Talk:Ina Garten

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Contents 1 Multiple Edits 2 Gay Icon 3 External Links 4 Good article 5 Flickr pic

[edit] Multiple Edits

Sorry about the thousand edits, folks. Information on this woman is hard to dig up and is found in disjointed bits and pieces, not to mention I have to constantly fact-check. Thanks for your patience. Air.dance 20:35, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gay Icon

Ina has a large gay following, and almost all of her friends who come over for dinner are gay. I wonder what you all would think about adding her to the gay icon page? Ideas? Rellman 22:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I thought about that myself, and here's the stumbling block I hit -- I see a difference in how Ina's gay friends are presented on-screen versus her straight ones. The straight couples are always presented as such, but there's nary a reference to the partners of her gay male friends. For example, I distinctly got the vibe from one of her episodes that she was cooking for a friend and his partner, but she referred to him as "so-and-so's guest" or "so-and-so's friend". It could be a Food Network thing, it could be an Ina thing, it could be the preference of the men in question, but it bugs me. However, in contrast, she specifically mentions gay couples as a facet of the changing face of "families" in one of her cookbooks. Overall, I think I have to vote no on the gay icon inclusion for right now; however, she has more books and episodes coming out, so my opinion may change if she takes a more vocal stance on her support for the gay community. Cheers! Air.dance 00:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

In addendum, I added a small snippet to her article regarding this. Air.dance 00:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

We are using YOUR choice of words by using FAN alone. Is this going to be an ongoing, necessary battle over a word? A fan site has an absolute implication of being unofficial.

First, that site in no way belongs here -- it's clearly stated in the rules that fansites are almost universally unacceptable as external links. Second, many fan message boards are endorsed by and/or connected to the celebrity in question. This one is not and I believe it should be stated as such. I originally removed the links entirely as they are both extraneous and lend nothing to the articles in question, but decided to let them remain if they were tagged as fan sites. I will admit I should have been clearer in my original request that they be tagged as fansites -- I took it as a given that you would understand I was asking for a disclaimer and not my words verbatim. -- Air.dance 02:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Answer - I took it at face value, not as something I was supposed to make implications a suppositions about. And while many fan sites are celebrity endorsed, even more are not. THank you for letting us add our link here.

We'll consider the issue agreed upon then. Since you were kind enough to pare down the long description to the current one, I'll give from my end and not insist on the "unofficial" label. And you don't have to thank me -- this is as much your site as it is mine, no matter what disagreements we may have. -- Air.dance 02:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm putting this article up for FA consideration soon, and so have removed the fansite link as it was a soft violation of the rules and would not adhere to Wiki standards. Thanks. Air.dance 11:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good article

This article is clearly worthy of GA status so I've promoted it. In addition to that I have meddled around a little bit - I added a note to say she didn't graduate to her infobox; I know that the full details are in the text, but it did seem a rather misleading summary of her education without it! Other than that, I fixed a spelling but otherwise spelling seemed okay too. Perhaps the tone is a little uncritical, but as a whole I think this article is doing well. Would be interesting to see how it copes with FA; I am sure it will be nominated sooner rather than later! TheGrappler 20:53, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Awesome, thank you! In the interest of making it even better, can you clarify what you mean by it's "uncritical"? I tried to include what criticisms I could find of her cookbooks, show, etc., as I really want it to be NPOV and not fancrufty. Thanks again, I appreciate the promotion a lot. Air.dance 00:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Uncritical doesn't necessarily mean "showering praise" - the article clearly isn't fancruft. Being critical might mean taking a wider or comparative view, for instance, how does she rank in terms of fame and success to other American culinary stars? It might be hard to gauge that statistically but maybe viewership and book sales figures would help. As a Brit, with no exposure whatever to Ina Garten (though I guess I had vaguely seen her talked about on U.S. websites) this article should be telling me whether she's still a quietly rising star or whether she's hit the big time. My impression is she's just recently hit the latter and is still on the up, but is a long way off being the undisputed American Queen of the Kitchen - if that is an accurate impression, you're doing a good job, but could you make it clearer and back it up a little? One thing that makes it hard for me is the lack of reference points - so-and-so-without-a-Wikipedia-article said something good about her, or somebody of the calibre of such-and-such-also-lacking-a-Wikipedia-article worked for her is both unconvincing and a little disorientating (it can make me feel that, since I don't know who this people are, I am utterly lost) - these people either have articles or deserve them, so why not use [[...]] around their names? Nothing wrong with having some redlinks come up - might encourage someone else to write about them! When I did a little background reading, it seemed to back up my interpretation of the article (you certainly have the fundamentals about her correct, that goes without saying) but I'd feel more comfortable if I didn't have to read so much into it - it's bad enough with newspaper articles etc which are trying to basically sell the shiny-new-talent-of-the-moment rather than giving a broad overview of her work and significance, which is basically what this article should be focusing on (and, by and large, it is!). You might also want to check out the vocabulary. Was her book really "literary" for instance - it would be unusual for a cook book to be known for its literary merit, so the word might do with dropping. Are her best-known dishes really "trademark" - I am sure someone else cooks the same dishes! Perhaps they are her "hallmark" dishes? So, my advice is basically wikilink more individuals, watch the language, and don't be afraid to take the spotlight off her on to the bigger picture. Is she being credited with changing America's tastes? Or riding at the front of the wave of a change in taste? Is she now in the instantly-recognisable celebrity bracket? Is her fame quite localised e.g. to a particular part of the U.S., maybe she is making it in Canada or further afield too? I'd like to know. And the fact that your article has made me want to know, despite the fact I have pretty much zero interest in cuisine and celebrities, is a good pointer that you have written a pretty fine article! The fact that I still don't know is a good pointer that it's not a complete one ;) Then again, they never are, are they? Keep on going with it, I'd be interested to see how it copes with the FAC toothcomb. TheGrappler 17:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You are an absolute peach for being so helpful. I followed your (excellent) suggestions of wikifying important names, chucked out some sketchy words in favor of more neutral phrases, and am now gather refs and awaiting my brain to slowly churn out some writing to address your other points. I'm going to work on it a bit more before submitting it to FA and see if I can't cover the things you mentioned, as well as wait for the slow.. slow.. slow trickle of information to add some more factual stuff. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the help, my friend! Air.dance 03:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flickr pic

I found a picture of her on Flickr [1]. Could someone more familiar with flickr than myself ask the author to make a cropped copyleft-licensed version of that picture available? Raul654 23:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I dropped the author an e-mail a few weeks ago, but haven't gotten a reply as of yet. Air.dance 10:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

That's unfortunate. Maybe a reminder email is in order? Raul654 11:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Air.dance 11:56, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Still no answer, but hey! I just realised you're the wiki-of-the-day guy. Let me ask you, why did you want this specific pic? Is it because my fair use pics rule the article out for front page featuring? If so, I could grab a screen cap of her and replace one of the fair use pics if that would be more acceptable. Air.dance 08:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I want to avoid fair use on the main page if possible; a screencap, however, is still fair use. Raul654 02:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Hopefully this guy comes through then, or maybe one of my friends will turn up with some pics from the book signings this winter. Air.dance 12:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, didn't get any word back on the Flickr pic, but I did find someone else with a self-taken photo. She uploaded [2] and made it copyleft, and I've replaced one of the fair use pics with this one. I edited my wiki-of-the-day request to insert this new copyleft pic. Let me know if I need to do anything else to bring it in lines with your requirements! Thanks! Air.dance 03:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)