Talk:Bruno Maddox/Archive 1

Comments

I am intrigued by Little Blue Dress now! That quote by Maddox was hysterical - "clearly a 21st-century novel"! Anyway, I do think that you are correct in expressing doubts about the "Themes" section. "Satire" is a style of writing and it usually elevated to the lofty term of "genre". "A Modest Proposal", for example, is one of the most famous English-language satires. I also think that the "Science" section doesn't quite work yet. It could, but most of the information in it is about Maddox's background and not about the material he is writing. It sounds like he is doing "science-writing" or something like that. The information that is in the current "Science" section, I would include in the paragraph about his Discover column in the "Recent essays" section. Take all of this with a bag of salt, of course, since I am not familiar with this writer.

Okay. I'm going to try something out. Writing style is definitely more accurate. I'll see what I can do. But you should definitely read My Little Blue Dress if you have the time.

Genres seems to be more accurate at the moment, and popular science as the sub-section. I'll try to describe Popular science better, so it doesn't seem like he writes about hard science.

I like that change. Awadewit | talk 18:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

When it comes to the dash vs. the name, I would go with the dash for aesthetic reasons, but that is a personal preference. You might consider, however, that I did have that one comment at the FLC for the List of works by Joseph Priestley mentioning the repetitiveness of the list.

I like the dash. What do you think of the mix of the numbers and the squares to numerate the articles? I'm thinking stick with just squares as is the norm. The only useful thing the numbers offer is a total count of how many articles there are, which is quite useful.-BillDeanCarter 08:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

All squares and total count listed at the top.-BillDeanCarter 14:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I quite follow what you mean by "mix of the numbers and the squares". Awadewit | talk 18:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I was using the # instead of the * when the sub-section in the bibliography was complete... so you could see that so and so article was the fifth article, and the last was the 17th article. It didn't look that nice because the #'s wouldn't align properly with the *'s. But it isn't that vital to have an article count to begin with so I may just remove the number of articles count I have trailing sub-section titles.-BillDeanCarter 18:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Good luck with the FAC! Awadewit | talk 06:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.-BillDeanCarter 08:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Some review thoughts

Some thoughts on reading through:

• Is there any way to avoid using both "graduating" and "graduated" in the same sentence in the second paragraph of "Early Years"?

  Okay, separated them and elaborated.-BillDeanCarter 14:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• The last sentence of "Early Years" rather overlaps with the first sentence of the next section. Perhaps the former could be cut to just mention the scathing reviews; if that's what got him the job at SPY, say so in the next section.

  It helped.. can't say for sure. I added back in a quote about his vicious book reviewing style. It just wouldn't work putting how he got hired because of his scathing reviews... then I was pretty much repeating the section before. And besides it wasn't the only reason probably.-BillDeanCarter 14:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• How long did he spend writing My Little Blue Dress? He says two and a half "longer than [he] should have done", so three years? Then the next paragraph says "two years"; even if this should be corrected to three, why repeat it here?

I removed mention keeping it simple.-BillDeanCarter 06:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Maddox contributed several book reviews to The New York Post in 2004 and 2005." This is unsourced, which doesn't worry me too much as I doubt it's controversial. More importantly it's out of sequence chronologically, and doesn't belong in that para. Could it be moved after the next para, and somehow made to flow with the surrounding material?

Yes, likewise done with references.-BillDeanCarter 06:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• "His Discover columns are often criticized by various groups; examples of controversial essays include "Stuck in Creationism" to "Fictional Reality", a column on the current state of science fiction." Seems something's missing here; have you dropped a comment on the controversy about the first essay? The "to" between the two essays seems meaningless.

  the comment was dropped by WillowW and I think that was because it basically mentioned creationism thrice in the phrase. It went.. Creationists were angered about the "stuck in creationism" article about the hypocrisy of creationism. It was ugly. But I remove the to replaced with and, and left the comment about SF because that article has really been the most controversial so far I think.-BillDeanCarter 14:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• The "Satire" section repeats almost verbatim one or two earlier phrases about the novel; might be good to elide or at least vary some of the repeated material.

  I removed the redundant stuff and rephrased it a little. Let me know if the rephrasing works or not.-BillDeanCarter 14:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• There's something odd about "the contents . . . sound as though Maddox himself had a hand in writing it". I know this is part quote, so you can make it "sounds", which would fix the number error. Changing "it" to "them" at the end sounds wrong too, though. If there's a way to clean this up it would be nice.

  I did some rewording on this one myself; see what you think. Mike Christie (talk) 11:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

  Seems good. Thanks.-BillDeanCarter 14:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• Popular Science -- again this repeats material from before; can it be varied?

  I cut out some stuff, kept it new. with out the redundant stuff.

