Talk:Jenna Jameson

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Featured article star Jenna Jameson is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.
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[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jenna Jameson

Going for all the marbles. :-) This talk page is large, but its content is mostly about the FAC-suitability work, so I decided not to archive until that is over, one way or the other. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Promoted! Yea! Hip-hip-hurrah! Thank you, thank you, thank you all! The only way it could be happier is if it could have been unanimous; some objections we'll never fix (for example those that think it is just too long for a porn star), but if there are any that can still be corrected, please comment here or on my talk page, and we'll see what we can do. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes since FA

Thanks to everyone - I'm leaving most alone, but here is my reasoning for the few I'm changing back, in order.

  • header - "managing similar websites of other stars" changing back from "actresses" because I can't guarantee they were always only female's sites - the source (Forbes) in the main article body says "stars", and that there are now 16 such sites and implies were once more. "Club Thrust", for example, is hardly an "actress's" site. The term "star" is commonly used in the industry and in the article, for example in the first sentence, in the title of the E! article, in the title of the Wall Street Journal article, etc.
  • header - "is also noted for her relative success in crossing over into mainstream celebrity, starting with". I think this is important to write in some form, otherwise it's not clear why these relatively minor appearances are important enough to be in the header. Please feel free to rephrase if you think it's clumsy, but I do think we should say this in some form. Also note that the alternate was grammatically incorrect.
  • "saliva" - frankly, that's what makes it her signature move. Just the act is pretty common to the field. I guess we could avoid it entirely, but it's like avoiding writing that Christopher Walken has strange mannerisms and generally plays menacing roles, the article would be missing a rather important part of the actor's uniqueness. WP:NOT censored, and all that.
  • "the biggest star the industry has ever seen" quote - I think this is quite important, as it goes to character and motivation, showing she had the intention to get where she was, that it wasn't an accident. If she had to be described in a single sentence, I think this would be it. I believe the fact it's also quoted by two unrelated sources shows that I'm not alone in thinking it's important in describing her.
  • Grdina's family - important enough to be worth seven words, I think, and the NYT and Forbes both mention it, so, again, I think it's relevant. But I won't fight to the death over it.
  • Path of Fame cite - better to cite than not to, I think. If someone thinks the whole entry should go, I won't fight it, but if we are writing that she won an award, we should cite a source that she won it, if we can. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name Inconsistency.

For the first two sections or so of the article, Jenna Jameson is referred to as "Massoli," but then it suddenly switches to "Jameson." Which is it? This is a major inconsitency. To maintain consistency, I propose we either change it all to "Massoli," or to "Jameson." Acalamari 23:26, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


Hi Acalamari, there was some discussion here, where AnonEMouse replied to a similar comment from me:
    • Any suggestions on how to handle the switch? We're supposed to use last names to refer to article subjects. Her stage name is indubitably better known, but I can't see using it for her early life before she invented it. Mark Twain seems to do it the way this article does, using it after it was taken, John Wayne uses the stage name even earlier, but neither one is a Wikipedia: Featured article. Is there a guideline or FA model to follow? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Ok, as it happens Bob Dylan uses the same format. I think my confusion was partly due to the use of her first name, for when she was younger. From the discussion on my talk page, I appreciate your reasons for this. Addhoc 18:19, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
The existing way is probably the cleanest way to do it, and Dylan was the example I was going to use. Another FA that also has a birth name different than the eventual famous name is Vivian Leigh - she was born Vivian Hartley. How that article handles is to refer to Vivian by her full name (Vivian Hartley) up until she took her professional name of Vivian Leigh, then refers to her thereafter as by just her last name of Leigh. In my opinion, the way it's handled in the Vivian Leigh article is rather clunky in comparison to how its handles in the articles for Dylan and Jenna. Tabercil 18:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Addhoc 23:46, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
That explains it. I didn't think that would be in the archives, but I should have checked. Acalamari 00:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAC comments made after promotion

