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An offer

This is in reply to various comments made above in terms of the perceived deficiency of the February version of the article and in response to the perceived deficiency of the robustness of the citation style. I am offering to make any changes to that version per request, on the understanding that it was written by a veteran editor who knew well how to write FA level articles. Furthermore, I will order the Austen literature from the library, read it, bring myself up to speed with it, and based on those sources work the article per requests from the current editors. Because my eyesight is not great, the work will progress more quickly and with greater ease with the handwritten citations Wadewitz used (and I know well). When I work an article like this, when completely immersed in sources, I need to check the sourcing often and I tend to make mistakes when having work my way visually through curly brackets and pipes. This is not an offer made lightly; I have quite a lot going on in real life and only on Sunday told my co-nominators on another FAC that I couldn't work it anymore. I wouldn't be able to get to this until sometime in mid-September, but the work would be done correctly, and because of the nature of this article and its history, I am willing to expend the energy here. I am not willing to spend days fighting on a talk page. All of our energies would be better spent by working together, starting with the old (February version) and building whatever material needs to be built from there. The first step is to assess what needs to be done. If people feel strongly about it, once the text is in good shape, the sources checked and matched to the text, etc., I am willing to convert the citations. I know how; but I dislike working with them while writing. Victoria (tk) 19:38, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Victoria, I would definitely support that, though it's a lot of work so it would have to progress with no deadlines. One thing that might help is for you to compile a short reading list of the key secondary sources for anyone willing to keep working here. Then we would all have that background reading in common. SarahSV (talk) 19:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I'd start with the Cambridge Companion, but I don't have one at hand for Austen. I'd like to take my time and library lending periods tend to add to the pressure, so I suppose I'll buy a few books. Once they arrive and I've assessed them, I'll post here. Also, I've posted to your page in terms of prose. Your prose is stronger and the article would benefit from your help once I start adding content. But no hurry; this will take months. Victoria (tk) 19:59, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Adding: it's important that everyone here feels that they are involved. We can write an FA quality article with a group of editors as well as a single editor can, and with the more hands on deck (as it were) we can have a strong collaboration. Furthermore, I really strongly want to pull back on my involvement with Wikipedia and I'd like to pass on knowledge to new editors so they can learn while working together. That tends to be the best way. Are the rest of you interested in this offer? The goal would be to get it to FA level and I'd hand it off so everyone else involved can take it through FAC. Victoria (tk) 20:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to assist if I can; perhaps as a reviewer once the article is approaching completion, and as a participant in any discussions that need to take place. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:44, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi Mike thanks so much for offering; that will be very helpful. In terms of keeping the conversation on track, I'd like to revert to the February version of the article sooner rather than later to avoid even more edits being made to a page that almost certainly should be rolled back. It would be nice to have someone not yet involved in the conversation to either give an opinion as to whether this is the right course or to boldly make the change. I honestly understand that a lot of work will be lost and after the having been immersed in the talkpage discussions (and the FAC) feel it would be better if someone else were to make that bold edit. If you're not comfortable with it, then I will at some point, once I've started the reading and begin to actively edit here. Victoria (tk) 20:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm fine with rolling back to that version, but before I do I'd like to give some of the other editors a chance to comment. I haven't been following all the talk page discussions above since they began, but looking through, the argument for rolling back is CITEVAR. Rolling back is the easiest way to go back to the original citation style. The work that's been done can be extracted from today's rev, which will remain in history after all, and be re-used as appropriate. I see Rexxs commenting that the style in use was inappropriate because it was not possible to distinguish between different works by the same author, but as far as I can tell that's because the reference wasn't added at the same time the text was added, and the source date should then have been added to the short citation. In starting from the February version we should not see these problems. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, it's actually because of the text that was copied in. See this section. Because the short refs were copied without the long citations, the citations got very muddled and then were changed in the past 48 hours or so. But in my view the copying verbatim is a larger problem. If people are opposed to rolling back to the February version, those sections have to be removed regardless, then brought back with proper attributions. It's simpler to roll back, but we can also go the delete/reinstate route if we need to. Finally, when the text was copied over, and then subsequently worked, citations changed, etc., the text/source integrity was lost. Victoria (tk) 21:17, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Copying verbatim on Wikipedia is permissible so long as attribution is given in the page history or on this talk page, and such attribution can be added at a later date than the copying was performed. As you have identified the versions copied, this point should not be an argument whatsoever in favor of reversion. --Izno (talk) 21:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
It's poor practice to copy whole chunks over so that readers find the same thing on several pages. SarahSV (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Mike Christie, I also support going back to February, not only because of the citations, but also because of the lead, the writing in general, and some of the new content. Regarding the citations, we may want to move text and sources between the suite of Jane Austen articles—two are already FAs (Timeline of Jane Austen and Reception history of Jane Austen)—so it makes sense not to change the style of the biography. SarahSV (talk) 21:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
First, I can change the full citation format back to the preferred version quickly and easily. Standardizing the full citations took me less than an hour, and reformatting them again should take about the same amount of time. I have offered to do this multiple times, and the offer stands.
The horrendous mess that was the short citations, most of which was present in the February version, took a lot more time to sort out. Rolling back to February will make things much worse in this article, not better.
The February version of the article contains many, many errors that I have fixed in my edits over the past few days. It would be a real shame to lose those edits. Here are just a few examples of errors that I have fixed and that would be completely lost in a rollback:
  • Short reference "Todd, 20" is ambiguous.
  • Short reference "Brownstein, 13" has no full citation.
  • There are many full citations in the References section, where there should be only short citations. Many of these full citations are not formatted like the Bibliography.
  • There are many Notes in the References section, where there should be only short citations.
  • Le Faye's name spelled "Le Fay" in short citations. (Linking causes this sort of error to display a red error message instead of being essentially invisible.)
  • There are no links from short citations to full citations. (Standardizing, disambiguating, and linking these has comprised the bulk of my work over the last few days, and it would take someone – not me – a long time to redo this work to get the article to the point where it passes the FAC verifiability criterion.)
  • There are no year disambiguators in short citations.
  • This bizarrely formatted full citation is in the short citation section: "Clarke, Janet: ' Jane Austen and Worthing', published in the Jane Austen Society's Annual Report 2008."
  • Note A in the Notes section does not link to a marker in the text.
  • "Le Faye, 'Chronology'" in the short citations section does not have a clear full citation to explain where it came from. I fixed that error, which was introduced in 2008, sometime in the last 24 hours.
  • Dashes are used inconsistently. (I haven't fixed these yet, but they are in my sights.)
I am sure that I could find more, but I hope you get the idea that it makes much more sense to edit pieces of the article that are inadequate than to roll back to February. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I am totally opposed to rolling back all the good work done by Fountains-of-Paris and Jonesey95 since February. In that time it has been awarded Good Article status by Tim riley and received considerable attention from peer reviewers and Miniapolis from the Guild of Copy-Editors. You only have to read the thorough GA review on this page for an example of the effort that has been put in. I find it incredible that anyone would seriously consider disregarding that amount of work by so many valuable contributors. --RexxS (talk) 22:03, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I am also in opposition to an indiscriminate and overbearing rollback to February. Which seems to be an arbitrary date at least six months ago. Build on what is there; do not uproot all that good work. Reform. Come to a consensus. WP:BRD. You know the drill. Now practice it. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Apparently the editors here want to achieve FA. That cannot happen with the article as it stands, with the text it currently has in place. I am offering to help get it to FA, but am quite happy to rescind the offer because it would be a lot of work. Victoria (tk) 22:19, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I think that the first priority should be improving the article to ensure that citations are consistent and text is verifiable. I'd be happy to help doing detective work in sorting out any ambiguous citations by tracking their origins if needed. I'm also happy to sort out issues such as adding or removing "p/pp" to or from short citations and regularising them to singular/plural if required, as I can do that with automated tools to ensure completeness. I also have come to the conclusion that the push for FA status is probably better put on hold for a while until the article has clearly met WP:FACR 1.c and 2.c. Offers to help from Victoria and Mike with 1.a and 1.b will surely always be welcome, but those criteria are subjective and less easy to quantify than verifiability and citation consistency which are purely objective and where progress can be measured directly. --RexxS (talk) 22:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, basically you're saying fuck off to me and any help I might want to contribute. That's fine. Victoria (tk) 23:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

RexxS, Jonesey95: I'm still coming up to speed on the discussions, but I haven't seen you respond to the point about needing to delete the material that was copy-pasted, and re-add it with correct attribution. How do you think that should be handled if you don't want to roll back before the additions? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:20, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi Mike, I posted above about a solution commonly used in translated articles that I think would solve this issue, see here. The example was this one. I don't think deleting and re-adding will be necessary Acer (talk) 23:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I have responded multiple times to that point, and I'm sure that I will need to do so again. I am OK with deleting material, OK with adding material, but not OK with rolling back to February. I have offered to continue cleaning up the citation problems that have existed in the article since 2008 or before, including citation problems that were introduced by copying and pasting (almost all of which are fixed at this point, making the citation issues related to that text transfer a moot point). That offer stands, and I finish the citation work as soon as other editors are willing to let me continue the work. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
@Mike Christie: in case you missed it above: If text is copied from one article to another, it is relatively straightforward to attribute as explained at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia #Proper attribution. The template {{copied}} is available for this purpose. For example, if text in the edit that added the Themes section is identified as copied from Reception history of Jane Austen, then the following could be added near to the top of this talk page:
It's not necessary to do anything more. --RexxS (talk) 01:00, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Break

  • Sarah and Mike, it's occurred to me (perhaps belatedly) that to prevent much furor/e the best solution would be instead of rolling back to a prior version in mainspace, I can sandbox a version to build on, and the work can proceed in the sandbox until we have a final polished product to be copied over. It's not completely ideal, but maybe it's a workable solution. What do you think?
  • Mike, you made a good point that any current revision can be used in terms of citation templates and I think it might be best if that work is completed and locked down, so as to prevent issues such as this edit (I can't tell whether it's changed author to editor and we really need to cite authors). If the cites are to be changed for the final revision I'd prefer to use sfnp and substitute "page =" for "loc =", which gives us the ability to render without the "p", per MLA style. It's important to point out that some of the discussions here are conflating WP:CITEVAR with various academic/discipline styles. CITEVAR refers to changing from the original handwritten style to templates. Once consensus is achieved (personally I'm still opposed), then the niceties of how to render for MLA (used in literature) can be sorted.
  • Regarding the article's structure: Wadewitz and I discussed the appropriate structure for a writer's biography, which I've been using since. Ernest Hemingway is what we thought was ideal, (I was bringing it to FAC when we were having these discussion) and we both agreed the main biography shouldn't have sections about each separate work. She admitted that she hadn't had the time to distill the style/themes into the format expected in this article, so that's the structure I'd favor implementing, focusing mostly on those missing sections.
  • All that said, we're getting way ahead of ourselves. The first step is to determine which sources need to be gathered and take it from there. None of this can happen quickly and I have limited time for Wikipedia in the next few weeks.
  • One final point is that yes, the attributions for the copied text are easily done, but since they were never done and the copied text is still in this version, my feeling is that all those sections should be deleted and then (if we have to) reinstated with correct attributions in edit summaries. Keep in mind that much of that text will not survive a final rewrite, but if we're being picky, the attributions should be done correctly since the text is here now and will always be in history.
  • If anyone wants to follow up, my talk page is open. I've not read most of the comments since last night and haven't replied to a few pings. Apologies for that. Victoria (tk) 14:37, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Victoria – the edit you linked to by Don4of4 simply renamed some references that were exact duplicates of one another, reducing the total number of References from 325 to 309. For example, references 172 and 183 in the "before" version were identical, so they became reference 169 (note the "a" and "b" links back to the text for the two locations of these identical references) in the "after" version.
It also removed a few stray bits of white space. It did not change any reference content. This is a standard semi-automated edit that is done all the time on articles and is nothing to worry about. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Hello there, my edits should not have made any material changes. It was just general formatting and cleanup steps to bring certain elements into compliance. Let me know if there are any issues. Don4of4 [Talk]
  • Adding to above, written when enthusiasm beckoned and I was on my first cup of coffee and hadn't looked closely either at the article in its current shape or the history. I've started going through history and am finding issues that convince me we must roll back to February. As for the citations: do we really want it look like this with all these cites stacked up in a row??

