Talk:Bennett Salvatore

NPOV

This article clearly has a negative slant on Mr. Salvatore. Needs to be re-worked or it should be deleted. RyguyMN 05:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

And one year later, nothing appears to have changed. This article is basically an attack page by a Mavericks fan who is frustrated with Salvatore's calls. There is no reason the article should immediately start out by mentioning his criminal record. Also, the sentence "Salvatore has a history of making bad calls against the Mavericks" pretty speaks for itself for what the author intends this article to be about. I'm tagging this article for now, but will try to neutralize it later. Bash Kash (talk) 16:29, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

It is true that the line "Salvatore has a history of making bad calls against the Mavericks" is subjective, but that's what NBA writer Eddie Sefko of the DMN says in his story. He covers the NBA for a living and is paid to be neutral and he wrote that in his story. The game from this season was officially protested by the Mavs and involved Salvatore. And keep in mind, Salvatore is notable but is very little information on him other than what we have. Why is he notable? Because of his history with the Mavs. You can deny this all you want, but that is what people who watch the NBA know him for and millions of people watch the NBA. Sure, it's not fair that his criminal record is. Well, when you look up OJ Simpson, the murder is mentioned first over his star football career and acting career. Why? Because the vast majority of people are not criminals in society. And Salvatore is. And by the way, I am not even a Mavs fan, I don't root for any NBA team. My goal is to bring transparency to this man's life, but other people have other agendas.

I don't know why the wikipedia people are trying to pretend this man's past. This is what he is known for. Period. If you have more positive info on him, I am all for it but to deny what this man's identity is plain wrong. Santvenk (talk) 22:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

You make some very good points. I agree that we should mention what he has been criticized for, but it needs to be presented in a neutral way. See WP:NPOV. If we want to say "Salvatore has a history of making bad calls against the Mavericks", then it has to be from a neutral source. From the Mavericks' POV (point-of-view), he indeed has made many bad calls. However, his calls were probably considered "good" to whatever team they were facing. If you want to ensure that a source is neutral, I wouldn't go for someone that writes for The Dallas Morning News. Try ESPN or something like that. However, you can still cite Sefko if you attribute it properly. For example, something like, "according to Dallas Morning News writer Eddie Sefko, Salvatore has often made questionable calls against the Mavericks." Simply stating this as fact is not neutral, but something more like, "from the Mavericks' fans perspective..." goes more in accordance to Wikipedia policy.

The reason why I objected to mentioning his criminal record right at the top is because as you mentioned, he is mostly famous for his role as an NBA official. See WP:MOS, we typically don't mention info that he isn't mostly known for in the intro. Notice that there is nothing about Chris Webber's legal troubles in the first three paragraphs. This is because he is most famous for being a basketball player.

My only "agenda" is to ensure that no article on Wikipedia leans towards a certain POV, and that we follow NPOV. This is the goal of most Wikipedians. Bash Kash (talk) 01:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. It's incorrect to say "from a Mavericks' fans perspective" when discussing this man's calls because people like Bill Simmons and Roland Beech who have studied and commented about this aren't Mavs fans. Even a fan of the other team wouldn't call Salvatore's decisions "good" - he or she would refer to them as "favorable." There is a distinction there. A bad call is a bad call. Is there a gray area, is there judgment involved? Sure. It's when those judgments fall far outside of the norm that it becomes a problem.

Second point. Sefko is neutral. He is not a Mavericks fan, for sure. To label him as a non-neutral observer is wrong. And he has been on the beat for close to a decade. E-mail and ask him whether he roots for the Mavs, he will tell you - he is at esefko@dallasnews.com.

Fair point that the arrest should be below Salvatore's history as an official. Also a fair point that there isn't positive information or tangible information in general on his officiating. What I would say to that is this is precisely the reason we cannot give him the benefit of the doubt. The NBA provides no information on officials to the general public. Now compare that to the English Premier League, which does provide accounts of the calls that its referees make. There's an issue of transparency here.

That's why the story citing Salvatore bringing in his "secret" video evidence of why he is correct is interesting. The league has always insisted it has an "internal" process of reviewing calls by officials. Anybody can view the video on that link, look at the statements by Salvatore and judge for themselves whether he is credible or not.

Anyway, I agree it should be re-written. It should include the names of the other referees also caught de-frauding the league as well, to be complete. But I don't have faith in peoples' agendas here. Wikipedia is OK, but there are a lot of bad entries as well. I am not worried about them, but I want this entry to be correct, however. Santvenk (talk) 23:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any of Bill Simmons' and Roland Beech's articles cited, could you please provide me some of the links of their opinions on Salvatore?

