Talk:The arts and politics/Archive 1

Sources?

This article needs further development with a greater variety of sources. It needs more sources in English to be pertinent to English-speaking Wikipedia. It may be subject to deletion for lack of notability and possible lack of neutrality due to an insufficient number of various reliable sources from multiple cultures to support the currently-undocumented statements in the lead (introduction). --NYScholar (talk) 16:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Regarding sources recently added

Exact page references are necessary for the source citations added. On what specific pages in the sources given do these statements show support? Not verifiable as cited. Please give exact page references and follow the prevailing citation format in the article. Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 20:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What are you doing? Your recent vandalism to the citations for Entropa, Tory poster and the Met Police clamping down on music promiters has removed the clickable links so taht readers will not longer be able to verify the source. Please revet immediately. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

No such "vandalism": please Assume good faith (Wikipedia policy). I edited the article in good faith. Wikipedia articles must follow Wikipedia:Neutral point of view; I edited the presentation accordingly and made the citation format consistent with the initial citation format (as corrected earlier), which had many errors in it when created by another editor. (Please see the article's history from date of creation.) --NYScholar (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Found inadvertent error in conversion of Harris and fixed that. Not "vandalism"--good faith edit resulting in inadvertent error while making earlier format corrections. (Sorry. Not intentional at all.) --NYScholar (talk) 01:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

(cont.) [To others]: Please read the sources cited (some of which J. added recently). Sources document and support the statements, except for the two books cited early on which have no page references given for verification/documentation. The statements did not "come" from those two books, as they were not apparently not the specific sources used by the original editor who added an earlier version of those two sentences with no documentation. Page refs. still needed for documentation of the lead. After the page refs. are supplied by other editor(s), the format can be altered to match the others (last name and page number[s]). --NYScholar (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The sources are all listed, with the verifiable links, in the "Works Cited" section. Please consult the sources, and read the articles, from which the material pertaining to the Metropolitan Police Service (in the case of that statement) comes. Please see the subject of this article "Art and Politics" so as not to lose focus on the subject and what needs to be developed in this article. --NYScholar (talk) 23:45, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

E.g., Hundal's article is linked directly in the "Works cited", as per the previously prevailing format for this article's source citations (templates were not used initially), and one can read the entire article there. --NYScholar (talk) 23:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC) It is fully "verifiable" via the citation keyed to the last name in the "Works cited" list (see the Style Sheet). --NYScholar (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

In the case of books, the ISBN nos. are the links to verify the books, but page numbers for references still needed to document/support/verify the statements made in the lead to which the in-line citations to these two books added (by J.). Removed the unnecessary link to an author's faculty webpage as it is not appropriate in the source citation. If one wants to create a Wikipedia article for that author (if notable enough a subject for Wikipedia--see WP:Notability), then the faculty webpage can be in the new article's "external links" section, as per WP:EL. Doesn't belong here and it was removed when converting the templates to previously-consistent source citations following the style sheet (added for guidance--see top of this talk page).

(cont.) Subject documentation format follows Humanities style guidelines for source citations. Both art (art history) and politics (political science) are part of divisions of Humanities in some institutions of higher education that do not have a "College of Arts and Sciences", though it (Political science) is described in Wikipedia as a "Social science"; these [art and politics] are specialized disciplines. Either MLA format (for arts and humanities) or APA format (for social sciences) or Harvard referencing format would work for this article. The creator of the article had a mixture of formats with errors. I chose MLA format bec. it is the simplest and least unwieldy, as keyed to "Works cited" before EL sec. (following WP:MOS for layout). --NYScholar (talk) 00:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

(cont). [Since the subject begins as "Art and politics" (instead of vice versa), the emphasis seems to be more on "Art" than on "politics"; that is, the subject is the relationship betweeen art and politics (as opposed to the other way around).] --NYScholar (talk) 00:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

From the Google book description (via its ISNB no.) and a book review accessible at Find Articles, it does not appear to me that Silver's 1993 book Art in History clearly enough documents/substantiates/serves as a reliable in-line citation for the statement to which it was provided in the lead. I think it might be useful to quote a statement from the book review, which relates more nearly to the subject "Art and politics": "Still, this is the book that I like the best because I prefer to teach fewer works in wider and deeper context, and because I like how Silver chose and organized his topics to investigate relations between art and power." I'll try to work on a book review entry and add it as a source citation. But page numbers are still needed for Silver's book if used as a source citation--or perhaps a reference to the list of contents as a source citation per se [relating to pt. in bk. rev. just quoted] (which I or another editor might be able to link to as well). --NYScholar (talk) 01:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

