Talk:Harold Pinter

Archive 1

[Past discussion archived due to the length of page being over 100 kilobytes, following suggestion of Wikipedia. --NYScholar 21:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)]

Archive 2

[Past discussion archived ... --NYScholar 18:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)] The contents of Archive 2 are Related to GA status. --NYScholar 18:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Archive 3

Past discussion archived ... further discussion of GA nomination by various editors. Willow 18:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Willow's GA review: preamble

I've never done a Good article review, so I hope that I'm doing the right thing by posting it here. Please forgive any other lapses.

I'll have to do this piecemeal over the next few days, but since the article has been in development for so long, such a short delay shouldn't be a problem. Thank you all for your patience! :)

I've studied the GA criteria, read the article through a few times, and turned it over in my mind for a few days. It's an interesting article, and its subject is well-worthy of the effort that its author has lavished on the article. I hope that these initial comments will be taken as constructive criticism, and, indeed, I'm more than willing to share the burden of improving the article.

To bring us together with a common purpose, I think we should agree in advance on two questions:

• who is the intended audience? and
• what should they get out of reading the article?

I believe that the most appropriate audience for this article does not consist of academics who have studied Pinter at the graduate level or above. Such graduate students, professors, etc. seem unlikely to turn to Wikipedia to inform themselves about Pinter, or to cite it in their own scholarship. Instead, I propose that the article be targeted to (1) undergraduate college students not majoring in literature; and (2) working people with a general college education, again not in literature. Both of these groups may not be familiar with the conventions of literary scholarship. The expertise level of these target audiences may be lower than originally envisioned, but I believe (a) that Pinter is notable for people other than literature majors, and (b) that the details covered in the present article are within the understanding of the two target audiences given above. Willow 20:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

To clarify the thread of the discussion — which may become intricate — my replies to your comments on my original review will be in magenta. I'll clarify a few minor points now but I'll return tomorrow, when I have more time. Willow 04:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Target audience?

[and] [--NYScholar 01:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

"Criteria" for "good articles"

Comments about "criteria" for "good articles" in Wikipedia need to refer directly to Wikipedia:What is a good article?, which are the actual "criteria" for a "good article" in Wikipedia. I see no definition of such a "target audience" as the above reviewer's comments assume. People all over the world from many different backgrounds and levels of education, professions, and professional experience consult the English version of Wikipedia. This assumption about the "target audience" of this "encyclopedia" seems incorrect. What "audience" does Wikipedia "target"? Please provide a link to official policies and guidelines to verify such an assumption. Thank you. --NYScholar 23:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If a new reviewer, one may perhaps also find it helpful to consult Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles. Thanks. --NYScholar 23:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC) [added heading. --NYScholar 01:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

There is indeed no GA criterion for a target audience, although I hope that you can see the futility of writing a Wikipedia article on Pinter to inform other Pinter scholars. I hope likewise that we agree on the common purpose of making your article as intelligible as possible to its widest audience, consistent with keeping it accurate. This article does not describe quantum field theory or some other hopelessly arcane field that can be expressed only in mathematics and technical concepts understood by a few devotees. Therefore, I believe that the present contents of this article could be understood and appreciated by a wide variety of people. If the article fails in that basic purpose because of writing that is aimed at fellow Pinter scholars, who are blessed with much background knowledge and unusual insights on Pinter, then it cannot be considered a good encyclopedia article. Clear prose is the first criterion of a good article; hence, the average college-educated reader should be able to follow its train of thought throughout the article without extraordinary exertion. Do we agree on those principles? Willow 05:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The audience

