Talk:Sweet Home High School (Amherst, New York)

Editing

The page is not protected, you can edit it yourself. Please only use the editprotected template for when a page is protected from editing. Thanks, VegaDark 20:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have made some edits to this page. The original author of this page included the McKnight brothers (Brian, and Claude IV) as "notable alumni".

To the best of my knowledge, to be considered an alumnus, said individuals would have had to have actually GRADUATED from Sweet Home Senior High. I grew up with the McKnight family and lived next door to them, they moved to Orlando, Florida in 1978. None of the McKnight brothers graduated from Sweet Home. They graduated from high school in Orlando Florida. Being an alumni of Sweet Home myself, I do not think we should be claiming alumni status for persons who moved to another state before they graduated, ( in the case of Claude IV) or were even old enough to attend (in the case of Brian).

This morning, I corresponded via e-mail with Actor/Director/General Badass Vincent Gallo, and he has assured me that he did NOT graduate from Sweet Home. In fact, it seems that Mr. Gallo left the Buffalo area when he was 16 years old. I am wondering exactly WHO is making these claims about the McKnight brothers and Mr. Gallo, and being so bold as to post what are easily debunked LIES.

Osirisrising (talk) 16:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)OsirisRising

Also, I removed Reggie Witherspoon from the "Notable Faculty" heading. Mr. Witherspoon was the Boys' Varsity Basketball coach for a few years, and that was his only involvement with the school. This does not actually make Mr. Witherspoon "Faculty". While Mr. Witherspoon is currently the head coach of the NCAA Mens Division 1 Basketball Team at the University of Buffalo, the team under his leadership hasn't done anything of "note".

Osirisrising (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

• The heading under the list you removed these people from was "Students", not "Alumni". All of the people you mentioned did, in fact, attend Sweet Home, so they should be replaced. --Soultaco (talk) 17:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• The heading of the list I edited was "Notable Alumni". I have referenced personal correspondence with Vincent Gallo. He assures me he never attended Sweet Home, and did not even live in the district. The McKnight brothers are personal friends, and no, I regret to inform you that they did NOT graduate from Sweet Home, and being as Brian left the area with his family before his tenth birthday, you cannot claim he went to the high school. Brian DID attend Willow Ridge, however that does NOT make him alumni and no, it does NOT make him a student of the high school. Please stop adding famous people in some sort of misguided attempt to make the school seem "cooler".Osirisrising (talk) 01:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

• First off, you would do well to note Wikipedia's protocol on assuming good faith and not be accusatory. I did not add Brian McKnight, as it happens; I added Gallo at one point, I believe. Rather than being some kind of attempt to "make the school seem 'cooler'", I did it because there are in fact sources that cite Gallo as a Sweet Home student, whether he graduated or not. For example, this New York Times article:

"Mr. Gallo -- stepping from a limousine, wearing leather and looking like a rock star -- led some of his former classmates from Buffalo's Sweet Home High School through the throng."

(I also have a copy of an interview in Buffalo's Artvoice somewhere where he mentioned it in passing, although I can't find it online right now.) If you can cite a documented source indicating that the NYT is wrong on this one, bring it on. --Soultaco (talk) 03:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• Great. Another Wikipedian who wants to flex muscle. You want a documented source? How about Vincent Gallo himself? I SUGGEST that you contact Mr. Gallo himself via his website. He is actually quite good at responding personally to inquiries. I informed him that I wouldn't trouble him again once I verified FROM HIM that he did NOT attend Sweet Home. Citing the New York Times as an irrefutable source is somewhat laughable, in light of the recent uncovering of more than one instance of reporters "reporting" on events they were not present at. And ArtVoice? Get serious. I used to work for ArtVoice. The lack of accuracy in reporting what Jamie Moses considers "news" is exactly why I left Vincent Gallo attended the Kenmore-Tonawanda School distrct. It's not surprising that ArtVoice got this wrong and never bothered to correct it. Not to mention, that Vincent Gallo is FAMOUS for giving incorrect information about himself to mainstream media. Sweet Home has NO RECORD of Mr. Gallo attending. As for the McKnight family, they have been friends of mine for over 30 years. I have worked with both Claude IV AND Brian in the studio in recent years.