(cont.) As I said earlier, one needs precise page references to document this and another book source. The statements still need reliable and verifiable source citations that supports them as per WP:V#Sources and WP:CITE. --NYScholar (talk) 01:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC) [(updated.) --NYScholar (talk) 01:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)]

I've provided page reference and supporting citations for Silver and used [a shortened citation format] to cite the entire book by Esche and Bradley, which is a collection of essays that they edited. The ISBN nos. lead to the books, with links to book descriptions in various online catalogues that appear to me to support the statement cited (as revised). --NYScholar (talk) 02:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC) [(Updated.) Also added source citation to a 2008 book (published more recently than Silver's textbook), which won a 2009 College Art Association award. It seems more germane. --02:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)]

I see that you are at it again. You decided to impose the confusing and unsuitable for Wikipedia MLA style on February 2. You did not ask for consensus from other editors. Citations from web sources and newspapers would be better dealt with in the more usual WP styles. With regards to the book sources which you have removed, I am actually awaiting the books from by University library, in fact I have an email right now saying taht one of them is in teh libarray on this campus. I shall collect it, read it and put in refrences as I see appropriate. Currently I have only a 3rd generation photocopy without page numbers which is why they were missing. I am putting an under construction and citation style notice on this article. Please do not waste your time writing a thousand words on every minor edit you make. It is tedious and pointless and shows that you sadly have a somewhat obsessive and anal nature. perhaps you should seek medical assistance. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:01, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Article style

I have removed the style template as no consensus was sought on placing it there. It is a tactic used by one disruptive editor who likes to take over articles and make them unreadable, by using an academic style which is designed for dead tree publication. The imposition of this style has made the notes and references twice as long as the article and very confusing to the average non-scholalry reader. Jezhotwells (talk) 11:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Citation style

The creator of the article used the last name citation style to begin with, but created errors in the formatting of the notes. "Works cited" is correct, as that is how the "References" had been done from the start (with the last name of the source keyed to an entry in the "References" list. If one does not know that Wikipedia itself uses "Works cited" format in many of its own illustrations in project pages for Wikipedia editing policies and guidelines, one can find that out by reading sections of WP:MOS pertaining to bibliographies. There is nothing confusing about the use of a "Works cited" format for average everyday readers who are more familiar with Wikipedia editing policies and guidelines.

(cont.) Moreover, attempting to make an article consistent in its citation and bibliographical format is an improvement to the article and not "disruptive"; the only disruptiveness that I have experienced relating to this article is in the responses to reasonable and carefully-explained edits. The citation format was MLA format before J. changed the format to citation templates that had errors and inconsistencies in them. Although one could do so, there is no reason for consensus for changing the citation format to APA format or Harvard referencing or to Wikipedia citation templates, given the way the creator of the article initially used quotations in the notes with last names of authors (with inconsistencies in a variety of places in the "references" (notes) and bibliographical entries ("Works cited"); the works in the "Works cited" are those cited initially by the creator of the article, with corrections to bibliographical information.

(cont.) If the current format is consistent and enables the readers (all readers) to verify the source citations (as it currently does). See Style guides for the template. Wikipedia allows the use of MLA Style citations with "Works cited" in its articles when it is appropriate for the subject (in this case art as it relates to politics), which it is appropriate for. See earlier explanations: the article subject is "Art and politics", not "Politics and art".

(cont.) If there had not been errors in the initial formatting of the citationsDiffs., and it had been possible to continue it, that could have been the case. But I elected to use a simpler method (used throughout Wikipedia) in subjects that relate the academic disciplines, in this case to Art history: Several of the source citations chosen by the creator of the article are from books, two in Italian. I placed "Sources?" when I realized that there were inconsistencies in the source citation format and missing citations; there were templates indicating that prior to my formulating a consistent citation format in the course of correcting the earliest errors (duplication of note numbers). Clearly, the creator of the article did not know how to formulate source citations in numbered notes.Diffs. Please see editing policies in WP:LOP, including Wikipedia:Consensus, and related guidelines WP:MOS#Further reading, Wikipedia:Layout, WP:CITE; Cf. User talk:Jezhotwells#Art and politics. Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 20:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I am restoring the template indicating the current Style Sheet, because that is the recommendation ("Please do not change these settings unless consensus has been reached."); when there is a current style sheet being followed, one indicates what it is, so that editors understand that one is attempting consistency in following it. Consensus operates over time. I attempted to follow the "works cited" format selected by the creator of the article by naming the "References" list what it was (a "Works cited") and correcting the errors in the duplicating of note numbers, using a "Notes" section. This is consistent with Wikipedia citation style guidelines and MLA Style format. --NYScholar (talk) 20:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