Thread copied from User talk:AnonEMouse (with permission). WT refers to user:Worldtraveller. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If you could make changes responsive to the comments I made just before the FAC was closed (at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Jenna_Jameson), I'd appreciate it. I'm not saying make it less comprehensive, but I think there are plenty of unnecessary details that could be cut. IMO WT's complaint that It is very poorly written, presenting quotes as if they are fact rather than summarising in the voice of the encyclopaedia. Her words express her own point of view, of course, and the author of this article adopts that point of view without question. refers to the nearly exclusive use of interviews and her autobiography as sources rather than actual secondary sources. What the article basically says is "Jenna Jameson has said ...". She's had a lot to say in lots of interviews, reported in lots of places, so it looks like numerous sources, but they all basically amount to her words. If someone else had written a biography about her or even a book about porn stars that could be referenced, this would be an actual secondary source (not "her words"). I hope you don't take this as overly critical. I'm concerned about WT's state of mind. I'm concerned about yours as well (all editors are important to me). It's been long enough now that it's pretty clear Raul654 is not going to change his mind and "defeature" it pending further improvements. I'm fine with this (really), but I do hope you make an effort to respond to my suggestions. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:05, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, Wt's complaint is basically wrong. I could only find one example of a quote that could be read as if it were presented as fact; I changed it, and asked him for others - he never provided any, and it has been a week. (Feel free to find some yourself, by the way.) If you read my opening to the FAC, you will notice that most of the article was written from articles, not using her autobiography at all, specifically to forestall such an objection. (See Talk:Jenna_Jameson/Archive_2#Jenna.27s_autobiography for the long discussion where I was finally convinced to use it in a few places.) Just from a sheer count of citations from the references, you will see the main sources are the New York Times article, the Forbes article, and the E! biography, which are all as much secondary sources as any biography. Read them, they're not interviews, they don't state "Jenna Jameson has said ..." or I would have written that. They have satisfied themselves that the things they write are facts to their standards, which are pretty high; they would stand up to those of a hardcover biography any day. Did they use her words? Probably. Did they rely on her words? Don't know. We'd face the same problem with a book length biography - except that Kitty Kelley doesn't have the cachet of Forbes or the Times. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
As for your more specific objections:
  • Lead paragraph, second sentence - has been changed (though not by me), see if it's better.
  • "Parentheticals are nearly always just sloppy prose." This seems a general observation, rather than a specific criticism. If you have a specific suggestion, I'd be glad to hear it.
    The specific suggestion is to look at every use of a parenthetical phrase and to try to rewrite it without using parentheticals. Using parentheticals amounts to using a footnote - it interrupts the flow of text and distracts the reader from topic at hand. If the point is not important enough to include inline in the text, consider deleting it. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    I did look at them, but will again.--AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    All right, looking at uses of parentheses. There are:
    • (name & birth date) - standard usage, example WP:FA James Joyce
    • film production date - standard usage
    • common abbreviations for organization names, such as "X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO)" - standard usage, example WP:FA Margaret Thatcher
    • Specification of accompanying actor, such as "AVN Award for Couples Sex Scene (Film) - Blue Movie (with T.T. Boy)" and "Briana Loves Jenna (with Briana Banks)"
    • Awards titles such as "Best Actress (Video)" - that's the actual name of the award
    • alternate units - according to style guideline WP:MOSNUM
    • Jameson (at right) and Brian Griffin (the dog) - cartoon image identification
Those are standard usage. That seems to leave a grand total of the following 5:
  1. (Preacher has denied this.)
  2. her brother (who was addicted to heroin)
  3. "moan tones" (telephone ringtones)
  4. Adidas (a larger sporting goods company than Pony)
  5. Madame Tussauds (in the Las Vegas museum)
They're hardly flooding the article. I believe in each case they convey the information in the best way, if you know a way they can be improved, please do. There are a grand total of roughly 30 parentheticals in the article text, not including awards list and references. A random FA I chose, Isaac Asimov, has over 90, not including bibliography and references. So I think this usage is not unusual. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "Early life - unnecessary details include where her mother danced, how much time her father spent working." I'm afraid I disagree. She first tried to follow in her mother's footsteps, and the distance from her father while growing up had a major impact on her life.
  • "Is the beating and rape a documented fact?" To the satisfaction of the cited sources, and no objections have been raised from anyone else. Also be aware of what you are asking documentation for - a victim's testimony is all that most rapes have. "both could be condensed" - again, they had a very strong impact on her life. Even if we believe her quote that it didn't shape her psychology (I can't say I do), it seems hard to believe she could have been an underage stripper if she was still living with her policeman father.
    The cited reference seems to be a PR blurb related to the release of her book. I know this is a delicate issue and I'm not claiming I think it didn't happen. On the other hand, stating this as fact in an encyclopedia article fundamentally based on one autobiographical reference strikes me as inappropriate. I'd be happier if we directly cite the autobiography, and have text like "she says in her autobiography, ...". -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    Not a PR blurb, but an article published in two reputable newspapers, a fine secondary source. Will look at rephrasing anyway.--AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    Rephrased, struck subsequent quote, see response to Worldtraveller below. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "Even though it has two references, I'd cut the first sentence completely (the references are no doubt two different interviews)" - Disagree strongly, the motivation for someone entering their primary career is quite important. See Bette Davis, Vivien Leigh, which mention those stars' motivations similarly based on their own words.
