Talk:Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

message: Summarizing Melvin Maddocks' comments as noting "a misleading undertone" is a bit facile. To me, his comments are describing a subtle, but conscious effort by Dillard to influence the reader. Dillard may be downplaying her intentions, but I don't think Maddocks is seriously trying to say that the book is "misleading". Kaldari (talk) 05:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps not "misleading", but something along those lines?  Maddocks' point seems to be that he finds the book's message to be at odds with Dillard's life and persona.  Here's a couple more clips from the review: "At first she seems to fit into a pattern as predictable as a wildlife calendar, this Annie Dillard, the sensitive young woman with folded hands on the dust jacket, who looks out of her cottage window on nature and, sure enough, starting right on schedule with January, records the seasons as they come and go at Tinker Creek in Virginia .... The author compares her life with that of an anchorite hermit. In fact, she is anything but a hairshirt recluse. She smokes cigarettes. She drives a car. Like nature, she is sometimes guilty of repetition and a certain atrocious lushness". María (yllosubmarine) 12:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I got caught up in the discussion below and forgot about this.  I re-read Maddocks and now see what you mean.  I've reworded per your suggestion, thanks! María (yllosubmarine) 13:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maddocks' review 

message: Wanted to sort bibliography: Marshall after Maddocks, and Parrish after Papa. 69.111.140.26 (talk) 23:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Thanks for mentioning. Truthkeeper (talk) 23:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why can't I edit? 

message: :I also oppose the inclusion of the infobox, as it is a cruft magnet and not especially useful for literature articles, IMO. We have other featured literature articles without infoboxes (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman for example), and they seem to be doing fine without them. Not everything in the universe needs to be boxed and categorized to death. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a database. Kaldari (talk) 04:50, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's both, and you should know that, given your job. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 07:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, Kaldari.  I had planned to walk away and let the infobox pushers have their way, but given that four separate editors have objected to this infobox in the last 24 hours, I believe that it should truly be removed.  It is obvious that there is no consensus for its inclusion on this article at this time.  Perhaps that will change later on, but it's obvious that the infobox does little good here. María (yllosubmarine) 12:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps a compromise can be found. I have just reduced the size of the image in an attempt to reduce the size and dominance of the infobox. It certainly looks better on my monitor now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The image was originally (pre-infobox) 200px; I think I tried 150px and it was just too small.  It's difficult to read the print (title and author) in its current state, IMHO.  Also, if , making it appear smaller won't really matter.  Perhaps a fairer compromise would be to reduce the image (175px?) as well as remove empty/extremely redundant fields (cover artist, pages, awards) so as to discourage the infobox from growing. María (yllosubmarine) 13:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The number of pages does seem a trivial detail to include in the infobox. Regarding the awards, this is currently under discussion, see Template talk:Infobox book#Awards. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

text: "it's obvious that the infobox does little good here" no it isn't; it does do good, by summarising key points and emitting metadata, as explained above. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:32, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

text:  I set 250px, as that is commonly used in infoboxes. However, this is a portrait image and so I've no problem with smaller. 180px 200px would be the norm for that, methinks, and I'm going to tweak to that. Crediting the cover artist (if known) is appropriate, as are awards; even the number of pages is a reasonable factoid that some may want to know. Yet some would make this findable only via going off site to Worldcat or Google (via an ISBN lost at the bottom of the page;). That's not a reader-centred approach, it's about editor ego. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 20:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the image resizing, but again not with the infobox.  The cover artist could surely be included in the image description, or even the caption.  The award is already prominently displayed in the lead.  Page numbers?  Really?  Gah.  Br'er, you opinion about my ego has already been stated.  No need to repeat yourself -- I'm doing enough of that for both of us. María (yllosubmarine) 20:40, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

text: The redundancy argument remains a red herring, given that the purpose of infoboxes is to repeat key information. The Pulitzer Prize is clearly a key piece of information. Linking text is a convenience for our readers, and does not affect the footprint of the infobox. A larger image not only displays the book's cover to our readers more prominently, but actually reduces the length of the infobox, by reducing line-wrapping. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:31, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately, Truthkeeper [sic] has just removed the infobox, citing a bogus reason for doing so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:52, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Andy Mabbett, I've never had any interaction with you until very recently. Twice in the past week or so you've called my logic bogus and now you're making fun of my user name. Please stop. It was reverted within minutes; look at the history and figure out who has been doing the reverting here. Truthkeeper (talk) 00:13, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: TK, I hadn't thought of simply adding the proposed infobox info to the image caption.  It'll probably be reverted, but .  Not too bad, although granted I didn't add the OCLC nor publisher.  No overlinking, either. María (yllosubmarine) 00:44, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yup, that should be reverted; no metadata, much else omitted, per your personal animus towards infoboxes. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 02:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

text:  Ridiculous; per BR. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:32, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

text: The use of "[sic]" has nothing to do with fun-making. I didn't say your logic was bogus; I said that the reason you gave was. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:32, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You put the [sic] after her username, not her argument, which seemed to imply that you thought it ("Truthkeeper") faulty in some way.  It wasn't very funny.  María (yllosubmarine) 12:52, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't joking. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

