Talk:The Mysterious Affair at Styles

message: Just an FYI, I've removed the link to the LibriVox recording of Mysterious Affair at Styles due to there being a possible copyright conflict. LibriVox is working to resolve this and will repost the link if resolved. thistlechick 03:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  LibriVox Recording link 

message: The description of the TV version said "A slight mistake is, however, that it is left unexplained how the door of the late Mrs. Inglethorp's room (that had been broken in at her death) is fixed in the early morning before Poirot's arrival (which could prevent the other residents from altering the traces)." 
I've checked that this is incorrect.
The door that is "broken in" is the connecting door to Mr. Inglethorpe's room, but it's clearly only the lock that's broken: the door itself doesn't appear to be damaged. When they leave the room it's explicitly stated that both rooms are locked. Also, at this time the third door, to Cynthia's room, is bolted on Mrs. Inglethorpe's side. Next morning, Poirot enters the room via the door from the corridor, not the door that was broken in.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Machiajelly (talk • contribs) 16:23, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistaken "mistake" removed 

message: I couldn't find any support for any review calling Poirot "a darling little man", so I deleted it, and put a few of the actual "little man" descriptions in the Lede.
Neither Hastings' first name or rank are given in this novel : he's called either "Hastings" or "Mr. Hastings". Various changes to reflect this.
Made a few changes to reflect the significance of the will (as motive).  Alanf777 (talk) 06:24, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poirot, Hastings, The Will and Inheritance 

message: I shortened the lead, the text before the Plot summary, by moving text to other sections. A sentence of the plot of this story is added. The lead (or is it lede?) looks normal length to me now, so I removed the flag.
The Plot summary was not in present tense, but is mostly that now. Redundant sentences were deleted. It is shorter now, but probably can be shortened further.
Some descriptions of Poirot were moved to the Character list.
A new section called Dedication is added, gathering all comments on the dedication of Agatha Christie's first published novel. In the Literary analysis section, a subheading on the Golden Age of Detective fiction is added, with text taken from the overly long lead. A citation beyond the Wikipedia article link is still needed -- is anyone able to find a suitable citation? --Prairieplant (talk) 20:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed flag for lead too long 

message: The text in Publication history that conflicted with intro paragraph as to the date of the first UK book publication has been removed. The latter had no citation other than a vague reference to the English Catalogue of books, an annual publication, and a vague hint of dispute on the date. The 21 January 1921 date has a reference. That is the only place marked citation needed in the article, so I removed the flag.
I do not see what the multiple issues are that remain in the article, so I removed that as well. This talk section does not identify current issues. If there are more issues, can someone be specific about them?   --Prairieplant (talk) 00:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed flag for citations needed, and multiple issues 

message: Having just inadvertently discovered the identity killer is when looking at the character list, I propose that the sentence "The killer of the case." be removed from the Characters section altogether. I believe this change to be consistent with WP:SPOILERS as the identity of the killer is amply covered in the Plot Summary section and repeating it in the Characters section does not serve an encyclopedic purpose. —SamHathaway (talk) 02:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine by me. It is, as you point out, covered in the article itself. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:13, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is no such thing as spoilers in Wikipedia, . The entire novel is presented and discussed, in the Plot summary, in the character list in other sections that may be included in the article about a novel. Wikipedia articles are not advertising blurbs or teasers. --Prairieplant (talk) 00:18, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  , I am aware of WP:SPOILERS and I believe that my proposed edit is in alignment with the policy. Naming the killer in the Characters list, when it has already been amply covered in the Plot Summary, is repetitious and does not serve an encyclopedic purpose. MOS:CHARACTERS calls for a "brief character sketch" only and states that "most articles do not need this section." I do not think a Characters section is required to contain spoilers. ;-) —SamHathaway (talk) 00:42, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant Details in Characters List 