    Again, this is a case of elevating what she's said to fact. The wording in the Forbes reference is ... at 19 she quit stripping to act in adult films--mainly to retaliate against her beau, who had been cheating on her, as she tells it. We've dropped the as she tells it, and now present this as a pure fact. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    Corrected. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "lubricated with plenty of saliva" - bizarre perhaps, but that is what makes it the signature. Bette Davis's eyes, Vivien Leigh's lightning changes of moods are all over the place in their articles.
    The askmen.com reference is an interview, and she volunteers oral as her signature move. The Salon article is also an interview and the interviewer calls this her signature move. I'd imagine "signature" move would have tons of more authoritative sources (for example, a quote from a wll known reviewer). These two strike me as PR attempts to establish this as a signature. This is another case where an actual secondary source would be helpful. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    Just curious, whom would you consider "a wll known reviewer" of pornography? Ted Sturgeon hasn't been reviewing porn for decades. Salon and AskMen are better known than any modern reviewers I've heard of. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "butter and focaccia bread" - has been removed
  • "there isn't a count of how many movies she made between 1995 and 2001." There's an estimate and reference for total films, and the fully detailed filmography has been broken out to be a separate article in progress. Why is the span of those years particularly important?
    You mean the estimate in the infobox? The point is that this is a fact that I'd expect to find in this section. I don't really care about the specific years, but this appears to be the period in which she was most active. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "She was the first entertainer to have won" -> "to win" - done.
  • Early Career "condensing to paragraph", Relationships, Business "cut by half" - sorry, I disagree with Wt's contention that the article needs to be radically shortened because the subject matter doesn't meet his standards.
    I believe you're misinterpreting the point, which IMO is that much of the content is in the realm of unnecessary detail. Comprehensive is not the same as exhaustive. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • "famous boyfriends" - maybe if someone else agrees, but they are referred to prominently in quite a few articles on her.
  • "scion of a wealthy cattle-ranching family" - disagree, Margaret Thatcher's article describes Denis.
  • Roman Catholic-style ceremony - strongly disagree, that she is trying to be religious and a porn star is important
    Important to whom? -- Rick Block (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    To her, and to the article. It's a serious effort to try to join those two rather contradicting modes; that she tries to do so is worth a few words. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
  • ring finger tattoo - has been removed
  • where they lived - disagree, that's encyclopedic; also note she became (in)famous where she chose to live, with the Babes Cabaret stuff
  • how much their house cost - maybe, but goes to what she did with her wealth
  • gossip column level details about her current relationship - partly agree, and have been trimming the gossip stuff, but two items are notable - first, how she began ending a long term marriage with someone who is also a very important business partner, and that her current one is actually losing work due to associating with her. Note how much space Vivien Leigh gives to Jack Merivale for much the same reasons.
So in short, I did some, disagreed with others, especially the "cut by half" parts, and there are a couple of bits I could agree to remove if I could be convinced they were motivated more by the effort to genuinely improve the article rather than just shorten it for Wt's less than satisfactory reasons. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 16:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
By the way, many of the "done" bits above were done by Addhoc. Thanks! --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This article implicitly endorses its subject's opinions as fact. This is not acceptable for an encyclopaedia article - it's magazine style writing. I do not know what AnonEMouse looked for, found and changed, but the two quotes currently in this article are quite blatantly doing this. She writes in her autobiography: followed by an opinion on whether a rape in her youth affected her later career, and She remembers telling Wicked Pictures founder Steve Orenstein: are failing to do what an encyclopaedia should do, which is to summarise the view expressed by others, rather than adopt them wholesale. If AnonEMouse cannot see the problem with the current style of writing then I'd suggest someone else give it a critical read through to weed out this sort of bias. Worldtraveller 23:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Rather than fight over it, I can remove the first quote. The second one, that she intentionally, knowingly, wanted to become what she became, can't possibly be expressed by others, has not been contested by anyone, and is definitive of her character; this one I am willing to defend. I do not accept that quoting that line is adopting her point of view. What point of view would that be? That it was the most important thing to her? That can hardly be in dispute. That becoming the biggest porn star should be the reader's goal? Surely not. That quote is not implicitly endorsing anything as fact. That she is the world's biggest porn star is not implicit, it is explicitly stated, in the article header, and cited to excellent sources. That she said it is also reliably cited and not contested.--AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem is not what you're trying to say but how you're going about saying it. Quoting the subject of an article in the form "She remembers saying..." is simply not encyclopaedic at all. That was the problem with the first as well. Nothing wrong with saying that she denied her rape had anything to do with her later career choice, but write it like an encyclopaedia article and not a magazine piece or fan page. Similarly with the second one - say it, if it needs to be said, but not like this. Try "At this time, she stated her intention etc etc [ref]".
The problem of unencyclopaedic style is present throughout the article. Examples include "In her autobiography, Massoli writes that" - why not omit that and put a reference at the end? "(Preacher has denied this.)" - why is this sentence in brackets? "Jameson says..." - again, more like a magazine article. The list of awards is meaningless, really. It adds nothing to the article. Why not just have a sentence saying "Her films have won numerous industry awards"?
