User talk:CeltBrowne

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Development proposals

Hi. Apologies in advance. Rant incoming. Not directed at you. But just at the universe in general :)

As noted, development proposals are the subject of marketeering and other types of promotion every day. Some of these press releases are picked up by relatively mainstream news sources. And include gushing quotes from the developers and promoters. While the project is under no obligation to republish all of them as if they were anything other than speculative kite-flying (and we have any number of guidelines against doing so), for some reason we sometimes seem to forget ourselves. And (without meaning to) republish a developer's promotional material or aspirational dreams - as if they were something other that.

In some cases, this results in standalone titles on proposed developments that ultimately never occur. Many almost laughably trying to cram in as many white elephant/unicorn proposals as possible into just a few lines of text. For example, in:

• 2008, a Heuston Gate title laughably declared that "Heuston Gate [..] is a skyscraper development moving into construction phase in the coming months. Heuston Gate contains at its heart a 32 storey tower which will be either Ireland's tallest or second tallest building depending on when the U2 Tower is completed".
• 2009, the Atlantic Quarter title claimed that this development (yards from what is now the Marina Market) almost certainly "will be complete by 2013 [..] rivalling Dublin's docklands area and acting as a counterweight to the International Financial Services Centre in Dublin and the Titanic Quarter in Belfast [..and served by a..] €80m swing bridge, which will open to allow boats use the river [..and..] will be the biggest in Europe. "
• 2010, the Tipperary Venue article made clearly insane claims about there being a "15,000-seater underground entertainment venue with a retractable roof" that absolutely "will" form part of this white elephant on which work almost certainly "will begin on the site in the spring of 2011".
• 2012, a Christchurch railway station article ridiculously claimed that a "Christchurch [..] station will be one of five new underground facilities serving the reconfigured DART (Underground) services. It will be located next to Christ Church Cathedral [..and..] also connect with [..] the proposed Luas Line F, to Lucan". And that all of this would happen by 2015. (As if trying to win a bet by deliberately cramming as many speculated/unrealised proposals into one paragraph. Like the author was shooting the Wikipedia moon...)

In other cases editors (for reasons I have never been able to fathom) can't stop themselves from adding equally laughable stuff into existing articles. Like how, as of:

• 2015, the Economy of Cork absolutely "will" be improved by the South Main Street (Beamish and Crawford site) events centre. Which will have a "total cost of [..] 150 million euro" (LMAO) and "will begin end of 2015" (ROFL) and how "BAM also plans to build a 360-degree viewing tower" (keel over dead from the gall of this hubris).
• 2008, the Stephen's Green luas stop article stated that it "will feature an underground [DART] stop" With no qualification or conditionality. And that there also "will be a deep bore [Metro] tunnel [by 2013]". Again no qualification. Will definitely have two underground platforms by 2013 and 2015.

While I'm sure you won't, I entreat any/all editors not to fall into this trap (the one that newspapers seem incapable of avoiding): Republishing developer pie-in-the-sky proposals as if it is nothing more than speculative kite-flying to gain investment or clicks or whatever.

Long-story-short: About the most we should ever state is something like: "In MONTH YEAR, the owners of XYZ proposed to undertake development ABC". Anything more than this is too much. And just creates a burden on the community to keep updating this speculation. Until all the dates and plans have changed beyond recognition. Or just fallen-away entirely. Please don't be one of the editors that creates this collective burden...

</endofrant>

(Apologies - It's not you - It's me :) ). Guliolopez (talk) 21:30, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi Gulio,

As you may know, I normally write about people or social/political organisations rather than locations/buildings. Typically with biographically pages, using text sources from national level newspaper is straight forward and not controversial. However, I could see from the edit history that this property development type of stuff is a bugbear for you. In future, I'll be more discerning as far as content of this type goes. In return though, just be careful with your tone in edit histories; avoid having your concern misconstrue as aggression by other users. Regards, CeltBrowne (talk) 21:45, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

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Arms of towns

Hi. I notice that you've added "coats of arms" to the infoboxes of a number of Irish towns. Is there a particular rationale for this?

If these coats of arms are currently used to represent these towns (in particular circumstances), are there references to support this?

If these coats of arms were historically used to represent the towns or their councils (perhaps prior to the 2014 abolition of town/borough councils), is it clear from the infobox entries that that is the case? (IE: That, if they were only used historically and are no longer used currently, is this clear from the placement/captions/etc in the infobox?)