You're starting to come across like Quatloo. Cut it out man. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Osirisrising (talk • contribs) 19:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• The point is this: It needs to be documented somewhere. The official policy of Wikipedia is not to just take you at your word that Gallo told you this, and to believe you over what has already been published by multiple sources. Verifiability, not truth, is the official criteria for what gets included here, and personal communication falls under original research. If Gallo himself said somewhere that he didn't attend Sweet Home and the NYT is wrong, fair enough; it could well be the case that multiple sources are wrong. But it needs to be documented somewhere other than your inbox; the word of any arbitrary Wikipedian doesn't make for encylopedic information. Regardless of Jayson Blair's antics, there is plenty of precedent for regarding the NYT as a reliable source for Wikipedia articles, and it counts for more than someone saying "This guy sent me an email saying otherwise! So there!". Perhaps third party opinion is going to be required here. (And hey, if someone actually sends Gallo this way, perhaps he could clear this up quickly.) --Soultaco (talk) 05:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Ask him yourself. vincentgallo@vincentgallo.com You could have saved yourself a lot of time if you had just gone to the trouble of figuring out how to contact him YOURSELF (like I did) OR you could have asked me how to contact him. Instead, you choose to start a "discussion" over something you could have figured out by merely contacting the SCHOOL. Or is the school not good enough? Or maybe you did, and they told you THEY had no record of him. Either way, e-mail Gallo, or CALL THE DAMN SCHOOL... I'm starting to think this IS Quatloo, under a different name. Stop bothering me with this. I'm just going to continue to remove Gallo every time I see him here, SINCE HE NEVER ATTENDED SWEET HOME. HE ATTENDED KENMORE WEST BRIEFLY. I notice that while you seem so sure of your source, you haven't put Gallo back in the article. When you first started lecturing me, you said the section of the article in question was "Students" it was not "Students" it was "Notable Alumni", WHICH IS WHY I REMOVED THE NAME IN THE FIRST PLACE. In order for someone to be an ALUMNUS, they must GRADUATE from the learning institution in question. Vincent Gallo left Western New York at the age of 16 and went to New York. He is talented, but NEVER graduated from high school. (Incidentally, Jayson Blair is not the only New York Times writer who has come under scrutiny, there have been two others in the last couple of years, but their names escape me, and since you talk like you know your way around the Times pretty well, you can look them up yourself. Maybe you'll write an article about them, and stop playing WikiPolice)Osirisrising (talk) 14:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Alumni

We should put the graduating classes of the alumni if anyone knows anything like that. Also, the page that Mike Harrington is linked to is a different Mike Harrington which is misleading.--Cartman005 (talk) 21:05, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Joe Mesi's failed 2008 New York State Senate Campaign is not relevant to this article. Also, including him as a candidate for a non-existent 2009 race is absurd. The next race for that seat is not until 2010.Osirisascending (talk) 04:56, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I have requested that some of the more senior Wikipedia editors look closely at this and intervene if necessary. I for one, find it ridiculous that Cartman0052007 continues to add material regarding a non-existent 2009 New York State Senate Race. The next election that Mr. Mesi could possibly participate in will not take place until November, 2010. And the New York State Democratic Party has not made the name of their candidate for the 2010 race known as of this date. The only information about Joseph Mesi's political career that would be relevant to this article, would be mentioning that fact that he was defeated in the 2008 election by Republican Candidate Michael Ranzenholfer, and the fact that Mr. Mesi has been appointed to a patronage position created for him by the Democratic Party leadership in Western New York. What do you say we try to keep the article about our alma mater as accurate as possible, and not use it as a vehicle for Mr. Mesi's political aspirations? Osirisascending (talk) 18:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I removed Rachael Rush from the "Notable Alumni" section. A job on the production team of an MTV "reality" show doesn't exactly make her notable. I think we need to watch this section more closely, as there are people constantly being added who are either NOT Alumni, or really aren't all that "notable". Osirisascending (talk) 23:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)