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Merge John Ondrasik

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Should John Ondrasik and Five for Fighting be merged? Currently Five For Fighting (capital "F" on "For") redirects to John Ondrasik which is a separate article from Five for Fighting (small "f" on "for"). The Five for Fighting article says that is a "screen name" of Ondrasik, while the John Ondrasik article says he is the "chief member" of the band. We probably need to get our stories straight. (I have no knowledge of the guy, so I'm not the one to do it.) --rbrwrˆ 19:07, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I always thought it was a band, with him as the front man. I don't really know anything about them, but I remember seeing them on TV once (I think it was an NHL All-Star game) and they said they were often asked where the 5th member of their band was by people who don't follow hockey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Priester (talk • contribs) 05:27, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the above statement by rbrwr, I would say that John is pretty much the solo member of the band. He writes almost all the music and lyrics for all of Five for Fighting's songs. I do think that the two articles should be merged because the members vary on some of Five for Fighting's songs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.153.31.104 (talk) 23:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article would benefit from having some personal information about Ondrasik such as his date of birth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.25.13.246 (talk) 01:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article should make it expressly clear that Five for Fighting is not a quintet, contrary to the common myth resulting from its name. --Coolcaesar (talk) 11:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hot 100 Edit

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Being ranked #6 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 is NOT the same as being ranked #106 on the Hot 100 (in fact, the Hot 100 is so-called because it only includes EXACTLY 100 entries). The Bubbling Under Hot 100 ONLY includes songs that have not (yet) charted on the Hot 100. For instance, if a song hit 100 on the charts, and then dropped five spots (making it now #105), it would NOT appear on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 since it has already charted in the Hot 100. For addition info, please see Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki4Life (talk • contribs) 01:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Genre?

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What Genre is FfF? íslenska hurikein #12 (samtal) 21:01, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nvm. íslenska hurikein #12 (samtal) 15:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

overview

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Is it necessary to include that the song "Superman (It's Not Easy)" became popular after the September 11 attacks in 2001? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drchazz (talk • contribs) 04:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Five for Fighting

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There's a lot of issues with this one - way too much puff and non-encyclopedic content, including instructions on where to buy albums, a blow by blow listing of when each of every single comes out - some serious reorganization needs to be dealt with. I did some minor copy-editing, but someone with time who knows what they're doing ought to take a shot at overhauling this entry. Echoedmyron (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just took a crack at refining it a bit. I know the intro still isn't big, but I just can't think of any real "career-spanning" stuff other than his singles. It's my first big editing job, so I hope I did Wiki justice. TomQ541 (talk) 00:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking to touch up this page as best I can. For now, I've added a little bit to the intro (mentioned his later singles and his Grammy nomination, which had somehow been left out!). I also added a couple live albums to the discography. Long term, though, this page will probably need a major revision. His career as Five for Fighting now spans 20+ years (and his pre-FFF stuff goes way farther back than that), so maybe the main body of this page can be organized into a few sub-sections. It currently has 20-25 years worth of info with no subheaders or anything. I may be able to do some of that. Another long-term goal would be to get him his own discography page. There are artists who have their own discography pages despite only having a handful of singles and a couple albums. This guy has a dozen releases between studio albums and live albums (to say nothing of the singles), going all the way back to the mid-90s. I think a discography page to accompany this article would be great, but someone more skilled at tables and formatting would be better for it. Arrowhead1014 (talk) 01:56, 31 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Personal Life

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I'm a little confused by some of the things in the personal life section: firstly, that his political affiliation had recently changed back to Republican and was backed up with a really old source. I've included the post (from 2016) where he says in his own words that he's an independent, and not a Republican. If a user wants to change it back to Republican, please find a source where Ondrasik says he's Republican again -- one that is more recent than 2016, when he became independent.

Secondly, I question the value of the quote about Ondrasik's distaste for Saturday Night Live. What does John Ondrasik have to do with SNL? Why is this relevant enough to be included when John tweets about all kinds of things (mainly sports)? Arrowhead1014 (talk) 18:52, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Hard rock?

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Maybe a few album cuts here and there were hard rock, but not enough so for it to be included in the infobox. Also, the ref used says "harder rocking edge", which doesn't mean "hard rock". Music refs are supposed to explicitly say the genre, but when I took it off, it got put back on, for some reason.

Dpm12 (talk) 20:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It was not restored "for some reason." I gave my reasons on the edit summaries. It was restored because the original edit summary said that the sources did not mention alternative rock or hard rock, but both of the sources did. The alternative one said it word-for-word, so I restored it. I assumed that the editor who removed it simply missed it.

On the hard rock one, the words from the article are "harder rock edge," not "harder rocking edge." Not sure there's a huge difference, but let's at least be clear of the exact wording before we base our whole debate around them. Whether this constitutes hard rock label or not, I'm happy to go with whatever the consensus is. But claiming the reference does not mention it at all (a claim that was repeated on my talk page) is false. Also not too pleased about the accusation on an edit summary that I will "just put it back" if it's deleted. I'm happy to discuss, but not to be accused of editing in bad faith. Arrowhead1014 (talk) 18:03, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Member of "John Scott"?

