Talk:Moomins/Archive 2
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Synopsis and Characters section
The "Synopsis and Characters" section contains several statements which seem to me to be opinions rather than facts, to whit:
- 1 Moomintroll and Little My can be seen as psychological self-portraits of the artist.
- 2 Moominpappa and Moominmamma are often seen as portraits of Jansson's parents Viktor Jansson and Signe Hammarsten-Jansson.
- 3 The Moomin stories have a very humane message.
- 4 The novelist Alison Lurie has described the Groke, a black, hill-shaped creation with glowing eyes, as a walking manifestation of Nordic gloominess - everyone she touches dies, and the ground freezes everywhere she sits.
Some of these have been tagged as needing citations, but it seems to me that even with citations they cannot be justified. Statements 1 & 2 fall under Wikipedia's concept of weasel words, whether or not they can be given citations, and I have been so bold as to remove them. While I totally agree with statement 3 it is an opinion, not a fact, and I feel it is not justified. Any opinions to the contrary? If not I shall remove it too. As for number 4, is the opinion of some individual who has read the books noteworthy? Does the fact that the opinion is expressed by a novelist make it more relevant than my opinion, or yours?
I think the statement that Tuulikki Pietilä's personality inspired the character Too-Tikki needs justification, so I have tagged it for a citation. Merely stating "Tuulikki Pietilä's personality inspired the character" without giving justification is not a lot different from saying "I think Tuulikki Pietilä's personality inspired the character".
Finally I am removing the statement that Sniff is a rodent. When he is first introduced in The Little Trolls and the Great Flood he is described merely as a "small creature", and nowhere in any of the books, nor anywhere else that I have read, is it made more specific. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- I'll see what I can find about Tuulikki Pietilä's being the inspiration behind Too-Tikki. I have read this many times in reliable third party publications, and I seem to remember reading it in interviews with Tove Jansson. -Thibbs (talk) 15:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- I also believe I've read statements 1 and 2 above in reliable third-party sources. If I can find something that backs them up I'll re-add those lines. The lines (especially #1) are poorly written and may contain weasel words, but I don't think that makes them per se excludable. -Thibbs (talk) 15:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- Evidence for statements #1, #2, #4, and the Tuulikki Pietilä statements: this graduate thesis from the University of Jyväskylä suggests that:
Given what we know about Tove Jansson's youth, the evidence clearly shows that Moominpappa and Moominmamma are at least influenced by Viktor and Signe Jansson. For those that would question my translation of the Swedish source above, I have tried hard to recover some English sources on the topic. This English source clearly spells out that:"The Moomin family lives in a house where there is always space for guests and parties, Moominmamma holds the family together and never gives up, while Moominpappa is a bohemian and forges his own path. Moomintroll loves his mother more than anything in the world, but also finds his pappa's memoirs exciting. He is easily overcome by conscience and he finds it difficult to say no. He wants to explore the world, but always returns home again in the end. Eventually he somewhat releases his need for his mother. All this goes back to Tove Jansson's own childhood. The environment in which she grew up has largely put a mark on her works. (Salonen 1983, 28; Jones 1984; 12; Ørjasæter 1985, 92, 98, 132-133.)"
Again, this other English source explains that:"Based as it is on her recollections, the core of the Moomin family is very reminiscent of her own. The figure of Viktor Jansson is the same as that of Moominpappa, who occasionally becomes depressed by the verdant calm of Moomin Valley, packs his family into a boat and moves to an islet far out to sea. Just as similar to each other are Moominmamma and Signe Hammarsten-Jansson, fluctuating as they do between creativity and housework. In interviews Tove Jansson has spoken openly about the backgrounds of and possible models for her other characters. The lively and rational Too-ticky ... bears a clear resemblance to ... the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä. Moomintroll can be regarded mainly as a self-portrait: with its modern, sensitive and insecure, illogical tolerance, the figure is a prototype of today's often destructive human being. A second figure portraying Jansson is certainly Little My, an 'arch-child' - rational to the point of cruelty, unscrupulous and brazen."
