5thAvenuePRguy

5th Avenue Theatre

I appreciate your excitement about adding this stuff back, but if you look at the things you've added, they make use of peacock terms which makes them sound more like an advertisement than an encyclopedic article. Furthermore, the fact that you're employed by the theater makes your contributions pretty much a conflict of interest as you're attempting to cite yourself in your edit summary. This also makes it difficult for you to have a neutral point of view in your contributions. The additions being made must be referenced. It is not acceptable to add "facts" to wikipedia without also providing verifiable references.

I have tried to provide you links in this comment to the wikipedia policies I'm explaining so that you can learn more about them. FWIW, I love the 5th Avenue theater and have worked hard to get the article to a good article status. The long term goal is to eventually get the article to feature article status (and possible listed on the front page of wikipedia after that). However, allowing these advertisement style additions to stay without proper references would be a step back from these goals and even puts its good article status in jeopardy.

I'm going to revert the changes again. Please do not add them back without also being able to write them in a neutral light and provide proper references. For example, your change from the 55,000 student number to 61,000 is not verifiable. The current reference, http://www.5thavenue.org/about/, still states 55,000 students. Do you have a reference that states that the number is now 61,000? If not, your change cannot be verified. Wikipedia users cannot just "take your word for it". It must be referenced. This goes for all of the facts you're attempting to add. They must be appropriately referenced.

Again, I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. I'm just trying to make sure the article remains encyclopedic and doesn't become an unverifiable advertisement. I love the 5th and attend shows there often. I have invested a lot of time into making this article an encyclopedic resource for all who want to learn about this Seattle treasure. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 06:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello there:

While I also appreciate your dedication to both Wikipedia and The 5th, I'm surprised to find this reaction to my most recent edits, which I don't believe are in any way "peacock" related. Yes, I'm the PR guy employed by the theatre, but the following edits are in no way related to anything but a factual update: shows produced annually are NOT 4-7, but are 6-7. Shows that have gone on to Broadway include Shrek (note that I didn't add Memphis as that was a co-production, nor Catch Me which hasn't yet secured a Broadway house.) We are a non-profit, verifiable by our website, our charter, and multiple other pieces of documentation; to say that we are not or that we make our money without funding is incorrect, despite the outdated copy of the PSBJ that is cited. (It's not only incorrect, it's potentially libellous when you consider that it can have a direct effect on our fundraising efforts.)

Our new marquee is going up on December 3 of this year; therefore the historical information about us not being able to get a marquee up is demonstrably false.

As to moving locally produced shows ahead of national tours, a look at our show archives located here: http://www.5thavenue.org/about/showarchives.aspx reveals that certainly for the last few years national tours have been the minority of productions presented by The 5th Avenue.

While you're correct in assuming that as the Theatre's PR manager I can't say that I have an unbiased position, when it comes to matter of fact--verifiable via the website of the organization itself, members of the media and by internal documents easily available to me--I clearly have access to information that shows that the Wiki entry as it currently stands is inaccurate. (As to my bonafides outside of being a PR Manager: I was also a theatre journalist from 1995 to 2001, then again from 2005-2009, writing for Seattle Weekly, Seattle Magazine, City Arts, and various other local publications--please feel free to google the Weekly's site for "Longenbaugh on Theatre," for example, to find the 100+ articles I wrote for that paper in the last couple of years.)

The one item that you mention in your note, the figure of 61,000 as opposed to 55,000, was given to me by our Educational Department. If you would like, I'd be happy to have them forward you this information directly so you can see that this is externally verifiable.

Please look over the notes above and reconsider allowing my changes. I have been personally charged as part of my job by the Artistic Director of The 5th Avenue, David Armstrong, to help keep Wikipedia current and factually accurate. The entry as it stands right now is neither, and therefore is not fulfilling the stated purpose of Wikipedia, nor your own stated intention of creating a useful entry.

If you'd like to contact me directly, feel free to do so at jlongenbaugh@5thavenue.org, or at (206) 625-1418. But in any case, let's resolve this please; I would prefer not to ask for a reassessment of this article based upon its multiple examples of factual inaccuracy.

Thanks,

John

I apologize if my comments appeared to call into question your credentials. It was not my intention that they be a personal attack. However, credentials of editors are nearly irrelevant on Wikipedia. Verifiable facts will stand on their own whether the person that added them is an amateur or a professional.

