Talk:Victor Lewis-Smith

message: I only just found out he left the Standard 3 years ago and being from Scotland I have limited access to his writing. Does anyone know what he's doing now? Thanks...Trip2themoon (talk) 03:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where'd he go? 

message: A brief perusal of the edit history indicates clear malice, emanating probably from someone who has been on the receiving end of a VLS review, or (I am fairly sure) the subject of one of his documentaries.  The clues are all there!!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clemmywemmy (talk • contribs) 18:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malice 

message: Thank you so much to the anonymous editor above for demonstrating so very precisely  the issue I raise about malice on VLS' pages.  I too invite an experienced editor to analyse the above author's activities, because it's obviously been infecting the main article and talk pages for many years.   If anyone is a sockpuppet, it is the author of the above.  Actually socktroll might be a better word.
I have BINNED (aka removed) the links to unpublished primary  sources which are un- wikpedian for a biography of a living  person. 
Revisits (presumably in the hope of eventual reinsertion) of tendentious quotes  from ancient newspaper gossip columns (also un-wikipedian and probably sold  to newspapers  by the very editor who sites them)  and the revisiting of a fictional VLS biography which was  supposed to be published  in 2006 (and whose “authors” links have been blocked by numerous contributors)  is absurd.  Also  dredged up are the worst extracts from bad reviews (without balance provided), and  a whole load of weasel words. Talk pages are not lavatory walls to be scribbled on by the  disgruntled.   Vandalism is vandalism however eloquent.  
By the way, while I admire his writing, I am no apologist  for VLS.  I am currently  writing a book about  British journalists,  and his entry will be far from flattering (though it will be fair) and its footnotes will include accurate and detailed biographical details.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clemmywemmy (talk • contribs) 13:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  CALM DOWN DEAR, IT'S ONLY A WIKIPEDIA PAGE! 

message: So are we to assume that the previous two editors (who it seems have been amending this wikipedia entry for some time according to their own personal agendas) are none other than Benjamin Pell and Victor Lewis-Smith?
Certainly User:Clemmywemmy seems to be accusing the previous author of being Benjamin Pell and if User:Clemmywemmy is not Lewis-Smith then he's doing a very good impression of him (and incidentally amending this entry to resemble a well-crafted resume at the same time.)
If you are both who you appear to be please have the decency to identify yourselves as such, or better still follow the wikipedia NPOV and COI policies and leave the editing of this entry to those who don't have either an axe to grind or a career to promote. (Thimblywimbly (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Will the real Lewis-Smith please stand up? 

message: Coming back to this article after a long break I see someone has inserted another wrong birth date into the article, as usual without any references. A confirmed sockpuppet removed the text below from this Talk page but it's helpful in dealing with the birthday:-
::An anonymous editor has recently repeatedly tried to insert a Sheffield 1960 birth date into the article. This has been repeatedly removed, no doubt because it is unsourced (early versions of this page have another unsourced birth year of 1961 – also removed). In fact Victor Lewis Smith was born plain Victor Smith (his mother Norma’s maiden name of Lewis being added later) on 12 May 1957 in Ilford, Essex – see . This suggests the article should in fact be titled Victor Lewis Smith, without the hyphen.
A cross check shows that Victor Smith was born in Ilford on 12 May 1957, son of Geoffrey Smith and Norma Lewis. So I will correct the date in the article. 
Also given that the old nonsense seems to have started again I will now go back through the article's history to see what can be done to improve it. VLSCheck (talk) 13:21, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: We could really use a better source than "someone called Victor L Smith was born to a mother with the surname Lewis on this date". There's nothing in that source to confirm this is the same person as the TV critic. --McGeddon (talk) 13:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad fact 

message: I agree with McGeddon.  The debate about when he was born has gone on for years and I have seen various primary sources pulled out and dropped. VLS seldom gives interviews and those I have seen don't ask his age.  
Use of primary sources contravens the strict Wikipedian rules about BLP. See "Identifying reliable sources". So I remove this current version.   Working in British comedy biography, I have seen documents that suggest that one half of his family is Italian. And I am delving a bit more. I will keep an eye on this entry.  Snickarious (talk) 22:39, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  McGeddon is right 

message: I have been looking into the history of the VLS page.  By any standards, it has been the subject of relentless attack over the years. This talk page alone gives a measure of that.  I also notice that the VLS page was virtually decimated by a contributor who has been subsequently permanently blocked from Wikipedia.  I will attempt to replace some of the material that seems to have been cut in a frenzy.  These critics seem to get a rough Wiki ride and probably from those they have attacked.  It needs looking into.  For example, see the history of AA Gill's page!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gavelboy (talk • contribs) 12:47, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Who Would be a Critic?

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Victor Lewis-Smith. 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/20070930220727/http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article156747.ece to http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article156747.ece
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 01:37, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Someone keeps adding unsourced material, not mentioned in the article, to the lead. And then reverting when it is (correctly) removed. 
Please use appropriate secondary sources (as per Wikipedia editing norms); provide the reference for anything you add; include such material first in the main article; and then summarise in the lead. Thank you.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.62.177 (talk) 17:48, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced in lead 

message: Looking at the edit history of the VLS entry over the years, he's obviously been subjected to vandalism and more ominously his considerable body of work has been airbrushed out. Where's all the Radio 4 stuff? Radio 1? Dozens of TV and Radio programmes that are just not mentioned?  He was a TV critic and I see spiteful revenge editing here.  I'll try to address that in the coming months.  This very page is littered with sideswipes. Schitterend (talk) 19:10, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about his body of work ? 

message: Here we go again. This person is clearly controversial, strong views in favour, strong views against. The edit history of this article is bumpy. 
He’s also a known hoaxer with a history of false names (nothing controversial here, he boasts repeatedly of this throughout his career). He has a notable interest in Wikipedia, both in terms of mucking about (sockpuppets, “funny” edits) and of course he’s particularly intetested in this article.
If Gavelboy - who mainly edits this article - is getting busy with new material, we can expect more disruption as this triggers responses. Admins might like to keep an eye on this and I’ll try and copy this alert on an appropriate noticeboard. 95.146.83.181 (talk) 11:37, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Sigh

message: His Twitter account - @tvoffal - went quiet in 2019 and all now seems to have been deleted. But some of his Tweets have been archived here (and elsewhere on the Wayback Machine):-
https://web.archive.org/web/20180715000000*/Twitter.com/tvoffal
Just in case this might be useful for those who want to work on improving the article. 
31.124.106.107 (talk) 15:06, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tweets