According to the same source, Ros Coward in the June 30, 2001 edition of The Guardian wrote: "Sometimes, Jansson's characters border on the sinister, like the Hemulens, who are always officials, or the strange Hattifatners, who move in a singleminded, menacing crowd. Novelist Alison Lurie has described the Groke, a dark, mound-shaped creature with staring eyes, as 'a kind of walking manifestation of Scandinavian gloom; everything she touches dies, and the ground freezes wherever she sits.'" If the words of Pulitzer Prize-winner, Alison Lurie, are notable enough for The Guardian, I submit that they are good enough for this article. I am confident this addresses any concerns editors have as to the verifiability of the information that used to be in the article, and I will make the executive decision of re-inserting it together with the sources I found. If there are problems with these sources, I can supply additional ones. There are quite a large number of sources (especially in Swedish and Finish) which advance similar arguments. Cheers, -Thibbs (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)Jansson's companion in life was the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä, whose personality inspired the character Too-ticky in Moominland Midwinter (1957). Moomintroll and Little My can be regarded as the artist's psychological self-portraits. The Moomins, in general, bore a strong resemblances to Jansson's own family - they were bohemians, lived close to nature, were tolerant towards the peculiarities of other creatures, and fond of Moominmamma's cooking."
- Evidence for statements #1, #2, #4, and the Tuulikki Pietilä statements: this graduate thesis from the University of Jyväskylä suggests that:
I think thanks are due to Thibbs for putting in the effort to find citations for some of the statements here. However, the fact remains that "can be seen as" and "are often seen as" are unmistakably weasel words within the meaning of the Wikipedia policy. To say "Joe Smith sees Moomintroll and Little My as..." would not be weasel words (though there might be other issues, such as whether Joe Smith's opinion is noteworthy). Some time when I find the time I will rewrite this passage to improve it, if nobody else beats me to it. JamesBWatson (talk) 22:04, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
- No problem. It only took a few moments on Google. Converting the cites to wikicode took me longer than finding them to be honest. Also I'm not sure if I gave the impression that I was contesting the weaselness of the words used, but what I intended to say was that weasel words do not make statements per se excludable. By this I mean that sentences with weasel words should be rewritten to remove their weasel nature but they should not be excised from the article unless they are unsupportable by citations. I'll leave the rewriting of those words to you, JamesBWatson, and thanks for taking that on. Cheers, -Thibbs (talk) 01:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Sniff as rodent
![]() | A consensus has been found to indicate that references to the character, Sniff, as a rodent are to be excluded from this article as WP:FRINGE due to their potential to confuse readers. It is believed that these references are made by reviewers unfamiliar with the books. |
Finland vs Sweden
This has gotten to be kind of ridiculous. Tove Jansson was a Finnish woman who wrote in Swedish. I think we should source this and present both nationalites in places where this can be sourced. We should put "<!--" comments at all places where these nationalistic battles erupt to explain this and this should be our general rule of thumb. Does that sound good to everyone? -Thibbs (talk) 18:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
- In this case, Swedish is a language, not a nationality, so there shouldn't be any issue – the infobox, where the recent issues have occurred, offers fields for both language and nationality. I think the problem is not a nationalistic one, but simply the common misconception in English-speaking countries that these books were written in Finnish (since most people are unaware of the status of Swedish in Finland). David Arthur (talk) 20:41, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
- Yes but surely this sort of thing could be better sorted out by properly sourcing the matter and adding a comment, no? -Thibbs (talk) 21:10, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
- Ah OK I see you've added a comment. I source would be nice too, but what we have currently will probably be enough to keep anybody but a vandal from re-inserting the wrong info. Cheers, -Thibbs (talk) 21:12, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
- The books themselves are more than sufficient source here. Any copy in English (or Finnish) will credit a translator, and probably give an original title in Swedish, whereas a copy in Swedish will not. David Arthur (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I can't agree with that. You're describing original research. I don't really care if stays unsourced, though. I'm not one of those who needs every obvious thing sourced. The only reason I brought it up was as an idea to help keep good-faith-but-wrong editors, nationalistic-POV-pushers, and vandals from changing it, but maybe the comment alone is sufficient. -Thibbs (talk) 21:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- No, I'm not describing original research – I'm describing citing the book itself, which is about as far in the opposite direction as you can get. But a mistaken assumption, no matter how widespread, isn't nearly enough to overcome the common knowledge among anyone who genuinely knows the circumstances of these books, so I agree that any citation at all would be overkill (and probably would have no effect on anyone stubborn enough to want to change correct information). David Arthur (talk) 23:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- I hate to contradict you, but that's definitely original research. How can you cite an oeuvre? How do you cite the absence of a translator? Even if you could do that what have you proved except that one book listed no translator and the others all did. Unless you mean to cite a passage from a particular book that states "Tove Jansson was a Finnish woman who wrote in Swedish," you're asking the reader to draw the same unsourced conclusion you drew. Review just the lede of WP:OR. I'm sure you'll see I'm right. -Thibbs (talk) 01:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
