Talk:Jesse Reklaw

Untitled
He was born in 1981 and was getting a phd in 1995? How precocious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.180.75 (talk) 21:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Slow Wave
As edit summary said, Slow Wave is the reason Reklaw is notable/a bio of him without info/description of Slow Wave doesn't make any sense, and the awards he had been given/the narrative of his bio are integrally woven into Slow Wave/history of Slow Wave. I think it's fine if you want to repeat some or all of the Slow Wave info in Slow Wave as well, but deleting it from Reklaw bio does no service to readers.


 * Slow Wave has its own article. It certainly needs to be mentioned in the author's article (though it's not the only reason he's notable - a few years ago it would've been), but extensive details, critics' comments, etc. belong in the article on the strip; at least that's the way it's usually done. (Contrast Chris Onstad, who's done virtually nothing except Achewood - there still isn't any extra Achewood detail in his bio.) And it's not good article style to interweave biographical narrative with comments about a single work; it's a pretty basic standard of articles about artists and authors to keep most of the bio stuff in a separate section.


 * The material that I moved into the Slow Wave article, I ended up paring down further there for various reasons which, again, I explained in edit summaries & should probably be discussed at Talk:Slow Wave. &#8592;Hob 06:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It would make the most sense for the Slow Wave article to include information about Slow Wave, and for the Reklaw article to include information about Slow Wave + Reklaw. He is primarily known for Slow Wave. Paring down info/not repeating it elsewhere is an issue when articles get too long, like abortion, and Wikipedia's policy of summary style is useful. There is nothing useful to readers in aggressively paring down stubs, or deleting half of a bio. Cindery 06:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is true that the Reklaw article should include information about Slow Wave + Reklaw. That doesn't mean everything about Slow Wave + Reklaw. A brief description of the strip is sufficient; there's a link to it in the very first sentence, and readers are accustomed to following links when they want more on a particular work. This is very, very standard - not just with long articles. If you think this is inappropriate because both articles are stubby, why wouldn't you just suggest an article merge? I don't understand why you didn't add any of that material in the Slow Wave article in the first place if you think that's the way to do it, but if you had, you might've realized that that's a lot of (heavily referenced) material to keep synced between two articles. Finally, I didn't "delete half of a bio"; a bio is a biography, and if anything, I've expanded that part. &#8592;Hob 06:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm an inclusionist, not a deletionist, as my userpage says. It might make sense to merge Slow Wave in Reklaw, but it also makes sense for Reklaw to give a long version of what's in Slow Wave; Slow Wave to be shorter. What doesn't make any sense is for both Reklaw/Slow Wave to be excessively abbreviated viz Slow Wave. A bio does include information regarding a person's work/why thet are notable, particularly if the person is not a public figure, i.e., public figures may have a long bio; people who are entitled to more privacy because they are notable for their work have bios that primarily address their work. Cindery 09:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't like to break it down as inclusionist/deletionist, I prefer to look at specific cases. In this case I disagree with you on two points. First, yes, it might make sense to merge Slow Wave into Reklaw; and it might be okay, if unwieldly, for them to both have the same material; but for the Reklaw article to say more about Slow Wave than the Slow Wave article does... that's the one thing that would not make sense, and I can't think of a single instance on Wikipedia where the artist's page has more about a specific work than that work's page does - except in cases where someone started a stub and never followed through. Second, it seems to me that you're saying they're both "excessively abbreviated" because you disagree with the cuts I made in the Slow Wave text after I moved it. I cut every one of those things for specific reasons, which you can certainly address if you want to (see my notes in Citations below), and I would've done it regardless of which article the text was in. I agree that both articles are now stubby - there's plenty of room for expansion; that doesn't mean the stuff that was originally there must be immune from criticism. &#8592;Hob 09:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

