Talk:The Coral Island

Definition lists
Definition lists are not a sensible way of marking up subheadings. The markup  produces this html:  Notes  which is a definition list. See http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/lists.html#h-10.3. Although it may look like bold markup to a sighted reader, anybody using a non-visual agent will hear the start of a definition list, but no definition. We should not be making our text any more confusing for the visually-impaired than we have to, so I have reverted to using the wikimarkup for bold to delineate the headings. That at least is harmless to most screen readers. Ideally, however, the subheadings should be marked up as third-level headers (using === ) but I understand that some people dislike seeing them in the table table of contents. If there is no objection, I'd like to markup those subheaders as , and will do so in the absence of further discussion here. --RexxS (talk) 15:43, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * That's the ticket. What the man said (and you can limit the toc-depth). Br&#39;er Rabbit (talk) 16:13, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I find your observation of the impact of the leading semicolon on those using screen readers to be persuasive Rexxs, but I'm curious; is it your intention to go through the tens of thousands of other articles that use it for formatting? Br&#39;er Rabbit claims to have "fixed" the Wiki markup documentation, but see this section, which still explicitly describes the use of a leading semicolon to produce non-TOC headings. For the sake of a quiet life I'll add the h3 stuff myself, even though it does involve the additional fiddly step of reducing the depth of the TOC. It's just a shame that some of this effort hasn't been spent in actually, you know, improving the article. George Ponderevo (talk) 16:30, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I would argue that making an article more accessible to non-sighted readers is an improvement. Lady  of  Shalott  18:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that in my frustration at similar issues unrelated to accessibility that occurred elsewhere at about the same time, such as whether it should be  or , I allowed my frustration to spill over and distort my meaning. Of course I agree that increasing accessibility is an improvement, but by "improving the article" I mean improving the content of the article, not how it's rendered. George Ponderevo (talk) 19:23, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Reception

 * I'd suggest adding the following:

Source: Carpenter, Humphrey, and Mari Prichard. (1984). The Oxford Companion to Chidren's Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-211582-0, p. 131
 * Victoria (talk) 02:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks good, I'll do that now. Thanks. Eric   Corbett  03:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Extraneous detail
The edit was made because at first I thought that this was the only person whose professional status is given. Actually this isn't the case, but the article nevertheless inconsistently applies details for the figures that it offers. For instance, "Brian Street", "M. Daphne Kutzer", "Katharine Anderson" and "Fiona McCulloch" are all not identified by their professional status, but others are. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 12:54, 21 March 2014 (UTC)


 * That's not true. Brian Street, for instance is identified as the author of The Savage in Literature: Representations of 'Primitive' Society in English Fiction (1975). Eric   Corbett  13:01, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, that leaves the other three cases I pointed out. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 13:47, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * So what? Similar logic applies. Fiona McCulloch, for instance, is the person who wrote "The Broken Telescope". Eric   Corbett  15:18, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * But Susan Maher wrote "Recasting Crusoe", and yet unlike McCulloch was also identified by her occupation (Professor of English). Basically there was a lack of consistency as to when someone's occupation is detailed, which I didn't want to see in this excellent article. Personally I would do without titles/occupations in all cases, but that's another matter; I would have thought there'd be some MoS suggestions for this, but can't appear to find any. Cheers, MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:43, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You'll find that FAC reviewers almost always insist on a brief explanation of who someone is, which is the only reason there's any there at all as far as I'm concerned. Eric   Corbett  20:29, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

