Talk:John Parascandola

Intro

I ran into this article and I have added to the intro so readers can get a quick glance at his life before reading the details. I guess it's a start.Airplaneman ^talk 14:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes

Why does someone keep changing the article? I think Andyjoe7and8's version is the best. I think these other editors are vandalizing the article. Scam50 (talk) 03:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

As has been explained ad nauseam on his (your other account?) talk page -- to comply with WP:MOSBIO and WP:BLP. – ukexpat (talk) 03:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

How dare you?! I am not affiliated with andyjoe7and8 in any way. Furthermore, I have never even contacted the user. I just agreed with his position. You have some nerve to suggest wrongdoing on my part. Scam50 (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Fibber. Blocked. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 05:42, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Article edits.

Here is a list of some of the edits made by other editors and myself to this article.

• Addition of {{BLPSources}}

This is to show that the article is not cited properly. although some inline citations have been added (with the <ref> </ref> tags), not enough facts are cited.

• Addition of inline citatations with the <ref> </ref> tags.

Any claims about the person should have inline citations. This is so that a reader can verify the facts himself from a reliable source. Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source, and should not be trusted. If wikipedia makes a claim in a WP:BLP biography (especially a controvertible claim) then it should be backed up, and if not any editor may remove that claim.

• Addition of Categories

This puts articles into groups with related articles, allowing readers to navigate around similar articles. It also helps when searching for articles. e.g. Parascandola was added to the category American historians, clicking on this will take a user to a list of all articles in this category.

• Addition of {{Lifetime|1941|Parascandola, John}}

This puts Parascandola into the category 1941 Births, it also sets how his name will appear in category lists. This allows category lists to be put into alphabetical order by the subjects surname.

• (Infobox) change [[July 14]], [[1941]] to {{Birth date and age|1941|07|14}}

This removes date linking, which is deprecated. A while back it was decided to stop linking every date as this caused too much work for the wikipedia servers, produced to many wikilinks for readers, for no real benefit. This edit also adds the template which automatically formats the date of birth, and calculated Parascandola's age.

• (Infobox) change [[Medical Historian]] to [[History of medicine]]

This removes a redlink, a link to a nonexistant article, and replaces it with a link to an article that does exist. This helps readers by giving them a link to an article they can read if they are interested.

• (infobox) removal of [[Award - winning writings on a variety of medical topics]]

Again, this is a link to an article that does not exist, and is an ambiguous sentence.

• removal of Dr throughout the article.

In general biography articles refer to someone in the text by their surname. e.g. the article on Barack Obama generally calls him Obama, it does not call him President Barak Obama, and only once in the article it calls him President Obama

• removal of trivia.

There was some trivia removed, things like the dedication of a book to Parascandola's wife. This is because it is generally not encyclopaedic content.

Martin451 (talk) 23:40, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

An excellent summary that I endorse completely. – ukexpat (talk) 00:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

As a previously uninvolved administrator looking at a blocked editor's edits, I've removed an extremely un-reliable reference to a shopper review of "Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America" on Amazon.com. It fails WP:RS miserably and one could argue that linking to amazon.com for the book is a spam link. Toddst1 (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup of article

This article was rife with unsupported claims, puffery and unencylopedic wording. As a relative outsider and an administrator who has observed some very dodgy activity here, I've made an attempt to bring this article up to Wikipedia's standards, and have given more info here on the talk page for changes that might need explanation. Please discuss here if you have objections to any of the changes I've made.Toddst1 (talk) 13:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Wife / residence

I've removed the puffery phrase about Randee Chafkin being a high-ranking official. According to this, Chafkin is a "Senior Program Specialist" - not exactly an under secretary, Division chief or even a branch head. I've added a {{cn}} tag to the statements about Chafkin being his wife and residing in Rockville. It seems very OR-ish and needs a citation. Toddst1 (talk) 12:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Unverified claims

I am depositing three unverified claims here on the talk page. Please do not restore them to the article without proper citations from reliable sources:

• The position of Public Health Historian was created specifically for Parascandola.
• Parascandola is married to Randee Chafkin, who works for the United States Department of Labor.
• He has given lectures internationally.

As stated above, we can verify that Chafkin is a staff member at DOL, but not that he or she is Parascandola's spouse. Toddst1 (talk) 13:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Minor Additions

The article has not been updated in almost a year, so I just updated two lines to refer to Parascandola's current projects and his current personal life. Andyjoe7and8 (talk) 20:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I added the proper sources to my updates. I just want to take this time to note that even though books are not immediately verifiable, they still are a valid source and may be used. If anyone has objections to the additions, please start a discussion here. Andyjoe7and8 (talk) 22:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

The source is not proper. It is not even verifiable in a library. Please provide more information such as author name, and for the benefit of others here, quote the relevant passage from the source that you think supports your statement. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion

I came upon this article and can see that it is a mess. A user who is now banned has contributed to severe edit warring and vandalism on this page. This article is very tainted and I believe it should be deleted. Ryderofpelham123 (talk) 22:05, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I have also cited another reason for speedy deletion: this article may very well include libel about the subject, and we cannot risk allowing that to go on. Ryderofpelham123 (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Just an update: the speedy deletion was denied and now an AFD deletion is being considered. Post here if you have any thoughts on the matter. Ryderofpelham123 (talk) 20:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

File:Parascandola Event.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Parascandola Event.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 16 November 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 22:37, 16 November 2011 (UTC)