User talk:Tom Reedy

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Hello, Tom Reedy! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking Image:Wikisigbutton.png or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already loving Wikipedia you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Happy editing! LittleOldMe 14:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
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Tom, When you are on my talk page, just click on "e-mail this user" in the toolbox. (That procedure works for anyone on Wikipedia who's entered their e-mail address into their preferences - and I have :). - Nunh-huh 14:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Latin

May I enlist your help on Latin? Although I'm not a bad copyeditor, I'm no magician. RedRabbit1983 14:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shakespeare

Good work. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Shakespeare&diff= 147380578&oldid=147003695]

[edit] Marriage stuff

I'm just doing a light copy edit on the biography, because it's the best part of the article, thanks to you, RedRabbit and earlier editors, so I'm not really looking much up. I think that bit's almost fine now, except that we are getting a bit more detail on who issued this licence than perhaps anyone will be interested in.qp10qp 21:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You change whatever you need to. I hope to repeatedly copyedit the article in diminishing circles, with less and less to do each time. The tithes were there already and I just added some detail. The reason was that the passage read, for some reason, as if New Place resulted from the Blackfriars profits in some way.
On the profits from the tithes, I am just going by Wells, who says that the tithes brought him £60 a year, but of course, that has to be set off against his investment (£440) and an annual fee, which Ackroyd tells me was £17. The details aren't anything I'm wedded to, so long as we draw together some examples of his wealth (if you want to move tithes, I could put the 1602 Chapel Lane cottage in there instead).
On your point about the leasing of Blackfriars, I think it might be a little overtechnical to try to explain to the readers the nuances of the financial arrangements. The books I have with me don't nuance it; for example, Wells says "In August 1608 the King's Men took up the lease of the smaller, 'private' indoor theatre, the Blackfriars; again, Shakespeare was one of the syndicate of owners." I wonder if the readers of our article need more than that? We have in effect three layers of the King's Men: Cuthbert Burbage, the seven partners, and the wider acting company; but in a way they are all "The King's Men", so to speak. For me it's like saying that Chelsea have leased Stamford Bridge (if you are American, let's say that the Houston Oilers have leased the Astrodome). In truth, the financial complexities go beyond the simple statement; the chairman may be leasing the ground to the club, whose directors are making profit from the gates, etc. But for most purposes a fairly general statement covers this sort of stuff, I think. However, you do what you think is right.
As far as repetitions are concerned, there are quite a few here and there in the article, which we can iron out as we go along, I'm sure. I agree that the article is much better. I also agree with Alabamaboy that there's some dense stuff lower down, but I am confident that I can make it more and more lucid with each copy edit.qp10qp 22:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Semicolons, etc.

I didn't know that I did. Could you give me an example?qp10qp 11:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking at my last edit yesterday, I deduce that you are referring to the caption. Well, I made the best of a bad job there. The clause is actually not dependent on "National Portrait Gallery, London", or it would seem as if the gallery itself, rather than the picture, was on display at the gallery in Washington. The comma there was unacceptable for that reason. The problem arises from the convention that captions don't have to be sentences: someone at some point must have piled extra information into the caption without reorganising it properly. I have solved the problem by removing the superfluous and temporary information about where the portrait might be on loan.qp10qp 11:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty confident about the cites in the lower parts of the article, because I've added quite a proportion of them myself. Of course, there are many refs that one cannot check, but I'm not aware of any extraordinary statements. I intend to fact check "Life" myself in the next few days as well, so don't worry if you can't do all of it.I was gutted when Xover said the number of Judith's children was wrong. It hadn't occurred to me to check such basic things as that, but now I'm determined to go into FA knowing the whole article in depth and not just the critical and arty stuff I had concentrated on.
I feel we can go to FA in the next few days. The article meets the criteria; and the main criticisms at the last FA were to do with references. That doesn't mean it will certainly pass, because we wouldn't be human if we didn't feel rather pleased with what we're doing, and cognitive dissonance might be deluding us. I don't know if you have been through an FA before, but gird yourself for some harsh and potentially upsetting criticism. And maybe for some hard work. An article like this is bound to be held to exceptionally high standards, and people might come along asking us to rewrite or ditch huge chunks of it. We should hold our nerve, however, and resist the temptation to buy supports by blindly doing everything requested. (For me, the gold star would be nice; but having a quality article with some integrity about it is more important.) In particular, I think we should be cautious about any one asking us to change our whole reference formatting (a common request at FA). The amount of work would be enormous, and the criteria say only that we should be consistent, not satisfy any particular style choice. We should hold reviewers to the criteria, as they will do to us.qp10qp 12:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm working on the ref formatting at the moment. I'm going to standardise Xover's refs when I fact check "Life", probably tomorrow. Consistency in the ref formatting is impossible at the micro level; and having been through a few FAs, I'm 100% certain that we will pass on referencing. The reason 100% formatting consistency is impossible at the micro level is because this article does not have a separate bibliography. Therefore it is using the footnote system as a references system (based on the formatting in the references template); and you do not find that in printed books, so there is no provision for it in manuals of style. This means that the style used is a hybrid of alphabetical bibliographical referencing and short-note footnoting. In the circumstances, I think it is remarkably clear. The only marked inconsistency is that we are using full stops for full references and commas for shortened references (the usual distinction is commas for notes and full stops for bibliographies). However, as inconsistences go, using a mere two styles, in a logical way, is not likely to challenge the reader: it is clear enough what is going on. The quality of our referencing is so far above average that I think it will be an asset at FAC. Any complaint by a reviewer about too much Schoenbaum or too many references to individual points will be irrelevant to the criteria. I notice by the way that more than one edition of Schoenbaum's Compact is cited; I will sort that out shortly, but could you have a glance at the refs to two editions of Lives and ref them consistently to the edition you have (I don't have a copy)? Again, not essential; but it's neat.qp10qp 15:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
The semicolon is most excellent for antithesis, something I learned from Fowler. But edit as you wish: both are correct.qp10qp 12:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We need to keep our beans chilled

