Talk:Faizon Love
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[edit] Birth place
This reliable looking article says he was born in San Diego.[1] Does anyone actually have a good source (no Veronica, I don't mean the IMDB or other trivia sites) about his Cuban birth or heritage? Mad Jack O'Lantern 06:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
- Oh boy, it's Mad Jack. Great. Although imdb allows fan submissions, they take an extra step when it comes to birth info. You can't add someone's birth info to imdb without adding a link to a credible site. So whoever added that info to imdb got it from somewhere that imdb considered to be credible. Because remember, unlike this site the staff does review the info and determine whether or not it's worthy of addition before adding it. No it's 100% accurate but it's probably the most accurate entertainment database out there. Plus, according to the info on imdb, his real name is Langston Faizon Santisima. Santisima being a Spanish name. Unless it's proven that some deranged person is intent on making Mr. Love s Cuban and fabricated his name and birth place to satisfy his own fantasies, what is the problem Jack? Maybe he's never identified with his Cuban heritage so he's says he was born in San Diego and considers himself Black American. I know a few African-American Latinos that feel the exact same way. MrBlondNYC 10:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
- You simply may not use the IMDB as a source for either a birth place or date. The IMDB is run by a bunch of idiots (yup, undisputedly) and I don't care what you think they do or do not verify, but Wikipedia is not putting its reliability in the hands of people who have made mistake after mistake with biographical, trivia, and yes, birth place or date information. We have a reliable source - an interview with Love - that gives a specific US birth place, which is what we are using pending an equally or more reliable sources that gives a different place, in which case we indeed have a problem. As for "oh boy it's Mad Jack", I'll have you know that thus far, "Oh boy it's Mad Jack" has kept Wikipedia a far more reliable place then it otherwise would have been. As for "Langston Faizon Santisima", the Cuban heritage, etc. that also needs a reputable source, and shall be removed without one. Mad Jack 20:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
- I love how the only Google matches for "Langston Faizon Santisima" are the usual junky trivia sites that copy the IMDB [2]. As for the IMDB being the most reliable entertainment source out there, absolutely not. Wikipedia is. I corrected Nikki Reed's birth place and date, which was originally gotten from the IMDB (i.e. they had the incorrect version up for years), four weeks ago, and the IMDB changed it following Wikipedia's suit this week. Wikipedia is the leader and the IMDB is the follower, not the other way around. Mad Jack 20:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
- Weird, this, a cast bio for the Replacements (From the Replacements official site)[3] notes that Love was born in Newark, New Jersey. So we have a non-reliable source that says Cuba, a semi-reliable source that says Newark, and an interview with Love that says San Diego. Interesting. Mad Jack 20:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
- If every bio of Mr. Love has a different birthplace, it seems Mr. Love may have some sort of weird issues about where he was born or may just not want anyone to know for personal reasons. Some actors have been known to do that. Speaking of weird issues, since imdb is completely unreliable according to you and your little blog, why not just delete all the info from imdb that is on this site? Box office results, trivia, titles, reviews, links, everything. Ask the admins to completely disregard imdb as a reliable source. Maybe this can be a new project for to you work on. Good luck. It's pretty easy to say that imdb "follows wikipedia" when one can correct wikipedia immediately while it takes a while for corrections to show up on imdb. Unfortunately, some people abuse that power. Oh and guess what? Much of the info on imdb is contributed by the actors themselves or their representatives. So if you wanna call them "idiots" too, then OK. Maybe not the birth info for Mr. Love's page but his reps definitely submitted a publicity pic for him so they are aware of his page and the info on it. MrBlondNYC 23:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- Weird, this, a cast bio for the Replacements (From the Replacements official site)[3] notes that Love was born in Newark, New Jersey. So we have a non-reliable source that says Cuba, a semi-reliable source that says Newark, and an interview with Love that says San Diego. Interesting. Mad Jack 20:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
