User talk:Bertaut/Archive 2012

Barnstar for you
This may seem belated, but I was just reading through these two earlier today and was once again struck by their excellence. I figure you're long overdue for one of these. Wear it proudly! Lithoderm 08:32, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion
Hello B. I just wanted to add to the praise that others have left on your page. This time for your additions today on the BBC TV Shakespeare article (you know I've appreciated other work there too) but I do have one suggestion. The section "Shakespeare on the BBC" is wonderfully researched and informative. FWIW I think that it relates tangentially to that article and I am afraid that other editors with deletionist tendencies might come along and remove some or all of it. My suggestion is that you might spin it off into its own article. The work you've done is detailed but I think there might be even more to add to it - by decade for instance. Also the changes in TV technologies over the years might have effected the way the Beeb presented the plays. You would be able to link to it from other Shakespeare and BBC articles. On the other hand I know that this would be a lot of work and you are busy doing so many things already. From my own selfish interest I don't know how much traffic that article gets from readers and I wish that as many as possible could come across your research. As I say this is only a suggestion and my fears may be overstated. Cheers and have a nice weekend. MarnetteD | Talk 04:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * PS along with all the other marvelous actors in An Age of Kings it is a treat to see Sean Connery before Bond. Also, doesn't it seem like Gordon Gostelow played Bardolph in every version of the plays he is a character in for decades. MarnetteD | Talk 04:04, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Haha. You know, it's funny you should have that concern. Even as I was adding the references to Love's Labour's Lost and Comedy of Errors etc, I was thinking to myself, "this section is getting a little off track." To that end, I was thinking about doing a Shakespeare on the BBC article (at the moment it's just a redirect to the BBC Television Shakespeare article), and I was going to ask your advice on it! I would envision the page either one of two ways: as you suggest, organising it by decade, or alternatively, doing it along the lines of the List of William Shakespeare film adaptations, ie play by play (although that article could do with a serious tidy up). Obviously, I'd need to expand things beyond 1984 (ie the end of the BBC Television Shakespeare), but that wouldn't be any great problem. What I'm doing at the moment is working my way through the collection in the order the plays appear in the Oxford Complete Shakespeare. In that sense, doing up a new page like this wouldn't be a huge amount of work, as I'd be doing it pretty slowly play by play over a period of a couple of months, as opposed to just sitting down to write it in one go, which would be daunting. Then once I'm finished, I could add a link on the Television Shakespeare page, and one to the Shakespeare info box. What do you think? As regards your observations, yeah, Gordon Gostelow pops up everywhere. He also played Bardolph in at least one cycle of the plays on stage that I know of. As for the Age of Kings, Sean Connery doesn't make a bad Hotspur at all, but I adore Paul Daneman's Richard III; total comic book villain, but you can tell Daneman is having the time of his life playing the role. Don't know why they didn't use him more for the BBC Television Shakespeare - he pops up as the Duke of Milan in Two Gentlemen, but that's it. And finally, thank you so much for the Barnstar - I appreciate it a great deal, really do. Bertaut (talk) 07:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Play by Play makes sense. Then maybe a section on TV technology changes if references exist. Off the top of my head things like how video tape kept things "studio bound" and used a "three camera setup" in the 70s and mid 80s were the norm. The move to using film in the late 80s and 90s would change the nature of how the productions were made. As I listen to DVD commentaries of various shows from the 60s thru the mid 80s I keep hearing the same comments from actors, writers, directors and producers. They relate that scenes were filmed in long takes that made it feel like stage performances and they contrast that with things are done today where scenes are shot in brief takes of a few minutes at most. I look forward to seeing the direction that you take things.


 * When you say that you are working your way thru the plays do you mean the written plays or the DVDs? If it is the DVDs I want to share a piece of WP:OR that occurred to me when I watched them a couple years ago. Note that I watched them in in the order that they aired so that will be different from what you are doing. First, you will have to read this . This was the state that I found the article in when I came upon it a year or so later. This insulting entry was made before Wikipedia's NPOV rules came along but still there are several things wrong with it - the sets were pretty well standard for the time and, in cases like The Winter's Tale somewhat inventive - I don't think it is accurate as to rehearsal time but even if it was the actors had performed the plays more than once in their lives and, like orchestral musicians with a Mozart symphony, would not have needed extensive rehearsal time to give a performance worth watching. I have heard this low evaluation of the series in one or two other places but in both cases it was from people that had not actually watched them so it makes me think one critic (probably with an axe to grind) stated this and others (jealous that they weren't a part of it?) just repeat it. I will say that there is one play that suffers from really poor sets and that is Troilus and Cressida. The have unpainted lumber, nails or screws clearly visible and other easily noticed flaws. Now to the WP:SYNTHESIS part of my diatribe. A) Season 4 only had three plays the others had 5 or 6. B) T&C was broadcast second but was actually filmed third after A Midsummers Night Dream C) The production notes book mentions that Jonathan Miller had spent a huge amount of money raising the studio sets for ...Dream so that water could be added to them. D) Miller was demoted to co-producer for the next season with Shaun Sutton. Adding these up it looks for all the world to me like Miller spent (overspent) the budget for season three and partway through prep for T&C the powers that be told him there was no more money and he would have to go with what he had. This also might have caused the reduced number of plays and Sutton might have been brought in to prevent any excess spending of money. This could all be way off the mark I give it to you as food for thought.


