Talk:Serge Guinchard

Attribution statement
This article was created on 22 February 2011 and derives from the corresponding article on the French Wikipedia, the then current version of which was this. Yngvadottir (talk) 14:05, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Language
This article needs to be translated into English. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JBH23 (talk • contribs) 14:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

This article can mostly not have its English improved as the French text does not correspond to the English. There is a vast amount of text in the English version, much of which is incomprehensible, with no original French text to try and determine the correct meaning. Samrong01 (talk) 06:12, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Beginning Cleanup
For starters, I cleaned up the introduction: fixing the prose, adding links to relevant wikipedia pages. The notes being badly written, often irrelevant, and often useless, I scrapped them unless there was a reason to keep them. (In the inroduction, at least, there wasn't.) The citations in those notes, for information, were also based on personal opinion of what happened without citing a reliable secondary source saying that Guinchard had indeed done those things. The same type of cleanup will have to be done on the rest. As a side note, I'm not exactly sure that this meets notoriety standards for an English public. pomegranatehouse (talk) 11:49, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Also in agreement with Samrong01: this has a lot of original content that isn't in the beginning; where I can, I'll bring it a bit closer—especially where it's not sourced or badly sourced in the English page. pomegranatehouse (talk) 11:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Continued Cleanup
I continued removing footnotes. Some of them were just lists of Guinchard's works. I might mention that Wikipedia is not a place to post CVs, and the average reader, even when looking at an encyclopedia, doesn't wish to find at a list of his academic publish history. A lot if this looks like original research too. It takes a bit of courage to take this article on. The French version of article (more relevant because he's a French scholar) is less filled with this kind of (useless) detail.pomegranatehouse (talk) 21:30, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

This fails COPYVIO
A translation, even a machine translated one, should have a tag on it to avoid WP:COPYVIO. If it was machine translated from Serge_Guinchard which at a casual glance seems likely, it should have a on it. Si Trew (talk) 00:04, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

My prod and comments (moved from WP:PNTCU)

 * This shouldn't even be at Pages Needing Cleanup. It is an obvious machine translation; not because the words are wrong but because whole sections of style etc have not been done by an English Wikipedia editor, so quotes are all done inline with italics etc, cross links and refs are all wrong, and so on. I don't know about others but when I translate, most of the battle is not the words but doing the cross links and checks, trying to substitute a foreign reference for an English language one if you can find one, is what takes the time. For example at my stub translation of Josiah Marshall Heath (which went to DYK on 24 Jan), which was not from PNT but from the bag of Articles Needing Translation from French, I should have preferred to find his original words in his patents but could not (without going to the British Patent Office and even then would probably struggle since no patent numbers are mentioned in the French original; I tried searching Patent Office Online etc), so had to do as best I could to back translate into that kinda Victorian officialese, but clearly marked it as a back translation in the copy.


 * Let alone trying to sort out the grammar. For example, "Between 1989 and 1995, the city of Lyon began the construction of 8,000 parking spaces downtown, through the company Lyon-Parc-Auto, including Serge Guinchard was president at the same time"; I should translate this as "Between 1989 and 1995, Lyon started to construct parking for 8,000 cars in the city centre [or downtown], contracting to Lyon-Parc-Auto. Guichard was president of the company at the time." This is me translating just that sentence from the English guessing the French and not looking at the French article and seeing the context, just guessing it from that one sentence. And that was just a random example. I don't know how this got to Pages Needing Cleanup, it should be clear PROD as automatic translation. I can't understand why an English reader without knowledge of French, French general style or French Wikipedia style (which is a world in itself like ours is) would understand this; I spend more time kinda untangling the bad translation than trying to read it. Although it has numerous refs they don't conform to EN:WP so there are about 132 refs that have to be checked, coalesced into or something, and so on and so on. It is in short a tar pit into which any fool who wanders will eventually drown. Si Trew (talk) 23:02, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * And then I would start (indeed have started) to think "build" or "construct"? And how could they start it continuously between 1989 and 1995, they must have started it at some definite point (a foundation stone, or a law/decree, whatever), and so on. Should it be President caps or president lowercase? Which means checking WP:NAME, for just one word (I would say President caps without checking, if it is a singular President rather than general presidents, but MOS often differs with me on these kinds of things.) Then President should probably be translated as Managing Director or Chairman or CEO; as I said deliberaely without looking at what it says in the original, so whoever (a machine) took president -> president was not looking at context. Then you have to knock it into house style. Perhaps add an infobox. Add markers on the talk page so as not to be WP:COPYVIO. I would check the links to French places since they may direct to other places on English Wikipedia. I would add templates to technical articles, I would change date styles per MOS:DATE and so on. I would add an infobox and transfer some information into there.


