Talk:Richard Skinner (broadcaster)

Date of birth

An IP mentioned on the helpdesk that they have been trying to correct issues with this article for quite some time, and among those issues is the date of birth. Digging through the history, here is what I found:

It looks like the article has never cited any source for Richard Skinner's date of birth, but the first version of the article puts it at 1951. It looks like the problems started in November when Arbor to SJ removed the birthdate because it was unsourced. He then engaged in what appears to be original research, noting in an edit summary that "Skinner was 19 in 1973, making his birth year approx. 1954," and adding the 1954 date, also without a source. It looks like over the past few months there has been a cycle of IPs attempting to fix the birthdate, without citing sources, and editors assuming their efforts are vandalism and reverting to the 1954 date, which is also unsourced. The best option at this point would be for anyone interested in the matter to locate a reliable source for his date of birth and cite it. In the mean time, I will remove the unsourced date of birth. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:56, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Accordingly, I have removed the date of birth from this article, and would request that it remain with no date of birth unless and until someone comes up with a source to cite for his date of birth. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 23:02, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi ONUnicorn thank you for bringing this to my attention. Regarding the claim that the 1954 date is unsourced, that is incorrect, because I subsequently cited this BBC article that starts: "When radio and TV presenter Richard Skinner was 19, he was offered a job as a reporter at Newsbeat." (The article later says that Newsbeat debuted in 1973; if Skinner were 19 in 1973 he'd have been born in 1953 or '54.) In fact, one of the anonymous edits altered a direct quote from the BBC story (whether intentional or not).

Meanwhile, the only source where I could find a 26 December 1951 birth date was IMDB, which is not an acceptable source for biographies in the first place (and the birth date was likely lifted straight from Wikipedia).

You'd think that info coming from the IP address Richard Skinner would have been widely published in reliable sources already given his status as a public figure! Arbor to SJ (talk) 23:11, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for citing that source. I added "c." for circa as that's an approximate date based on his age at the time of a known event. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 23:16, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Richard Skinner (broadcaster)

This is Richard Skinner. You are repeatedly publishing an incorrect date of birth for me. I have repeatedly tried to correct this information but you keep reverting to the incorrect generalisation of '1954'. My correct date of birth is 26 December 1951. I can provide documentary evidence of this if required. Please correct this as soon as possible. Thank you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.201.7.227 (talk) 21:03, February 16, 2021 (UTC)

Hi 90.201.7.227, please read the following text carefully. Wikipedia users are highly discouraged from directly editing articles that they have a conflict of interest with, including their own articles. Please see WP:COI and WP:AUTOBIO for more information on handling conflict of interest. As for your edit, Wikipedia requires that all information be verified by independent, secondary sources. News websites, academic journals, and books are excellent secondary sources. If you would like to change the information, please post the link to a source below that confirms Skinner's birthday. Z1720 (talk) 23:04, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I thought I would let editors here know that this information has been verified in VRTS ticket # 2021021010005996. How this might impact editorial concerns I am unsure. TheDragonFire (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)