 * I should add that I find Miller a fascinating person with a career that I can only marvel at. He's studying to be a doctor and then gets diverted into entertainment with "Beyond the Fringe". Then he becomes a director who brings fresh ideas to almost all he touches. At one point he gets back into medicine and produces a fascinating series titled The Body in Question - why this has never been brought out on DVD is beyond me - and then returns to the stage and expands into Opera. I saw his version of The Magic Flute several years ago at The Santa Fe Opera and it was delightful. Well I have taken up more than enough of your time. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. MarnetteD | Talk 16:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm working through both the written plays and the DVDs. I'm reading the play, then watching the BBC version. I broke the order in Oxford so I could do the four Henriad plays back to back, but I'm going back to the sequence now, so Romeo and Juliet is up next. Watching them in the order they aired would be the logical thing to do in terms of getting a handle on how things developed, and I probably will do that at some stage - doing it my way, I'm jumping all over the place; I started in season six (with Two Gentlemen), and then ended up back in season one (with Richard II). So I can't really get a sense of 'growth'. You're right about the critics though; the series doesn't have a great reputation at all, especially the earlier stuff under Messina, but I don't know if it's really deserved. I mean, yeah, obviously, things improved from an aesthetic point of view when Miller came on board, and by today's standards, the sets and even some of the acting is a bit dogdy in places (Alec McCowen's "O for a muse of fire" isn't the greatest delivery I've ever heard), but for the time in which they were made, they were pretty impressive. I mean, Jane Howell's Henry VI/Richard III sequence, and her Titus are all uniformly excellent, but even some of the earlier episodes (that I've seen so far) are good. I thought The First Part of Henry the Fourth, which is from season two, was superb - the face-off between Hal and Hotspur was excellently directed and extremely well acted by Tim Piggot-Smith and (an unfairly criticised in the role) David Gwilim. I think your arguments about the sequence of events around T&C make sense. Do you know anything the mysterious Much Ado About Nothing that was filmed and edited, but never screened? As regards Miller, I actually didn't know any of that about him, so that's very interesting. So far, the only one of his I've seen is The Shrew, which was good, but for me, there's only one Petruchio and that's Burton. I know, I know, but I adore Burton, and I love the "swaggering bully". And Elizabeth Taylor never ever looked better than in that movie. Anyhow, I'll keep you up to speed on how things are developing on the new article. Take care. Bertaut (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No I hadn't heard about ...Ado being done more than once. Here are a few reactions (roughly in air dates order :->) about things you have mentioned. The R&J was noted for the fact that Rebecca Saire was 14 when she played Juliet and that was as close to the plays description as had ever been done (closer even than Olivia Hussey - more about her later.) When Messina was replaced I remember reading that "after suffering the Straits of Messina" the series will be taking a new direction. In spite of that I can remember being riveted by the performance of Julius Caesar and I still think it is one of the best I've ever seen. I had only ever seen Anthony Quayle in big films like The Guns of Navarone and Lawrence of Arabia so his performance as Falstaff in H the 4th 1&2 was a revelation for me. For several years I had an email correspondence with User:John Thaxter (sadly he passed away this January) who was a long time theatre critic in London and he told me that he and several of his colleagues regarded David Gwillim's Hal as one of the best so that might help offset those that don't view it as favorably. Miller took a risk when he cast Cleese in Shrew but I think it worked fairly well. I do agree that the Burton/Taylor film is top notch. Franco Zeffirelli had a wonderful touch with Shakespeare and I wish he had done more filmed versions of the bards plays. Speaking of which it was Olivia Hussey's 61st birthday Apr 17th. Whoosh time goes by fast - It feels like it was only a couple years ago that my class was taken on a field trip to see Z's R&J made when she was 15. I still use my set of The Folger Library editions when I read the plays. If you've never seen them they have the plays text on the right hand page and the annotations for words, people, mythical allusions etc on the left - so much easier than flipping to the end of the book and back. Pages are yellowing a bit - they are priced 35 to 55 cents so that should give you an idea of how old they (and I) are. Regards. MarnetteD | Talk 18:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's a little bit of info about the mysterious Much Ado, which you may find interesting: here and here. Some really interesting stuff you've said there. I knew about the eyebrows being raised when Rebecca Saire was cast. I like that phrase "the straits of Messina" - a little harsh maybe, but witty nonetheless. Yes, Quayle was outstanding as Falstaff. Funny thing for me was I'd heard all this about how great a character Falstaff was, how funny and popular and whatnot. In college, my drama lecturer was always on about him, but when I first read 1 & 2 Henry IV (which was only a few years back), I was really underwhelmed by him. On the page, he did nothing for me. But seeing Quayle play him was a real "Ohhhhhh, now I get it" moment. I've seen a couple of others (in the Olivier and Branagh films) and recently in a production on Sky Arts, but Quayle remains my favourite - his expression when Hal says "I know thee not old man" is heartbreaking. Good to see I'm not the only one who liked Gwilim as Henry; sadly at the time, I think he suffered a lot from the "He's not Olivier" syndrome, and for reviewers today, I think it's the "he's not Branagh" syndrome! Finally, I didn't actually know that's how the Folger texts were laid out. I originally started using the Arden texts, but now I mainly use the Oxford, which use footnotes, which aren't too bad to navigate. Some pages can be funny though - literally a line or two from the play, and the rest of the page is annotation! Bertaut (talk) 19:46, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links. That is an interesting cast. I prefer the reasons for its being pulled in the first link over the old (incorrect) saw that us Yanks can't understand "lower class" accents in the second one. It would be interesting to bump into a copy of it one day just like it would be to see London After Midnight (film) or some of Hitchcock's lost films or even the missing Dr Who episodes. I'm good at wishful thinking. Thanks again for your time and for sharing all of these experiences. MarnetteD | Talk 21:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Remembered another set of recurring comments I've heard on various DVD commentaries and "making of" documentaries about the use of videotape in that era. One of its biggest drawbacks was that it couldn't be reversed or edited. Thus, if a line was flubbed or delivered awkwardly there wasn't really anything they could do to fix it. Combine this with the union rules for electricians, set workers etc that said that all recording must stop at 10pm and, again and again, people talk about how the recording sessions were highly pressurized. This might go a little way in explaining clunky delivery of lines and other problems that have been criticized over the years. Cheers. MarnetteD | Talk 15:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That's correct, especially in long takes. It's because of the linear nature of video as opposed to film. I'm something of an amateur filmmaker, and I made my first movie in 1998, right before the digital revolution, and we shot on VHS. Editing was a nightmare, because once you'd finalised something, and put something on the tape after it, you could never go back and change anything, because everything afterwards would subsequently get knocked out of sync. So, say for example, I'd edited scenes 1-12. And then when I was editing scene 13, I got an idea to lengthen scene 4 by 20 seconds. I couldn't do that, because of the linear nature of the medium - if I added 20seconds to scene 4 I'd lose 20 seconds of scene 5! In film you could literally just cut and cellotape, and in digital of course, there's no problem. VHS was an extraordinarily limited medium. And as for its sound restrictions - don't get me started! In other news, I just finished watching the BBC 's Henry V. Very intersting. I thought Tim Wylton made the best Fluellen I've ever seen, and yes, the battle scenes look pretty pathetic all things considered, but I liked David Gwilim's understated "Crispan's Day" speech. All in all, I preferred Jane Howell's Henry VI/Richard III to David Giles Richard II/Henry IV/Henry V, but to be fair, she was shooting six years later. Also, you may be interested in these links:









