Talk:Pierrot

message: I hope that the previous editor of this page is not alarmed or dismayed by the extensiveness of my editing.  I have retained almost all of the material of the previous page, but have reorganized it (and supplied dates) so that, using the "Contents" box, the reader can find everything conveniently.  I have (obviously) added a great deal of historical background and have corrected a few errors.  (It's questionable whether the character Pedrolino played a large role--if any--in the creation of Pierrot by the Comedie-Italienne: see the new note #1.  And I think it's misleading to say that Deburau was the protagonist of "Au clair de la lune," since the song was composed long before Deburau's birth.  But these are small matters.)  I have omitted three entries: I don't know what "a class in Golden Sun 2" refers to  (I'm an old-timer--but maybe a clarified entry could be included under a "Technology" heading?).  Also, since you point out that the "Pierrot" of "Unbeatable Banzuke" is probably not a Pierrot as such but simply a clown, I dropped that reference.  And, finally, I thought "Pierrette" deserved her own page--although I'm not sure how much can be said about her, since even her costume--so far as I know anything about it--is highly variable.
I really value your pop-culture entries--involving pop music and anime and manga, for example--and I hope you'll continue to contribute more.  I'm thinking of uploading a few more images (along the empty space next to the "Contents" box), but that will probably be the end of my work on the page.  Please remove any errors that you find. Beebuk 06:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: New Edits

message: I've added a couple of lines about her (under Popular and Literary Pantomime); I haven't been able to scrape up enough to say about her to create a page of her own.  I haven't said anything about her costume because I can't find any documentation about it.  Beebuk 09:25, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Re: Pierrette

message: This is an extremely long article given its subject.
My grandfather, Domer Howard, wrote an excruciatingly bad series of sonnets titled Sonnets from Pierrot to Columbine.  He had them printed (not published, really, just printed and bound) and distributed copies to his family and friends.  There were at most a few hundred copies made of this book.  Copies have turned up on Ebay and Amazon a few times.  If you doubt my evaluation of the book, buy one of the used copies floating around and read the sonnet titled "Space Age Love".
As obscure as this book is, it was mentioned by this article (I have since deleted the reference).
It seems as if someone has attempted to list every last cultural reference to Pierrot that could be located as part of the article.   I can appreciate that someone was interested in the subject, but maybe writing a book is in order.  This is way too much detail for an encyclopedia entry.  Ormewood (talk) 15:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing needed? 

message: What is "notable" (for a Wikipedia page) and what is not could be endlessly debated (Picasso but not Michael Jackson?  Godard but not Sacha Guitry?), but I suspect that such a debate, at least concerning this page, would be a fruitless one.  Let me make a suggestion: I think subdividing the page would be a good idea, i.e., creating separate pages for "Pierrot in the Early Twentieth Century" and "Pierrot in the Late Twentieth/Early Twenty-First Centuries."  The main Pierrot page would bear the directions "See Main Page . . ." and supply a summarizing paragraph (or two) like Nandesuka's for each of those periods.  If this is unacceptable to either Nandesuka or Ssilvers, each is free to respond here.  (And I ask that the standard Wikipedia policy be observed: that major changes in a page be discussed on the Talk page before they are implemented.)  Beebuk 01:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that subdividing the page into smaller articles is a terrible idea!  Anyone interested in Pierrot wants to read all about it in one article, not have to click around to multiple articles to find out about it.  That would add confusion and repetition as well as difficulty for the general reader.  Please, no! -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:07, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the thought: I, too, would in my heart of hearts like to keep the page together. And I'd like to add one more thing: Why assume that a reader of an encyclopedia article wants or needs to read the whole thing?  When I read such an article, I go right to the section I want the info from.  Schopenhauer's life doesn't interest me; the ideas in The World as Will and Representation do.  Beebuk 11:36, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Sorry: I wasn't aware of the policy (which I think should be changed: all important words in headings should be capitalized).  Beebuk 08:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to advocate at the MOS talk page for change, but it isn't very likely!  These sorts of guidelines have evolved over 10 years and the input of thousands of people.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

text: Sorry again.  I was working very quickly (and forgot to use the summary bar), since I'm always afraid someone else has begun editing the page, and I've never figured out the Wiki instructions for "merging" pages.  Beebuk 08:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: A Suggestion