And finally, the length of the article is not appropriate. There is too much verbosity. Do you really think it's reasonable for an encyclopaedia to give Jenna Jameson as much coverage as Gandhi? Worldtraveller 23:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Why stop with Jenna? If the subject is "length proportionate to influence" and if Gandhi stands at 68K, then there are others whose articles should be pared back: David Miller (Canadian politician) (current mayor of Toronto) stands at 97K; Gerald Ford stands at 100K and Herbert Hoover (whose primary claim to fame is being the president when the Great Depression started) is equal in weight at 68K. Equally by that measure there are others whose articles should be beefed up - look at Hammurabi's which doesn't even give a length warning! If you ask me, the issue of article length is irrelevant. Tabercil 06:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Article length is not irrelevant because featured article criteria require that an article is of appropriate length. Surely you'd agree that if Jenna Jameson = Gandhi then one of them is not of appropriate length? So the question is which one. Frankly, very very few people will read all of an article that's longer than 32kb unless it's on something of crucial importance to science, history or the arts. If you write 100kb on a Canadian regional politician (and that is a truly terrible article), or 60kb on a porn star, then unfortunately I fear that your time has not been well spent because few people will read the article. If it was 20kb long, it would have a much more enthusiastic readership, and you could have written at least five very good 20kb articles in the time it takes to do one very good 60kb article. Worldtraveller 09:29, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
This has been said before, but never gets addressed; as the forum keeps changing, I'll say it one more time.
  1. Per Wikipedia:Article size - and common sense - we are not to count references in measuring the readable length of an article. (Those same very very few people won't read the references either.) References make up half of the length of Jenna Jameson and considerably less of Gandhi. The raw article on Gandhi is easily half again the length of the article on Jenna Jameson. The reason there are more refs in Jameson is that she is a living person, so per Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons every controversial fact must be strongly cited. Almost every sentence in the Jameson article can be seen as controversial; it's about pornography, rapes, drug use, extensive media hype, criticism by major political and media figures, etc. The facts in Gandhi have become considerably less controversial since his death; very few people would criticise him now, for example, while Jameson is still strongly controversial, for example notice that her boyfriend lost an important job just a few months ago solely because of close association with her.
  2. Meanwhile Gandhi has at least 10 sub-articles, which are not in the main article only due to considerations of Wikipedia:Summary style. They are each quite long. Jenna Jameson has 3 which could be considered sub-articles: her filmography, her autobiography, and her company (though even that is really an entity unto itself, she doesn't own it now, for example) and they are each quite short. Compare the articles on the autobiographies: The Story of My Experiments with Truth and How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale. With sub-articles, the total space the encyclopedia devotes to Gandhi is easily many times as much as to Jameson, not even in the same order. Jenna Jameson has the right amount of space.
As to "Frankly, very very few people will read all of an article that's longer than 32kb unless it's on something of crucial importance to science, history or the arts." I believe you are completely, blatantly, demonstrably wrong. Popular culture is just that, popular. Jameson's autobiography was 600 pages, and a bestseller: that means very very many people read it. "If it was 20kb long, it would have a much more enthusiastic readership," is similarly, demonstrably, untrue. There were many short biographies of Jameson (as interviews and magazine articles) when the 600 page autobiography came out; none of the shorter ones made the New York Bestseller list, the longer one did. Jameson and Strauss knew what they were doing; if they had thought they would have "had a much more enthusiastic readership" were it shorter than 600 pages, they would clearly have made it shorter. They made it the length they did, and it worked. Believing that some people interested in a porn actress may be less diligent than those interested in obscure bits of science, history, or other arts may or may not be true, but believing there are fewer of them willing to read a half-dozen screenfuls of text with pictures is just ridiculous. There are more of them, clearly more of them, or the Internet would be flooded with "science, history or the arts" sites, rather than pornography. As is, I will lay any sum of money you like that considerably more people will read all of the article on Jenna Jameson than will read all of the article on any of Action potential, Act of Independence of Lithuania, or Felice Beato, just to pick the first WP:FA in each of the categories you mention; I'll even lay the same wager for 80% of the articles in each category. If this isn't among the 10% of the most read FAs on this site that haven't been on the main page, and with a comparable number of incoming links, I will be greatly surprised.
"and you could have written at least five very good 20kb articles in the time it takes to do one very good 60kb article." That's a known, and again demonstrable, fallacy. Volunteer effort is not transferrable like that; volunteers will help in the way they want to, and if you discourage them from doing that, they generally won't do other things you want them to, they will more likely just leave. How many articles has User:Kelly Martin written since she stopped contributing as an admin? Yes, I have written a number of fairly good shorter articles: Alice Barnham, Richard Pacheco, Monica Coghlan, others listed on my user page. Yes, each took less time, but I wanted to get an FA under my fur, ever since I read WP:1FA, mostly agreed with it, and felt that I really should have one to be an admin; not to mention that I wanted one article in WP:P* to truly be the best that an article about the subject can be. I've written all that before. It's a completely different feeling, and I would not trade this one big article with little star for five smaller ones. I'm also sure it will be read by more people than all my smaller ones. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Obviously people will read a book longer than 32kb; I'm not talking about book readership, I'm talking about encyclopaedia readership. You shouldn't be writing something here that's attempting to compete with book readership. We could argue the demographics inconclusively all day but I am still quite certain that there are really not many people out there who want to read 60kb of encyclopaedia article about a porn star. 95% of the web being porn doesn't actually mean there are lots of people out there crying out for a lengthy pseudo-encyclopaedic article on their favourite porn star.