My main reason for asking is that, to my memory (which may be wrong of course), more than a few of those infoboxes previously contained those COA images. And they were removed over time. Mostly either because (a) the arms were no longer used in any official/common/real sense (while their prominent inclusion in the infobox implied otherwise). And (b) their inclusion couldn't be supported by references.

Anyway, if you have references or rationale for their inclusion, can you perhaps share? Thanks. Guliolopez (talk) 11:53, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi Guilio,

If you click on any of my recently uploaded Coat of Arms, and click "View on Commons", you'll see that references have been provided in the file description (they have a specific Coat of Arms template used on the Commons). References include sites such as Heraldry of the World Wiki and Source Blazon Wiki, but ultimately link back to Grants and Confirmations of Arms books hosted on the National Library of Ireland website and are issued by the Chief Herald of Ireland themselves, the issuer of the arms. That covers most arms issued post-Independence (1922 onwards).

Any derived from before 1922 come from reliable sources such as books published by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies such as The book of public arms.

So you can see that any arms I've uploaded to Wikipedia have been properly sourced, and those sources attached to the files themselves. CeltBrowne (talk) 12:37, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Just to elaborate:

If you click File:Skibbereen Coat of Arms.png and click View on Commmons, you'll see that 3 sources were provided in the file description, including an NLI link. If we go to the NLI link, and go to image 86, we see both the blazon and the motto right there. CeltBrowne (talk) 12:41, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi. In the edit summary accompanying this revert you referred me to this commons image. Which in turn refers to this open wiki. Which in turn refers to this this grant of arms (image 14) which is dated to March 1953. And states that the arms were issued, by the then Chief Herald of Ireland, to Sligo Corporation in 1953.

Given, in particular, that Sligo Corporation no longer exists, is there any evidence or reference that the arms are used (in any actual or real way) to represent Sligo today?

Or, if the arms were only used between 1953 and 2014, is that clear from the infobox entry?

(Same goes for the Skibbereen COA. Which (per the NLI source you mention image 86) were seemingly given to Skibbereen Urban District Council by the then Chief Herald in November 1980. As Skibbereen Urban District Council was abolished in 2014, are we happy that the arms are still in use? By another entity? To represent the town? And that context/use is clear from the infobox entry?)

Thanks. Guliolopez (talk) 12:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Also. Mottos. What did you rely upon for the translation of the motto you gave on Commons? And then also added to the Wikipedia article?

I don't see an English translation in the NLI source or those two other wiki mirrors? Where did it come from?

(FWIW, my own school-level Latin would translate that motto as "what you seek is here". Rather than "what you request". But that's OR on my part. Did you also use OR? Is that a good idea?). Guliolopez (talk) 13:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Last night while I was rendering the Coat of Arms I know I had a source which gave that English translation, however I'm struggling now to find it again. Googling, I do see different translations offered. If the translation is wrong, I'm happy for it to be removed or altered. Typically, sources such as Heraldry of the World come with a translation of Latin or Irish language mottos and I normally go with what they have. Skibbereen is a bit of an outlier in that the sources don't provide one. If I'm adding mottos again, I'll add citations as well. CeltBrowne (talk) 13:37, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

So in Ireland, the short answer is that Coat of Arms that were issued by the Herald of Ireland to towns/a local government body continue to be used to represent the town after 2014.

The longer answer:

Previous to the 1950s, the only County Councils in Ireland that had Coat of Arms were pretty much the ones who had received Coat of Arms under British rule or had them from medieval times (such as Dublin, Cork, Wexford, Limerick). However, following the creation of the Genealogical Office (later Chief Herald of Ireland) in 1943,[1] the Herald began issuing new coat of arms to council who would pay for them. As most Councils had no "branding", paying for a Coat of Arms how they created a "brand"/graphic identity. So what started happening is that County Councils started paying for Coat of Arms and used that as their only/primary logo. Soon after, towns followed suite. If you go through NLI records, you'll see an explosion of new arms granted between the 1960s and 1980s.

While town councils were abolished in 2014, most towns whose local government body were granted arms continue to informally use them. For example, while there is no longer a "Castlebar town council", there is a "Castlebar Municipal District" which continues to use the same coat of arms. This 2021 Irish Examiner article discusses a fight between the GAA and the County Council over the Coat of Arms (incorrectly referred to in the article as a "crest". You know how property announcements are a bugbear for you? Reliable sources using incorrect terms for Heraldry would kinda be one for me) of Castlebar. This kind of thing demonstrates that the coat of arms issued in the 20th century continue to be seen as active symbols post-2014.