This article is not directed to other [advanced-level] scholars of Harold Pinter, although, as an editor, I do keep always in mind that college and university students (sometimes considered amateur scholars or scholars in training) are members of academia; if they are part of the assumed "target audience" (so to speak), it is entirely appropriate to provide a well-documented article about Pinter that can be useful for them, containing references to reliable published sources that they can explore further. Articles in medicine in Wikipedia and in scientific subjects are highly developed; there is no reason why an article on a literary figure cannot be as highly developed as one in those disciplines. If one examines comments on Wikipedia in the press, including in the The Chronicle of Higher Education (cited in my currently-redirected talk page), one will see the weaknesses of Wikipedia (Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not) that an article like this one is trying to correct. Because other articles in Wikipedia are "dumbed down" to a "lowest-common-denominator" audience is not a viable reason to aim for that as a goal or to reduce the reliability and verifiability of an article that does actually provide references and citations for its statements. I object also strenuously to the claim that as an editor, I am not being "professional"; not only am I a professional editor by professional training and experience, but I am far more "professional" than many, many other editors who edit Wikipedia. I have identified myself clearly on my user page as an academic scholar, and that means that I am using professional scholarly academic knowledge, expertise, and experience in editing this article. To claim otherwise, is to violate WP:AGF. If the article meets the "criteria" of "good articles" (linked in my earlier comment: Wikipedia:Good article criteria), it is a "good article". The criteria are Wikipedia guideline criteria. The value judgment of "good" depends on applying those criteria, not other criteria that are being invented. If a sentence here or there could be clearer, fine, I suggest that one try to improve it. But to claim lack of "professionalism" or lack of "critical perspective" or some such derogatory claim, is unfair, unwarranted, unsupportable, and violates WP:AGF. The "trivial" nature of the corrections needed (as already stated by the reviewer) are not in keeping with these later claims. Let's not get carried away in this review. Let's stick to the facts. --NYScholar 07:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [added clarification in brackets. --NYScholar 08:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

It seems like we're agreed on an appropriate level for the exposition, namely, college students and educated adults. Great!

My criticisms are indeed trivial, since they pertain to the liberal art of rhetoric; had they been more structural, they would be quadrivial, no? ;)

To clarify, I was impugning neither you nor myself when I said that we should strive to be professional and work to improve this article. It was merely a fond wish, prefaced by the hope that you would not judge me prematurely. Our goals are quite similar, methinks, namely conveying what you have written as clearly as possible to the largest possible audience, consistent with its accuracy. I am not exhorting you to dumb anything down. I am merely concerned with the clarity of the exposition, and whether the article has encyclopedic tone and content. Onwards, shall we? Willow 18:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Willow's GA review: the writing criterion

If we can agree on this, then the following initial comments pertain. I believe that the shortcomings mentioned below can be fixed, and I look forward to the article's progression to GA and thence to FA.

The criteria for a GA are that the article be (1) well-written, (2) factually accurate and verifiable, (3) sufficiently broad, (4) neutral point of view, (5) stable and (6) have images. The article clearly passes on (3), and criteria (5) and (6) are less important to me. I find minor lapses on (2) and (4) that will be discussed in the following section.

However, I do not believe that the present article is well-written for our target audience. I sincerely doubt whether several intelligent people of my acquaintance would be sufficiently interested in Pinter to parse certain unnecessarily arcane passages. More specifically, I find that

Regarding "our target audience" and other points, please see section below. Thank you. --NYScholar 00:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• The article has poor flow; the transitions between paragraphs and sections are not as tightly connected as they could be. I would also split some of the longer sections into more digestible pieces; in particular, the two sections of "Career" and the "Civic activities and political activism" section would benefit from more ruthless subdivision and organization.

• Many sentences are overly long or overly complex in their construction. Please try to keep the number of dependent clauses per sentence to a minimum, and the number of independent clauses as well. If the reader has to stop after every sentence to parse it, that robs the article of flow and the reading of fun, and makes it difficult for people to remember the sense of what you wanted to convey. One example:

“ Pinter and his supporters, including many Americans, point out that he criticizes policies and practices of American administrations, not American citizens (Pinter, Various Voices 243), that his political analyses depend upon his sharp critical acumen (Merritt, Pinter in Play 171-89, 208), and that he is "a man of infinite complexity and abundant contradiction" (Billington, Harold Pinter 388). ”

