Talk:About a Boy (novel)

Untitled

I'm not sure of the purpose of this page as part of an encyclopedia? ...DW

I agree, I did some minor copyediting, but the article needs much work, is way too long (plot summary could be considerably trimmed) and is more of a personal review than an encyclopedia article. -- Lexor 11:59, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The following is an interesting phenomenon which I've come across on numerous Wikipedia pages: People agree that a particular article needs rewriting, trimming, or whatever, but no one actually does anything. Then someone else comes along and makes some other change or changes.

In this case here someone decided that it would be a good idea to have a discussion of the movie version sooner than at the very end of an admittedly rather long article. However, similarities and differences to the book are described there, and details from the plot are referred to. So when you read the article now you are confronted with references (e g "the Royston episode") you have no chance of understanding.

If I happened to come across this page for the first time now, that's what I'd criticize. --KF 10:30, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

"Little Red Hen" syndrome

• grin* I can explain my motives, but I can't vouch for anyone else's. I'm in the middle of a project right now, and while performing other duties, I see that this article is a combination of book & film summaries. Later on I'll get round to splitting them, but for now I put the "split" tag in so I can find it later. Cheers, Her Pegship 16:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Split looks done. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 09:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

"Any editing or additional material can be helpful"

That's part of the definition of a "stub" on the quality scale. Well, if you have a look at the pre-February 2006 article you will realise that it was much longer, but I'm certainly not going to add that again. Could someone please tell me what the desirable length and contents really are? <KF> 23:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Aboutaboybsdrgh.jpg

Image:Aboutaboybsdrgh.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

This section is unformatted and, more than miscellaneous, irrelevant. Would anyone object to my deleting it? If so, why?J1.grammar natz (talk) 19:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see much value in the list of birth years. OTOH, I think the explanation of musical references in the title is relevant. KevinScaldeferri (talk) 23:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

TV Pilot

this article is about a tv pilot based on the book.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:14, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

A Christmas Carol

It strikes me that this book is based on A Christmas Carol by Dickens. A grumpy old man is shown the error of his ways by a series of ghosts; an anti-social single man is shown the error of his ways by a boy. Maybe the Christmas song is a reference to this. I don't suppose there's any evidence to back this up? VenomousConcept (talk) 20:17, 2 August 2014 (UTC)