I understand the point you're raising post-2014, but 1) as I've just discussed they're still actively used as de facto arms and B) If you remove Coat of Arms that were technically for a local government body rather than the town itself per say, then you'd have to remove every single town Coat of Arms ever issued by the Genealogical Office/Chief Herald of Ireland and only keep ones issued in medieval times under British rule. And even then, one can strongly argue that arms issued under British rule were also for local government bodies rather than the towns themselves as well. So that would result in every single Irish town having to remove Coat of Arms.

I think the simplest, most reasonable thing to do is recognise that any coat of arms issued by the Chief Herald are considered de facto arms for the town, much in the same way arms issued to county councils are considered the de facto arms of the County. Adding "actually this is the arms of the town council" wouldn't work out, because we'd have to add "actually this is arms of the county council, not the county" to the county info boxes. CeltBrowne (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

To further elaborate:

It's common practice on Wikipedia to simply display the coat of arms of a local government body as the arms of the location. For example: The Coat of Arms displayed for Edinburgh on Wikipedia are technically the arms of Edinburgh City Council. You'd probably have to get into a major discussion with WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology about altering that practice. CeltBrowne (talk) 13:46, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi. While I, of course, understand that many infoboxes include the coat of arms of the active local govt body (for that locality) in the "shield" param, I do not think that Edinburgh is a valid like-for-like example. As Edinburgh City Council still exists. While Skibbereen Urban District Council and Sligo Corporation and Greystones Town Council don't.

To cut to the chase, and even ignoring the potential hallucinations from ChatGPT in generating the images themselves, my main concerns are:

• Verifiability. Do we have references to confirm that the arms, issued to Skibbereen Urban District Council in 1980, are still used to represent Skibbereen in 2025? (I personally don't think that those open wikis and the primary sources should be used alone.)
• Clarity. If the arms are no longer used to represent Skibbereen (after the abolition of Skibbereen Urban District Council in 2014), is it clear from the infobox entry that this is the case?
• Weight. With consideration to related and semi-related guidelines, are we happy that the inclusion doesn't "give undue prominence to one field among many"? (Especially if technically representative of a former govt body - rather than town as a whole?)

In all honesty, if we don't have evidence of them still being used, I wonder if the infobox captions should clarify that the arms were issued to (former) bodies. Rather than (if we don't have evidence that they were) to the town/locale as a whole.

(FYI - In terms of "prioritising British-issued arms over Irish-issued arms", I don't really want to get into a discussion on that. As it seems like an emotive/subjective argument - rather than an objective/policy-based one. In terms of "motto translations", if we don't have a reliable/verifiable source for the translation - than we just should add one. Leave the Irish or Latin stand alone.) Guliolopez (talk) 15:21, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

• None of the Coat of Arms I've ever uploaded to Commons/Wikipedia are generated in ChatGPT. Recently, I've used ChatGPT to assist me in generating some of the elements which I use in GIMP. So for example, the blazon for the Coat of Arms of Ardee very specifically calls for a rendering of the Castle at Ardee. I do graphic design rather illustration, and did not have access to a freely available graphic asset of Ardee Castle. I used ChatGPT to generate one, and then altered that asset. The rest of the Coat of Arms is created by myself or is a freely available asset from the Commons, edited in GIMP. There is no possibility of hallucinations because a human, myself, is manually controlling and editing every aspect of the finished product in GIMP, not ChatGPT. 90% of the process is done in GIMP. All of this is inline with Commons:AI-generated media and has been discussed in Commons:Deletion requests/File:County Limerick Coat of Arms.png and Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Navan_Coat_of_Arms.png as being fine, and has been commended as the correct way to incorporate AI.
• As I've said, Coats of Arms issued to Irish towns have de facto continued to be used by their successors. You mentioned Greystones; Well for example, Heraldry of the World literally has a photo of Greystones municipal district continuing to use the arms of Greystones urban district, while this page from Mayo County Council's official website shows Mayo County Council literally using the version of Castlebar's Coat of Arms used here on Wikipedia. I understand you're concerned about De Jure usage, but De Facto these arms are still being used.
• If you're proposing a blanket alteration to every Irish town infobox that uses a Coat of Arms issued by the Chief Herald of Ireland, again I think that's something I think you'd really need to discuss with WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology, as I would presume a wider consensus would be needed for something affecting so many articles.
• What would altering the infobox look like? Adding a notetag to every infobox stating the Arms are tied to Councils abolished in 2014? I'm not against that per say, but again WikiProject Heraldry would probably have to support it.

