Talk:Louis Lesser

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This article was nominated for deletion on 23 November 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

A fact from Louis Lesser appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 December 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Louis Lesser developed Barrington Plaza, the largest urban renewal project in the western United States under President John F. Kennedy, as well as many of Howard Hughes' properties?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/December.

Wikipedia

Archives

Archive 1

Hoax claim[edit]

This article makes some grandiose claims about Mr. Lesser; as such, one would expect to find all kinds of information about him through a simple Google search. I've searched Google and Bing and found a lot of hits to sites with questionable verifiability. Please see what constitutes a reliable source. KuyaBriBri^Talk 17:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lesser is certainly notable, and is not a hoax, but Please dont drop your skepticism, since there is a lot of VERY weird stuff I am finding online. See below for example. HkFnsNGA (talk) 02:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Craig Lesser inclusions[edit]

All of the material on Craig Lesser should come down unless someone can provide published sources that will support the text. As it is, WP does not allow users to do their own research, see WP:OR. Also, there would need to be some published source to verify that indeed this is the same Craig Lesser. So unless it's a published document, death certificates, or public records are not proper sources for WP David Starr 1 (talk) 23:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You are not correct. 64.134.235.59 (talk) 15:17, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Find some WP:SECONDARY sources and summarize them. Do not use initial court filings, real estate filings, etc. Binksternet (talk) 15:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Louis Lesser death certificate recorded with the LA County recorder was considered a primary source and his death date was deleted. So as long as no newspaper reports it, Louis Lesser remains alive forever here? Use WP:Common sense. 64.134.235.59 (talk) 18:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not assert that Craig is still alive, so that argument is empty. The article does say Craig was the son of Louis Lesser, which will forever be true. Binksternet (talk) 19:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article review[edit]

Almost the entirety of this article is the work of blocked user HkFnsNGA/PPdd, with additions by IP editors that may not have been added to the PPdd sockpuppet list, but which perhaps should have been. Like single-day, single-issue IP editor 67.121.106.205. I've recently been editing a couple of articles by the person behind that account (one his personal puff piece, the other a (deserved, but massively over-the-top) attack piece, and this is the next one on my list.

A big problem with this process is going to be the fact that the reliable sources used in this article have likely only been seen, if indeed they were, by PPdd. Given the lack of rational reporting and honest citing in those other articles, I'm concerned that even where we have a reliable source in this, that it may not say what PPdd says it does. Bromley86 (talk) 13:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Added RfC, biographies. As expected, I'm finding it hard to review the sources as they're paywalled. Nothing wrong with paywalled sources but, as I said, I'm concerned that many will not support the points that they're meant to - for example, the level of his involvement in Barrington Plaza. Not being able to see the sources also makes determining weight very difficult and this article, as with all created by PPdd & co, suffers from severe weight issues. As an example of the level of changes that have been necessary to this editor's work, the articles that I mentioned that I've previously edited are (a)Eric Diesel (this to this) and (b)Pearlasia Gamboa (this to this).

Any ideas on how we should proceed? Bromley86 (talk) 10:18, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: How to review a suspect biography when the sources are paywalled?[edit]

The article was created by someone who's previously used WP to self-promote and who hasn't ensured sources support the points made. What should we do when reliable sources have been used, but are paywalled, thus preventing easy fact checking? Bromley86 (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you can find other reliable sources that aren't paywalled; also You can check the fact anywhere that related to Louis Lesser.--Skky999 (talk) 06:13, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing wrong with using sources hidden beyond a pay wall. You have three choices: pay for the source, find the same source in a free version, or find a similar free source. You can't reject a paywalled source based only on suspicion without evidence, especially when the visible snippets back up the source. If you find a source that contradicts the content of the article, bring it here for discussion. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:57, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Skky999 and Cullen328. I agree that paywalling isn't a reason to reject sources and I'm not suggesting that it be usually done. The issue I have is that the content of the article was added by someone who (a) was in a business partnership with Lesser, (b) has used WP to attack someone (often using sources that didn't actually support the statement made) and (c) has used WP to promote himself, with no regard to weight or neutrality. Given all that, I have concerns about this article on Lesser, who's almost unmentioned on searches other than via WP and a few court cases.

What I've done with his other articles is review the sources and fix the articles. I can't do that here (as I'm not willing to pay for access and there aren't any alternative sources). So the question is, what happens when an article is created that clearly, just from glancing at it, is not correctly weighted and where the only person to review the sources has a history of promoting & not correctly sourcing? Does it just sit on WP in that state forever?

Fuhghettaboutit mentioned using WP:RX; I'll get onto that, but I suspect it won't bear fruit. Bromley86 (talk) 14:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Bromley86: I've never had a real failure when posting to WP:RX. Many volunteers there are librarians and are collectively amazing, only failing upon my many requests there when the sources sought were very obscure. Though I have not investigated what you said at all, and am just stealing a moment while at work, if as you indicate the person who added the sources has clearly been on a campaign and been found to have misused sources for character assassination purposes, then AGF goes out the window (AGF is a default in the absence of knowledge and has no applicability once bad faith is known). Thus, if the sources can't be checked, and what you say is correct and transparent, in my view removal of putatively sourced but negative content in a BLP that can't easily be checked, or even an AfD if the issue is overarching, is not out of the question. But I'm putting my Euros on WP:RX coming through.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:17, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Bromley86: Regarding this, you don't have to go through the trouble of listing each article at WP:RX. I've obtained copies of all the references listed in the article. Please mail me via Special:EmailUser/NQ and I'll reply with the pdfs. Your email is not enabled. - NQ (talk) 02:32, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. You guys are great! Thanks everyone. Bromley86 (talk) 22:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Claims by Lesser[edit]

Just a warning to be a little careful with claims made by Lesser. In this article (LA Times, THE ONLY WAY TO GO---UP, Jun 25, 1963) Lesser claims to have just paid back the $18.6m FHA loan on Barrington Plaza. This seems unlikely, as only a couple of years later there were a series of Congressional investigations into why the government was left with a $21m mortgage on that property. I've included his claims for how big LLE was in 1963, but made it clear that the figures are his estimates, not the LA Times'. Bromley86 (talk) 20:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]