Talk:Harold Pinter/Archive 1

message: [Added section heading formatting]
Harold Pinter, despite being a writer, seems to be the kind of person associated with / known after his interventionist stands on various issues. I guess his is an excellent case of an artist crossing the barriers of conventional analytical theories, and meeting life for real. So, this inter-connectedness must have created a unique discourse of dissent in contrast with the direct, polemical writings of people like Noam Chomsky. I would be grateful if those who have followed Pinter's writings and intellectual activism closely can enlighten me on this matter further. I am intrigued by how he has addressed the intricate isuue of human bondings in his 'Betrayal'. Rather than remaining silent about topics related to personal life, he has proven that it is better to address it, since it is, after all, a matter of perspective. The politics of an Individual's life and views has to be related to the time and space he/she inhabits. I would also like to know whether Pinter can be contacted by e-mail. Please do share your views on this, and if possible, mail me to suave25in@hotmail.com
: Pinter's e-mail address is private; one should not publish it online here or elsewhere on the internet.  If one wants to contact Harold Pinter, one can write to him c/o his agent, Judy Daish Associates (see information published in the Forum of his official website and in his published works and directories of authors for the address).  Unsolicited e-mail would be regarded as spam.  If you are interested in discussing Harold Pinter online, you may want to vist The Harold Pinter Community Forum (an ezboard requiring registration for posting) linked on his official website. --NYScholar 11:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Query

message: [In a version of this entry] The notion that Harold Pinter once performed in the 1967 Doctor Who story 'The Abonimable Snowman' has has shifted from supposition to fact, as evinced by the reference to it here in the Wikipedia entry on him. I'm afraid it is not true, or at least Harold himself denies it. The actor taking the part of the monk Ralpachan was indeed named 'David Baron' and that was indeed the actor's name that Pinter used before fame as a playwright between 1950 and 1960. However, Pinter spent most of 1967 in New York overseeing Peter Hall's Broadway production of 'The Homecoming' and simply would not have been around to film the Doctor Who episodes that year. He had no connections with the writers or directors of the series or that story, and no interest in Science Fiction. He was also doing pretty well for himself at this stage, and had no need of acting work. The image of the character available on the BBC doctor who site does bear some resemblence to him, it has to be said - compare http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/photonovels/snowmen/three/11.shtml with the image of him from the 1966-recorded 'Basement' on his own website at http://www.haroldpinter.org/acting/acting_intv.shtml) but I'm inclined to believe him when he says he simply wasn't there. Mark Batty
: I had no idea he had denied this, or that it was in any way controversial. IIRC it has appeared in a number of episode guides. He wouldn't have needed to have had an interest in sci-fi to have done The Abominable Snowmen as it's not a particularly SF story.DavidFarmbrough 07:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Current conclusion: The attribution of Harold Pinter as an actor in The Abominable Snowmen episodes of Dr. Who is a mistake.  It has no substance in reality.  It is not the "David Baron" that was the stage name of Harold Pinter. It is a different person.  It is not clear if the listing of the name "David Baron" is correct or incorrect in websites relating to Doctor Who; but if so, it is another person named "David Baron," not Harold Pinter (who used that stage name early in his acting career).  Re: the photographs that people tend to offer as "evidence" for comparison on various websites: Speaking for myself, I don't think that the resemblance is particularly striking.  The men pictured have very different features, e.g., hairlines, brow, jaw lines, nose, ears, and eyes (even taking account of the effects of makeup for the role). This question was discussed several years ago (in 2001) in the Harold Pinter Community Forum (archived thread), where someone checked credits for another "David Baron" (not Harold Pinter) on IMDb.com ("David Baron I"), and observed that this actor who played Ralpachan in Doctor Who (whose actual name is apparently "David Baron") is/was someone else (not Harold Pinter). --NYScholar 21:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

text: emended the heading and comment to reflect totality of comments more accurately now. --NYScholar 20:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pinter [Not an actor] in ''Doctor Who''

