Talk:Oregon Shakespeare Festival

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Contents

[edit] Angus Bowmer Theatre article merged: See old talk-page here

[edit] Elizabethan Stage (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) article merged: See old talk-page here

[edit] Cleanup of actors section

If the actor is notable enough to have his or her own article, then s/he can go in the list. I'm giving this a few days and then I'm going to take out all the redlinks. Katr67 22:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

These points need to be addressed:

Note: The following points referred to this version of June 22, as compared to this version of July 26

  1. The short, encyclopedic summary was changed, removing a great deal of context and becoming an more of an advertising piece
  2. Dense blocks of text
  3. Large sections without wikilinks
  4. Possibly reads like an advert
  5. Possible conflict of interest on the part of the principal editors, see also guidelines about "ownership" of articles
  6. Text that appears to refer to a non-existent map
  7. Possible copyright violation
  8. Why were the images and notable actors section removed?
  9. References provided but no refs actually used in the text

Please read the Wikipedia Manual of Style and the essay about "What Wikipedia is Not" for more suggestions. Thanks! Katr67 17:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Having read the article, and being a published theatre critic who has seen several seasons at OSF, I would agree strongly with Katr's statements above. Besides, it doesn't take someone with firsthand knowledge to see that the article needs serious copyediting and WP:MOS work. Beginning the article (after a basic definition of what OSF is) with its own mission statement is the worst kind of advert language. I love OSF, it's a great regional theatre resource. But Wikipedia is not a free web host or cheerleader for theatrical organizations. As to a possible conflict of interest, I strongly urge anyone with such a conflict to disclose it. Doing so will not instantly get you banned from editing this topic, and will in fact improve the ease of editing by demonstrating your honesty and willingness to adhere to Wikipedia's code of conduct. As to the refs, inline citations for controversial statements (such as the end of the first sentence) must have a direct citation per WP:CITE and the Manual of Style. Presently, I'll be doing some major cleanup/rewrite where I see it needing it, and I will try and call in some further outside help from the good users at WP:OREGON. VanTucky (talk) 23:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It also seems that not a single "reference" in the section meets the requirements of WP:RS and WP:CITE. Also, this is simply a part of the city of Ashland, it should not have geographic coordinates as if it were an independent geographic edifice. VanTucky (talk) 23:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Response to points raised:

    1. The short, encyclopedic summary was changed, removing a great deal of context and becoming more of an advertising piece.
      • We don't understand what “context” was removed. We’re not sure what is meant here so we don’t know what changes to make.
      • We corrected a number of errors of commission and omission in the original article.
      • Where is the advertising? We eliminated the list of current plays in the old article for precisely this reason. With respect to the charge that quoting the mission statement of OSF is “blatant advertising,” we wonder how to explain purpose without quoting, particularly if we are not to do any original research. We note that the quote drew no objection when it was in the original article and that the purposes of other organizations are quoted in other Wikipedia articles:
        “The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues.”
        "The Ford Foundation is a charitable foundation based in New York City created to fund programs that promote democracy, reduce poverty, promote international understanding, and advance human achievement.”
        [The Salvation Army] “includes in its objectives: The advancement of the Christian religion as promulgated in the religious doctrines . . . which are professed, believed and taught by the Army and, pursuant thereto, the advancement of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole.”

None of these organizations named are for profit enterprises, and as the work they do is much more controversial in all stated cases, a citation to what they say is their goal is neccessary. With a theatrical organization, it is not necessary. OSF's work can be summarized without using their promotional literature. The sections on the educational programs and otehrs read like they are blatantly promoting the work the organization does, rather than simply giving an overview. This is a general encyclopedia, not a free ad space. VanTucky (talk) 20:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

    1. Dense blocks of text.
      • Good point. We broke up the longer paragraphs using articles by Vantucky as our guide to maximum length.
    2. Large sections without wikilinks
      • We used wikilinks wherever they were relevant. The paragraphs that have none have no references to articles that are in Wikipedia.

This is patently false. A good way to check for what needs disambiguation is to look for pronouns, people, companies/organizations, ideas/movements. There is still a lot of linking to be done. VanTucky (talk) 21:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

    1. Possibly reads like an advert
      • Addressed in #1.
    2. Possible conflict of interest on the part of the principal editors
      • Neither editor is employed by the festival. Neither has any professional connection with theatre although both live in Ashland and volunteer as ushers 24 hours a year to earn free tickets. Our intention was to write a clear, detailed article that would replace an article we thought was sketchy and had copyright problems.