 * That is what takes the time for me, not translating the words. In fact usually I look back on the translation of the words the next day and they are very stilted while I have been struggling with all the scaffolding so I then revise them into a more natural English language pattern. (At least my own peculiar southern British English language pattern.)


 * Translators at WP probably get the least credit of all translators, and the least credit at WP itself, and humbly do stacks of work which goes largely unnoticed if they do it well. Machine translations like this, I am surprised it jumped to Cleanup, I am taking it PROD Si Trew (talk) 23:42, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree it is WP:OR and WP:RESUME as well, and that shouldn't even be in there in the French, but that is their concern. Certainly by usual EN:WP standards this person is not WP:N when all the references are WP:PRIMARY back to his own research. I am sure he is a nice chap. But he is not notable by English Wikipedia standards. I have spent too long on this already just to establish that, I should be cleaning my kitchen. Si Trew (talk) 13:13, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I have removed the PROD. Cleaning up bad translations - whether machine generated or not - is what that section of WP:Pages needing translation into English is for. Yes, there is a bad backlog, and yes, this article is daunting. Yes, a machine translation is sometimes just as bad as no article on the topic, or worse, and people should be discouraged from thinking they help Wikipedia by adding them. Yes, I agree with you that one should ideally not just translate an article, but do extra work to set the material in context and/or present it differently so it's comprensible to English-speaking readers. Although I don't agree that one should replace the foreign-language references with English ones; where possible I supplement them, and I add a translation of footnoted quotes and sometimes of headlines, but information is not rendered invalid by being recorded in a language other than English. However, it's almost impossible to prevent this from happening sometimes, and when it does, having a noticeboard where they are brought to the attention of those who can and may be willing to fix them is a good though slow solution, and the template warns the reader. As to the relationship with the French article, the translated article template is not absolutely required, although it's recommended - there is also a different template that can be placed at the bottom of the article itself, or one can announce in an edit summary, ideally the first, that the article is based on that on another Wikipedia. This article was created some 3 years after the French one, so it probably was a translation; however, the French article has changed since then (they've been trying to fix it) so whoever eventually cleans it up will choose whether to retranslate from the new French article with attribution, stub (which seems best to me, but to determine how short a stub I'd have to descend into the tar pit and I don't have time right now '-) ) or rewrite from scratch. I think Guinchard is sufficiently notable under WP:PROF; if you disagree, AfD it. Otherwise, if you are like me unwilling or unable to devote the time at this point to fixing the article, please leave it for when someone does get to it. It's referenced and there is no deadline; your rationale for imposing one via PROD seems to amount to "It falls into the category that section of Pages needing translation is for." Yngvadottir (talk) 16:52, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Dear Yngvadottir,


 * It is quite right for you to remove the PROD, and I have taken it to AfD where you are named as "Another good faith editor" on the AfD (I meant you but I don't know what the protocol is there I don't want to be finger pointing).


 * I have a way of packing the maximum amount of words into the minimum amount of thought, so I say clearly: I want it deleted so that I can reconstruct it from scratch, from the current FR:WP article. I am quite willing to put in the time to do this (my kitchen is now clean).


 * Yes, I agree not to replace references but augment them; I only replace them if the original (in my case in French) is actually a translation from an English source in the first place i.e. replace the translated source with the original one. Otherwise have both, I totally agree.


 * Yes, I agree that the particular template is not necessary, however attribution to a copyrighted source is necessary and mirabile dictu FR:WP is a copyrighted source, so since there is none it is still WP:COPYVIO. The easiest way is to add  but I agree if longhand one writes "I found this from French Wikipedia article such and such on such a date" that is fine too.


 * "Whoever cleans it up" will be in my opinion nobody. Nobody has done so for two years, and it is too daunting because there is too much wrong with it; deleting and recreating as a stub article would be better than the mess that is here.


 * I don't know whether Guinchard is notable or not, the fact he is a professor in Lyon does not automatically make him notable.