That's all I can spot for now. Hope that's useful. Mike Christie (talk) 03:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

To capitalize or not to capitalize: SPY and GEAR

Outriggr brought up in a review: is there a particular reason for capitalizing SPY and GEAR magazines? Their own articles don't do so! –Outriggr ♠ 01:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It is a good question. After reading enough articles about SPY and GEAR I've come to the conclusion that they are to be capitalized. Maddox's biography at Penguin, probably vetted by the former editor-in-chief of SPY capitalizes SPY and Discover magazine, whose owner also previously owned GEAR, capitalizes GEAR. I've seen it done here and there, different ways, but by those publications who are more concerned with being accurate about the spelling of SPY and GEAR seem to capitalize. News wires are just going to write it however they want unless they know better. So I believe atm the best thing to do is to capitalize SPY and GEAR.-BillDeanCarter 12:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Additionally the Voice: AIGA Journal of Design capitalizes SPY.-BillDeanCarter 14:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it ." or ". ?

Is it even that simple? If I paraphrase a phrase that doesn't have a period at the end of it, would using ". ? be the right thing to do or should I still do ."?

Sample phrase taken off the front page of The New York Times: The plan comes at a time of growing attacks from Democrats who say the president has remained on the sidelines amid anxiety over the mortgage crisis.

1st set

• Sample paraphrase: The New York Times reports the "president has remained on the sidelines."
• Sample paraphrase: The New York Times reports the "president has remained on the sidelines".

2nd set

• Sample paraphrase: The New York Times reports there is "anxiety over the mortgage crisis."
• Sample paraphrase: The New York Times reports there is "anxiety over the mortgage crisis".

In the first set there is no period at the end of the phrase. In the second set there is a period at the end of the phrase. Which of these styles in the two sets are correct?-BillDeanCarter 11:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Quotation_marks. This matches my preference, which is why I am suggesting you view it. :) Are the two quotes above sentence fragments? The first, no, the second, yes, so I'd pick 1a and 2b. –Outriggr ₪ 21:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll follow those guidelines.-BillDeanCarter 05:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Fundamental Revision of Wikipedia: Bruno Maddox article

I have attempted to undertake a significant edit of this article, which was automatically reverted by Cluebot as suspected vandalism. I would like to persevere and edit this article and it's my intention here to explain my reasons and methodology.

I do understand that this is a 'featured' article and that a lot of people have put a significant amount of effort into polishing it with excellent footnoting and cross-referencing etc, and I, in no way, wish to denigrate their superb work. However, I believe that it is significantly flawed and requires a proper investigation, debate and, I believe, revision.

Self-authoring The article was began and the highest proportion of its amendments have been made by BillDeanCarter. I have absolutely no idea who BillDeanCarter is. However, his major, almost sole interests are: Bruno Maddox and William Monahan. According to the most recent edit of Bruno Maddox's Wikipedia entry, William Maddox and William Monahan are good friends. I think, at the very least, BillDeanCarter cannot be regarded as a strictly neutral disinterested party and that therefore the greater proportion of this article has to be considered as self-authoring unless it can be proven otherwise.

Notability Bruno Maddox is, without doubt, a suitable subject for a Wikipedia article. He is a published novelist and a freelance journalist with a publication history. I have to say, however, that I consider this article unbalanced. There is a discrepancy between his notability and the length and detail of this article. At the end of the day, he is a freelance journalist who has published a novel. His stint at Spy is certainly notable but the rest appears to be self-promoting froth.

Specific criticisms While it may very well be possible to supply hyperlinks that prove a journalist published articles, as a student, in student journals, this is not to say that it is desirable. Furthermore, while quotes from the writer may be found on the internet on his experience of selling his first novel, again this does not make them necessarily relevant.

I would also contend that it is unnecesary and indeed misleading to link to every article the writer has written as a freelance journalist and to confuse complaints about them from predictable sources (see the comments about Maddox's columns in Discover) with genuine controversy that was reported elsewhere.

It is surely also undesirable to include only favourable quotes from reviews of Maddox's first novel and to disregard negative comments.

This is simply a few details of what I consider to be unbalanced about this article. There are others too numerous to cite at this time but that all seem to suggest suspected self-boosting.

Possible remedies For all the reasons cited above, I believe that this article should be properly edited and cut. It would be far more succinct and relevant if its length gave an indication of Maddox's importance in US publishing - and was therefore much shorter. But above and beyond that, it needs to be cleansed of what appears to be self-promoting material. I attempted a full but sensitive edit, keeping the existing categories (although I personally believe that at least half of them are largely irrelevant) but simply trimming the most obviously unnecessary material.

Conclusion As I said in the introduction to this, I have no desire to criticise other Wikipedian editors who have worked so hard to bring this article up to scratch. However, I think that it's still necessary to consider the broader issues here and I welcome your comments. FYI: I am a relatively experienced Wikipedian editor who has chosen to enter this debate under a new log-in name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pokrovka (talk • contribs) 23:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Just try making smaller edits, by section first and remember that you need to source any additional information.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 23:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted to cluebots version here, as the user has deleted quite a bit of information, and some of it was even sourced information. I don't see a consensus here for this. - Rjd0060 (talk) 07:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Self-authoring

Thanks for contributing to the debate but I'd still like to re-iterate my larger point and in particular my question about your relationship with the subject of the article? Are you Bruno Maddox? Or William Monaghan? Pokrovka (talk) 07:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Footnoting

