Talk:Joseph Widney/Archive 1

Amazing work so far, now to move it over the top:
Just glancing at the incredible growth this article has undergone in the past several months, the one thing that could be done is converting all the external link sources into references. That would help push this thing towards a better ranking, and would likely be suggested in a GA/FA review. --Bobak 19:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

October 2007
This article is crap, cant find what you're looking for, so much useless irrelvant info on here, can someone make another simplfied version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.229.245 (talk) 11:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * You might want to be more specific. And as for making it more simplified: you're welcome to contribute. Wikipedia places more emphasis on constructive contributions, and less on unproductive complaints. Remember to sign your comments. Aepoutre 15:53, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:American Christians
I put this article in category:American Christians. Is this correct?--Vojvodaeist 18:29, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

trimmed at last!
Duplicate information, scads of books with single mentions of Widney, long "explanations" about what is in books which are not in the reference list and the like made this article one of the longest on all of WP. With any luck now someone will now remove the worst examples in the massive lists appended to the main article. WP does not really need every single mention of a person in a list of anything every printed or online. Collect (talk) 16:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for excellent work trimming (slashing?) this article. Its often difficult to take the hatchet to one's own work. smjwalsh (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Hopefully not slashing . Were I King, all the articles over 100K in length would be shortened or bifurcated.  Collect (talk) 02:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have just reviewed your "edits" to the Widney article. Can I indicate my shock at the level of slashing made by you? You trimmed the article back in December 2008 (removing about 28% of the article then), apparently sufficiently enough to your satisfaction that is resulted in your emphatic ejaculation a la MLK. However, now in the space of a few hours you have slashed the article another 57%, or a cumulative reduction of almost 70% from the article's maximum size. You seemed satisfied enough back in December, although you obviously prefer shorter articles. As far as I can determine while there are guidelines for article length, there is no mandatory limit. You indicated your preference above, but unless there was a coronation of which I am unaware, it seems arbitrary and inappropriate to me for one person to remove so much material in such a short period of time. Others have contributed to the article (albeit in a minimal way) but did not see the need to "slash and burn". While I am willing to concede the article would have benefited from the reduction of some references, what concerns me most is the wholesale removal of sections, and removal of some sources and material that was on topic and relevant. It seems in your enthusiasm for conciseness you may have thrown the baby out with the bath water in some cases. It is too easy for ONE person to remove in a short time what has taken another person dozens of hours to research and write. When I recover from the shock I will endeavour to restore the more essential material.(smjwalsh (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC))
 * You indicated that you had removed some material due to peer review. Can you point me to where this was done? I would be interested in reading the comments by others. Thanks.(smjwalsh (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC))


 * See   Most of the material removed was not the actual article substance, but primarily the "see also" stuff which was quite long.  Very few articles have anywhere near 50K in such sections.   Thanks! Collect (talk) 19:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for link to peer review. Very helpful suggestions. Let me process them. I appreciate your own time and contributions.(smjwalsh (talk) 00:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC))


 * Thanks. And as for expansion -- any material which will be helpful to readers will be surely welcome. There was just too much "stuff" which made the article unlikely to be read -- a 60K to 80K article which gets used is worth a dozen 190K articles every time . Collect (talk) 00:09, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Long time
A long time has passed since I did the major pruning, and the peer review was good, and the article is incredibly stable - so time to ask for a "Good article review" as near as I can tell. Polymaths are very hard to set in one single subcategory, though. Collect (talk) 15:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)