Talk:Jane Martha St. John

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Sourcing[edit]

While most interesting, this is a very odd article indeed. Near the end is what I interpreted (and therefore formatted) as a block quotation, by an unnamed person and itself from an unspecified source, which says:

Fortunately for Jane, Roger Taylor did much more than I could ever do, when writing the excellent ‘Impressed by Light’ with its glowing account of her work.

I am not familiar with Impressed by Light, but note that it was prepared for MoMA (and perhaps by MoMA) and published by Yale University Press. Sadly not all university presses are as careful as their names might make one hope, but I've never yet been let down by a book published by Yale UP and have difficulty thinking of criticisms of their publishing process.

Impressed by Light is a good example of the kind of source that this article requires.

Meanwhile, here is the "nutshell" version of "No original research", a Wikipedia policy page:

Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources themselves.

And here's something from "Verifiability", another Wikipedia policy page:

In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it.

A Wikipedia policy is a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. But this description is too weak. Take it to mean "a standard kept to by every editor who does not want to be prevented from further editing, only allowing for exceptions in truly extraordinary cases; the exceptions must be agreed to by editors on the relevant talk page and are never for such humdrum reasons as the inconvenience of finding information published by reliable sources, or the certainty of one or more editors that they have access to the truth or are unusually qualified to make artistic or similar judgements. -- Hoary (talk) 06:33, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"I was introduced to the then little known photographer. . ."[edit]

We were and are told:

Following the discovery of an unpublished (2013) album of photos at an auction in 1992 of furniture and effects that had been stored in a large earthen floored barn in Gloucestershire, and then in 2002 locating the home that is in the album, I was introduced to the then little known photographer, . . .

I assumed that this was a quotation from somewhere. From where? In this edit, "Citation needed" is deleted. No, it's needed.

Unless of course it's not a quotation. But material in an article that is not a quotation should never be in the first person. -- Hoary (talk) 10:02, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No reply yet, but in response the quotation (or not) has been "disappeared" by its contributor. -- Hoary (talk) 00:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Martha[edit]

After our biographee was married, her full name became Jane Martha St. John. That's the title of the article on her in Impressed by Light (incidentally, this is still the only substantive published source on her that's mentioned in the WP article). However, within the article in Impressed by Light, she's referred to as Jane St. John.

Had Ansel Adams been born in a different nation and century, Impressed by Light might have an article on "Ansel Easton Adams". But WP's style guidelines decree that the article here on him is instead titled Ansel Adams, with a simple mention of "Easton"

Is there any pressing reason why this article isn't titled "Jane St. John"? -- Hoary (talk) 00:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

interfering and changing facts[edit]

In this edit, I changed Brother Michael died swimming in the sea on holiday (unsourced) to Jane's brother Michael drowned on holiday (unsourced). Perhaps wrongly, I inferred the latter from the former; and anyway it's shorter.

In this edit, Keithatciren changed Jane's brother Michael drowned on holiday (unsourced) to Jane's brother Michael died of sunstroke while on holiday (unsourced), with the edit summary correction to somebody interfering and changing facts to fiction in biography.

Unsourced facts count for nothing here. The only facts that matter are those published in sources that can be taken seriously. What published source says that Michael died of sunstroke while on holiday?

Expect considerably more "interference" soon, to delete material not clearly based on published sources. Please see WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:OWN. -- Hoary (talk) 13:45, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]