User talk:Smatprt/Shakespeare authorship question Draft 1

After this merge discussion:[], concerning the old Shakespeare Authorship Question article, and these instructions:[], I began working on a draft, as did Tom Reedy and Nishidani. Here are the links to the two versions for community comment and suggestions: Shakespeare authorship question Draft 1 and Shakespeare authorship question Draft 2.

Since I was responsible for editing Draft 1 (since receiving this assignment from ScienceApologist, I will provide some of my reasoning behind the work I did on this version:
 * I began with this version of the old Shakespeare authorship article: [], which was the product of several hundred editors working over the last few years.
 * The previous article was rated B Class, but suffered from length issues, as well as some problems with POV and weight.
 * After addressing the most obvious issues, I requested impartial reviews from numerous noticeboards and did my best to incorporate the various comments I received.
 * I trimmed the article by half to bring the article in line with the guideline on length created or kept in place the appropriate forks.
 * I removed the overly Oxfordian focus of the article, and concentrated on the overall subject, instead of arguments for or against any particular alternative theory.
 * I focussed on a handful of the basic arguments, beginning with a brief section on various alternate arguments, followed by the mainstream rebuttal, in each section, as per wp guidelines.
 * I avoided lists and did my best to keep the basic information that the numerous article editors have contributed over the years, so as not to create "my" version, but rather to provide a verison that reflected the contributions of these past editors.
 * As an experiment, I also created a mega-beast of a version [] that merged all the various authorship articles ("offending articles" as ScienceApologist called them), which was part of the original assignment following this merge discussion:[]. This was not an attempt at creating a new article, but to see just how long and unwieldly such an article would be. It proved massive and ridiculous, as I am sure all would agree. I simply wanted to see what it would look like and where the obvious content forking should be. The version attached to this talk page (Draft 1) includes all the appropriate content forking, solving the length issues.

'''I would greatly appreciate input on these two versions from the greater Wiki community. What are their pluses and minuses? Should either or both be seriously considered as a replacement for the present version? Or should they be merged?''' Smatprt (talk) 12:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments on Drafts 1 & 2
Please place you comments below (instead of the various and numerous articles, noticeboards, etc.) It would be nice to have one central location! If there is a better location for comments, please let me know. Smatprt (talk) 15:42, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Early peer-review on Draft 1
Here is an early Peer Review on draft one: [], with these being the primary content comments:

Ruhrfisch comments: I do not have any expertise on the topic, but here are some suggestions for improvement of the article as an article. Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch &gt;&lt;&gt; &deg; &deg; 02:25, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The article needs to be scrupulosly referenced, but there are whole paragraphs without refs and sections that are quite sparse - for example the whole section "Pseudonymous or secret authorship in Renaissance England" has only four refs and has two plusp aragraphs with no refs at all.
 * Several of the sources used do not appear to be reliable sources - for example, what makes doubtaboutwill.org a RS? Or webpages.charter.net?
 * I found at least one dead external link - http://www.anglicanlibrary.org/marprelate/tract6m.htm - if this were in article space, the link checker for PR would work.
 * External links in the article need to be converted to inline refs
 * The refs also need more information in many cases - for example, internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. Books need publisher, location, year, ISBN, etc. cite web, cite book and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
 * The article seemed repetitious in places
 * The headers do not all follow WP:HEAD
 * I would try for consistency in how each topic is addressed. For example, give the minority viewpoint, then give the objections to it / majority viewpoint.