In response to some of your specific points (for reference, here is a link to the last revert showing the changes being made):

• peacock terms - From your edit: "a healthy reliance on box office" and "the great indigenous American art form of the musical". If these are direct quotes from individuals, then they should be appropriately attributed to the individual. If, instead, these are intended to be included as prose in the article, then the words "healthy" and the extravagant reference to musical should be omitted as they are not encyclopedic.
• 4-7 vs. 6-7 - The minimum of 4 is coming from the 1990 – 1991, 1991 – 1992, 1993 – 1994, 1994 – 1995, and 1999 seasons. Are you saying that the information on http://www.5thavenue.org/about/showarchives.aspx (currently footnote 26) is not accurate? It may be that the theater has no plans of producing less than 6 going forward but based on the facts available, historically they have produced as few as 4. Wikipedia articles are just as much about history as they are about the present which is why I believe the range should remain 4-7. If there were a news article or press release you could point at that clarifies plans to never show less than 6 again, then the article should be updated accordingly. Absent that, all we have is history (footnote 26) to base this off of.
• 55,000 -> 61,000 - The article currently uses http://www.5thavenue.org/about/ as a citation for that fact (currently footnote 29). As the data provided in that reference has been updated (presumably by you I guess) I've update the article. It would be great if there were some press release or news article we could use as a reference instead of the 5th's own about us page which is essentially a self produced source, however this will have to do for now.
• "catch me" mention - I've added this back with a valid citation this time(from the Seattle Times). I put back your exact wording here. Hope this works. I'm fine with it now that there is a reference for it.
• non-profit - I don't think the article ever makes the claim that the 5th is not a non-profit. In fact, I see 7 instances of the phrase "non-profit" in the article that were there before your changes. That said, I can see how the information from the (very old) PSBJ reference is a bit out of place. Luckily, all of the points you were trying to make are mentioned in the 2006 annual report (why haven't they released a newer one since then?) so I've removed the PSBJ reference altogether and added another footnote for the annual report citation instead. Now the addition is both accurate and verifiable. After the change, there are 8 total mentions of the term "non-profit" in the article, so hopefully we can stand down from the libel accusation.
• marque - I must say I'm very excited to hear that the marquee is going back up again. However, you updated the article without updating the citation. The end result was a Wikipedia article that claimed one thing and a source that said something different. Please point me at a news article, a press release, or something else verifiable and I'll be very excited to update the article. If you can't point me at a verifiable source now, that's fine, I'm sure on December 3 it will be covered by the PI or the Times and it can be updated then. Also, as the PR guy for the 5th would it be possible for you to provide a picture of the new marquee so that we can replace the current picture? I'd be happy to help you do that if you don't know how. In fact, if you have better pictures of any kind than what's currently in the article, I'd love to improve the pictures. What you see currently is pretty much all we've got (not necessarily the best).
• locally produced ahead of national tours - I didn't really have a problem with this edit. The original wording was my own, but I didn't put any thought into the ordering. Sorry about reverting this one. I've put it back the way you suggested.
• reassessment - as a Wikipedia editor you are welcome to request that a currently listed good article be reassessed at any time. Just go to WP:GAR and ask for a reassessment.

Again, I apologize for what may have appeared as a personal attack on your credentials as a PR manager/journalist. That was not my intention. Hopefully my comments above make sense. I've added back a number of things you originally were going for. Hopefully we can work together to get through any other concerns you have. As I said, I love the 5th and want nothing more than for Wikipedia users to get the most accurate, verifiable information they can from this encyclopedia article. Thanks for your help! --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 07:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello there:

I'm glad we're starting to get someplace on this. If we can agree that our shared goal is an article that is accurate and useful, I'm sure that we can work out these issues.

To take our points of contention in the order raised:

1) if you can find a better term than "healthy" to refer to our box office, which provides a good amount of our income but by no means negates subsidies from corporate, individual, and government sources, I'd be happy with it--though I'd be wary of saying even something like "primary," because again, that is only true if you're considering ALL income on an annual basis to the theatre. We've received major grants for capital campaigns, for example--the marquee is entirely paid for by a major donor, and our rehearsal room, DAT5, was largely paid for by a Washington State grant. Whatever you choose, we simple can't leave up the idea that we don't take subsidies--this is potentially harmful to our fundraising efforts, and is flat-out wrong.

2)The quote about our mission can be attributed directly to David Armstrong, who has used it in a whole host of programs and other promotional materials. I don't see in any case that it's anything except a simple statement of intent--there's no mention that we're the best at this, that it's something that we always succeed at, or any other non-factual statement. If your beef is with "great," perhaps I would suggest "celebrated."

3)4-6 productions is no longer accurate, nor has it been for a number of years. If you would prefer to include the phrase "currently produces" that would be fine. But the statement as it stands is no more accurate than saying "a ride on a Seattle bus can cost anywhere from 10 cents to two dollars--" it's no longer true, even if it once was.

4) No doubt there will at some point be a press release about the increase in outreach from our education department. But I can not only affirm as the spokesperson from the theatre that this is the newest number from the Education Department, and if you or any other journalist should ask me for information on this it's the number I could give you. Again, if you would like indepedent verification, I can have them send you their information directly.

5) Regarding the marquee: the information I'm giving you is in advance of the press release that I'll be sending out, most probably next week, to the local media. Again, here you seem to be mistaking my role in selling the media on the merits of our productions with my role as what is effectively a communications manager. If my information about a factual event like this is suspect, why then am I the source for the local, regional, and national media? Why, fundamentally, do you believe that my information is only valid when it's been reprinted in a media outlet? (Often in fact verbatim--smaller papers and most on-line arts coverage does little but simply repeat the exact verbiage I've sent them. NOT something I'd expect or would want from Wikipedia, by the way.)

