Talk:Mark Hollis

Retired?

The note by the footnote advises us to "search for 'retired'". How? There's no search option on that site, and the word doesn't appear on the front page. We need a better reference than that, or at least a more precise one. 86.136.255.179 04:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Fixed the link. --Kvaks 07:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested move 24 December 2014

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) -- Calidum 07:24, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

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• Mark Hollis (musician) → Mark Hollis
• Mark Hollis → Mark Hollis (disambiguation)

– Most prominent person of the same name. Also, although not extremely well-known, most recognized of the same name. The man who has sung what he has written, especially in the days of Talk Talk. Well, there is Mark Hollis (athlete), but he hasn't outdone the prominence of the musician. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 09:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC) George Ho (talk) 08:06, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose – "most prominent" is hardly an accepted rationale for primarytopic claim. Dicklyon (talk) 04:33, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

• Question - is this Mark Hollis 60-70% of all book references? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Many of them refer to non-notable people of the same name. This "Mark Hollis" has 300+ (or 200+, depending on page accessibility) results. --George Ho (talk) 03:52, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - Given that Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame is David A. Stewart - not Dave Stewart nor David Stewart - the current arrangement seems appropriate for Mark Hollis. Pdfpdf (talk) 05:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Decimated

This page has been cut down more than is reasonable for an artist of this caliber. He may have quit a long time ago but he will always be recognized as one of the greatest vocalists and all-round songwriters in history. The Talk Talk section is ridiculously short. What's going on?

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— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.67.169.35 (talk) 21:13, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

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Reports of Mark's Death

I haven't found anything other than some tweets from people he knew, but it appears that Mark Hollis has passed on. Whateley23 (talk) 19:07, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I've been following this closely and waiting for independent confirmation from a news source. I don't necessarily doubt the veracity of reports—I trust for instance the tweet from The The's verified Twitter account is probably reliable, as I doubt they would tweet something like that without serious reason to believe it is true. But we also don't have a date of death reported or confirmed as of yet. —BLZ · talk 19:19, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

There's a tweet from his cousin-in-law saying about his death. Mark was very reclusive so I doubt we have anything else to go on other than this. Kettleonwater (talk) 19:22, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

NME reports they have contacted "representatives of Mark Hollis" (presumably family) for further detail. —BLZ · talk 19:36, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The NME is usually regarded as a reliable source, and would have checked before publication. Multiple sources online appear to confirm his death, including his cousin Anthony Costello here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the date of his death, this unsourced edit stated 24 February (not 25)... but we need to wait for some official statement before giving a date. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:10, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The Guardian is also still going with "reports say". But then again, where would an official statement come from? His family? He abandoned the music bizz some 20 years ago.... Yintan  22:37, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle: @Brandt Luke Zorn: February 24 or 25? Just wondering, time zones come into this as well. He could have died on the 25th in the UK which could be the 24th in the US, depending on the UK time. Considering the current UK time and the time of the reports, I'd say 25 is a pretty safe bet (and yes, of course, bets aren't encyclopedic, I know). Does Wikipedia has any rules on this? Yintan  22:48, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

You raise good points, but we still don't actually know whether he died on the 24th, the 25th, or possibly even earlier, regardless of additional factors like time zones. It is conceivable that he died on the 24th or earlier with a delay before news of his death was spread—I don't think that's likely but we just don't know yet. It's reasonable to assume he died in the UK, so we will almost certainly use UK time.

I don't know how these things are usually handled when there's temporary uncertainty about an exact date of death, but maybe we should temporarily list his death date as the 25th. We may not know yet whether that is his actual date of death, but we know for certain that he was dead by that date—i.e., there's no possible way he will be alive on the 26th, even though he could have been alive on the 25th, 24th, etc. Later on we can update the date or the source as needed, when/if we get further details that either record his death earlier or confirm it as having occurred on the 25th. How does this sound? —BLZ · talk 00:14, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

We give the date at the place where he died - and until a definite date is confirmed in reliable sources, we simply state the month - with any further explanation in the text as necessary. It is reasonable to assume that he died in February - though of course even that is not necessarily true. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:59, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Death Date

Where did you get his death date from? The first mention I saw that he had died was on 24 February. https://twitter.com/jordmarley/status/1099779602363359235 Dorglorg (talk) 18:43, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

That's interesting. The date was left out of the article for some time as being uncertain - see the thread above - until it was noted that reliable sources like The Guardian and NME - and subsequently other sources - were stating the 25th. They could be wrong, of course, but in my view we publish what reliable sources say until they are corrected. Twitter isn't usually considered a reliable source, but in this case it may have been right. What do other editors like Brandt Luke Zorn think? Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I think given this person said their family knew him, and that he posted this the day before his death was announced, it gives enough credibility for us to change it to February 2019. Dorglorg (talk) 00:32, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

At the moment, I think if the date is removed, it will simply be added back in, as it is given in reliable published sources. If and when those sources give a different date (or no specific date), we should change it in the article. But I'm open to other opinions. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I came across the same Jordmarley tweet which backed up with a family photograph of Mark Hollis back in 1998 does seem justifiable for his date of death being 24th. If these matters are discussed amongst family of a family member passign then these days it is likely that the story will break in these ways.Slimby63 (talk) 14:21, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

The basic problem is that Twitter is not a reliable source in Wikipedia terms, and those news sites that have reported 25 February are. But perhaps we could try something like: "Reports of his death first emerged on 24 February, and were confirmed by his former manager on 26 February..." etc. - and take the specific date out of the lead and infobox. Of course, it could have occurred before 24 Feb. The tweet saying "just heard that Mark Hollis passed away today" could mean either that they heard "today", or that he died "today". Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:31, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I've been offline a few days and am just now seeing this. Dorglorg, I hadn't seen Jordan's tweet before and it's a good find. Judging from a Twitter search of "Mark Hollis", that tweet does seem to be the first credible report of his death, which strongly suggests Hollis died on (or before) February 24. Unfortunately, Ghmyrtle is right that the tweet alone doesn't rise to the level of a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes.