- I love how the only Google matches for "Langston Faizon Santisima" are the usual junky trivia sites that copy the IMDB [2]. As for the IMDB being the most reliable entertainment source out there, absolutely not. Wikipedia is. I corrected Nikki Reed's birth place and date, which was originally gotten from the IMDB (i.e. they had the incorrect version up for years), four weeks ago, and the IMDB changed it following Wikipedia's suit this week. Wikipedia is the leader and the IMDB is the follower, not the other way around. Mad Jack 20:34, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
- You simply may not use the IMDB as a source for either a birth place or date. The IMDB is run by a bunch of idiots (yup, undisputedly) and I don't care what you think they do or do not verify, but Wikipedia is not putting its reliability in the hands of people who have made mistake after mistake with biographical, trivia, and yes, birth place or date information. We have a reliable source - an interview with Love - that gives a specific US birth place, which is what we are using pending an equally or more reliable sources that gives a different place, in which case we indeed have a problem. As for "oh boy it's Mad Jack", I'll have you know that thus far, "Oh boy it's Mad Jack" has kept Wikipedia a far more reliable place then it otherwise would have been. As for "Langston Faizon Santisima", the Cuban heritage, etc. that also needs a reputable source, and shall be removed without one. Mad Jack 20:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, believe it or not, the majority of long-time Wikipedia editors have by now realized that IMDB is not reputable. Yes, you are quite right, it takes a long, long while for corrections to show up on the IMDB, and only seconds on Wikipedia, which is why we can get the right information out there sooner. But nevertheless, just weeks after I corrected the birth names of Kate Hudson, Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Butcher, Kate Bosworth and the aforementioned Nikki Reed, using official birth records, they were corrected on the IMDB as well. Obviously, they got their info from Wikipedia. Yes, I find the whole birth place thing for Love very weird. One cast bio for some show said Cuba. The bio I linked to above - for the Replacements - says Newark. The interview/article said California. I cannot find a Faizon Love on the California birth archives, but it may not have been his full name. Oh, and quite obviously the IMDB is not considered a reputable source by any Wikipedians, as I said above. That's why, when someone submits an actor article for GA or FA, the people commenting ask you to remove and/or re-source any references to websites like the IMDB. I haven't seen the IMDB used as a source for box office results, and indeed it shouldn't be ($35m for Ghoulies? Gimme a break. That's $4m.) Trivia - of course not - are you kidding me? Of course we can't use IMDB trivia as sources. I can't even start naming the mistakes there. Etc. etc. I'm sure that some actors pages were somehow directly informed by the actors themselves, but until the IMDB starts stating its sources and we can separate the crap from the actual info, we can't (and don't) use the IMDB as a source. Mad Jack 03:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- Well, I'm a frequent contributor to both sites and I can't say that either site is more reliable than the other. But I personally do try to be accurate on both. Both sites have major faults that can't so easily fixed. Mainly, the fact that anyone can correct the info. You may consider imdb to be "idiots" but I assure you, you couldn't submit that Anthony La Paglia has a third arm growing out of his back on there but you can here. Sure, it would be corrected eventually but I've seen lots of nonsense slip through the cracks on this site. MrBlondNYC 03:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- Well I don't know. I've seen "Adam Brody is the brother of Adrien Brody" on the IMDB twice, one staying up for about a week. I'm not calling the contributors to the IMDB idiots, just the people who supervise the contributions, since they can't/won't weed out the real stuff from the nonsense. I'm also angry at the IMDB for being the apparent cause of quite a bit of misinformation that then spreads to many, many sites out there on the net and then to Wikipedia, and then I have to explain to people over and over again that it isn't true, stuff like that. I'm not sure about this specific case, though the fact that Love's supposed birth name doesn't turn up anywhere else isn't helpful. Oh, and the problem with the IMDB (another one) is that they never cite their sources, even if they have them. That's why they will never be a reputable source (i.e. unlike Wikipedia, who isn't a reputable source either