Talk:Press Your Luck scandal

"scandal"

At a recent discussion (Talk:Michael Larson#Requested move 22 March 2024), two of five participants disagreed with this title for this article. Of the twenty sources that discuss the Press Your Luck event, eleven refer to it as a scandal. On top of that, the Game Show Network documentary, arguably the most influential record of the incident, set the bar with calling it a scandal. Lastly, nobody had any other suggestions for better names derived from the reliable sources, so I've rebuilt it here. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 18:39, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, this discussion has been duplicated below at #Separate articles. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:23, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Michael Larson (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:21, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Separate articles

@Fourthords: Note that I've restored the Michael Larson article. Despite my strong disagreement with you on article titling, it is good to see that you've expanded the topic. I've added a merge tag to this article, but I'll just ask - does it make sense to have two separate articles here, i.e. is there content in this article you don't think would fit into the Michael Larson article? Or would just one article be better (which I think we both prefer, given you redirected Larson)?

As a note, even if it's decided to have two separate articles, this article should absolutely be retitled to something like "Press Your Luck episode, May 19, 1984". "Scandal" is a non-neutral term that is inaccurate that would only be applicable with an overwhelming WP:COMMONNAME argument - not merely "used sometimes" (which certainly happens) but "used all the time", which is IMO clearly not the case. SnowFire (talk) 14:14, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

When you undid the redirection of the Michael Larson page, you said, revert stealth copy & paste move that did not find consensus in a RM discussion. Nothing whatsoever was copied and pasted from that page. The content of this article was originally and entirely developed independently of the older page. Press Your Luck scandal was created from whole cloth, and then Michael Larson was turned into a redirect.

As I said when I redirected the Michael Larson page, that page was trying to make a biography for an individual who is notable for only one event. So I took the sources that were there, found more, and wrote this article about the whole event itself. That having been taken care of, I saw the only logical purpose of the older, less-sourced (and in places, uncited), over-detailed pseudo-biography was to be turned into a redirect. If you have a better purpose for that page (e.g. as a disambiguation page), I'm of course fine with that. It should not, however, be the target of a merge from this article.

As for this article's title, I addressed that in the already-begun discussion above. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 15:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

IMO, even if the article was truly developed in a vacuum, I'd have moved the old article anyway, as it's on the same topic (which, again, I think we agree on, given that you redirected the Larson article). This is what is done everywhere else on Wikipedia - if somebody totally rewrites the article on France from the ground-up, we just have a Really Big Edit in the log, we wouldn't do something like moving the old article elsewhere and creating a fresh "France" article with a blank edit history. That said, a moot point for now.

On article titling, this isn't something that a local consensus can overturn. WP:NPOV says "This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus." If there wasn't actually a scandal, then this article cannot be titled "scandal". If Larson was alive I'd have speedy moved it myself on WP:BLP grounds, but he isn't, so talking it out is fine... but one where I really think the current title cannot be sustained. Genuine cheating on a gameshow is theft, a criminal act. If you look at 1950s quiz show scandals, you'll see that a grand jury was actually impaneled and there were major repercussions (even if there were ultimately no indictments). For an over-dramatic example, we would never ever name something "John Doe robbery incident" if it turned out that no robbery happened. This would be true even if lazy journalists continued calling it a robbery even after it was shown that no such robbery happened. SnowFire (talk) 15:48, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Your tortured comparison to the "France" article notwithstanding, we aren't agreeing. I wasn't writing about Michael Larson; I was writing about the Press Your Luck scandal. I still don't know why you're advocating merging this article about said event into the once-and-future BIO1E. If there wasn't actually a scandal, then this article cannot be titled 'scandal'. The Boston Herald, Brian Brushwood, Canino, The Cincinnati Enquirer, the Dayton Daily News, Game Show Network, TV Series Finale, and Variety all refer to the events (not the documentary) as a scandal. Then we have Damn Interesting and This American Life both reporting that multiple other sources refer to the event as a scandal. In contrast, are we to cite User:SnowFire as the reliable source declaring this wasn't/isn't a scandal? I certainly wouldn't cite myself, but my reading of common definitions also finds the word duly applicable. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 16:23, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about the slow response. No need to go too deep on where edit history lies, I just picked a random other topic.

