Talk:Agatha Christie/Archive 2

"Other Comments"
Archaeology section; I felt that your addition was both interesting and well structured. I read it over and didn't really find anything that was glaringly out of place. Well done. Effort was obviously put into this piece and I feel that it is a good addition to the wiki page. Rehansen (talk) 18:19, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

If you also wanted to talk about Agatha Christie in media and archaeological terms here is a list of movies influenced by her works http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002005/ (Heidi.Goodine (talk) 21:45, 29 March 2012 (UTC)) Good job!

Your section provides interesting information and insights on the subject of an archaeological influence. Seemed to fit in well with the article. Really liked your use of quotes in your first part. Perhaps more detail in your "Popular novels with heavy archaeological influences" would be useful, but is not necessary. Also if you wanted more information on Agatha Christie and archaeology in the media and pop culture you could look at the Poirot and Miss Marple (particularly the former as there are definite archaeological influences/references) Masterpiece Mystery miniseries that are based on her books and are quite faithful to them. Overall a well rounded, organized, and detailed section. GillMargS (talk) 13:45, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Archie and the Air Force
Archibald Christie could not have joined the Air Force in 1912. The R.A.F. did not exist until the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service in April 1918. 109.154.20.25 (talk) 15:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Hmm. Fair point. It does say "air force" (lowercase), which may intended to be sort of generic rather than indicative of an entity bearing that name. Since this content appears to be sourced to a book, we need to either consult the book or find another reliable source that specifically states which of the two he joined. Rivertorch (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Stereotypes
In the Critical Reception section, not sure why it is there, is poorly written and makes little sense. 86.128.241.121 (talk) 19:25, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Is it necessary to quote Hitchens? He's recalling an incident from decades ago, and may have been affected by the glib cliche that "Christie was anti-Semitic". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.35.240.108 (talk) 20:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

made change to intro
Made change to intro. Changed the sentence from "best remembered for" to "most famous for" Lastitem (talk) 06:02, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * "Remembered for" wasn't terribly accurate (do most of Christie's readers actually remember her?) but "most famous for" has its own problems, as implied by the editor who reverted your change. I've subsequently changed it to "best known for", which I think is accurate and non-"puffy". What do you all think? Rivertorch (talk) 18:41, 18 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree, RT. Span (talk) 18:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree too. Thanks everyone for the feedback.  Lastitem (talk) 19:05, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Guiness Book of World Records
I changed "according to the Guiness book" she's the best selling author, to the "Guiness book" lists her as the best selling author. Fewer words. Actually we shouldn't even mention Guiness book at all in the main text since everything in wikipedia is according to someone. Lastitem (talk) 19:10, 23 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I think it's all right to mention the source by name in that context. Rivertorch (talk) 23:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Fair enough Lastitem (talk) 13:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Rights of The Mousetrap
I think she gave the rights of The Mousetrap to her grandson much earlier than 1975. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grushenka (talk • contribs) 10:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

