Talk:Rosy Wilde

Deleted material
has deleted material with the edit summary, "Such personal information has no relevance to a page dedicated to a gallery and as you have already added it to the main Vine page, that is the best place for it." This material is relevant because it shows the context for the gallery closing, and the state of mind of the gallery owner at the time. Vine has chosen to make this information publicly available by discussing it in the press, where it is mentioned with the specific context of the gallery closure. We follow the lead of sources.  Ty  23:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Rosy Wilde gallery
"Rosy Wilde gallery" is given in sources. Modern Art Oxford cited in the lead. Others available include National Portrait Gallery, and Ana Finel Honigman. "Rosy Wilde Gallery" is stated in the meta tags for the Rosy Wilde web site. Also referred to as a gallery by Vine: "...gorgeous young artists who came in the gallery ... this nutter who runs a butcher’s shop that she thinks is an art gallery."  Ty  19:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Exhibitions and performances
Current formatting:

Olena 31st July - 31st August 2003. Artists listed in exhibition catalogue: Louisa Clarke, Robert Ellis, Sigrid Holmwood, Laura Lancaster, Cathy Lomax, Kate Lowe, Stella Vine

Per style guidelines, it needs to be:


 * Olena, 31 July – 31 August 2003. Artists listed in exhibition catalogue: Louisa Clarke, Robert Ellis, Sigrid Holmwood, Laura Lancaster, Cathy Lomax, Kate Lowe, Stella Vine

An asterisk produces the bullet point. There is no line space between items in the list. Bold should not be used in the main text, only for the article title the first time it appears in the lead section. A hypen should not be used between dates, but an n-dash: below the edit box in the drop down menu, select "insert" and use the first, smaller, horizontal line.

 Ty  19:11, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Clean up tag
Please explain on the talk page what you think needs cleaning up, as the article seems in good shape to me, apart from just the list of artists.  Ty  10:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Please see the WP:MOS, with a particular stress on WP:LEAD, WP:HEAD, and WP:LISTS. I just RCed the page, and it is not really my area of interest, but if you need assistance let me know. Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 04:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm still stumped. I'm not exactly a newbie and am familiar with those guidelines, but I don't see what you want cleaning up. The lead provides a concise summary of the main points that are in the article. It could possibly do with a little more detail, but it's about right for the length of the article. Headings? They seem reasonable enough to me and hardly out of the ordinary. The list of artists I have mentioned above, and I'm not quite sure how to deal with that. Lists aren't my speciality. The other list of "Exhibitions and performances" is formatted OK. Please enlighten. It would help if you post on the article talk page for the benefit of any other editors involved with the page. I'm copying this thread there.  Ty  05:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Clean up tag posted by Cerejota. The above is copied from User talk:Cerejota.  Ty  05:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I did some fixes as per those policies, mostly upgrading subheadings, renaming to make more succinct and more descriptive and less narrative; there is still some cleanup to go, but I lack time to do now. The most salient is that the lists should probably be done in a prose style, and probably not all artists listed (ie notability). Besides the aesthetic aspect, reading the article I am seeing things that are too biographical for an article on a gallery, that perhaps belong in a BLP of the owner/artist, but those issues can be handled separately. --Cerejota (talk) 12:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Response to the above

 * 1) To suggest that the biographical element is inappropriate is a fundamental misunderstanding of the subject. The gallery, the project space, the studio, the home and the life of the subject are indivisible. They form a unity and it is not possible to give the reader any accurate insight into the nature of the enterprise without giving an insight into the life conducted there. This is not just for interest's sake, but of crucial importance for the work that took place within the walls, particularly the Princess Diana painting, which has achieved considerable prominence. Its creation is the single most important event to take place within the walls at Whitecross Street and is inextricably linked with the circumstances of its creation. Anybody reading the article without the biographical element it contains could not hope to understand the nature of the enterprise.
 * 2) Regarding the recent edits. The somewhat reductionist approach "opening", "closing", "re-opening" is considerably less informative and helpful to the reader as a navigation element than what was there before, such as "2003 – 2004 in East London" and the mention of "Saatchi" etc. These clue the reader in immediately as to what is to come; for those that are familiar with the subject, these are key markers that enable the reader to go straight to the relevant section, should they wish to find out about a particular aspect in isolation.
 * 3) The new titles are moreover completely inaccurate. "Closing" now starts at February 2004. The gallery didn't close until October 2004. The shows are still running up to the end of July 2004.
 * 4) The best structure for this article is a chronological narrative. As I have already explained there is an indivisible relationship between Vine's state of mind and the activities she undertook. To build a complete picture the different aspects involved have to be seen in context with each other and not separated out as independent entities, because they are not.
 * 5) Furthermore, there is a clear chronological narrative division between the two gallery locations. They were quite different in nature, and Vine's life had changed hugely. She was not, it would seem, in residence at the second location, which is a major difference. The two time zones need to be demarcated.
 * 6) There is nothing wrong with the list format. It is in widespread use throughout articles, including arts articles, to present factual data. It is quite convoluted to insist that this matter should be put in prose form. It is most easily composed, read and understood in the list form.
 * 7) To suggest that not all the artists should be listed on notability grounds is a severe misunderstanding of the notability principle, which applies to article subjects, not article content. See WP:NNC. An encyclopedia should attempt to be comprehensive and this is valuable historical information, not to be tossed out on a whim.
 * 8) This earlier revision makes perfect sense. The changes are a considerable deterioration in quality and usefulness for the reader. The only improvement in the edits has been to knock out some of the alphabetical letters not used in the list of artists.
 * 9) Failing sufficient grounds otherwise, I propose to act on the above arguments.

