Talk:George Maharis

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[edit] Arrest

Okay, based on WP:BLP, the references to Maharis being arrested need to be either sourced or removed. My preliminary Google search comes up with an eBay item, an old magazine (Gay Scene: Intellectual Homophile Monthly, Volume 5 #7, December 1974) that mentions the 1974 arrest. The eBay listing itself doesn't sound like a reliable source to me, but the magazine itself could probably be used. The eBay listing does have a picture of the article, so the article does exist. Whether that magazine is itself reliable is not something I'm qualified to judge. For now, I'm going to remove both arrests as unsourced. If someone has a good citation (e.g. has seen an actual article) and wants to put the info back in with proper attribution, that's fine with me. Frankly, this article was largely negative in tone in early edits, with lots of words about failures, arrests, and alleged misbehavior, and relatively few words about his accomplishments. I've tried to rectify this a bit, but I understand that the negatives can legitimately appear here - if well sourced. Karen | Talk | contribs 00:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

    • I wondered what was going on with this biography. Maharis' arrest was quite well known in the gay community of the 1970s, so I'm not sure why it's become such an issue for some of you. I entered the aforementioned information, and referenced the QueerMusicHeritage.us webpage which has a scanned image of the magazine article (probably the same one mentioned above as being sold on Ebay). I don't see anything "largely negative" in the part that's shown on the site, but it could be a partial scan. This incident was as well known back then as the George Michael arrest more recently. It's not some urban myth being cooked up to slander the name of a mostly-forgotten actor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.172.104 (talk • contribs) 8 July, 2007
Hi. A bot reverted your edit, and I'm guessing that tinyurl.com is the reason; it may be on a list of problematic sources or something. To be honest, I haven't the expertise to evaluate the reliability of the sources provided, so I'm going to try to get some help figuring this out. The idea here isn't to whitewash the article or deny what happened, but to conform to WP:BLP and make sure any negatives are properly sourced and all that. I do stand by my earlier statement that at one time, the article almost completely ignored Maharis's career accomplishments (and his side of the story on his leaving Route 66), instead focusing almost exclusively on the "bad boy" aspects of his life. It's better now, and if the arrest information can be put back in in a careful and responsible way, it won't unbalance the article at this point. --Karen | Talk | contribs 08:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:BLP sasy that extraordinary claims which extraordinary sources. Gay Scene (NYC) appears to be a tabloid-style magazine, a type not known for reliability. Further, since the subject was not convicted of the initial arrest charge, it appears to have even less value. If this was mentioned in a better source, then it would be usable. On the while, this is a bit like reporting drunk driving charges or other misdemeanors. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
If memory serves, all links to tinyurl.com are blacklisted. A visual scan of an article from a publication whose track record is unknown to us shouldn't be accepted for a claim that would be considered negative under BLP. EdJohnston 20:35, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I well remember Maharis was arrested. The arrest pretty much outed him as gay. From what I have read, he was arrested not once but twice involving alleged sexual misconduct, the first time in 1967, and the second time in 1974, according to NNDB. The arrests should be included in his bio.--2 March 2008 Susan Nunes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.60.145 (talk) 16:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

It's been in there for a while now. Someone found usable sources for both incidents. --Karen | Talk | contribs 21:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toupee

I just reverted the following addition:

It is not widely discussed, but Maharis has worn a toupee from the days of Route 66.

Under the WP:BLP guidelines, this sort of thing probably should not be added without a reliable source. If you can find a news article or published interview that mentions this, please provide the citation. To be honest, I find it a bit dubious. -- Karen | Talk | contribs 21:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 16:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)