Talk:Comics Guaranty LLC

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Contents

[edit] Criticism

Some of the criticisms section seems reasonable, but the article is written partly in the second person and the length of the section suggests serious bias on the part of the author. More balance would be helpful. D-Clancy 04:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I originally created the page and tried to keep up with the updates, making sure that criticisms were somewhat ordered and reasonably stated (as many of these criticisms do have some foundation). I tried to clear up some of the things I knew to be incorrectly stated but there have been many anonymous updates and the page is starting to break down into an anti-CGC rant ripe with conspiracy theories and second and third hand reporting (not unlike a thread on the CGC message boards). Kevthemev 11:57, 21 January 2007
I agree. While criticism can be informative, in this article it currently takes about three times the space as the general information about the company. Much of this seems to come from message boards, which are not considered reliable sources as per WP:A. Trimming this section will help to balance out the article and bring it back to a neutral point of view. --GentlemanGhost

"I agree. While criticism can be informative, in this article it currently takes about three times the space as the general information about the company."

It's not criticsims - it's the truth! Why does truth have to be criticsim? It's general information, not criticisms. And if it's so bad, why don't you write the section that would balance it out? You can't complain about it if you don't personally do something about it.

"Much of this seems to come from message boards, which are not considered reliable sources as per WP:A."

Even when the president of the company, Steve Borock, only posts important information ON their chatboards? That's part of the whole point: CGC makes many of their most important announcements ONLY on their chatboards, not their website. If "sborock" posted it, it's official, period. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.244.30.34 (talk • contribs) 20:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not a complaint so much as it is an observation. Looking on this article as an outsider, it seems to me to be strongly biased to one point of view. More effort seems to have been put into detailing specific complaints about the company than explaining what the company does. To be a useful Wikipedia article, it needs to be edited to represent a more neutral point of view. Otherwise, the content might be more appropriate for a personal website or blog.

Regarding the material which is sourced from the message boards, truth is not the issue. As stated in WP:A, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true." For all I know, it could all be true, every word. Yet even if I knew firsthand its veracity, that would still not be enough to qualify it for inclusion in Wikipedia. Wikipedia demands reliable sources, preferably secondary in nature. Unfortunately, it does not consider Internet bulletin boards to be reliable. --GentlemanGhost 13:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the section I just took out, one cannot generalize regarding the general public. Attaching a reference to a message board doesn't make it any better. Message boards are not acceptable sources, as noted above. --GentlemanGhost 03:27, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I just now reverted to a previous edit, taking out some parts of the Restoration vs. Conservation section. The material that was put back in is, in some cases, redundant. Moreover, it's not necessary to quote an entire reference. If the reader wants to check it out, that's what the link is for. Making the article more succinct (without losing the point) is better for the article. Also, we really need to avoid making the article conversational and informal. It is an encyclopedia, after all. There should never be a sentence starting with the word "Update", for example. Respectfully, GentlemanGhost 07:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Internet partners and link

The reason edited this section was because of the way it was phrased using the second person. It sounded like advertising copy taken directly from the company's site (and indeed included a link to the website). "You can do this...", "You can do that...". This is not an encyclopedic tone. The way that it is phrased now (including the subsequent edit after mine) is much better. Also, I think linking to CGC's website in the lead section is unnecessary as there is already a link to it in the "External links" section. --GentlemanGhost 17:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Wizard Age"

Regarding the "Wizard Age" label controversy, this section was phrased very badly. Nothing that is worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia should need the preface "This is a true story." That it is "corroborated by Moondog" is hardly a ringing endorsement. Moreover, Internet bulletin boards are considered "self-publishing" and consequently are not considered to be reliable sources. I don't object to the content per se, but if it is to be included, it needs a better source and it needs to be rephrased. --GentlemanGhost 17:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

Another editor questioned whether this company was truly notable enough for Wikipedia. I think that it is, but there isn't much currently in the article to back that up. I added a quote from Robert Overstreet to help establish notability. Another thing that might help is a verifiable source regarding the relationship between Wizard Magazine and CGC. Wizard features CGC and CGC-graded comics in its monthly price guide, but as I am not a subscriber, I am not sure when this began or what the exact nature of the partnership is. If someone has a reference that would clarify this, I think it would add to the argument of notability. --GentlemanGhost 00:22, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.17.130 (talk • contribs) 21:38, 10 May 2007

[edit] Neutrality

This article is really starting to shape up. Thank you!