message: The "adaptations" section has gotten ridiculous with endless details on how TV shows differ from the book. TV shows always differ from the book - we don't need such minutia. I would like to trim them waaaaaaay back - any thought? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:31, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, there are far too many of those details in that section and many of them should be removed. Miles26 (talk) 23:05, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi guys, I'm the one who added most of the detail to those sections recently. I was not sure what to include and what not to include. I was trying to be consistent with other articles such as Appointment with Death. Previously, the French and Latvian sections specifically had almost no information, while the British adaptation took up a lot more space, which seemed wrong as it appeared biased towards English language versions. I tried to make them roughly the same length as each other. I also tried to avoid trivial differences (for example, in the French version the disguise used when buying the poison is a pair of glasses, but in the novel it's a fake beard, I thought this was not worth mentioning so left it out). On the other hand, I was wary of making statements like "it was generally faithful to the novel" vs "it was a very loose adaptation of the novel" without giving specific examples to back this up. Is there any guideline on what should and shouldn't be present? Kidburla (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No specific guidelines that I know of - this is clearly a case where editorial judgement is at play. Frankly, I don't see why we shouldn't stick to the level of "it was a very loose adaptation of the novel" - it doesn't seem important to the reader what choices a TV producer made to fit their budget or time slot. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:59, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  the reason I was wary of saying things like "it was a very loose adaptation of the novel" is because this is subject to dispute and not verifiable (unless reliable sources specifically call it out as such). By sticking to specific facts, it's something that can't be disputed, e.g. no one can say they disagree that the character of Dr Bauerstein was omitted from an adaptation, but someone can say they disagree that it was a largely faithful adaptation. Kidburla (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi , I think a phrase like "the adaptation was generally faithful to the novel" (which is currently in the British TV adaptation section) is fine, but if you think it's disputable and needs to be backed up with many examples, then it could instead be changed to something else like "there were some differences between the adaptation and the novel, such as [a few examples]". A long list of examples isn't necessary, and can be misleading about the degree to which the adaptation differs from the novel or about how much coverage there is in sources about those specific differences. Miles26 (talk) 20:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  In general I agree with you. I am just struggling how to succinctly list the examples, without giving cause for dispute. For example if I put "for example several main characters were omitted", people will want to ask which characters were omitted. They may even add a "citation needed" or "clarification needed" tag to this text. That is why I tried to list the differences in a way that was specific and unambiguous. However, I do agree that it may give a misleading impression about the degree to which the adaptation differs from the novel. Happy to take suggestions. Kidburla (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  and , I've tried making the list for the British adaptation shorter in my sandbox. I tried to succinctly mention the differences that I thought were most significant and examples of smaller differences, while avoiding being too vague. Please take a look at my sandbox and let me know what you think. Miles26 (talk) 09:34, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

text:  Thanks for the effort. Personally I think that's still too much detail. I think you can leave it at something along the lines of: "There are some differences between the adaptation and the novel, including the removal of some minor characters and some plot points as well as the creation of new background material not present in any books, such as how Poirot and Hastings met." That gives readers a sense of the scope of the changes, which is all this article requires. If the adaptation isn't important enough for its own article then I don't think details are really needed. That's one editor's opinion, of course! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:59, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with  that the list can be much shorter. Either do it as he outlined in his post above, or use just the first three of the points you made. The television series forces all the novels with Poirot into the 1930s even if the novels were set 30 years later. Hastings is always present, where he is eliminated in the novels as soon as Agatha Christie could see the way to eliminate him. This is her first published novel, where she found his character of use -- but that is a comment about the novel, not about the television shows. The television shows always delete clues; having lots of real clues and misleading clues is a hallmark of the novels. It seems rare for reviewers to analyze each television show in the way her novels were analyzed in detail by reviewers at the time of publication. That is, these commentaries are by editors, not sourced to a reviewer, making brevity a virtue, along with accuracy.  --Prairieplant (talk) 21:39, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

text: Nice. Thanks for all the effort! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Great. Thank you both for all your feedback. I've tried to similarly condense the plot differences mentioned in the French adaptation section, and added what I came up with to my sandbox, so please take a look. Also, I think that the character list in that section may be too detailed. Miles26 (talk) 03:00, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

text: You reversed the focus of what the previous editor wrote. The French adaptation has the core of the plot, who is murdered and by whom, but the setting is not a country manor in Essex. I do not think the French adaptation differences text needs changing, being terse and clear. I would like to see all those bullet points on the English adaptation removed and replaced with your shorter version. --Prairieplant (talk) 04:47, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: , are you taking into account the bulleted list of plot differences in the French adaptation section? I was trying to reflect what the previous editor wrote overall, including the short paragraph and the relatively longer bulleted list. In any case, what I wrote is merely an idea and it's fine with me if you want to keep wording that's already in the article instead. I agree with you about the English adaptation section. Miles26 (talk) 07:45, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Why are we listing virtually every actor in adaptations? That is pointless trivia, especially for actors who have no wikipedia article. I would remove all of them except for Poirot and possibly one or two other major roles. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:32, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: , that change would be fine with me. I'd suggest we also keep the actors who played Hastings, and mention that the same actor played Japp in both the British television and radio adaptations. Miles26 (talk) 01:48, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

text: Looks good to me. Thanks for your work. I followed your example and shortened the parts in the article about the other adaptations. How does it look now? I also won't mind if my change is undone. Miles26 (talk) 04:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:   Hi guys, sorry I had to duck out of this conversation for a few days, I had stuff going on in real life. Just want to say that I am really happy with the result you guys got to. It looks great and is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. My only concern is - why does the British adaptation get 2 paragraphs and the others only get one paragraph? Shouldn't we try to structure them all in the same way? Just curious if there was some kind of logic to it, that wasn't immediately obvious to me. Kidburla (talk) 22:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I wouldn't worry about that difference in length, as it's not significant, but if you want you could tighten the British example slightly. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Understood, thanks! I've tightened it to 1 paragraph for consistency. Kidburla (talk) 22:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Adaptations need to be trimmed