Austen's place among internationally known British authors appeared secure by the early twentieth century. Important early works included Oxford Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley's 1911 essay, "generally regarded as the starting-point for the serious academic approach to Jane Austen".[267][220] Bradley emphasised Austen's ties to 18th-century critic and writer Samuel Johnson, calling her a moralist as well as a humourist; in this, according to Southam, he was "totally original".[220][268][269] Bradley divided Austen's works into "early" and "late" novels, categories still used by scholars today.[220] The second groundbreaking early-20th-century critic of Austen was R. W. Chapman, whose collection of Austen's works was the first scholarly edition of any English novelist; the Chapman texts have remained the basis for subsequent editions of her works.[270][271][272][273]

  • Victoria (tk) 15:58, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
  • P.s this was written (apparently) at the same time as the post in the section below. To reiterate, I am happy to work in a sandbox if that's the consensus. That said, I do have some concerns about the article as it currently stands, (i.e, the strings of refs posted above aren't optimal; some material might need verification, etc.,) which is no judgment of anyone's work, but rather simply my own opinion that it's sometimes easier roll back to a prior version and then to work forward again (which I've had to do on occasion). Victoria (tk) 18:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

An Offer, Part II

Overnight there were four pings to my account to leave a comment here. This was unexpected for me since the nomination was closed a day or two ago by Laser. I was originally drawn to make my edits of this article months ago when I discovered that the remarkable editing by the late Wadewitz in improving this article was apparently left unattended for several years and no-one was enhancing the article toward peer review. Dianne and I then set up a memorial for the late Wadewitz last April on Dianne's Talk page several months ago if anyone would like to visit it here [1]. Since I am no longer the nominator of the article, I can only make a short comment as a neutral editor now on the offer made by Victoria on the one hand, and of Jonesey, Rex, and @Prairieplant: on the other hand making their offer as well. First, Victoria has made a generous offer to enhance and improve two or three of the sections of the article based on her previous rapport with the late Wadewitz and she is likely to be joined by Mike and Sarah on her own Sandbox as she expresses this preference over the next 2-4 months. Since the article is presently at GA there is no reason for that not to go forward as an independent upgrade effort. There is no reason for a roll-back of the article for Victoria to use the February archive version of the article as her preferred starting point on her own Sandbox enhancement effort. The offer of @Jonesey95: and @RexxS: has been equally generous in saying that they can complete the citation formatting of the current article in its current form for current readers of the article as they have already started to do this. They can be supported in this effort since current readers of the article will benefit from the current article's citations being in a consistent format since Victoria's version will not be ready for 2-4 months if I have read her off-page comments correctly. This would put everyone, I think, on a common footing which would be in the spirit of seeking the incremental improvement of the article: Jonesey95 and friends can complete the citation consistency effort which they have already made substantial progress on, and Victoria and friends can complete their section upgrades off-page as Victoria has graciously offered to apply her own Sandbox for it. As a good faith offer of my support for both aspects of such a two-part plan, I offer the information cites that Cambridge University Press has supplemented their series which includes a Jane Austen volume with two further volumes in the same series specializing on Emma in the one volume and yet another volume on Pride and Prejudice in the other specialty volume in the same Cambridge series. Both efforts, of Victoria and of Jonesey, are worthwhile in the spirit of enhancing the article. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 16:07, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I did not know this rewrite was done at Diannaa's behest. Pinging her, because she should be aware of the conversation. Thank you for pointing that out. Victoria (tk) 19:21, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
The first ping to Diannaa was malformed, repinging so she's aware of the discussion. Victoria (tk) 21:01, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi Victoria. "At the behest of" is putting it a little too strongly. "With the support of" would be more accurate. See User talk:Diannaa/Archive 45#Your comment on Austen. I wish I had time to help but I am super busy with copyright clean-up while having enough time left over for a few RL things as well. Victoria, you are the perfect person to spearhead this effort, being an experienced FA contributor, you know what it takes to get there. — Diannaa (talk) 00:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC) I need to acknowledge too the work of Fountains-of-Paris and Wadewitz, along with everyone else who has helped so far. — Diannaa (talk) 00:16, 20 August 2016 (UTC) I am still not happy with what I said here; I sound bossy or dismissive. But I'm not sure how to fix it :( — Diannaa (talk) 00:43, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Don't worry Diannaa, your comment didn't come across at all as bossy or dismissive. Thanks for stopping in; I'm happy to hear Wikipeda still has the benefit of your expertise with copyright issues. We always need people willing to dive in over there; it's important and thankless work. Victoria (tk) 19:31, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
@Victoriaearle: You now have both Dianne's response and my response at this point, and its sort of time for us to hear if you are on the same page with all of us to move forward. It is hard to see your position as getting much better as you are being recognized by Dianne as the lead editor for the upgrade sections you have stated you would prefer to undertake on your Sandbox page, and the editors are accepting your time frame of 2-4 months for getting the new enhanced versions of those sections ready for the article. This should allow @Jonesey95, RexxS, and Prairieplant: to now return to the current version of the article at this time to complete the reformatting of the citations for the benefit of current readers of the article which they have already started. If you like, I shall also offer to provide the ISBNs for the Cambridge Companion volumes, both of them, for Emma and Pride and Prejudice which your off-page comments suggest that you previously were unaware of to help you in your effort. Since you have had overnight to think about this, let us know when you are online for this can go forward at this time. You appear to be in a win-win situation with Dianne identifying you as the lead editor for the upgrades and the other editors accepting your 2-4 months time frame for your revised sections. Let us know when you are back online. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 15:05, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Fountains-of-Paris, perhaps I've misunderstood your post, but how do you envisage Victoria inserting a sandbox rewrite over someone else's citation style? The problem at this article is that, a few days ago, someone changed the citation style by adding templates. And so now, in addition to the content problem, we have the problem of how to refer to the sources. SarahSV (talk) 15:31, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for commenting. The original priority here for the article was getting the citations into a consistent format, which Jonesey95 and other editors have offered to do for the current article for the benefit of current readers, and which they have substantially undertaken. Victoria has then offered to start an upgrade for one or two of the sections over the next two to four months (that was not days or weeks she was indicating, but two to four months), with possible assistance from both yourself and Mike as commented above. A gracious offer for two to four months from now, and Jonesey95 is offering to make the current citations consistent for the benefit of current readers of the article. The current content has been assessed positively by Bishonen, J Milburn, and Miniapolis for GOCE in moving forward with the article. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 15:56, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Once Victoria has completed her sandbox re-write, I'd be happy to convert the references there into whatever the consensus style is on the main article, be it Harvard, Chicago, APA, Vancouver, CS1 default, or whatever viable custom style is agreed upon. I would not want to impose on her the burden of writing without using her accustomed referencing style, but all unambiguous referencing styles are convertible between each other and I've had a lot of experience in doing just that. --RexxS (talk) 19:06, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks you Fountains-of-Paris for the ping. I haven't been here since Friday and probably won't be back until early September. I have managed to look at the article history, and I've skimmed the first 50 pages of Todd's book, but it's a 500 page book so I'll have to order it (and unless I want to pay the $180 retail I'll need the time I don't currently have to search for a cheap used copy). Thank you for offering the ISBNs to the novels - I may not need those as I do have copies of the novels, but most of the reading involved won't be of the primary sources, instead it's the secondary scholarship we need to use and come up to speed on. I've decided to work in mainspace. Once I'm up to speed I'll probably be working fairly quickly and most of these issues will become moot. I look forward to your help and to everyone else's. Victoria (tk) 19:31, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Jane Austen in Context can be yours in a few days for $4, including shipping, or $7 used from Amazon. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Missing full citations

The following (taken from Reception history of Jane Austen) are currently missing. They would need to be integrated suitably with the citations from this article of course, which I will leave to those who have been updating the citations recently.

  • Brontë, Charlotte. "Charlotte Brontë on Jane Austen". Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870. Ed. B. C. Southam. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. ISBN 0-7100-2942-X. 126–28.
  • Lewes, George Henry. "Lewes: The great appraisal". Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage, 1812–1870. Ed. B. C. Southam. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968. ISBN 0-7100-2942-X. 148–66.

--Mirokado (talk) 21:55, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Summary of the issues

I want to preface this by applauding Fountains-of-Paris for having taken on this huge task, and for recognizing that this great piece of work was worth developing. I know that it's easy to criticize, and incomparably harder to do the work, so I offer the following in the spirit of constructive collaboration.

