User talk:Maxx

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[edit] Biography Proposals

A project that I have set myself is to work through the biographies of historical Britons and where necessary improve the layout to make them easier to read. But what I might find acceptable others may not.

I've searched through Wikipedia for guidelines on biographies but there doesn't seem to be any particular format, though the entries in Featured Articles does give some indication, but judgements there include content as well as style.

[edit] Information levels

My own idea is that information should be presented on three levels to meet differing needs. The first level should be a purely factual sentence giving who, when, where and why, as appears some extent at the start of most Wikipedia biographies; this would satisfy the requirement of setting the context of that the person. At a second level there should be a couple of paragraphs of no more that 250 words giving a brief summary of the person; when reading various histories peoples names will often crop up but their roll not be properly explained, a short biography satisfies the need for additional information without diverting too far from the original text. The third level is the full blown biography where the purpose is to explore all facets of a persons life, links to other sources on the web should be provided as part of level three information - reading a second view is always useful even if it only restates the first in a different way

It's the second level information that I feel is missing on many pages, particularly those that have been copied over from 1911 Britannica.

[edit] Examples

I've chosen a small selection of pages and placed comments here on what I feel is good and bad about each one. Please added your own comments so that I can get a feel of what others think.

These are three biographies I have picked in order to discuss their style.

[edit] John Dee - a Featured Article

In many respects this is what I'm aiming for. My only criticism is that the photo is a little on the large size, I think a thumb in the range 120x180 should be sufficient.

[edit] George_Hamilton_Gordon,_4th_Earl_of_Aberdeen

A site that could be greatly improved with just a little editing.

  1. Create an initial summary.
  2. Remove the table under the photo. The information it contains is repeated at the foot of the article or could be included in the introductory sentence.
  3. Reduce the photo to 120x180 by removing all the surrounding black.
  4. Some of the sentences require juggling around to make the reading flow better - too many have 'He' near the start. Perhaps this is a bit presumptuous as the original is the 1911 Britannica.
  5. Links to other articles

I agree with the inclusion of the tables that appear at the foot of many articles, though I prefer the style used in John Manners.

[edit] Archbishop George Abbot

  1. The text has been taken from 1911 Britannica, though there is no acknowledgement.
  2. The first sentence is too long and contains information that should appear in subsequent summary paragraphs.
  3. The photo is far too large.
  4. No links to other articles

[edit] Comments

Hi, Maxx, I think it's great that you're giving thought to improving the biography articles. Your three-level suggestion might well have some beneficial effects if it was implemented, but I see two possible general problems with it, and also a specific problem with your approach to articles based on the 1911 EB (two of your examples). I don't really see it as possible to discuss style without getting into content as well, since the two impinge so much on each other.

  1. People deserve biography articles for many different reasons, and the reasons need to dictate the form of the article; therefore, one form doesn't suit all. For instance, I think John Vanbrugh (featured article authored by me and Giano which got a lot of compliments on WP:FAC) is an example of how it's sometimes appropriate to devote a putatively biographical article less to biographical detail and more to historical background and to those achievements that have survived into our time. It's certainly an example of a case where there simply are no respectable alternative web sources, though there are plenty of printed sources.
  2. Contributors write articles out of love and interest, which might lessen if too many constraints were placed on the way of doing it, or if they were asked to provide content that's less interesting to write (sorry, but I'm afraid people might feel that way about your second level). The lead section—the introductory summary paragraph that all Wikipedia articles over a certain length are supposed to have—isn't supposed to be just a sentence, and I personally think it should always written in such a way that it serves your second level purposes. Please compare also the lead section discussion on Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles.
  3. I'm not sure that articles that are basically text dumps from the 1911 EB are best served by being handled so gingerly and respectfully as you suggest above, with attention to style only. To wikify them and so on will make them look better, sure, but it may also have the undesirable effect of making people hesitate to overwrite them. IMO nobody should hesitate to rewrite them, both stylistically and contentwise. With your two examples, a 19th-century British Prime Minister and a 17th-century archbishop, the need for content revision isn't quite as glaring as in many other cases, but it's there all right. 1911 articles about women are (for our time) a lot worse. Or about authors that were considered indecent in 1911 — an extreme example of that may be Restoration drama. Or about people where modern scholars have shown that the 1911 EB "facts" are simply wrong, there are a lot of those. I hope you don't mind if I paste in here something I wrote on Talk:John Vanbrugh a month ago:

[A lot of the linked names in John Vanbrugh] lead to not merely weak articles, but to actually worse-than-nothing articles, especially in the field of Restoration comedy, the form that Vanbrugh wrote. This includes big, important figures like William Congreve and William Wycherley, important plays, major topics ...lots of very central stuff. Many or most of those articles are 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica text dumps. I realize it may sound very extreme to call 1911 articles "worse than nothing": isn't a little information always better than none? Well, I think not in this case, because:

  • a) The information is degenerated, it's actively wrong. Stories and "traditions" about 17th-18th century literary figures, none too reliable to begin with, morphed into worse in the 19th century as they passed back and forth between books that were all summarizing or rewriting each other — literary biographers couldn't even dream of having the kind of access to original sources that modern scholars have. These traditions are what we find in the 1911 EB. ...
  • b) Restoration comedy is about sex. The 1911 EB is Victorian, and is indignant about sexy literature. The 1911 is a really bad place for a modern reader to seek a literary historical perspective on Restoration comedy. I honestly think he/she will be more ignorant after reading it than before.

The 1911 EB was a magnificent achievement in 1911, and it can't be blamed for relaying 1911 values, or for not having access to primary sources that have been unearthed since then, but I think Wikipedia can in fact be blamed for perpetuating what is for our time poor content. Contributors' time is IMO better spent overwriting the 1911 articles (picking a few you care about and going deep) than stylistically improving them ("fixing up" a large number of them).--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 17:40, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree with all Bishonen has said. The problem with your suggestion is that most biographies do not reach 250 words in the first place. Those that are longer usually have a lead paragraph which summarises the life of the subject in question. The article then continues with relevant information and facts.
When writing a biography myself if there is sufficient information to hand then there are sub sections which can be quickly assessed. I think if one starts to re-arrange the quite authoritative articles existing, that people have carefully written one will soon find those editors either disappear or become hostile. Most people while accepting their articles will be edited are still very proud of their achievement, research and style. Adding further information and copy editing is one thing - re-writing because another editor prefers a new format is quite another.
The obvious answer would be for you to write biographies of new subjects yourself in the style you think most appropriate. The old adage lead by example. Giano 19:18, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

While I agree that many bios need improvement, I doubt that a straitjacket approach will work. Many of the bios I've worked on focus more on the work of the person involved than on their life because I believe that anyone reading an encyclopaedia article on , say, James Joyce will be more interested in the novels than the almost uncountable house moves. Many really important people lived very boring lives, full of mundane events and problems, but they live on because of what they achieved in a particular field. It is this, I believe, that we should focus on. Filiocht 15:43, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)