CeltBrowne (talk) 15:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi. RE:

• ChatGPT. OK. Grand.
• Greystones. If there's some evidence that Greystones continues to use those arms after 2014, then maybe that's OK (although, frankly, the heraldry-wiki.com entry appears to be a wiki entry which refers to an unspecified Facebook page/image. Which are hardly reliable/authoritative refs under our usual norms.)
• Skibbereen/etc. Whatever about there being some (questionable?) support for Greystones, what about Skibbereen? Or Sligo?
• "WikiProject Heraldry would probably have to support it"? Why would WikiProject Heraldry need to "support" the application of WP:VER or other norms? If there aren't available/reliable/verifiable references to establish (for example) that the arms, issued to Skibbereen Urban District Council in 1980, still apply to Skibbereen as a whole, why would I need to go WP:FORUMSHOPing for further input?
• "blanket alteration to every Irish town infobox". I'm not proposing a blanket anything. I'm only here chatting to you because you seemed to be making multiple ("blanket") changes to various Irish town infoboxes. And I was wondering if there was rationale/refs to support those changes. I wasn't expecting to be advised to "go ask Dad if you think there's an issue".

Anyway... Guliolopez (talk) 16:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Gulio, I'm not trying to get under your skin; I'm happy to build consensus with you, I know you're a diligent editor. If you want to be WP:Bold, you're entitled to do that. It's just that I know from being subscribed to WikiProject Elections and Referendums and WikiProject Professional wrestling that people will run changes to infoboxes by the relevant project as a courtesy. I've never seen a coat of arms in a Wikipedia infobox that has notes or statements attached to it, so that's why I was unsure about the idea and why I suggested discussing it with Project Heraldry.

If you want to put some kind of note into the infoboxes, you can do that. I'm not sure how it will work though, because unlike |image= and |image_skyline=, there is no caption option available for |shield= in infobox settlement. CeltBrowne (talk) 21:04, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hey. Apologies if I came across as "bothered". I tend to communicate in clipped/matter-of-fact sentences. Which, without emojis or smiley-faces to convey tone, sometimes come across as brusque. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

I see now what you mean about the "shield=" infobox param. I hadn't copped that the "caption" for that was (unlike other similar infobox parms) fixed or "hard-coded". With no flexibility. So I can see why trying to add a qualifier would require input from elsewhere. I'll have a think about that before bothering others.

In terms of the core concern (that, absent evidence otherwise, I'm not sure the Skib or Sligo arms "survived" the 2014 Local Gov Reform Act), I'm gonna see if I can find sources. One-way-or-the-other. And either make a WP:BOLD call from there. Or raise a thread on the relevant talkpages.

In the meantime, TBH, I wonder if it would be prudent to avoid "bulk" adding many more of those COA images around the place. As, absent refs/qualification on their their ongoing use to represent the town as a whole, it may be that their prominent placement could be UNDUE. Or, worse, potentially misleading. Anyway... Guliolopez (talk) 13:58, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Curious

Just wondering why you took away the prod on Adam Brooks when the discussion you mentioned was six years ago and there hasn't been much in the way of article activity since. The tags that are there seem to be from the same time as well and haven't been challenged in all that time. I can't start an AfD. 2001:8003:5130:2601:11AC:91C5:44E0:EAC6 (talk) 09:01, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Frank Zeidler.png

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May 2025

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Taylor Lorenz. This means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be although other editors disagree. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus, rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Points to note:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made;
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes and work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing.

Several of the sources you cited focus on opposition to Joe Biden's support for Israel in the Gaza war, which which falls within WP:CT/A-I. Please discuss your proposed contributions on the article talk page instead of edit waring. Thank you. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:54, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Rose Dugdale.webp

A tag has been placed on File:Rose Dugdale.webp requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a non-free file from a commercial source (e.g. Associated Press, Getty Images), where the file itself is not the subject of sourced commentary. If you can explain why the file can be used under the non-free content guidelines, please add the appropriate non-free use tag and rationale.