message: Let's talk about how to best move forward.
The way I see it there are three main categories of work to be done in the Late 20th and Early 20th century sections.
• Find reliable sources covering the items mentioned as being somehow relevant to the topic of Pierrot (beyond the simple equivalence "Oh, look, Pierrot is in the title, therefore we must include it.")
• Remove obviously trivial or suspect mentions.
• De-listify, rewrite in paragraph form.
I'm creating subsections here for us to note what changes we've made, to make it easier for people to object and/or discuss.  Nandesuka (talk) 14:11, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the strategy, except in two respects: 1) I think we have now removed the "obviously" trivial and suspect mentions ( I wouldn't remove any others unless we have made a diligent library effort to verify their importance and have failed to do so); and 2) The 20th century is not the only problem with this article - the earlier sections, while based generally on literature covering this subject, are not adequately in-line referenced, and the writing is, in places, not encyclopedic.  This character is not really within my area of interest or expertise.  I have done what I can with a quick editorial look at the article.  To de-listify the 20th century will require either a good familiarity with the literature or an expedition to the library.  Frankly, I think the article is "good enough" for now, and I'm going to bow out.  If you want to really dig into the sources and take the article further, that is wonderful, but I've got more pressing pots on my stove.  Sorry!  Best regards, and happy editing.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:59, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving forward

message: Hello everyone, I added (alongside with Fellini's Clowns) The Night Porter by Liliana Cavani. There are multiple visual allusions to the Pierrot character, and I think this film is culturally significant. However, if anyone thinks it is original research, you are free to delete my additions.Beebuk 15:04, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: The Night Porter?

message: I am adding a section of this title largely in response to an objection of Ssilvers (in A Defense above):  "There should be more narrative discussion at the top of the section about how Pierrot is used, portrayed and understood in the 20th century compared with how the character is used in earlier times."  -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops!  Forgot to sign the above.  Beebuk 11:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Pierrot and Modernism

message: it seems that the article is using a mixture of citation styles. Some of the older references are added using the very basic markup of [www.example.com Name of source] other info about source] while other citations are formatted using citation templates. Wikipedia does not have one single preferred style for citing sources, but its generally considered a good idea that style used throughout the article be consistent per :WP:CITESTYLE. Personally, I prefer using citation templates because they are easier to use and easier to ensure consistent formatting, but some editors do not like them.  Just for reference, some of the shorter citations like Author's name; page # can be converted into templates using :Template:sfn, :Template:Rp, or :Template:Harv.  :WP:CITEVAR says we should defer to the style used by the first significant contributor and only change styles if there's a consensus to do so. Some other things to consider are :WP:DATEUNIFY and :MOS:DATETIES. It seems that an all-numerical format is currently being used which is fine, but the depending upon the variation of English being used the "month day, year" and "day moth year" formats can also be used. Once again, it can help save on clean up if a single format is agreed upon in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:16, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation style 

message: The TOC is pretty big and goes 4 section levels deep in some places. It might make things a little easier to navigate if it were limited a bit by hiding the lower level subsections per :H:LIMITTOC. This is just a formatting change and no content will be removed. The individual subsections will still be there, and they can be wikilinked; they just will be hidden from view in the TOC. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:24, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  TOC size 

