Talk:Karen McDougal

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Good article Karen McDougal has been listed as one of the Arts good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
December 29, 2007 Good article nominee Listed

Contents

[edit] Career highlights

Certain aspect of McDougal's career remained unconfirmed and no support is available:

WWF developement contract in 2000

Several wrestling websites and others (including Askmen.com) reported that McDougal signed a developement contract in 2000. However, there was no official announcement from WWF (now WWE) or McDougal available online or otherwise. There was insufficient evidence to include it in the article.

  • In her April 4, 2002 Playboy Cyberclub chat, McDougal has denied association with WWE, then WWF. See article for link to chat transcript. 65.213.44.9 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Stripper

Some usenet group discussion at alt.mag.playboy alleged McDougal was a stripper named Brandy at a strip club in Detroit called The Landing Strip prior to becoming a Playmate in 1997. However, there was no proof available online or otherwise to support this claim. No mentioning of this is included in the article.

  • Failed WP:RS, should not be included. 65.213.44.9 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Other than on-line testimonials from club patrons, how does one verify strip club "careers"? One possibility: The City of Romulus, MI required employee-dancers of resident clubs (The Landing Strip, The Playhouse) to register for "cabaret licenses" in the mid-90s. 99.168.85.155 (talk) 19:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)idleeric(alt.sex.strip-clubs)

So where did this rumor originate?

Thru diligent google-ing, i tracked it back to a 2002 message on an obscure Yahoo group:

Story was found in a Karen McDougal "yahoo group", NOT club.

From: tedgforce66@a... Date: Sun Jan 20, 2002 8:56 pm Subject: Re: [Karen_Mcdougal] Karen the stripper?


Yeah I had heard that Karen was a stripper before her Playmate days, but I didn't know the details. This info was from http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/sexygalleryofkarenmcdougal

"Karen McDougal (Dec 1997- PMOY- 1998) is legit ... her real name, she is indeed from Sawyer, MI ("girl next door"), taught preschoolers, large family, pumps iron religiously, B --> C implants, worked as a lapdancer at The Landing Strip in Romulus, MI (aka "Brandi") from mid 90s to shortly before her PM appearance.

The Landing Strip was a wild club back then .... lots of "extras" available .... cf. alt.sex.strip-clubs ... 1995-6 archives."

"Did preschool while she worked as a lapdancer - "stripper" is inaccurate: in a modern lapdance club, the girls take the stage for two or 3 songs in a thong or naked (NY, Tampa, SF), languidly posedance, get off, hustle for lapdances, which occur in a separate venue ... usually a dark room or booths ... no "stripping" happens.

The two gigs didn't conflict, since she danced nights about 3 times a week.

In her PB bio, all the details are accurate, except the omission of her lapdancing gig & the fact she had implants done. PB has since come clean about implants, but is still unable to face up to the prePM dancing careers of ,many prominent PMs ....

For example, fellow PMOYs Stacy Sanches, Anna Nichole smith, & Julie Cialini.

How was Karen as a lapdancer?

Clean, bored ... except when another dancer did doubles w/ her."


Now I heard Karen had the implants while stripping. Because the source claimed he preferred 'natural girls'. Also I heard she had the plastic surgery done in Montreal. Plastic surgeons there do a good job plus they're cheaper. If there are any Canadians in this group please add anymore details that you may have. Thanks.

Plus here a lingerie ad pic of Karen that even I haven't seen before.

Ted


So who the hell is "Ted" quoting? Answer: Me 99.168.85.155 (talk) 21:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)idleeric (alt.sex.strip-clubs)

  1. First, let me thank you for contributing in Wikipedia. Thank you for your interest in the article and I understand you are passionate about this topic in Karen's career. Believe me, I have looked high and low in the web for years for something that can support the claim that she was a stripper before her Playmate days. Every time I will always come back to the statements above (or some variation of it) by Ted or you. There are actually 2 assertions here:
    1) There was a stripper named "Brandy" at the Landing Strip - To support this assertion, you can use an archived version of their website (if they have one), or some kind of published review of the club (either in a newspaper or on a review website) listing the performers at the location. I could not found any info that would list a "Brandy" at The Landing Strip.
    2) "Brandy" is actually Karen McDougal - To support this assertion, which is a lot harder, is to have someone interview the owner of the Landing Strip, or Karen herself on a reputable newspaper or website, with either him or her acknowleding that "Brandy" was indeed Ms. McDougal. Or some kind of promo material from the club that can visually identify Ms. McDougal as "Brandy" from that time period. I read it someplace that the owner held a party for "Brandy" when she received the PMOY title. I thought there would definitely be some promo for that. Unfortunately, I cannot locate any.
    I don't doubt someone saw McDougal danced (I wish I were there), but without reliable collaborative third-party evidence, such statements would be in violation of WP:RS, WP:SOURCE. There is only very limited use of first person knowledge in Wikipedia - Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources_(online_and_paper):
    "... self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable."
    So while I don't doubt your statements, the assertions above cannot be included in the article. Again, thank you for your interest! Mineros (talk) 19:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

99.175.157.60 (talk) 18:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)idleeric -->

  1. 1: That there was a "Brandi" @ The Landing Strip at the time in question is extremely difficult to verify; stripper "stage names" are fungible & one dancer can go through dozens of names over the course of a career. However ...
  1. 2: That Karen McDougal was indeed a "Brandi" @ the Landing Strip during the 2-3 year period while she resided in "a Detroit suburb" prior to her PLAYBOY career is verifiable by the fact that the City of Romulus MI required strip club dancers (there are two clubs in Romulus) to register and pay a fee for "cabaret" licences.