Actually, in terms of syntax, that is a "simple sentence" construction: subject-verb-predicate, with a series of items in the predicate. I really don't see that sentence as "overly long" or "overly complex in" its "construction". Often the sentences are they way they are so that the in-line citations will come at the end of a phrase or at the end of a sentence for greater ease of reference. Breaking up a sentence like that into, say, three sentences would require additional reference citations or notes. The "flow" of the sentences also relate to the ways that references appear. As far as "fun" goes: that is a highly-subjective category about which few will agree in Wikipedia. What is "fun" for one reader is not necessarily "fun" for another. It has no reference in the criteria for a good article (see links given below). --NYScholar 00:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Subsequently, I made the one sentence quoted into three separate sentences, each one followed by its citation. --NYScholar 01:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• There are too many parentheticals of ancillary details that do not advance the article materially. I would sacrifice small details, especially in the lead, such as "delivered on video", "on being awarded the Europe Theatre Prize" or "in a limited run". Similarly, the sentence

“ Though in February 2005, he had announced that he would stop writing plays, later that year Pinter completed a final draft of his screenplay for Sleuth, and in May 2006, he wrote a new dramatic sketch, "Apart From That". ”

could be condensed to

“ In early 2005, Pinter announced that he would stop writing plays; nevertheless, he has since written a dramatic sketch, Apart From That, and a screenplay for Sleuth. ”

That is not an improvement. The title of the work is as relevant as the title of Sleuth. To omit it does not improve the statement, which is specific. Another editor reverted that change. --NYScholar 00:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not surprisingly, I find the shorter, more direct version easier to understand and more appropriate to the lead in its level of detail. As an aside, I have not changed your text in the article. Willow 05:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• Key facts are sometimes put at the end of a complicated construction, instead of near the beginning for easier comprehension by non-academics. For example, consider the sentence

“ Pinter was born in Hackney in London to working class, native English-Jewish parents of Eastern-European ancestry on 10 October 1930. ”

To me at least, the date is important, pithy and easily understood, whereas the noun-phrase "working class, native English-Jewish parents of Eastern-European ancestry" is difficult to parse for non-academics, unless it were spoken. How about the trivial rearrangement

“ Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in Hackney (London) to working-class, native English-Jewish parents of Eastern-European ancestry. ”

or even

“ Pinter was born on 10 October 1930 in Hackney (London) to working-class, Jewish parents who were native English citizens of Eastern-European ancestry. ”

I changed the sentence to accommodate this "trivial" point. --NYScholar 00:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I hyphenated "working-class" since it's a noun-phrase being used an an adjective.

Someone reverted that; I restored "working-class," which is correct. --NYScholar 00:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• Some phrases are too — hagiographic and unencyclopedic; thus, they fail the WP:WORDS criterion, specifically WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL. The first example that leapt out at me was "a man of infinite complexity"; just because his official biographer says so, doesn't mean that we have to repeat such an unverifiable claim, right? Such phrases do not seem scholarly to me; they do not seem to have the proper tone of an encyclopedia. It seems like quoting from the dust jacket of a record album.

