Talk:The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations

Selected passages
"Selected passages", "selected quotes", and similar sections are not generally included in Wikipedia articles. We can include quotes of a reasonable length in other sections with sourced commentary - perhaps an Analysis section would make sense, if there are sources available to back it up. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:44, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Nikkimaria, Along with several quotes by Guillaume Apollinaire (all public domain is France, and thus globally), you've deleted twice now a hook sentence that has been accepted at Template:Did you know/Preparation area 3. In addition, you've removed photographs or artists and works (not to mention multiple citations). These quotes are perfectly acceptable, as are the images, and help the reader understand the intentions, the impetus and meditations of Apollinaire regarding the Cubist painters. Coldcreation (talk) 16:02, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to move any images that would make sense in other sections elsewhere. However, most of the section consists of either a) extensive quotes without any contextualization or analysis, or b) unsourced interpretation (bordering on original research). Regardless of the copyright status of the quotes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a repository for quotations - that would be Wikiquote. As I mentioned, you can incorporate quotes into an encyclopedic treatment of the subject; that is not what is currently in the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:25, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I've done some reorganization of the article to try to give more context to the quotes - this is an example of how quotes could be incorporated in an encyclopedic manner. However, the article still suffers from a lack of sourced interpretation to support the primary-source material. As for the images, in neither version of the article was I able to get the images to line up with the associated text - the inline images extend even past the gallery down the side of the page. You could incorporate these into another gallery, but as Wikipedia is no more a collection of images than a collection of quotes, it might make more sense to be a bit more selective in illustration and supplement the article with a Commons link. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I've just posted a revised version. Citations have been added where needed. There is no original research (nor was there before), much is sourced multiple times (where before there was no citation), with page numbers. Tags to these effects have therefore been removed. There is one pending point to make. As far as quotes from the book are concerned: I've removed some of the quotes, and may remove more. I need a little time to work on this, to see if or how to do so. Until then hold the tags. And Nikkimaria, thanks for you contributions. They have helped improve this article. Coldcreation (talk) 20:16, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You're welcome, but your edits have actually amplified some of my concerns: there is, again, too much quoting from the primary source with too little contextualization and analysis, and the images still are not able to be associated with the relevant text. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Those are the issues I'm working on. Coldcreation (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * If you ask me, I would make a small gallery per artist section, starting with his picture, followed by his artwork, just to keep things simple. Lotje (talk) 10:26, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Multiple issues tags
I've removed the tag about too many photos. This article deals with many artists. Their works must be seen. There are a total of 46 images in this article. Compare that to an article about Claude Monet for example; containing 65 images. 46 images is hardly excessive considering the overall length of the article and the high-profile of the artists under review: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Duchamp-Villon. I'm still considering the placement of these images; whether to place them is separate galleries, per artist, as mentioned by Lotje above.

Also removed is the tag that states this article relies too much on references to primary sources. All one needs to do is look at the list of references. The only references to the primary sources are related to the quotes.

