Talk:Heart of Darkness

Permission to add external link?

Is it OK for me to add a link to the External Links section to go to the free and open-source ebook versions of this novel at the Standard Ebooks project (https://standardebooks.org)? I was rapped over the knuckles recently about adding such a link to the Wikipedia page for another book.

This would be the link:

• Heart of Darkness at the Standard Ebooks site.

The Standard Ebook project, in its own words: "...is a volunteer driven, not-for-profit project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, and free." I am one of their volunteer producers.

It seems to me that this proposed link would be a valuable resource for readers of the Wikimedia page on this novel, on a par with Project Gutenberg or Librivox. I have read the External Links guidelines and I do not believe my proposed link is in breach of those guidelines. If not I would be grateful for some further guidance.

Mouldiwarp (talk) 23:27, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Nice find! I feel this would be a good addition to the article, although I'm relatively new, so I don't know the exact policies, but this looks like a worthwhile addition for readers. ShindoNana ^talk? 10:49, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Added it. --Mikaka (talk) 21:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

The only hard-core rule should be that Wikipedia does not support copyright infringement by linking to shadowy URLs with unclear legal background. As most legislations on the world give copyright protection to the author and his heirs upto 70 years after his death and Conrad died in 1924, this legal aspect is uncritical in this case. --Gunnar (talk) 17:58, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Long plot

I don't find the plot too long or overly detailed. Without having read the original piece I spent about 3 min reading the summary and believe that the main content items were retold in a way which allows to understand the basic events. While I fell upon some of the sentences as non-native speaker, I tried to simplify a few expressions. I removed the long plot tag - if anyone disagrees, please start a discussion here what should be shortend. My personal opinion is because of the significance of Conrad's novella, we should allow a rather longer than a shorter (and crippled) summary to understand easier all the following paragraphs that deal with reception, interpretation and adaptation. --Gunnar (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:NOVELPLOT the summary shouldn't exceed 700 words. I was able to do some trims without substantively impacting the quality of the article, IMO, and brought it down to 728. I won't re-insert the tag, but the plot shouldn't be significantly lengthened at this point without a consensus to do so. It would be nice to bring the plot down to within the guideline, but I'm not going to make a fuss over it marginally exceeding the guideline. DonIago (talk) 19:10, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the refresh. "Plot summaries should be concise and an integral part of the article. 400 to 700 words are usually sufficient for a full-length work, although very complex and lengthy novels may need a bit more." In IEC and ISO standards, cf. ISO/IEC Directives Part 2, clause 7 'Verbal forms for expressions of provisions', p. 25ff, there is a differentiation between requirements (shall), recommendations (should), permissions (may) and capabilities (can). The 700 word limit is not a hard requirement for the maximum length, but a soft recommendation which is also following from the rest of the sentence. Compare with guideline. --Gunnar (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2022 (UTC)