Doubtless, you will have noticed, however, that I tagged it as POV again. This is for many of the same reasons as before. The criticism section is still much larger than the basic information about the company. This gives undue weight to that point of view. Many of these criticisms still come from message boards, which are not considered reliable sources. It could all be true, but that's not the point. The point is verifiability. Assertions made by a poster on a message board are impossible to verify. Indeed, it's not even possible to verify that a poster is who he or she claims to be. For this reason, message boards are not considered acceptable sources for Wikipedia. Removing some these unverifiable assertions will help to whittle down the overlong criticism section. --GentlemanGhost 00:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I have removed the section on CGC "pandering too much to speculators". The only evidence provided for this criticism was a CGC ad and their website's FAQ. Although individually, one may infer things from these sources, it is original research to put one's conclusions into the Wikipedia article. This may be a valid criticism, but it needs to come from a reliable source, not inferred from the primary source. --GentlemanGhost 01:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

All this said, there are still elements of controversy missing from the discussion. I've lost the link (otherwise I'd have added it) but there was a published article critical of the CGC idea, in which a noted comic book expert criticizes the idea of "slabbing", saying it has changed comic book collecting to wall art collecting since slabbing does not allow the interior of comics to be viewed. I agree that commenting on speculators needs a bit stronger of a source; anecdotally I have heard this and in fact there is visual evidence in the 2007 Overstreet book which includes an illustration of a CGC-slabbed 2005-dated Action Comics #824, which Overstreet lists at being worth only $2.50 in top condition. Even at the cheapest CGC pricing option, the cost of getting it shipped and graded and slabbed far outweighs the stated cost of the comic; obviously speculation that someday Action 824 will be worth substantially more is under way here. Unfortunately we can't speculate ourselves as to the motives (that would be OR, plus we don't know if the slabbed comic might not be autographed or have some defect increasing its value), but it is a piece of possible evidence anyway. 23skidoo 13:38, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

If you find ever find that magazine/newspaper again, I think it would be appropriate to add its information to this Wikipedia article. The problem with this article has been and continues to be that it includes far too much unverifiable material, the preponderance of which is slanted against the company. Published criticisms from verifiable sources such as you mention are far more useful to Wikipedia's users than message board rantings. --GentlemanGhost 11:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I found the one that he was talking about, because I remember reading it in the Wall Street Journal a few years back. It can be found here: WSJ: Bang! Pow! Cash!, great read and pretty much dead on about the whole criticism section (which BTW, is way too long). I have been moth balling my collection, so these articles have been great reads. --Ronb (talk) 16:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

"much dead on about the whole criticism section (which BTW, is way too long)" How can it be too long when it's all true? Should we edit out the truth for stylistic purposes? Please, all you worriers, write a section or two to balance out the Criticism section, I beg you. Then we can focus on the real problems... put up or shut up, you might say... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasonewert (talk • contribs) 21:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The owner of Mile High Comics has written extensively about CGC.[1] Not totally sure if it meets our requirements for a reliable source, but it might. - Peregrine Fisher 16:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jason Ewert edit war

Maybe we should talk about this on the talk page? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:16, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Quit trying to delete the FACTS and there won't be a problem, Jason. Jasonewert 19:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
On Wikipedia, the facts are (strangely, but of necessity) less important than verifiability. For a long time, this article has contained a lot of information which has not been backed up by reliable sources. Unfortunately, such information is not really appropriate for Wikipedia. I have not yet looked at the specifics of the current edit war, but I would urge everyone to make sure that they are citing any additions to this page with reliable sources. --GentlemanGhost 22:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] forum refs

Most of our refs don't look reliable. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree. However, I thought that by putting them in reference format, it might make it easier to identify what we're looking at, rather than blindly following a link. While I still feel that message boards don't meet the definition of reliable sources, I think there might be some room for quotes from Steve Borock on http://boards.collectors-society.com. It appears to me that this website is owned by CCG[2], the parent company of CGC. Therefore, I don't think there's any "reasonable doubt" that the posts by Steve Borock are actually by him. To my mind, they bear more weight than would a message posted on another message board by someone purporting to be Steve Borock. Since this is an article about CGC, as long as a Borock quote meets the criteria for self-published sources of WP:V, I think that these could be included in the article, if we so choose. It should be noted, however, that comments and complaints about CGC on this message board by third parties do not meet the standard, as message boards are questionable sources and the commentators are not making statements about themselves, but rather someone else. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 20:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
One of the references which seems particularly weak is from the forum at StlComics.com. [3] The first post of the thread reprints an article by Nathan Melby. However, no credit is given to the original source of the article. Given that Melby is a reporter for the Comics Buyer's Guide, I assume that this is from whence the article came. However, I could not find a copy of the article on the www.cbgxtra.com website. It seems to me that if we want to use this article as a reference, the original issue of CBG should be referenced, not someone else's transcription to an Internet forum. Also, the verb "backpedaling" which is attached to this quote doesn't seem very NPOV. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 00:49, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Jesus christ, thank you! Somebody finally gets what I have been saying for a year. The refs are reliable, 100%! It "appears that this website is owned by CCG/CGC" - holy crap, you finally figured that out? You gotta be a retard not to know that. Do you guys even collect comics? You don't seem to know much. I told you like a year ago, there is NO reasonable doubt. If it's posted by "Sborock" w/ the name in green, it is Steve Borock. PERIOD. Just spend a day or two actually reading the Board, and it will be as obvious as the facts I've presented. Have you guys ever even been there? Posted there? If you did, you'd know that this is part of CGC's policy/strategy. They put important info on the chat boards, and ONLY on the chatboards, on purpose. If they were really altruistic and slabbing books to "help the hobby, save the buyer from getting ripped off", they would've released this info to Wizard, CBG, newsarama, etc. Wake up! Or read up. Anything to educate you guys and I can quit this edit war.