"Such an unverifiable claim" ("claim" is a Weasel word): This is a clear misinterpretation of WP:V (official policy) and specifically WP:V#Sources; WP:BLP#Sources. What editors must "verify" is that the statement as paraphrased or quoted comes from the source noted and that the source must be "reliable" WP:Reliable sources (guideline). The biographical content [point of view of the biographer] is thus "verified"; of course, this is the biographer's viewpoint; that is what is being documented: his viewpoint; it is a statement from a reliable source (the official biographer); in my own experience (forty years of research in this subject), it happens to be a convincing point of view. Nonetheless, I refer to WP:POV, which applies in WP:BLP#Well known public figures. Moreover, please do not take a phrase out of the context of the full sentence in which it appears. It is part of a larger statement and serves as an example of points of view on Pinter as a living person [by "Pinter and his supporters" responding to criticism mentioned in the preceding sentence: please review context]. It is a point of view on the subject of this biography by the subject's official biographer that appears in his authorized official biography. It is not "an unverifiable claim" as stated. So, no, that is not "right". It is actually useful in a lead in an article about a "controversial" well-known living public figure (BLP) to point out that there is "complexity" and that there are "contradictions" that one may expect to find in points of view on the subject because he is both "a man of infinite complexity" and "full of contradictions". There is an odd reading of that phrase in the above comment as if it were a value judgment when it is actually a statement of fact about the man. Billington's intensifier/adjective "infinite" is simply emphasis; it means literally that the man Harold Pinter is complex in many (not finite or determinable) ways; that complexity is actually reflected in the "ambiguity" of his work, one of its most well-known characteristics (as documented in this article on him). Earlier revisions of this article have already responded to the "hagiographical" comment (now archived). The section on "Public criticism" is an addition responding to it; the articles relating to that criticism are cited and listed in the "Works cited"; a "hagiographical" article omits does not cite such negative points of view on the subject as this one already does. Please consult the sources more carefully. Thanks. --NYScholar [added clarifications in brackets. --NYScholar 00:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

I shortened the sentence. --NYScholar 01:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• Occasionally, the sentences are ambiguously worded and defy visualization in concrete terms. For example, how should the reader interpret "culmination" in the sentence

“ His highly-controversial Nobel Lecture, "Art, Truth & Politics", delivered on video, is a culmination of decades of both prolific literary and theatrical activity and increasingly-committed political activism. ”

I shortened the sentence. --NYScholar 00:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

My best understanding of your sentence was that Pinter used his long-practiced stagecraft to deliver a rhetorically powerful and deeply felt political speech; might that sentiment be conveyed more simply? I would also re-word the confusing word "both", and re-consider whether you need to say "prolific" and "increasingly" here. Willow 20:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, re: "My best understanding": see WP:NOR. The video of the speech is already documented and fully accessible at the Nobel Prize organization's website (as cited in the Selected bibliograpy, "Works cited", "resources"). Anyone who reads this article is capable of accessing the full video via those citations (video is fully accessible online). There are already many articles commenting on the speech's content and presentational characteristics (style of Pinter's delivery) listed as sources, which any reader can consult for their own additional information. The DVD provides the full Nobel Lecture "Art, Truth & Politics" as well; this is obviously an audio-visual resource accompanying the printed text (also accessible onine at the Nobel Prize site and various printed publications (e.g., PMLA, Faber and Faber; both cited too). I have already shortened the sentence. --NYScholar 23:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointers to my Swedish friends, but allow me to be more explicit. I did not fail to understand Pinter's speech, but rather your description of it, particularly as an "culmination" of three factors, of which two seemed only tangentially relevant. I was asking you to clarify your writing so that your intended meaning became clear even to those who are not experts on Pinter. You should not underestimate the advantages and perspective you have by having studied Pinter closely for over forty years; many thoughts obvious to you will not be so to many others. Willow 05:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have missed: "I have already shortened the sentence." Thanks for your help, of course. --NYScholar 05:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Willow's GA review: neutrality and verifiability criteria

As mentioned above, I would advise you to be more understated and scholarly in your assessment of Pinter. Thus, you may wish to eliminate some intensifiers and redundancies (e.g., "voluminous" and "sharp critical acumen", respectively) that add extra words and sap credibility and intelligibility, rather than enhance them. For example, the lead sentence

“ Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born 10 October 1930), one of the most prolific of living British authors and the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, is an English playwright, screenwriter, poet, actor (also known as David Baron), director, and political activist. ”

could be re-written more simply as

“ Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born 10 October 1930) is a prolific British playwright, screenwriter, and poet; he has also been an actor, director, and political activist. ”

'One of the most" is eliminated for brevity as an unnecessary intensifier. The Nobel Prize is covered below, and the detail of his stage name ("also known as David Baron") is ancillary. Similarly, replacing "more overtly" with "overtly" would greatly enhance the intelligibility of its host sentence.