  1. There is some choppiness in the writing compared to the last version by Wadewitz, probably reflecting that most of the latter was written by one person. It's harder to maintain the flow with multiple editors and different writing styles, but I hope we can aim for it.
  2. The previous lead flowed well. The current lead is problematic: "most highly praised novel during her lifetime"; "brought her little fame ... during her lifetime"; "most successful novel during her lifetime"; "third published novel was ... successful during her lifetime"; "she achieved success"; "Austen's writings have inspired"; "Her novels have inspired".
  3. Much of the biographical information has been removed from the lead, but it was useful and interesting. There is nothing about her education, social standing or family, or why the novels are admired. The current lead is in every way less informative. Compare the second-last sentence of the October 2013 lead, which tells us by what point she had become accepted as a great writer:
    "Her work brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews during her lifetime, but the publication in 1869 of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced her to a wider public, and by the 1940s she had become widely accepted in academia as a great writer."
    with the current equivalent (which contains less information, misses the point by switching English to British, and positions her as a famous author but no longer a great writer):
    "During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries Austen's writings have inspired a large number of critical essays and literary anthologies, establishing her as a British author of international fame."
  4. There are two sentences at the end of the "Life and career" introduction that don't belong there. The paragraph is about sources of information about Austen—the scarcity of biographical information, the destroyed letters. Then suddenly:
    "Austen wrote during the period of British Romanticism leading to British Idealism. She admired a number of British Romantic poets, including William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Samuel Coleridge (1772–1834) and Lord Byron (1788–1824), whose influence on her novels has been studied.[7][8]
  5. The two major additions, the novels and themes sections, were copied from other articles and added in two diffs in April without attribution. [2][3] Leaving aside the attribution issue (about which I AGF; it was just an error), it isn't good form to present readers with the same text on several pages, particularly as FAs.
  6. I would regard the current themes section as a reception section. It was taken from Reception history of Jane Austen. For comparison, Literary themes and styles in Mary Shelley; Writing style in Ernest Hemingway (with themes directly below it); Style in W. B. Yeats (all FAs), and Style and themes in Henry James. Styles and themes of Jane Austen could be used as the basis of one here.
  7. When material was copied over from the novels articles in April, [4] it introduced citation-style inconsistencies to this article, because the novels articles have been edited by many editors. Those inconsistencies were noticed on 16 August at FAC 2. [5] Another editor therefore changed the citation style and added templates. The better course of action at that point would have been to remove the new text, not only because of inconsistencies in style, but because it originated from many editors and (it appears) had not been checked.
  8. Despite objections to the style changes arriving shortly after the work began, [6][7] the conversions continued, which is what WP:CITEVAR is there to prevent. Presentation issues apart, the addition of templates has caused an accessibility problem, because at least two editors on this page have difficulty reading wikitext with lots of templates.
  9. The style change included unbundling citations, so the text looks messy in read mode too, e.g.
    They married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath.[12][13][14][15]
    After several months at home her mother placed her with Elizabeth Littlewood, a woman living nearby who nursed and raised her for twelve to eighteen months.[31][32][33][34][B]
    Perhaps as early as 1787, Austen began to write poems, stories and plays for her and her family's amusement.[57][58][59][60]
  10. Have the sources been checked for text-source integrity? The danger of copying words from articles with multiple editors, such as the novels articles, is that sources may have been moved out of place or closely paraphrased. For example, this sentence "By changing the novel's title, Austen added 'philosophical depth' to what began as a sketch of two characters" (taken from Sense and Sensibility) is copied from the source, Harold Bloom's Jane Austen: "The changed title suggests that Austen perhaps added philosophical depth to what began primarily as a sketch of two characters" (Bloom 2009, 252).

There are other issues, but I'll leave it there for now. SarahSV (talk) 00:56, 21 August 2016 (UTC) (edited 15:50, 21 August 2016 (UTC))

If you are summarizing, you may want to add that errors in citations present since 2008 have been found and resolved, noting a post by Jonesey above. --Prairieplant (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's correct, Prairieplant. The inconsistent citations were just an effect of the recent changes (apart from one long cite that was missing). But the point of this section isn't to focus on citations again. The recent changes need to be discussed. SarahSV (talk) 16:10, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
It is correct, SlimVirgin. Go up on this page to Talk:Jane_Austen#Unclear_citations and read the part under Le Faye, Deirdre, where an error introduced in 2008 was found and corrected by Jonesey. 2008, that is 8 years ago, the error has carried along all this time until this review work found it, traced it, and fixed it. The explanation is quite clear. This means there were reference errors in the article long before the work to raise it to Good Article status this past spring was done, and the present review of references is much needed for all parts of the article, newer or older text. Just the basics first – is the short linked article contained in the Bibliography? – a most basic level of checking. Errors creep into references when edits are made, that is life in Wikipedia. The next level is whether you still find that reference is the best one to support the statement, once that citation is accurately identified. On another topic, in contrast to you and Victoria, I think a string of individual citation numbers is far better than a bunch of them. I never saw bunched citations until I looked in detail at this article and found them most confusing. With respect, I find it more confusing how many times you have repeated your dislike of a list of citations showing as a list of citations, and using that remark as a criticism of other editors. You have said it enough times now. I have understood you and I acknowledge it, that you think there is an aesthetic issue as to the look on the finished page, and do not care about the reactions of others to how it looks, and not at all about the problems caused with other aspects of Wikipedia by bunching the citations into one. Plus those bunched edits make it harder for future editors making changes. I hope someday to see you agree with an editor who has come to help on an important article, or put forth the effort to understand what the other editor said before outright rejection. There is a lot of work to do, and a team will do a better job, if the team members are not ignored or rejected at every turn of the discussion. I can do work on references, including that all needed information is included and checking urls to be sure they are still good and following out ISBN to be sure it is the correct book using WorlCat, but I recognize that Jonesey and RexxS are both far better at the whole scheme than I am. So I will help as I can and hope to rely on those skill so generously offered by those two editors. You have recognition as having some expertise on the long list of references on Jane Austen and critiques of her writing; please recognize that others bring other essential skills to this article. --Prairieplant (talk) 20:32, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for this detailed list of concerns. Items 7 and 8 are factually incorrect. Objections to the style changes were responded to here and on the FAC page in great detail by many editors, and there have been citation inconsistencies in every version that has been linked to in discussions on this page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:38, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
"the addition of templates has caused an accessibility problem, because at least two editors on this page have difficulty reading wikitext with lots of templates". I haven't seen anyone asking for help with this supposed issue (I'd be happy to provide some, as I'm sure would RexxS and others who, like me, are regular contributors to Wikipedia's accessibility project). However, the absence of templated citations also causes an accessibility issue, making it harder for people to style citations according to their preference (as I outlined above), or to have tools aggregate citations for them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:42, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