The BBC is doing all four plays. Some very interesting casting decisions in there - Jeremy Irons as Henry IV, John Hurt as the Chorus, Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff, Alun Armstrong as Northumberland. Among others. I'm looking forward to this! Bertaut (talk) 00:28, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Very interesting. I may have hope for a DVD release to get to see them. PBS does not show as much UK programming as it used to and and BBC America has become all Top Gear and Gordon Ramsey all the time. Occasionally things like The Hour or Whitechapel slip in but I can't imagine that they will give 3 hours to a play and since they have commercials I wouldn't want them either. Thanks for the heads up. MarnetteD | Talk 00:53, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail as well
Always feel free to contact me onwiki or off. Regards. MarnetteD | Talk 20:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi again. I got your email and things are looking good. I have one thought. Some (most?) of the articles split out the "direct-from-the-text" versions from the "adaptated of" (ala Kiss Me Kate) ones. I don't know if it is worth doing that in the work that you are doing. Leaving a message on the Shakespeare wikiproject is a good idea although I don't know what kind of response you will receive. You might also ask User talk:Old Moonraker to take a look. He is an excellent editor who will give you an honest answer. Having said that he might be too busy doing other things but it is worth a try anyway. Cheers. MarnetteD | Talk 16:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, yeah, I completely forgot about Moonraker, he's always been very helpful to me in the past, so I'll drop him a line if he doesn't see the Wikiproject post. As regards dividing the adaptations up into straight adaptations and 'loose' adaptations, I did consider that, and I tried it out in the Taming of the Shrew section, but it made things look very messy, as basically, there is now four sections for each play; so I had one section for straight film adapations, and then one for loose adaptations, then one for straight TV adaptations, and then one for loose adaptations. It just seemed a little untidy and unnecessarily further subdivided an already heavily subdivided article. If that makes sense. That's actually why I decided to include the little 'summary' in each entry, so a reader, at a glance, can tell what kind of adaptation it is.Bertaut (talk) 23:35, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I took a look at both sandboxes and I like what you have done. I am especially glad that you mentioned The Flying Karamozov Brothers version of The Comedy of Errors. It is quite delightful and I had one Shakespeare scholar tell me he thought that Will would have enjoyed its free wheeling spirit. Sadly my VHS is over 20 years old and is fading and it has never been released on DVD. Some sections of it have been posted on YouTube if you are interested. Good Work !! MarnetteD | Talk 01:58, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