message: Two questions here. Has he spoken or written against any other government or group? There are (quite unfortunately) many places where an oppression of people and the human right violation is common and it seems ridiculous that with the exception of Cuba, three countries written here that he had criticized practices democracy. Also, he is involved in National Secular Society. Shouldn't this be written here instead of "Personal life" section as well since involvement in that society is not really a personal issue? --Revth 01:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Turkey today is only barely democratic; Turkey of 1981 was most emphatically not democratic, and Turkey's practices against the Kurds (which is Pinter's focus) has been and still is outright Fascist. I am certainly no fan of Pinter politically, but I do believe he deserves credit for that one. Arre 02:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: On "New directions" part

message: He's known primarily as a playwright - so why are his plays not listed? Mandel 15:32, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They are now. --NYScholar 21:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Playwright

message: I removed the link to Ashes to Ashes because it links to a David Bowie song of the same title. Dark jedi requiem 08:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The current link for the play needs populating. --NYScholar 21:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Ashes to Ashes''

message: On his website(www.haroldpinter.org), it claims The Birthday Party was published in 1957, not 1958 as this article says. As I believe his website to be correct, I will correct the error.
: That date of "1957" is not a date of publication; it is more likely a date of composition [or a copyright date] (which the site tends to use more than dates of publication--see below).  The play was published first in 1958 in a literary magazine (Encore) and subsequently published by various publishers such as Methuen (in the UK) and Grove Press (in the US), in various revised editions.  One needs to do more advanced research to make such distinctions among possible dates of composition and dates of publication accurately.  Pinter's works have a very complex compositional and publishing history.  Please see the "Bio-bibliographical Note" hosted on the Nobel Prize site for related critical resources if one wants more accurate information than is currently in this Wikipedia entry.  The entry still needs substantial revision and editing. --NYScholar 21:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''The Birthday Party''

message: [I'm adding a cleanup tag on the article.]
Dates on Pinter's website often tend to be dates of final composition and/or dates of first performance and not dates of first publication and/or dates of (film/tv) release.  (Several sections of his website were compiled by research assistants tasked with such work and by his (multiple) assistants beginning in around 2000, when the website was launched.  There are sometimes typographical and other errors in the sections.)  Some works were published long after they were first written; e.g. his novel The Dwarfs.  When not confusing, one tries to use those dates or clarifies discrepancies otherwise.  Did some cleanup of this article.  Added some citations and additional sources for verification and further reading. --NYScholar 21:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many sources of the information listed in the article are already listed in the "References" and "External Links" and "See also" sections.  Among the references listed in "References" is an extensive "Bio-bibliography" provided by the Swedish Academy (I helped to correct and expand it).  That bibliography contains references for this article, and I have thus cited parenthetically and otherwise in the article.[Clarified and updated somewhat.--NYScholar 22:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Subsequent editors can help by providing more specific citations, but they do need to consult those sources directly first. (Please do not comment on editing changes if one is not oneself making any efforts to do work to improve this article.  As an editor on other articles, I have been asked to supply explanations of editing changes, and I have done so here too to the best of my ability.  Asking for an addition for a citation by placing  after an already-documented or source "cited" for that fact) is not at all helpful.  In such cases, in-text and parenthetical references/citations are already given to Pinter's official website (HaroldPinter.org as listed in "External Links") and other specific sources listed at the end of the article (MLA format as keyed to a "Works Cited").  Redundant citations are not required. --NYScholar 21:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia can't count on the good faith of editors alone.  Direct quotations, of all things, need in-line, and hopefully properly formatted, references.  --TJive 22:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Please re-read more carefully.  In my view, you actually have been missing some in-text citations for direction quotations already given (right in the sentences).  I've edited some sentences to revise further but feel that it really wasn't necessary.  Sometimes quotation marks are used for common phrases used multiple times on various occasions by many people (such as "not in our name"--it's the name of an American organization that has joined up with the StopTheWar Coalition in the UK and become an internationally-known group; "cf." means "confer" (or consult) by way of a source; it is a form of citation (MLA format). --NYScholar 22:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: Deleted non-NPOV.  See References for a selection of articles on Pinter's Nobel Prize and Nobel Lecture. 
: I finished cleanup of this article. --NYScholar 05:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Took a break; returned; corrected some minor errors and added further informational links for citations of sources. --NYScholar 00:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[NPOV]]

