Talk:Fun in a Chinese Laundry (memoir)

Quotes from memoir

Dear User:voorts, I've reverted your deletions, and here's why: the short passages I included from von Sternberg's autobiography (and they are only a few bytes) where cited by the sources I used to build the article. Save one, I did not simply pick and choose by own passages.

Note that User:BoyTheKingCanDance, prior to your deletions, emphasized the titles for these excerpts, a clear approbation of the material in the article. I regret that you failed to recognize that fact. Lord Such&Such (talk) 16:06, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Lord Such&Such. Thank you for starting a talk page discussion. First, the fact that the quotes were cited by the sources [that you] used to build the article is not sufficient reason to include those quotes in the article in their own section. According to the guideline on quoting primary sources: Wikipedia is not a mirror of public domain or other primary source material. In Wikipedia articles, quotes of any original texts being discussed should be relevant to the discussion (or illustrative of style) and should be kept to an appropriate length. Additionally, WP:INDISCRIMINATE provides that data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources. For those reasons, we do not include sections that are purely quotations taken from a book in a Wikipedia article about that book. If you'd like to put quotes from the book somewhere, Wikiquote would be the place to do it, and there's a {{wikiquote}} template that you can place in the article; below the infobox would work.

Second, the fact that @BoyTheKingCanDance bolded the text is not a clear approbation of the material in the article; it appears that those edits were to match earlier ones you had added that used bold text. In any case, that use of bolding is improper per the Manual of Style; see MOS:BOLD. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:44, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

We'd like to see User:BoyTheKingCanDance chime in as a 3rd opinion.--Lord Such&Such (talk) 17:09, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to ask for third opinion at WP:3O. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Third opinion

I am replying here in response to a request for a third opinion at WP:3O. The issue appears to center around and be limited to the inclusion or exclusion of five short quotations in one section, as can be seen in this diff. Wikipedia's relevant style guide is MOS:QUOTE, which notes, Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. While quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them. As used in this diff, these quotes do not serve any of the purposes given in the manual of style. They are contextless: except for a few words establishing the subject, there is no indication why these specific quotes are important to understanding the subject (which is the memoir itself). Wikipedia's foundation is secondary sources that discuss a topic, not the topic itself. Rather than using these quotes, consider instead paraphrasing the secondary sources that cite these excerpts as pertinent, and using that analysis within the main article body rather than having a separate section. VQuakr (talk) 19:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, @VQuakr. @Lord Such&Such: will you agree to remove the quotes and, as VQuakr suggested, discuss what secondary sources have to say about those quotes? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:48, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, @VQuakr for your opinion. The quotes do, contrary to your remarks, serve the purpose of providing "an understanding of the subject." The memoir is out of print and not available online to my knowledge. The brief quotes are useful to Wikipedia patrons interested in the topic of filmmaker Josef von Sternberg and his artistic outlook. Paraphrasing his remarks involves the editor's interpretation; better to allow the artist to express these matters directly in short passages, here less than 100 words.

The point here is not to impose Prosecutorial discretion on the article, as Voorts argues, but to improve it. Cherry-picking Wikipedia rules to suppress passages cited by the sources lacks objectively and proportion. "Legally" you have the "right" to remove the section. Rationalize this as you wish.--Lord Such&Such (talk) 17:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

@Lord Such&Such: I do not understand what you are trying to say regarding prosecutorial discretion, which I don't see mentioned elsewhere in this discussion page. Please remember to assume good faith and avoid antagonistic accusations such as "cherry-picking". There is no cherry picking going on here: Wikipedia's status as an encyclopedia, a tertiary source based primarily on secondary sources, is the first pillar of its five fundamental principles. VQuakr (talk) 19:43, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

VQuakr: Kindly refrain from making further accusations of bad faith. That sad, Voort cautioned that content contributors "should use quotations sparingly, and only when needed in context." My use of brief quotations, within the "context" of a memoir/autobiography serves to enhance the understanding of the subject of the article. What could be more 'in context." Let's focus on the "fundamental principle" of improving this article.--Lord Such&Such (talk) 20:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

As noted above, removing these extraneous quotes is a clear improvement. Kind regards. VQuakr (talk) 20:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)