You keep citing BIO1E, but again, this is not some sort of absolute rule that one-event = non-notable. It means that the threshold for notability is higher. It is utterly trivial to find tens of thousands of biographies on Wikipedia of people notable for one event who are still independently notable, uncontroversially, if that one event was a big enough deal. Look at Category:Lottery winners for a few easy examples of random people plucked from obscurity by one notable event. The fact that you're citing that suggests that you think there is just a single topic here, though, meaning we need to pick a single title to put it at. IMO, that should be "Michael Larson", who was absolutely the focus of the event and the reason why it happened at all. The same as biographies of other notable gameshow contestants. So it sounds like we agree that the two articles should be merged, I'm just saying it should be at, well, "Michael Larson".

I've been very clear on why "scandal" is problematic. I also provided evidence in the previous RM that plenty of sources do not use the word "scandal" but do use "Michael Larson". Per WP:NPOVTITLE, the word "scandal" is directly referenced as a "non-neutral word that Wikipedia normally avoids" and gives the example of the Teapot Dome scandal where a COMMONNAME case for a non-neutral term is valid. I do not believe such a COMMONNAME case is made here since many of your own sources, per the previous RM discussion, do not necessarily use "scandal" as the title or reference the word once in passing. You're greatly overstating how common the word "scandal" is. Finally, we're allowed to use some common sense here. If you've read the sources, then you know that Larson, to state for like the zillionth time, did not actually cheat. If you agree with that fact... why are we calling this a scandal again? (And for that matter why is the lede bothering to play up Larson's troubled later life? Just bad implications?) SnowFire (talk) 21:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Michael Larson is only noteworthy in the context of this event. Of the 25 reliable sources in this article, only two mention Larson outside the larger context of Press Your Luck: the Social Security Administration database and the 1967 Lebanon High School yearbook. His presence here is entirely predicated on the larger event, and he does not meet any threshold of Wikipedia:Notability without it, making the scandal itself (background, participants, fallout, legacy, etc) the topic at hand. The existence of other questionable articles doesn't impact this discussion about this article. An article that's 89% about one event, and 11% otherwise about Larson, is still an article about the event, just unduly masquerading as a biography. This article was written from scratch to solve that problem (as well as issues related to Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and more).

I've been very clear on why 'scandal' is problematic. Yes, you've been very clear that User:SnowFire says it isn't/wasn't a scandal. Per WP:NPOVTITLE "Sometimes that common name includes non-neutral words that Wikipedia normally avoids. In such cases, the prevalence of the name, or the fact that a given description has effectively become a proper name (and that proper name has become the common name), generally overrides concern that Wikipedia might appear as endorsing one side of an issue." Since the documentary, which was the first major piece to really comprehensively break down all aspects of the event, and supported in that name by the entity who owns the rights to all the original work therein, the proper name 'Press Your Luck scandal' (literally the subtitle) has become a standard. I've been through the sources cited here pretty thoroughly, and referring to the overarching event as a scandal has been the only naming commonality I've come across, and nobody else has found better, either. You're greatly overstating how common the word 'scandal' is. I'm not. I actually very-specifically named the sources that use that word in their reporting, as well as those which explicitly reported that the word's often used. It was in this edit. […] Larson, to state for like the zillionth time, did not actually cheat. If you agree with that fact... I don't have an opinion on whether he's considered to have cheated or not. The words 'cheat' and 'scandal' also aren't synonymous, so I'm not sure what conclusion you're drawing, instead. why are we calling this a scandal again? Because many of the cited sources do specifically, the documentary bearing that word is the most-publicized piece by which the event is known (and owned), it's accurately descriptive (again, by my reading of the definition at multiple dictionaries—including our own), and no better/more-prevalent descriptors have revealed themselves in reliable sources. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 01:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Reply - I have requested at WP:CR that this discussion be closed. After this time, I would like to have a formal discussion about whether Paul Michael Larson should be redirected or kept, as well as what the title of this page should be. --Jax 0677 (talk) 20:53, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

As this isn't a formal discussion or process, I wouldn't think it needs any official closure, but I certainly don't object to such. …whether Paul Michael Larson should be redirected or kept The page Paul Michael Larson has been naught but a redirect since it was created 18.18 years ago; it's already "redirected", and being "kept" would still be a redirection. As for the title of this page, what other consistent name for the event have you found in reliable sources? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:19, 19 May 2024 (UTC)