Although referenced, a few passages seemed editorial and should be eliminated as POV, similar to "infinitely complex". One offensive editorial was "a small vindictive triumph for the disgruntled Vivien", again by Mr. Billington. Another by the same author was "many of us felt compelled to reply, in unison, 'No-o-o-o-o-o!'". These quotes, although referenced, are obviously unscholarly and do not belong in an encyclopedia.

Another editor reverted changes relating to this comment and several other changes made recently. This particular judgment about properly-documented (checked and verified) quotations from reliable sources as "editorial" and "POV" is a mistaken judgment not in keeping with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:POV. Wikipedia cautions editors against making such value judgments of their own--see (WP:NOR)--about the published work of recognized scholarly authorities on the subject being used as sources in BLP. The quotation comes from the Harold Pinter Society Newsletter's published report of a scholar (Merritt) who attended the event and is providing a first-person account in that publication (distributed to Society members/subscribers both electronically and through the United States postal service mail). The quotation documents a first-person account of the audience's reaction to Pinter's (rhetorical) question in Turin, Italy, during his March 2006 interview by Michael Billington on the occasion of his receiving the Europe Theatre Prize. (Billington was the primary organizer of the related symposium.) --NYScholar 22:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia requires that its contents be informative and, as far as possible, objective. I refer you to the GA criterion (1), specifically WP:WORDS, which states that the article should not be "unnecessarily flattering or positive" and/or "uninformative". It is evident that the three cited quotations from Billinton are subjective, unscholarly and, in the judgment of this reviewer, uninformative about Pinter and more informative about his authorized biographer. I am similarly troubled by the following unreferenced assertion: "a label that people have applied repeatedly to his work, at times pigeonholing and attempting to tame it." Willow 04:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[Added sources. By now, this is a very common perspective accepted in criticism about Pinter's work; "taming" is another way of saying "controlling" by means of "pigeon-holing"; "categorizing" is a means of making the new and unfamiliar more like the old and familiar; one categorizes the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar or comes up with a new label to stand for the unfamiliar characteristics and to maintain "control" over them; to make them less "unwieldy" so to speak. --NYScholar 11:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

More generally, it's a pity that Pinter has had only one significant biographer, Billington, who appears to be strongly partial to his subject. Billington's singularity would seem to require us to cite his work to the exclusion of more balanced viewpoints. Billington is cited in this article at least nine times more often than any other author (by my count, 45 to Merritt's five citations). To me, this calls into question whether the present article is NPOV.

See above reply. The "it's a pity" is not in keeping with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. It is a fact that there is only one "official" biography (and biographer) of the subject, Harold Pinter (now entitled Harold Pinter) and that the biography is "authorized": see "Works cited". [Billington's biography [2007] supercedes all previous biographical accounts of Pinter's life--which are relatively few and quite dated.] Authorized biographies [of then-still-living persons] have the cooperation of their subjects and thus present facts about a subject's life that the subject himself or herself has checked, corrected and otherwise verified. Billington based his biography and his revised enlarged edition of it on many interviews with his subject (Pinter) and he cites the fact that Pinter read, commented on, and corrected it in the course of its development and subsequent publication. It is the "standard biography" of Pinter. That a Wikipedia editor considers this "a pity" is not relevant. To base this article on such a "point of view" of a Wikipedia editor would be to violate Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and to violate WP:NOR. This article strives for neutrality. When Billington is quoted, the quotations document what Billington writes in the biography. When he comments on the views of others, their articles are included in the "Works cited" for further verification of what they state. Anyone is free to read the sources himself or herself. There is also a list of "External links" with several other biographical accounts for further reference. --NYScholar 22:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC) [clarifications; tc. --NYScholar 01:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