Oh, it's fine. This is normal for the Shakespeare article! People latch on to something they feel is under-represented and focus on that rather than the summary-style needs of the article. Also, not everyone grasps that Shakespeare scholarship is a three-ring circus where too many people are trying to make their name. That's why it's always best for us to go with the wise general-Shakespeare scholars, who (in this case, as in others) take no side but mention the theory in passing. Bottom line: we don't know. We shouldn't have to cite partial scholarship in an article like this.qp10qp 08:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I've just checked Greenblatt: Mamalujo overstates his position. Greenblatt actually says, "As the scholar Ernst Honigmann and others have suggested, Cottam could have been asked by the Hoghtons to recommend a promising young man to be a teacher to their children....", etc. In other words, he never strays from "could, might, assume...". The difference between our article and the biographies of people like Greenblatt is that whereas the latter need to explore every last possibility in order to fill up their books, we need to keep our article concise and as close to the known facts as possible.qp10qp 12:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wells ref

Tom, when you are available, could you drop me the book details for your edition of Shakespeare: A Life in Drama (I don't know what edition you have). The p 99 ref is promising. My only reservation is that this is one of Wells's early books, and we should be citing current opinion, since anything with even a hint of cultural imperialism is deprecated nowadays. Because the opening claims, though true, are challengeable, we need to have all angles of attack covered. I've stuck a Greenblatt ref in there for the time being: fortunately, he's a full-on Harvard prof, but anyone who's read it will also know how wiffly and populistic that book is—so reinforcement is certainly required.qp10qp 10:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:ShakespeareMonument.JPG—apology

There was a request on the William Shakespeare page to crop this image. I jumped in and did it, then noticed that you were a prominent contributor to the page yourself. Apologies for not giving you enough time to do it. I will not be offended at all if you do just this, and replace my attempt. --Old Moonraker 06:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Tempest topical allusion

You might be interested to read the full case for the Stephano Janiculo allusion in my response to BenJonson's objections on The Tempest discussion page. (Puzzle Master 12:31, 7 August 2007 (UTC))

[edit] FA

No, it's quiet at the moment. No big things to do yet (calm before the storm?), except that someone said it might go over the heads of school students, so I'm copyediting for reading ease. It would be cool to have you sign the nom, though (Wrad and RR have), since you've done so much hard work on the article. Enjoy your holiday. I envy you Stratford, Ont.qp10qp 23:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's easy. Just put your sig and maybe a comment at the bottom of my little introductory statement. Check previous FAC link to see how it was done last time, if you like.qp10qp 10:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Tom, stop swanning about at Stratford for a minute and jolly well get your name on that nom. It's going well (famous last words), and we want your contribution known. Guillaume has name-checked you; but I don't care if you have to sign in from a satphone in the desert, just get your arse in gear and do it.qp10qp 08:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shakespeare FAC

Glad you showed up. I was worried you'd come back from Stratford to find you'd missed all the excitement. AndyJones 18:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Will

Image:CopyeditorStar7.PNG The Copyeditor's Barnstar
I commend you for all of your hard work on William Shakespeare. To compose and copy edit articles with multitudes of other people is never easy. You have helped produce a fascinating and eminently readable article. Think how many high school essays will reflect your language! :) Awadewit | talk 04:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copy editing?

Although the work-intensive Shakespeare FAC is still ongoing, I wonder if you might have some time to copy edit Mary: A Fiction. It is currently at FAC and some concerns have been raised regarding the prose. Frankly, I feel that some of these concerns are unwarranted, but I am still trying to find editors to look at the article for me and fix anything that is amiss. I would greatly appreciate it. I would be willing to copy edit or review an article for you in return. I am, despite appearances, a good copy editor and reviewer. Awadewit | talk 07:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hamlet

I don't know if you're interested, but Wikipedia:Peer review/Hamlet could use some comments, or alternatively your help would we welcomed at the page itself. Best, AndyJones 20:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Tempest

any thoughts? ;-) AndyJones (talk) 08:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry: any time! AndyJones (talk) 20:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)