 Ty  14:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A reply on numeric order:


 * This is highly original research and WP:SYNTH. Our narrative should flow from what reliable sources tell us, and unless you can find us a reliable source that says "the gallery, the project space, the studio, the home and the life of the subject are indivisible", I am afraid we are left with a synthesis that is not from sources. Verifiability, not truth. On this basis alone, a lot of the citations and text should be removed or recontextualized.
 * It is the approach recommended by the spirit and practice WP:HEAD/WP:NAME. Yes, in wikipedia, we are aesthetic reductionists. We should use the shortest, most precise description that avoid confusion. They convey the information a heading in an encyclopedia article should convey, which is what the section is about. It is up to the reader to read the section to find further details.
 * They are not innacurate: "Closing" refers to the period of the closing, in a chronology, a closing section is about the events leading up to the closing. Clearly that is what the section is about.
 * I agree on a common sense basis and fail to see how these changes affect the chronology. In any case, they help it be clearer. However, there is a difference between a narrative/historical chronology and the summarization tasks of an encyclopedia article: for example, a list of exhibitions and/or artists can (or should) be separated out. However, your claim of "indivisibly" of narrative is WP:SYNTH, so you need a better argument.
 * Again "Opening"/"Re-opening" clearly address this.
 * And there is a reason the tag exists. A list format makes sense in certain cases, and doesn't in other. We do not have to list every exhibition, nor do we have to list every artists, and in many of these other articles you will see debates around this. The reality is that we are encouraged to use prose whenever possible, and the information is so small, that if we reduce the list to just notable artists and exhibits/performances, we can achive this. This is a Nomic (ie "moving the goal posts"): you are insisting on crufting up the lists so that they cannot be made into prose.
 * No, I understand notability pretty well. I also understand we make editorial desicions: notice how I didn't actually remove them even if I did raise the point. I am suggesting that we keep to notables, because nothing is really gained by listing non-notable artists and it allows for a more readable, prose-only article.
 * I disagree - it is a pretentious mix of synth, which fails to actually inform the reader about the gallery and informs it instead about its owner, that furthermore had verbose headings that actually informed about one discrete part of the information contained within instead of the whole. This is not a jjournalistic biographical piece, but an encyclopedia article on a gallery. Fluff pieces do not belong in wikipedia: hard facts do.
 * I am sure there is some validity as to the points you are making, but I think the main point around the SYNTH is the most salient difference, and one I am increasingly less inclined to let go: it has a systemic repercussion. As a wholy uninterested editor on the plaitudes of the dramas of the British art world, my only interest in thsi matter is wikipedia as we see it: That many articles suffer of these issues is no reason to let this one get a free ride. --Cerejota (talk) 14:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Your observations about WP:SYNTH are irrelevant, because I am not bringing together two disparate elements to make a novel conclusion. Besides which SYNTH refers to article content, and the statements I made are not in the article, but just an explanation as you didn't seem to understand the nature of the enterprise. Nor is it WP:OR, as it does exactly what you say it should, namely follow the sources, which clearly talk about the gallery, the studio, the owner/artist's state of mind, her work etc as a unity. They are all together. If we are to follow the sources, then that is how we should address these issues. Your suggestion is the departure from the sources and the interjection of editorial bias.