Whether or not those records are maintained & still on file at Romulus City Hall is debatable (I suspect they are) ...

The club has fallen on hard times; the owner (Tom, a Silvio Dante clone) sold it some years ago & god only knows where he now is. I can only hope Ms. McDougal elevates to level of fame (Marilyn Monroe?) where an enterprising journalist is empowered to look Tom (or idleeric) up for a verification-worthy interview. 'Til then, alas, "Brandi" will remain a footnote rumor.

[edit] Personal life

McDougal apparently has maintained a private personal life and several unconfirmed items have been circulating the web:

Marriage

Several fan forums indicated that McDougal got married in 2002 and may have subsequently divorced. However, there is no proof of that from any website or articles. She has not acknowledged or denied ever being married either. There are no pictures of her and her alleged husband available. There was a rumor suggesting her husband was Jenna Jameson's brother, however again without proof. There is not enough support to indicate that she was or is married, hence it is not addressed in the article.

  • Failed WP:RS, should not be included. 65.213.44.9 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Lexington Steele

While there are many forums (mainly XXX forums) that alleged McDougal had a relationship with Steele at one point, it remains as a rumor and speculation. There is no proof from any parties involved from any press articles or pictures on the web or otherwise to support or deny such claim (the forum participants in those discussions appeared to also raised such concern). As a result, it is not addressed in the article.

  • I noticed this item keeps coming back, but it failed WP:RS and should not be included. 65.213.44.9 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

If anyone can add links the the trivia section, it would be great. I'd like to nominate this article as one of the good articles, but I think sources should be there first. :) Ohyeahmormons 16:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

  • WP:TRIVIA outlines why articles should not have trivia at all...Michael DoroshTalk 00:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Looks pretty complete to me for an article of this length. 65.213.44.9 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] aka Karen Long?

There is no verifiable info online that supports her birth name was Karen Long? Is there? 65.213.44.9 18:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

Comments:

  1. All one-two sentence paragraphs must be either expanded or merged with the surrounding paragraphs, as they cannot stand alone. In this case, they disrupt the flow of the article significantly, making it read like a series of facts rather than the prose of an encyclopedic article. This is especially marked in the "Personal life" section, which reads like a borderline trivia section.
    Y Done I think. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 19:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
    I sort of tweaked the personal paragraph a little bit more. Hopefully making it a little tighter. 76.199.65.126 (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  2. The image in the infobox needs a caption to put it into context. When and where was this picture taken?
    Y Done
  3. I count six fair use images in this article, which is far too many for a biography of a living person, especially one where a free image is already available (in the infobox). The only fair use rationale that I completely buy is the Playboy cover, and even that one is questionable since there's a free picture available (though I do understand the "pinnacle of career" idea) Image:Karen with Karen doll.jpg has to go, as it serves no unreproducible purpose beyond illustrating the subject of the article (there's no reason to use fair use when someone could easily just take their own photograph of the doll; Karen McDougal does not need to be holding it). I also don't see why Image:Karen PMatPlay 07-2005.jpg is needed, as it really isn't doing much aside from illustrating an arbitrary aspect of her career and, with so many other images in the article, I don't really see a good reason to upload this particular fair use one. Image:Karen sideway split.jpg seems excessive as well. Being able to do the splits, while impressive, is not notable enough in general to merit a fair use rationale in an article that already has a large number. I'm also fairly skeptical on Image:Karen Arena2001.JPG; let's be realistic, she's known for modeling, not for acting, so I don't see a reason why this picture qualifies for fair use BUT I am open to being proved wrong. The other three have to go though, if this is to become a good article. Image:XFL commercial.jpg, while displaying an unreproducible event, makes me wonder whether or not it's so important to have this fair use of a shot where you can kinda see her in the background of a commercial; unlike the Playboy cover, it's not a pinnacle of achievement BUT I am open to this one being defended as well.
    Y Done "I personally believe the Playboy Cover and the XFL commercial cap should stay as the cover is her "pinnacle of career" and XFL commercial is still her only mainstream TV commercial appearance and most controversial work to date. 76.199.65.126 (talk) 16:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)" (copied from User talk:AnonEMouse#Karen McDougal)
    If it's good enough for AnonEMouse, it's good enough for me. Obviously AnonEMouse has more than a little work under their belt for images. Cheers, CP 19:32, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  4. "Early life and education" jumps around in number styles (four years, 2 years). One style (and this applies to the whole article) needs to be chosen per WP:MOS.
    Y Done
  5. "Playboy has continued to publish her material in Playboy Cyber Club, Playboy Special Edition publications and Playboy Videos on different occasions based on her work at this time." (Playboy) requires a citation.
    Y Done
  6. "While all Playmates appeared in bikinis in the calendar, McDougal and Hiromi Oshima were the only two Playmates actually wearing only painted on bikinis." (Post-Playboy) requires a citation. Also, I think that the wikilink for "painted on" doesn't go where you want it to go.
    Y Done
    Er ... while I hate to disagree with the esteemed IP editor who wrote most of this great article, it's still not cited, so I don't think it's done yet. I looked for a citation on the Web and couldn't find it (except in copies of Wikipedia). This sentence doesn't seem to that much of a linchpin for the article, since she has clearly appeared both in and out of bikinis many times; maybe we could just remove it? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 19:48, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
    Ooops, You two are both correct! I missed the citation part and I think this sentence may go as it was more of a trivia that she wasn't exactly wearing a swimsuit in the calendar. 76.199.65.126 (talk) 20:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
    I changed my mind, well, a little bit. I have referenced the sentence to the calendar. Anybody who has seen the calendar will arrive at the same conclusion. Will that work? Sort of like summarizing a book after reading it? 76.199.65.126 (talk) 22:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  7. Having an "Early life" and a "Personal life" section is a bit awkward. I suggest either merging the two or renaming the second one to something that emphasizes that it focuses on her personal life after her early life ("Later life" makes her sound like a war veteran, but hopefully you get what I'm getting at if I suggest that)
    Ah, I recognize this, word for word, from a completely different GA review. :-) It seems to be a matter of style, and used often throughout the Wikipedia, in some of our most respected articles. Do you have any specific suggestions? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 18:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
    Yeah, I might have used that somewhere else. Can't for the life of me remember where though. As with Glover, I'll think about it and, if I can't come up with anything better, won't hold it against a GA pass. Cheers, CP 19:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

