Talk:Susanna Centlivre/Archive 1

message: #The changes were amazingly jarring, where all paragraphs were turned into jabbing, stoccato, newspaper paragraphs of single sentences.  That's some very bad style.
#The changes introduced an intolerable number of typos.
#The "neutrality" is absolutely not presented in the new version.  Instead, a distinctly hagiographic tone was put in to replace the neutral tone.  In fact, there were many changes that I would dispute in the strongest terms, and yet there were no references for any of those changes (The Nine Muses left on Dryden's grave?  what? that is meaningful how?).  A lot of the language introduced seemed to come from an antique source, but no sources were offered.
#The woman was a political actress, political author, and highly engaged Whig, and all of this emphasis on her as lady poet misses her own point, as well as the primary point contemporaries noticed.
Overall, these were not improvements.  Before doing something that drastic, please, please, please use the talk page.  Geogre 13:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why roll so far back 

message: Given that all of the information in the article is indeed in the source cited, is there any reason it can't be rolled back? Your criticism of the sentences (which, interestingly wavers between calling them too short and too long) can easily be remedied by consolidating the paragraphs under each heading into larger paragraphs.
I think I'll roll it back later today, given that ample evidence has been provided for its veracity. (Eh Elle Dee)
*You're not making sense.  Veracity of what?  What is currently missing that you think should be in?  Can you specify?  Have you still not realized that I rolled back to your version from the start?  What I rolled back from is the choppy paragraphs and the attempt to segregate the political and personal.  There are no statements of fact in dispute, so claiming that there is "veracity" is irrelevant.  I can't tell if you're not reading or not understanding what I've been saying.  I hope it's the former.  Geogre 13:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Conclusion 

message: Eh Ell Dee, other IPs, and "Brenna.gray", may I ask if you're aware of the definition of meatpuppets and the Wikipedia policy on them? How about WP:TROLL? Bishonen | talk 00:18, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you prefer not to click on my links, here's the policy on meatpuppets: "It is considered highly inappropriate or unacceptable to advertise Wikipedia articles that are being debated in order to attract users with known views and bias, in order to strengthen one side of a debate. It is also considered highly inappropriate to ask friends or family members to create accounts for the purpose of giving additional support. Advertising or soliciting meatpuppet activity is not an acceptable practice on Wikipedia.  On-Wikipedia canvassing should be reverted if possible. The arrival of multiple newcomers, with limited Wikipedia background and predetermined viewpoints arriving in order to present those viewpoints, rarely helps achieve neutrality and most times actively damages it, no matter what one might think. Wikipedia is not a place for mixing fact and opinion, personal advocacy, or argument from emotion. Controversial articles often need more familiarity with policy to be well edited, not less."
*There has been no advertisement involved here beyond a decision as a class to improve wikipedia's articles on the playwrights we have been studying.  Susiebower and myself have created wikipedia entries for other 18th century women playwrights.  Our interest in this entry is no different.  --Brenna.gray 02:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As regards trolling, I had the comment "Geogre baiting is strangely fun" in mind. I think you know where I read it. What is it you have in mind, Susie? I'm very surprised to see Geogre accused of trolling, so I would really like you to be a little more specific than in your grandly sweeping reference to "above comments".  What I see above is Geogre taking your views (or perhaps rather your view) seriously, and engaging with it. A bit of a waste of time, perhaps. What is the "vested interest" you speak of? Whose vested interest? It looks like you're ascribing a "vested interest" to yourselves, but that's a little hard to believe... assuming you know what the phrase means? 
*I wonder why wikipedia doesn't have a policy encouraging people not to cyberstalk other wikipedians.  --Brenna.gray 02:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me ask you to individually, as people, not as a group, consider the group dynamics you have developed here at Wikipedia. Are you quite happy about it? Bishonen | talk 01:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Brenna, since you're new and unfamiliar with the culture of the site (as well as uninterested in it, I guess) and with our policy WP:AGF, I'll overlook your tone and your implication that I lie. Google gave me precisely two hits when I typed in the phrases "daughter of William Freeman" and "Lynn Regis": this Wikipedia article, and EDD's blog. I performed such a search in an effort to locate the old-fashioned text that EDD was apparently quoting large chunks from (not the best way of producing flow or encyclopedic tone, if you don't mind my saying so). I don't have access to the DNB, so that may well have been it. You know—the source that Geogre had rewritten in up-to-date English?  Bishonen | talk 03:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Meatpuppets

message: Finberg used two specific sources for the information about Susanna Centlivre in the introduction to her Oxford UP 2001 edition of "Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists" in which she writes of Centlivre's popularity as a playwright. These two sources cite the popularity of Centlivre's plays:
1. Jean Gagen's entry "Susanna Centlivre" in Paula R. Backscheider (ed.) Dictionary of Literary Biography, 84, Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Dramatists (Detroit, 1989).  
*I don't trust Paula Backscheider as far as I can throw her, and I especially do not trust her to go to the primaries in an anthology headnote.  Then again, neither should you trust her.  We are supposed to be scholars.  Geogre 03:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All right. Since you put your first name openly on the internet, where I stumbled on it without even looking for it, it wasn't clear to me that you had a special reluctance to seeiing it on Wikipedia. Bishonen | talk 01:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know exactly how Geogre feels; I'll wager it'll take more than your group to make him feel crushed. But I still don't like to see this, as you say, ganging-up behavior. You prefer not to discuss your baiting and your fun? I don't blame you. I tell you the same as I'm telling Brenna above: new users get a lot of tolerance on Wikipedia, so I'll overlook your implication that I lie. For how I <tee hee> "stumbled" on it, please see my reply to Brenna's attack above. Not that I see exactly what the great interest is, but since you ask. Bishonen | talk 03:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Finberg Backup

message: WikiProject Biography Summer 2007 Assessment Drive
"Start Class"? You have got to be kidding me. I've changed the assessment to "B" class. A "Start class" article is supposed to need "Substantial/major editing" or to have "most material for a complete article" added. Fer Gawd's sake. This article is comprehensive, well illustrated, and well written. "B" doesn't fit that well either, as it's by no means true that "Considerable editing is still needed, including filling in some important gaps or correcting significant policy errors," but it's the closest I can do.  Bishonen | talk 19:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be nice if one of the B.A.D. people were to answer honestly why they think everything is "start" or "stub."  I can only assume that they look for superscript numbers.  If there are none, it's "start."  As for "stub," I assume that, to them, is merely a question of number of screens.  It hardly needs pointing out that this is stupid, that a -bot can (and, comfortingly, does) simply count bytes and even find a superscript, and humans are supposed to possess intelligence that has been trained into reason.  Geogre 21:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Class_parameter|Biography assessment rating]] comment