See Diffs. in editing history for context. The note in the Style Sheet about not changing it is clear; it is based on WP:CITE guidelines about not changing consistent citation style format to inconsistent style format and not changing a consistent style to another one for mere personal preferences. --NYScholar (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

You decided, you elected. Consensus has not been established. The MLA style means readeers have to check 2 places to actually get to the source material online. The use of long quotations makes the reference / note section far too long, longer than the article. Removed style templates as there is no consensus. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the process of "consensus" in Wikipedia; please see Wikipedia:Consensus. MLA Style is consistently used and acceptable in Wikipedia for subjects like this one. Both Art and Art history are academic disciplines. The creator of the article provided quotations; I followed that format. The creator of this article did not use citation templates. The Style format for notes and bibliographical references had errors in it; I corrected them and adapted the confused use of APA Style (author date; with erroneous pres. of dates of publication in cases) to a consistent use of MLA Style (author page); page refs. given by the creator of the article have been incorporated in the notes. I avoided using in-text parenthetical refs. out of deference to Jezhotwells and incorporated the information in the notes. Notes had been used by the creator of the article, but there were missing citations and erroneous or missing information from the bibliographical entries. I found the missing ISBN nos. and supplied them. There is one place for verification: the "Works cited" list. There is no need to supply the verifying sources twice (once in the notes and once in the "Works cited" [or "References" or "Further reading" lists]). MLA Style is an accepted style format in Wikipedia: see Style guide template. The fact that the Style Sheet template enables one to choose MLA Style (for subjects in "the arts and humanities") is evidence of that. --NYScholar (talk) 21:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

For more information re: citations style permissible in Wikipedia for articles on subjects in The arts and humanities, see Citation. There are many inconsistencies in articles and guidelines in Wikipedia about citation styles, and one just needs to try to navigate them. MLA Style is appropriate citation style for subjects in the arts and humanities, and one will find the MLA Style bibliographical entry format used throughout many bibliographies in Wikipedia. It is considered "edit warring" in Wikipedia to alter already-consistent citation styles; when the styles have problems, as this article's did from its point of creation, one tries to fix the errors. That is what I tried to do; and that is considered good faith editing in Wikipedia: see WP:AGF. As I said earlier, there are a variety of citation styles that one could have used for this article. APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, citation templates: but the style had to be consistent, and I rendered it both consistent and appropriate for this particular subject. MLA Style is a generic citation style used for subjects in the arts and humanities--politics is a field that crosses disciplinary rubrics--some consider it part of the humanities; political science, while defined in Wikipedia as a social science, is often taught as a humanities field. It is not a science, like chemistry or physics. Art and The arts (including Literature, literary arts) is clearly a humanities subject. --NYScholar (talk) 01:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Added some convenience links out of deference to above user's apparent desire for them. They are not necessary, but they are perhaps useful in the notes to which I added them. The "Works cited" provides sources for verification. Wikipedia editing policy is WP:V. The "Works cited" format with ISBN nos. and/or links to Web sources/resources is consistent with the requirement in Wikipedia for verifiability. Everything in this article has been checked and verified as of today. --NYScholar (talk) 22:14, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

You are the edit warrer, pal. Fine you have won - for the moment. I am working on a good article for this space and I will add material when I have it all in order. Till then you can carry on fiddling about.Jezhotwells (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Good articles in Wikipedia

All articles in Wikipedia are subject to editing by all of its editors. In contributing to an article, no single editor determines what is considered "a good article" in Wikipedia. At an appropriate time, when an article is not experiencing content (or citation style) disputes (later, in this case), it might be submitted for a "good article" review. That review process involves "impartial reviewers", who have not been involved in editing the article and who are therefore neutral observers, as Neutral point of view is a core editing policy in Wikipedia. No individual editor "owns" a Wikipedia article (WP:OWN) and no such individual editor can determine how the article will remain "once and for all", because the encyclopedia is in flux and operates according to "consensus" achieved and changing over time. See WP:GA and WP:Consensus for more information. The main role of editors in Wikipedia is to create and to improve articles. What constitutes "improvement", however, is often a subjective matter, relative to the editorial training, education, and background of an individual editor and a great number of other variables. Editing an encyclopedia (a field of writing; a literary field) is an art in itself, not a science. A core policy in Wikipedia is WP:AGF. For the others, please scroll up to the talkheader template, which I placed on this talk page when I created it several days ago. Among them is civility ("Be polite"). --NYScholar (talk) 01:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