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R. M. "Bertie" Smyllie

In this edit seen here, where you expanded the article, you also created a cite error, The ref tag has too many names. I looked at the edit and can't seem to find where the error was made. Thanks in advance for looking into it. Isaidnoway (talk) 23:06, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I got the error message as well but for the life of me I can't work out what's wrong either. I used the ref name="Name" system that works in every other article and it doesn't seem any different in the Smyllie article. CeltBrowne (talk) 23:21, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I finally found it, after turning my screen magnifier on. There was a missing > at the end of one of the named refs, diff. I appreciate you looking into it. Thanks. Isaidnoway (talk) 05:09, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

File:Ninette de Valois.jpg listed for discussion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Ninette de Valois.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 22:58, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Photo of Alex Windsor

Hi, I'd like to ask you if this photo of Alex Windsor is ok to be uploaded with the wizard tool. I saw this photo of Okada that you have previously uploaded under the 4.0 license and I assume that their depictions of wrestlers such as official portraits are free works but I don't want to generalize. Can you please tell me more about AEW portraits and under which circumstances can they get uploaded? In Okada's example, I saw the file was reviewed by a VRT member. Same goes fo a file of Jay White I'm seeing. Can yoy give me some advice about this process please? Thanks! JeyReydar97 (talk) 18:21, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

You're more than likely will not be able to upload that file. The AEW files I uploaded came through a special relationship I developed with someone on AEW's online staff, who is no longer there. That person gave permission from AEW to upload the files, and then sent on supporting e-mails to the Commons to confirm that permission had been given. I might be able to get more AEW stuff in future but right now I don't know for sure.

VRT is a team on the Commons that double-checks that files which state they have been given special permission really do have that special permission. CeltBrowne (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Alright, I guess I'll just stick to Flickr relationships. It's easier. Best of luck with AEW stuff in the future. JeyReydar97 (talk) 18:53, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --Min☠︎rax^«¦talk¦» 01:46, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

Association Football Crests

Hey @CeltBrowne, just wanted to thank you for the stellar image work you've done on Irish football - a lot of your recent uploads have enhanced pages I've been trying to uplift in quality so I really appreciate your help with this. If you have any tips for me that could help you, I'm keen to assist! ElfmanWriter (talk) 10:59, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

July 2025

Please do not add unreferenced or poorly referenced information, especially if controversial, to articles or any other page on Wikipedia about living (or recently deceased) persons, as you did to Taylor Lorenz.

You misrepresented the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 479. Uninvolved users there specifically stated It may be problematic to cite analytical statements to Puck as these may be of inappropriate tone or content and the specific source used in the Lorenz article ... probably shouldn't be used for BLP purposes. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:00, 3 July 2025 (UTC) edited 23:56, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I did not misrepresent the discussion on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 479 and I find your use of this template to be highly aggressive (Two of the three cited sources are rated as generally reliable on Perennial sources). In my reading of the discussion, User:Longhornsg clearly stated they found Puck to be reliable, and the other two uninvolved users gave nuanced answers which explained that they they were against the podcast, but open to a written source from Puck (which has now been provided).

@Chetsford, ActivelyDisinterested, and Longhornsg: Your comments from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 479 are being cited by Sangdeboeuf in order to revert this edit. Do you believe that the sources cited (The New Yorker, Puck and Politico) to be "unreliable"? They are being used to support the statement while Dylan Byers reported that the Washington Post "determined Lorenz violated the paper’s standards and had no desire to continue employing her" and asked her to leave. CeltBrowne (talk) 20:44, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I never said the New Yorker was "unreliable" in this context. See Talk:Taylor Lorenz § Dylan Byers. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

What Longhornsg stated was Obviously, we should pay attention to whether a piece is reported journalism or more of a newsletter-style opinion, especially when it comes to BLPs. The source is Byers' "In the Room" newsletter, and is manifestly an opinion piece. More than that, it's the wrong opinion piece. Here's the section talking about Lorenz in its entirety, for the sake of those who don't feel like signing up for a free trial:

