Talk:My Life in Orange

Note

Intro from text at en.wikipedia article. -- Cirt (talk) 19:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Quotes about My Life in Orange

Please, do not simply delete every single one of the "about" quotes, with zero discussion whatsoever. Thanks. -- Cirt (talk) 15:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume that the foregoing directive is intended for a community decision so, for the benefit of those who may want to discuss it, I will repeat the rationale from the edit summary when I removed the "about" quotes:

"Some of this may be suitable for dust jacket blurbs, but it does not have the qualities of Quotability, and just duplicates the WikiBookReview at 'pedia." (diff)

If I understand the substance of Cirt's objection to removing these quotes, it is on the basis of their quantity rather than their quality. There may be some other unstated considerations but, as it stands, the issue of quantity does not rebut the rationale given in the edit summary.

To be clear, I read all of the quotes in the linked diff above, and in my opinion each of them lacks quotability. Most of the material is routine book review boilerplate. Although a few are relatively more informative than others, it is my opinion that not one of them is a markedly quotable observation that belongs in a dictionary of quotations.

I welcome the opinions of other contributors on the merits of including these quotes, individually or collectively. ~ Ningauble 19:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with the opinion above put forth by user Ningauble (talk · contributions). The quotes are valuable, educational, and helpful for the reader to understand the context of the book and its placement within literary appreciation of it. The material is not "book review boilerplate", rather, it is specific to this particular book and the writings of its author. It would be best for Ningauble to be more specific about individual quotes he finds opposition to. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 19:41, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, I disagree with Cirt's general thesis that it is within Wikiquote's purpose to help the reader "to understand the context of the book and its placement within literary appreciation of it." That is very much within the purpose of our sister project Wikipedia, but Wikiquote exists to share a distinctly different part of the sum of human knowledge. (This is not to say we should never quote remarks about works: I myself have quoted some that seemed particularly insightful or pithy.)

As to individual quotes, I am not going to enumerate them all at this time, but I will exemplify the first two in order to illustrate concrete application of the rationale given above. To wit:

1. "One of the best autobiographies of the decade." — This sort of thing is said every decade about numerous works in many genres. It is appropriately cited at Wikipedia, but such remarks will never appear in a any edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, no matter how greatly it may expand in the future.
2. "Adults like Guest who are marked by the neglect suffered in a childhood among the completely self-absorbed." — As quoted at Wikipedia where this sentence fragment is contextualized. Unremarkable gloss on the book's subject, such as is typical of book reviews. Will never appear in a future edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

I hope these examples clarify how the stated rationale apples to the individual cases, without need of recapitulating the point in each case. ~ Ningauble 21:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Y Done, I have removed the 2 quotes above complained about by Ningauble (talk · contributions). Hopefully this is satisfactory and shows we can politely come to a meaningful compromise here. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 03:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Since nobody else has commented on this, and because I would rather not recapitulate the same rationale for each of the fifteen remaining instances individually if, as seems to be the case, we do not agree about the general rationale, I am posting a request for a third opinion at the Village Pump. ~ Ningauble 20:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with Ningauble in this instance - in general 'About' quotes for a work in most cases do not add substantial value in my opinion. This is especially the case for books, where endless quotes from book reviews could be found, but are not really the goal of this project. In the case of films or TV shows, I think this can also be the case if quotes are pulled from reviews. There are of course occasional exceptions when a quote about the work stands on its own or when its inclusion provides substantial benefit (which I do not believe these do). ~ UDScott 21:02, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. "About" quotes containing collections of flowery adverbs combined to create fairly generic praise for a work of literature are not really quotable. Such quotes are rarely wholly original. BD2412 T 00:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I have been responsive to specific quotes pointed out. I have even gone ahead and voluntarily removed some, myself. Can we discuss some specific quotes? -- Cirt (talk) 06:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)