User:PedanticallySpeaking/In Progress4

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I rolled back changes today because they deleted a lot of material. Critical quotes gave this piece life, unlike many Hollywood biographies here which are pro forma lists of IMDB credits. I'll certainly admit I could phrase a couple things better, but why remove all this stuff? PedanticallySpeaking 16:20, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Your revert was entirely unjustified but I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are just misguided about this article's quality. Here are but some of the reasons for the changes I made:
  1. The critic review quotations are super POV violations and unnecessary in a biography (wikipedia isn't rottentomatoes.com), especially the fact they were all in the very first paragraph.
  2. Too many wiki links (poor readibility)
  3. Too many red wiki links (poor readibility)
  4. The article's tone is more like a six degrees of separation game than a succinct biography
    1. Related: no need to list every person involved with every play and every movie she's ever been in, for example "David Mamet" as the person behind "Oleanna" is not only non note worthy on multiple levels, overall such referencing detracts from article quality.
  5. "Acclaim" for film Wicked at sundance is perhaps not only an overstated POV violation, but also uncited. Do we mention plot details for each non noteworthy movie an actor or actress has starred in?
  6. Which is better POV wise "The role that made her a star was" Vs "Her first major role was"?
    1. And "Her first major role was" Vs "Her next film was" (original version inconsistent)
  7. Dates not in the first paragraph or directly related to an article should not be wiki linked in my opinion.
zen master T 16:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Let me just correct that last one - all dates should be wikilinked. violet/riga (t) 16:55, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I disagree, extra wiki links that no one is likely to click on detract from article quality and also slow wikipedia down. For a celebrity's birthday it is conveivable that someone would want to find out other stuff that happened that day etc, but for random information it detracts from article quality. How hard is it for someone to type "April 4" into the search box? What do you think of my other concerns listed above violetriga? wikilinking should only be applied to "for further information" sort of links, the majority of dates in articles do not fit this criteria. zen master T 17:01, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
All dates should be linked so that they show up as per the preference of the users - for me (and many others) it's horrible to see the day after the month. Linking the dates allows the wiki software to switch it to the style the user has chosen. It's noted at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). As for the other points, yes I do agree that there is a lot of POV text, unrequired namechecks and red links. violet/riga (t) 17:09, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Ok, should I revert Pedantically's revert then? How should I go about perhaps changing wikipedia policy regarding dates? I consider it common sense to keep wiki linking down to just the core essence of an article. The more things that are wikilinked the more it leads to chaos in my opinion. zen master T 17:35, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • The quotes from critics are in line with the policy at NPOV#A_simple_formulation, which says that if opinions are attributed they are usable. As for the dates, it was my understanding that all dates should be in wiki form so users settings will display them in the form they desire, as Violetriga states. I do cite co-stars, directors, writers of films because that tells me something. The one you noted, that the play was by David Mamet, tells me something about the work and if she's doing his stuff she must be well regarded. The sentence about "made her a star" is there because it was not her first lead and it was indeed the first role that was widely seen. Now, I will go consult my commonplace books for some cites for this material, including the Sundance reference. PedanticallySpeaking 17:48, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
You are ignoring the criticism of massive POV in the article? I do not believe the paragraph the quotations is contained in is inline with wikipedia policy, the POV is outside the quoted text. For example "Hailed" etc etc. violetriga seems to disagree with you above? I consider the clean up changes I made to be obvious. Are you a fan of Julia Stiles or something? zen master T 17:53, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Second generation criticism

"despite her youth" is POV. She is 24. If you are trying to say she won a lot of awards at a young age why not just say it like this? Though "a lot" is a tad relative/POV. I contend that the changes I made are a better starting point for further clean ups than what your initial "inuse" clean ups seem to be producing. You still have not adequately justified your revert of my changes? The obviousness of my changes subsequently being reverted is frustrating (though I admit my stance on date wiki linking is perhaps not mainstream). All those wiki link references can't be notable can they? I think you are a Julia Stiles fan now :-) me too but NPOV is important. zen master T 18:06, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm about to get kicked off this computer at the library so I'm afraid I'll have to reply another day. PedanticallySpeaking 18:15, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, however, since you did not previously justify your revert of my changes, and in some ways your changes have made the article worse (continues the POV more subtley), I am going to go ahead and edit the article again, though this time I will try not to delete as much information. If you have any problems with my changes the talk page is always open (first). zen master T 18:22, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I asked and was given some more time. First, what POV? I've looked through it several times and I don't see what you mean. Second, I am looking for our policy re links but haven't found it. Further, I don't understand the objection to linking other articles and the number of red links is small. Third, "despite her youth" is because I don't know of many other young actresses who have garnered the praise she has. Fourth, by the by and fyi the table of films I had no hand in creating. Fifth, I don't understand the objection to mentioning plot details. There are so many movies out there, often with un-memorable titles (e.g. Down to You), that a few words of plot is helpful. Many of the James Bond movie titles are soundalikes to me and I need a bit of explanation, say "'You Only Live Twice' has Donald Pleasance snatching spacecraft from his volcano lair". Now if we were writing for Katz's "Film Encyclopedia" for economy's sake we wouldn't do this, but since there aren't space constraints, what's the harm? Her later films I glossed over, I'll admit, because I got to working on other things and while intending to come back to it, I forgot to return, to be honest. PedanticallySpeaking 18:35, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
I did errantly delete her parents names in my original edit, that was a mistake, sorry. By lead you mean the first sentence or first paragraph? Her birthplace currently resides in the second sentence. There are numerous other celebrity bio or other articles on wikipedia that violate the manual of style rule(s) you cite yet those articles are actually much more pleasant to read (because they don't contain as many unnecessary wiki links, red or otherwise). A rule should never force someone to violate common sense. See the Natalie Portman article for an example of a high but sane number of wikilinks and a much more pleasant reading experience, though that article admittedly contains less information (which is part of the problem here). Check the most recent changes I made to the article for POV issues, words like "acclaim" instead of "buzz" etc. zen master T 19:10, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] why so many references?

