Talk:Károly Ferenczy

Extremely close paraphrasing
This article has serious problems with close paraphrasing and likely requires a complete rewrite. The structure and phrasing is largely identical to this source. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The article is indeed mainly drawn from the Oxford Art Online source - no question about that. But when I wrote it, I carefully went through every sentence and did my best to express the same ideas in my own words, or where that wasn't possible in a couple of instances, to use quotation marks. When doing this sort of thing, one has to avoid directly (or nearly directly) lifting passages on the one hand, and deviating so far from the original that one embarks upon original research. I tried to strike a balance. If I failed inadvertently in some places, that can be corrected. But there are only so many ways of narrating Ferenczy's life. I sought to stick to the facts as given by Oxford Art Online while phrasing things differently. So if I went wrong somewhere, let's work constructively to fix the problem. - Biruitorul Talk 17:12, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You've directly copied the entire structure of the OAO article, you are presenting each sentence in order and only changing individual words, or sometimes minimally changing grammar structure. This looks to me like pretty much an exact copy, and I'll list it for discussion as such. Additionally, while I am not literate in Romanian, my examination of a Google Translate version of the second source you use leads me to believe that the same sort of minimal rewriting has been done there too. Article: "In these works, light did not dissolve forms, but by lending power and brightness to the colors, underlined the brushwork", Google Translate of source: "The light he has not dissolved forms, but borrowing power and brilliance of color, evidence of their touch". Accordingly, I have included the text cited to that source also. Our purpose here is not to slavishly duplicate other sources, since we can just link to them instead. You are correct that we should not stray too far from the sources either, but we should be combining them and I really don't think we should be copying them sentence for sentence. Franamax (talk) 09:18, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Just as a test, rather than cherrypick sentences where I saw concerns, I decided to write 4 numbers on a piece of paper and look at those sentences in sequence. The numbers I wrote were 1, 7, 13 and 17, which do happen to all be prime numbers (so all the even-numbered sentaences could be fine), and I can't guarantee I counted right, however:
 * Article sentence 1: "Born in Vienna into a comfortable middle-class family who owned a small estate in southern Hungary, it was the influence of his cousin, Olga von Fialka, whom he later married, that turned him to painting at the fairly late age of 22." Source: "He came from a well-to-do middle-class family, who owned a small estate in southern Hungary. Influenced by his cousin, Olga von Fialka, whom he subsequently married, he turned to painting at the comparatively late age of 22." Identical retention of structure, minimal rewording.
 * Article sentence 7: "One of these is 1890's Kődobálók – "Boys Throwing Pebbles into the River", which art historian Ilona Sármány-Parsons calls "outstanding" and says it "radiates an everyday tranquillity"." Source: "An outstanding example is Ducks and Drakes (1890; Budapest, N.G.), which radiates an every day tranquillity" This looks like acceptable paraphrasing and approriate quoting.
 * Article sentence 13: "Here, he succeeded in harmonizing the human figure and the natural environment, a characteristic that henceforth became the leitmotif of his work." Source: "In this work Ferenczy succeeded in harmonizing the human figure and the natural environment, a feature that became the leitmotif of his subsequent work." Unacceptably small rewording/restating, the grammar structure and most of the original wording are preserved.
 * Article sentence 17: "Acting upon a shared commission to illustrate the poems of contemporary popular poet József Kiss, Ferenczy executed four drawings and four paintings." Source: "The artists were given a shared commission to illustrate the poems of a contemporary popular poet, József Kiss. Ferenczy’s contributions—four drawings and four paintings..." Hmm. This is in part a presentation of simple facts, which are not copyrightable, however again we are seeing copy-rewording from the source as opposed to re-presentation of the summarized knowledge. In an otherwise clean article, probably wouldn't raise eyebrows.
 * So there are four random sentences as a test, and two appear to fail the unacceptable copying bar. We could go on to look at the preceding and following sentences to see how closely they are following the source(s) too, in wording and ordering. And we could also look at more or less axact copies, like Article: "The joy in the beauty of life and nature that these brightly colored paintings emanate resembles that found among the French Impressionists' work", Source: "These brightly coloured paintings radiate a joy in the beauty of life and nature similar to that found in the work of the French Impressionists". There are numerous and large problems here (IMO). Franamax (talk)

