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Wikipedia:Peer review/Irene Vanbrugh/archive1

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Irene Vanbrugh

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I've listed this article for peer review because I hope to take it on to GAN or FAC, depending on comments here. All suggestions for improvement gratefully received. Tim riley talk 13:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Z1720

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After a quick skim, I did not see any major issues. I think this could be a future candidate for FAC if all major sources have been incorporated into the article. I suggest splitting up the larger sections with level 3 headings (Early roles, maybe Inter-war years). The sentence before the last quote in "Honours" is a run-on sentence that should be broken up. Hope this helps. Z1720 (talk) 17:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does indeed help – thank you, Z1720. Tim riley talk 17:30, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Query from Ssilvers

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When we say "In 1919... she had the play Masks and Faces filmed with a star cast..." What do we mean in saying that she "had [it] filmed". Did she finance the film, or have other production responsibilities? Did she also appear in it? -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

She arranged for it to be filmed and she appeared in it, as Peg Woffington. I'll tweak the prose. Tim riley talk 15:38, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

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  • In most style guides, all footnotes should end with a full stop (Wiki does this automatically when using the relevant templates). Of course, "when in Rome" conquers all on here, but is the lack of punctuation a deliberate choice?
  • There's a stop missing from the first footnote, which I'll duly add. If you're talking about the 53 references they're not sentences and so, in my view, don't require a full stop (cf our rule about image captions). Tim riley talk 13:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Suggest putting the pronunciation button into brackets, or a footnote. I'd advise adding IPA or at least a respell too, for those who can't use the media file.
  • Getting your own back, I see! I can't do IPA any better than you can, but will have a go. What I want to stress is that Irene has three syllables, and it's Vanbrer not Vanburg. More shortly. Kitchen duty calls. Tim riley talk 13:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
IPA now done, courtesy of User:Bazza_7 Tim riley talk 10:30, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And with an audio file! Very stylish. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:35, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • creating such roles as Gwendolyn in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895): creating in this context is a new word for me, but Wiktionary's heard of it, so consider me enlightened.
  • A few editors object to it, maintaining that the author creates a role and the first player of it is merely the first player of it. That is very much a minority view, and the OED saith, "transitive. Of an actor: to be the first to represent (a part or role), and so to give it its character". Tim riley talk 13:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • she made at least ten films over the following decade: the caginess surprised me here -- is there any reason to believe that we might not have the full total? I appreciate that lots of silent films from this era are now lost, but I don't know how many are completely forgotten.
    This is my doing. I was hedging in case there are any yet to be discovered, but I have no strong objection to simply saying 10. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does Rev not get a full stop, as it's a contraction rather than a truncation? I know lots of people don't give it one, but again just checking that this is deliberate here. I notice that "Jr." gets one later.
  • Americans remain wedded to unnecessary full stops, but in Britain we started getting rid of them in the 1960s. I reluctantly use one in Jr. because it's expected of one hereabouts, but it's time America joined the late 20th century (along with the Oxford University Press and its "whoreson zed, unnecessary letter"). Tim riley talk 13:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I might consider introducing Sir John Gielgud: we've presented him almost as we would an academic or historian, and it's useful, I think, to know that he had a different sort of authority in knowing what he was on about with actors.
  • For a suitable fee Thorne would take pupils into her company: is suitable correct here -- it reads as slightly euphemistic, as if Thorne herself would have said it, but perhaps not the right fit for an encyclopaedia?
  • so that the Juliet of a week ago might be the Prince Paragon of the Yule-tide extravaganza: can we link those characters?
  • in James Barrie's, burlesque Ibsen's Ghost (1891),: I think we've got an extra comma here, but something else may have slipped out.
  • an actor-manager: I think MOS:DASH would like an endash here (as it's an "actor and manager" rather than a manager of actors), but consider a rephrase to remove the (small) ambiguity.