SarahSV, thank you so much for this post. I whole-heartedly agree and I'm really pleased that more people are paying attention to this article. I opposed it at FAC (where I'm an occasional lurker and rare commenter) during the spring, mainly because of a poorly written lead and a lack of analytical sections. I became more concerned when the nominator ignored the former problem and responded to the latter by adding a huge "Novels" section and writing "Themes" in chronological order, making it essentially an extension of the (already huge) "Reception" section. My previous comments are here: [8], [9], but essentially I think a "Style and themes" section needs to be written from scratch and the lead replaced with the (excellent) previous version. It was frustrating when my concerns fell on deaf ears, and since the article is protected, and I prefer to edit anonymously these days, I was not able to make any changes myself. This is a hugely important article and I was thrilled to visit tonight and encounter a flurry of activity and discussion; I look forward to seeing changes and improvements. --92.5.94.147 (talk) 22:14, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Sarah. It is always a help to know what concerns an experienced editor finds in an article as important as this.
1. I agree that a disjoint between writing styles of major editors can be an issue. Perhaps we can impose on Miniapolis who did the previous copy-edit, or another member of GOCE to review and improve the text when it has settled down.
4, 5, 6. Those textual problems are best addressed in my humble opinion by someone who knows the sources well. If that's not easy to accomplish, if you can point me to the paragraphs that you've found duplicated between this article and the other articles, I can consult the relevant sources and make a first draft of summaries of those other articles. The problem I came across was I couldn't find the duplicated text from additions to novels section and additions to themes section, but perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.
2, 3. I think we'd all agree that the lead can be improved, but only after the text in the rest of the article has settled down, of course.
7. Sadly, hand-written citations always give latitude for different editors to introduce inconsistencies, both within an article and in sister articles which may be potential source of citations. That's one of the reasons why the shortened footnote template was created. {{Sfn|Ross|1985|p=2012}} is concise, unambiguous and will always create a link to Ross, Barry (1985). An annotated bibliography of Jane Austen studies, 1973-83. The University Press of Virginia. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) - and because it's standardised, it can be copied by other editors and freely exchanged between articles. The "icing on the cake" is that Ucucha's script immediately shows you if you have short citations without a corresponding long citation, and vice-versa, in even the longest of articles. The best course of action was taken: we should not be rolling an article back to a point before it went through the GA process, especially as that would not get to the root of the problem with inconsistent citations. The best course of action is always to use the most effective route available to resolve all of the inconsistencies, and only when we can be sure they are all resolved, reformat the citations into whatever viable style is determined to be best.
8. CITEVAR is not meant to prevent the process of regularising a mixture of inconsistent formats into a regular scheme. In fact it specifically requires that to be done. At my advanced age, I probably have greater difficulty in reading text than the rest of you, so I sympathise. Enabling syntax highlighting in Preferences helps me distinguish content from inline citations. I also do my best to ensure that articles that I work on only ever have very short citations in the text and the full citations are always where you expect them: on separate double-spaced paragraphs in the References section. I'd recommend those steps to anyone who is having problems reading wiki-text. The only prolific content contributor I know who is the same age as me is Eric Corbett, and he uses exactly the same system as I do.
9. Unbundling citations is a necessary step to ensuring that all citation errors are removed. They can always be re-bundled later if desired. Having them unbundled does give a chance to ask why we would need four sources for the fact that "They married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath." Multiple sources referencing the same text are often overciting. I can understand why a scientific article might want to cite a general overview and a specific experiment for a single fact, but bundling hides overcitation like four cites for one simple fact. When a large paragraph has four sources, it's legitimate to bundle them at the end if all four are sources for all of the paragraph, but otherwise we should be encouraging citations to be placed close to the content they support. It's a discourtesy to a reader to make them search out multiple sources for verification or further information when the one that they need is unnecessarily buried among several others.
10. Close paraphrasing is always a problem. The over-close paraphrase was introduced into Sense and Sensibility in 2011 with this edit by Prairiegrl who has by far the most edits to that article. It's good that you spotted that and suggests that somebody with your knowledge of the sources ought to check Sense and Sensibility for other examples of the issue, as they have clearly been there for five years.
Thanks again for all your efforts as always. --RexxS (talk) 23:15, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
I find the post directly above and the situation here exceedingly offensive. Sarah, and Mike Christie, I'm seriously considering rescinding my offer based the insinuation that I'm a., too young; b., too inexperienced; c., too dense; d., unable to work with text and sources. I don't even know how to format a talk page! I have to be reminded on my own page what a dunce I am.
@92.5.94.147 - yes, I had every intention of writing style/themes from scratch as I have on previous vital articles I've brought through FA.
I'm unwatching (as I had for the previous few days). I'll be reading messages on wiki (but not necessarily responding) and I'm available via email if necessary. But generally I can see that I'm not welcome. At the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Victoria (tk) 23:40, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm sick and tired of you making cheap jibes, Victoria, and I'm sick of you taking offence at the most innocuous of comments. Yes I am getting on and my eyesight is failing, but that's not a comment on how young you are - not everything on Wikipedia is about you. I didn't want to bring this up, so as not to cause you offence, because you're so unbelievably thin-skinned, but after that tantrum above, I'm going to tell you straight. Your efforts tonight have been positively destructive. You started by removing the fact that the 1811 edition of Sense and Sensibility was published anonymously - because it wasn't in the version that you're so desperate to get back to. But the image of the title page of that edition is in the article. Even I can see the words "BY A LADY"; anybody who knows anything about Austen knows her first novel was published anonymously - and there's the proof. What sort of sourcing do you want for the fact? Next you removed "Anglican rector" from the description of George Austen, with the summary "feb version doesn't specify occupation". So what? The "feb version" isn't some kind of Golden Age of Austen scholarship that's the apotheosis of the article. It wasn't even a GA. How could anybody challenge George Austen's occupation as an Anglican rector when the same paragraph goes on to state that "George was a rector of Anglican parishes in Steventon, Hampshire and a nearby villages"? Are you going to remove those too? Of course not. Collins is absolutely clear about George's occupation and her book is cited in that same paragraph. The next part of your efforts consisted of removing headings and reference formatting that Sarah has had to put back. Finally you removed much of the work added by Fountains-of-Paris. So what's next? Are you really going to put in the work you've promised and re-do the sections on Novels, Themes, and Reception that had been asked for in the reviews? Here's what Tim Riley had to say about "your" version of the lead when he did the GA review in March: "The main obstacle to promotion to GA is the lead section, which falls short of the required standard: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section." Did you even read the GA Review? Then you have the nerve to say you're walking away. You've just been searching for an excuse to avoid doing any work here. Well I'm calling you on that. You've rolled back the article to pre-GA standard, despite all the objections, so now the ball's in your court. You've wrecked it, now you need to deliver on your promises and fix it. --RexxS (talk) 03:55, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, the GA review was concerned that the lead contained information that was not verified in the text, however these "missing elements" were the crucial descriptions of Austen's writing style, themes, and reception. Rather than insisting that this information be added to the article body, as it 100% should have been for a GA on a major author, the reviewer asked for this information to be removed from the lead. Bafflingly, however, he was content with a new lead that contained none of Austen's biographical information and therefore could not be considered a summary of the article. With all due respect, I think these comments were thoroughly misguided and detrimental to the article. He was correct that the analytical statements were unverified, but they are key to Austen's work and should be discussed in the article - in a clear and succinct way, not with the unusual divisions of book and historical periods that were added in April. Victoria, if you were planning to write these sections adequately then it would be a big shame to see you abandon the article. I hope you stay with it. --92.5.94.147 (talk) 11:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Despite all of the arguments against rolling back the article, it has effectively been rolled back by Victoria. I will assume that she has done this in good faith and with good reason, and that she will work with other editors to fix the many citation problems that I had fixed but that have been reintroduced with this rollback.
If any editors would like assistance with a final tidy-up when those problems have been fixed again, please ping me here or notify on my talk page. As always, my offer to finish the work I started still stands, but I have no interest in redoing the many hours of work that I had already put in. I wish good luck and happy editing to all of you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
In response to 92.5.94.147, Tim riley conducted the GA review and is a well-respected editor and reviewer with 36 FAs to his name. If you have any criticisms of his GA review, then I suggest you take them up with him. He passed the article as a GA with the updated lead and rolling back the lead to one that was identified as unsatisfactory could in no way be considered an improvement to the article. That shows a complete lack of respect for the reviewer, the copy-editor and the editor who has worked hard for the last six months to improve this article from the state it had languished in since 2013. I echo Jonesey's sentiment: I'm wiling to spend time checking text against sources, sorting out image copyright and alt text problems, and fixing the citation errors that have crept in over the last eight years owing to an initial poor choice of citation style, but that's dependent on editors having respect for others' contributions. --RexxS (talk) 18:01, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
92.5.94.147, thank you for your insights and for drawing early attention to what was happening.
RexxS, you've been unfair to Victoria. She has 24 FAs, and she writes them with ease (or rather, she makes it look that way). One of her areas is English literature, so she's the perfect person to take the lead. Something you might not know about her is that she's extremely good at collaboration. But she does need a decent base draft from which to work, and I assume that the edits she made to the article were meant to create that.
It's obvious what is wrong with the lead, and I explained above what's wrong with the themes and reception sections. Also, this, from you to Victoria: "The next part of your efforts consisted of removing headings and reference formatting that Sarah has had to put back." I didn't put anything back, unless you're referring to the diff where I restored a heading I had removed myself, as the edit summary said: "restored heading I rmvd earlier." [10]
RexxS, your user page shows you're an admirer of Geogre, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be on your side here. He would want to roll back to the best-written version he could find in the history, remove the templates and the infobox, and tell everyone not involved in the writing to buzz off. Then he'd ask Victoria to return, and he'd set the rest of us a reading list. SarahSV (talk) 18:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Sarah, I know you like Victoria, but I've had problems with her in the past where she's promised to work on an article and then let us all down by deciding to leave Wikipedia (and subsequently coming back, but never doing the work promised). I also didn't use the right words for the sort of heading, refbegin templates that set the sources into columns and indent them - what would you call them? You can see that in this edit, Victoria removed all of the column formatting from Bibliography, and you had to put it back with this edit.
If it wasn't for the fact that the article had had a GA review by none less than Tim Riley as well as work done by the GOCE, I'd have sympathy with an editor wanting a "clean base" to start with. But nobody can ignore the implication that the GA process establishes a de facto base from which to measure an article. Rolling back beyond that is always going to make the article worse. I also have no confidence in Victoria's familiarity with the subject: it was not the mark of a subject expert to challenge the fact that Austen's first novel was published anonymously ("by a lady") - even I knew that - and who familiar with Jane Austen's life would cavil at noting George Austen's occupation was as an Anglican clergyman? If Victoria can work with Fountains-of-Paris who has done all the heavy work on improving the article this year, I'd be more than happy, but Victoria is no Geogre (who is presently much more preoccupied with 17th century literature - I'll tell him you gave him a name-check). --RexxS (talk) 19:06, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I noticed from his profile that the reviewer is very experienced and competent. I mean no disrespect and do not intend to take away from that, but no-one is beyond the occasional misjudgement and that is certainly what happened with this particular GA review. I've been involved in the GA process in the past (as I said, I prefer to edit anonymously these days, but I was an active editor once) and I know that it is far from foolproof. Many articles get passed that probably shouldn't and so I disagree that the promoted version should be sacrosanct. The previous lead was more beneficial for readers wanting to understand Jane Austen, simple as that, and several other editors have agreed. Yet we are still without it - mainly out of stubbornness, it seems. Wikipedia is a frustrating place. --92.5.94.147 (talk) 20:21, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Suggest a working approach

Perhaps it's too late for this, but since part of the problem here is that we have multiple conversations going on at once, I'd like to suggest that the editors who have already worked substantively on content, or who plan to, start a separate section, and that we ask everyone who is not one of those editors to stay out of that section. That will provide a space for content-related conversations which won't get derailed by the various other opinions here. It doesn't mean we don't get to comment later on citation formatting issues, but while the article is a work in progress I see no benefit in debating the final format, and clearly these threadsd are not helping the content editors do their work. Please, let's let those who want to improve the article do so, and let's worry about how to present the text when we're agreed on the text to present. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:12, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

The GA review identified the problems with content and gave a plan for improvements. Those have been worked on over the subsequent five months, The FAC review gave no objection based on content, only on referencing and verifiability. Perhaps a better suggestion would be for all those who have been involved in sorting out - or intend to help sort out - the citation problems identified at FAC start a separate section, and we ask everyone who is not one of those editors to stay out of that section? That would provide a space for conversations related to addressing the FAC concerns which won't get derailed by the various other opinions here. It doesn't mean that we don't get to comment later on content issues that may have surfaced subsequent to FAC, but while the clean up of sources is a work in progress I see no benefit in debating the style of writing, and clearly these threads are not helping those who understand citations to do their work. Please, let's let those who want to improve the article do so, and let's worry about how to present the text when we've managed to salvage the sources for the text to present. How does that sound? --RexxS (talk) 18:15, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, I opposed the FAC because of the writing (that's an oppose based on content; good writing isn't something that's tacked on at the end). Having dug deeper now, I would also have opposed because it's clear that none of the sources have been checked (in the post-February version), and it became increasingly apparent during the FAC that Fountains hadn't read them, which I believe was one of the reasons the FAC was archived. But look, it's obvious that we're not going to be allowed to do the work, so I'm unwatching. Good luck with it. SarahSV (talk) 18:26, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

RexxS, I've unwatched, but I want to say one more thing, based on your edit summary: "rolling back the lead to one that was identified as unsatisfactory could in no way be considered an improvement to the article." [11] One editor didn't like the lead, for one particular reason (to do with the body of the article not containing some of its points, not because of the lead itself). That was one editor's opinion, and the solution was to develop the article, not decimate the lead.

Four or five editors objected to the change. Two opposed immediately: 80.43.205.25 (who is also 92.5.94.147) and Rothorpe. [12] I believe three opposed later: Lingzhi, myself and Victoria (I'm not certain Ling opposed; Victoria and I did.) In addition, you have the evidence of your own eyes. I'm puzzled that you're prioritizing the opinion of the one editor who didn't like it. SarahSV (talk) 19:02, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

80.43.205.25/92.5.94.147 opposed on the grounds that the previous lead "was far more informative (both of her life and writing style) and better written". Rothorpe objections consisted of Pride and Prejudice being mentioned four (actually five) times in the lead and that Keira Knightley was spelled wrong. You have to set that against Tim Riley's reasoned criticism:

The main obstacle to promotion to GA is the lead section, which falls short of the required standard: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. A lead should summarise all the important material of the main text, which the present lead could, at a pinch, just about be said to do. But there is a second requirement for a lead – it must not contain material that isn't in the main text, and here is the problem: the lead is full of information and comment not substantiated in the body of the article. It is a pretty good rule of thumb that a lead should not need to contain citations, because all the statements in it are developed and cited in the main text. These points in the lead do not come up in the main text to any important degree:

  • Austen's literary realism
  • Her works contain biting irony and social commentary
  • Her plots are acclaimed
  • Austen is part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism
  • Her plots, are fundamentally comic
  • Her plots highlight the dependence of women on marriage
  • I don't quarrel with any of these points, but they cannot be mentioned in the lead unless they are developed in the main text.
and his closing comments:
  • The lead and its relationship to the main text will now pass muster ... The biography is excellent; the illustrations are all duly licensed (and very good); the sourcing is wide and evidently authoritative. With the addition of a substantial analysis of the works this could well be a candidate for Featured Article in due course, but as it stands it meets the GA criteria, in my judgement, and I am pleased to promote it. Speaking as someone who has loved Austen's novels for nearly fifty years, I send warm congratulations to everyone who has contributed to this pleasing article.
Which part of Tim's assessment do others disagree with? I understand the point that the optimal outcome of having relevant content in the lead not covered in the article, is to add the relevant content to the article. But we don't write the lead first and later add the content to match it: We add the content first and write the lead as a summary of that afterwards. Everybody has had six months since then to add the "substantial analysis of the works", but the only person I see doing it is Fountains-of-Paris. Once the content added since the GA review is accepted as stable, there will be the perfect opportunity to revise the lead to summarise that, But cart-before-horse is no way to write FAs. --RexxS (talk) 19:44, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
You mention cart-before-horse, but your plan of going to FA without all the details mentioned above (that were in the lede but not in body text) is a far more egregious example of doing things the wrong way round or with the wrong emphases. Just because you might get an FA is not an argument for going to FAC with key elements missing. I suggest going back to the old lede, adding all those elements to body text, and THEN going to FAC. Concerns about topics and themes being the lede and not the body would be valid if the article were at FAC, but are subsumed under meta:eventualism until that juncture.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:28, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
The current article has been positively commented upon by Bishonen, J Milburn, and Miniapolis for GOCE. All of them are experienced editors and if you engage with any one of them here or on their Talk pages they may be able to comment on your criticisms. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

MLA mode for cite book, perhaps fully functional?

