Talk:Marcus Eli Ravage

Hi everyone,

Recently, I have updated the infobox. To be specific, I added citations the names of family members. Also, a few days ago, I have added citations for his birth and death dates into the infobox.

All these details are already present and well-sourced in the "Biography" section of the article. However, I had received feedback from several editors suggesting that such information (e.g. the date of death and relatives' names) should be explicitly cited in the infobox itself and that references somewhere in the article body are not sufficient.

While I understand and respect the reasoning, especially for sensitive or disputed facts, on the other hand I'm concerned this might lead to overquotation, since the footnotes are just duplicates of the references already in the relevant section of the article.

So I would like to ask the community:

Do you find the birth, death, and family details easily verifiable from the article text and its existing references? Do you think the extra citations in the infobox are necessary? Or do they detract from readability? Should we follow the principle of "better safe than sorry" and include them anyway?

Appreciate your thoughts! Tartigradesinspace (talk) 19:53, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

A low-resolution Fair-use portrait of Marcus Eli Ravage (circa 1960) has been added to this article to correct a persistent visual misidentification. For over a decade, a photograph of an unrelated older man was mistakenly associated with Ravage, including a two-year period (2023–2025) during which the incorrect image was hosted on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. This misidentified photo propagated into authority databases and biographical repositories, reinforcing a distorted visual record.

The newly added image was digitized by Ravage’s grandson, Christopher Clausen, and sourced from Archive.org. It depicts Ravage in his mid-70s and is the only known photograph of him in later life. No freely licensed equivalent exists. The image is used under Fair Use with a detailed rationale on the file page, and its inclusion reflects Wikipedia’s editorial responsibility to correct prior negligence and restore visual accuracy.

Please refer to the file description for full justification. Tartigradesinspace (talk) 00:45, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

A recent edit removed the following sentence from the lead without explanation or replacement:

His satirical essays about antisemitism, published 1928, were later stripped of context and ideologically repurposed by Nazi propaganda – a conspiracist distortion further recycled in postwar antisemitic discourse.

The sentence summarizes a key aspect of Ravage's reception history, namely the ideological misuse of his satirical essays. This topic has been extensively sourced and clarified in the body of the article (see section "Reception and Distortion") to avoid misinterpretation and ensure neutrality. The inclusion of this sentence in the lead provides necessary context for readers, and reflects a widely discussed dimension of his reception. I've restored it accordingly to maintain a balanced and comprehensive overview of Ravage's work and legacy Tartigradesinspace (talk) 22:26, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Following a second unexplained removal of the same sentence the next day, but by a (seemingly) different IP editor, I have now reinforced the lead with inline citations already present in the body (Kellman, Mihăilescu, Konda). These sources explicitly document the ideological misappropriation of Ravage's essays by Nazi propaganda and in postwar antisemitic discourse, as cited in the "Reception and Distortion" section. Reusing them in the lead serves as a safeguard against context-stripping edits by non-engaging IPs.

Note: Both involved IPs are registered to Bloomberg infrastructure and have prior warnings for disruptive editing. A Sockpuppet Investigation has been opened to assess coordinated behavior. Tartigradesinspace (talk) 17:55, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Update: The SPI case was closed without action; the patroller confirmed the two IPs were likely the same user but found no blockable offense based on two disruptive edits. Possible future removals of sourced content will be addressed via standard noticeboard procedures. Tartigradesinspace (talk) 22:58, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

The following has been copy and pasted from the note section of the GA nomination template. This is because the size of the note was causing an error with the bot. I have added {{Do not archive until}}. Please remove this when the GA nomination is under way or this comment is no longer relevant.

A sourced sentence in the lead about the ideological misuse of Ravage's satirical 1928 essays was recently removed without explanation (29 Oct 2025), by an IP user with a history of repeated warnings for disruptive editing (User talk:69.191.241.52). It has then been restored, with justification on the article's Talk page. Earlier "edit wars" (in the 2010s and early 2020s, when the article was still a stub) had involved false claims such as a supposed 1933 Czernowitz translation, a misattributed portrait, and repeated denial of the satirical context of the essays. Recent disruption appears to be residual: the now well-sourced and expanded article is expected to remain stable. P.S.: On 30 Oct. repeated removal of sourced sentence. Sockpuppet investigation closed without action, patroller confirmed the IPs were likely one and the same user. No active dispute among registered editors. Should further disruption occur, it can be addressed via standard noticeboard procedures. The article's sourcing and Talk-page documentation provide a stable basis for reverting unsourced or ideologically motivated edits. Tartigradesinspace (talk)

SSSB (talk) 18:10, 1 November 2025 (UTC)