inclusionist would be: both articles should have the same info re Slow Wave. You are incorrect re your assumptions; I didn't say they were both excessively abbreviated, I meant Slow Wave is excessively abbreviated now, and Reklaw would be excessively abbreviated without the Slow Wave info. There is nothing wrong with keeping all the info in Reklaw, or repeating it in both. Keeping it all in Slow Wave is a problem, because the artist bio of a non-public figure is about their work, as that is why they are notable. Cindery 10:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of sourced info
Sourced information should not be removed, esp. on opinion of editor vs. a source--13 cats is a graphic novel he is working on--that is reported by a source. An excerpt of it was published in Best American Comics, as well (I haven't checked edit history to see who deleted that info/why it was done...) But claiming that it was "self-contained" and is therefore not also part of an ongoing graphic novel is factually incorrect. Interpretation of source "he doesn't do that now" re crazy fish stamps is not a justification for deleting sourced information. If you think "has been known" is not accurate interpretation of frequency, all the information + the source should not therefore be deleted. Cindery 06:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * On "13 Cats": BAC 2006 did not publish it as an excerpt of anything; it was a complete story that had made up the entirety of Couch Tag #2, and the sources for that are 1) the anthology's editors (who credit it as "from Couch Tag", not as an excerpt of anything else), and 2) Jesse's statement in the appendix of BAC, which says that he finished it in 2005. If you think the Yale article is right(*), the right way to phrase it would be that he is currently working on expanding the story into a graphic novel. (* And yes, I know about truth vs. verifiability - but there are plenty of sources out there that we don't cite because we don't think they're a good authority; this is the kind of detail that reporters get wrong all the time, especially non-comics reporters writing about comics. We're allowed to use some common sense as to whether to rely on a particular source.)


 * This is a semantic argument--published first in Couch Tag does not refute that it is also a novel-in-progress; a part "finished" also does not mean it's a novel in progess. An author can finish a chapter but not a book; when he or she writes a second chapter we do not say that he or she is "expanding" the first chapter. Cindery 07:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That's true. But when you have two sources that would normally be expected to mention the novel-in-progress, and didn't, and the only source that did was a writer writing far outside his field of knowledge (and paraphrasing rather than quoting), I would err on the side of caution. You mentioned having some special knowledge about this (I know Jesse too, but I thought what he was working on was something a bit different)... OK... that would explain why you don't see any need for caution there. It's not the biggest deal. However, why did you delete the reference to Couch Tag as "unsourced"??? The source is BAC 2006 and Couch Tag itself; the verifiability is inherent in the statement - any reader can look in the book. You don't need footnotes to say that a book exists!


 * BAC is not included in the biblio; I don't have a copy yet. I didn't see that you added Couch Tag, but Couch Tag does not give info re BAC. "Sources that would normally be expected..." is entirely subjective, and the problem with using your opinion to try to refute sourced material...

Cindery 08:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not refuting anything, I'm suggesting that you consider whether you're giving that source too much weight, especially since it's the only source to mention such a thing. That is something that an editor could reasonably do. I am dropping this point now really and truly, because regardless of guidelines, it would be silly for me to try to convince you on principle if you've actually heard differently from the artist.


 * But that's a totally different point from deleting the reference to it appearing in Couch Tag at all, which you commented as "unsourced". That's wrong. "13 Cats of My Childhood" was first published in Couch Tag #2. That's inherently verifiable and doesn't need to be cited, regardless of what's in the bibliography. The purpose of citations is so readers know where to look up the fact; in this case we are telling them that they can look it up in that book (in fact, in either one of those books). You don't need a citation to say that "Yesterday" is a song on Help!; the statement is the citation. &#8592;Hob 08:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Until the book is cited/released, there's no citation linking "13 Cats of My Childhood" with BAC. Cindery 09:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * What are you talking about? Both BAC and Couch Tag have been published. I have them and so do plenty of readers. The fact that you don't have them is not a reason to remove this fact, and I don't know what you mean by "cited/released" in this case. The statement that the story appeared in Couch Tag is sourced: the sources are Couch Tag and BAC (which, being a reprint anthology, lists all of the previous publications - in fact they've got that online too... and no, we do not need to include that link in the article). Verifiability means that readers see how they can look it up, and in this case it couldn't be more obvious how they would do so. There are plenty of medical journals I don't have access to, but I don't go around chopping up medical WP articles because I can't personally check the other editors' references. This has nothing to do with the reasons I gave for removing other material in this article, so if you're trying to show me the error of my ways by deleting in kind, you're mistaken. &#8592;Hob 09:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

