Talk:André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri

Comment

It seems to me that the André-Adolphe-Eugène_Disdéri listing is more of a stub than the Andre Disdéri listing, and has some information that is either factually incorrect or in dispute regarding crediting Disdéri as the inventor of the Carte de visite. Sources cited at Andre Disdéri credit Louis Dodero as the inventor of the Carte de visite.

In any case, the Andre Disdéri listing seems more thorough and better referenced. I created Andre Disdéri because I saw a broken link in another listing. However, I later found André-Adolphe-Eugène_Disdéri in another related listing. unsigned comment by Mactographer

I agree regarding the merge. Certainly this article is a stub that I intended to expand at some point. Regardingthe form of his name. Here are a number of authoritative sources:

André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri - J. Paul Getty Museum, collections online (2000-)

Disdéri, André Adolphe Eugène - [BHA Preferred] - Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) [online] (1990-).

Disderi, Andre-Adolphe-Eugene - [JPGM Preferred, VP] - Getty Museum, Authority file (2003-)

Disdéri, André Adolphe-Eugène - [VP Preferred] - J. Paul Getty Museum, collections online (2000-)

Disdéri, André-Adolphe-Eugène - Grove Dictionary of Art online (1999-2002) accessed 10 February 2004

These versions are all cited in the Disdéri page at Union List of Artist Names. You'll notice that there are three different "preferred" versions, including two different ones within the same institution (The Getty)! I went with "André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri" because it was one of these preferred versions and also the preferred version of the Library of Congress Authorities (i.e. the Anglo-American Name Authority File), but the same all-name version without the hyphen between "André" and "Adolphe" would be fine with me. Only informal references to Disdéri give his name as "André Disdéri" and the Leggat source you cite gives "DISDÉRI, Andre Adolphe Eugene" in the biography page. More later. Pinkville 12:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to sign my first entry. I'm still new here and didn't understand how that --~~~~ thing was supposed to function as a signature.

As for the names, I'm okay with whatever seems more preferred. But, 1) we agree, these articles should obviously be merged, and 2) I think sources I’ve found state that technically, Disdéri is not the inventor of the CdV, but rather the guy who was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to get famous for taking a photo of a popular historical figure. Parenthetically, I seem to recall some of the points of that story might be in dispute by others as well. But either way, it seems that Disdéri is mistakenly credited for inventing the CdV because of the Napoleon story and because of his patient for making 8 CdV’s at a time. So do we discuss more? Wait for other's to chime in? Looks like there's a backlog of articles to be merged. Who decides such things? --Mactographer 17:49, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge conudcted, lets get it out of the backlog. Orchid Righteous 13:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Disderi

His full name is André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri, but everyone calls him Disderi, just like we call George Herman Ruth, Jr., "Babe Ruth". Nobody knows him by the VERY long name. Also I don't think we should have all the dashes. The french wiki and most books do not have the dashes.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 23:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

In fact, fairly few refer to him as "Disdéri" without at least one of his given names or his initials. It's beyond hyperbolic to say that "everyone" calls him "Disdéri" and that "nobody knows him" by the long name (my emphasis). I've just now gone through a number of encyclopedic and authoritative sources - to add to those listed above - including Britannica and various important Museum and University databases and "Disdéri" alone rarely appears - when it does, it's only as a variant of the preferred form: any of the versions with given name(s). Pinkville (talk) 01:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess you don't know too many 19th century photography curators and historians. Everyone I know calls him Disderi. Not one person in the past 40 years (I have collected) had called him by his very long french name. If I find the time, I will give you dozens of citations, but it appears to be a waste of time because I have a feel you want to debate about a subject you are not too familiar with. Not worth wasting time on this.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Pinkville is pretty familiar with just this kind of stuff.

A lot of people call Karlheinz Stockhausen "Stockhausen". That's because there's no ambiguity about "Stockhausen". "Disdéri" seems similar. Rightly, the article on Stockhausen both is titled and starts by calling him Karlheinz Stockhausen. I see no reason why the article on Disdéri should be titled "Disdéri" (let alone "Disderi").

(Now, even if we agree both (a) that Disdéri isn't adequate and (b) that André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (with or without hyphens) was his full name, we needn't automatically plump for the latter; see for example Claude Debussy.) -- Hoary (talk) 11:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

infobox

I won't revert your revert, but the infobox adds precisely nothing to the article, as far as I can tell - even more pointedly so, considering the brevity of the article. I can't think why you'd want to add it. Pinkville (talk) 04:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, it is a quick info box that give you information if you don't have time to read the whole thing. Also, all the pages of anybody important has one. Thousands of them on Wiki, so I guess it is a wiki structure.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 06:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