Pedantically, this is a biographical article, there shouldn't be much need to cite things? If you include that many positive citations then we should probably include some negative ones as well, right? Why do you include the date for each citation, is that really necessary? What you are doing is completely non-standard when compared with other celebrity bio-graphical articles, in my opinion it adds woefully unnecessary verbosity to the article.

Anyway, what did you think of the changes I made yesterday? zen master T 15:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey Pedantically, I removed your References section because they weren't actually references to any sort of opinion style arguments, they were merely just quotations and reviews, I can help you put some of that stuff into wikiquote if you want me to help? Some can be moved to the Awards and reviews section, albeit less verbosely (no need to add that many wikilinks). Also, you weren't actually citing sources for those statements, you were wikilinking to other (many non-existant) articles within wikipedia. References should cite to specific sources, generally that are arguing for some sort of position -- critical reviews and quotations are something all together different. Please let me know what you think about my change. zen master T 17:17, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I can't win with you. Yesterday you complained I didn't cite things and then when I go and draw up a bibliography you complain about too many cites and then delete the entire thing. A precise citation, including dates of articles, is called for in Wikipedia:Cite your sources, which gives examples in APA style (I used MLA style, however). I don't understand why you deleted all my cites. So what if other biographies don't have bibliographies? When I submitted another biography to WP:FAC I was criticized then for not having references.


In your edit summary you said I "wandered off". The Wikipedia crashed this morning in the midst of my responding to your earlier criticism and never came back up. I was going to do some rewriting but the server troubles prevented that.
As for your changes, I do not approve because they fracture the chronological order of the article. And "buzz" is not a better word than "acclaim". PedanticallySpeaking 19:27, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Pedant, you weren't actually citing to actual quotations or to the actual sources of what someone said, for example, your references to a quote or review allegedly from a magazine only contained just a wiki link to that magazine's article on wikipedia, which doesn't count as a reference. A reference section is different than what you put together, you should link to the article quotation or review, the Awards and reviews section also has this problem, we should fix that but it's small enough to where it isn't a big deal, is it? If you want me to I can look for good examples of reference sections on wikipedia? What do you think of putting some Julia Stiles quotations in wikiquote? Also, on a higer level, celebrity articles don't generally need a reference section, there is nothing under dispute in the article is there, so no need to cite anything, unless you are saying there is something under dispute? If so, what is it? If I said you weren't citing anything then I take that back, there is no need to cite much of anything in a non controversial biographical article. Do you agree that we have improved this article's quality over the last few days? zen master T 19:39, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)


[edit] A Reply to User:Zen-master

Zen-master,
I am trying to comprehend the basis for your claims but do still not understand. I have cited the Wikipedia guideline pages that address the points you raise. Have you looked at them?

  • You write that a bibliography is not needed because the material is not disputed. The instructions on Wikipedia:Cite your sources read: "you should actively search for authoritative references to cite . . . . This applies even when the information is currently undisputed — even if there's no dispute right now, someone might come along in five years and want to dispute, verify, or learn more about a topic."
  • You write that "celebrity articles don't generally need a reference section" but I have read through Wikipedia:Cite your sources and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) and see nothing about who is or is not worthy of a bibliography. The criteria at Wikipedia:What is a featured article (the idea being that all articles aspire to "featured" status) say to give references and some of my nominees at WP:FAC were shot down for lacking references.
  • You write that citing print publications' articles are is not proper references because there is not a URL link to the article. Again, on Wikipedia:Cite your sources, there are numerous citations to printed materials.
  • You object to quotations in an article as violating the NPOV guidelines notwithstanding the instruction at NPOV#A simple formulation, which states: "Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts and only facts. Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, 'The Beatles was the greatest band', we can say, 'Most Americans believe that the Beatles was the greatest band,' which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or 'The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100,' which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we 'convert' that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. It's important to note this formulation is substantially different from the 'some people believe ...' formulation popular in political debates. The reference requires an identifiable and subjectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name." I had your comments in mind in reading Arthur Miller's obituary in the New York Times on February 12, 2005. I counted twelve quotations from the deceased (plus several lines from his plays) an quotations from seven others, four of them critics. Critical opinions do have a place in biographies. (If you want to create a page for her on Wikiquote, I do not object.)
  • As I explained, troubles with Wikipedia's computers interrupted my work. I had typed up the bibliography and was going to revamp the article when the server crashed. The bibliography included not merely entries of reviews but reference books and profiles of the actress. Each entry had a remark noting what was in the cited work that I used.
  • I do not agree that your changes have improved the article. You have scrambled the chronology, created an unnecessary list (lists being another bugaboo to WP:FAC candidacies), and drained any life out of the article.

PedanticallySpeaking 18:50, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)


(more TK)

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