...it means someone has to list BAC in the Biblio; CT does not mention BAC--that would be a helpful thing you could do/I am encouraging you to be helpful. As I said, "until the book is cited." (I have an advance copy; I'm not keeping track of release date/don't need to/and never considered the article "finished.") Please keep in mind that talkpages are not forums for opinion or discussing the subject in general, but only for discussing changes to the article. Long rants especially discouraged as "soapboxing." Cindery 10:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm sure I am too wordy (because I'm trying to be clear re: changes to the article that you strongly objected to; not soapboxing), but you are reading me backwards. There is no way CT could mention BAC, as it was published first. You have an advance copy of BAC?--wha?? ("I don't have a copy yet", above)--then you already know this, no? The presence of BAC in the biblio is entirely irrelevant to this question; your deletion was unnecessary. Well, I guess we can work this out in RFC. &#8592;Hob 10:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

...I have an advance review copy, not whatever was released to the public/may have diff jacket info, etc. "There is no way CT could mention BAC" is my point: CT does not verify that 13 Cats of My Childhood was published in BAC. BAC has to be cited re that title and CT. If you want to include that information, it has to be cited/BAC has to be cited. Cindery 10:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * On fish stamps, etc.: My problem with this wasn't that it wasn't sourced - it was. But it's really not saying anything other than that Reklaw is a minicomics artist; they all trade free stuff in fun envelopes. The way it's included here makes it sound like a unique, kooky quality of this guy, which is misleading. (It's like writing, in an article about an actor, that he's been known to invite a bunch of friends to the opening night of a show, or to drink beer on closing night. You could find a source for that, but it would still be silly.) And "ethics" is an odd, vague, POV sort of word to use in this context.


 * In general I think you're taking "sourced information should not be removed" a bit too literally. It has to depend on whether the information as presented actually (a) is clear and encyclopedic and (b) contributes meaningfully to the article. Otherwise (for instance) 100,000 Tolkien fans would be justified in blowing up the Tolkien article into a zillion-page heap of fancruft, never to be trimmed, as long as they made a bunch of web citations to other people's articles. Please don't take offense at that analogy, I'm not saying your writing is fancruft and my deletions may well be wrong, and the work you put into the citations is admirable... but you really can't say that I'm wrong to delete anything just because you cited sources. &#8592;Hob 06:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It would be nice, actually, to have a source that says "they all do that," to precede the source which states that Reklaw does. For a lay reader, it is not clear at all that "they all do that" or what "that" is--the info re zines locates Reklaw in a specific cultural context, early 90s cultural phenomenon blahblah, and that is useful nonobvious info for the general reader. That zines had a connection to the older tradition of mail art is similarly nonobvious useful info, which contributes meaningfully to the article, and has "clear encyclopedic" wikilinks. Zine/mail art/fish stamp source help explain and contextualize an aspect of Reklaw/his work for a general reader in a meaningful way. I think "ethics" is a neutral word to describe traditions in which things are given away free, etc. "DIY" is a similar "ethic." So is "work ethic."


 * If that's what you're trying to convey, then it would be better to talk about it in the articles on zines and mail art. The sentence as written doesn't really make it clear to a lay reader that "ethics" refers to trading through the mail. There's no reason to include the specific "fish stamp" quote except to highlight Jesse's particular goofiness, and I think that's misleading. He is goofy, but not because of that. I still think my actor example above applies. &#8592;Hob 07:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * ..the focus viz "ethic" is "early indie zine traditon," not mail art, which is secondary and listed second...to exclude info re Reklaw came out of /was part of zines--which included self-publishing, sharing, giving things away, mail art etc--would exclude meaningful information for the reader. The wikilink provides more info re zines; zines does not give more info re Reklaw. Your subjective assessment that the source only shows "his particular goofiness" and "there's no reason" to include it other than to illustrate his "goofiness" is not a good justification for deleting cited content/isn't an accurate or objective assessment. Clearly, as I have outlined, there are other reasons. But the onus would be on you to justify/have a reason to delete cited content; I don't have to agree that because you think there is only one reason to include a source, therefore there is only one reason--it's a specious argument: "There can only be one reason, therefore any other reasons are de facto not valid." Cindery 08:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * As I mentioned, long/very long articles sometimes need to be pared down--but there is nothing useful to readers in aggressively deleting cited content from very short articles and stubs... Cindery 07:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