As far as headings go, I find the suggested revisions far less helpful and actually far more confusing. There is no indication in them, for example, that the gallery had moved to a completely different location and a different set-up. The "opening", "closing" headings give the impression that it was all happening in one place. Your suggestion that five months of activity is all leading to "closing" is competely original research. There is no evidence that there was any notion of closing at any earlier stage in this period.

An encyclopedia article is very often chronological narrative and it is a valid way to approach a subject where time-based constituents form a significant part of it. Often subjects cannot properly be understood in any other way as the development over time is precisely what gives them existence and meaning.

What to you, who as you have made clear have no interest in the subject, is cruft, is, to those who study it and have an interest in it, valid and interesting information, which contributes to the general knowledge of the subject and helps to build a complete picture of this area of cultural life. Such material is exactly what wikipedia can provide in an easily accessible form. You might just as well say that Periodic table (standard) should be rendered in prose, or that we should select the most notable parts of it. Shows and artists are the direct equivalent of this in their own discipline.

Again I repeat that WP:NNC makes clear that WP:N criteria apply to article subjects, not article content. The fact that Vine has chosen to exhibit any artist gives that artist an interest, not sufficient to justify their own article maybe, but enough to include them, as it is highly likely that they will have a presence in this art scene, and occur elsewhere in other galleries and shows etc. This helps to build up a complete picture. This is an editorial decision.

 Ty  09:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I am surprised at this comment, in particular the part I emphasized in bold, Your observations about WP:SYNTH are irrelevant, because I am not bringing together two disparate elements to make a novel conclusion. Please read WP:OWN and reconsider your position in this regards: you will be edited, and these are edit entirely within policy and in the spirit of furthering encyclopedic knowledge. I have done further cleanup to bring this article to some encyclopedic quality.


 * I do understand the nature of the enterprise, it is a gallery, a business to sell art. However, it remains extremely WP:SYNTH: the assertion that the Gallery and the Artist are indivisible is not mentioned in any reliable source, and the article is peppered with unconnect assertions that belong in the gallery's owner BLP, not here - this is precisely the type of edit that WP:SYNTH calls  bringing together two disparate elements to make a novel conclusion. You migth justify it the talk page - and there is not problem with that - but in the article itself this assertion is SYNTH. Such material should be merged into the BLP for Vine or be removed.


 * In particular, assertions about the mental state and mental health of the person are being made that are outside of the WP:BLP limits we set around here. Please take this into consideration when evaluating edits and removals of material. This is not my area of interest, but defending BLP is, regardless of where.--Cerejota (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, some of my edits do take into account your comments on heading and so on. I do think we can be more precise (hence "First opening"). In general we try to avoid headings that are only dates, and in general, while the narrative can be chronological, we avoid using headers like this outside of timelines. Ask around. I think we can rework it to be clearer without including dates in the headers. --Cerejota (talk) 01:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Your accusation of WP:OWN is quite unwarranted and the "evidence" cited in bold does not substantiate it. I welcome any edits that will improve an article. You might just as well put in bold what you've said: "I am afraid we are left with a synthesis".

Your statement, "I do understand the nature of the enterprise, it is a gallery, a business to sell art" shows that you don't understand the nature of this enterprise at all, which is, as the article says, an "artist-run project space" for "emerging artists". Madeofstars was in fact against it being termed a "gallery" at all. However, as my previous attempt to try to be helpful in explaining such things was damned, I will leave you to research further into the implications of this as regards the modus operandi of the place.

If I had put "the Gallery and the Artist are indivisible" in the article and there was not a source to substantiate it, then it would indeed be WP:SYNTH. You will not find such an assertion in the article, however. The talk page is the arena to discuss such matters and whether they do or do not have a place in the article. We are agreed that this particular assertion does not. I have never said it does. Could you please quote the exact article text which, according to you, makes a "novel conclusion". If you are unable to find such text, then the article does not make such a conclusion.

The article follows the sources in the way that it treats this enterprise, the starting point being Andrew Billen in The Times. He visits the building and talks about what he finds there, making no significant distinction between the different components of it. We should per WP:NPOV follow the source.

You say that the "assertions about the mental state and mental health of the person" are in violation of WP:BLP. The BLP policy states, "Be very firm about the use of high quality references. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons—whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Please copy on this talk page the particular text which you believe is "unsourced or poorly sourced". As far as I know, any such material has come from reliable sources and follows them closely or uses Vine's own words, again from reliable sources. I would be happy to supply the text of such articles where they are not online (there are a small number used by Madeofstars which I do not have access to, but these are not the key ones).

