Talk:Vic and Sade

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Contents

[edit] Tone

I could not see any actionable elements regarding NPOV tag, so I've switched in favour of the cleanup-tone tag. The tone of this article is somewhat familiar, though not excessively so. - Amgine 04:33, 11 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Structure

Structure is the key to solving these problems. Toward that end I have updated the page to encourage and foster more direct commentary and discourage digressions. I will update the bibliography as time permits.

Also, I would like to propose a new wiki page be added for each main cast member as well as for the writer - all with pictures.

  • Paul Rhymer
  • Bernadine Flynn
  • Art Van Harvey
  • Bill Idelson
  • Clarence Hartzell
  • David Whitehouse

And possibly even

  • Clarence Menser
  • Johnny Coons

Having these topics would allow for proper cross-referencing between the program proper and the extra-program information. If nobody adds them, I will read the wiki how-tos.

- Not a registered user yet 4:00, 11 March 2006

[edit] To Pepso, re: edit 11 March 2006

Under Cast and credits you changed "1945 & 1946" to "1945-1946". The thing is that the series did not run consecutively from '45 to '46. There was one series in '45 and a completely separate other series in '46. Hence the "and" rather than the hyphen. Nevermind.

Also, you changed "Related information" to "Research sources" but that doesn't fit very well since that's what a bibliography is primarily for. If you don't like the related info designation, perhaps there's an alternate still to be found. "Additional resources" perhaps. Nevermind.

Bumping vicandsade.net down to the bottom of the pile is a tacky, no-class move. Sorry, there's no other way to say it. It's a wiki not a competition.

The rest are stylistic points and certainly no objections can be made.

A very good, useful restructuring! Excellent work! ...... "Resources" heading is good. "Listen to" heading has been established on dozens of radio pages, so "Audio downloads" heading is inconsistent. "Vic and Sade.net" was moved down because I alphabetized the entire group. "all with pictures"-- What would be the source of such pictures? Pepso 13:15, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further to . . .

>> "Listen to" heading has been established on dozens of radio pages, so "Audio downloads" heading is inconsistent.

If everybody jumps in the lake, I don't think I'd follow unless I felt like swimming. When linking to one real audio file, listen to covers the bill. When linking to external pages with downloads, then the download designation fits, whether it's consistent with other pages or not. Visitors can download, then listen at their convenience. Listen to is an imperative. Download is not. Speaking of which, ram files are nice; 'real media files' are nicer.

Similarly, the wiki wants credibility but very few articles cite sources in a bibliography or references section. I don't think I've seen footnotes either. Yet, vic and sade now has a bibliography. The only way to solve credibility, even merely tone, disputes is to state facts, reveal sources, and properly question the credibility of those sources. Anything else leads right back where we began. And, please, I hope nobody cites any of those a-to-z reference books. Most are permeated with the type of errors we are working to purge from the wiki. No matter how well-intentioned, we need better than that.

>> other changes

Changes is fine, but not all are improvements. Eg. Time Magazine. But I will not participate in the editing nonsense that's been going on around here of late. I've done my good deed. Any obligation I may have felt has been met.

>> "all with pictures"-- What would be the source of such pictures?

The Rhymer picture was rightly switched to the Rhymer topic. However, the yellow card that is presently on the vic and sade page is (1) too big, (2) of extremely poor quality. If the site you got it from is your own, then I recommend you rescan the image, resize it to a large size and a 250 pixel wide size, decrease color and save as gif. The artifacting from an overly compressed jpg spoils the appearance. If you have trouble getting a good image at the right sizes, post the 'raw' scan, in bmp format, in the forum you link to. I will fix it and send it back.

Regarding other images, the site you linked the card from has more - though most are defaced with washed out colors - and vicandsade.net has a picture gallery. There is also the pictures from the first book of scripts. I also have several that I've gathered from around the net - often from temporary displays that are no longer around. Personally, I like the ones from the Library of American Broadcasting but that's just me... However, they don't have david whitehouse or clarence hartzell (that I could find). I'm sure either of those fellas can be clipped out of another existing photo.

If or when an Idelson page is made, the note about his forthcoming book should be moved there instead of the vic and sade page - where it is interesting but out of place.

[edit] To Freyr35, re: edit 13 March 2006

The whole point about the small house halfway up in the next block is that the location of the town is not relevent to the story. It's the house that counts, not the city. That's why the town is never given a name. That small house is located in all towns in all states... in all countries. The fact that Illinois towns are mentioned is incidental and has no bearing on story or plot. If it was imperative that something more specific be stated, then one would probably mention McLean County or Bloomington (which has, in fact, been noted in the text). But that too is an insignificant detail. Please check the wiki notes on weight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_Point_of_View#Undue_weight

Regarding Seinfeld. You can write in the Seinfeld wiki that it echoes many themes and ideas of Vic and Sade but you cannot say that Vic and Sade resembles Seinfeld because it predates it. If you wish to argue the similarity between the two series, then you would need to write an essay premised on the two, then post it on the internet and link to it in the external links area. Seinfeld does not belong in a Vic and Sade article. This, more than anything else, is what gave rise to the two warnings about this wiki. It has since been cleaned up. Please do not taint it again. Thank you.

The points about sound effects and dialogue are already mentioned further below so your added comments are redundant.