To allow for these changes to be made, I am placing the article on hold for a period of up to seven days, after which it may be failed without further notice. Please note as well that I have not checked the references yet, which I will be doing after all of the above concerns have been addressed. The article also has a few small MOS problems (a few references inside, rather than outside the punctuation, for example), but I will clean these up with a copy edit myself if the above concerns are addressed. Cheers, CP 08:10, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review Part 2

  1. There are still one-two sentence paragraphs that chop up the prose, including the lead, the last paragraph of "Playboy" and the last paragraph of "Personal life"
    Fixed the lead, but couldn't find a good way to expand or combine the last two. I hope they're not killers. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 22:04, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    Why not just tack them to the end of the preceeding paragraphs? It disrupts the flow far less than having them floating in the ether. Normally I wouldn't be this picky, by the way, but since Ref #26 needs to be fixed anyway... =D Cheers, CP 22:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    Tucked those 2 lines into the preceding paragraphs. 76.199.65.126 (talk) 06:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  2. I forgot to comment on the lead in my first review; I don't think it quite conforms to WP:LEAD or, at the very least, conforms to the bare minimum. I'm a bit worried that it doesn't quite summarize all the important parts of the article, especially for an article of this size. There's a lack in the Early and Personal life sections, but I think the career part of the lead could be fleshed out a bit as well. I think overall it's too general, whereas the lead should allow the reader to walk away with a good, if not detailed, overview of the subject of the article, which I don't feel that it does at the moment.
    Y Done
  3. Wikipedia is not censored. As the footnotes are intended to link directly to the content that they cite, please link directly to the mature content (with a warning if you'd like) rather than asking the reader to guess where the cite lies among the external links (unless there's a specific policy against this and, if so, please point it out to me).
    I'm not sure what this is in reference to. Can you be specific as to what footnote reference doesn't link directly to content? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 22:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Blinks* I swear I made a point of including the reference number. Sorry about that, I meant #26. Cheers, CP 22:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    I believe I may be in a better position to address this comment, pls give me some time. 76.199.65.126 (talk) 22:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
    Split the references into 3 separate ones, #26, 27 & 43 with mature content warning included. 76.199.65.126 (talk) 06:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  4. I question how much Youtube can be used a source, especially when the fact could be cited with IMDB, but it's likely a copyright violation to do so. (Ref #34)
    Y Done
    Reformatted the press release using {{cite press release}} 76.199.65.126 (talk) 06:14, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  5. External link #1 is redundant to Reference #3 and should be removed. Same with External link #2 and Reference #12.
    Y Done #2; #1 disagree, I'm afraid - it's is her official personal site, important to emphasize as a separate external link, even if we do use parts as a reference. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 22:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hold is ongoing. Cheers, CP 19:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Everything looks great, so I will be passing the article as a Good Article. Congratulations, and thank you for your hard work! Cheers, CP 08:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)