use of section headings
I realize this may seem like I'm nitpicking because of our other disagreements, but this is really a separate issue: the use of section headings in this article and in Slow Wave was a bit wacky. The guidelines on this are pretty straightforward. "References" should be for sources that are cited for particular facts - not for an artist's works (Applicant). "See also" should be for related Wikipedia articles (Dream art, Slow Wave) and nothing else. (Why on earth is The Comics Interpreter in there? Oh, I see - they interviewed him once. That's really a stretch; better to wikify the other article, and let them use "What links here".) "External links" is for interesting reading that's related to the subject, including his website. (In some of the cases where I think the comments you've cited don't necessarily belong in the article, I'd still be in favor of listing those sources as external links.) Bibliographic listings should be in a section called Bibliography or something similar (some articles use "Selected works" or break them down by genre, etc.). I'm going to take a stab at reorganizing these now - please don't just revert them wholesale until you've read the related guidelines. ←Hob 07:04, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

"Please don't revert wholesale" is a clear assumption of bad faith/"Why on earth?" and "that's a stretch" both uncivil. I don't mind at all if you rearrange section headings. The rule, however, is that in a dispute re a citation scheme the first editor gets to choose. "References" are often used for works/articles which were used for research but not cited in-line as footnotes/there is no rule that References must equal footnotes/opposite is often true. Cindery 11:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * No, "why on earth" means "I'm really puzzled as to why"; "that's a stretch" means "it's too tenuous a connection to justify a See Also"; and I'm mystified as to the "bad faith" part. If you saw them as attacks, I'm sorry. As for the references, you are certainly right that they don't have to all be footnotes; my objection was to the use of an inline/footnote reference for one of the artist's books. &#8592;Hob 11:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Guide to layout seems pretty clear that References should only include things that are actually cited in the article, regardless of what citation style you use; it wouldn't cover general background material. Moved non-cited background items to "Further reading", though maybe they should be combined into External Links since they're all online. ←Hob 08:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

request for third opinion
Cindery - if you have no objections, I would like to post the following summary on Third opinion. ←Hob 11:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Jesse Reklaw (talk) and Slow Wave: articles on a cartoonist and his comic strip. Dispute over distribution of material between the two articles (User:Cindery expands the Reklaw article with details on the strip; User:Hob moves most of it to the Slow Wave article, and makes cuts) - also on sourcing and relevance of text which Hob cut. Several issues of what must/should/can be cited, and whether deletion of material can be justified even if there is a source.

I think it's too complicated to address all at once, and issues should be brought up one at a time, starting with 1)Is is fine to have Slow Wave info in Slow Wave and Reklaw? Should it just be in Slow Wave?--with the arguments for and against clearly explained. Cindery 11:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

True. 2nd draft. They want a brief summary in the request, so I won't go into for & against - that part of the talk page is pretty straightforward. ←Hob 11:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Jesse Reklaw and Slow Wave: articles on a cartoonist and his comic strip. Dispute over distribution of material between the articles: User:Cindery expands the Reklaw article with details on the strip  ; User:Hob moves most of that material to the Slow Wave article    . See Talk:Jesse Reklaw.