Uncle Fletcher is seldom referred to by his last name and is a minor point at best. However, the comments about "anecdote that didn't quite relate to the topic at hand" is flat out wrong. Uncle Fletcher always knew what he was talking about and if others didn't understand it was because they either didn't know what they were talking about or weren't paying attention.

I have reverted back to the previous edit. I don't agree with many points in how it has been updated, and the picture is still of low quality, but these things are slight. Hopefully they can be corrected in time.

[edit] Pictures

No objections, but for the sake of thoroughness, here's the images from inside that book... and a few more.

Please post back when you have the zip downloaded, so I can delete it afterward. You may remove the link once you have it. Thanks.

PS. the card image was cutting across the hr line so I moved it up, but depending on screen res it can cut down anyway. I'm not sure where you wanted it, so I didn't touch it anymore. However, this bit of code is supposed to prevent an image from going below the point at which it's inserted. I tested and it seems to work...

<br style="clear:both" />

Still, I did not put it in because I'm not sure what you were trying to do.

By George, I think we've done it! This looks good to me. What do you think? In cast breakdown, can't you make other names ALL CAPS for consistent look? Can't we put these names in nested list rather than boxes? Pepso 11:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)


Just to double check, because I updated the picture zip, the one I intended has extras in addition to the book scans. I should have renamed the zip but didn't. If you didn't get the second lot, I will make them available again. How to tell? There is a magazine called Stand By with Rush on the cover... and several resized versions of most others that are not in the first zip. Using actual size images instead of thumbnails generated on the fly is more server friendly. The second zip was 4.8 megs.

> What do you think?

I think wiki code is inflexible and hard to deal with and that screen resolution affects appearance. Overall, it's in the right direction. I like the border around the images but have been unable to make it work for thumbnail sizes. By the way, I work at 800x600.

> In cast breakdown, can't you make other names ALL CAPS for consistent look?

I use editpad. Just highlight and choose upper case and it's done. To me, it doesn't matter. When I first started compiling a list, I spent a good deal of time cross referencing and corroborating sources. There are many claims that I've never been able to verify. The all-caps was a visual cue for me to distinguish between names I'd confirmed and names I hadn't. In terms of the wiki, there's no real reason to do it one way or the other - except for consistency. That better?

> Can't we put these names in nested list rather than boxes?

When I began here I had no idea what I was doing. In fact, after an inquiry to wikipedia about what those warnings meant, I began adding comments and suggestions here because I had no clue. Then I began experimenting and one thing led to another until I had a draft ready for trial. I was hesitent but eventually opted to copy it over to the good page. Anyway, for the cast and credit formating I intended to just use preformatting for the sake of keeping alignment. Clear columns make it easier to read. Then for some reason I posted without the pre tags and those boxes showed up. That's where I left it. If you want to try out other ideas, feel free. We can always revert if it comes to that.

5:50, 15 March 2006 EST

[edit] Bernadine or Bernardine

Here's a link to an autograph showing the name signed as Bernardine

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6608846009

There are plenty of other sources where that name is used as well, correctly I believe. RowlandReed 01:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


Please cite sources and the basis of your belief about their credibility.
  • Robert S. Stephan, columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and frequent visitor to the Vic and Sade studio, spells it Bernadine.
  • The program for Bloomington's 1938 Rhymer Day banquet spells it Bernadine.
  • The 1957 kinescope credits spell it Bernadine.
  • The 1972 book of scripts spells it Bernadine.
  • And there is no reason on earth to suppose that autograph is authentic, nor is there reason to suppose Mis' Flynn wasn't pandering to a fan - her name, after all, is Doherty.
  • Note, however, it will be interesting to see how Idelson spells it in his upcoming book - not that that will be definitive proof of anything.
You'd think people who have taken the time to write up a detailed account of the Vic and Sade program might have given some thought to the spelling of names before somebody comes along and mucks it all up.
This update should be has been rolled back.

[edit] Picayune contributions

Categories

re: don't apply redundant categories

As long as wikipedia.org has categories that are relevant to the present topic there is no reason on earth why interested visitors should be asked to snake their way through labyrinthine linkage. If you find this disagreeable please feel free to take the matter up with wikipedia.org administrators but until such time as redundant categories are removed from the site please keep editorial imperatives to yourself and your hands off the article.


Bibliography

re: editorializing on bibliographic entries

Thurber consulted Rhymer while researching the New Yorker series, and the finished articles describe the environment out of which Vic and Sade emerged. The series is an important historical account of daytime drama and is exactly on target in connection with the program which makes up the subject matter of this article. If objections were to be raised, then more appropriate would be that the articles were published in 1948, a full two years after Vic and Sade was taken off the air, but that too is weak since thurber traces the historical development of daytime drama from its earilest days. Vic and Sade did not exist in a vacuum and Thurber's articles are the most accurate account of the mindset and context in which it was produced. The wiki is an encyclopedia reference; it is not the place for editorializing and opinions - those can be done in blogs and independent web pages.


Nitpicking changes

Rephrasing and regurgitating material already contained within the existing articles makes absolutely no contribution to the subject being studied at the very best, and at worst it clouds and muddies an already clear and accurate account. Furthermore, many points that have been raised do not warrant attention when compared to Vic and Sade (and the article) as a whole. Please see wiki's notes on weight. Bold text