted £330,000 in order to become an agent for the firm despite previously campaigning..." On the wider point, I agree with readding this section. Valenciano (talk) 00:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

text: That's no problem - it's a steep learning curve and nobody expects perfect first time (or at all) - your input on the art section would be really good. But we also need to talk about reliable sources - everything on wikipedia should be traceable to another source so that *anyone* can check the facts of the case for themselves.  This is particularly the case for Biographies of living people (which this is) - so if you'd like to add something, then the easiest way of doing so is to provide an online source.  And some sources are better than others - so we might trust a persons personal website for things like date-of-birth but we'd want any business based facts to be from established media outlets (BBC is good, so are a bunch of the papers) - sourcing something from Massow himself isn't actually helpful - because nobody can check it. You can see below that Pale has provided a bunch of links that might come in handy. Fayedizard (talk) 15:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: As just above - it's because they are not sourced. If you can find reliable sources for them, I'll happily put them in myself :) Fayedizard (talk) 15:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

text: I've removed the line that detailed losses made by Massow's company at the end of the 1990s; although sourced, I thought that perhaps it wasn't balanced to only give figures for 2 years - there might have been profits in other years, but the article doesn't (yet) detail other years. However there is an argument for re-inserting the information in a slightly different place - after Letourneau's comment about the losses - where it is relevant. I've also made a few other tweaks that I think give the text a more neutral tone. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 16:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good to me :) Fayedizard (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested new wording for business career. 

message: New references to be used in this contentious article can be placed below. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 23:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  New references for use in the article 

message: As per buisness section - Suggested wording for art section:
In 1999, Massow became Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In January 2002, he wrote an article in New Statesman magazine attacking the predominance of conceptual art in the art world. He described modern concept art as "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and "the product of over-indulged, middle-class [...], bloated egos who patronise real people with fake understanding". He called the ICA a "pillar of the shock establishment". He attacked Tracey Emin saying she "couldn't think her way out of a paper bag".
In February 2002, Massow resigned as Chairman of the ICA, after the baord unamiously asked him to resign.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1801503.stm One board member describing him as "a little bit of a pillock" and speculation that Massow had deliberately been as provocative as possible in order to engineer his own sacking.ICA fires chairman over 'tat' art jibe. The Guradian, 5 February 2002. He has described the art world as "bitchy and superficial", although he claims to actually like much conceptual art and claims he spoke out in order to redress the imbalance between the promotion of conceptual and more traditional art in the British art scene.
How do we feel? Fayedizard (talk) 11:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd suggest removing the bit about one board member describing him as a pillock. It doesn't add anything. I'd suggest the amended text below, also please note that the last two guardian refs are the same so we'd need to amend the ref template accordingly. Valenciano (talk) 12:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

text: That latest version looks good to me. I've made a couple of tiny format tweaks. SmartSE (talk) 14:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

text: This works best if you can give us the wording you think should be added, and sources that support the wording (also if you'd like to work on the Ekow Eshun article then I'd encourage you to do so). Fayedizard (talk) 15:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It might be helpful if the article elaborates a little on what happened between Massow becoming Chairman and his leaving. Something like: "In 1999, Massow became Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. He was brought in by Director Philip Dodd to increase sponsorship and patronage for the organisation. The working relationship between Massow and Dodd was not wholly successful,http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jan/30/fiachragibbons a situation that worsened when in January 2002 Massow wrote an article in New Statesman magazine...." This might help establish a bit of background to his leaving. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:22, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be happy with that - feel free to pop the whole thing into the article... Fayedizard (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just included a cited quote from Massow in this section, a quote that slightly softens his criticism of Tracey Emin - I thought it was good not to just reel off his criticisms of the art world without a bit of insight into his perspective on what he himself said, thus balancing the quote from Ekow Eshun. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Art