Talk:Alex Steffen
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[edit] Content on the book
Hi. I think the Alex Steffen article is developing pretty well, at this point. It's good that the book, WorldChanging, is described favorably. I like the book. I've learned from it and continue to learn from it. I've recommended and shown it to several people, and will continue to do so. But I have mixed feelings about the amount of material in the current A.S. article that's devoted to his book. For one thing, so much of this section consists of lengthy quotes from reviews and from book promos by credible, noteworthy people – and the quotes are, overall, quite bulky. As time goes on and the book has become more generally familiar to the public, this amount of material will be unnecessary and less appropriate.
The material will need paraphrasing and streamlining. In the long run, it is probably content that in its current form is simply inappropriate to an encyclopedia. Reads too much like promo or fan material. And I say this although I'm a fan. Joel Russ 17:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
What a lovely little resume Mr. Steffen has written for himself here! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.35.153.222 (talk) 18:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Structure and citations
While we want to be respectful to the many authors of this entry, I think a top-to-bottom rewrite of this entry would be useful.
It's not very clearly structured or complete, dwells too long on the book (as Joel notes below), has muddled citations, doesn't say much about AS' ideas, neglects AS' best known work, at WorldChanging.
There is clearly some conflict about whether some of the descriptions are appropriate or not. Some seem descriptive and appropriate to me: in other cases, more information is clearly called for. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.196.2 (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] The difference between encyclopedia articles and marketing advertisements
As other editors have indicated before, previous versions of this article seem to have been written by someone who more familiar with the writing style of marketing texts and book blurbs than with the neutral, factual style which is required in Wikipedia - or indeed, common to most encyclopedias, a text genre which that author seems not to have read frequently.
I have started to bring this article into a form more with Wikipedia principles such as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability, and I explained the changes in my edits comments (see [1]).
For example, there were six sources cited for the claim that Mr. Steffen
- is considered to be one of the world's leading thinkers about environmental sustainability, technological innovation and social reform,
but none of them actually supported the claim in that form.
Unfortunately, 67.53.196.2 keeps reverting back to the old, advertising-like version (as he/she does in Worldchanging) without addressing these concerns, only mentioning one point. To answer this one again:
67.53.196.2 does not seem to understand why "award-winning" is one of those listed under Wikipedia:Avoid_peacock_terms#Words_and_phrases_to_watch_for. A quick explanation: "Award-winning" is a very vague term which does not indicate the importance of the award in question - is is the Nobel Prize in Literature or the first place in a college student writing contest? Because of this wide range, the term is quite meaningless in an encyclopedic context.
We can discuss other changes here, but I really would appreciate it if 67.53.196.2 would first familiarize himself with Wikipedia's policies and understand that Wikipedia is not a free advertising space.
Regards, High on a tree (talk) 14:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
