Talk:Eric Francis

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[edit] Cusp of Eric Francis disambiguation page?

This article is about this Eric Francis.

The book The Dartmouth Murders (ISBN 0312982313) was written by a different Eric Francis.

Keesiewonder talk 11:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

  • It's not wholly clear cut yet. Notice that the one was manually generated by its subject, and the other was machine-generated, from references that include the manually-generated one's book. They could yet be one and the same. Uncle G 11:33, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Agreed ... which is why I didn't set up the disambiguation yet ... I'll keep looking ... Keesiewonder talk 11:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • This is Eric Francis Coppolino, a/k/a Eric Francis, checking in from New York State - with some notes. I am the subject of the Wiki page this Talk is attached to. There are at least two people called Eric Francis who are photographers (one is a wedding photog; there is also an accident simulation guy), and a few who are journalists (one is the Dartmouth guy and then there is a sports writer in Calgary). We have pretty distinct careers. 68.237.178.201 14:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    • You can help us, M. Francis, by giving us some sources, i.e. biographies of you written by other people. Sources are the way to sort this out. Wikipedia articles are required to be based upon them. With sources, documenting who you are, your career can be disentangled from those of other people. Without sources, we cannot justify even having an article in the first place. Uncle G 15:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks, M. Francis/68.237.178.201. That is a step toward confirming my post that starts this page is correct, right? I'm looking forward to the materials Uncle G has asked you for. --Keesiewonder talk 16:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Hi ladies/gents. This article is accurate, and reasonably thorough. It appears many valid references are listed as off-site links rather than as proper footnotes.

Other materials are available, some of which are referenced. The New York Times has done two pieces on my investigative reporting and litigation against the State of New York. They were published in 1992 and 1994, both by Michael Winerip. They were written about "Eric F. Coppolino," my legal name and then by-line. In addition, a Dow Jones paper called the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, NY did a series of articles on the same subject between 1993 and 1994, all of which establish my investigative reporting track record on PCBs and organochlorines. Both appeared on page B-1. Last summer, The Wall Street Journal published a front-page article on the reclassification of Pluto that identifies me as a minor planet specialist and as publisher of Planet Waves. I republished that here; it can be easily authenticated:

http://www.planetwaves.net/contents/wsj.html

A newspaper on Vashon Island, Washington documents my career as an astrologer, in an article published around 2001. I would need to get you a cite reference on that. My only copy is actually on the island.

In terms of older information, a 1990 article by the Associated Press written by David Bauder identifes me as the founder and publisher of Student Leader News Service (SLNS). Bauder's article is on the history of the news service. That, too is searchable, though it predates the Net, and may be able to obtain a copy. I happen to be in possession of some of my archives, including one edition of SLNS, which has a masthead. In addition, the New York Times articles both reference SLNS, including information that dates the years the service was in operation (1989-1992).

I happen to be in the New York area and many of my archives are stored in my father's basement - I can retrieve other materials as well. I hope this helps get you started.66.108.53.91 02:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

PS, Here is an older interview about the origins of my astrology career. The reprint is hosted on my server, as The Mining Co. is out of business, but the Snip URL below at least verifies that the author did in fact cover astrology for The Mining Co.

http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/resources/starnavigator/geewhiz.html

-- Eric Francis Coppolino66.108.53.91 02:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Thank you. Those are exactly the sort of things that we need, although precise dates, titles, publications, and bylines are always best for locating articles. This is a volunteer, collaborative, project, of course. So don't expect immediate changes. However, you have yourself just done a small bit of collaborative Wikipedia editing, finding some sources, which work other editors can in turn build upon. Uncle G 03:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks back. I've asked for some help from my staff and others who may have these cuttings and references. My career is pretty well documented by the mainstream press, even though I've spent a lot of time off to the side.
    • Excellent; I would like to distinguish this Eric Francis from the author of ISBN 0312982313 with a disambiguation page (or whatever's best). I'm convinced the one in dialog with us here is not the author of The Dartmouth Murders. My original goal was to prevent folks from linking to this article from the "AP" articles. Good to go, Uncle G? Keesiewonder talk 09:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • You don't need my permission to be bold. ☺ I'm simply another editor. What title should we give to this article, do you think? Eric Francis Coppolino? Eric Francis (journalist)? Eric Francis (astrologer)? Eric Francis (journalist and astrologer)? (I think that neither the second nor the third are good choices.) And do we have enough sources for writing the other article? (If we don't actually have two articles, we don't have a reason to disambiguate between them.) Uncle G 11:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
        • You are right; I could be more bold and generally am, thus getting myself in trouble. Maybe that's in real life, though, and not in the Wikiworld. This one could be, Eric Francis Coppolino as you suggest, or Eric Francis (Coppolino) if it is not too unconventional a name for a WP article. This one could also be Eric Francis (investigative reporter) with the other one being Eric Francis (freelance writer) or Eric Francis (journalist) ... but I don't really like that approach since I don't want to be implying any kind of comparison between the two EFs in their article name. I'll work on digging up some material on the other EF as you're right that we don't have much of anything on him yet ... Keesiewonder talk 11:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
        • If I may chime in on this discussion: I am not really any one thing; neither "astrologer" or "[some kind of] reporter" would say much because I am just as much a photographer and publisher, nor would it do that much to disambiguate me from the others, since there are several overlaps (which is why I started using my full name again). But I am uniquely my name -- still legally Eric Francis Coppolino, listed as such on the Planet Waves masthead. "Eric Francis" is an abbreviation of my name that I've used since the early 1980s to disginguish my astrology, artwork and poetry from my more conventinoal journalism and editing. However, that distinction has grown pointless and even confusing, as we can see, but I was not ever expecting to have an encyclopedia listing debated. Thankfully it's not the Conservapedia.66.108.53.91 12:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
          • What we're discussing is not an article summary, but what disambiguator to use. The tension is between making the disambiguator short, and making it not conflict with other potential disambiguators. You've made a good case for not using disambiguators at all and going for Eric Francis Coppolino instead. Uncle G 13:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The other Eric Francis

A start ... Search for ISBN 978-0312982317 on Amazon, opt to search inside the book, search for the word "border," and you'll see a mini-bio under the link "from Back Matter." It isn't really anything more than we've already seen ... but is a start ... I'll find more. Keesiewonder talk 10:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)