It seems the |mode= is either done or nearly so for MLA. Can we drop all this citation format stuff and use that to switch back to MLA while preserving the benefits of templates? [BTW, though I seem to have said things that made him bristle, perhaps rightly so, still I must say there should be a tip-of-the-hat to Trappist the monk].   Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Trappist is the maintainer of Module:Citation/CS1, and it's always easier to ask someone who knows the in-and-outs of the code than to wait for someone like me to figure it all out and make a fork. He's rightly cautious about committing large changes to code that is used almost 3 million times, so I'd prefer to wait until he is happy enough to incorporate the additions into the main code module because it would save us having to call a new citation template {{cite book/new}}, which is currently being used to demonstrate the concept. Nevertheless, I'd be happy to see an end to the citation problems, and I would look to create {{cite journal/new}}, {{cite encyclopedia/new}} and {{cite web/new}} as an interim measure until the full set of templates is upgraded to allow |mode=mla, if folks thought that was best.
Special:Permalink/736061849 is a demonstration of how the article would look if all 74 {{cite book}}s used |mode=mla. HTH. --RexxS (talk) 23:08, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Is Ling suggesting that there is a point of contact between his preferences and those currently put on the table and offered by RexxS?

Proposal for inclusion of the following 5-generation pedigree format family tree for Jane Austen

I am proposing the following addition to Jane Austen's "Family Tree" section directly following the two trees that are presented there. I believe it adds value to see her family background in a wider context, including that her grandmother and great-grandmother were both named "Jane" and Jane's wider connections to the English aristocracy. Please comment.

Ekvcpa (talk) 15:54, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Ekvcpa, you've put a lot of research into that. My only concern would be the sourcing for some of the entries. At FAC, the question would be asked "What makes trees.ancestry.co.uk a reliable source for these claims?" I think that being able to use the tree here would depend completely on the ability to answer that question convincingly. --RexxS (talk) 18:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the research, but emphatically suggest that you create a new article, appropriately named, rather than dropping this huge thing in an article that is already long and gonna get longer. Please don't find links to other articles that have family trees; I don't give a flying hoot about WP:OTHERSTUFF. make your family tree article, wikilink it appropriately in this article AFTER yours is very demonstrably WP:RS.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:25, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
Lingzhi, great idea. A good example of this is the Darwin–Wedgwood family article which supports the main Charles Darwin article. I'll work on that and move this content and discussion over there and respond to RexxS from there.Ekvcpa (talk) 06:46, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Moved the above to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Draft:Jane_Austen_Family_and_Ancestry. This section of the talk page can now be deleted if you like. Thank you!Ekvcpa (talk) 01:29, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Citation style

It's worth discussing which citation style to use from now on. WP:CITEVAR suggests that we "defer to the style used by the first major contributor" or seek consensus for change.

Until a few days ago, the citations were written manually. The style Wadewitz used was:

  • Litz, 142.
    • Litz, A. Walton. Jane Austen: A Study of Her Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
  • Litz, "Chronology of Composition", The Jane Austen Companion, 48.
    • Grey, J. David, ed. The Jane Austen Companion. New York: Macmillan, 1986. ISBN 0-02-545540-0.

Mary Shelley, one of Wadewitz's FAs, uses the same style.

The question is whether we want to continue to use this, and if not, what changes are being proposed. SarahSV (talk) 15:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

My preference is to stay with the manually written citations. WP:V only requires that a source can be located, and I have little doubt these sources exist. Victoria (tk) 16:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Can you please move this comment to one of the two sections below so that it is clear that you are talking about short or full citations? In doing so, you are welcome to delete this comment. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:10, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 my comment is unambiguous and it's in reply to SarahSV equally unambiguous question. We shouldn't be moving comments that are replies to people's queries. Victoria (tk) 16:20, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
It is my experience that WP discussions that are underspecified and too broad in scope tend to get complicated and fail to resolve the questions at hand. That is why I have created two sections with detailed questions and comments below. As for "little doubt", I have some doubt that the Lewes, Brontë, and Brownstein sources exist, since there are no full citations. They are certainly not verifiable in their current state. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
It's quite unambiguous. The section that Brontë (as in Charlotte) cites was copied from Reception history of Jane Austen. Scroll down to that article's section labeled "Bibliography" [13] and you'll find the long citation at the top of the list. Victoria (tk) 16:52, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Very helpful, thank you. That helped me find Brownstein, which was also missing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:46, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the style that was previously in use is unsuitable for Wikipedia. The first purpose of a citation is to allow a reader to verify the text that the citation supports, and the format of the citation should allow that to be done easily and ambiguously. It is perfectly acceptable to use (author page) as the short citation style where you have a brief written paper with fixed text, but that is not suitable on a collaborative project where a different editor may later come along and add another citation - especially in the field of literature where an expert author will write more than one book - because there is then no way for the reader to work out from (Le Faye 270) whether they have to consult page 270 in "Le Faye, Deirdre (2002). Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels" or "Le Faye, Deirdre (2003). Jane Austen: A Family Record" when they look on the long citations. It is precisely this flaw in many of the older references that led to the mess that Jonesey95 has worked so hard to sort out. --RexxS (talk) 20:39, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Format of short citations

I was going to start this conversation after I was done converting the short citations to ensure that the conversation covered all angles, but it looks like it has been started, so here we go. Discussion items I see are:

  1. Do we want "p" and "pp" in front of the page numbers? (I suggest no, based on the style in other articles.)
  2. Do we want to add the year as a disambiguator? (I strongly suggest yes, since if someone adds another "Litz" source to the article, we need some sort of disambiguator, and years [with optional letters when there are multiple sources from the same year] are clear and easy.)
  3. Do we want to cite chapters in edited works (like the one above) as "Litz 1986, 48" or as "Litz, "Chronology of Composition", The Jane Austen Companion, 48."? Look at the current state of the References section to see the latter format. (I vote for the former, since the short references section will be extremely consistent. All we have to do is list the chapters as full citations in the Bibliography.)
  4. I am taking it for granted that we will link from the short citations to the full citations, for reasons I have provided above, and because Wikipedia is a web site, where linking is what you do to connect one thing to another. It is unkind to make readers work harder than they have to in order to locate a full citation.

I would very much like to hear from Victoriaearle on this one. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:07, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

We want robust references to ensure that: (1) there can be no ambiguity about the source document; (2) encourage consistent presentation; (3) facilitate maintenance; and (4) are portable between articles. To achieve that, we should use a scheme for the short citations that identifies the source by author/authors and year - consistently. There needs to be a link, preferably an automatic one, from the short citation to the long citation. There should be assistance scripts available to highlight errors and inconsistencies. The obvious candidate meeting all of those is {{sfn}}, shortened footnotes. They have the added advantage that should an editor add a duplicate citation, it is automatically aggregated with its duplicate, removing the need for an editor to search and then use named references. The answers to your questions are:
  1. Use p/pp in front of the page numbers. It then helps maintainers to work out whether a citation added as "Bennett and Elliott 2005" means "Bennett and Elliott (2005) page number missing" or "Bennett and Elliott (year missing) page 2005". We're not so short of space that two or three extra characters make any significant difference and improve the readability for the average reader.
  2. The short citation should contain the year in every case. The year is often necessary to disambiguate, but it should not be optional because of the example I gave above.
  3. When you cite several chapters from the same collection written by different authors, it is best to create a separate long citation for each author. The short citation then remains consistently as (Sutherland 2005 p. 21) without any need to mention Todd, who will be credited as the editor of the collection in "Sutherland, Kathryn (2005). Todd, Janet (ed.). Jane Austen In Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82644-6.". This incidentally correctly attributes Kathryn Sutherland as the author, which has not been done so far.
  4. Shortened footnotes will automatically create a link if the long citation includes |ref=harv (although that can be customised if necessary by using {{SfnRef}}).
I believe that anyone who wants to suggest a different viable scheme will need to demonstrate that it offers advantages comparable to sfn. --RexxS (talk) 21:14, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi RexxS, we may want to move text and sources between the suite of Jane Austen articles. Two are already FAs (Timeline of Jane Austen and Reception history of Jane Austen), so for ease we should maintain the style those FAs use. That appears to be MLA style in the bibliography/references section and "Smith, 101" in the short cites. SarahSV (talk) 21:28, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi Sarah, Timeline of Jane Austen is a Featured List, not FA, and has two dozen sources mixed up between the short citations (References) and long citations (Bibliography). That is a long way from a consistent style. Reception history of Jane Austen is better, but still uses a mixture of "author page" and "author title page" which leaves it open for later editors to add further cites which are ambiguous. Importing citations from those sort of articles is what helped to create the muddle in this article. MLA is a two-part scheme that uses parenthetical in-line short citations without titles or punctuation; I'm sure you didn't mean that. I'd be happy to upgrade either or both of those articles to a consistent style that would then be easy to maintain and freely exchangeable with the rest of Wikipedia. --RexxS (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Format of full citations

The long citation style shown above is a start, but it is incomplete. We need to account for a variety of types of citations, including chapters in edited books, books with only editors, web pages, journal articles, contributions to edited versions of books with a single author (e.g. the Looser citation), and others. Please look in the article for sample citations for each type and propose a consistent format that accounts for each type. I will be happy to contribute to reformatting the full citations.

Do we list chapters of edited essay collections in the "Monographs and Articles" section as stand-alone sources, or do we list them as indented citations under the full citation for the essay collection? I have no opinion and will be happy to implement either decision. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:07, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95, here is Wadewitz's last version. Are there long citations that aren't clear in that revision? I know that one was missing, but otherwise they seem fine at first glance. SarahSV (talk) 16:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
As I wrote above (in the section "Break"), the full citations in that version (some of which are in the References section instead of the Bibliography) have minor formatting problems, but they are clear. What we need most of all is consistency. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. As we agree that they are clear, I suggest maintaining that style, and tidying any minor inconsistencies, perhaps once the content issues have been resolved. SarahSV (talk) 17:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
What is "that style"? You showed full citations for a book with a single author and for a book with a single editor. We need example citation formats for all of the full citation types in the article, which I listed above. I'll put some of them here in bulleted format to make it easier to see what we need:
  • chapter in an edited book with one editor
  • chapter in an edited book with multiple editors
  • edited book with one editor
  • edited book with multiple editors
  • web page
  • journal article
  • contribution to edited version of book with a single author and multiple editors (e.g. the Looser citation)
  • book with edition specified
  • book with original publication year specified
I expect that there are more, but that's a start. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. If a lack of citation clarity emerges, it can be sorted out once the content issues are more settled. SarahSV (talk) 18:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps a link to a comprehensive style guide (MLA?) would be in order. That way, we wouldn't be making up our own system just for this article, which would make it difficult for future editors to comply with CITEVAR. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:07, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

This article used the style that is in (for example, among many others) Mary Shelley, an FA. Here, that was:

  • Litz, 142.
    • Litz, A. Walton. Jane Austen: A Study of Her Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
  • Litz, "Chronology of Composition", The Jane Austen Companion, 48.
    • Grey, J. David, ed. The Jane Austen Companion. New York: Macmillan, 1986.