- Original research is 'I have conducted this experiment which proves Einstein wrong', or 'I was an eyewitness to this historical event'. It is not in any sense 'original thought' to read an inside cover page which says 'Original title Trollkarlens hatt' and recognise (as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of either language could do) that this title is in Swedish, rather than Finnish. David Arthur (talk) 13:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
- I hate to contradict you, but that's definitely original research. How can you cite an oeuvre? How do you cite the absence of a translator? Even if you could do that what have you proved except that one book listed no translator and the others all did. Unless you mean to cite a passage from a particular book that states "Tove Jansson was a Finnish woman who wrote in Swedish," you're asking the reader to draw the same unsourced conclusion you drew. Review just the lede of WP:OR. I'm sure you'll see I'm right. -Thibbs (talk) 01:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
- No, I'm not describing original research – I'm describing citing the book itself, which is about as far in the opposite direction as you can get. But a mistaken assumption, no matter how widespread, isn't nearly enough to overcome the common knowledge among anyone who genuinely knows the circumstances of these books, so I agree that any citation at all would be overkill (and probably would have no effect on anyone stubborn enough to want to change correct information). David Arthur (talk) 23:50, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I can't agree with that. You're describing original research. I don't really care if stays unsourced, though. I'm not one of those who needs every obvious thing sourced. The only reason I brought it up was as an idea to help keep good-faith-but-wrong editors, nationalistic-POV-pushers, and vandals from changing it, but maybe the comment alone is sufficient. -Thibbs (talk) 21:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- (outdent) Original research is everything from asking readers to blindly accept your assertions to asking readers to draw the same unpublished inferences you have. Just because it's TRUE doesn't mean it's not OR. Quoting WP:OR: "To demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that ... directly support[s] the information as it is presented." What you are suggesting is a means to obliquely support the information as it is presented. I recognize that it's frustrating. This is one of the major reasons why so many good-faith editors get sick of the bureaucracy here. This issue normally only arises when the matter asserted is challenged, and right now nobody's challenging it so let's leave it as is, but if someone did come here to challenge it then we'd have to find a source that directly states the information. Thankfully I'm sure there are a great many such sources available. The real frustration comes when true information is hacked out by some editor who doesn't know the truth simply because you (the good-faith editor) are unable to find a published source that directly supports the true statement. I've been in that place a number of times. -Thibbs (talk) 14:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
- PS - Since we're in agreement as to the basic issue, perhaps we should move whatever more of this discussion that there is into usertalk. -Thibbs (talk) 14:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
- The books themselves are more than sufficient source here. Any copy in English (or Finnish) will credit a translator, and probably give an original title in Swedish, whereas a copy in Swedish will not. David Arthur (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Of the two fairly recent occasions where "Swedish" was replaced by "Finnish", one (by an anonymous editor at IP 88.195.248.134) could well have been an innocent error by someone who assumed the books were in Finnish because they were written in Finland. However, the other was by an anonymous editor at IP 84.248.3.178, who has a history of inserting references to Finland and Finnish into articles, and on some occasions also gratuitously removing references to Sweden, so it seems likely that it is motivated by some form of nationalism. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
New Changes
Hey guys. After the most recent edit I've had enough. I added a citation that discusses the very issue of whether or not the books are Swedish or Finnish, and among other things the source says that both cultures claim the books as their own national literature. So rather than endlessly monitoring and reverting things here, I think we should include both languages with the citation I added. Now the new form of the debate will be what order to put them in. The solution I see most often elsewhere is to put them alphabetically, however I have temporarily left Swedish before Finnish due to the fact that the original language was Swedish. So they're in chronological order. IF this sounds like a good compromise to everybody then I suggest we replace the warning tag that was deleted by the last IP editor and replace it with one explaining the chronological order scheme that we've gained consensus for. So do we have consensus for this? -Thibbs (talk) 20:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Thibbs's recent edit summary: "OK this is now officially ridiculous" pretty well sums it up. The anonymous editor at IP 88.195.248.134 has ignored the warning tag, and his/her one non-Moomin edit is also on a Finnish theme, so maybe this editor too is motivated by nationalism. As for the suggested solution, it would be nice to find an easy consensus, but I'm afraid I don't agree. Swedes and Finns may well both regard the Moomins as part of their own national literature, but the language in which the books were written is Swedish, so I can see no justification for listing anything under language other than Swedish. I have written a note on the anon IP editor's user page. In my experience notes to anon IP users rarely produce any effect, but I think we should try every method of persuasion: I am reluctant to let one editor with a fixed idea over-rule consensus by sheer persistence. For the present I am leaving the double reference "Swedish, Finnish", as I think it is more helpful to try to reach consensus by discussion, rather than each of us endlessly changing things to our personal preference. However, unless a justification can be given for stating keeping the reference to Finnish I do not think that it should remain for long. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