message: It's taken me a while, and I'm sorry to have had to preview-save-return to correct so many typographical errors, but I've finally finished work on converting citations (mostly) to linked in-line (in-text) "Notes"; the expanded/reorganized References list includes those items and others referred to in the body of the article.  I hope that this work has improved this article. [updated]. --NYScholar 20:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: I've done some further cleaning up of this article, including the associated "Wikiquote" page.  Please see talk there for explanations. --NYScholar 21:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're using your own citation style again. You must quote the headlines used by the publication, not make up your own then put them in quotation marks. Please read WP:CITE. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: References should be listed in alphabetical order, not grouped according to subject, and please don't add commercial descriptions e.g. from Amazon. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I am not "using [my] own citation style again."  MLA style sheet format is what is used universally for writers of literature and subjects relating to literature (humanities).  Titles used by publications are "regularized" and uniformly capitalized according to MLA style format [capitalization rules]. See Wikipedia:Citing sources, scroll down, and READ about the formats.  I have spent hours correcting previous editors' errors and do not appreciate your repeated reversions to incorrect and mistaken information.  Cease and desist.  And lay off my work.  Go work on subjects that you actually know something about.  This is disgusting.--NYScholar 23:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's taken me several hours to fix the problems of inconsistency and errors and inaccuracies that SV has introduced into this previously-carefully constructed article.  I had worked on this article since at least June, and all this work had to be reconstructed from scratch; due to Wikipedia formatting procedures, it's very time-consuming.  I really object to what SV did to this article and the trouble that she has (purposefully) caused here.--NYScholar 03:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

text: "References should be listed in alphabetical order, not grouped according to subject, and please don't add commercial descriptions e.g. from Amazon. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: And, once again, Wikipedia has no single policy on how to construct lists of references or even what to call them; there are multiple examples given and possibilities; consistency is the main watchword, and you're apparently not very keen on consistency.--NYScholar 23:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: Warning to SlimVirgin (again).  Brought to the attention of administrators.--NYScholar 00:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:3RR]]

message: I have finished copy-editing and correcting this article (unless I find more errors later!), restoring the notes and references to MLA format consistent with the discipline of the subject (literature).  Arbitrary changes by user SV, such as altering what was previously-correct punctuation, capitalization, and alphabetization, and removing "online posting" in the "References" created confusing inconsistencies in the format.  A documentation style (such as MLA format used throughout this article) must be consistent and uniformly applied; lack of consistency and uniform application of style guidelines leads to confusion for readers, especially those readers interested in a specialized topic (e.g., Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature) who are familiar with its documentation format and who know how to read and to understand it.
The current format of this article is useful both online and in print (when the article is printed out; printable version is an option in Wikipedia, and many Wikipedia users print the articles and read them offline). 
Without accurate bibliographical information in the "References" and the "Notes," the article is weaker and less useful to the wide readership of Wikipedia.
As Wikipedia articles are "open source" and often copied as is and re-posted elsewhere (with requisite credit given to Wikipedia) and often translated into other languages and then re-posted, it is essential that the articles be accurate both in content and style, which includes consistency in both documentation and documentation format.  Producing such consistency requires an eye for detail that not everyone has.  If one is not particularly interested in such detailed copy-editing, or in the accuracy of punctuation, including capitalization, then there is no reason to involve oneself in such copy-editing.  One is bound to introduce errors that worsen rather than improve the article.
To Wikipedia users/editors:
I have devoted a great deal of time and care to trying to make this article accurate and free from error.  If any major errors (not minor mechanical and typographical errors such as those involving stray punctuation or clear cases of misspelling) appear to remain, please post a comment about your perception of the error on this talk page.  That way other Wikipedia users and I (if I see your comment) can consider the problem and discuss how to resolve it.  If there is no significant problem, there is no reason to edit the article.
Please do not make arbitrary changes to the "Notes" and "References" or re-format them arbitrarily.  Instead, please make suggestions for such changes and engage in discussion about them on this talk page.
I understand that people may want to add information about Harold Pinter to the article.  If so, please post the information that you are interested in adding and the rationale for adding it, so that other Wikipedia editors can discuss such matters, especially if these matters might spark controversy.  Participating in such discussion can result in feedback on the accuracy of the information and useful sources for verifying and documenting.
Before commenting on this page and/or before posting any information about Harold Pinter on this talk page or in this article, please read the BLP tag warning at the top, particularly the items linked in the tag.  Thank you very much. --NYScholar 06:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup update

