Talk:Miranda Prather

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Is there a source that indicates that the Miranda Prather who is an official at PublishAmerica is the same person as the woman who was accused of (and plend guilty to) faking a hate crime? I could find only one online source that conneted the two, and that was a forum posting (adn so not a reliable source) and even that merely asked if this was the same person. The woman convited of fakin the hate crime seems to have been a graduate student in English in 1997. Is it plausible that the same woman would have a major post at PublishAmerica in 2001? Whether it is plausible or not, is it verifiable? DES ^(talk) 23:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Publishamerica 2 Why? 3 Scalping Scandal? 4 Timeline? 5 original research?

[edit] Publishamerica

I went searching for "proof" that they're the same two people. I've found quite a few things, but the most convincing is ENMU's printed alumni directory which lists Miranda Prather's current employer as "Publishamerica." The online directory has a little less information, but it does include an @publishamerica.com email address for her. It can be accessed Here. Type "prather" into the name box. I think that should be sufficient. I'm going to revert back the old information. --Shinto 20:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Good job tracking down that link. I was starting to feel sure the names must be a coincidence. (To anyone else trying to use Shinto's link, you have to type in just "Prather", which gives you a hit for "M. Prather".) --Allen 01:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why?

What makes this person encyclopedic? Why does she have her own page when there is no clear connection verified for the hoax story, if that would make her qualified.

eh? The hoax itself was national news when it happened, generating 100s of articles and sparking a great amount of debate on both sides of the gay rights movement, and that makes it a part of history, even if it was fleeting. Wikipedia is filled with small articles about small events that had an impact. This is definitely one of them. And the connection between the ENMU Prather and the Publish America Prather has been verified, if you read the section above. --Shinto 03:33, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scalping Scandal?

I'm not sure if this is worth including, but apparently a Miranda Prather from Middletown, MD, was caught scalping tickets from the Kentucky Derby. [[1]]

It's certainly not national importance, but it is an interesting follow-up note if this is indeed the same Miranda Prather.

Yeah, I saw that. And yes it's the same Miranda. I don't really know if it's all that worthy though. What do you think? --Shinto 02:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly enough that I would take it out if someone else had put it in, but I don't think it's all that worthy. If it were a less ambiguous situation, I'd think it was more relevant, but as it is, it isn't something that would make her notable on its own and it isn't something that sheds any sort of light on the things that already made her notable. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline?

The article said this happened "the previous September," which seems to be based on the National Review Article, from which a direct quote would be "last September." The NR article was written in September 1998, so I would think it would be saying the posters started appearing in September of 1997. However, the news articles on the event were written in July of 1997. (So it might have started in September of 1996. But the posters supposedly appeared "shortly" before she was attacked?) I'm going to change the wording to "early in 1997," but if anyone has any sources that say exactly what month this happened, I'd be grateful. —Carolfrog 03:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and can anyone fix the citations for the newspaper articles that were cached in Google, but are now probably behind a subscription firewall? Thx. —Carolfrog 03:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] original research?

I haven't looked at this article in about a year, and I must not have fully understood WP:NOR back then, because the claim that the PublishAmerica Prather is the same as the hoax Prather seems to be original research. While their being the same person can be pretty well verified by any reader, the reader still has to do some original research to do so (looking up the name on that alumni website). I don't think dynamically generated web pages can be construed as reliable published sources. And since this amounts to negative information about a living person (not that hoax-Prather has this printing job, but rather that printing-Prather once perpetrated this hoax), I am removing the information under WP:BLP. --Allen 06:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I was just re-reading the old discussion a bit more carefully. I had forgotten that Shinto had said there was a printed alumni directory. That's a bit closer to a reliable source than a dynamic web page, but I still don't think it meets the standard. --Allen 06:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)