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A Reviews section was recently started (and I acknowledge, arguably spammed) with the following content:
"The sweet-and-sour aroma will be the first thing you notice about this venerable Kentucky classic," says Morgan Murphy.<ref>{{Cite isbn/978084874316}}</ref>
I think the content, despite its origin, is notable enough by itself (given its notable author) and is a useful part of such a section, and we should be engaging in expansion, not removal before we decide what has proper weight and what doesn't. How else do we encourage the start of similar sections in any article? Complete removal due to simply not liking it is the weakest justification and makes people think this isn't an "anyone can edit" publication.Stevie is the man!Talk • Work 13:00, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Other ways to encourage such sections would be to add empty "Reviews" sections and mark them with {{Empty section}} templates, or to start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Food and drink or a similar page. Wikipedia's "anyone can edit" ethos explicitly doesn't extend to authors and publishers who wish to quietly add quotes from their newly released books into articles.
I've added a review fragment from a 2000 edition of Wine Enthusiast Magazine to replace the removed fragment from Morgan Murphy's book. --McGeddon (talk) 14:59, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have already acknowledged that the way the quote was added was questionable, but to reject all such adds, even if they have enough notability (and I believe the removed content does have that), is Draconian. We must judge the content itself over judging how it was added. Otherwise, we are acting in an un-wiki manner. Also, empty sections look unprofessional and you wouldn't find those in any other encyclopedia. You replaced one fragment with another one, and the common reader will know no difference of weight between the two. This all boils down to your judgment of WP:IDONTLIKEIT against the previous content. Stevie is the man!Talk • Work 13:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's just the COI thing, I have no opinion of the writer and am not enough of a whiskey buff to judge his authority. I have no idea whether a neutral whiskey expert would accept a recently published Bacon & Bourbon cookbook quoted alongside the San Francisco World Spirits Competition as another respected source for describing classic whiskeys, or if they'd laugh out loud. But if you know enough about the field to make that call (and if that call is more than just "he has an article, seems legit"), fair enough.
If there's a COI here, what the editor should have done was drop by the talk page of each article and say "I'm promoting this book that was released yesterday, I'd like to make a review section and add this quote from it as the only entry, can somebody do that for me?" - if you're saying that you'd have replied to all of these with a "yes" (rejecting only the Jim Beam one), then maybe we should just act as if that's how it happened. --McGeddon (talk) 13:54, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The bottom line for me is that I don't think we should remove material solely due to the behavior involved in its contribution. Sure, I wish the contributor had behaved better. But if the content happens to be useful, that should have a weight as well. Assuming the content is acceptable, keeping it out is like telling someone who donated $100 to a cause that the money won't be accepted because they mailed in cash rather than a check. Stevie is the man!Talk • Work 15:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on the content - edits aren't all interchangeable $100 bills. Some neutral and significant paragraphs of distillery history would be fine, even if added by the author of the book that they were referencing, but adding a fresh review section with a single tasting quote "said Named Author in New Book" is much more of a straight promotion. We can verify that the Murphy's quote is true, but we also need to check that the article isn't pushing a particular point of view by using it - namely that in 140 years of Old Forester's history, this is a prominent review quote. Or whether it's reasonable for a Wikipedia reader reading through all the whiskey articles to get a growing sense that Morgan Murphy must be a heavyweight whiskey critic and Bacon and Bourbon some kind of bible for the subject, if so many collaboratively-written articles have chosen to quote it. --McGeddon (talk) 16:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
An article by Michael Veach (a generally well respected bourbon historian, AFAICT) seems to contradict some of the content of this article regarding bottling and seals on bottles. The article is this:
Veach, Michael (February 15, 2016). "Dating Old Whiskey Bottles from the 19th Century". The Bourbon Review. Retrieved 2017-03-14. See also my comments at Talk:James E. Pepper. —BarrelProof (talk) 03:23, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