Extended content

Taylor’s Version: This week, former New York Times and Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz came under fire for ostensibly celebrating the murder of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. who was shot and killed in Manhattan on Wednesday. “And people wonder why we want these executives dead,” Lorenz, stunningly, wrote on social media. She also shared celebratory graphics relating to the murder of the 50-year-old father of two, and posted the full name, title, and headshot of another health insurance executive. Lorenz later wrote an essay defending herself against the “pearl-clutching” outrage of her critics. I’m not here to weigh in on the grotesqueness of celebrating murder—Lorenz’s reputation precedes her—but it is interesting to see her show her true character after the Times and then the Post invested so much time and energy trying to defend that reputation. As I’ve reported, the Post severed ties with Lorenz in early October, graciously allowing her to “resign to pursue a career in independent journalism” after it determined that she’d misled them about a social post she shared in which President Biden was labeled as “a war criminal.” (Lorenz disputes this account of her departure.) When the Post first began investigating the matter, in August, Lorenz appeared to claim that her post had been doctored: “You people will fall for any dumbass edit someone makes,” she wrote on X. In November, weeks after leaving the Post, Lorenz made her true feelings known, writing on X: “Joe Biden is a war criminal who should never know peace.” In light of Lorenz’s recent exploits, a relevant and previously unreported detail has come my way. In 2023, Lorenz was featured in Glitch, a documentary critical of the once-hot HQ Trivia app. In the film, Lorenz claims that shortly after interviewing the show’s host, Scott Rogowsky, for a piece she was writing for The Daily Beast, she received an email from the app’s co-founder and C.E.O., Rus Yusupov. Apparently, Yusupov protested her attempt to profile Rogowsky. “At 6:00 p.m., an email comes in from Rus,” Lorenz says to the camera, “and he’s like, ‘This is an unauthorized profile. You can’t write this story.’” The film shows a screenshot purporting to be the email from Yusupov to Lorenz with that exact quote. Glitch, which was produced by Left/Right Productions, was acquired by CNN Films and premiered on CNN in March 2023, before being made available on Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max service that July. The next month, the leadership at WBD, HBO, and CNN Films received a letter from lawyers representing Yusupov, informing them that the screenshot purporting to show his email to Lorenz had been doctored, and alleging that it was therefore defamatory. In the real email, a copy of which the lawyers provided in their letter, Yusupov had written only the following: “Hi Taylor, Thanks for reaching out. We are not making Scott available to discuss his involvement with HQ with the media/press. I am happy to talk to you over the phone to give a comment on what we’re doing.” Shortly after hearing from Yusupov’s lawyers, WBD pulled Glitch from the Max streaming service, and it has not appeared there since. WBD and CNN Films declined to discuss the matter, and both the founders of Left/Right Productions and the director of the film did not respond to requests for comment. A producer on the film declined to talk by phone but said she would take questions by text, though she did not reply to those questions, including one that specifically asked about the source of the email displayed in the film. (On Friday night, in a post on her Substack seeking to preempt this item, Lorenz wrote, “Everyone I spoke to who actually worked on the film, said that they sought to tell Dylan that I had nothing to do with the film and certainly nothing to do with any fact-checking errors or false graphics on screen.” In fact, no one involved with the film has reached out to me on Lorenz’s behalf by phone, text, email, or direct message). Reached by text, Lorenz initially told me she did not doctor any emails and that Rus’s attempts to prevent her story on Rogowsky took place over the phone, not in an email. She later said she never watched the documentary, and attributed the screenshot of the email to Glitch’s producers, who, she said, seemed to have taken what Yusupov “said by phone and made it into an email instead.” When informed that in the film she’d said that she received an email with that exact quote, Lorenz told me: “I must have confused email with phone call bc it was 4 years prior 🤷🏻‍♀️ but I have the emails that I sent to Russ [sic] and his whole outrage was by phone. That I’m 100% sure of and it’s in my story correctly.” (Indeed, in her story about the exchange with Yusupov for The Daily Beast, she says his protests to the article took place during a phone conversation, not in the email in question.) “I told them what I remembered and that was that,” Lorenz later said. “It’s not my job to do reporting and fact checking for them!”

Note that this source does not contain the quote "Lorenz violated the paper's standards" and is not the same source that Politico and The New Yorker are referencing. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:56, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

It's taken me hours and hours of using search engines, wayback machine, archive sites and other means, but I finally have it: The original, not accessible directly anymore, pay-walled article url. I cannot stress how difficult this was to obtain and I am unbelievably annoyed with both the New Yorker and Politico for not directly hyperlinking to the original article in their articles:

https://archive.li/t6nUZ

It reads:

Elsewhere in the nation’s capital, The Washington Post has severed ties with Taylor Lorenz after determining that she misled them about an Instagram post on her account in which President Biden was labeled as “a war criminal.” The Post conducted a review of the matter and, though its findings have not been made public, I can confirm that the paper determined Lorenz violated the paper’s standards and had no desire to continue employing her. In a statement, the Post very delicately stated that Lorenz had “resigned to pursue a career in independent journalism.”. This is not Taylor’s version [of the story], of course.