text: Typo, multitasking. The infobox is metadata when the article is machine read, and this is another utility aspect of infoboxes. In my opinion, making the caption the infobox created a junkie caption, and it does not provide database utility. I won't continue to discuss this, as you appear dead set against the infobox, but I do find them useful for deciding if I want to read an article, I won't turn to an image caption that includes the isbn, when it is not an article about isbn's. Infoboxes provide database utility. They serve a few purposes, and it seems unnecessary to reduce the utility of any single article for its desired appearance for an editor or group of editors. Eau (talk) 13:27, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

text: So, all the time you've been opposing the use of the infobox in this article, you haven't understood its function, even though described to you; haven't until now bothered to ask about it, and apparently haven't read its documentation? So on what exactly, other than personal aesthetic preference, have you been basing your objections? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I see , so now my previous comment is incorrect.  Most of this lengthy section has been centered (I thought) on whether or not infoboxes are helpful to readers.  DBpedia and WP:UF have yet to be mentioned here, and they're new to me, I admit.  Microformatting for external websites is an interesting notion, but I can't help but think that were it such an important initiative, infoboxes and other templates would be mandatory by now.  "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article."  So here we are.  Also, I don't think it's fair to dismiss objections based on aesthetics; how an article looks matters a great deal.  María (yllosubmarine) 15:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I've clarified the description of metadata on the help page, but it was already there, in the reference to microformats. That's irrelevant to my points, though. Metadata was mentioned by me, in the very first post of this section, and has also been mentioned by others. Microformats are not merely "for external websites", but about how we share our content. That's an important part of what we do, no? There is widespread consensus to emit microformat and other metadata; your "it would be mandatory by now" canard does not negate that. So, your objections are purely aesthetic. How an article looks to you is not how it looks to others. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:12, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Break 

message: I've just fully protected this page for one days because of the edit warring over the infobox. Please stop edit warring, consider dispute resolution steps instead.  Mark Arsten (talk) 13:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection 

message: The infobox provides structured information that is easy to consume at a glance. The argument that it is redundant with the lede (as argued above) is irrelevant. That's the entire purpose of the infobox... To take the important *unstructured* information about the book (as would normally be found in the lede) and present it in a *structured* manner so it's easier to find what you're looking for. The structured data in the infobox is also extracted by Google (etc.) so that it can be used to present information about the book directly on the search page.
An infobox is not required, but it's quite obviously the *standard practice* for books in 2023... Infobox book is used on more than 51,000 pages. Pages where it is not used are generally low-quality articles where no one has bothered to go through the effort of creating it... Not "Featured Articles".
Possibly the infobox was less common practice when the talk page above was written more than a decade ago (which never actually came to a conclusion on whether an infobox should be included or not, although people seem to be interpreting it as if there had been some official decision that it shouldn't be), but there's no reason other than stubbornness/ownership to exclude the infobox for this one particular book. Bueller 007 (talk) 04:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Chatbots like Sidney would almost certainly disagree that structured data has to be presented as structured data and can't be converted to prose. Please designe a better infobox and reinitiate the discussion in a more collaborative manner. The wounds from this page run very very deep. My advice would to walk away and leave it. Victoria (tk) 04:33, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  I didn't say it wasn't possible to extract the information from unstructured data. I'm talking about what is actually done, not what is possible.  Google uses the information in the infoboxes and augments its search results with that information when you put it there.  I am not interested in "wounds" from a decade ago that I had nothing to do with; I'm interested in improving the usefulness of an encyclopedia. And I am frustrated when people revert those efforts without explanation.  If "wounds" are preventing some people from thinking clearly on this issue, perhaps they are the ones who should consider walking away from the issue if it means they cannot think objectively about the matter.  Is there a counterargument to including an infobox that is related to the objective quality of the encyclopedia as opposed to subjective experiences of the editors? Bueller 007 (talk) 04:46, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That's nice. As for arguments, the first one for an FA is WP:FAOWN. Substantive changes are brought to the talk page to achieve consensus. Edit warring is not the way to do that, so let's open a discussion and discuss. As for mentioning previous discussions, in this case that discussion is relevant because the person who wrote this left as a result of it and it spawned an arb case. In the meantime stewartship falls to others, such as myself, who have watched the page since it was written. At this time I'm opposed to adding an infobox - especially not with the tiny text column V22 gives us for a lead. Victoria (tk) 04:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is no good argument against including an infobox 

message: It has been proposed that an infobox be added to this article. The addition of an infobox, added here and again here should be done as the result of consensus.At the right is a screenshot of how the article with infobox renders for me on a 13in laptop in Vector 22, which is now default for all logged out users. Given that readers have no choice but to see the default skin and given that a 13 inch laptop isn't terribly uncommon, my suggestion is to rethink the layout.I've recommenced the discussion with a more neutrally worded section header. Furthermore, given that often these discussions generate unnecessary heat, it's best that comments are kept here on this page and don't spill out throughout the project where they can be read and factions can form. Thanks! Victoria (tk) 15:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox discussion