All the informaton that is in the infobox can be found in the first line of article text, so if you don't have time to read the "whole thing"... All the pages of anybody important... This seems to be your favoured line of reasoning: everybody does it this way. Again, not true. Have a look at articles on the history of photography, try the Featured and Good Articles first... Only two of the nine articles listed have infoboxes. Furthermore, indulging laziness in this way (what are you doing perusing an encyclopedia if you don't read any of the articles?) seems cynical and counterproductive to me. Infoboxes are actually useless to readers, though admittedly very useful to editors who don't want to spend the time researching, writing and providing real information on a subject. Finally, infoboxes do not spring from a WP guideline or policy or "structure", and they are the subject of some debate, so their insertion into an article is not an unproblematic issue. Pinkville (talk) 12:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Just simply look at the thousands of pages of anyone important and you will see. Look at God, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, George Bush, Dalai Lama, Marilyn Monroe, Joe Dimaggio and thousands of others. Not making this up. Are you knew to wiki?--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, the page for God doesn't have an infobox. The page for the Dalai Lama doesn't either, it has an inset guide to different transliterations of his name. The link to George Bush you provided is actually to a disambiguation page, and of the five George Bush biographical articles listed there, two do not have infoboxes. Pinkville (talk) 18:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I'm somewhat new to WP, my first edit was in 2002 (as an anon. editor); And you?. Yes, there are thousands of articles with infoboxes; and there are thousands of articles without infoboxes - I provided you with a link to the list of FA and GA articles that are most pertinent in this case, and 7 of 9 of those articles do not have infoboxes. There's no argument to be made from your point. The question is, simply, what good is an infobox in this (stub) article? Because the information in the infobox merely duplicates what is readily found in the first line of text (in fact, you actually removed information from the first line without adding it to the infobox anyway) there is no good reason to keep it. It clutters the layout without adding anything to the article. And it's hard to imagine what help any infobox could provide even if this article were much longer and comprehensive. WP guidelines ask for a lead paragraph that summarises the most noteworthy aspects of the subject; infoboxes merely duplicate and reduce what is already a reduction of the article. Pinkville (talk) 17:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, rather than - as you rightly put it - wasting your time on this minor issue, why don't you use your self-acknowledged greater expertise in the history of photography and add some information to this article. Disdéri is a very important figure in the early history of photography, yet his article remains pathetically thin (and in some parts, factually dubious). Pinkville (talk) 18:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This argument is VERY childish and pointless. The only thing I agree with is that we should develop his page and make it look better. I also agree that he is a VERY important individual in photographic history.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 07:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Splendid. Please do develop it. As for making it look better, a start is to avoid mere visual gimmickry. -- Hoary (talk) 07:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Hoary, I am not going to spend any more time on this page if you are simply going to remove and waste any time I put into it. To write a nice article with citations takes up a lot of time, but if someone like you is going to erase all of it, what a waste of time.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 07:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Bouncing back to the left in order to save space.

I'm sorry that you're unhappy about my edits but your unhappiness mystifies me. Here's a set of four consecutive edits by me. It's terribly hard to understand (for me, at least), so let's break the set down into four stages:

• First I remove the infobox
• Secondly I restore his places of birth and death (with source)
• Thirdly I make a large number of small changes
• Lastly I make a trivial correction to one title

There may be some small erasures within the third edit, but I don't think that any would be controversial. There's no erasure in the second or fourth. In the first, there's a simple erasure of an infobox. I erased it because it adds nothing and instead merely duplicates information that appears not scattered around a long article but instead right next to the box.

I haven't erased one fifth of the article, let alone all of it; I haven't intended to do so; and I don't see how I could have given the impression either that I've erased a substantial amount or that I intended (or intend) to do so.

My edits aren't a particular source of pride for me (and I'm willing to believe that I made one or two small mistakes within them), but as I view them again I don't see any reason why anyone should regret them. What am I missing? -- Hoary (talk) 07:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

It took some time to create the infobox that you deleted, also I was going to add photos, text and just make it better. But you have revered everything I ever did not the page. The beginning portion also does not look right, so I fixed it, but again you reversed it. I don't see why I should try to build the page up if your going to simply delete it.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 07:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I deleted the infobox that you made. I did so because it added nothing to the article: it was just visual gimmickry. Precisely what else by you (or anyone else) have I deleted, or how have I degraded the article? -- Hoary (talk) 08:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

• Okay, I just spent a few hours writing text, citations, references, and external links. I added some very important information about him. I will add more information in the near future when I have time. As for now, it would be great if you or anyone else (who cares for Disderi) can write additional information about his early life. That is what we really need, if you really care so much about preserving his history. That is all I care about.--Persianhistory2008 (talk) 11:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I've just deleted the biographical infobox. It obviously contributed nothing to the article. Hope that's OK with everyone. The discussion above finished about 6 months ago. Perhaps the box was left in abeyance? Regards. --Kleinzach 03:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Much better. Thanks. Pinkville (talk) 11:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Disderi was Italian, not French?

This man was born in Italy, Genoa town and was italian non french, please watch this report http://www.moreschiphoto.it/fotocamere%20liguri.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.36.162.139 (talk) 20:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

John Hannavy's Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography (v. 1, p. 419), Routledge, 2007 ISBN 0415972353 says he was born in Paris on March 28 1819. Hmmm. Fconaway (talk) 01:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Spurious report of Napoleon III's visit to the studio

The text of the article says,

"Certainly Disdéri’s status as a photographer was greatly enhanced when in May 1859 Napoleon III interrupted his march to war to pose for photographs in Disdéri’s studio."

Robert Leggat said, in a footnote to this reference: "** This story about Napoleon stopping for a portrait has subsequently shown to be untrue, but it makes a good story and may have been put about purely for publicity purposes! © Robert Leggat, 1999. Last updated 09/23/2008 13:54:20" Fconaway (talk) 01:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)