 * I should love to make this article better and I am not "unwilling or unable to devote the time"; I have plenty of time on my hands next week to deal with it properly. I just believe it is better if it is deleted and started from scratch (as you say "rewrite it from scratch") as a stub and then translate in from the French bit by bit, translating properly and putting it into EN:WP house style. But were I just to blank the page I imagine it would get a certain number of complaints (expected: 1 from someone who knows Serge Guinchard). Therefore I take it PROD then AfD by the proper process


 * The easiest way for me to take this was just to report it at CSD as COPYVIO but I didn't do that. Since the edit history says it is a translation from FR:WP, and the insert on WP:PNTCU says it is a translation from FR:WP, it is an obvious COPYVIO and that would be the easiest way for me to get it deleted (it is also not RS on a BLP which is almost certainly CSD). Instead, I did what I should do, propose it for deletion then take it to AfD.


 * I agree that it is good to have a noticeboard for these things, but two years on a noticeboard is too long. I may misinterpret it, but I thought cleanup was for articles that are generally in house style but need the odd bit of polish here and there. This does not need so much a duster as dynamite. For that reason I can't see why it was at PNTCU, it just seems too far gone to have any hope of a bit of light cleanup. Things tend to get seven days at PNT proper and then are PRODded, I don't know why once they fall through that net it's considered OK to keep them at PNTCU eternally. It should be categorized as "Pages needing a complete rewrite from French" or something, and of course nothing is perfect and I kinda accept it has nowhere else to go (except the bin, if I have my way).


 * I must somehow have done the right thing by accident, since you, a stalwart good editor at WP:PNT, and LargoPlazo similarly, have commented on this so by bringing it to your attention something may be done with it. As I have him, I thank you for all your hard work at PNT, it does get noticed by at least one other editor. Si Trew (talk) 23:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * If you are able to devote the time to recreating it from scratch, and willing to do so (which amounts to a statement that you do consider him notable enough to merit an article), then just do so. There is no requirement for the existing article to be deleted first, and indeed deletion at AfD would amount to a consensus that he does not merit an article, making your creation of a new article on him problematic. I'd urge you to go ahead with the rewrite and then withdraw your statement at the AfD, unless during the rewriting you decide he isn't notable. I'd offer to create a stub right now, but I have a heap of other things to do, including another AfD'd article to try to save, and you say you have time. Yngvadottir (talk) 13:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposal for complete rewrite
The whole question of notability aside (and that would trump this discussion) this article needs a complete rewrite if it is to survive. Some comments above fail to take into consideration the history of the original French article, in particular its reduction in size by over 85% in 2012. Unfortunately, a lot of good faith cleanup effort expended here after that to improve the English article may be based on the long, problematic version on French Wikipedia. It's doubly sad to work on improving a poor machine translation of material since suppressed in the original.

I appreciate all the effort taken to improve this article, but I fear that further attempts at copyediting the current state of the article by improving the English represent time thrown down the toilet, and I suggest that we stop doing so.

A bit of history: the French article reached a peak of 162,000 bytes in November 2011. On Jan 26 2012 it was rewritten by French user Eric Messel dropping to 23,322 bytes, with the comment ''COMPLETE REWRITE OF THE ARTICLE TO CONFORM TO WIKIPEDIA STANDARDS. Its tone of self-serving publicity and hagiography has been removed, as well as irrelevant information.'' (caps in the original). Since then, it's hovered around the same size, reaching a peak of 25,000 bytes in December 2013, and now stands at 21,456 bytes since 1/11/2015.

Comments such as the one above in March 2013 about not having a corresponding original French text to consult for the incomprehensible English text are inaccurate, it's just that this follows the reduction of the original article by 85% in size, so you'd have to consult the history on the French article if you wanted to find the original. But why would you want to do that, as it's all been deleted since then for good cause?

I agree generally with much of what users Yngvadottir and Si Trew say above, in particular, you both mention a possible "rewrite from scratch" after possibly reducing the current article to a stub. Plus, just because a French academician who is, let's stipulate for the sake of argument, "notable enough" for inclusion in English Wikipedia, doesn't mean that he's as interesting or important here as in France. If he merits 21,000 bytes in France, maybe 7,000-10,000 is plenty here.

So, I'm thinking this article should be rewritten, starting from a small stub of a few paragraphs, then working back up to some reasonable size. I do agree with Yngvadottir's last comment, namely, there's no need to delete the article via AfD (and furthermore that it shouldn't be deleted) but rather, one should just go ahead and make the change per WP:BOLD.

