Talk:Barbara Warren (athlete)

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No verification of college degrees[edit]

I can find no names of colleges attended by Barbara Warren. The numerous articles written about her throughout the years, and also on her personal and professional website and in author profiles on Amazon.com and AuthorHouse.com, the dates and names of cities where she attended school vary from article to article, site to site. Names of universities are not listed. Some articles and sites say she got her bachelor's in 1978, then another says she pursued her doctorate in the early '80s. One profile says both sisters pursued art degrees in France but another says they studied psychology in France. There's no mention of a master's degree. Her "thriving pschotherapy practice in La Jolla," according to one site, does not appear to exist. Her practice address and phone number listed on her website are residential and in Pacific Beach (92109 zip code) -- not La Jolla and it's not a neighborhood zoned for business in San Diego. On this site, http://www.getmentalhelp.com/search/listing.php?tid=3543, her education details are blank. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences's database, which lists licensed therapists and counsellors in the state, does not include her under any of her names. She's also not listed on sandiegotherapists.com nor with the licensing departments in the county or city of San Diego. All the obits -- and the story of her death has been picked up by dozens and dozens -- it repeats the Ph.D and her business as if they're facts, yet there are no names of universities listed anywhere and, thus, no way to confirm or verify her degrees. --AuthorAuthor (talk) 20:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

According to their website
Education
Graduated from the Gewerbeschule in Innsbruck, Austria
BA. Psychology, Mexico.
MA. Education, Texas (Barbara).
Ph.D. Psychology, California (Barbara).
I agree it's odd that the schools are not listed, just states. She was living in Brownsville, but I find no source for University of Texas at Brownsville. Perhaps distance education degrees and/or from unaccredited institutions of higher learning. Jokestress (talk) 21:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the '70s, they didn't have distance education to speak of. . I actually called the U of Texas: no record under any of her names (she used several over the years). Most people who have Ph.D's cite those degrees and the year obtained; she didn't. And it's interesting that she doesn't appear to have a license or certification to counsel or practice therapy. On the twin site, they took the time to write out that they had degrees; why not simply include the institutions and years? --AuthorAuthor (talk) 22:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We need to be careful and avoid original research here. The bio can only reflect the published sources. If there are discrepancies, we can say this source has this and that source has that, but until a journalist notes the lack of specificity, we need to reflect what's been written. Jokestress (talk) 22:58, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I tried to verify it because it piqued my personal curiosity, not so I could include it in the article as original research. The fact that there are no specific universities cited, only that she received a Ph.D, does not appear to be a solid citation. I searched for online sources for the psychotherapy practice and was unable to find anything, besides what was written but not sourced on her own website. Barbara referred to herself on the twin website as a consultant, so perhaps that's a better description of her occupation, rather than "therapist" or "psychologist" since the sourcing for that appears to have originated from the sisters themselves and then repeated by the media in stories online.--AuthorAuthor (talk) 01:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Business license[edit]

Confirmed business license for consultations and seminars via the San Diego County assessor's office Web site, added it to the article.--AuthorAuthor (talk) 03:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of publications[edit]

User:Qworty removed all references to Warren's self-published work. Before adding it back, I wanted to open a discussion. I think that might be useful information for readers who want to learn more about her. Jokestress (talk) 19:28, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Her books are not self-published. She paid for them to be printed through a vanity press. Preditors and Editors states: "AuthorHouse (formerly 1st Books): Not recommended. A vanity publisher" [1]. Also be aware of guidelines [2] and WP:SPS. Thus, these works do not meet WP guidelines as reliable sources. Barbara Warren may have been many things, but she was not an "author." She was a person who pretended to be an author by paying others to publish her "books." I have not researched her other claimed accomplishments, but it may turn out that she was non-notable on these other fronts as well, and that the entire article should be deleted. Qworty (talk) 19:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
She had a New York Times obituary. Plenty notable. The article does not rely on materials in the books for information or facts. The specialty books were published and may be of interest to those who want to learn more. Removing that information does nothing to improve the article. In fact, removal of that information makes the article less comprehensive and worse in quality. You are using a notability guideline for an article about a book to delete useful information. None of her books merit their own articles, but self-published work is entirely appropriate in an article about the author. You are mistaken about policy. Jokestress (talk) 19:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that she appears to be notable on all counts except as an author. I removed the word "author" from the intro to the article, as the vanity-press books, according to WP:BK and WP:SPS, fail to grant her notability as an author. Everything that is used as a source in an article must be WP:RS. According to the guidelines, we can't support her status as an author with a slew of "books" that she merely paid to get into print. WP:RS applies not only to articles in toto, but also to every specific claim within an article. If you want to state that she was the author of published books, then you will have to find books of hers that were published by legitimate, traditional publishing houses. Qworty (talk) 20:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Novelist Harold Robbins has brought some of his out-of-print books back into print via the print-on-demand company AuthorHouse. But I agree that Barbara Warren's books appear to be vanity published, and she used the print-on-demand company to do that. A search did not find any reliable book reviews. Within the the article, the self-pub'd books, vanity or not, could still be included as a mention. AuthorAuthor (talk) 00:50, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've returned the brief mention of the books, but left out the selected publications section. The books were mentioned in a secondary source, so they seem worth mentioning here. - Bilby (talk) 11:52, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Barbara Warren. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:46, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Barbara_Warren_(athlete)&oldid=1211039785"