If you'd prefer to wait till Misha repeats this information in The Times, you're welcome to, but it seems to not be serving Wiki's readership in any way.

The new sign is currently being installed and should be up in about two weeks. I could put up a picture of the new design if you'd like or we can just wait till it's up and ready for the lighting.

I think I'm beginning to see where the disconnect is here. Please, please read the Wikipedia guidlines on verifiability (click on that link). Specifically, please carefully read the Burden of Evidence section. Even more specifically, I think the thing I'm not explaining well is this (a direct quote from the Wikipedia guidlines I just linked to): All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. Please take note that all facts currently appearing in 5th Avenue Theatre (and in all good articles) are followed by an inline citation to one or more published sources. In order to make any new factual additions to the article, published sources need to be cited for each fact being added. So, for example, until there is published source (a press release or newspaper article for example) available that clearly states the facts about the new marquee that you're trying to add, it should not be added. I apologize for not making this clearer in the beginning.

At this point I believe I've added back just about everything you were originally trying to change for which I could locate a published source. Also, I just now changed the 4-7 to 6-7 as you suggested. You make a good point about favoring recent history with this summary statement, and I agree with you now. Things that still need a published source to cite before they can be added to the article: new marquee and the David Armstrong quote about the 5th's mission statement. Beyond those, I think everything you were trying to update in the article has been added back. If you can provide a URL to a published source for the remaining two items, I'll be happy to add them back as well as a proper inline citation for each. Thanks! --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 07:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

So I see it's been several months and you haven't made any changes to the now clearly outdated information about the marquee (our new marquee has been in place since November of last year.) I'd be happy to provide new information but again, only if you're willing to leave these changes up. If you would like to talk with me about these changes, please contact me at the e-mail I've provided.

Second Marquee

Regarding your recent addition mentioning a second marquee, I notice that again, you did not supply an inline reference. In your edit summary you did say the following though: Information confirmed through the library at MOHAI.. This is promising, but still not enough. I really want to help you with this though. Can you provide a book title, author, publisher, publication date and place, and page number information on this? If you can, I'd be happy to help get that added to the article. For now, I've added a "citation needed" markup to your addition and I will remove it in the future if we cannot address this. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 03:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The research that I've been doing is primary source--looking at photos that confirm that there were two marquees. There isn't an article about this, but if you look at these two different images:

http://www.pstos.org/instruments/wa/seattle/5th-ave/opening.jpg

and

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.vintageseattle.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/kennedy_downtown_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.vintageseattle.org/2009/02/page/2/&usg=__9Zlb4hV6D-bDuvHlxDoUeodpgp4=&h=1296&w=2000&sz=450&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=FrytZlnAq0VIXM:&tbnh=97&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3D5th%2Bavenue%2Btheatre%2Bseattle%2Bmarquee%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1W1RNTN_en%26um%3D1

for example, you can clearly see that there were two different marquees.

This is clearly a case where the evidence exists, but your insistence on an "inline reference," essentially demanding a secondary source instead of a primary source (i.e. such photos as I've provided and are available, though NOT on-line, at MOHAI), is not helpful to creating an accurate Wikipedia listing.

First, please don't make this about me vs. you. I'm not insisting that inline citations be used, this is Wikipedia policy. I'm trying to inform you of this policy as politely as I can while also ensuring the overall quality of the article. I want to work with you to produce a quality encyclopedia article.

Second, I actually think that we could use this photo that you've provided as a source. I don't have time right now to figure out the right way to do this, but I'll give it a shot soon. Thank you for pointing me at your sources. This is what I needed in order to help you comply with Wikipedia's policy.

Third, out of curiosity, will the new marquee look more like the original one, or the one we see with Kennedy? Also, are there any news articles or press releases about it's reconstruction yet? I'm excited to add it back to the article once we have that. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 02:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly prefer that this wasn't a personal issue. However, you've proven obdurate in not providing me a way of contacting you outside of this discussion area, which has lengthened and complicated this entire process--you've not even given me a name to go with your e-mail identity! This has been frustrating and has slowed down proper editing on this site considerably.

My press release regarding the new marquee has been reprinted, pretty much verbatim, here:

http://seattle.broadwayworld.com/article/5th_Avenue_Theatre_Gets_A_New_Marquee_Invites_The_Public_To_Its_Illumination_20091125

http://broadwayhournews.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-sign-of-life-downtown-5th-avenue.html

John Levesque at the Seattle PI has written about it here:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlearts/archives/186241.asp

this includes a photo of the new marquee.

I'm not going to bother updating your incorrect information regarding the marquee sign because I frankly am not willing to continue this endless back-and-forth regarding my changes, your changes back, and then more discussion. If you truly care about editing this entry in a responsible and timely manner, feel free to make the changes yourself and note them. If you would REALLY like to speed up the accurate composition and editing of this entry, contact me directly. This is a waste of my limited time and attention. 5thAvenuePRguy (talk) 01:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)jlongenbaugh@5thavenue.org