We now have the original Puck article, a second Puck article where the underlying claim is reasserted, and both The New Yorker and Politico (which are generally reliable perennial sources) noting those claims.

And to be absolutely clear: This part of the article is NOT being presented as an "opinion". Byers is stating this as factual reporting. They are stating as fact they did some kind of investigation/contacted sources within Washington Post and discovered that information. Byers reporting was/is credible enough that is it noted by both the New Yorker and Politico. The very same New Yorker article which references Byers is already extensively cited in the Lorenz Wiki-article.

I should hope that any reasonable editor should see at this point that I have made a clear, good faith effort to properly source and verify the statement and abide by Wikipedia Guidelines. This statement, which by the way, I am not seeking to place "as fact" in the Wikivoice, but simply note as one version of the story in the article, as per Wikipedia guidelines regarding contested claims.

I would like now to move forward without further issue. CeltBrowne (talk) 01:16, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

No one is questioning your good faith, but users can't just wave their hands and move forward without the consensus of the community. The material here is still unduly weighted. It doesn't matter how Byers presents his claims; his personal newsletter lacks meaningful editorial oversight and relies on anonymous sources; it's basically a gossip column. It should also go without saying that Byers citing himself is not an independent source. You also left out the following passage: In a statement to me, Lorenz called my framing of her exit “an extremely stupid attempt to manufacture controversy.” She added: “A big part of why I decided to go independent and found User Mag is so that I can speak directly for myself and not have to deal with bad-faith anonymous ‘sources’ trying to smear me in the media.” If you want to include Byers' allegations, then you have to include Lorenz's response as well, per WP:PUBLICFIGURE. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:42, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

As already noted in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 479, Puck is edited by Jon Kelly and Danny Karel, with Longhornsg noting they have an editorial structure in place. WP:BLPGOSSIP advises caution, not a ban on anonymous sources. We are being cautious; our use of Puck is buttressed by the fact major publications with editorial staff such as the New Yorker also noted Byers' claim (based on anonymous sources) and we are citing those major publications in conjunction with the original source.

I am happy to include Lorenz's response, just as Byers responsibly did in his reporting. CeltBrowne (talk) 03:01, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

The source is a newsletter, which Byers calls my twice-weekly private email on media and media people. I don't see any evidence of editorial oversight. Even generally reliable outlets still publish opinion commentary that is not subject to the same fact-checking as regular news and is therefore less reliable. Longhornsg even alluded to this, as I noted already.

As I stated at Talk:Taylor Lorenz, the Politico source is basically an opinion piece and therefore not reliable for factual claims; one unreliable source citing another unreliable source equals two unreliable sources. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:11, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Pinging Simonm223, who also participated in the discussion on using Puck as a source for BLPs. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:16, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

I haven't really changed my view on this from the RS/N discussion. The puck source is functionally self-published and inappropriate for a BLP. Simonm223 (talk) 11:29, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

I would stand by my comment that using articles by Byers published on Puck for BLP details (especially contentious details) could be problematic as he's an owner of Puck media.
In a more general BLP sense can I ask why we not using the New Yorker to quote what the New Yorker said? If they have not published that quote, and it is only found in a single source, then I would be uncomfortable including it regardless of the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:39, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: The Byers quote does appear in the New Yorker , but it is bracketed by Lorenz's denial that leaving the Post was a direct result of the incident, a statement attributed to the Post confirming that Lorenz chose to resign, and the fact that the Post carried out an investigation of her work for evidence of bias, but announced no findings.

I also dispute that we have multiple reliable third-party sources for Byers' allegations, given that the Politico source is another newsletter, which is to say an unreliable opinion piece. My argument is that this is all too much gossip-mongering for a BLP article, and that we should just summarize the known facts about Lorenz resigning to start her own podcast/newsletter. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:29, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

The Byers peice isn't reliable for the claim, as it's to close to being selfpublished. If the New Yorker includes more details those should be included for context, but whether anything be should be included is an NPOV matter best discussed on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:14, 6 July 2025 (UTC)