Talk:Crouching Venus

A fact from Crouching Venus appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 December 2006. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Crouching Venus, a Hellenistic type of Aphrodite or Venus (pictured), is known from dozens of Roman copies?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/December.

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Crouching Venus edits[edit]

Could I just take issue with your reverting my edits on those?

Crouching Venus - if we're creating a list, surely asterisks are a good idea

Neddyseagoon - talk 18:55, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would you take the article Madonna and Child, and separate it in bits, with an isolated article on each example, because after all none of them are exactly alike? Maybe you would. Thus you could with very little effort interfere with a reader's getting a general idea.

Well, there's no need to be sarcastic, and that's a far more extreme example than this one. I'm not 'separating it into bits' so crudely as that, just trying to clarify if it's on the type or on the specific artefact - I just feel that 'Capitoline Venus type' does not equal 'Capitoline Venus' (which is a single artefact), as you half-acknowledge below. Neddyseagoon 19:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No one is keeping you from creating a stub on every single example, if you like. Capitoline Venus is a type, as you know from your art history. Indeed, the BM one isn't a copy of the Capitoline Venus: both are Roman copies of a lost Greek original. The variations are instructive, are they not? --Wetman 19:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which would make far more sense - Capitoline Venus, with precis on both statues, and also as a list page for stubs on them both? That way they get this 'general idea' you are so keen on, plus 2 more specific pages.Neddyseagoon - talk 19:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lists? The type is established by Capitoline Venus. If you'd google those words you'd find more examples, none precisely like any other: there are many more than two. You could make a stub on each example you find, if you like, and add a precis to the article. The overview is at Capitoline Venus, the type to which art historians refer the other examples. But, if each Venus with its own article is added to Category:Venus types, the category will collapse under its own weight into trivia. Lists reduce everything to uniform trivia. We're both concerned with building context. --Wetman 21:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Capitoline as is, with link to Iemini stub - a good compromise? And I'm not suggesting stubbing every single, say, Crouching Venus, just ones where something major could be stubbed off to relieve the main page (eg Lely Crouching Venus. Neddyseagoon - talk 23:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise? just link up any stubs you make, to be sure. Articles are never cannibalized to make stubs: cut and paste all the stubs you like without trashing the main text. A mild enough request. I'd have thought the page scarcely needed "relieving" yet, unless one's attention span were seriously damaged.

It didn't, and my apologies, but I've seen too many pages start off like that and get into a near irredemable mess (eg Venus de Medici, with parts on the Weddell Venus and half a dozen others).Neddyseagoon - talk 10:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Venus de' Medici is a famous example of a type The Weddell Venus is of encyclopedic interest— rather than as one in a bulleted directory listing— as an example of the "Venus de' Medici type". Context is what one tries to provide. You seem very resistant: can this be utterly new to you? --Wetman 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But imagine my surprise! when a connected series of paragraphs, each of which treated a single sculpture (some still too short), has been turned into a bulleted list! That's generally considered a step backwards: in general one tries to turn such lists into connected text.

Well, it didn't seem like they were getting longer any time soon, and so I felt that format was far more suited to it for now. Of course, when it can be made fuller, with a full paragraph (rather than 1/2 sentences) per statue, which then all link up into a thread (the connections seemed a bit bitty - were they in the order that they were acquired, or something else?), then they can be boosted up into a fully paragraphed format.Neddyseagoon - talk 10:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was a step- backwards. The article was currently being worked on as you intervened: "any time soon" is quite unnecessary.--Wetman!

And then to see the illustrations shuffled into a foto-strip down one side, like a travel brochure!

Well, the right hand side is the only proper side for a bulleted list, otherwise the asterisks vanish. Plus you had section lines cutting over the Louvre example when it was where it was, which looked ugly, or at least you did on my web browser.Neddyseagoon - talk 10:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Precisely. Their was no need for a foto-strip except that text was now reduced to a bulleted list. --Wetman 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How disheartening that you couldn't see why the Rubens was contrasted with the Lely Venus in a single screen shot— and yet felt competent to make these changes.

Oh, I did and can see how it was contrasted (whatever else we say, let us not denigrate each other's competence), but I felt the Rubens was more relevant right next to the part of the text on the Lely Venus - then you can see directly how Rubens came into contact with it - whilst the main Lely image had to stay at the top as the article's 'headline image'. The alternative in the article as it was seemed to be that the unenlightened user was questing around for which specific example the Rubens was linked to, a problem I felt needed remedying. I felt it more important to make that relation, than to have those 2 images together for comparison (which can be easily done by scrolling between the two.Neddyseagoon - talk 10:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An "Identification" subheading: am I to sense that "attribution" is not yet in your vocabulary?

It is in my vocabulary, and that would be a far better title, thank you - I was grasping around for one and happened to pick the wrong one ('to err is human...').Neddyseagoon - talk 10:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I shall painstakingly retain the good edits you've made when I have the heart to pull this together again. --Wetman 23:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever happened to ' 'good faith edits'? If more info had gone into those paragraphs first time, they would not have appeared list-ish and not invited such an edit.Neddyseagoon - talk 10:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are simply getting an inkling of your discourtesy. Your good faith is not being questioned, but perhaps your self-confidence is less than warranted. --Wetman 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PS I'm just copying this over to Talk:Capitoline Venus and Talk:Crouching Venus respectively, so others can chip in, and where I will continue discussing it, as I assume we both have it on our watchlists! :-) Neddyseagoon - talk 10:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not mine. I've had my fill for now, but shall return in a few months to pull these articles together again after you've moved on.

Well, I'm not such a fly-by-night as that - I'm as interested in Greek art as you - but that's just a statement, not a statement of obstinacy. Of course I'll move on if that will calm matters. I'm not going to make any more major edits to this one or Capitoline Venus in the immediate future (besides links from it to any stubs I make eg Lely Venus), and just let me know when you're back on the article, and I'll steer clear of it entirely until you've finished, to avoid any more clashes like this. Best of luck with all future work.Neddyseagoon - talk 18:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might do some reading in the interim to get that "general idea" you put in quotes. --Wetman 17:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was not put in quotes to denigrate it, merely to isolate it as a concept - indeed, you put it in quotes further up. Neddyseagoon - talk 18:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As an uninterested observer, I urge Neddyseagoon to let Wetman develop the article in the direction he thinks best.

As I am doing - his way of developing it is best, but that need not curtail debate, nor bar all other editors from an article.Neddyseagoon - talk 18:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are many areas of ancient Greek art which lack articles. I advise Neddyseagoon to fill in these lacunae

As I am already doing (though if you could point some more out to me at my talk page, that'ld be great)Neddyseagoon - talk 18:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

instead of disputing at length with superior authors and thereby diverting them from contributing new stuff. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 17:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If that has been the result, I apologise - it never was the intention. I'm sorry if I came across as disputatious - I wasn't trying to defend my edits to the death against the clearly superior ones by Wetman, just explain their reasoning. Though nobody should be put off or diverted by inferior editors debating- I thought patience was the watchword. And I do not dispute his superiority - we underlings are not worthy! :-) There, now I'll shut up.Neddyseagoon - talk 18:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]