Talk:Charles Desmarais

Autobiography?

When I look at the early history of this article and the name and list of contributions by its first editor, I start to wonder. Just my imagination? -- Hoary (talk) 15:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Questionable Editors?

As stated above by Hoary the article was originally written by a user named Desmarc. If you take the first six letters of the articles subject last name (DESMAR) followed by the first initial of the first name (C) - you get the username of the person who created the article - seems like the Desmarais wrote, and continues to edit the article. The articles first version included a lot of personal information which was unsourced, and supports this claim. This same user continues to make changes to the article, and immediately after closes their account. A month after the last edit Skaraoke deleted the one critical piece of information from the article dismissing the source as being written by, and the opinion of a "non-notable blogger". In reality, the writer is an award winning art writer, and was a former colleague of Desmarais. The writer is also female and she is questioning the hiring of another white male critic (Desmarais) at the San Francisco Chronicle, and now she is being dismissed as a "non-notable blogger" as a result. It is one thing to delete a bad source, but this is a relevant piece of information. It is also demeaning to call Desmarais' former colleague who is younger and female a "non-notable blogger", and it continues to verify the claim she is making about the hierarchy of white males in the art world. Deleting this information and source is not only irresponsible, but goes against wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Also, there are still a lot of unsourced claims in the article, and it would be helpful to try and find sources, or decide if these unverified claims should be removed. The paragraph on architects has many sources, but non of them verify the claim of the paragraph, and only one source mentions Desmarais, but again does not verify the claim. Please try to find good sources or remove the paragraph. 2601:645:8202:1ADA:90F0:F96D:50FC:7C19 (talk) 23:53, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

You didn't even mention the name of this "award winning art writer" in your comment, and you made your edit anonymously. -- Skaraoke (talk) 08:41, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

If you bothered to click the source you would know the writer is Jillian Steinhauer. You deleted the information originally claiming she was a "non-notable blogger" - surely you did research, and saw the awards she has won. She writes for major publications, and is not a blogger. Please refrain from deleting relevant information from this article.2601:645:8202:1ADA:7045:A5E4:B78:F257 (talk) 06:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Jillian Steinhauer does not like the fact that Charles Desmarais is a white male. Race and gender discrimination does not belong in a Wikipedia article, and this bigoted opinion says more about her that it does about Charles Desmarais. The fact that she knows him does not make her bigoted opinion relevant to the article. The fact that she has won "awards" from a blogging site does not make her bigoted opinion relevant to the article. --Skaraoke (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

To put it another way, objecting to the fact that someone of his race and gender was chosen for his job is not "criticism". It's "bigotry". --Skaraoke (talk) 00:22, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

You originally deleted the content, and noted it was because it came from a "non relevant blogger." But, now that has been disproven so you are claiming bigotry because a female called into question a white male being hired as bigotry. It seems you just do not want the this content on the page. This is not race or gender discrimination, and your claim that Jillian does not like Desmarais because he is a white male is speculation. Her article is about the newspaper hiring another white male to be their art critic. It has nothing to do with how she feels personally about Desmarais. It is relevant content, and more so, since it is coming from a colleague. You keep attacking the author as a blogger when she writes for a lot of notable publications. This is third time you have removed relevant content and been warned. If you delete this again it will be reported to administrators, and you could be blocked from editing. It seems interesting that after Desmarc made changes - you came in only to deleted this content. You have never worked on this article before, and continue to change just this one thing. You also have made no changes to other articles. This seems personal, and this article has been called into question for it being written by the subject Desmarc. Now, it seems like someone is trying to remove content the subject does not like. Prior to deleting this content your account has only made one edit since 2011. It seems like you are doing this for a specific reason. Could it be you know the subject? regardless, please stop removing relevant content from the article. 2601:645:8202:1ADA:8D9A:E798:81C7:9D96 (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Threats and accusations from anonymous users are of no concern to me. --Skaraoke (talk) 03:56, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Please discuss this according to the issues; IP user, you must not make accusations against other editors, per WP:Aspersions.

A comment about your disagreement: I have looked at the content being discussed and I think there is a fair case to be made for including it. The writer Jillian Steinhauer may not be notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, but the online magazine Hyperallergic is, and that is where this commentary appeared. Also, her objection to his selection is not primarily because he is an older white male - she mentions that in passing. She mainly objects because his recent history is in art administration rather than art criticism. I don't think this comment should be in the lead, but somewhere in the article in connection with his appointment with the Chronicle. In fact this article is all out of order; the typical order for a biography would be: lead; education; career, in chronological order; awards and criticism; personal life. Please note that I am making this comment merely as an interested editor, not as an administrator, and my comment should be given no more weight than anyone else's. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:51, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Here are some of the reasons why I would leave Jillian Steinhauer's source out of the article. First, she makes an unfounded accusation that Charles Desmarais hasn't written as many articles as the page said. Her "evidence" for this accusation is that she couldn't find them, but she admits that it was a "cursory search". Second, she accuses him of having conflicts of interest, and she speculates that this will prevent him from doing his job as an art critic. Since he now has an actual record of performance that could be judged, it doesn't seem right to include speculation from the time when he was just hired. --Skaraoke (talk) 10:01, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Please see the above section Questionable Editors. There has been warring around the issue of including content. It would be good to get comments on if the content should be included in the article.2601:645:8202:1ADA:15D8:245C:C946:2020 (talk) 01:52, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• Don't include as it is undue weight and of little interest Atlantic306 (talk) 20:23, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
• Include also I added a new template to the article based on questions raised here about WP:POV and WP:COI and I rm the older template as that item looks to be resolved.TeeVeeed (talk) 15:02, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Architect Paragraph

This is pasted from up above:

Also, there are still a lot of unsourced claims in the article, and it would be helpful to try and find sources, or decide if these unverified claims should be removed. The paragraph on architects has many sources, but non of them verify the claim of the paragraph, and only one source mentions Desmarais, but again does not verify the claim. Please try to find good sources or remove the paragraph. 2601:645:8202:1ADA:90F0:F96D:50FC:7C19 (talk) 23:53, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I have looked for sources to verify the claim of Desmarais being an early Patron of these architects, and have found zero references to this. As mentioned this section has been up for years with no sources. The sources that were included were about the architects themselves, and not about Desmarais link to them. 66.167.122.162 (talk) 01:05, 19 February 2020 (UTC)