 Ty  04:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Clearly, you misunderstand WP:SYNTH: this article includes information that is not relevant to the gallery. You do not have to say "artist and gallery are indivisible", but if you included sourced information that is not connected to each other as a way to advance an implied narrative that doesn't flow from sources, that is SYNTHy. Lets rewind a little. Your response that "artist and space are indivisible" was a result of me stating that I felt there was too much biographical material in the article, in fact meant as an explanation. Precisely that is the meaning of synth: if we include material to advance an unspoken, unsourced narrative. So we either remove irrelevant material, or find a good non-synth reason to include. Wikipedia is not a song by A Flock of Seagulls.


 * And I know precisely what an artist run project by a protege of Saatchi means: punk, cliche denunciations aside, the objective reality is that this was a place to sell a merchandise - namely art. Its iconoclastic aesthetic, its informality, and its disruptive status by no means qualify this reality. A cursory reading of the article as it stands reveals that the main reason for the first closing was bankruptcy, that is, failure as a business. If these were some sort of artist run collective effort, it would have failed because of "artistic differences" or some such other thing. It didn't, because it failed as a business. I do understand the huge debate in the contemporary art world around these issues and I have a deep appreciation for some contemporary art and its art world (hell, I worked for five years for the then leading contempo gallery in Puerto Rico): that you want to drink the kool-aid is fine, but you shouldn't ask others to do so, and specially shouldn't ask wikipedia to do so. This is an NPOV issue between the balance of self-description and the reality of the organization's nature. This happens all across of wikipedia, I just happened to stumble upon this one.


 * Which brings me to "owny" statements. I have made a great effort to discuss and provoke positive change, but your attitude, even when effecting the spirit of my proposals (for example, the sectioning is way better than it was when I got to this article) is one of protectionism and even questioning my general competency to edit this article. Claiming "expert" knowledge seldom flies around here, specially when the reliable sources are there and policy arguments support this.


 * We are both experienced old editors who have been around the block a lot. No need to ge our undies all in a bunch.


 * As to the BLP issues, BLP also states that we must respect basic human dignity. While this is open to intepretation, and this is why I haven't removed material, I want to develop a conversation around these issues: does Stella Vine's basic human dignity gets violated in this article? Some passages certainly seem to do this, but perhaps they are worth it to illustrate the subject? I all for calling a spade a spade, but even on bios on dead people, even on Saddam Hussien (as per WP:MORALIZE) I like to know that we respect human beings as human beings.


 * Lastly, I didn't get to ssay this, but great work on fixing up the "Exhibitions" table, I think we can agree it is much better now, and why I removed the cleanup tag.--Cerejota (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for comment on the table. WP:WPVA is under-staffed and we are still looking for solutions to certain issues. This may be one that will find wider employment. I have also been giving headings more thought. It is not my strongest point.

I think there is a basic misunderstanding over the "indivisible" issue. You may think that I formed this opinion and that this then was the basis of my editing. That is not so. I simply went to the sources on this subject, saw how they had addressed it and, per NPOV, followed their lead. When you questioned the content, I examined it and deduced that the sources talked about the place in that way, because they saw a unity in operation. That may be an incorrect deduction of mine, but it is irrelevant, because it was not the basis of editing, merely an afterthought. To dwell on it further would not therefore be at all productive. The content is there because the sources provided it and it is there in the way that they provided it. And that is the reason for its inclusion.

You seem to wish to separate out the purely "gallery" aspect from other things. This would be possible to do, but I think would require a certain amount of WP:OR to decide what qualified and what didn't, introducing more editiorial bias than the approach I adopted. It also seems somewhat reductive. I think that any reader who knew something about the subject would find it had not been covered properly and would feel that key aspects which they associated with the "gallery" were missing. Any reader not already familiar but following up the sources would likewise feel that some of the most important eventualities associated with the situation were strangely absent. Obviously these are undesirable outcomes.

One of the pointers in WP:The perfect article is "acknowledges and explores all aspects of the subject; i.e., it covers every encyclopedic angle of the subject." I contend that the aspects covered are valid ones that belong in the article to provide the reader with a suitably comprehensive insight. That is a distinct difference from WP:SYNTH, which forbids a novel conclusion or novel implied narrative. There is nothing novel in the article, as it is already stated in exactly that way in the sources.

I find your assertion that it failed as a business an unsubstantiated one, though as of little import as the "indivisibility" concept, unless you intend inserting it in the article, that is. There is no source that says that. The source (Saner, 1 December 2005) links the end of the gallery directly with an emotional upset and following an ex boyfriend to Spain. This got separated somewhat in the article. I have linked the information per the source.

