Talk:John Harrison Mills

Overhaul

I did a lot of trimming to the article during a copy edit. It was apparent to me that someone wrote this not as an encyclopedia article but as a painstakingly through biography (reminiscent of a class assignment), using an online newspaper search and including every mention of the subject (or in many cases, family members) with little apparent discrimination. I understand from experience that it's usually best to start big with an article and then trim, but this was a bit of a mess. It was all chronological and it was very difficult to spot the important parts amongst all the non-notable trivia. It also went off-topic quite a bit, with his family history and of course all of the Baháʼí stuff. Artworks were mentioned in passing throughout the article, usually without any mention to their significance, like an overgrown list-of-works but in prose form and interspersed throughout. There also seems to be a lot of excessive citations, which may be an indication of original research (researching all these little newspaper articles and then making a conclusion from them).

Moving forward, I feel that the biggest problem with this article is the lack of commentary on his artwork, to say why it is important. He won some prizes and some sold for what seems to be a high price, so that's probably enough for notability, but there should be some critical commentary. The closest thing the article has to that are a couple glowing sentences from a fellow member of a art group (primary source).

If anyone wants to restore any of the things I removed, it's all in the article history (look for the time stamp of this message – or the big red numbers). Some of it could be potentially split off into other articles, like Baháʼí community of Buffalo or somesuch. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Being that "someone" i can say I'm not doing it as a class assignment. The key issue to me is that if someone had a biography written about them then the writer of that has already decided what is notable. There was no real biography of Mills, a few sections of his life but not in general. So I as a wikipedia contributor should not filter sources save by credibility. That leaves a detailed biography in my estimation. Otherwise I'd, or you, would be excluding things purely based on our own pov. I think there is an overal clarity of being a significant person deserving of an article and it stands out of the norm of what is written in wikipedia which depends most often on already published sources. Smkolins (talk) 20:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for venting a bit above. I wanted to give more explanation than would fit in an edit summary. I feel that it boils down to Wikipedia:Summary style. An encyclopedia biography article is expected to be more concise than a stand-alone biography. Our task is to summarize what reliable sources have said about the subject, not list every little thing. I'm not sure, for example, that his broken arm (in the bicycle collision) is notable unless there's something to say that it affected his work or life in some significant way. Compare with featured articles like Bronwyn Bancroft (1400 words), George Vincent (painter) (4200 words) and Edward Thomas Daniell (4600 words) for the level of detail. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:59, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm aware of the idea of summary style. The practical rule driving it is of course copyright - you have to summarize in order to respect (and cite) the sources. But those sources are themselves already making editorial decisions what to include or not. This article is about someone without a general biography and picking what sources to include or not (within the realm of reliable sources) makes it the bias of the wikipedia contributor what to include or exclude. Yes? Smkolins (talk) 17:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Paraphrasing is enough to avoid copyright infringement; summarizing goes a bit further and is also related to other policies (such as NPOV). Yes, it is ultimately up to the editor (or ideally a consensus among editors) what to include. WP:NOT is often cited for guidance. – Reidgreg (talk) 21:12, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Point taken about summarizing being further on the scale the paraphrasing though it is on a scale rather than a difference of kind. But how does a consensus of wikipedia editors decide what is not biased? The writers and publishers of the sources already decided to talk about those things. What of what wikipedia is "not" do you think closely relevant to deciding what to include or not? Smkolins (talk) 23:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

This is interesting food-for-thought. Ultimately, editorial decisions have to be made (we can't include everything, per common sense and WP:NOTEVERYTHING article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject.) and there can be bias; we're only human. The short essays Wikipedia:Scope and Wikipedia:Out of scope take a look at what should generally be included in an article. WP:DUE (part of NPOV policy) looks at due weight of presenting material in an article (for example, a passing mention by a single source shouldn't have as much prominence in the article as something which is discussed in detail by multiple sources). I didn't find any definitive guidelines for biographies. I do a lot of copy editing for conciseness on a broad range of articles, so I have a bit of a feel for it – whether my confidence (or impudence, gall, chutzpah, etc.) to make such sweeping changes is deserved may be another matter. Having the involvement of more editors means (hopefully) more viewpoints and fewer editorial blind spots (Wikipedia:Systemic bias talks about this; though it's discussing a different kind of bias the principle is still valid). – Reidgreg (talk) 15:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I am thankful for the engaging approach that there is a question here. I've seen discussions about how summary vs detail exists as a paradigm in Wikipedia but I've also seen vast differences in how it is applied and in particular, avoiding original work, and being based only on what reasonable/reliable sources say, I think there is room for documenting lives beyond those that have already been studied and published about and result in being behind paywalls and would need to be represented by summary/paraphrasing (to my thinking as a practical implication of respecting copyright.) Citizen scholarship which in some ways is the best of what wikipedia can offer a chance for in my estimation. As for if confidence or chutzpah applies to you or me is something we don't need to get into, no reliable sources, eh? Smkolins (talk) 11:36, 7 January 2021 (UTC)