    No, Actor-manager is a term used in the industry. We could link it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:22, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It is, but we write for general readers outside any given industry/discipline, which means that our articles often won't follow conventions that our sources employ. For example, if you open almost any journal article on classical scholarship, you'll see footnotes full of untranslated Greek and Latin, references to publications like Arch. Eph., TAPA and PCPhS, and possibly even citations to things like "φ.203". A Wikipedia article would be wrong not to break those conventions, because we have different purposes and needs (to say nothing of different editorial policies). That's not to say that the current framing is wrong, but asking how those in the know would phrase it isn't the right question -- we need to look at what's going to be understood by those not already in the know. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The OED again (always a great comfort, along with Fowler): actor-manager noun An actor who also manages a theatre or theatre company. No dash - just a hyphen. Tim riley talk 13:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • she has just that touch of pathos which makes the whole world akin.: not your problem, but I have read this three times and haven't the foggiest what he's going on about.
    I'm guessing that "akin" means the same thing as the younger generations now call "relatable". -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a mangled quotation from what was in those days something of a cliché, "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin" (from Troilus and Cressida). It was used to mean that a thing that appeals to simple emotions evokes a wonderfully wide response (though that isn't what Shakespeare meant). Tim riley talk 13:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • a quiet ceremony in Buxton: consider small or private, as presumably they didn't whisper all the hymns?
  • St John's church: Church is capitalised in that article, and I think we generally do so when it's part of the name.
  • The Admirable Crichton, 1902,: why not use brackets, as we have for the rest?
  • In the second of these she had one of her fairly rare adverse reviews: this bit needs a citation, which can't be to a primary source.
  • Her own notices for Letty (1903) were excellent: another new bit of vocabulary for me: perhaps a Wiktionary link?
Precisely (with this particular meaning, anyway). But I have the sense that the current is against me on this one, so happy to swim with it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:05, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The critics were more complimentary about the acting than the plays,: this statement can't really be sourced entirely to two examples (WP:SYNTH), though there's nothing wrong with including those examples in addition to a secondary source which joins these dots.
  • The Twelve Pound Look: our MoS would hyphenate, and indeed most people online seem to.
  • mixed bill: I am learning a lot of new words today -- can this one be explained or linked?
    Up to Tim, but I think that readers unfamiliar with common terms used in the theatre can look them up when reading an article about an actor or theatre. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:28, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    They can, but it's better, particularly for an FA, if they don't have to -- at least as far as we can help with that without unduly breaking the flow of the text. We've debated MOS:NOFORCELINK at great length, and I think the general consensus is that giving readers the information on the page is a good thing, though it has to be balanced with the other trade-offs its sometimes entails. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:46, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • to raise funds for the endowment of a bed for the use of any woman connected to the theatrical profession: would it be patronising the reader to make this a bed there?
  • Until it received its royal charter in 1920 it was known as the Academy of Dramatic Art: needs a citation.
  • she had the play Masks and Faces filmed: consider "made into a film" to break the sea of blue, and make the link target less astonishing?
  • Can we (red?)link the Coliseum to reassure readers that no lions were involved?
  • Certainly needs a link and shall have it, but weren't the lions playing a date elsewhere at the differently spelled Colosseum?
  • During the Battle of Britain: I would put a year on this: most readers will know that it was during the Second World War, but not many will be able to be more specific.
  • Does matinee have an accent? Not consistent yet.
  • Chambers gives precedence to matinée but the OED doesn't. This is a problem neither grave nor acute and I'll blitz the diacriticals (which is not a phrase you have ever read before I imagine). Tim riley talk 14:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have some suspicious ISBNs in the bibliography -- 13-digit ISBNs weren't issued until 2007, and our MoS says to use the form of the ISBN actually printed on the book. If we're using a source that's genuinely from 1974 (rather than a reprint), it should have a ten-digit number.
  • Bloody Hellfire! I was harried at an FAC years ago into making all ISBNs the horrible clumpy 13-digit version, hyphens and all and have done so ever since. Digression: instead of opus numbers like any normal composer, Bach has been saddled with Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis numbers, and the critic Peter Gammond wrote, "BWV numbers, great ugly things with not a breath of poetry about them. It is unfair that any composer should be lumbered with such a typographical curse". Well I think the same of 13-digit ISBNs. I'll mug up on the latest version of the MoS and do the necessary. Tim riley talk 14:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lovely stuff. I hope this is helpful, or at least saves you some bother when the article gets to FAC. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:52, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Top-notch input, UC! Thank you more than much. Tim riley talk 17:09, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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