Although the page as it is now is a step in the right direction. I will always put the Ewert info back in b/c IT'S THE FRIGGIN' TRUTH! VERIFIED BY CGC! Want proof? Call their toll-free number - 1-877-NMCOMIC and get the info, if you're not too lazy. As it is now, the info is smaller than I would like, one or two sentences, but that's better that editing it out completely.

Do you guys ever make any actual contributions, or do you just sit there editing out the truth? Write some pro-CGC sections to balance the article, ya hypocrites! Truthy McStupid (talk) 02:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of "reading up", perhaps now's a good time to read WP:CIVIL. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 07:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
You still didn't answer the question. Do you guys know anything about comics? Or are you just anal thought-police that like to wag your fingers and say "I think that's against the rules"? If you guys were any type of comic fans, you'd know that the ends justify the means, and you'd quite screwing with the truth. Truth that is verified in the real world, not just your mama's basement. Did you call the phone # I gave you and talk to Steve Borock? Jason Ewert is banned for life from CGC from submitting trimmed comics - FACT.
You've seen this link, right, that's been up for almost a year? http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1058881&page=1#Post1058881 That's not official enough for you? Send him an email...
Why am I agruing with someone who uses "whence"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.17.130 (talk) 01:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I won't respond to your inflammatory questions, but I will point again to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Message boards are self-published sources and therefore are not considered reliable by Wikipedia. Comments made by CGC employees on their own message boards might be an exceptional case, as per the policy I linked to above. Other people's comments on the message boards, however, are not covered by this exception. Also, calling CGC directly is original research and cannot be used as the basis for information within the article. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I could be wrong, but I believe that calling the number would not be WP:OR. Any more than watching a film would be. The main thing to ask is: "Did you have to draw a logical conclusion based on the data?" If yes, then it's OR, if it's merely stating the information conveyed, then I dopn't think it is, presuming that the source of the information (the phone line, in this case) is documented. Other than that, AFAICT, GentlemanGhost has interpreted the various policies correctly. And I'd like to reinforce something as clearly as possible: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. - jc37 03:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
In my view, calling up CGC and asking them to comment the Jason Ewert matter would be the equivalent to "unsourced material obtained from the Wikipedian's personal experience", which is prohibited by WP:OR. And, since it is not a published source, it would also be unverifiable. Sure, you could call the same phone number, but that doesn't mean you'll get the exact same answer. It's rather iffy methodology if you ask me. I suppose if you wanted to call the number to verify that, yes, this is the correct phone number, that would acceptable, but I'd be wary of any other use of it as a source. In any event, I used another means to source the Jason Ewert info: Steve Borock's post on the message board. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 02:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A thought

Just as I thought, you guys aren't even comic book fans. Someone didn't even know CGC started in New Jersey. Sad little boys, pretending you're "in charge" of something. I'm doing what's morally right for the comic community, you guys can keep aiding and abetting the scammers and scum of the comic industry. And you can't stop me... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.30.35 (talk) 04:13, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Your moral crusade is better suited to a blog or a forum, not an encyclopedia article. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 20:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Below me. It's not necessarily a moral crusade, but it's turned into a crusade against scab-pickers like you. I'll ask you again - do you even know anything about CGC at all? No, you know Wiki style formats and what's technically not allowed. You're like the balloonknot in middle school who says, after the bell rings, - "Teacher, you forgot to give us homework". Maybe I should just wipe out the page - then you'll have nothing to stroke it to. "oh yeah... oh yeah... I'm gonna edit that out... oooooh yeah, that's how I like it" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.244.30.35 (talk) 03:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RfC: Is the Criticism section NPOV?

Is the Criticism section NPOV? There has been an ongoing edit war regarding it. A previous iteration of the article might be good for comparison. For example, this one.

[edit] Comments from Peregrine Fisher as requested by GentlemenGhost

These are just my opinion, not a GA review or anything, so feel free to ignore.