New structure

After fixing all the inconsistencies of citation format introduced earlier in the music "example" subsection (which was not named coherently to fit in the larger section called "Examples"), I think this subsection is overpowering the article's main focus on "Art and politics" (Art). I moved it last after the examples from art so one can perceive that. I believe that it belongs integrated fully into the pre-existing article Music and politics. If one reads the Wikipedia article on artist, which mentions "artiste", it is clear that music is a separate category from art per se, and that the material (and all its sources, some of which come from the article on Music and politics), belongs better integrated there, with an entry in "See also" section here. --NYScholar (talk) 02:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(cont.) According to the template placed by (an)other editor on that article, it has a lot of editorial issues and problems. Integrating the subsection would take a lot of work, as it currently does not easily fit into the current structure of that other article. --NYScholar (talk) 02:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(cont.) For the time being, I created an alternate structure for this essay, separating the examples from the visual arts and the examples from music (and other Performing arts, which would include dance and theatre). --NYScholar (talk) 03:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC) [Updated. --NYScholar (talk) 05:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)]

That makes sense, and I do not disagree with the change of article name, but it would have been better if NYScholar had sought consensus before making this restructuring. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think that J. understands the function and operation and guidelines relating to "consensus" in Wikipedia. J. did not "seek consensus" in the talk page before adding all the examples from UK music venues to an article previously on "art" and politics, altering its focus entirely to focus on issues of interest to J. particularly (it seems) in other articles (see the internal links).

(cont.) See Wikipedia:Consensus#How consensus emerges during the editing process for such matters that do not require prior discussion on talk pages (unlike changes to the citation style of an article with a style sheet, which do require such prior consensus, apparently).

Restructuring and reorganizing an article to accommodate changes already made by J.--in earlier and more recent editing (without asking for "consensus," which was not needed)-- was an attempt to keep that material in an article where it otherwise did not seem to fit.

(cont.) Renaming the article enables one to keep J.'s more-recently added material. Such editing changes go on continually in Wikipedia. One renames articles to suit their content when others' changes (which are otherwise acceptable to main contributing editors and others) seem worth keeping. It is a compliment to J., for example, that another editor (I, in this instance) would take the time to adjust the article to keep the material that J. provided. As J. is still a relatively new editor, I think that J. needs to consult the policies and guidelines more closely before invoking them. "Consensus" is a much more complex matter in Wikipedia than I think J. recognizes and operates in a variety of different (and sometime contradictory) manners.

(cont.)I would really appreciate a "thank you" occasionally from J. for the work done to correct errors of format that J. has introduced (e.g., adding citation templates to an article that clearly is not using them, acc. to its Style Sheet).

(cont.) The creator of this article used endnotes with a References list that operated as a "Works cited" list; I've simply adapted a format (MLA Style) that makes that original (very faulty) formatting of references work consistently in the article. I used MLA Style format because it is less complicated than APA (date) format and more suitable for an article on the arts (a subdiscipline of the humanities), not the social sciences. [I will be logged out of Wikipedia again after posting this (as I was for the past several hours) and working on other non-Wikipedia work and eating dinner, so I won't be consulting this page in the near future.] --NYScholar (talk) 01:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry pal, you are wrong to assume that art is specifically confined to visual art. And if you expect me to thank you for making articles unreadable then think on! By the way, you never thank others for reversing vandalism or correcting your mistakes. Try to understand that you you do not own articles you are just another editor. If you can't understand that then you should not not be editing Wikipedia. Jezhotwells (talk) 03:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Readability

I came to this article looking for something on Beethoven's Ninth and I'm a bit non-plussed by all the stuff in ( ) and [ ] and " " breaking up the already difficult to follow flow. Can someone point me to the easy to read version?  florrie  01:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC) PS, and what are the numbers in brackets for? Some seem to be dates but the others, are they page numbers? Whatever, it's wholly distracting.