message: [. . . .] The Nobel medal and each Nobel medal are trademarked and their images are both trademarked and copyright protected; see the copyright notices on the Nobel Foundation official website; I added a link to the Literature Nobel Medal webpage in "External links" in the article for those who need more information. --NYScholar 01:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nobel medal (images of)

message: Explanation: Please do not revert to "Honours."
"Honors" is the Am. spelling and acceptable.  Wikipedia redirects "honors" to "honours"; but there is no Wikipedia link being used in the heading.  The article uses American spelling consistently.  Changing one spelling introduces an inconsistency.  British spelling "honour" is followed for the actual titles of the honors conveyed, as for quotations of them.  Use of capital letters for such honors indicates the name of the title or honor or prize.  It is acceptable in Wikipedia to use American spelling.  American editors (like me) use American spelling.  The nationality of the subject does not govern the spelling to be used.  Many articles in the English version of Wikipedia on subjects of various nationalities use American spelling. --NYScholar 18:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a criticism... but does the above mean that if someone started an article on a US president (most certainly a figure of international scope) using, say, Australian English, it would be left alone? I highly doubt it... 86.135.7.184 03:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

text: You miss the point of "The policy, however, is to prefer an appropriate form of English for articles of regional scope (e.g., Canadian English for subjects related to Canada) but otherwise to allow the use of any variety of English, as long as the variety of English is consistent throughout the text of an article" (English Wikipedia#National stylistic conventions)."  How "someone started" the article is not the issue; as it stands, this article consistently uses American English and there is no rationale for changing all the American English usages consistently used in it to another usage.  When a title of a work or an entity or a source or a quotation uses English spelling, it is consistently being followed in this article as it is.  (Please go to the Wikipedia policy cited about English-language usage and read it in context.  Please don't take it out of context to make some unrelated point.) It is violating the Wikipedia quoted policy to change consistencies within this article to inconsistencies by editing without concern for the prevailing and consistent English-language usage (American English).  --NYScholar 05:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Honors

message: It is inappropriate for an anonymous editor to add (with erroneous heading format) as a separate section to what is already a long article the entire text of a letter signed by Harold Pinter and others.  There are many, many letters of this kind that Pinter signs.  Such letters are already mentioned in the section on his political activism.  The material added is misplaced and should not be quoted in full in the body of this article.  The entire text of the very same letter is already accessible in the note in the section on "political activism."  Please read articles like this one more carefully before just adding material to it as the anononymous editor has done in this case.  I've deleted the material entirely as it is already accessible in note 30, keyed to the section on "political activism."  (I added the citation [though redundant] to the same letter published in The Independent; as the letter was distributed to the international media, it is published in many such venues, and it is not possible or necessary to list each occurrence of its publication.) --NYScholar 00:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inappropriate material deleted

message: There have been copyright/lack of fair use rationale problems with two images of Harold Pinter uploaded by other editors to Wikipedia Commons without giving any "fair use rationale" at all.  Most recently, the image originally uploaded by User:Raul654 that showed up in this article as ":Image:Harold Pinter.jpg" (which User:Slarre replaced the previous image with); both images have lack of fair use rationales despite claims of fair use.  The tagged notices mark them for speedy deletion. 
Wikipedia editors are required to delete them from any articles using them.
For more information, see .
After seeing the messages about one of these images from Wikipedia today, I posted the appropriate templates on the talk pages of the two users who uploaded them to Wikipedia Commons (as requested in the templates). 
These problems of potential violations of copyright and unsubstantiated claims of fair use need to be taken seriously by Wikipedia users, according to the Wikipedia policies defined in the notices. --NYScholar 17:02, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Image of Harold Pinter used in this article were tagged by Wikipedia for speedy deletion

message: Thank you to the user who provided the link added.  In the future, if at all possible, please do not just toss in links to news reports and newspaper articles in this section.  If there is some reason to include the news source as such in additional text in the body of the article and a citation, it needs better integration in the article.  In this case, the link was thrown in at the end of an otherwise-alphabetized list of external links (not sources of citations for the text); this article features citations in "Notes."  This particular information needs more work to be incorporated better in the section called "Honors" relating to "Career"; it is not parallel to the other links included in "External links."  See the link:
*"French PM honours Harold Pinter with Legion D'Honneur"
It is a news article and the information needs better integration in the text and/or references list.  This section of "Further resources" is for "Other external links" relating directly to the subject, not for news sources that can be better integrated as citations.  [I have updated the article section "Honors" with information from this source and included it as a citation in the Notes.] --NYScholar 07:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Further resources: Other external links