Pro/Con arguments should still be succintly explained. Even at policy noticeboards like NOR, they don't bother much to read talkpages, they respond on the basis of the description of a matter. The pro/con arguments are not clearly explained on talkpage. (I'm still not sure what your objection is/what your con arguments are.) Perhaps good to keep in mind that since there's no policy covering distribution of material/specifying that it must or must not be in two places, it will just be a third opinion, which could be outweighed by other opinions; there's no way to "decide" the matter once and for all. Also it's unlikely anyone is going to be in a big rush, or think it is very important.)

The pro-arguments for keeping Slow Wave info in Reklaw article are:

1. the subject is not a public figure--he is notable for his work, a comic strip called Slow Wave in particular. Without an adequate description of his work, his biography is inadequate/does not explain why he is notable. Because he is a private/not public figure, little is known about him other than his work, and the details of his life--where he went to school, etc., are linked to the story of his comic strip. 2. both the material about Slow Wave and the Jesse Reklaw article are extremely short; there's no length or readability issue


 * Noticeboards are one thing, Third opinion has its own process which is very clear - they don't want that kind of detailed reargument, they want a short short intro and links to the talk page. As you didn't raise any objections to the neutrality of my short version, I'll go ahead and post it; the worst that can happen is that we don't get a useful opinion. I realize there's nothing final about it, and I'm not in a big rush. I'll likely be away for most of the week anyway, and there's other work that can be done on these that shouldn't be a cause for conflict. &#8592;Hob 12:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

...It's unlikely to be useful at all if "a short, neutral description" isn't provided, per the instructions---as I said, your objection isn't clear at all to me, and I participated in the talkpage discussion. (and it'snot clear in what you posted.) Can you describe your objection in a few words? Cindery 12:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A description of the point of contention, not of the two positions; see their example, which just says "Disagreement about existence of nonprescriptive style guides". So I added this: "Question is what level of detail on a specific work is necessary/appropriate in artist article." Here are my basic objections, though: 1. Detailed descriptions of a specific work, and critical responses/links/references/trivia that are entirely about it, are better placed in the article on that work and should be summarized in the artist's article - unless there's so little to say separately about the artist and the work that they don't merit separate articles. 2. In this case, I think my edits did retain enough to show why he and the strip are notable, though there's still room for expansion in both articles. Now, as I said, I'm taking a break. &#8592;Hob 15:47, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion
Thanks to both of you for seeking a civil solution to your disagreements! As to the specific case here, I would say that as this article is about the man, a summary of his notable accomplishments (such as Slow Wave) is indeed appropriate. However, detailed information about these should be left to the article specifically about these accomplishments to enumerate, rather then rehashed here. A reader wishing to know more about a specific accomplishment can always follow the wikilink. Of course, a summary of the comic's content is quite alright, as well as a history of his development of the project (provided such information is verifiable, but since most such information would be non-contentious a statement from the author himself would be a valid source in this case). The article is also in significant need of being split into sections, which I believe would address many concerns of too much text.

While I see no significant problems in the civility area, I as always encourage everyone to remain civil and assume good faith on the part of others. Seraphimblade 19:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

"13 Cats" as a graphic novel
There's a citation from a Yale alumni interview, saying that the story in Best American Comics 2006 is an excerpt from a graphic novel in progress called "13 Cats". I've been informed by the artist that this was a slight mistake by the reporter: he is working on a book which the "Cats" story will be incorporated into, but that isn't the title of the book. Obviously personal communication can't go into the article - but if at some point Reklaw updates his news page he may include the correction, at which point I'll make an edit here.

In any case, it's also verifiably true that the story "13 Cats of My Childhood" appeared in Couch Tag #2 before being collected in Best American Comics. Everything in BAC, by definition, was previously published elsewhere; it's a best-of-year reprint anthology, and doesn't include excerpts of anything that wasn't already available. I'm not sure why User:Cindery is so adamant about not including that fact without a footnote, as anyone who has the slightest doubt can check the credits of said anthology (it's no different than asserting that a particular song appeared on a particular album), but I've already had my edits on that subject reverted once and I'm in no hurry to try again right now. BTW, the minicomic in question was nominated for an Ignatz award so probably deserves at least a mention. ←Hob 19:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

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