- JamesBWatson is right that language and national identity are quite different. Reading from Template:Infobox Book, Language is defined as "Language of original book." That's definitely Swedish in this case, so only Swedish should appear under "language." The Book Infobox Template contains a special note for translations however, and perhaps this would be a good place to go for a compromise for those Finnish nationals who feel cheated. An example is provided at Template talk:Infobox Book#Translated books case study that shows a workaround that may be used to cite two or more books in the infobox if two or more books are important to cover. It should be noted that even in this example, however, the language line is still the original language. I suggest we use this method to cite the first Finnish translation (and we could even do the first English translations as well since this is en.wiki) but that we change language back to Swedish and retain the reference since the reference directly states that "Tove Janson, creator of the Moomins, [] is a Swedish-speaking and writing Finn". Thoughts? -Thibbs (talk) 14:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
- "Thoughts?" asks Thibbs. Well, my first thought is to agree 100% with one of Thibbs's edit summaries: "OK this is now officially ridiculous" pretty well sums it up. This is one of the kinds of things which make Wikipedia frustrating. I have looked at the example case study linked by Thibbs, and perhaps the idea could be used. I have made a draft version here. I find this a cumbersome arrangement, however. The point of the infobox is to give one neat, concise summary: having more than one infobox somewhat defeats this purpose. Perhaps a single box could be made giving all three versions, but it would have to be custom-made, as the standard Book Infobox does not provide the necessary flexibility. I am also not sure whether this will achieve the desired purpose of bringing the problem to an end, but I am not against trying it. Any comments? JamesBWatson (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
- Since writing the above I have made a try at a custom info box listing Swedish, English, and Finnish. It is not perfect, but I think it has advantages over separate boxes for each language. It is available here Any comments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JBW (talk • contribs) 11:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
- I think it looks great! Unless there are objections I move that we adopt it. -Thibbs (talk) 18:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
- Right: I have put it in place. JamesBWatson (talk) 18:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
- I think it looks great! Unless there are objections I move that we adopt it. -Thibbs (talk) 18:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
- Since writing the above I have made a try at a custom info box listing Swedish, English, and Finnish. It is not perfect, but I think it has advantages over separate boxes for each language. It is available here Any comments? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JBW (talk • contribs) 11:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
- "Thoughts?" asks Thibbs. Well, my first thought is to agree 100% with one of Thibbs's edit summaries: "OK this is now officially ridiculous" pretty well sums it up. This is one of the kinds of things which make Wikipedia frustrating. I have looked at the example case study linked by Thibbs, and perhaps the idea could be used. I have made a draft version here. I find this a cumbersome arrangement, however. The point of the infobox is to give one neat, concise summary: having more than one infobox somewhat defeats this purpose. Perhaps a single box could be made giving all three versions, but it would have to be custom-made, as the standard Book Infobox does not provide the necessary flexibility. I am also not sure whether this will achieve the desired purpose of bringing the problem to an end, but I am not against trying it. Any comments? JamesBWatson (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Other literature/tv shows with characters sharing similar appearance?
I find some of the characters in The Backyardigans bear high resemblances to the Moomins. Do you know of others? If there has been trademark or such disputes that would be interesting information for the article. Then again there has been copying of the Mickey Mouse going on as well. Now they certainly don't look 1:1 identical but my first reaction was "Sue Nick Jr!" given that series has the looks of a cheap knock-off.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.172.94 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) 09:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
- I think they would claim that the shape of the characters (rounded creatures with big noses) is just a common shape and that it was too basic to trademark and probably aesthetically functional. Giving trademark protection to such a common shape would produce a strong negative effect on competitors unrelated to the source-identifying aspect of the trademark. For other examples of similar characters, see the Trouble for Trumpets series by Peter Cross or even Nerds (candy) or Hungry Hungry Hippos. I agree, though, that if anyone can find any litigation in this area then that should be added to the article. I just don't think it's very likely that we would... -Thibbs (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Schildts (publisher)
The original publisher, Schildts Ab, has a no-article link. Their website seems to be only in Swedish and Finnish; Google has a cached copy of their English Moomin page, which is currently not available on the publisher's site.
I've added a reference after "Schildts", linking to the Swedish Moomin page, with a note that that seems to be the only version. Even when you click on the Finnish flag labeled "SUOMEKSI" you just get the same (Swedish) page. -- Thnidu (talk) 01:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)