It doesn't seem harder to pick up this style than any other. Once it's in place, if we want to tweak it, we can. But the basic style needs to be in place so that we can deal with the content, which is what we need to focus on. SarahSV (talk) 18:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Content and style are almost completely separated, as far as I can tell. Changing the rendered format of the full citations does not change the prose of the article in any way, and if done right, it will not break any links between footnote markers, short footnotes, and full citations. If a robust citation system is in place, content can be added and removed with no trouble and without affecting verifiability. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
To be very clear I am strongly opposed to adding citation templates of any kind, such as in this edit for the following reasons:
  • It contravenes WP:CITEVAR
  • It changes the citations, making it more difficult to check the copied text in this article against the articles it was copied from and where the long cites live.
  • It changes the style of the sources used to reference the article, and if text is to be moved back and forth from other articles (as suggested), then it's best to keep the style used across all the articles in place
  • We have not yet achieved consensus on this talk page to change from citation style as it existed in February (which should be kept) to the now two- or three-day-old templated style. Victoria (tk) 18:42, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
(ec) Jonesey, I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn't know how to restore the previous content and retain your citations (without it being tremendously fiddly work), and I wouldn't want to either because I prefer the old style.
More importantly, this is precisely how not to write an FA! We need people who are familiar with the Jane Austen secondary literature. As things stand, that's Victoria and possibly also Ling. (I don't know about anyone else's level of knowledge.) Writing an FA where there's such a huge amount of scholarship means immersing yourself in it. Detailed discussion of citation style comes later. SarahSV (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
The principal remaining author of this article is Fountains-of-Paris who has guided this article through GA and worked with GOCE and the peer reviewers to improve the article to an FA candidate. He or she is the only one demonstrably familiar with the Jane Austen secondary literature. Fountains-of-Paris's preferences should carry weight here and there has already been an indication that templated citations are acceptable. Jonesey95 has considerable expertise in citations and their maintenance and should be listed to on those issues. --RexxS (talk) 21:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I haven't changed the prose, as far as I can remember, so I don't see what you are referring to. I will say yet again, you don't have to worry about the citation style. Once we settle on a style that is functional, verifiable, and looks the way we want it to look, I can implement it quickly and easily.
You and Victoriaearle can go ahead and change the prose, inserting short and full citations in your preferred format, and I will format them to match the standard formats that we agree on in this section. No problem. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Bundling

Another issue is bundling (Smith, 1; Jones, 2). I see that's being undone too, which means there's an increasing amount of citation clutter in read mode. Personally I find that off-putting, especially in a literature FAC. What do others think about it? SarahSV (talk) 17:41, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

We really need to keep it the way it was. It's the only way to know which source belongs to which piece of text, and sorting it will take a lot of reading. Once that's done we can start rebuilding. I'm about to roll it back. Victoria (tk) 17:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Bundling is OK with me. I'll be happy to reimplement it. It should not be difficult.
Do not roll back the whole article. You are welcome to boldly delete or rewrite a section, but too much improvement has been made for a rollback to be helpful. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Bundling is a poor idea for a Wikipedia article. Once again, it is fine for written text that does not change, but causes problems when text may be altered, moved around, or exported by other editors. An electronic encyclopedia is best served by a separate citation for each source used. A direct correspondence between the in-line attribution and each single short citation, linked to the long citation, is easier to read and simpler for later editors to mimic the style. --RexxS (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I don't follow; can you explain? I don't see how bundling causes problems for later editors -- surely if I cite [1][2] after a sentence, that's no easier for an editor than if I cite [1] which contains the information in both the first two? What's the scenario where it's a problem? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:44, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
"The sky is blue and the sun is yellow.[1][2]" is easy to convert to "The sky is blue.[1] ... [lots more stuff in between] ... The sun is yellow.[2]" or "The sky is blue, the sea is green and the sun is yellow.[1][3][2]". I can also easily use "The sky is blue.[1]" in another article. Now try that with "The sky is blue and the sun is yellow.[1]" Editors separate and re-arrange statements all the time, and there's no good reason to deliberately make life far more difficult for them, when the simplest solution is the most useful. Do you see the issue now? --RexxS (talk) 22:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, certain technical editors (via AWB) don't allow [1][3][2]. They change the order of footnotes so that they're always chronological, which (because of refname) means the order may change often, regardless of editorial need. One way to ensure they don't move refs out of order is to bundle them. SarahSV (talk) 23:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
RexxS I do see it; I have to say it seems a minor point to me, since in either case the second editor has to actually have the sources in hand to make the change, otherwise they don't know which one goes where. Since the change is just copy, paste and delete the bits you don't need I don't think it's significant. However, I don't want to take a side on this; I don't feel strongly either way -- I don't bundle myself but I don't object when I see others do it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:16, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Sarah, you misunderstand. The references would automatically renumber themselves as [1][2][3] when they display. I was only using [1] as a shorthand for ["source that the sky is blue"]; [2] as shorthand for ["source that the sun is yellow"]; [3] as shorthand for ["source that the sea is green"]. Would you like me to write out the examples again using the words, rather the {1][2] shorthand that Mike Christie introduced? --RexxS (talk) 23:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, this is a problem I encounter regularly. The refs order themselves according to the use of "ref name = " in the article. So the refs for "The sun is gold, but the sky is blue," may be [2][1], because the ref that supports the sky is used higher on the page than the ref that supports the sun. AWB editors invariably move refs so that they read [1][2]. When this matters editorially, bundling is one solution. Stopping AWB from doing that would be the best thing, but requests fall on deaf ears. SarahSV (talk) 23:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
@Sarah: My apologies. I just don't seem to be able to explain myself clearly. When I copied Mike's [1][2], I never thought to change that shorthand. Here's the example I gave Mike written out in full: "The sky is blue and the sun is yellow.["source that the sky is blue"]["source that the sun is yellow"]" is easy to convert to "The sky is blue.["source that the sky is blue"] ... [lots more stuff in between] ... The sun is yellow.["source that the sun is yellow"]" or "The sky is blue, the sea is green and the sun is yellow.["source that the sky is blue"]["source that the sea is green"]["source that the sun is yellow"]". I can also easily use "The sky is blue.["source that the sky is blue"]" in another article. Now try that with "The sky is blue and the sun is yellow.["source that the sky is blue; source that the sun is yellow"]" Also, what do you do when there are three bundled sources citing two facts? The first source and last source are clear; but it's not obvious which fact the second source supports. Look at how many permutations there would be for five bundled cites supporting three facts. I agree completely with you about re-ordering refs; it's a mistake and ought to be reverted on sight. If you ping me, I'd be more than happy to add my voice to yours if you raise the issue with AWB in future. I use the {{r}} template where possible - as Eric showed me - to stop AWB from re-ordering refs (but I wouldn't ask you to that!). --RexxS (talk) 00:50, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
@Mike: Yes, it's not something that I'd recommend systematically removing because of the offence that can be caused to editors who feel they have to work in a particular way. In this case, though, the citations were in such poor shape because of the bad choice and mixture of styles, that trying to unpick the problems was simplified by unbundling. Once that was done, it's really a regressive step to suggest going back for all the reasons that I outline. --RexxS (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Bundling (in good articles) rarely reflects two sources that say different things in the way you suggest, at least in my experience. Usually they say largely the same thing in rather different ways, or add something that is mixed up in the WP text in ways that can't simply be split out as you suggest. Johnbod (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes. Not all articles can be written as fact[1], fact[2]. Lots of the time, it's "I read these sources; if you read them too, you'll see why I wrote this paragraph the way I did." SarahSV (talk) 01:15, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
Precisely. I also bundle basic things mentioned in two or more sources I'm using, so greatly easing the job of verifying them, should anyone wish to do so. Especially when one more concise source is online and a more detailed one is not. Johnbod (talk) 01:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
I'd expect editors with 150,000 edits such as yourselves to use bundling sensibly. My experience in general, and this article in particular, is that most bundling doesn't adhere to the restrictions you place on yourselves. Editors arrive at articles and see something and then use it themselves with exactly the results I outline above. The only sure-fire way to avoid the issues is not to use bundling at all. It is unnecessary complication for little result, not to mention that it bloats the section containing the short citations because you create a different entry for each bundle, as it stops editors making use of named references for duplicates. --RexxS (talk) 03:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

However this is decided to be dealt with, it's an important issue.

  • The current version has this sentence in the "Family" section: "and Cassandra was a member of the aristocratic Leigh family. They married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath".[1][2][3][4]
  • The old version reads like this: "Cassandra was a member of the prominent Leigh family. They married on 26 April 1764 at Walcot Church in Bath."[5]

I've taken a look at all these sources. Tomalin, Greene, and Collins provide extensive information about the Leigh family going back many generations, which is a useful source for the query re family history downpage. Knowing where to find the information, complete with page numbers, will save effort in terms of not having to reproduce research. The Fergus source tells us about the marriage. It's also important to note that Fergus should have her own citation, rather than pointing to Todd, who did not write the essay the text is referencing. When this article is reworked we know where to find valuable information about the family background that then can either be expanded in the text, in a note, or elsewhere (I've only skimmed it, not read it carefully, but because it speaks to Austen's social background some expansion probably wouldn't be undue). Victoria (tk) 21:49, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

  1. ^ Tomalin 1997, pp. 6, 13–16, 147–151, 170–171.
  2. ^ Collins 1994, pp. 10–11.
  3. ^ Fergus, "Biography", in Todd 2005, pp. 5–6.
  4. ^ Greene, "Jane Austen and the Peerage", in Watt, Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, 156–157.
  5. ^ Tomalin, 6, 13–16, 147–151, 170–171; Greene, "Jane Austen and the Peerage", Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays, 156–157; Fergus, "Biography", Jane Austen in Context, 5–6; Collins, 10–11.
  • Welcome back Victoriaearle. I do not know if you read all the posts since you last posted. Of most importance, I think, is to look at a page RexxS prepared, saved as an example of using a feature called 'mode MLA', which is reached from a Permalink he set up. With formats in the references and the ability to jump from the Reference to the full citation in the Bibliography maintained, those full citations are displayed on the page a reader sees. RexxS provides the Permalink to the page in the section below, Talk:Jane Austen#MLA mode for cite book.2C perhaps fully functional.3F RexxS is no longer watching this page, having done so much work. I suggest you look at it. I understand that you value bundling highly. Bundling seems like the last point to settle, in my view. The editor can avoid the need for it by putting each reference just where it supports a point. If you are worried some future editor will remove multiples, I do not see that bundling is some guarantee that your work will never be undone by a future editor. The same change can be made by deleting one or more sources out of a bundled short citation in the Reference list. And the advantages RexxS has listed so carefully for individual references still stand, plus I think the reference list is easier to handle with one reference per number and looks much better, less intimidating and confusing. There are just a couple references to add to the Bibliography so all can be linked from short to long citation, that is, the article has resolved any problems from the added text. What remains is completing the sfn formats and adding some of the essays in as own entries. The idea of putting the individual essays was anticipated already, but the work stopped when this discussion erupted. It is not an issue of contention. Some think, and I am one, that it would be convenient for the reader to see the essays cited in a collection to be listed below the collection, but those details were not worked out yet. Best to try it on the page, see how it looks. --Prairieplant (talk) 10:05, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Full protection?