An anniversary of note
Hi again. I noticed that on this day in 1471 Henry VI of England died. How soon after did a hunched over man say "Now is the winter of our discontent?" :-) That was my speech in high school acting class and I can still remember most of it. Have a great week on wiki and off. MarnetteD | Talk 14:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

In our news today
Hi B. Our NPR station had a report about the excavation work that found remains of the Curtain Theatre. Interesting stuff - I know that it will be some time before it is complete but I look forward to being jealous of you getting to attend whatever exhibit that occurs in the future. Have a nice week on wiki and off. MarnetteD | Talk 17:57, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Advent Children GA reassessment
User:Codename Lisa placed Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children ‎on a GA reassessment having already written a long section regarding the issues she found in early June. While the article was previously copyedited before becoming a GA, the user says that it contains multiple mistakes and English is not my first language. Could you try copyediting if you have time? Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 17:58, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey. Actually, as luck would have it, I'm currently working on tidying up all Final Fantasy VII related articles. I was planning on leaving Advent Children until next week, but I'll move it forward and get to work on it tonight. I don't have a huge amount of time to devote to it, and I don't know if I'll be able to address all of Codename Lisa's points, but I'll certainly give it a shot and see what I can do. Should have it done in a day or two. Bertaut (talk) 18:56, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks.Tintor2 (talk) 23:43, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Nice cleanup work on FFVII articles
thanks. --Niemti (talk) 07:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey, no problem at all. Bertaut (talk) 23:20, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Redirects
Regarding your recent edit to Final Fantasy (video game), please do note that there is usually nothing wrong with linking to a redirect and it's generally not recommended to make edits just to bypass them. Edits like this one or this one or even this one are much better to spend your time on (I particularly appreciate the first one, good work). Anomie⚔ 02:44, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Your message
Hello B. I got your email and today's message. I like the way that the work is progressing in your sandboxes. As to your question about the two series that accompanied the BBCTVS (yet another thing I wish I had lived in the UK so that I could have seen them at the time) I would think they could be worked in as EL's if nothing else but I am not sure. This is one that I think User talk:Old Moonraker might be able to give you better feedback then I can. Cheers and (depending on where you are in the UK) I hope that the Olympic hordes to make life too difficult in the next few weeks. MarnetteD | Talk 20:08, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Many thank for the updates on PBS and DVD. I may have already mentioned this - I have a region free DVD player so I will be adding this set to my collection. I appreciate you keeping me updated!! Cheers MarnetteD | Talk 20:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Advent Children
Someone had it moved back, refuses to listen to reason: User talk:Axem Titanium. --Niemti (talk) 15:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well this isn't a personal attack at all. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:24, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I opened up a formal discussion here. I'd rather not have a discussion just between the three of us on my talk page. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Macbeth er sorry The Scottish Play question
Hello B. I hope that you are well. Would you please take a look at this edit. It seemed to me to remove one of the theories about when they play was written. Perhaps I am in error on this and it should have been removed so I thought I would check with you. Thanks for your time. MarnetteD | Talk 15:54, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your note. I checked with Old Moonraker as well as you and he explained what was going on. I was just concerned as sourced info had been removed but "All is Well that Ends Well" as far as I can tell. Cheers. MarnetteD | Talk 02:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Shakespeare editions
Bertaut, I want to begin standardizing the Shakespeare edition used for the Shakespeare pages as I work on them. So far I see Internet Shakespeare Editions and PlayShakespeare.com. Do you have any thoughts about this? (It appears that the WP:WikiProject Shakespeare is moribund.) Tom Reedy (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Tom. Is using an online text as a source okay. I would have imagined it would be more "proper" to use one of the main printed texts (Oxford, Arden, Cambridge etc)? I'm purely curious, it makes no difference to me one way or the other. As for the two websites you mention, well I'm very familiar with ISE as I use it both in writing articles on here and when teaching, and I've always found it to be of the highest standard. I don't know the other one at all. I hand a quick look through it, and it seems fine, but if pressed, I'd go with ISE. Bertaut (talk) 00:23, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well if you look at Macbeth or Hamlet, usually whenever a line is quoted a link is provided that goes to the corresponding line on the Shakespeare Navigators web site. I have nothing against the site, except that it is owned by a private individual and could go offline any time for one reason or another, whilst the ISE is sponsored by a university. I suppose the question you bring up should be answered first: do we even need to link to an external site when quoting from a play or poem? I would say not necessarily. If not, then I think the consensus before the WP:WikiProject Shakespeare expired was to use the latest Arden edition. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:23, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. Another disadvantage of linking quotations to the ISE web site is that some of the editions are original Folio and some are modern. I think I've talked myself into using just the Arden edition. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:27, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey, sorry about the delay in getting back to you. Yeah, I don't really see the need to link every quote. What is the benefit of doing that? As regards using a printed text, well, I've use the individual Oxford editions on the six play articles I've written (Two Gentlemen, Taming of the Shrew, Henry VI 1-3 and Titus), but that's simply because my girlfriend bought me the complete collection of Oxford texts a few years back. I do have a couple of Arden editions (Richard II, Double Falshood, Sir Thomas More), a couple of Cambridge (Edward III, Taming of a Shrew) and one or two other editions here and there. But, if we establish Arden as the 'default', I'd have no problem with that. I think the Arden texts' insane amount of footnotes often put off students - I showed a tutorial the first couple of pages of Richard II, where the first 10 or so lines of the play are spread out over about four pages because of all the annotations and they all said that would put them off using that edition - but from a scholarship point of view, Arden can't really be faulted. Bertaut (talk) 15:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