Thanks for those comments. As a preliminary, I went through and put quotes around whatever I could find that seemed to require it. For instance, the phrase "rigid and imbued with an air of self-conscious archaism" clearly (now that I look at it again) needs direct quotation (or thorough rewording). But I'm still not sure what to do with something like sentence 1. The man was born in Vienna, his middle-class family owned a small estate in southern Hungary, and his cousin whom he later married introduced him to painting at age 22. There are only so many ways of restating that. I could continue to make little changes in various phrases, but at some point we run up against a bigger problem, which is that the article is heavily (80%?) drawn from a single source. Unfortunately, there aren't that many sources on this individual, at least not readily accessible to me, so if we're going to have a well-developed article on him, for now at least, it's going to have to be based on Oxford Art Online. Inevitably (at least as I see it), if the article is to make sense, the structure is going to be similar. Again, I'm sure there are places I can scrub some more to take us further away from copying (although I did at least try to avoid that from the start), but no matter how far I go, there's still going to be some resemblance when using one main source, I think. - Biruitorul Talk 15:36, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * In reply to your message, I agree that working from a single source is difficult. And yes, no matter what you do, there will be similarities between what you write, and what Sármány-Parsons wrote.  But if you begin with her text, and try to re-write it by changing words or swapping clauses, it will always be a degree of paraphrase.  There is also the ethical question of taking her work and co-opting it.  I realize we're not in an academic environment here, but it's still problematic.
 * Best method for a re-write is to read through the source, make a bullet-point timeline of what you think is important in the source. (Ferenczy born X, in northern Y.  Started painting age 22.  Married cousin Olga.....)  Then put away the Oxford Art Online, and write from your notes.  There may be some unintended similarities to the author's sentences, but the majority will be in your voice, with your decisions as to organization, formatting and sentence structure.  Where Sármány-Parsons offers descriptions that you want in there, use quotes.  Anyways, if you have the time to work on the article, I'll copyedit for you this weekend.  Sorry to say it, but with the very close similarities to the source material, it's about the only way forward.  The Interior  (Talk) 04:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've just stubbified the article in response to its listing on Copyright problems/2011 November 12. I don't think the changes made by Biruitorul are sufficient to overcome the close paraphrasing concerns.  I share the view expressed above that re-writing can only really be done successfully when done from scratch.  I haven't restored this old version of the article because it could be copied from here (or vice versa, or from somewhere else; the dates don't quite match up). I'm inclined to revdel the article back to 11 January 2011 but I'll wait a couple of days if anyone has any better ideas. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

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Ancestry wrong
Dr Czeizel has written about his familytree. Mixed german, magyar, slovak, czech and austrian ancestry. 83.185.241.121 (talk) 20:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC) Confusion ? about his mother. Sources give to alternatives Graenzenstein or Hanslick?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.185.241.121 (talk) 09:03, 17 September 2023 (UTC) Please check his familytree. Czeizel has written extensively about it which I referred to, but was ďeleted recently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.185.241.121 (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Családfa
 * By dr.Czeizel Endre
 * ISBN 963093569-4
 * Page 128:
 * Freund adopted a slovak Szlobodnik and became Károly Freund, grandfather to Károly Ferenczy.
 * Artists father was by blood 1/2 slovak and 1/2 magyar.
 * He married 1/2-hungarian-german and half-austrian (Hallard) Ida Graenzenstein.
 * So he was ca 1/2-german, 1/4-slovak & 1/4 magyar.
 * Hungarians tend to be in average ca 1/4-german and 1/4-slavic.
 * So aritmetically he would be ca 3/4-etnic hungarian!
 * László Vazulvonal of  Stockholm 83.185.241.121 (talk) 21:25, 21 September 2023 (UTC)