Another problem I've just realised is that much of the extensive footnoting in this article refers to LexisNexis. This search engine is subscription-only so there's no way of verifying if these notes are accurate. And, moreover, they're pointless as you can't cross-reference to them. I suggest that all claims that only have a LexisNexis source should be deleted. Pokrovka (talk) 13:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

You can probably find a research library nearby where you can get a hold of LexisNexis. Alot of newspaper articles are relegated to their archives after a year or so, and LexisNexis conveniently stores them all in one place. It's a very useful resource for that kind of thing, archived newspapers. Not everything is available for free on the Internet.-BillDeanCarter (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

No, BillDeanCarter, I do not have a research library nearby where I can access LexisNexis and footnotes without a valid hyperlink cannot be considered properly sourced and therefore should be removed. I do wish you'd answer my previous questions about your identity and special interest in Bruno Maddox and William Monahan. By evading the issue, you're simply confirming my belief that you are either Maddox or a close friend of his in which case I think this whole article needs revision. Pokrovka 14:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's knowledge base does not revolve around whether or not you have access to certain books or certain newspaper archives.-BillDeanCarter 19:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Self-authoring alert

I have tried to open up the debate about this entry and in particular I have asked direct questions of the person who has been instrumental in writing most of it - BillDeanCarter - and the only response he has given so far is to revert my edits and to refuse to enter into this discussion. What's more he removed the mark I put at the top of the page that suggests that this entry may be self-authored. I don't want to get into an editing war so I'd appreciate it if a) BillDeanCarter could come back to me with answers to my previous questions and b) others could have a look at what I'm saying and join the debate. Pokrovka (talk) 13:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

A-ha!

I see that in May a lot of other people thought the way that I did and voted for this article's deletion, complained that it was far too lengthy and detailed for somebody of such un-notability and I'm not sure why it was never deleted other than the intervention of BillDeanCarter (see below where I've pasted the debate).

Revision as of 04:41, 2 May 2007

List of the writings of Bruno Maddox

   List of the writings of Bruno Maddox (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Delete - Wikipedia is not a directory of every single byline of a magazine writer ever. Otto4711 04:28, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

   I totally know!?! OMG, Ronald Reagan has an article?! Are we now going to have articlez for every President of an institution ever!-BillDeanCarter 22:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

   * Partial merge with Bruno Maddox to list the publications he wrote for, but not each article because that's WP:NOT#INFO. YechielMan 04:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

       * Comment - I copied and pasted the names of the publications from the list article to the name article to address this concern. Otto4711 05:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

   * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- Pax:Vobiscum 15:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
   * Delete/Merge: Heck, I don't see a lot about Maddox himself that's notable, never mind this non-notable fork. Any sources that satisfy WP:V about Maddox himself?  RGTraynor  16:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

   Who the hell is Maddox? I've never heard of him. I don't want to know about what I don't know! heh heh (i just went for run so me laughs are shorter)-BillDeanCarter 22:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

   * Delete. We can't start listing every single magazine and newspaper article a journalist has written. Croxley 04:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
   * Delete Wikipedia is NOT a Directory, and thats exactly what this article is. Any significant writings by Maddox should be included in his article, the rest should be nuked. More important authors like Dickens and Hemingway, do not have lists of their writings. The page was created by someone who has a fetish for these pages (similar ones were created for William Monahan and Aaron Sorkin) Black Harry 18:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

   nukey nukey nukey!-BillDeanCarter 22:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

   * Comment: user billdeancarter moved the page in an attempt to dodge the debate on this. I moved it back to its original name and replaced the AfD tag on it. Was this the right step to take? Also, why do these debates take so long when no one has voted to oppose the deletion? Black Harry 18:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

   Speedy close That dodging bastard!? Let's burn him! I don't know who Bruno Maddox is, but let's not find out. It looks like User:BillDeanCarter (aka me) is trying to hide this list on his user page now. How nutty is that? AfD rules!, me got me a bumper sticker.-BillDeanCarter 22:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

   * Delete Im not even sure if Bruno Maddox deserves an article, let along a stand alone bibliography 71.255.163.220 02:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

   Well, you're an anon but I want to say this. Bruno is from the prestigious Maddox family, all writers and all achievers. He has written much as a journalist, published an acclaimed and IMO brilliant novel called My Little Blue Dress, not to mention he was editor-in-chief of Spy magazine. Oh. Hmmm. I changed my mind, Caylie42 at MySpace has done so much more with that erupting volcano of hers. Nuke Bruno Maddox.-BillDeanCarter 04:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

   * Delete WP:NOT#DIR. And in reply to Black Harry - yes, replacing the article and the AfD tag after it was vandalized by BillDeanCarter was the right thing to do. Anyone can place a copy of an article in their own userspace for reference, but they must not move it directly to their userspace. Judging by BillDeanCarter's trolling behaviour here, that page move was intended to be disruptive. Masaruemoto 03:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

   Dude, I am the farthest thing from a troll. Look at my contributions. They have had intent, they have had depth. What have you contributed in terms of actual writing?-BillDeanCarter 04:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Article for Deletion discussion

Sorry, that's not the easiest to read above but the article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_the_writings_of_Bruno_Maddox —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pokrovka (talk • contribs) 13:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)