Talk:Joe Coulombe

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A news item involving Joe Coulombe was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 2 March 2020.

There is a question of how many stores Coulombe started out with: 3 or 6 stores. The Mainstreet reference states 6. Other articles state 3. He was running 6 stores under Rexall. He may only bought 3. I will leave the number at 6 for now. War17 18:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The MainStreet reference states TJ's started in 1967. Other articles state 1966. I will leave the date as 1967 for now. War17 18:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Residents of Pasadena in 1967 were well educated and underpaid professionally. This is cited in Stanford business school literature http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0602/people.shtml WLee 15:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

   --fine:  that is how Coulombe saw Pasadena...make it clear that is how COULOMBE saw Pasadena.  Don't present it as a factual assessment of the city.

Is this wording OK? In 1967 Coulombe launched his first Trader Joe's in Pasadena, California, a city which he viewed as the epitome of the overeducated, underpaid customer. WLee 23:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds OK to me... Williamhurrah 01:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Much of the text has been taken from the following site:

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0602/people.shtml

Vercillo (talk) 11:52, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is very little source material from Joe Columbe. So published material comes from mostly one source. The paraphrasing meets the 30% change requirement. WLee (talk) 22:32, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no quantifiable percentage which must or should be changed in determing substantial similarity in the US copyright laws that govern Wikipedia. Even if there were, Wikipedia's copyright policies were written to be intentionally conservative, in order to help secure the reusability of our content around the world.

This article seems to be an unusable unauthorized derivative work of [1]. For a few examples of close paraphrasing, consider the following:

Thus it was from the Steeres and the academic community that he learned about the class of consumers that would later provide Trader Joe's customer base...

The source says:

so it was from the Steeres and the academic community that he learned about the class of consumers that would later provide his customer base.

The article says:

...later asked him to start Pronto Markets as a test. He had six markets running when the firm ordered Coulombe to liquidate them. With financing from the Bank of America and relatives, plus selling his home and 49 percent of company stock to employees, Coulombe bought the markets.

The source says:

...later asked him to start Pronto Markets as a test. He had six markets running when the firm ordered Coulombe to liquidate them. With financing from the Bank of America and relatives, plus selling his home and 49 percent of company stock to employees, Coulombe bought the markets....

The article says:

In 1966, he was happily running a chain of 18 Pronto Markets convenience stores in the Los Angeles area when a threat loomed on the horizon. The Dallas giant Southland Corporation was invading with its fast-growing 7-Eleven stores. Coulombe saw the difficulty in competing with the well-financed Texans. In 1967, Coulombe launched his first Trader Joe's in Pasadena, California, a city which he viewed as the epitome of the well educated, underpaid customer. The concept worked. Slowly, he began converting Prontos in demographically correct neighborhoods.

The source says:

...happily running a chain of 18 Pronto Markets convenience stores in the Los Angeles area when a threat loomed on the horizon. The Dallas giant Southland Corp. was invading with its fast-growing 7-Eleven stores. Coulombe knew he had no chance against the well-heeled Texans.... In 1967, Coulombe launched his first test of Trader Joe’s in Pasadena, a city he saw as the epitome of the overeducated, underpaid customer he sought, and the concept worked. Slowly, he began converting Prontos in demographically correct neighborhoods....

There are other passages that similarly follow too closely.

While facts are not copyrightable, creative elements of presentation - including both structure and language - are. So that it will not constitute a derivative work, this article should be rewritten in the temporary space that is now linked from the article's front. The essay Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing contains some suggestions for rewriting that may help avoid these issues. The article Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches, while about plagiarism rather than copyright concerns, also contains some suggestions for reusing material from sources that may be helpful, beginning under "Avoiding plagiarism".

Alternatively, if the material can be verified to be

Since my internet connection is faulty at the moment, I will ask another administrator who works copyright problems to look in on this article to see if there are any questions. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So where is the other administrator input? The Wikipedia article has be around for about 3 years, and not other administrator has flagged it.

You editing is overly aggressive. There is no copyright infringement. There is very little public material on Joe Columbe. A lot of it is work of mouth. So information has to come mostly from one source. Copyright rule said that you have to change 30% of the original article. I have done that.

I will stop contributing to the Wikipedia fund until this over aggressive editing is reversed. WLee (talk) 20:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I asked two contributors to watch this article in my absence. No one ever asked any questions. They can't provide input for questions that aren't asked. There is no copyright rule in the United States that says that changing 30% of content makes it usable, I'm afraid. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm not an administrator, I agree with Moonriddengirl that the examples shown above are way too close to the original text and cannot be used on Wikipedia. De728631 (talk) 21:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm one of those who was asked to keep an eye on this article. I made no comment here because Moonriddengirl's explanation of the problem was already very thorough and as she said, we can't answer questions that aren't asked. VernoWhitney (talk) 11:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Attempting to clarify a bit;

• So where is the other administrator input? - administrators have no special authority regarding article content. We decide such issues through
  consensus
  .

• The Wikipedia article has be around for about 3 years, and not other administrator has flagged it.
  There is no deadline
  ; with 6,819,080 articles, some get fixed quickly, some don't. We - the community - do our best. Please help.

• You editing is overly aggressive. Through the agreed Wikipedia copyright policy; we remove possible copyright infringements, while we discuss it. This goes back to the 'no deadline' concept; as you mention, the article has existed for years, and hopefully will be around for many more – therefore, if it is absent for a short time while we sort things out, that matters very little, in the bigger picture.

• There is very little public material on Joe Columbe. and A lot of it is work of mouth. - Exactly, and Wikipedia only uses information that can be
  many other websites
  for that sort of thing - MySpace, or whatever...where (I believe) you can write just about anything you like.

I hope this helps explain things a bit better; we do want to help, but please do understand the reasons behind the community-agreed

Moonriddengirl has spent considerable time trying to explain the issues that this article faces, and advise and support fixing them; we are all here to make Wikipedia better, so please let us do that together. Thank you for your time.  Chzz  ►  05:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see

• For clarity's sake, the arguments presented by
  WP:OWN. MLauba ^(Talk) 11:04, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Name in summary should match the article file name. The full name is already in infobox. The birth name can be listed in Early life section. See revision with it. Suggest putting it back.SWP13 (talk) 14:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC) >>Updated.[reply]

You're apparently unfamiliar with protocol and a bit confused. The full legal name begins the lead in a bio. It also is placed in the "Birth name" (or "Born") field in the infobox, assuming the person never changed their name. In terms of the article title (subject), that should precisely match the name at the top of the infobox; so in this case, since Joe Coulombe is the subject (article title), it also appears at the top of the infobox. As examples, see the articles of other Joes, such as Joe Pesci, Joe Scarborough, Joe Rogan, Joe Biden, or Joe DiMaggio. Or, pick any famous person and look at their article, 2605:A000:FFC0:D8:18AE:9870:D055:58D9 (talk) 17:38, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have Added the following but it has been deleted... Please insert back into article.SWP13 (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coulombe was a philanthropist. Coulombe was a donor and a Governor Emeriti at The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens.[2][3]

The relevant content has been expanded, properly sourced, and wikilinked. 2605:A000:FFC0:D8:18AE:9870:D055:58D9 (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a distinct difference between a businessman and an entrepreneur. Anyone in business, regardless of their role, can be a businessman. But an entrepreneur -- aside from conceptualizing, launching and opertating a business -- assumes the risk of the business. The term businessman as a descriptor is very vague, while entrepreneur adds clarity. You can Google "businessman vs entrepreneur" for more detail. 2605:A000:FFC0:D8:18AE:9870:D055:58D9 (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]