unless it cites it sources) Mad Jack 03:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- I will blindly guarantee that the same info "Adam Brody is the brother of Adrien Brody" was probably entered here a few times even before it was on imdb. It's a common misconception among actors with same surnames. I've seen other fan-oriented sites where people swear they know the Brody family and that they are estranged so they don't publicly acknowledge each other. But I'll try and enter LaPaglia's third arm and see what happens. :P MrBlondNYC 06:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- Well ok, it's pretty obvious that the Brodys are not siblings. This is fairly simply inferenced from any bio of either one that gives even the most basic detail. I'm sure the person(s) who submitted that to the IMDB were just idiots who were trying to be funny, not realizing that their fellow idiots at the IMDB trivia-receiving controls wouldn't get the joke. Was it entered here? Maybe. Probably. Did it survive for more than 5 minutes? Probably not. Not the case for the IMDB. As for LaPaglia's third arm, that is an extreme example. The problem here is precisely that information that is definitely incorrect but not obviously so - birth place, name, date, ethnicity, parents names, any other trivia you can think of is entered to the IMDB, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly incorrect, but regardless, it is entered, accepted, and if unnoticed, spreads to other websites, and then here, until no one realizes that the information had never had a good source in the first place. I found a great (recent; there are too, way too many to mention older ones) example in Alexa Vega. No doubt the IMDB were the first to report that she was "half Italian half Colombian". At least that's what I remember back in the day when I trusted the IMDB and I had never seen it anywhere else. So it spread. To other trivia sites. To an article some semi-reputable site wrote about skin care and Vega. To Wikipedia. Etc. Well, a year ago Vega said on her site's message board that she is not Italian at all. This was barely seen by anyone and I justed noticed it a few days ago (a posting on the IMDB boards tipped me off to this. The poster had submitted the correction to the IMDB and they corrected it a few weeks ago - but not, alas, before roughly 4 years of this spreading all over the web). What IMDB does is the same as what Wikipedia has been accused of doing, except it does it more subtly because it's not as obvious that the information is coming from fans - it presents information and causes it to be repeated enough times until it becomes fact. Citing to an IMDB page is like citing to an (unsourced) Wikipedia page. Of course, it's not big-league misinfo - no one really cares if Alexa Vega is half Italian or if Faizon Love was born in Cuba - but you get the point. My advice to the IMDB - they need to start citing their sources if they ever want to be taken seriously again. Wikipedia has "taken over" in almost every way as the site that media sources and trivia sites use - more sites now copy us then they do the IMDB (and they are being very smart by doing so), and Wikipedia is right up there usually at #2 and sometimes #1 in Google searches for actors. Mad Jack 08:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- I will blindly guarantee that the same info "Adam Brody is the brother of Adrien Brody" was probably entered here a few times even before it was on imdb. It's a common misconception among actors with same surnames. I've seen other fan-oriented sites where people swear they know the Brody family and that they are estranged so they don't publicly acknowledge each other. But I'll try and enter LaPaglia's third arm and see what happens. :P MrBlondNYC 06:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- Well I don't know. I've seen "Adam Brody is the brother of Adrien Brody" on the IMDB twice, one staying up for about a week. I'm not calling the contributors to the IMDB idiots, just the people who supervise the contributions, since they can't/won't weed out the real stuff from the nonsense. I'm also angry at the IMDB for being the apparent cause of quite a bit of misinformation that then spreads to many, many sites out there on the net and then to Wikipedia, and then I have to explain to people over and over again that it isn't true, stuff like that. I'm not sure about this specific case, though the fact that Love's supposed birth name doesn't turn up anywhere else isn't helpful. Oh, and the problem with the IMDB (another one) is that they never cite their sources, even if they have them. That's why they will never be a reputable source (i.e. unlike Wikipedia, who isn't a reputable source either unless it cites it sources) Mad Jack 03:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