You seem to be saying that you have to write a long article for it to become an FA. This is not the case. The shortest are considerably under 20kb. Wouldn't you trade this massive article with star for five smaller ones with star? Each of which being more likely to actually be read and appreciated? Worldtraveller 11:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I have to write an article of this length for it to be the best article it can be. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 17:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Why this long? Why not twice as long? Why not half as long? 81.179.115.188 21:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Because if it was shorter it would be leaving out important points, and if it was longer, that would be padding. Sorry if that seems obvious, but that is the answer. I spent 6 months on this (not full time, of course, but still). I read a lot of sources - not least of which was the existing article, I didn't start from scratch. I decided what would and would not be important from a combination of the amount the better written sources devoted to the various points, and my judgement as an editor. My general judgement as an FA editor is, of course, likely not as good as yours, since you've got a dozen FAs under you're belt, and I've just got the one, but I suspect I might know a bit more about the issues involved with both this particular article, and whether or not there are lots of people out there who want to read 30KB of encyclopedia article about a porn star. (You keep writing 60, BTW.) While I respect your views, on major issues like this one, I apologise, but must respectfully continue to resist. (I'm assuming you're Worldtraveller who scrambled his password in a Giano imitation. What is it with prolific FA writers like that, BTW?) --AnonEMouse (squeak) 22:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Front page

Could this article ever appear on the front page? Trevor GH5 12:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Possibly, but not likely. See that very question on Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/Jenna_Jameson, asked in the first section, answered in the second. But heck, just having that little star means a lot. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
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