I haven't got a clue what you mean by Flock of seagulls or "that you want to drink the kool-aid is fine etc", nor for that matter, "This is an NPOV issue between the balance of self-description and the reality of the organization's nature." The only NPOV issue is following the sources. Where does "self-description" come into it, and how are you deciding "the reality of the organization's nature"? What are your sources? The only ones I know see the reality in the way the article depicts it.

You say my attitude is one "one of protectionism and even questioning my general competency to edit this article." Well, you seem to be questioning my competency, so I don't see you have any grounds to complain. By "protectionism", I presume you mean I don't instantly agree with you. You said, "assertions about the mental state and mental health of the person are being made that are outside of the WP:BLP limits we set around here." The limits require a high standard of sourcing. I asked you to post here the exact text which you consider does not meet that standard. You haven't done so. You can't just make statements without backing them up. I take it then you agree the content of the article does have the proper standard of sourcing.

You are citing the BLP concept of "human dignity". The relevant text from the policy is:
 * Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects. Wikipedia aims to be a reputable encyclopedia, not a tabloid. Our articles must not serve primarily to mock or disparage their subjects, whether directly or indirectly. This is of particularly profound importance when dealing with individuals whose notability stems largely from their being victims of another's actions. Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization.

I can't see anything that violates those principles. I do see material that is, let us say, out of the norm, but only to provide an insight into the reality of the set-up and of the person running it, as stated in reliable sources, and as stated by Vine herself. To not acknowledge these matters and present them to the reader would be a violation of NPOV. This isn't stuff gleaned from some obscure blog or the gutter press, but comes from what are considered the most serious national newspapers. Again per NPOV, we follow the sources.

Dignity is relative, not absolute. What one person considers undignified, another will rejoice in and vice versa. If someone has chosen to portray themselves in the national media, not just once but consistently, in a particular fashion, which to many people is transgressive, then they have determined what they consider to be an appropriate manner of being perceived, or at least they have determined the manner in which they are perceived. Of their own making. One might well argue that to sanitise the outré individual is a violation of their dignity. It is certainly a falsification of their being, and that is contrary to policies and principles.

 Ty  07:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * "A Flock of Seagulls" is band known for their use of synths... WP:SYNTH, get it?


 * This is a way better rationale than I expected. I appreciate you taking the time to make it. All I can say is that there are interpretative issues I disagree with, both in policy and in what the sources say, but there is indeed an upper hand to the indivisibility narrative: it is indeed the narrative of disparate sources. That might speak to the quality (or lack of) contemporary art criticism, but I do accept that you do have a point regarding the sources, so I will let that matter drop.


 * Cartainly the headers are now WAY better, IMHO - not just policywise, but reallye ven in conveying description and information. A perusal of the table of contents immediately gives the reader a clear view of the milestones of the subject, withoput being too wordy. Excellent work. And yes, the table is a good idea as format to be used in other articles.--Cerejota (talk) 07:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Too much biographical info, too little about the gallery
I have to agree about some of the above comments. This article, in many places, is about Vine rather than the Rosy Wilde Gallery. Most of the news sources are largely about Vine, rather than her gallery (which is often incidental). There are too many content forks on Wikipedia about Vine - her detailed biographical story should be found at Stella Vine and not repeated at length in other articles. I'm not disputing Vine is (or was) a notable artist, but an art gallery needs to establish its independent notability, rather than inheriting it from its owner.

For example, the exhibitions list is cited entirely to the gallery website or brief online listings. Notable exhibitions should be described (i.e. ones that have been noticed and reviewed by the press) while readers can access the gallery's website for miscellaneous non-notable historical lists. Sionk (talk) 12:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Does the gallery still exist?
The article goes as far as 2006, and no further. I can't find any recent mentions of the gallery online, the gallery's website never even acknowledged the move to Soho and Vine's "Rosy Wilde Limited" company was apparently dissolved in 2012. Did the Soho gallery close, and if so, when? --McGeddon (talk) 12:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, it seems pretty obvious it closed a long time ago. The intial edit of the article in 2009 described the gallery's website as "historic". Sionk (talk) 12:46, 5 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that just means "the old website", in context, but that 2009 edit also talks of the gallery in the past tense. I've gone ahead and updated the article to make the unsourced claim that the gallery closed, pending a source that confirms it. --McGeddon (talk) 13:07, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090321051344/http://www.orianafox.com/exhibitions/Exhibition_at_RW.html to http://www.orianafox.com/exhibitions/Exhibition_at_RW.html

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