I don't understand the description for Qualified (green)
I woudn't put an external link to Barex in the body. It would be better to provide a short description with a reference to that link.
"There has been controversy regarding CGC's policies on conservation, restoration, and trimming, as well as concerns about its impartiality." could use a ref. Probably a few other sentences.
Since forums/message board posts are usually frowned upon I think the refs here should explain as much as possible about the source so people can judge for themselves. I made a stab at what an expanded ref might look like. Here's the dif or just look at ref number 18.

Overall, think this page is looking pretty good. If you're looking for respectibility, I think you're almost there. If you're looking for a GA, I'd talk to the reviewers a bit about how they're going to grade the forum refs before submitting it. I have a feeling they would have an opinion on it, but I don't know what that would be. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I've attempted to rewrite the description for the green "Qualified" label. Well, more accurately, I've now incorporated more text from CGC's website in the description. However, it is attributed as such. Hopefully, it makes more sense now that I've quoted them more directly instead of trying to paraphrase.
I hadn't even considered nominating the article for GA status, although that's great if you think it's approaching that level. I may give that a shot. My primary concern was bringing it up to the NPOV standard. Secondarily, I wanted to fix the tone of the article which was originally very informal and unencyclopedic.
The forum refs remain problematic, but I think that there are valid reasons to include them in some cases. I think that any post by Steve Borock can be trusted to be valid and "officially" representative of the company's point of view. It is their message board, after all. It's possible that they may have made press releases covering the same points, but I have yet to find them. It will be interesting to see what others think.
As for the Barex link, it wasn't my first choice, but last time I checked, there is no information on Barex within Wikipedia. It's not even listed as part of a "list of plastics". So, failing that, I thought an external link might be helpful. I like your suggestion of converting it to an explanation with a reference. I'll go ahead and do that. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 02:44, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems as though the expanded, clarified ref you made passes muster, so I'll set about making the others more consistent. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 19:29, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Sounds great. I think once we have the quotes in their and easy to read, we'll be able to see exactly what info, if any, might be better off removed. We will then have a good article, and maybe even a Good Article. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 23:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV check template

Looks like there's been a template on the article for quite some time about possible POV problems. Are there still concerns with the article? Shell babelfish 22:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shell, I overlooked your message the last time I edited this page. Sorry about that. I think that the POV concerns have pretty much been addressed. But I have been loathe to remove the POV tag as I'm trying to avoid even the appearance that I think that I "own" the article. To that end, I had solicited feedback from WikiProject Comics and from an RfC. Initially, the article didn't get much attention, but lately it seems like more people are noticing it, which is great. As far as further improvements, there's still the matter of including exact quotes within the references, several of which stretch the boundaries of what is normally considered a reliable source. But on the POV issue, I think the article is much closer to a neutral point of view than it was a year ago. Someone other than me has removed the POV tag and I think that makes sense. Naturally, the article will continue to evolve and removing the tag does not mean that further improvements cannot be made. Thanks for taking an interest! --GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] criticism sections are allowed

Can someone point out where on wikipedia's policies or guidelines it says that you can't have a controversy section on an article? [4] The section even has an {{Inappropriate tone}} tag that links to the Wikipedia:TONE#Tone style guideline where it says that the lead should "include mention of notable criticism or controversies" and "They should provide an overview of the main points the article will make, (...) including its more important controversies, if there are any."

If the section is not correctly written then the solution is not deleting it all but rewriting it. If the sources are not good then you should try to change them for others and delete the really bad ones.

The "Grading" subsection is very negative and should be moved out of criticism and include both the Comics Guaranty's LLC definition of grading and positive statements about grading (I suppose there must be some somewhere!) --Enric Naval (talk) 22:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the tag was added, but another user did a big rewrite to make the article NPOV a while back. It's a long and sordid tale, but basically this is the version that was agreed upon as being NPOV. There's a user who adds a bunch of NPOV stuff peridically example diff using various created accounts and as an anon (see history), but that stuff is always reverted out. There's still work to be done, but this article has been getting a lot better in the past 3 or 4 months. Basically, that one user added a bunch of bad info, this caused a bunch of cleanup but the job isn't finished. Anyways, thanks for putting the info back. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It's been so long, I don't even remember if I added the tag, but I certainly agreed with the assessment. The article used to have an extremely negative bent to it, but several of us have tried to bring it to a neutral point of view. I think that it's in workable shape now. It's not perfect, but I haven't had the time to follow up on the suggestions for improvement made here on the talk page. I hadn't removed the NPOV tag because I thought I should allow other unbiased people to take a look at the article. I put it on the RfC list and notified the Comics WikiProject, but it didn't attract much attention. I'm content to have the dispute tag removed as I think the article is considerably more NPOV than it was before, without sacrificing some legitimate criticisms of the company. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 04:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
This version from February 2007 is indicative of the POV and tone problems which the article used to have. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 04:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)