User talk:HStrong

Giorgio Vasari
I have just deleted your edits and I'm leaving you a message to explain the reason. I'm also attaching my advice to new editors.

The problem with your edits is not whether they are factual, or informative, or whether you have supported them with references. It is indeed interesting that Vasari describes the Mona Lisa as unfinished and that there is supporting evidence.

The problem with your edit is what you chose to do with it.

The article has a whole section on "Vasari's Lives". What you wanted to add was information about just one artwork out of the hundreds of artworks that Vasari described. It was a somewhat contentious piece of information.

What you needed to do was read that section very carefully to find out if the information was relevant and where to put it.

You chose to put it in between paragraph 1. and paragraph 2.
 * Paragraph 1. ends: "It [Vasari's Lives] was partly rewritten and enlarged in 1568, with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural)."
 * Paragraph 2. begins: "The work has a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines......."

Paragraph 2 flows directly from paragraph 1. It continues a broad description of "Vasari's Lives". It uses the term "the work", meaning "Vasari's Lives".

Into the middle of this description of Vasari's book and what it is about, you put a distracting paragraph about an issue which is relatively minor because it deals with just one statement in the whole book. Moreover, the word "work" in the second paragraph related directly to the paragraph above it. But the moment that a different work (the Mona Lisa) is mentioned, then the beginning of the second paragraph becomes nonsense. It now means "The Mona Lisa has a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines.... ". Well, that may be true, but it is not what was intended.

When an editor jambs information in the wrong place, it can be one of the most damaging things that happens to article.
 * The process is that a "page-watcher" then comes by the article and notices errors in your formatting. They read what you have written and find that it adds a fact (in other words, it isn't vandalism).  So the page-watcher corrects your formatting and leaves the content intact.   Most page-watchers are not experts in the subject.  Most page-watchers are not going to bother to read the entire section; they just correct obvious errors.  It means that the distracting information can sit in the article for days or even years, before an editor reads it thoroughly and deletes the red-herring.

The message is, don't add anything without reading what is already written thoroughly first. In this case, if the information about just one statement in the whole of Vasari's large work was going to be included at all, then the only possible place to put it was at the very end of the section on the Lives, not between any of the paragraphs that discuss the work broadly.

In this case, the correctness of Vasari's comment about on the Mona Lisa is not really important to the article as a whole. The reasons are:
 * It has been suggested that Vasari never saw the original and was describing only what someone else had seen once and described to him.
 * His description of details such as the minute treatment of the eyebrows may have been drawn from another painting e.g. the London Virgin of the Rocks, which he had probably seen. With no photgraphic reproduction, it would be quite easy to muddle two beautifully painted faces with similar expression.
 * Vasari knew that Leonardo took the painting with him to France, even though it was commissioned in Italy. He may have also known that Leonardo was still working on it at that date.  These two facts might have indicated to Vasari that it was "unfinished" even though, in fact, it was probably more highly finished than any painting that had ever been created.  All it means is that Leonardo was not quite satisfied and kept tweaking it.  It doesn't mean that the picture was actually in a state that could be described as "incomplete".

So the statement raises a can of worms that are specifically about the "Mona Lisa" and have nothing to do with a broad description of Vasari's major written work.

Please understand that my intention of writing all this on your discussion page is with the aim of improving your editting style, not to discourage you from editing.

Amandajm (talk) 01:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

AJM's advice to new editors

 * Look at the article to see how it is laid out. The Table of Contents is the best place to start.
 * Read the article to see if what you want to add or remove is appropriate, necessary, or adds value.
 * Search for the right place to put it.
 * Check Use the "Show Preview" to make sure that what you have done is appropriate and correct.
 * Discuss any change about which you are uncertain, by placing your proposed text, or just a suggestion, on the talk page. Someone who watches the article will usually answer in a day or so. You can monitor this by clicking the watch tag at the top of the page.
 * Be aware
 * that an addition inserted between two sentences or paragraphs that are linked in meaning can turn the existent paragraphs into nonsense.
 * that a lengthy addition or the creation of a new sub-section can add inappropriate weight to just one aspect of a topic.

When adding images
 * Look to see if the subject of your image is already covered. Don't duplicate subject matter already present. Don't delete a picture just to put in your own, unless your picture is demonstrably better for the purpose. The caption and nearby text will help you decide this.
 * Search through the text to find the right place for your image. If you wish it to appear adjacent to a particular body of text, then place it above the text, not at the end of it.
 * Look to see how the pictures are formatted. If they are all small thumbnails, do not size your picture at 300 px.  The pictures in the article may have been carefully selected to follow a certain visual style e.g. every picture may be horizontal, because of restricted space; every picture might be taken from a certain source, so they all match.  Make sure your picture looks appropriate in the context of the article.
 * Read the captions of existent pictures, to see how yours should fit in.
 * Check the formatting, placement, context and caption before you leave the page by using the Show preview function, and again after saving.
 * Discuss If your picture seems to fill a real identifiable need in the article, but doesn't fit well, because of formatting or some other constraint, then put it on the talk page and discuss, before adding.
 * Be aware that adding a picture may substantially change the layout of the article. Your addition may push another picture out of its relevant section or cause some other formatting problem.
 * Edit before adding. Some pictures will look much better, or fit an article more appropriately if they are cropped to show the relevant subject.

Amandajm (talk) 01:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)