I see your point on the term "bad call", but I'd also like to point out that Sefko himself never actually uses it. Instead, he sates that Salvatore "has a history of controversy with the Mavericks." This is more neutral than saying that he has a history of making bad calls against the Mavericks. The sentence in this article ("He has been heavily criticized by Mark Cuban and Bill Simmons following his role in the 2006 NBA Finals and for other previous incidents") is NPOV and encyclopedic as well.

Perhaps we can add the info his criminal record near the bottom of the article. I would also like to point out that nothing needs to be changed with the second paragraph. I agree that the video evidence part is interesting. Hopefully we're close to coming to a compromise, and we can lay the "agenda" thing to rest.

Bash Kash (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is the link to an article in which Simmons calls Salvatore the second-worst referee in the NBA. Near the bottom of this, he has a paragraph on other "bad games" officiated by Salvatore. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060620

Here is Roland Beech's analysis of the refereeing of Game 5 of the 2006 NBA Finals: http://82games.com/game5refs.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Santvenk (talk • contribs) 15:11, 26 February 2008 (UTC) I forgot to sign this so this is my signature. Santvenk (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll give you Simmons, but Beech doesn't appear to be credible at all. The SF Weekly describes him as "a skinny 35-year-old who spends his days staring at arcane basketball statistics in Excel spreadsheets." ([1]) I'm going to make some edits to this article for neutrality only, if you have any objections, feel free to revert me. Bash Kash (talk) 01:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't understand how that above description disqualifies someone. What if he was a "fat 44-year-old?" Why must wikipedia disqualify people based on age or weight? That doesn't make sense. See, this is what I meant about agendas. The same article you cited also has these words "there is as much quantified information about the National Basketball Association here, on a small computer humming beneath a kid's crayon drawing, as anywhere outside the league itself. This is the home of Beech's NBA Web site, 82games.com, which tracks the season in obsessive statistical detail, down to the kind of abstruse metrics that pro basketball has thus far overlooked, underused, or entirely ignored." Based on this, it sounds like he is ahead of the curve and certainly an expert. Santvenk (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess the fact that I haven't gotten a response as to why a writer's reference to someone as a "skinny 35-year-old" is grounds for discrimination simply means that my previous point was correct. It is a shame that people don't recognize their own biases when editing these pages. The bottom line is that Roland Beech knows his stuff, no matter whether he is white or black, skinny or fat, young or old. And the previous sentence is something I don't want to debate, about whether it is right to discriminate people on the basis of race, body type or age. Santvenk (talk) 03:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't need to respond, another user has already written everything relevant to Roland Beech and 82games.com in the section below (titled "Article Content"). Please read it. Bash Kash (talk) 06:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Article Content

The second paragraph is a joke and written. First, replay clearly showed that Josh Howard motioned for a time out on two occasions, walking away from the foul line and toward the bench after his initial signaling. Second, the current article makes reference to a 'notable study' at 82games.com. To my knowledge, the individual who conducted that study (Roland Beech) is not a current or former official, nor does he have any training as such that would place him in a position to accurately judge the veracity of a call and have his 'findings' submitted as undisputed fact. Beech, himself, comments on it being an inexact science, remarking at one point:

Did the officiating in game five have more "iffy/bad calls" than is typical? My impression having watched a zillion NBA games is yes, my statistical evidence for believing this, having done this exercise of grading each call in a game precisely once, is non-existent!

It's a fan's attempt to provide his opinion on a highly subjective matter and nowhere near gospel. As far as tagging the game 'one of the most controversial in recent NBA history', that comes across as hyberbole and I doubt there's a running tally on this type of thing.

The only parts that are of any substanitive worth are those account that Salvatore is a NBA official and his income tax issues. This paragraph needs to be pared down considerably, if not deleted in full. Rattlesnake7 21:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

More

The Sefko article says "Yes, Dirk Nowitzki pushed Dwyane Wade in the back, but the referee's call with 1.9 seconds left in overtime of Game 5 still sent Mark Cuban and the Mavericks into a hissy-fit." Therefore, I am removing him as one of the criticizers from the article. Bash Kash (talk) 06:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

More

Mavericks have a history with this referee. Coach Johnson ejected from Nov. 23, 2007 game vs. Indiana and fined $25,000. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90779/90870/6310894.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Let me give you guys the signature, sorry Santvenk (talk) 19:54, 9 February 2009 (UTC) Santvenk (talk • contribs) 19:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)