In her autobiography written 1965, she stated that Matthew had the rights to the play the implication being he always had them or got them very soon after. It was certainly not clear at the time Mousetrap would be so successful as she wrote that Matthew often got the good fortune. It might be possible that TV/Film/Novel rights were transferred later (Mousetrap was originally a short radio play which Christie adapted for the stage, the novel came later). Timdownie (talk) 11:09, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Apparently I am "wrong"
To the IP who undid my partial revert and loudly "invited" me to explain why I'd partially reverted: first, a procedural note. The onus is on the editor who adds new content or changes longstanding content to explain, so you're approaching this backwards. I'm not going to revert again—at least not immediately—but you can't just bludgeon your changes onto the page. (Please read this essay, which explains best practice in such situations.) You might also consider that blustering about another editor's being "wrong" doesn't improve matters. Nonetheless, since at least two of your changes were unqualified improvements, I'm going to go out on a limb and do as you've asked. Here are the changes I reverted: The wording change is okay, but that's a blatant misuse of a semicolon. If you're going to word it that way, it needs to be a comma. While the wording you changed is a bit awkward, there's absolutely no reason to put her first name in parentheses. She's widely known simply as "Miss Marple"; however, it would be acceptable to say "Miss Jane Marple". Adding "who also became well known" takes the meaninglessly vague and subjective "well known" phrase and makes the sentence unnecessarily wordy, and the "also" doesn't have an absolutely clear antecedent; better to ditch this entirely. You've moved the opening quotation mark in a direct quote from a book but given no indication that you've verified that the material you added to the quote was in the book. Have you checked to see if the phrase "Both Jane and Gran" appears in the book? The "as with" construction is needlessly awkward, and replacing "with" with "and" is potentially confusing because it conflates author and character. The sentence could use a complete rewrite, but your change is not an improvement. You removed the hyphen from quoted material but gave no indication that the article got the quote wrong. The sentence itself carries no citation, so the provenance of the quote is uncertain, but we don't remove hyphens from direct quotes even if they're superfluous. While that author is frequently referred to as "Conan Doyle", the well-sourced section at his article suggests it's better simply to use "Doyle". I suspect you're trying to convey that it's not the same nursery rhyme, but your wording is awkward and doesn't make that any clearer. The "then" was unnecessary, so this change was helpful. Sorry I missed that one. It's usually easier if one makes such changes one or two at a time so that each can be explained in a separate edit summary. That way, it's much easier to understand the reasoning behind each change and also easier to revert them individually instead of en masse. Rivertorch (talk) 22:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC) Added: I see that my partial revert was restored by another editor while I wrote the above. Rivertorch (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 * the long-running character detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories. → the detective Hercule Poirot, who became a long-running character in many of Christie's works; appearing in 33 novels and 54 short stories.
 * Well-known Miss Marple → Miss (Jane) Marple, who also became well known,
 * "Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst" → "Both Jane and Gran always expected the worst"
 * Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes → As with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
 * ego-centric → egocentric
 * Doyle → Conan Doyle
 * Seven stories are inspired by a nursery rhyme → Seven stories are each inspired by a nursery rhyme
 * after which she would then go back → after which she would go back


 * Thanks for all that. Very honorable of you. It fully support your stance. Anna (talk) 23:19, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

You can't be wrong yet
Like Anna Roy, I admire your response, which at this moment I haven't fully read. As my bold summary note indicated (bold simply because I did not want it to be missed, as lower case summaries occasionally are - in my experience), when your reasons were given on this talk page I would show you. But by implication I might also withdraw. I did not expect such a full response, and indeed it is truly gratifying. If I expected anything, it was nothing.

Taking your points in order:

I am not interested in reading any essay or any best practice on Wikipedia. I gave that up years ago. I donate my contributions free of charge and in accordance with my knowledge and beliefs. If they fall short of the requirements of the Wikipedia committee, so be it. Wiki don't have to publish them and I don't have to donate them.

Bluster. I have a direct style and approach, which has developed because that is the method that I have found serves me best in dealing with life. It will not change, although it may dilute subject to circumstances.

The "blatant misuse of a semicolon" presumably alludes to a Wikipedia norm, or some other alleged authority; which of course I ignore. The comma, semicolon, colon and stop are merely indicative variations in the length of the pause that one would apply to a break in wording while speaking. No more, no less. Consequently it has a degree of subjectivity, but not much. I place a semi in the position where the pause needs to be longer that for a comma, but shorter than that for a colon. Source - Fowler. I care not for any other view.

Miss Marple. I'm not sure I know what the difference is between 'no reason to...' and 'absolutely no reason to....'. However, as you wrote the latter I'll explain that in this case it is a matter of continuity. In the uncorrected text you will see that the first reference is to 'Miss Marple', but in the next sentence she is referred to as just 'Jane'. WHO THE HELL IS JANE? No-one has mentioned a Jane. How am I supposed to know who this Jane is? Now, there are a few ways of dealing with this omission and enlightening the poor reader beforehand. If one writes 'Miss Jane Marple' one is not adhering to the strong convention that she is universally known as 'Miss Marple', but by putting Jane in paretheses one is both letting the reader know her first name but at the same time indicating that she is generally known as Miss Marple. So when he gets to 'Jane' the reader will not falter.

