Talk:Comedy of menace

There must be meaning behind the moaning
But what is the Comedy of Menace? The article says that it is term used to describe certain works of Harold Pinter and David Campton, but what does it entail? Presumably comedy and menace, but how? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 14:44, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

This artcile looks to be going nowhere. I think it could be a candidate for merging with Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I left it for others to develop. It's a stub because it is frequently mentioned as a type or style of comedy; the term is actually Campton's prior to Wardle's applying it to Pinter's early plays. It does need to be defined specifically. But I am not going to do it. Surely there must be some people out there working so hard on the article on Harold Pinter who would like to develop the content of this article and to add sources for it (in prevailing citation format)?

It's already linked in the Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work article. It was split for further development, though that has not yet happened. --NYScholar (talk) 17:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to propose a merge? Perhaps someone will come along and work on it to develop it into a fuller article. --NYScholar (talk) 17:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is anything more to add to what is already here. Wardle coined the phrase and it gets used.  Jezhotwells (talk) 19:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

This article is a section of a main article from which it was originally split off; it relates to both Harold Pinter and Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work, the latter of which was once a part of the main article too. It can be developed in the future. There is no reason to delete it. It is merely a short article defining a term, giving its history, and providing third-party published sources about the term as it emerged in relation to Pinter's work. As internet users might search for "comedy of menace" as a term, it is useful to have as an entry in Wikipedia. The cross-linked and "what links here" makes clear what it relates to. --NYScholar (talk) 03:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I may expand the See also section later for further contexts. But I won't have time to do it until about next week. --NYScholar (talk) 03:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Did it anyway in course of revising the article. --NYScholar (talk) 12:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Speedy keep
Good to seethat the AfD provoked an expansion of the article into a useful stub. I had thought that there was no future in this artcile after ahving seen your earlier comment. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As the closer of your AfD pointed out, it should never have been the subject of an AfD. It has not been a "stub" since I began to edit it, as I had expanded it immediately and removed the stub-cat.
 * (cont.) As I said, I really did not have time to do this work (as I have much more non-Wikipedia work waiting for me to do, which I hope to turn to next), but I took the time anyway not because of the AfD (which was already resolved before I did the major editing), but because your arguments for deleting the article made no sense to me in light of my knowledge of the subject and of the sources that are cited in this and other Pinter-related articles.
 * (cont.) If you or anyone else have doubts about the relevance of some other Pinter-related article, please consult the sources and ELs listed via the main article Harold Pinter and the cross-linked section of its "Works cited", Bibliography for Harold Pinter.  That is why they exist, so that general readers who want or need more information about Pinter can know where to go to find it.  Further information can also be found throughout the various other Wikified links to Pinter's works via templates and article texts.  If you appreciate Pinter and want to know more about him and his work, these sources will provide helpful information.
 * (cont.) AfDs are not designed for "provok[ing]" other editors to do work. All editors can take their time to develop articles constructively, rather than reverting already-acceptable work or spending most of their time on talk pages criticizing other people's work that has long-standing consensus.
 * (cont.) I would really appreciate your doing more work yourself (subject to Wikipedia's editing policies and guidelines and open to editing by everyone else, just as mine is) rather than undoing (reverting) other people's work.  Spending time complaining about the decisions of other editors and administrators that pre-dated your own entry into the Wikipedia "community" of editors without knowing the full contexts of the editing decisions has proved counterproductive to civil and congenial development of the project, which is huge and very complex when it comes to the application of policies and guidelines.
 * (cont.) I sympathize with your situation (as everyone might) because each of us has been a new (or relatively new) editor at some point.  The number of policies and guidelines used throughout Wikipedia and the number of contradictions among them can truly appear daunting, and often, the sense that one is has mastered them is really short-lived, as consensus on policies and guidelines is always shifting and constantly subject to change.  --NYScholar (talk) 03:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * (cont.) [sorry but I can't resist adding]: Wikipedia itself is often a kind of Comedy of menace! [:-) / :-(] --NYScholar (talk) 03:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)