message: Quite a few of the section/subsecton headings are identical which is not wrong per se, but it's not really ideal. Generally, it's better to give each heading a unique name per :MOS:HEAD because it makes it a little bit easier to add wikilinks in other articles to certain sections and easier to understand edit sums. For example, some of the section headings in :Pierrot#Eighteenth century and :Pierrot#Pantomime and late nineteenth-century art are the same. I can see why this might have been done, but it does cause a few problems because of the way Wikipedia's software works. Suppose, I want to add a wikilink to the "England" subsection in "Eighteenth century" in another article, etc. Normally, the way this is done would be :Pierrot#England. Since this is the first time "England" is used as a section heading clicking on the link brings be exactly to the right section of the target article. Now suppose I want to link to the "France" subsection in "Pantomime and late ninetheeth-century art". Just like I did for "England", I create the link as :Pierrot#France, only this time the link does not take me to the relevant section. Instead it takes me to the "France" subsection in "Eighteenth Century". The reason this happens is because the software sees the target of the link being the first section/subsection titled "France". If I want to create a link specific to subsequent sections named "France", then I need to use :Pierrot#France_2. This is not very intuative and can be a little confusing to editors not famliar with linking. 
Another thing I've noticed is that some of the subsection headings in the article as what is called "pseudo-headings". Pseudo-headings are basically created by using a semi-colon to cause the text to be bold. Apparently this formatting style was used quite a bit when Wikipedia was just starting out, but I believe it has been slowly deprecated over the years. So, instead of using semi-colons, it probably better to use proper section levels and just create another subsection. For example, "Popular and literary pantomime" and "Visual arts, fiction, poetry, music, and film" should probably be converted to level 5 section headings. This is not only consistent with what is being done in the rest of the article, but it is more in tune with :WP:MOS. One positive of doing this will be that it make it a little easier to edit those particular subsections. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:55, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section headings 

message: I appreciate the immense work and quality of information Beebuk has put into this article, but WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. The writing is poetic and passionate, but off-putting because it is not formal, impersonal and dispassionate like an encyclopedia article should be (Wikipedia:Writing better articles). The most obvious culprit is the multiple sentences that start with "And", "But", and "And yet" (WP:WORDS). There also seems to be some synthesis applied overall. As an example, the following sentences:
It was neither the Aesthetic nor the popular Pierrot that claimed the attention of the great theater innovator Edward Gordon Craig.  The appeal of the mask seems to have been the same that drew Craig to the "Über-Marionette": the sense that Pierrot was a symbolic embodiment of an aspect of the spiritual life—Craig invokes William Blake—and in no way a vehicle of "blunt" materialistic Realism. (ref)
could be roughly revised to:
Pierrot also appealed to the theater innovator Edward Gordon Craig in a similar manner as his conceptual "Über-Marionette", in the sense that Pierrot was a symbolic embodiment of an aspect of spiritual life, as opposed to a vehicle of "blunt" materialistic Realism. This corresponded with the views of William Blake, whom Craig admired. (ref)
I understand from the above that Beebuk has in fact written books on the subject. Again, I have concerns not with the content, but with the emphatic writing style (fit for a book) that is out of place in an encyclopedia. Opinions are welcome!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Where is the muffin (talk • contribs) 18:22, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should not read like a book 

message: In his poem, "West-Running Brook", Frost writes the following:
Some say existence like a Pirouot
And Pirouette, forever in one place,
Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
It seriously, sadly, runs away
To fill the abyss' void with emptiness.
Despite the alternative spelling, this is clearly a reference to Pierrot and Pierrette. Perhaps someone could add this to the extensive list of poetry references.
:Many thanks for the suggestion--but the references here seem to be merely decorative.  --Beebuk 14:00, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Poem by Robert Frost references Pierrot and Pierrette 

message: I propose that the section Pierrot#Pierrot_and_Modernism be split into a separate page called Pierrot_and_Modernism. The content of the current page seems too specific for the general article on Pierrot. The Modernism section is large enough to make its own page. --Melchior2006 (talk) 07:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. --Melchior2006 (talk) 11:27, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting proposal 

message: As is stands now, there is more graphic material than the article can handle. That become a problem when the illustrations are so jammed, that they don't appear near the corresponding text. The result is text about the 19th century with illustrations from the 18th, and that kind of thing. I propose to reduce the less important graphics. Any suggestions? Melchior2006 (talk) 11:26, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume this is not about my ? Considering that was two images that corresponded to the text and it was primarily text that was removed. ––Formal (talk) 11:28, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  well yes, the reduction by two pictures was a part of my effort to clean up the article. Do you think we need them? There are tons of pictures in this article. --Melchior2006 (talk) 11:35, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: As they compliment the current text, I don't see a need to remove them. ––Formal (talk) 11:41, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: @FormalDude I would say they "compliment the current text" if they are easily matched up with the relevant passages in the article. That is not currently the case. Melchior2006 (talk) 11:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see the issue. Should be fine to remove just those images then. ––Formal (talk) 06:52, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cutting images