As far as excessive quotes: I'm still working on this. Some quotes have already been omitted: See the initial article and compare with the article on 4 March 2015. The article went from 49,918 bytes to 43,305 bytes. Much of that includes analysis and paraphrasing, rather than direct quote, so actual quoting was far less than those figures surmise‎. By the end of the week any residual excess quoting issue should be resolved. Until then, I've left the tag to this effect. Coldcreation (talk) 17:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, this article deals with many artists, but the artists themselves are not the topic of this article - the article is actually about a book. We do not need to and should not reproduce every image from that book in this article. As for the primary sources issue, over a third of the article uses primary sources - this is partly a reflection of how excessive the quoting remains, but it's still a problem. The point of the tags is to draw attention to these issues. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:31, 15 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The book happens to be about these artists and their works, and so cannot be disassociated from the topic of this article. In another way, they are the topic of the book, and are thus the topic of this article, in addition to Apollinaire, the author himself. There is no reason why these images (all of them) should not be included in the article. Some appear on the Internet for the first time, many were uploaded especially for this article. Out of the vast repertoire of works available at the time, Apollinaire (and perhaps the artists too) chose these works to be reproduced in the 1913 publication. These were the works they wanted to be seen. They are now available to a wider audience. One should not have to go to the Bibliothèque nationale de France (like I did a few weeks ago) to find out which works are reproduced in the book. For these reasons I will removed the tag to this respect. I will also removed, once again, the tag related to primary source material. per explanation above. Your "third of the article uses primary sources" is incorrect, or a gross overestimation. And as stated above, I will, during the week, downsize the quotes. Coldcreation (talk) 20:46, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This article is about the book, and we have other articles (Pablo Picasso et al) to discuss the topic of the artists in more detail (and there's also an article to discuss the author, for that matter). Whether the images are uploaded for the first time or the hundredth time makes no difference, as we are not a media repository - that would be Wikimedia Commons, where you're welcome to organize the images. An encyclopedic discussion of which works were reproduced and why does not require that we reproduce all of the works here. As for the proportion of primary-source material, my estimate is readily verified: the article now has a prose size of 22kB, and without the primary source material it has a prose size of 14kB. If you compare this to featured and good articles on non-fiction works, you'll find that the proportion of primary-source material in those articles is smaller because, as I said above, the topic of the article is the book - the article can include a summary of content (including a reasonable number of quotes) but should also include significant analysis, reception, publication history, historical context, etc. That's what makes such an article appropriately balanced and complete in its coverage, and that's why it's not appropriate for such an article to rely so heavily on direct quotes and primary sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Good idea; analysis, reception, publication history, historical context, are forthcoming. A note on Commons: Only the works of Juan Gris and Duchamp-Villon (and Apollinaire) are in public domain, some of which are at Commons, along with the portrait photographs of the several artists. Again, yes this article is about a book. The book is about cubism, the cubist artists, and ultimately about the author (the three principle topics discussed in the article). It makes no difference if each artist and author (and Cubism for that matter) each have their own wiki article, since each of the subjects are discussed in relation to the 1913 book, Les Peintres Cubistes. Again, too, by the end of the week, or shortly thereafter, the article will contain more on the analysis, reception, publication history, and historical context, which should improve the article. Your help has been productive. Thanks. I just wish that instead of writing so much here in Talk, tagging the article so many times, and deleting vast amounts of text and images, that you would have contributed to, say, analysis, reception, publication history, or historical context, directly in the article. Coldcreation (talk) 04:28, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