Since I last checked in, a good number of reliable sources have declared February 25 was Mark's day of death—like an obit in NME and an obit in The Times (behind a paywall, but from Google News you can see the sentence "He died of undisclosed causes on February 25, 2019, aged 64"). However, none of these new articles have specifically attributed this new information to a source, like Hollis's family or manager, who would be expected to know this information before it became publicly available. That strongly suggests they're reporting the date his death was announced as his actual date of death. But it's also possible that they are relying on private communications with sources like family or Hollis's manager, or perhaps documents like death certificates (I'm not sure how deaths are recorded in the UK or how easily death certificates can be obtained); it's difficult to say.

As far as Wikipedia goes, at present we should stick to what sources are reporting and list his date of death as 25 February. But Wikipedia aside, as a real human being with my own critical faculties, I feel reasonably confident that 24 February is likely to be his actual date of death—certainly more likely than 25 February, although as Ghmyrtle points out, Jordan's tweet itself contains some latent ambiguity. I've sent an email to NME's news editor bringing the 24 Feb tweet to their attention and indicating the obit may need correction. —BLZ · talk 01:17, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree on this. The only social media I cite is an official account (in Twitter's case, a blue checkmark). If we have sources that state 25th, we should use them, until there are cites to co-oberate 24th. Rusted AutoParts 06:03, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I've also sent messages to the NME and Guardian, asking them to check their sources on the date of death. No response so far. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:10, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

• The German edition of Rolling Stone reported that "[Mark Hollis] died on Monday, 18th February". This is echoed in other reliable German-language news, including the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Rolling Stone is certainly credible, they could have either made a mistake or are the only ones to report the correct date. Lordtobi (✉) 09:38, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe we are not here to determine the truth. The policy WP:VER states: "Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it." I think the only thing we need to do is to provide an overview of dates mentioned by the various sources. I propose something along the lines of: "While 25 (with refs) and 24 February (with refs) have been reported as Hollis' death date, (ref) reported it to have occured on 18 February." Mark in wiki (talk) 09:45, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Ultimately, we should provide the reader with an account as accurate as possible. If a date is disputed, we shouldn't display the disputed date just because two other sources reported it first. I find the note solution acceptable, but outside the note we should only put "February 2019" as the death date. This is, of course, unless we find a definite answer through sources still to be published. Lordtobi (✉) 09:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

(e/c) This is why I think it is best simply to state "February 2019", without a date, until we see some definite confirmation. We know it was certainly not 25th. The "Death" section reports what we do know. I've messaged Sebastian Zabel at Rolling Stone to see if he can provide any information on why he gave 18th in his article, and will report back if I hear anything. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

More than a year later, I still think this needs to be addressed. The infobox and lead show "25 February 2019" as the death date, while the body reads "It was first reported on social media on 24 February 2019, ...". The tweet is ambiguous, but clearly older than the reported death date. We also have two reliable sources (as I pointed out above) mentioning an 18 February death date, outweighing NME. I simplified the mentions to "February 2019" in the article for now, but we should see whether the 18 February date should be used. IceWelder [✉] 00:22, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

A source called "GreyPower Deceased Data", run by Wilmington Millennium, gives 24 February 2019. It's used by Ancestry.com (subscription-only access here), but I'm far from convinced it should be treated as accurate, let alone as a reliable source. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:54, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

As further evidence of the 24 February date, I would point to multiple official filings removing Mark as director of Hollis Songs Limited on 24 February and installing his wife Felicity as replacement 25 February: Companies House SeeOurZed (talk) 18:55, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm confident that 24 February is correct, both from the Companies House source and (after some further thought) the Wilmington Millennium source. Their site says that they have "the UK's leading deceased data files used for compliance, mortality fraud and identity theft prevention", and I'm reasonably confident that they wouldn't be able to claim that without good reason. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:11, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 12 July 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved (non-admin closure) ~SS49~ {talk} 10:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

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• Mark Hollis (musician) → Mark Hollis
• Mark Hollis → Mark Hollis (disambiguation)

– This is the obvious primary topic. The previous move request was dead on arrival because of a peculiarly-written proposal that cited nothing. So here are the facts, for as far back as the page viewer goes (four years now), this page has got 95% of the views for Mark Hollis. All the other pages are very low viewed as well, with daily averages of 26 and 3. So there's no reason to think viewers don't want this page. --Quiz shows 04:55, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Completely agree. It's plainly obvious that this is the primary topic, there's really nothing else to be said about it. —BLZ · talk 05:28, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
• support as aboveCeoil (talk) 10:38, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Even before his death the musician got nearly 75% of pageviews and he has consistantly been the most sought after topic, save for a fleeting surge of interest in the athletic director when he retired in January 2018. Clear primary topic in both usage and significance. PC78 (talk) 20:38, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. The musician is pretty obviously the primary topic here; there's not even really a question about that. Life's what you make it. And going back to the 2015 move discussion, the notion that he should stay disambiguated because the Eurythmic is at "David A. Stewart" instead of "Dave Stewart" is incredibly weak reasoning — David A. Stewart is how David A. Stewart was normally credited even on the band's own recordings (I'm an old fart who was a fan of theirs back in the day, and even I would expect him to be at David A. instead of Dave!), and is not just us dabbing him for shits and giggles. The only relevant question here is who are people searching for when they search for Mark Hollis, the answer to that is very obviously the Talk Talk guy, and consistency of disambiguation status with other new wave musicians from different bands is not relevant to that question. Bearcat (talk) 22:21, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.