Given that Jonesey95 is continuing to edit - I just had to revert here, because authors are being substituted for editors, and given this thread that's disregading what's being said here, and that there's quite a lot discussion that needs to be sorted out in regards to the integrity of the text, I think we need to request full protection. SarahSV how do we go about doing that? Post at AN or somewhere else? Victoria (tk) 17:34, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

The first step is to ask Jonesey95 one more time to stop making the changes. If he continues, then ask for protection at WP:RfPP. Jonesey, are you willing to stop? SarahSV (talk) 17:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I am willing to leave the article as it currently stands while we continue to discuss. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. SarahSV (talk) 17:55, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Pinging Prairieplant, who just made a small edit. It helped clarify an unclear citation, but I think we've all agreed to stop editing the article until there is consensus on what to do about the prose. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

No, we haven't all agreed to stop editing the article. You've added citation templates without consensus, in violation of CITEVAR. You've been asked to stop doing that. SarahSV (talk) 18:52, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
We have all stopped. Jonesey stopped already, look at the article. Thanks for the ping, Jonesey95. --Prairieplant (talk) 19:10, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
CITEVAR is not applicable to this article because there is no viable established style. Discussion is good, and pausing in order to share concerns is useful, but just we all need to listen to editors like Fountains-of-Paris who has demonstrated expertise with the literature, Victoria is going to have to learn to listen to other editors such as Jonesey95 who has expertise in citations. The next step needs to be some answers to the questions about what we want from the citations, bearing in mind that rolling-back to a mess of inconsistent, unsuitable formats is not a serious option. --RexxS (talk) 21:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
For the record (once again), I do not agree with this interpretation of CITEVAR. I am willing to change the citations to use a standard format that complies with CITEVAR. From that guideline: "it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page". If all of the Jane Austen articles use, or try to use, a standard format, it probably makes sense for this article to use that format as well. See the section below on citation styles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:58, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
What I am requesting in the section below is to be allowed to use the citation style that works best for me during the writing of the article. I always add years to the short cites and once I have sources in hand (which won't happen overnight) I would make the appropriate fixes immediately so there are no ambiguities. Moreover in terms of copying over, again, I can easily parse the cites as they exist in the other articles and did here until a few days ago here. I'm not opposed to citation templates: in fact I'm quite skilled with them and have formatted quite a few articles (some of which reached FA and are about literature) using templates. The problem, for me, is one of accessibility because I suffer a visual impairment that makes it difficult to see curly brackets and during the writing phase that can get frustrating. This is information RexxS is well aware of because I've posted it before to a page of someone he knew here, and as RexxS rightly points out, I tend to be error prone. My preference is that we work this through collegially, but equally anyone who opposes having me work on this article is free to state so in the section below. I'm simply offering to help, but it's not something I have to do. Victoria (tk) 22:11, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Absolutely. Go ahead and change the prose, inserting short and full citations in your preferred format, and I will gladly format them, whenever you are ready, to match the standard formats that we agree on in the section above. No problem.
Although: it might be a bit easier for you if I could be allowed to finish the work I was doing. I was planning to finish turning all of the "Smith, 'Chapter', in Todd 2005, p. 22" half-baked ugliness into simple "Smith 2005, p. 22" short citations, making the References section look very tidy and probably making section editing easier for you. If this is a bridge too far for you, I can wait. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:18, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
To be honest, ugliness doesn't put me off. Since we don't know which chapter it is in Todd, or who the author is, it will have to be changed anyway, but first I'd have to order the sources. If you want to change, go ahead, but my concern has been since yesterday that either the copied sections need to be deleted and then re-added for proper attribution (thereby losing your work) or we roll back. We don't seem to have reached a decision yet in terms of what to do in that regard. Victoria (tk) 22:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
On a technical note, that's not the case actually. Attribution can be given by a talk page template that links directly to the article versions the text was ported from. This is done routinely with translations to attribute the original. See here, for example Acer (talk) 22:34, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Sorry if I was not clear with my short citation. The intent is to cite words written by Smith in a chapter called "Chapter", on page 22 of a book edited by Todd. The short footnote would cite that as "Smith 2005, p. 22" and link to a full citation of "Smith, Mary. "Chapter". Book about Austen. Ed. Janet Todd. Location: Publisher, 2005." I have maintained that information, which was mostly present; I am suggesting presenting it in a more concise format and linking to a full citation of the chapter, like the one you added yesterday. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
You might want to hold off. There's no author named Smith who contributed to that book. I'm looking at the table of contents right now. Regardless it's moot at this point. Victoria (tk) 23:03, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
It's just an example for illustration. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:21, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Quality of writing of editors much missed at Wikipedia

I think all are agreed that this discussion has run its course. Josh Milburn (talk) 15:28, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some discussion has been raised trying to assess the quality of writing by the late Wadewitz and the ability of other editors presenting themselves here as "star" editors at Wikipedia today. My discovery of the editing of the late Wadewitz was by way of her FA Reception history of Jane Austen page, which I found to be of very high quality. I then did deep mining on her many contributions to the Austen sibling articles and was surprised to find that her Jane Austen biography article was left unfinished and somewhat languishing as of the end of 2015. I have since read many other FA articles at Wikipedia and it seems there is a large variance within the quality of writing within FA articles as a whole which I can designate in four subcategories within the FA class of articles. I regard the late Wadewitz as at the top of this list, even though, as a whole, there are many recognized FA article that are written by others at the lower levels of this quality range.

(i) FA articles written at the post-graduate level of writing and refinement of narrative quality.
(ii) FA articles written at the graduate level of writing and refinement of narrative quality.
(iii) FA article written at the undergraduate level of writing and refinement of narrative quality.
(iv) FA article written at the upper high school level of writing and refinement.

FA articles only cover about one percent of all Wikipedia's five million articles, and the late Wadewitz appears to me to be at the top of that one percent for the FA articles which she wrote. The Jane Austen article being discussed here on this Talk page was never a peer reviewed article during her tenure here at Wikipedia until Rothorpe and I started enhancing it about six months ago. I further consider top editing abilities as being present among some current editors to be comparable to the late Wadewitz here and can name Bishonen, J Milburn, and Miniapolis for GOCE as editors who have made useful and notable edits to the current version of the Jane Austen page during the past six months. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 16:08, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

  • If you're trying to say, "Please stop complaining about the quality of the writing", then wouldn't it be far less confusing if you just said it like that?...  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 04:57, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
    • The issue of literary competence has been raised on this Talk page several times and it is appropriate that claims as to what "star" editor status at Wikipedia should mean be discussed. I have read the FA articles by Sarah now, given to me in the list graciously provided by Johnb, and there is an issue with the topic of her presentation of herself as a "star" editor at Wikipedia. After reading her articles they appear to be written in a competent journalistic tone though not really much more than that, and possibly at the undergraduate degree level. I say this because the late Wadewitz wrote with a much more refined hand and she wrote at a post-graduate level of literary expertise substantially more refined than Sarah's own otherwise somewhat competent style of writing as I see it. The usual litmus test to see if someone has post-graduate skills at Austen scholarship is to ask if they have read Fielding and Richardson, which are essential to responsible Austen scholarship, and I am fairly certain of the answer in this case. I do not know why Sarah keeps bringing up this issue of her "star" quality as an editor, though, in the constant comparison being made on this Talk page to wonderful writings of the late Wadewitz some discussion seems called for by the very number of comments raised by Sarah on this Talk page. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 19:41, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
Four things: one, I suspect you mean "Victoria" instead of "Sarah" and so you might want to apologize to SarahSV; two, I do not consider myself a "star" editor. Perhaps someone has suggested so to you in email, but certainly it's not at all how I see myself; three, we don't comment about editors. There's probably a blue link for that somewhere, but I don't know it well enough to find it quickly; 4; you would be quite wrong in terms of "Pamela" and "Tom Jones" but that's baiting. Victoria (tk) 19:47, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
No, as some editors like RexxS could probably tell you, its usually Clarissa which is discussed in this context. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 19:49, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
Pamela precedes Clarissa and I will be following the scholarship. This is only another deflection. The bottom line is that anyone can edit and for some reason certain editors have made a decision that I cannot edit here. That is a severe problem. Victoria (tk) 20:00, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

We never make allegations like this, directed either at myself of Sarah. There's another elsewhere that I shouldn't have put here and brought attention to it. Pinging again Floquenbeam, Johnuniq, John. Or anyone else because these comments must stop. I must go offline right now for personal reasons. Victoria (tk) 20:53, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I have to go offline too, but Fountains-of-Paris these attacks on editors are unacceptable, and they miss the mark considerably. Anyone wanting to learn how to write an FA would be wise to watch how Victoria works, and the IP editor is clearly familiar with Austen and should be welcomed. That's all I've got time for. I hope these comments about others stop once and for all. SarahSV (talk) 20:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
There are no attacks here implied or otherwise, and the two of you have brought up the issue of competence many, many times here on the Austen Talk page and on my Talk page. I recognize both of you as FA authors, though RexxS appears to have a somewhat lower opinion of Victoria's ability to edit the Austen page based on his previous comments on this Talk page. I have a high regard for the quality of writing in the edits of the late Wadewitz which I see as being at the post-graduate level of competence. Both of you write at a peer review level of competence, though its not at the very high level of writing which I associate with the editing of the late Wadewitz as I have encountered her writings here at Wikipedia. You are in the peer review level of competence as everyone can see, and why not acknowledge the very high quality of writing of the late Wadewitz in the memory of her many fine contributions to Wikipedia. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
Fountains-of-Paris, I've been monitoring this page mostly out of interest as an FAC coordinator, and I wish to stay uninvolved in the content disputes. However, I have to say that your continued appeals to authority and bizarre commentary on other editors' writing skills are not doing you any favors. You may be feeling defensive because your work on this article has endured substantial criticism. But, that's what we do here—comment on content. What we don't do is comment on the competence of other editors and repeatedly name-drop in an attempt to score points. Your scale for assessing the writing skill of others is without merit or logic. Assigning assessment labels to other editors in an attempt to marginalize their contributions amounts to a personal attack and it won't be tolerated here. Comment on content, not editors please. --Laser brain (talk) 21:43, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
While replying to a comment at my talk, I reviewed this page again and am dismayed to see that there is ongoing commentary on other editors (including IPs who are editors like everyone else). That needs to stop or be stopped. Going to WP:ANI is a pain and a waste of time, and I hope that Laser brain can monitor the situation and apply corrective suggestions if needed. The "somewhat lower opinion" stuff above is rubbish and has no place on an article talk page. Comments like that are rubbish because they destroy collaboration and because they are content free—even if it could be established that an editor had a not-so-great ability, that "fact" would have no bearing on whether their current opinion on content had merit. Proposals are not assessed based on the proposer's status. Johnuniq (talk) 23:18, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
This discussion in this section is leading nowhere and is now finished and closed per @Johnuniq and Laser brain:. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 14:44, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The case for citation templates

There are good reasons why citation templates should be used, here and throughout Wikipedia. These include the emission of machine-readable metadata (specifically COinS), that allow our readers to save citations to library tools like Zotero; this is a great benefit to students and academics, and even to other editors, who may wish to cite the same documents in other Wikipedia articles, or in Wikidata.