I've read your tortuous claim/explanation about the 'well-known' bit, and I think I know what you are trying to say, but not exactly. Suffice it to say that 'Well-known Miss Marple was introduced...' cannot stand under any circumstances because when she was introduced she was not well-known. Neither can 'Both Jane and Gran "always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and was...." be allowed to remain: the grammar must be corrected, either at the back or the front, and whether it is a direct quote or not. Ungrammatical direct quotes in a serious encyclopaedia must be corrected. Wiki strives to be a world class serious publication and it is inconceivable that 'Both was' can remain, whoever said or wrote it.

INTERMISSION - This is all I can write today. I will continue as soon as I can. Meanwhile I leave you with these thoughts:

Owing to the odd way that Wikipedia works it can never be a first-class publication, and it will never attract the best writers because they want, rightly, for articles to be solely their work, to be consistent and to remain. This much should be obvious.

We know that Wiki have been losing good editors in droves, and in fact they lost me (whether I was good or not) a few years back. But I come back now and again when a certain article interests me, but only to find the same annoyances. I currently feel that two aspects stand above others, and they are Composition and Continuity. Basics like Grammar, Comprehension and Style should really be able to look after themselves. But if you end up with large articles that have a mish-mash of composition and little or no continuity you will always have an inferior product. JHB (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your candid reply and for logging in to make it. Wikipedia, like the society that spawned it, is full of perennial petty annoyances. Some can be avoided; some cannot. Amid the myriad essays that litter the landscape of project space is at least one that not only seeks to reduce a particular kind of annoyance but succeeds in doing so. The beauty of WP:BRD, which might be described as the project's über-essay, is quite simply that it works: to follow its basic model is to avert a great deal of totally unnecessary friction between editors by placing the burden of proof on the editor who is making the change whenever the soundness of the change isn't self-evident. Perhaps my imagination is lacking, but I confess that it escapes me why anyone would routinely reinsert a disputed change without first trying to justify it. By introducing your changes for the third time—still without consensus—you now appear to be edit warring, and that is prohibited not by essay but by policy. We all contribute "free of charge and in accordance with [our] knowledge and beliefs", but we do so within the general framework of the community's basic expectations. Otherwise, we're deliberately contributing to the very annoyance factor you bemoan. Please consider self-reverting. Rivertorch (talk) 06:26, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

__________________________________________________

PART TWO

It ain't gonna work, for a number of reasons. One of them is that you and others do not even have the courtesy to be patient while I am going through the process of responding in detail to your long entry on this page, while at the same time attempting to accommodate the time constraints of my other commitments outside of the Wikipedia world. Put simply, the less mature members of Wiki are delete happy. Don't wait for explanation - jump to a conclusion and delete first.

During a couple of short breaks over the last twenty-four hours I indulged in reviewing the current state of some of the articles to which I had contributed a great deal at various times over the years. It's a pity I did, because it brought home to me again how ephemeral Wikipedia contributions are and how much time and effort had been wasted. And all for the love of wishing to improve poor work. Improvements are to a large extent pointless because the poor work creeps back in; as Tom, Dick and Harry (not to forget Gertrude and Daisy) chip in with their two-penn'orth complete with all the faults, effectively ruining the plan, layout, balance and flow that had been created. For all its undoubted 'circulation' success on the web Wikipedia has a poor system, but the relative poverty depends on the nature of the particular article - worse for the more literary, better for the more technical.

To take up two of your specific points: firstly I have no problem at all with the burden of proof, but I do with the definitions of "proof" and of "soundness", or at least the conception of soundness. Every edit I make has a specific reason and purpose, based upon a wide variety of criteria; which I am happy to explain in detail to any person I feel has the grey matter to appreciate it, and if I feel there is mileage in doing so. But that is the rub of where I find myself at present. Secondly I think it much more apposite for you to write 'whenever the soundness of the change isn't universally understood' rather than '.......self-evident'. 'Self-evident' requires a common level of understanding among all readers, which never occurs. It is therefore a myth. It follows that an editor can never know the extent to which his edit is going to be acknowledged. It then follows that he would need to offer a comprehensive explanation of every single edit he makes, so that everyone from the highest to lowest of intellect will know his motives (whether they truly understand them or not). That is unpractical (yes, 'un' not 'im', look it up), or perhaps it is better expressed as 'unacceptable'. Personal background has a lot to do with the cogency of this argument. Almost unbelievable disparities can occur in levels of understanding. Some persons who have made writing their career (e.g. dare I mention journalists in the popular national daily press?) have quite different perceptions from, say, those of one who has been immersed for decades in the exactitude and logic of contract documents, as have I. That brings us nicely to the principle of consensus. Consensus is also a myth, I happen to believe. It merely results in the lowest common denominator.

