Talk:Jerome Myers

message: The main neutrality issue is article balance. Major portions of the article are reviews of the subject's artwork and the artwork itself. Second in priority, as a corollary to the reviews, is there are not enough references for the sheer number of quoted people and publications; in the review quotations section, there are no in-line citations for 27 instances. There are other unreferenced quotes in other sections, as well. The most minor concern is the writing, most of which is fine. Biased examples include: "For Jerome Myers, summer in Manhattan was rich in opportunity", "His strong interest and feelings for the new immigrants". Unrelated to neutrality, there is an open quotation in Summer in Manhattan section that begins "turning off here and there to glance". fdsTalk 18:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: The neutrality tag is not apt, but this article does have multiple issues that should be addressed:
#It should be written in an encyclopedic tone. It should not be said in Wikipedia's voice "summer in Manhattan was rich in opportunity, for when the mercury soared it was certain to bring tenement dwellers out into the streets and parks of the city". There are multiple instances of this.
#The amount of third-party quoted material is excessive and must be rectified. In addition, the huge chunk (possibly in toto) of the 1940 Art Digest obituary is a copyright violation. Whether it is in quotes or not is immaterial. The gist of all the quotes from art critics should instead be summarised in a critical reception section. And surely not every review or assessment of his work was as positive as these. Yet only positive ones are presented in the article. Unless absolutely no criticisms or reservations were ever published about his work (which I find very hard to believe), then the selection of quotes does violate neutrality.
#There should not a whole section devoted to what one exhibition catalog from 2010 said about him. Simply use it as a source and do not break up the biographical narrative this way.
#The massive collages are inappropriate. Images should be used very selectively and in a smaller gallery format, showing each one individually, and there should be a rationale behind the inclusion of each image. However, having a number of images of their work is not a violation of neutrality in a biography of a visual artist per se. In fact it's normal in such articles. Observe Caspar David Friedrich which is a Featured article.
#I'm also concerned about the copyright status of many of the images, frankly. An image of each painting in the article, must have been published prior to 1923 for it to be in the public domain. It is not enough for the painting itself to have been made or even exhibited before that date. As Myers died in 1940, all his works, apart from those whose images were published in catalogues, journals, etc. before 1923 are still in copyright.
If I felt the article need tagging, I'd use something like:
Voceditenore (talk) 10:59, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, Voceditenore. Although we disagree about the template, we agree on everything else: This article needs a lot of work and in those obvious areas I laid out above (though not as thoroughly as you did). Why I invoked neutrality was based on the weight of the quoted sections and the large section of art. The principal editor of this page, BEDownes, has scrounged up a lot of material, but I think quite a bit of it can be removed without damaging the article. However, if you suspect copyright infringements, shouldn't the Non-free template be used? fdsTalk 04:41, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Neutrality" vs. Multiple issues 

message: Fdssdf. I have begun trying to remedy the most glaring problems with the article and especially those areas that go against Wikipedia's guidelines/policy on quotation and copyright:
:1. I have removed entirely the quotes from his autobiography. Some brief ones can be used where appropriate in the biography section if they are highly relevant. They can be found in this version. BEDownes, if you want to make these quotes available to a wider readership, I suggest you add some of them to another Wikimedia project, WikiQuote, which can then be linked from the article. But please read their copyright notice carefully. Note that Myers' autobiography is still in copyright.
:2. I have removed entirely the obituary from The Art Digest, 1940. This is a copyright violation as it quotes way beyond the limits of fair use and works published after 1923 are still in copyright. Much of it is also waffle. I have incorporated one brief quote from it in the biographical section. 
:3. I have removed entirely the press quotes and placed them in the section below with further explanation.
:4. I have restructured the biographical section with encyclopedic headings formatted per the Wikipedia Manual of Style. However, I am concerned at the material which was originally formatted like this and explicitly stated The Early Years - research and text by art historian, Bennard B. Pearlman [sic]. The footnote states:
:::Perlman, Bernard B.; John Sloan; Jerome Myers; Ken Ratner; Bennard B. Perlman; Darlene Miller-Lanning (2010). Ashcan humanists: John Sloan & Jerome Myers. Hope Horn Gallery, the University of Scranton.
:BEDownes, is the text in that section of the Wikipedia article copied verbatim an/or very closely paraphrased from that publication? If so, it will have to be rewritten entirely or removed. If you only mean by that that Perlman was the author of the source you used but it was written in your own words, then you don't state that in giant bold letters as part of a heading. As I do not have access to that source, I am assuming for now that it is the latter case.
Voceditenore (talk) 10:28, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now replaced the collages with various singly presented works, all of which appear to be copyright compliant at Commons. I've also added some text and references (and repaired several other references). Oddly, the biography had never even touched on his family life, the cause of his death, or his legacy. There are now no more images than would be expected in an article about a visual artist and they are not displayed as giant collages which had provided no information on the titles or dates of the works comprising them and were thus of limited encyclopedic value. The excessive quotation, including that from work still in copyright, has been removed. The only remaining problem is the writing style which needs to be copyedited for encyclopedic tone (and quite a lot, in my view). Consequently, I have removed the  tag and replaced it with .  Voceditenore (talk) 15:13, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite well done. I did not have much interest in this article, even though I tagged it originally. However you were determined to fix what ailed it — no small task. Bravo, Voceditenore! fdsTalk 22:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the kind words, Fdssdf :). I actually enjoyed it. This is a very interesting artist and his article deserved the best presentation possible.  This morning I went through the entire article, copyediting for encyclopedic style and tone, and have removed the  tag. It should be OK now. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:51, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Article changes 

message: The following excessive and decontextualized quotation has been moved here. This material can be used to source a prose "Critical reception" section summarising the gist of the assessments, contextualising them with respect to the exhibition/work being reviewed. Any direct quotes used there must be very brief and need to be integrated into the running prose. Voceditenore (talk) 09:57, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotations from newspaper reviews and articles

message: In going over the article, I noted that the infobox gave the death date as 29 June and the opening sentence gave it as 19 June. I have gone for 19 June since that is the date given in his New York Times obituary published on 20 June. It is also the date given in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, and the catalogue of American Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum. But note that The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art gives 29 June as does the chronology in Jerome Myers Papers, 1904-1967, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum—a misprint in the latter replicated in the former? – Voceditenore (talk) 16:27, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, thank you for catching the error on my part for Jerome's death. I think it probably carried over from the Myers Chronology at Delaware The date was definitely June 19,1940. I will need to check I haven't carried my mistake into any more documents. I certainly appreciate the degree of care and concern That has been given to the article as a whole. It certain speaks well of Wikipedia and the quality of volunteers it attracts. I apologize for getting a bit grumpy when I first encountered the original tagging and neither had warning, nor even any explanation posted on the talk page. --BEDownes (talk) 00:35, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death date