Volunteering for the organization, working for it even without pay, is still being a part of their organizational appratus and is considered a COI. VanTucky (talk) 20:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

    1. Text that appears to refer to a non-existent map.
      • We were tardy in posting the map but it was added some time ago.
    2. Possible copyright violation
      • We don't think there are any copyright violations now that in-text citations have been added and pictures (not ours) that appeared in the original article (and were tagged as problematic) were removed.
    3. Why were the images and notable actors section removed?
      • We removed the pictures because they were tagged as having inadequate copyright permissions. The notable actors section was puzzling, leaving out many outstanding actors, and listing just a few.
    4. References provided but no refs actually used in the text.
      • Corrected, including sources for the two statements specifically noted as requiring citations. As “largest” could refer to many dimensions and is difficult to defend, we have returned to the opening sentence of the original article, which, incidentally, had ZERO references or footnotes.
    5. Geographic coordinates are not appropriate
      • They were in the original article. We took them out. We have no idea who put them back in. We don’t care either way.

We appreciate the time and effort editors put into making the suggestions addressed above. Since we're new to this, we have a lot to learn. Can one of you tell us what is the next step? Is there some way we can have the warning boxes removed from the article? We realize we can't do it. Who do we need to persuade? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JanetFA (talk • contribs).

The bottom line is, people who have a clear COI (being a volunteer with the organization in question does present a COI), means you should not be directly making edits to the content of the article without vetting them on the talk page first to ensure that they acceptable to editors who are independent of the organization. The article still lacks any reliable, independent published sources verifying factual claims. Using reliable sources to verify facts is the only way that it is assured that information is acceptable to include. Per the policy of verifiability, any uncited claims, especially controversial ones, may be removed without pause. VanTucky (talk) 20:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geographic coordinates

These are being added to articles about individual buildings, so I don't think there's anything wrong with adding a link to the coords of the OSF campus. Katr67 21:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah I see. VanTucky (talk) 21:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflict of Interest

We feel the issue of COI (our working as volunteer ushers at OSF) needs to be resolved before we can continue. We realize we made a grievious error in not replacing an article with our own version without discussing the idea on this talk page. However, that error was caused by our inexperience with Wikipedia, not by blind devotion to OSF. We seem to be dealing with VanTucky and Katr67 as editors who are checking on this article regularly. If you two feel our conflict is substantial, we will withdraw and simply not contribute to any OSF article again. We don't want to tackle your suggestions without having that issue resolved. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JanetFA (talk • contribs). 21:53, August 22, 2007

Having a COI doesn't mean you should not contribute. Having a first hand working knowledge cn be extremely helpful. It's just that, when making substantial changes (other than basic grammar, spelling, or reversion of vandalism) it is just best to propose the changes here first, to avoid accusations of bias. But you are not going to be the subject of slander or ridicule, or second-class contributors in any way. Admitting a COI does not mean you get slapped with the yellow badge. You're right that it was an ignorance issue, as opposed to bad intentions. Here on Wikipedia we work hard to assume good faith, but it's hard. Please let me apologize if I made you feel as if your presence isn't welcome. You might read WP:COI for more info. VanTucky (talk) 21:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to reaffirm the above reassurances by VanTucky. Hopefully you can see by the sections I edited yesterday what I was looking for when I asked for "context", "wikification", etc. above. I'm hoping I'll have time to finish my edits this evening, then feel free to discuss any additional changes you'd like to see in the article. While you're waiting, I was thinking about that notable actors section, and it would be great if anyone truly notable had passed through OSF, you know, someone on the level Barrymore or Branagh or ? ;) OK, maybe that's shooting too high, but I bet there's a list somewhere of A-list stage and film actors who have acted in Ashland. Then we could probably put it back. I agree the list was a little random before, but it had been pared down from a long list of truly non-notable (redlinked) actors, I think mostly people who had been with the company recently. And for what it's worth, I think much of the original content of the article was probably also contributed by someone closely associated with OSF--that's great, at least there was content. But as Wikipedia gets a higher profile and editors get more experienced, we are really trying to have all the articles adhere to Wikipedia policy. You're just one of the lucky ones whose article happened to fall under the watchful eye of WikiProject Oregon. :) We're particular sticklers about sources and stuff. Believe it or not this is a good thing. Consider this: all this sound and fury may signify something because by the time we are done, we might have something worthy of a good article nomination! Katr67 22:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions pertaining to cleanup

