Talk:The Problem of Cell 13

Redirect to Jacques Futrelle

The redirect to the author article was not vandalism. The article contains absolutely nothing except the plot, the author's name, and the date of publication. Because Wikipedia isn't a place for bare plot summaries, I performed the redirect. --Tony Sidaway 01:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The article is, of course, quite far from the ideal but that does not immediately imply its deletion (otherwise 95 percent of Wikipedia should be deleted). If you are concerned with notability of the article then please initiate proper AfD discussion. If you are not satisfied with the way the article is written then please tag it correspondingly and/or edit it. An unexplained redirect (of a page with some non-trivial content) is not a very good style of editing and, in my opinion, is not much better than vandalism.Henry Merrivale (talk) 03:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not proposing that we delete it, but by turning it into a redirect to the author I give the person interested in the story access to more relevant information than the article provides. I agree that I should have put some reasoning into my edit summary--that was a rare omission on my part and I'll obviously do my best to make such omissions even rarer. Tony Sidaway 13:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there no prospect of expanding into something that's not too heavily dominated by the plot? For example, there appears to have been a television adaptation in 1963 which won an Edgar Allan Poe Award. Sturm 14:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I had no intention of doing so, but it would certainly make sense if someone wants to volunteer to do the job. --Tony Sidaway 14:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll have a look at what else is out there and check some of my own references. Trimming the plot summary – it seems a bit pointless to have one so long when one can simply read the story online – and balancing it up with real-world context might leave a valid stub/start-class article. (For what it's worth, if it's not doable, then a redirect doesn't sound an unreasonable proposition.) --Sturm 15:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Tony Sidaway 16:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I've trimmed the plot summary, not to avoid giving away "spoilers", but to provide a reasonable overview of the story without occupying too much time and space. As Charles suggests, one can read the full story online, and it's pretty short. --Tony Sidaway 21:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad somebody else tackled that.

I couldn't find much in my own books about this particular story (there was literally just one line in my old copy of Clute and Nicholls) so I've stuck to bare facts about adaptations. There's also mention of the story's use in schools a secondary source. Does anyone think it's worth mentioning? --Sturm 22:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It's reasonably well known story, the whole collection (The Thinking Machine) is often included in "best" crime lists, for example it's in H. R. F. Keating's list of 100 best crime books and novels. I think, also, it was recently republished by some big pub house; Modern Library, if I am not mistaken. The secondary source you've mentioned may not be worth mentioning, IMHO.Henry Merrivale (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the issue is resolved so I've removed the RFC tag. --Tony Sidaway 22:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) And apparently Harlan Ellison selected it for Lawrence Block's Best Mysteries of the Century. Is there a common heading for this sort of info or should it just go in the lead? --Sturm 22:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd say put it in the lead. It may well be the most important thing about this story. --Tony Sidaway 22:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, have done. It might even be spelt correctly, but it's too late for me too tell. Night all. --Sturm 23:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:The Problem of Cell 13/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I updated the article to start class because there are now some good references there, it has an infobox, and so on. --Tony Sidaway 00:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 00:20, 12 February 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 08:20, 30 April 2016 (UTC)