message: <<
*On the day his Nobel Prize was announced, 13 October 2005,  the Sky News reader saw his name and erroneously reported him dead. It was widely known that he had been battling esophageal cancer since 2002 and that he had fallen and injured his head in Dublin, upon returning from the Gate Theatre festival celebrating his 75th birthday that previous weekend; that knowledge may have led to her mistaken assumption.... [integrated rest in article]
>>
The article is long; a separate "Miscellaneous" section is not really needed in the article.  I've moved it here so that people can consider what in it may be worth keeping in the main article and what can be omitted. -- NYScholar 01:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [Portions of] Miscellaneous [section moved to talk]

message: With aim to shorten; source material is accessible in the Billington biography pages 1-5; here is the passage that documents facts stated in article; moved from note 2 to talk page:
<<
"A constant feature of the Pinter legend, repeated in all the books, is that the family were Sephardic Jews of Spanish or Portuguese origin and that the original family name was Pinto, da Pinto or da Pinta, but there seems no evidence for this whatsoever.  Indeed Antonia Fraser, with a historian's passion for genealogy, sat down with Pinter's parents one afternoon after lunch in Holland Park and discovered the real story: three of Pinter's grandparents [his paternal grandfather, Nathan Pinter, and his grandmothers] hail from Poland and one [his maternal grandfather, Harry Moskowitz (in business, aka Richard Mann)] from Odessa, making them Ashkenazic rather than Sephardic Jews" (3).  ("Pinter's paternal grandfather Nathan was born in Poland in 1870 and came to England alone in 1900 in the wave of Russian pograms.  He later went back for his wife and family. . . .  [Their] third child Jack, Harold Pinter's father, was born in the East End in 1902. . ." [2-3].  Pinter's maternal grandfather [Harry Moskowitz (Richard Mann)] emigrated to London from Odessa "via Paris" in 1900 and remarried "Polish-born Rose Franklin" following his first wife's death; Pinter's mother, Frances, their "eldest" child, was born in 1904 [3].) In the Aug. 1950 issue of Poetry London, Pinter's first poems to appear in such a poetry magazine ("New Year in the Midlands" and "Chandeliers and Shadows") were "published under the name of Harold Pinta largely because one of his aunts was convinced—against all the evidence—that the family came from distinguished Portuguese ancestors, the da Pintas" (29).  Pinter also discussed his heritage with Ramona Koval, during a public interview at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August 2002, later transcribed and posted online on ABC public radio (Books and Writing).  At that time, Pinter repeated some of these details, referring to speculations about his family's Hungarian and Portuguese derivations: "My mother and father were born in England, by the way, in about 1902 and 1904; so they were here. They were English. . . . they were English-Jewish. My grandparents came from a rather mysterious area which some call Odessa and others call Hungary. I have no idea. My wife is convinced that after a lot of research, and she’s pretty good at research, that my family did actually come from Odessa. And she has pretty good evidence of that. However, I found that in the 1946 Olympics there was a Hungarian sprinter called Pinter. And I also know that—I’ve been told, anyway—one of my aunts believed that we were originally da Pinta in Portugal and that we were thrown out by the Spanish Inquisition. I wasn’t quite sure whether they had a Spanish Inquisition in Portugal, but according to my aunt, they certainly did. [laughter]. [Cf. Portuguese Inquisition.]  And where they went from the Spanish Inquisition is rather misty, shall we say, so I’m not quite sure . . . Anyway, in short, my background is slightly misty. But my family, nevertheless, was a very stable and conventional Jewish family." (Pintér [or Pinter] is a common Hungarian surname; Pinto, Pinta, and da Pinta are common Portuguese surnames and place names.  Pinto and da Pinto also occur in Italian [by way of Portuguese]. Cf. List of most common surnames.)
--NYScholar 01:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Material from note 2 (Billington biography)

message: [Past discussion archived due to the length of page being over 100 kilobytes, following suggestion of Wikipedia. --NYScholar 21:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive 1