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Why is Five for Fighting listed as a member of "John Scott"? When you click on that link, it links to what seems to be a biography of someone who auditioned for a talent show? 73.217.125.31 (talk) 10:29, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't make the edit, but I can guess. John Scott is the name of a band that John was in during the 1980s or 1990s. The only other permanent member of the band seems to be Scott Sheets, so it probably links there because the "John Scott band" is not notable enough for its own page. Scott was a notable songwriter in his own right. Arrowhead1014 (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Max Raskin Interview

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The same user has reverted multiple attempts to include anything at all from this source and declares it "spam." https://www.maxraskin.com/interviews/john-ondrasik

Why is it spam? It's a highly detailed interview by fairly well-known professor from NYU about the subject of this Wikipedia page, and numerous other interviews that are far more trivial have been accepted in this bio. The parts I inserted were about J.O.'s political and religious views, which are things he talks about pretty much constantly and have been subjects of several of his songs since 2021. Even the 2021-present section of this biography touches on John's political views. I think it's perfectly relevant to know the guy's religious and especially political beliefs given that context. I don't remember what the other reverted edit was (it was another user's, not mine) but I can see it in the version history. Either support your position that this particular interview is spam or quit selectively editing it out. Nothing about the Max Raskin site seems "spammy" to me. It's just a bunch of interviews with public figures, no different than sources on this page that haven't ever been reverted. What's the deal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arrowhead1014 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Arrowhead1014: Over the years, multiple anonymous editors (IPs) have added trivia sourced to these interviews to Wikipedia articles. These IPs never make any other kind of edits. In my opinion, based on the IPs' behavior on Wikipedia, these are Raskin himself. It was these same IPs who originally added this interview to this article. Raskin's website is a self-published vanity project, not a reputable source of journalism or academic research. Because this is a blog without any editorial oversight, indication of fact-checking, or other sign of having a positive reputation for accuracy and fact-checking, these interviews are not reliable sources.
Theoretically they could be used as primary sources, and in some articles they have been retained for that. (This is why I haven't proposed blacklisting the site for spamming). That isn't going to work here. It isn't up to us to use our familiarity with his songs to decide what is and is not important. That's a form of original research. Instead, we need to use sources. This interview is a one-off thing in an obscure blog about unfalsifiable personal views. If these specific political/religious views are encyclopedically important a reliable source will exist. If reliable sources don't exist for this, it doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article.
If you can find a reliable source, use that instead. If you cannot, this should be removed. Grayfell (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the response. I understand your position much better than what I could glean from the edit summaries. I would still be interested to see where other editors fall on this, but I am happy to go with consensus. In the meantime, I will see if I can bolster these claims with something stronger; I wouldn't be shocked if he's said similar things in stronger sources. Take care. Arrowhead1014 (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Arrowhead1014 — thought it might be helpful to give some context. @Grayfell and I and another fan of Raskin's interviews have had disputes and neither of us are practiced enough in the norms of Wikipedia to be able to revert his deletions and I assume that will likely remain the case (e.g., he removed Tucker Carlson's dyslexia from his page and Daniel Kahneman's religious views). That's fine, but it's at least worth mentioning that @Grayfell's characterization things are simply not accurate.
He says the interviews are a "self-published vanity project," but Raskin publishes his interviews with the Wall Street Journal and they have been cited by the New York Times. It may be the case that it's a vanity project, but the interviews have been relied on by numerous sources.
He cites the policy on self-published sources which says, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer."
Raskin's interview work has "previously been published by reliable, independent publications [e.g., the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, etc.]" and he has been cited by those places as a reputed writer and interviewer.
Obviously that's just a straightforward reading of the rules and an application of them to this case, but there seem to be unwritten rules I am not familiar with that seem to predominate. CarlMarks51 (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a "straightforward reading of the rules".
This story that a couple of fans are making the same kinds of edits and adding this one author in the exact same idiosyncratic way, for years, strains credulity. Have you ever added any other source to any article, at all? I notice that this comment is your first edit in over a year. It's tempting to wonder how you found this talk page discussion, but it's not really a mystery. If you want to claim that it's Raskin's email newsletter itself, that would make this a WP:MEAT and WP:COI issue.
Regardless, your summary isn't how SPS works. Raskin's blog is still just a blog. Raskin's opinion and commentary work in the WSJ or elsewhere has editorial oversight, but those are still explicitly Raskin's personal opinions. Any opinion content would need attribution. There would have to be a specific reason to cite Raskin by name citing his personal opinions. Such opinions are not inherently noteworthy.
So Raskin's blog, by itself, is not made into a reliable outlet merely because he's written unrelated opinions for legit new sources. If Raskin is an expert in this topic, you would be able to cite a reliable source for that. But you can't. Raskin's many personal opinions in WSJ and Newsweek post 2013 have no baring at all on Five for Fighting's political or religious beliefs. Otherwise, anyone who was ever legitimately published in anything would become an 'expert' in every topic. This is why we need reliable sources, instead. Grayfell (talk) 23:50, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The crux of your argument is "Raskin's opinion and commentary work in the WSJ or elsewhere has editorial oversight, but those are still explicitly Raskin's personal opinions."
But you missed the point entirely; it's not his opinion work that is being published or cited by reliable sources, it's the interviews themselves. I'm not speaking about his opinion pieces, but rather his interview work, e.g., most recently a January 2026 interview with British House of Commons Speaker Jacob Rees-Mogg. Both the New York Times and New York has cited his interview with Tucker Carlson, for example.
Yes, "Raskin's blog is still just a blog." But it's a blog whose veracity is trusted and republished by both the conservative and liberal papers of record in the country. His interview work has been demonstrably "published by reliable, independent publications."
I'm curious what @Arrowhead1014 says about what to make of the fact that the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications rely on the veracity of Raskin's interviews [and not his opinion pieces.] CarlMarks51 (talk) 02:40, 21 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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