They are page numbers and are clearly not dates; see Parenthetical referencing, Style Sheet (MLA Style); links are there. Most readers of Wikipedia are familiar with parenthetical source citations, as they are used throughout Wikipedia. This is not author-date; it is author-title-page, and it is described in Style guide article on The MLA Style Manual and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers; please see the template in the talk page at top (Style Sheet) and familiarize yourself with the conventions of Parenthetical referencing in Wikipedia articles. Thanks. (I deleted the ed. interpolation in brackets to Shiller (it was there because an earlier ed. misread the source Q.) and I moved the gloss of the German version of the English title to the already existing endnote to accommodate your comment. Thanks for making it. (Logging out for night. Good night.) --NYScholar (talk) 01:32, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately NYScholar insists on using this citation style, and I gree that it tends to make articles unreadable - but he insists - so paasrently we must accept it, unless his version of censensus changes. Jezhotwells (talk) 03:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

"Clearly not dates"? "Ode to Joy" (1785) and Ninth Symphony (1824) could well be dates to a reader not familiar with the subject - which is usually why a reader will use Wikipedia in the first place, to find information. If this form is "used throughout Wikipedia" I must have avoided the majority of Wikipedia as I am more used to seeing the simple {{cite news/web/book}} footnotes type of reference - one click and you are there. I'm not quite clear why a reader would be expected to check a talk page, click on a "show" link, eventually find a wikilink to explain parenthetical referencing - which turns out to be an article tagged for clean-up - in order to understand notations in an article! I didn't. Possibly you should consider placing that template at the top of the actual article, in expanded form. The point I am trying to make is that, to me, finding information on Wikipedia and reading an article shouldn't be complicated. Although I think your comments above sound elitist and patronising, I do thank you for addressing some of my concerns regarding the paragraph to which I referred.  florrie  04:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course those are dates (the 4 digits); I was referring to your question about the parenthetical page citations, which are not 4 digits and are obviously page citations. You seem to have misinterpreted my earlier response to you, which I wrote entirely in good faith; these charges of being "elitist" and "patronising" are entirely unwarranted and are truly becoming very tiresome from various Wikipedia editors. Please reread my comment. Thanks. And if you have questions about the parenthetical source citations, please consult the Wikipedia links to both parenthetical referencing and The MLA Style Manual, already in the style sheet. The article is not complicated. It was compromised by another editor's adding citation templates to an article that uses parenthetical referencing and endnotes as per the Style Sheet. --NYScholar (talk) 07:42, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

They are page numbers and are clearly not dates and Of course those are dates (the 4 digits). Righto. So I'm not the first to mention "elitist" and "patronising" in reference to your comments? You might want to mull over that. Could be there's an actual basis to the conception. Seriously, don't bring your problems with other editors into this, it has nothing to do with me! And blaming someone else? Not nice. Have a lovely day.  florrie  12:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, thanks for the constructive part of your comments. The rest I do not find constructive. I was not "blaming someone else"; I was explaining the need for the editorial interpolation in brackets that you had originally objected to (content). Talk pages of articles are supposed to be used for explaining editing changes when one thinks others might benefit from the explanations (beyond what is already in the editing summaries). They are not for discussing other editors. The "problems" involved in editing this article are already discussed above in this talk page. Thanks again for pointing out your own responses to the passage about Beethoven/Shiller. (That material was not my contribution initially; I just tried to clarify some confusions in it.) --NYScholar (talk) 20:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Mate, if the talk page wasn't so long and convoluted and if I had a smidgen of interest, maybe I would read it. But as I only came onto the page to ask a simple question, why would I (or any other random reader) bother wading through the mass of verbage? You answered the question but your manner in doing so provoked another response from me - and again, and again! And take your own advice about not discussing other editors, you brought them into the discussion after all. Relax and, once more, have a lovely day!  florrie  22:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved quotations into text and added new section for earlier parts to accommodate comments in this section of talk page. --NYScholar (talk) 20:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Note: (In addition to the use of parentheses for the source citations used in parenthetical referencing), for other usage of parentheses and brackets in this article, see WP:MOS#Brackets and parentheses. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 20:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Square brackets in Wikipedia are used for clarifications in editorial interpolations. Such clarifications improve readability by eliminating unintended ambiguities in quoted text (for example). Angle brackets with (!--/--) are used for editorial interpolations visible only in "Show preview" mode. To see them one has to enter that mode. --NYScholar (talk) 21:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy: Consensus

Wikipedia's version of consensus is Wikipedia:Consensus. That is a statement of Wikipedia policy. … --NYScholar (talk) 07:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC) [updated, as per reminder below]. --NYScholar (talk) 20:28, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Reminder

To all contributors to this article and to this talk page: Please stop focusing on contributors and focus on the content of the edits themselves. Thanks very much. See the templated message in the talk page header and its link to WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA for contexts of this reminder: e.g.,

Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks do not help make a point; they only hurt the Wikipedia community and deter users from helping to create a good encyclopedia. Derogatory comments about another contributor may be removed by any editor.… (WP:NPA)

--NYScholar (talk) 20:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Referencing

I have now sorted the previous confusing citation style arbitrarily imposed by a previous editor. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)