 * Note - I think I addressed most of the issues that were raised. Smatprt (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved editor's observations on Draft 2
I popped in here, following a question being raised at WT:FAC about the article's length. The article's length seems to be the least of its problems, but could be resolved through addressing other issues, principally by addressing the inclusion of extensive lists - see WP:EMBED. These also affect the logic of the article's structure. It is most odd to have an article with a very brief overview, then "arguments against", then "arguments for", then a "history of" section, almost all of which is a (very unhelpful) list, then, wierdly, "alternative candidates". FWIW, here are my suggestions: There are other issues with the article, but these are the basic ones that would need to be examined before the article could be considered at FAC, and probably even at GAN. I hope this is of assistance, regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 02:52, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
 * First, clearly the prevailing scholarly view is that Shakespeare wrote most or all works attributed to him. This should be mentioned in the first para of the lead; we should not wait until the third para to be told it is a fringe view.
 * Second, that being the case, the article should begin with the section on evidence for Shakespeare's authorship, not with the arguments against. It should begin with the prevailing view, not the minority, dissenting one.
 * Third, my second point must also apply to the "Overview" section: it must begin by stating the prevailing scholarly analysis: notwithstanding that the authorship question is the subject of the WP article, it should still outline the majority view of the sources before outlining the contrary thesis.
 * Fourth, having moved the "arguments against" section behind the "arguments for", the "Alternative candidates" material should flow logically from those arguments, or be integrated into it. (see further remarks on this below).
 * Fifth, the subsections "Shakespeare's singularity and bardology" and "Precursors of doubt" should be the first paras of the "arguments against" section. The "Authorship question annals" subsection should probably not exist at all. It is a list, and to the lay reader an unhelpful one at that, with many uncited entries. One option would be to create a separate article "Chronology of the Shakespeare authorship question" or (modified) "List of publications regarding the Shakespeare authorship question", though I would talk with some experienced list editors (of whom I am not one) about it first.
 * Sixth, consequently on the fifth point, there need be no "History of the authorship question", which is not assisting the article in its current form. The paras of "Shakespeare's singularity and bardology" and "Precursors of doubt" are the right way to do this stuff. If there is absolutely vital information somewhere in that "annals" list, then add it in the form of sentences in the historical context material that I am suggesting should be at the start of the "arguments against" section. (If, despite my argument, there is a consensus that a "history" section should exist, then it should come as context between "overview" and "Evidence for...")
 * Seventh, while I can see why "Alternative candidates" and the reasons for their candidacy deserve discussion, the current material is a mess. It looks nothing like a usual WP article, and the part on "Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford" is particularly bad, lacking citations altogether, it is not in sentence form, it does not use the evidence to properly make the argument, etc. It looks to me as though there should be a single (perhaps longish) subsection in the "arguments against" section that identifies the candidates and the main arguments for each (just a few sentences in each case I think), and all the material currently in the four candidates section can then be deleted, or, if it is not already there, moved into the WP biographies of those individuals (but only if the material has accompanying in-line cites).
 * Eighth, the "Full List of Candidates" shoudl be moved out of this article and into another article as a list. Furthermore, no one should be on this list without a citation that demonstrates that the person is in fact proposed by a reliable source to be a candidate for the authorship. Not even one in five now meet that very basic requirement. Only if their candidacy has some significant coverage in the literature should it then be discussed in the article's body text.

Other comments

 * As the person who stumbled into this mess by providing the above input on what is called draft 2 (and which is currently the text in the article's mainspace), I am not going to comment further here, because it looks like this subject has more than enough discussion around the pedia, particularly here. I will make comments re article content on the main article talk page, and not elsewhere. I would probably suggest others do the same. This should not be construed as suggesting I see no merit in draft 1. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear it. Will you be actually reviewing Draft 1 then? I prepared it in good faith and am hoping you will respond in kind. Thanks. Smatprt (talk) 00:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments on both drafts
From a couple of hours of studying the subject based on the ongoing discussions in WP, and a first look at Shapiro's latest book on the matter (Contested Will), and from a first reading of both drafts, I'd say that the controversy is not about behavior as some of the contestants here contend, but is indeed a deep content matter. From reviewing both drafts it becomes clear that academic wars are being waged here on WP by "smaller" proxies, for Ogburn on one side (draft 1), and for Shapiro on the other (draft 2). Suffice it to say that Shapiro himself mentions the ongoing debate in WP, and that he himself traces his own scholarly development from a pure mainstream Stratfordian to acknowledging the importance of the SAQ debate to the development of academic thought on the subject, and to becoming a Stratfordian that now asserts that a long list of works were actually the product of William's collaboration with other authors. warshytalk 20:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)