  • I'm thinking of taking out the lettered references to the map altogether, since this is an encyclopedia article and not a pamphlet. Thoughts?
  • Of the references currently cited: Is any of this available online or is this something you have in hardcopy? We really need to be able to flesh those refs out if they are to be useful.

Katr67 22:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think if we can provide a key to the map, then it's alright. There isn't really any alternatives for showing the entire campus, and its quasi-centralized nature is a unique feature of OSF (in Oregon anyway). VanTucky (talk) 22:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Should we make the key part of the map's caption? Or perhaps make it a footnote? Katr67 23:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References removed from article

  • Information from the archives of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Used with the permission of Amy Richard, Media Relations, OSF: media@osfashland.org.
  • Souvenir Program, 2006 and 2007, published by Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
  • Illuminations, 2006 and 2007, published by Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
  • A Tradition of Shakespeare: 1935-2005, published by Ashland Daily Tidings.
  • Prologue, magazine for members, published by Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
  • Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association (1970). Stage II. Ashland, OR: Author
  • Oregon Shakespearean Festival Association (1970). Shakespeare 1970. Ashland, OR: Author

VanTucky you removed these without any edit summary. I'm not sure I agree that these aren't reliable sources, but since I don't have access to these publications, JanetFA, can you help me out by providing more information if it is available? Please see Wikipedia:Citation templates for the kind of information I will need to create full citations for each of these items. Is there any chance this stuff is in the Oregon State Library? I might be able to swing by there tomorrow. Of course it would be good to cite as much of the information in the article as possible from sources outside the OSF organization, to cut down on the COI and advert issues. More things from national or regional news sources like the Time article would be excellent, stuff that is tourist-oriented would be less helpful. Katr67 20:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Work on advertising tone and references

David and I went over the whole article yesterday looking for sentences that could be interpreted as advertising. Today we posted some revisions. David is working on all the citations and references. He's very busy preparing for a course he'll soon be teaching, so it will take a few days, he said. He has access to all those books and will use Wikipedia's preferred style. We're also working on a Notable Actors section.

You have suggested that separate articles on the theatres would be a better approach than including them in the main article. We feel that removes them from the necessary context the main article provides. It also seems odd to have two theatres in separate articles and two other theatres within the main article. Was it simply the length of the article you were responding to? Is the goal of making the main article shorter worth giving up the context for those two theatre articles?

Perhaps the criticism of our longer update partly stems from a narrow view of OSF as only a regional theatre. It was our purpose to show that it is a lot more: an educational institution and an economic engine for the region. We felt this information would be of potential interest to researchers in fields of economics, education, non-profit management, as well as to theatre-goers.

We would also ask you to reconsider the idea of keeping the mission statement in the article. It seems to us it gives readers the information that this is the stated goal of this organization. It doesn't evaluate how they achieve it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JanetFA (talk • contribs) 00:15, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

I'm done editing this. Do what you will. I need to take a break from it. Happy editing. Katr67 00:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your help. Before you go, can we remove the "advert" box at the top of the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by JanetFA (talk • contribs) 16:36, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

As I said, do whatever you want, just explain your reasoning in the edit summary. I'm trying to not sound snarky here, but you don't have to ask permission to remove the tag, and besides, it seems like you haven't been interested in collaboration on the other changes to the article, so why ask permission about that one? I'm not done editing this article because it doesn't need more editing. I'm done because after making a good faith effort to improve it, and communicating about the changes I made in edit summaries and on this talk page, only to have those changes ignored and reverted without explanation, (I'm thinking specifically about the map key, for example), I'd just like to not put any more effort into this. If you plan to continue working on Wikipedia after working on this article, I'd suggest paying more attention to talk page posts and the edit summaries of other editors. You can see the edit history of the page here. The history of the talk page is here. Good luck. Katr67 16:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)