Having said that, a reduction in size down to a stub, which is what I'm proposing here, might easily ruffle some feathers, especially of those who have spent good faith effort trying to improve the article, so I'd like to seek consensus here first, before we act boldly. Let's wait a decent interval to get a sense of how some major contributors feel about this, and if there seems to be a consensus for stub-then-rewrite, then let's do so. (Also, as you comment below, please indicate if you can help with translation from the original, and what your level of French is.) Mathglot (talk) 03:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC) FR-3 = fluent non-native ability; can translate fluently into English

Sent discussion invites to all users having substantive edits on the article page, viz. SimonTrew, Yngvadottir ,  pomegranatehouse ,  Samrong01 , and  Passaquit. Feel free to expand the list. Mathglot (talk) 03:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I broadly agree, and have kept intending to work on the sections I had not yet worked on - with a scythe. I had also found some independent news references for his local government activities and was intending to use them to refocus that section. I regret not having got back to the article, although there are, I'm afraid, quite a few listed in the "needs improvement" section of WP:Pages needing translation into English that are likewise almost incomprehensible in places. I do regret not getting back to this article in the meantime, but it is not urgent. I had also seen the reduction by the French editor over there. However, I would caution against arbitrary length goals. For one thing, different languages take different amounts of prose to say the same thing, due to the way their syntaxes work and indeed average word length. For another, the goals of the English article would include giving explanations/background that French readers can be presumed not to need. And fundamentally, I disagree that coverage should be based entirely or even substantially on what is likely to interest a reader in one place or another - notable is notable. However, those things said, I started working on the sections I felt most urgent to clarify, and if it gets stubbed, I or whoever else finishes the job can always retrieve information from the history. A thorough rewrite is definitely needed, including enabling a clear overview of his life and career, and removing the vast majority of primary sources. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:11, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I also agree. What I suggest is that one each of us does a straight draft translation of what we feel important from the entire article at FR:WP, and as Yngavadottir says add context that we feel audiences other than French people may need, and then we kinda merge it in as we see fit. I'm happy to do the tr. but it will take me some time to do, as I started a new job this month and haven't much spare time – or at least a good clear run of time that this will need. We could perhaps take it section by section but I think we should broadly follow the bones (i.e. structure) at FR:WP, since at least they seem to have done some of our homework by paring it down a bit.


 * Sorry it has taken me so long to reply, I did see the remark on my talk page. Si Trew (talk) 20:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)


 * By way of comparison, the French article has 17 references and 10 sections, as follows:


 * Education and career
 * Youth and education
 * Academic career
 * Associations and think tanks
 * Legislative jurisprudence
 * French Ministry of Justice
 * Senegalese Ministry of Justice
 * Council of Europe
 * NATO
 * Department of books and collections
 * Department of collective works
 * Book collections management
 * Dept. of periodicals and editorial boards
 * Lines of research and doctrinal positions
 * Academic juries
 * Political Activities
 * Awards and decorations
 * Distinctions
 * Decorations & Awards
 * Notes and references
 * Bibliography and publications of ten books with regular updates
 * External links


 * Exemplifying the problem in the EN article, is the section on his promotion of art in Lyon parking garages, which is 731 words long (excluding references and footnotes) including this gem of a comment (sourced, of course) on the color scheme:Thirdly, was chosen for the sign, Mr. Yann's Pennor it is to him that we owe the yellow and black instead of the traditional red and white, both outside of parks for report, and inside to guide motorists and this color choice has since been copied by other manufacturers to car parks, both in and outside of Lyon, notably in Paris and was made after a survey of motorists Lyon has revealed that these two colors, which are also of Grand Prix Formula 1, mostly in the responses returned. Sheesh!  In the rewritten article, there should either nothing about this at all, or maybe a clause in a sentence, saying, "..and supported the use of contemporary art in parking garages" followed by one reference, not four references and six footnotes.  If we keep it like it is, then I want to see a list of every parking garage Picasso ever used while living in France added to the Picasso article. He deserves no less respect than Serge, I say. Mathglot (talk) 02:16, 1 May 2015 (UTC) Edited by Mathglot (talk) 02:39, 1 May 2015 (UTC) to fix a couple of translations of section names.

Double yellow lines is close but not close enough, I think. Si Trew (talk) 03:49, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd be okay with it being reduced to stub length. At any rate, his notoriety in the English-speaking world (and academic publishing history, by the by) is such that I'm not sure why so much detail – and badly written detail at that – would be needed or even desirable. A stub reduction and rewrite from scratch would allow the article to contain only things that are actually pertinent. pomegranatehouse (talk) 07:00, 24 July 2015 (UTC)