Citation templates also allow readers (and editors) to apply their own choice of styling, such as highlighting citation authors, or hiding access dates. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

  • But not the option to use templates for pure MLA, APA, or Chicago, because unlike the rest of the English-speaking world, we at Wikipedia Cannot Have That.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 18:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
    • I can only speak to what happens in the US, but here students are taught to copy the proper format (as opposed to Wikipedia's idea of CITEVAR) from whereever they find the information, i.e., in the form of MLA, APA etc, which they usually choose from a drop-down menu, and they are graded on the state of their bibliographies. What we're serving up will ensure points deducted and quite possibly failing grades (this is no exaggeration, teachers are quite strict about these things) so we're doing them no favors. If we're supplying refs to students, the February or earlier revision/s are better. Victoria (tk) 19:26, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
      • As a recent-enough student from the US to comment, professors and teachers (college and pre-college) provide the format and the citation must conform to that format, regardless of the source. So this point is at-best a wash. Most of the savvy students these days use Zotero, which allows both for taking a machine-structured source citation from e.g. a website and also allows for outputting that to a format of their choice. In this regard, machine-structure is clearly superior for students. --Izno (talk) 19:55, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
    • That supposes that bikeshed matters like MLA vs APA vs Chicago are more important than (re-)usability. I prefer function over form. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:35, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
      • Andy, I respect you a lot as a veteran editor and educator, but with all respect, you have shown up late to this party and poked a hornets' nest that was just beginning to settle down. That is frustrating.
        There is a section above to comment on the citation format that is desired for this article. After a very long, contentious discussion, we have basically agreed to let Victoria work on the prose content of the article for a while, after which we will resolve the formatting of the citations.
        If CITEVAR said that templated citations were better, that would be one thing, but it does not. If you want it to say that, the right forum is Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:57, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
        • It's best that I step out and prefer not to elucidate on five-year-old disputes. But it's also best that we don't characterise it as something that Victoria (who now refers to herself in third person) wishes because that tends to throw fuel on the fire. Re profs and students: it really depends on one's position in the classroom, who submits grades, who receives them, but profs don't choose willy-nilly, it has to do with the discipline. Anything to do with language arts/English/literature is always MLA. Victoria (tk) 21:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
        • Is there now a policy that only those involved in the early part of discussion may participate in that discussion? And that people not so involved may not start a new sub-section? If so, I seem to have missed that. Your comment about CITEVAR is irrelevant to my point, while at the same time offering nothing to refute it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:30, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
          • It's not clear who you're responding to, Pigsonthewing, as you've changed the indenting, but yes, for CITEVAR purposes one expects pro-template (and pro-infobox) editors not to swarm a page they otherwise have no interest in writing, simply to achieve their preferred format before moving on. SarahSV (talk) 18:02, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
            • It's perfectly clear who I was responding to, regardless of the fact that I fixed the indenting, (per WP:LISTGAP). I'll treat your snide swarm comment with the contempt it so clearly deserves. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:25, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
              Anyone can comment on the citation style they prefer, here or elsewhere, but I think the decision on what the article should use should be left to the editors who are putting in the work on the article, or who plan to. That includes Victoria, Fountains of Paris, and Jonesey 95, and perhaps others. I think the opinions of the rest of us are input to their decision. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
          • @Victoriaearle: If the primary function of citations in Wikipedia was to act as an exemplar for students writing papers, you would have a point. But it isn't. Citations are to help a reader find the source supporting our text (and hopefully read some of it). If any of my students had been told to use Harvard referencing and had copied a pseudo-Chicago style from Wikipedia, I'd have failed them as being too stupid for my class. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and MLA isn't a suitable style for use on Wikipedia. --RexxS (talk) 21:03, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
            • MLA Handbook just released a new version (which I don't have) but the in previous version they're not that bothered how to do the short cites. I.e if author, page number is sufficient, then that's fine. If not, then add the date. I always add the date because I think it's good practice. Purdue University's On-line Writing Lab (OWL) is a good resource for some things, not as good for others, depending on whether it needs to be updated. Comma usage doesn't require as much updating as sourcing (MLA has been in a state of change in the last 10 years or so). I'm familiar with that page but prefer to rely on the manual. Unfortunately it's not available online without a subscription. I wonder whether the WMF might spring for some accounts? Regardless, I'm not concerned about how to do this. The first thing is to weed out any text/source problems that might have crept in over the years, the next is to get the new text in. Victoria (tk) 19:47, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
    • @Lingzhi: Is it not permitted to create new citation templates (like, eg, {{cite LSA}})? Graham (talk) 06:31, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
  • It seems everyone missed my point. I prefer templates over non-templates, for consistency within an article. But consistence across articles is what I am very strongly opposed to. Why is it that Wikipedia is not permitted (yes I did say "not permitted") to have 3 new flavors of the cite book/cite journal etc.: |style-guide=mla, |style-guide=apa, and |style-guide=chicago? My point is very relevant: this dustup WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED if we had |style-guide=mla instead of forcing editors to do it by hand.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

MLA

Let me make three points as clearly as I can:

  • Modern Language Association (MLA) is a style used for written papers that are not subject to update. It uses parenthetical in-line short cites (author page) and a full citation in a "Works cited" section.[1] If multiple books by the same author are cited, MLA uses (author short title page).[2] On Wikipedia the Ormulum is the nearest in construction to MLA, except Geogre realised the problem and actually uses something closer to Harvard referencing - which would be (author, year: page).
  • This article has never used MLA referencing. Never. If you claim otherwise, show me an oldid of the article with parenthetical in-line referencing using just (author year)/(author short title page).
  • MLA is unsuitable for use in Wikipedia. So is any custom style that uses short citations with (author page) as default. This is because the text is not fixed. One editor may cite <Roth, Barry. An annotated bibliography of Jane Austen studies, 1973-83. The University Press of Virginia, 1985.> and correctly use <Ross 2012> as the short cite for page 2012. Another editor may later cite <Roth, Barry. An annotated bibliography of Jane Austen studies, 1984-94, Ohio University Press, 1996.> and incorrectly use the short cite <Ross 2003> as the short cite for page 2003 of that work. Then nobody can tell which work supports which piece of text in the article, without having to consult both works and doing the detective work. Unsuitable for collaborative work. Let's say the second editor realises that it's a "multiple-works-by-the-same-author" situation when they add the long citation. They then have to make up a short title for their short cites - perhaps <Ross An. Bib. JA Stud. 1984-94 2003>. You need good eyesight to see that 1984-94 is part of the "short" title, not another page range. But worse is that all the original <Ross pageno> short cites have now become incorrect. The second editor has to find all of the <Ross pageno> cites and convert them to <Ross An. Bib. JA Stud. 1973-83 pageno>. Good luck with that. It also makes importing text from other articles problematical because different editors can make up different short titles like <Ross AnBib73-83 pageno> which don't fit the convention used in the other article. Unsuitable for use in Wikipedia. Period. --RexxS (talk) 18:58, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "MLA: In-Text Citations". University of North Carolina.
  2. ^ "Purdue OWL: MLA Formatting and Style Guide". Purdue University.
  • RexxS, when I talk about MLA here, I've been referring to the style used in the long cites. (I don't know how others are using it, but that's what I mean.) This was accompanied by "Smith, 100" in short cites. Whatever you want to call it (call it Style Blah), it's used in the Jane Austen suite of articles, which we may need to move text to and from. Ideally, therefore, the citation style should be the same in all the articles for ease of movement, which I believe it was until recently. SarahSV (talk) 19:08, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
    • Thank you for clarifying that, Sarah. I hope you can see that "Smith, 100" is unsuitable for use anywhere where the content can be changed by different editors for the reasons above. Nevertheless, Adrianne requested that we use MLA-style citations in the Bibliography section, and I think we should do our best to respect her wishes where we can. I don't think we can manage on an article this size with anything shorter than consistent Harvard-style short cites <Smith 1983, p.103>, but similar variants (e.g. no p/ppp) are possible. For the moment, it's easiest for Jonesey to use the default settings in the CS1 templates to iron out the problems - that shows as <Smith, LeRoy W (1983). Jane Austen and the drama of woman. Macmillan.> rather than <Smith, LeRoy W. Jane Austen and the drama of woman. Macmillan, 1983.>, but once the reference errors are sorted out - and Ucucha's script shows a handful left to clean up - we can convert the display to whatever folks want. I'm considering the idea of forking the CS1 templates to allow an editor to set the display of the long cites as MLA or Chicago or what you will, so that citations would be very easy to reuse between articles using different display styles, just by changing |display_as=MLA to |display_as=APA or whatever to match the style used in the destination article. Creating that functionality would be quite a bit of work for me, but if it helped reduce the sort of problems we've seen here, it would be worthwhile. --RexxS (talk) 20:50, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

I give in

More than once, I have fixed the heading indentation this page, so that sections are indented under the original sections to which they reply.

My edits have been undone, multiple times, by more than one editor. In the process of doing so, the page's HTML has at times been broken, and this section has repeatedly been orphaned from the one to which it was also a response ("Citation style"); and indenting it below one to which it plainly is not a response.

There are only two plausible explanations for this: "not invented here", or an egocentric insistence that the individual's comments are so important that they must be accorded the highest level of heading possible. The implausible reasons that have been given elsewhere (such as "[properly nesting headings] prevents archiving") have been refuted; such refutations have previously been ignored.

Have it your way; the refusal to understand how headings work (or are supposed to work) is ironic on page which only requires so many sections because some editors are apparently proud to refuse to understand how reference templates work. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:27, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

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