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Update
This response is about three weeks late. Many thanks for linking me to your ongoing work. It all looks good. Again I can say that you are providing useful info for current and future readers and you should be proud of your work. I wanted to let you know that I got my budget to allow for the Henriad so I should be receiving it in a couple weeks. Cant wait to hunker down with it as the nights grow longer. Cheers MarnetteD | Talk 06:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Siren
I've noticed that you have greatly expanded the articles of the first and second games in the series. The content is generally well-written, but I'd very much like to give you some rules of thumb, in case you don't know them, which would be good tips on a potential clean-up of the articles:


 * The lead section should be a summary of the "Gameplay", "Plot", "Development", and "Reception" sections.
 * "Gameplay" should be placed before "Plot".
 * "Plot" should not include trivial details and exceed the 700-word limit.
 * "Reception" should not extensively use direct speech. The latter should be used sparingly, to explain something hard to explain through indirect speech.

I hope I helped and haven't bothered you. Thank you. Hula Hup (talk) 06:13, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, of course you haven't bothered me. Thanks for the advice. As it happens, I was pretty much aware of all of those points. Putting "Plot" before "Gameplay" was simply a mistake on my part, which I've fixed. As regards the lengthy plot synopsis, yeah I know they're way too long, I acknowledged as much in my edit summaries. My hope is that other people will trim them down over time. I got them as short as I could in the time I had available to put them together. Both games have really complex non-chronological plots so getting into any kind of digestible summary was tricky. In any case, I added a maintainence tag regarding the lengthy plots so that might encourage others to chip away at them. I was really only passing through in any case, I haven't put the pages in my watchlist or anything, I was just disappointed at how little info they contained, and thought I could help expand it a bit. It might be less daunting for other users now to help refine the page to a better standard. Bertaut (talk) 21:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

WP Poetry and The Canterbury Tales task force
As someone who is listed as a participant for WikiProject Poetry, I hope you will be interested to learn of an attempt to revive the WP and alongside this the creation of task force to improve coverage of The Canterbury Tales. We are currently looking for participants to help set up the basics. Please get involved if you can, and we can hopefully revive this important project within Wikipedia! Many thanks, MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)