TFAR
Today's featured article/requests/The Coral Island --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:26, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Lord of the Flies comparison
Which 3 characters in LotF compare with the 3 in Coral Island? Jack and Ralph are obvious as they share names, but is Peterkin analogous to Piggy, or is he analogous to Simon, since together they suggest Simon Peter? This was the view of the teacher when we studied LotF at school. PatGallacher (talk) 00:20, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Literary and Historical Context
The current text here claims that The Coral Island (published 1857) is rooted in Darwin's theory of evolution (published 1859). This would be a neat temporal trick, and the current text tries to justify this apparent backwards causation as follows: "Published a year before Darwin's Origin of Species (whose ideas were already being circulated and discussed widely), The Coral Island reflects the then prevalent view of evolutionary theory; ..." This is a nice try, but unconvincing as Darwin's decision to finally publish his ideas was (according to the Wiki article, On_the_Origin_of_Species due to his receipt of a letter from Wallace on 18 June 1858 which made him realise that Wallace was also on the same track. Ergo, Darwin/Wallace's ideas could not already have been in widespread circulation in the previous year 1857, when The Coral Island was published. If these ideas had already been circulated and discussed widely, then Wallace's letter would not have had its reported impact on Darwin's decision. I'm suggesting the simplest fix would be simply to delete this paragraph? Dodo64 (talk) 00:26, 19 July 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.36.214.37 (talk)
 * And I think you should read the sources. Also, please explain why you are signing with someone else's name. Drmies (talk) 00:39, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Drmies, I'm pleased to meet you too. I accidentally posted my comment in the wrong place and then copied it here when I realised, which is why the signature shows as it does. Congratulations if you have never made any errors of this kind. The above comment therefore was indeed posted by me, Dodo64. Turning to the substance of your complaint, if I may call it that - I have read the sources. (The Coral Island, The Origin of Species). I have not read Frank Kermode's essay, but I doubt that any reading of it could persuade me to accept the existence of backwards causation. And you? Dodo64 (talk) 01:06, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's a real nice way to strike up a friendship. The source I meant was indeed Kermode, and maybe reading that will be useful to you. You may think that Darwinism, or indeed theories of evolution, only came into being the year The Origin of Species was published, and if so, you are dead wrong. Note that an 1842 book by Darwin is mentioned in the paragraph as well. Note also the parenthetic comment in our text, "whose ideas were already being circulated and discussed widely", cited to another essay you probably haven't read. That makes two peer-reviewed academic articles, cited in a text perused by a nice batch of seasoned Wikipedia editors as part of the FA review, and I think we're done. Drmies (talk) 01:40, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh God. I'd forgotten that The Coral Island was up for TFA today. Eric   Corbett  02:03, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see now. Hey, Eric, do you have an answer for the section above? I'm not sure I ever read LotF. Drmies (talk) 02:24, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Apart from the fact that it's crap do you mean? Evolution isn't a new idea, as any properly educated person ought to know. Eric   Corbett  02:28, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the question about the characters, in the section above this one. Drmies (talk) 02:40, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * And "Darwinism" isn't "evolution", as any educated person ought to know. The article says "Darwinism", not "evolution". 220.148.58.167 (talk) 08:32, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

My edits
I changed 'elementary school' to 'primary school'. The article already has mentions of primary school in the lead; it's about a British author and talking about the British education system, so it makes no sense to use the US school system descriptor. I have linked to primary school to elementary school so anyone unfamiliar with the term can click on the link, as I had to do with elementary school. US terms don't take precedence.

Also a sentence about a simplified version for 12-14 year olds didn't state which country. US is not the default in Wikipedia. The country needs stating.

Otherwise, great article and congratulations to those involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.155.195.19 (talk) 06:17, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Describing it as a set book "for primary school children of the early 20th century" is over-specific, as this was a class read in my primary schooling in Glasgow in the 1960s. Of course, I have no reference for that other than personal experience. The curriculum was still rather how-stands-the-Empire and had not changed in many years. Nor had the physical books. AllyD (talk) 07:30, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I confirm that I share your personal classroom experience, in London in the mid-1960s; and at the age of 10 we did not read a simplified version. It is difficult to correct the misleading impression because it is quoting a cited reference: perhaps we should remove the citation and change it to "until the 1960s"?Jezza (talk) 18:16, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You would need a reliable source stating that information; personal experience is insufficient. It is not acceptable to simply "remove the citation and change it to until the 1960s".  SagaciousPhil  - Chat 19:08, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Year of publication
Immediately following the bolded title, 1858 is given as the year of publication. But in the second paragraph it says "the book first went on sale in late 1857". So which is it? JH (talk page) 08:35, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In the third paragraph of the 'Biographical background and publication' section, it states: "Although the first edition is dated 1858 it was on sale in bookshops from early December 1857; dating books forward was a common practice at the time, especially during the Christmas period." SagaciousPhil  - Chat 08:44, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I should have read a bit more of the article. JH (talk page) 09:24, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

TFAR - 2
Today's featured article/requests/The Coral Island - 2 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:37, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Coral Island (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:05, 18 December 2023 (UTC)