In fact, I'll go ahead and remove the excess quote tag too. It doesn't look good there at the top of the article, and, as stated above, the issue will be resolved shortly. Coldcreation (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Whether it does or doesn't look good is not the determining factor in whether a tag should be there - it's whether the issue has already been resolved. That issue has not yet been resolved, whether you intend to eventually resolve it or not. Nor have the other issues that were flagged been resolved. I would be happy to contribute to resolving problems myself, except of course that my efforts to do so have already been undone more than once. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:37, 17 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The quotes were reduced considerably on 4 March 2015 (and will be again). The images have been placed by group, each in their corresponding galleries (lined up with the associated text), per advice by Nikkimaria (your second and third posts), from Lotje, above, and Modernist below. And the primary source material will surely be reduced once I revise the quote sections again (within the next couple of days). In addition to these points, I will be working more on analysis, reception, publication history and historical context. No need for tags at this point. The issues are being resolved right here at Talk. Coldcreation (talk) 06:36, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. Coldcreation (talk) 07:43, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * ❌ Though some small reduction of quotes has been done, the amount of quotation is still excessive. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Quotes have been reduced several times, to a degree now more than acceptable. The few quotes (unique to the writing style of Apollinaire) that remain directly relate to the topic of the article and directly support the information presented. Prose that comment on those quotations are interspersed within. The few quotes that remain are compatible with an encyclopedic writing style per WP:QUOTE. The quotes are public domain in the host country (France) available under a CC-By-SA-compatible free license. Because of possible controversial nature of Apollinaire's opinion of the subject of Cubism (and the artists that practice Cubism), along with his use of unique phrases and terms, certain quotes have been preferable to paraphrasing. Your persistent claim of excessive quoting, even after several reductions have been performed, is nonsensical, excessive, and considering the topic under review, uncalled for. 18:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not every quote remaining is PD, and even if they were, that in and of itself does not make their use appropriate. Can you explain how you feel this article meets WP:QUOTE? We still have subsections consisting mostly or entirely of quotes and galleries with little to no accompanying explanatory text, and we still have material quoted that could be readily paraphrased. Not to mention the too-close paraphrasing and other problems with the text...Nikkimaria (talk) 19:32, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I've already explained to you how the quotes meet WP:QUOTE (previous post). Those explanations combined justify the use of the remaining quotes with the accompanying explanatory text. Coldcreation (talk) 19:44, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) "Quotes have been reduced several times" - somewhat, but given how absolutely excessive they were to begin with, that hasn't been enough. 2) "The few quotes (unique to the writing style of Apollinaire) that remain directly relate to the topic of the article and directly support the information presented" - a) not few b) not unique c) don't support information that isn't presented - as 3) "Prose that comment on those quotations are interspersed within" is not always true. 4) "The few quotes that remain are compatible with an encyclopedic writing style per WP:QUOTE" - a) not few b) not encyclopedic to have subsections that are mostly or entirely quotes c) don't meet WP:QUOTE as presented. 5) "The quotes are public domain in the host country (France) available under a CC-By-SA-compatible free license" - not all of the quotes are by Apollinaire and not all are free. 6) "Because of possible controversial nature of Apollinaire's opinion of the subject of Cubism (and the artists that practice Cubism), along with his use of unique phrases and terms, certain quotes have been preferable to paraphrasing" - potentially true, but current usage exceeds that. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:08, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) "that hasn't been enough" is based on your opinion, not WP:QUOTE. 2) Again, your opinion, not based on WP:QUOTE. 3) Most, if not all, of the quotes are interspersed with prose that comment on those quotations. 4) The quotes that remain are compatible with an encyclopedic writing style per WP:QUOTE. 5) All of the quotes by Apollinaire are public domain. Quotes not by Apollinaire are few and fair-use. 6) Based again on your opinion, not WP:QUOTE. Your unflagging demands and incessant tagging are both exaggerated and inappropriate. Coldcreation (talk) 20:53, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * And your interpretation of WP:QUOTE is based on your opinion. But if we look at the article: of the 10 subsections of New Painters, two consistent entirely of quotations and all of the others are more quotation than non-quote text. The Duchamp-Villon subsection of Appendix is similarly almost entirely a quotation. In fact, of the 18 content-containing sections/subsections of the article, only four have more original text than quotation&mdash;the lead, Author, Volume (without its subsections), and Note&mdash;and two of these four contain significant amounts of quotation. The article body is 3108 words of readable prose, almost 20,000 characters; 1302 words, almost 8000 characters, are direct quotes. That's 40% of its prose being unoriginal even before we consider close paraphrasing. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:04, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The subsections of New Painters are dedicated to Apollinaire's opinion on the artists he represents. An analysis of Apollinaire's opinion of the subjects is in section Volume and On Painting, leading up to New Painters and providing an appropriate context. No need to have more non-quoted material in some of those subsections. Due to nature of the original wording, these short quotations are indispensable and better than paraphrasing. The texts that could easily be paraphrased have already been paraphrased. Each use of relevant quotations within the article is pertinent, legitimate and justified. There is no need for an arbitrary limit. Quotes do not dominate the article. The quotes directly relate to the subject of each subsection and directly support the information as it is presented in the article. The short quotes explain the topic of each subsection better and less controversially than trying to explain them in paraphrased blocks of text. The specific wording of original author, Apollinaire, is a fundamental aspect of the topic of the article. The specific wording of original author in quote form are public domain and verifiably attributed to reliable sources: All of the above per WP:QUOTE guidelines. Coldcreation (talk) 04:38, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you don't understand why having 40% quotations might be problematic, I don't think we're going to agree on how to interpret the guideline. That's why the tag could be helpful in bringing in further opinions and assistance in reworking the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * What I understand is that your 40% is grossly overzealous. A simple calculation gives the body of quotes by Apollinaire at around 16% of the article. Perfectly acceptable. Coldcreation (talk) 13:19, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * How did you derive that number? Keep in mind that raw byte count would not be a reasonable measure because it includes things like wikimarkup and citations - readable prose is more appropriate. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:23, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I may have missed a few quotes. I see that some quotation marks were removed during a previous edit. I will fix that. While I'm doing that, I will attempt to paraphrase some more quotes. Coldcreation (talk) 14:22, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Images

 * At first glance my initial take is that while the images are important and needed; they need to be better organized; and several separate galleries per artist will definitely help...Modernist (talk) 02:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Done. Coldcreation (talk) 04:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

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 * Marcel Duchamp, photograph published in Les Peintres Cubistes, 1913.jpg