When I started this Part Two it was my intention to continue and finish my detailed response to your entry, and then (not for the first time) call it a day on Wikipedia. For a serious-minded person it really is not worth a candle. Now that I have come this far in putting some of my views over, and owing to the nature of the last few sentences of your latest effort, I am not even going to do that. Your imagination is indeed lacking, and I suspect that in fact a lot escapes you. So I will leave you to dwell in your haven of mediocrity. JHB (talk) 14:17, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
 * This argument is and old one in wikipedia: "My edits are so great that any change of them - i.e., consensus - is, by definition, a lowering of standards, and certainly not worth my valuable time." It's a very unconvincing argument. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

The Christie Estate
Given the ongoing commercialization of Christie's works, a section on the Christie Estate might be useful. It's referred to in several articles, holds considerable asset value, and is responsible for all current decisions about her works, but we don't say anything about it. FT2 (Talk 12:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Added (self). FT2 (Talk 12:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Prior to disappearance
There's a bit missing in the article I don't think is complete.

Prior to disappearance, all we say of her is that she wrote her first few novels, which don't appear to be remarkably accepted or massively well read. Then she disappears and "her disappearance caused an outcry from the public", including Home Office, police, and the rest.

There has to be a chunk missing in our article at this point, which describes and cites any growing fame and renown in the years 1920 - 1926, otherwise this makes no sense? FT2 (Talk 12:12, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Agatha's lack of schooling
Agatha's lack of formal schooling is odd. She was born in 1890 in England, where school was compulsory much of the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.66.76 (talk) 12:38, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * She was homeschooled, something which was not uncommon in England at the time among the upper classes and still exists today. SchnitteUK (talk) 19:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Several inaccuracies to correct

 * The place in which Agatha was born was Torquay, Devon. There is no such place as Ashfield in Torquay. Her parents lived in Barton Road in a house called Ashfield, since demolished.


 * It is doubtful that one can call her mother Clarissa an Englishwoman. While her mother was English, her father was a British subject born on the French island of Martinique. His surname cannot be English.


 * Her grandfather lived in Southbourne, Sussex. The house was in Prinsted, a hamlet within the parish.


 * After marriage, her elder sister lived at Cheadle, Cheshire, about 415km by road from Torquay. To call it nearby shows an odd sense of distance.


 * In 1912 her future husband could not be stationed at Devon, as there is no such place. I believe his unit, the 138th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, was at Exeter, Devon, about 20 km from Ugbrooke. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clifford Mill (talk • contribs) 16:26, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

List of writings / Bibliography
I could not find a link to Agatha Christis bibliography in any sensible location within the article which I regard as an odd and frustrating omission. I was also unable to find any guidance about where such a link belongs. I have created a new section called "List of Writings" (rather than Bibliography to avoid confusion) and put a link to her Bibliography page here for now. I have looked at other Author's pages and found this to be a rather inconsistent feature of most pages; for example P.G. Wodehouses page has a clear section with link to his bibliography while Terry Pratchett's has no obvious link. My feeling is that this is core information about an authour and should be easy to find. It could go in the See Also section, but seems too relevant to the topic as the author's bibliography is basically their lifes work (which is what actually makes them noteworthy in the first place). While I prefer it's own brief section to make it easier to find, I suppose it could also be the first link within writings? I am open to suggestions. DomUK (talk) 13:41, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Citations a mess?
I see no need to have a Sources section when there is already a References section. That's more than a little redundant. I'll see if I can fix some of them, but it would be ideal to move all those listed under Sources to References and then delete Sources completely. Wouldn't you agree? Also, there were 28 references to a single book throughout this article and each reference was separated under the References section. That was ridiculous! All that does is clog the references up. I combined them into a single reference and still kept page numbers intact. FYI for those of you who are unsure about the code on that. It goes like this:

Then repeated citations thereafter would be like this:

MagnoliaSouth (talk) 14:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)