I recognize, and sympathize with, the difficulty of writing a biographical article for a subject for whom there is only one acceptable biography written by someone not impartial. I also recognize the difficulty of WP:NOR here. I further believe that our own biases are evident in our selection of quotations from the Billington biography. All that said, in the judgment of this reviewer, the article cannot be considered a good encyclopedia article if it repeats uncritically statements from a single not-disinterested source that seem "overly flattering", irrelevant to Pinter, or judgments of what cannot be known, such as the feelings/motivations of Ms. Merchant and Pinter's literary critics. Willow 04:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: such a broad and acontextual statistical comparison: the subjects of work by Billington and Merritt (e.g.) differ: Billington is a drama critic who is also Pinter's official biographer, and this Wikipedia article is a biography of Pinter (BLP), so his work is understandably cited frequently in it as he is the most authoritative and reliable source on the subject of Pinter's biography. Merritt is an academic scholar whose work is critical, metacritical (a critical study of Harold Pinter criticism), and bibliographical. It is cited to document statements pertaining to her publications primarily about those fields of expertise. Their joint expertise is being used cumulatively to document different kinds of statements in this BLP about a living author whose life and work crosses boundaries of literary genres, media, and disciplines. Obviously, in a BLP (biography of a living person), biographical statements will outnumber critical statements about the works. [Note again: Billington's Harold Pinter is an account of Pinter's life (biography) that includes considerable analysis of and commentary about his work; its original title is The Life and Work of Harold Pinter (see note citation to it and "Works cited").] The number of times that specific sources [Billington, et al.] are cited in the article relates mostly to the contexts in which they serve as documentation (sources). Such a count that does not take such different contexts into account is misleading. --NYScholar 01:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Over the next few days, I'll have more to add, as I find the time. Hopefully, this is enough grist for the mill! :) Willow 20:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see the reverts of some of your changes made by other editors (not I) and their editing summaries. Thank you. --NYScholar 22:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

You are mistaken, NYScholar; I have not changed your text in any respect. On the contrary, I prevented its being changed, by reverting two misguided edits by Emerson7 that I think would have perturbed your serenity. ;) Willow 04:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that you have misinterpreted my comment: I was referring to the fact that I had not been the one to revert anything that you may have changed prior to my coming along today: 157468986 Diffs: referring to those editing summaries by others.

Thank you for the diff. If you look closely, here's what happened. Emerson7 made, in my opinion, two misguided edits, which I reluctantly reverted. He undid my reversion, restoring his changes. Those were then re-reverted by another editor. I have never changed your text. Willow 06:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again for your assistance throughout. I don't agree with all that you say, particularly about Billington; it is not from lack of perspective but from perspective that I disagree. I work on other BLP in Wikipedia and my perspective is from editing them as well (over an extended period of time); mostly, I provide citations and references when others provide none or I correct problems in misleading presentations of citations and references, so I am very attuned to these concerns. I don't see the citations of Billington as in any way a violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Every citation clearly relates to identification of him as the official authorized biographer, and that is the means of establishing the source of his "point of view" in his statements about Pinter, the man and his work. A standard reference is what Wikipedia recommends that one use in biographies of living persons and other articles in Wikipedia: WP:V#Sources. One cannot impeach a standard reference if that is indeed what it is, and in this case, Billington is the standard biographical reference source regarding Harold Pinter. There are a great variety of other biographical resources provided via External links and the Selected bibliography; I do not see violations of neutral point of view in the article. --NYScholar 05:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

That is to say (again): Billington's book Harold Pinter is, in Wikipedia terminology, "a reliable published source" with an undisputed "reputation" for fact-checking, etc. as per WP:V#Sources. There is no source that has a stronger reputation as a biographical work on Pinter at this time. If you are going to impeach a source (and let me remind you that comments about Billington are also subject to WP:BLP), then you must provide some evidence from an at-least equally reliable published source. You have not done that. Your statements about Billington violate WP:NOR and possibly also WP:BLP (which applies to all of Wikipedia, including talk pages). Focus: on improving the article as opposed to talking about the subject matter (top template). Thanks again nevertheless! --NYScholar 05:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [added some words for clarity. --NYScholar 05:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

For example, the last quotation in the current version of the lead is not by any reasonable measure an exaggeration; it is an accurate statement borne out by the accounts and reviews of Pinter's performance in Krapp's Last Tape: it was the ticket to get in London in October 2006. People flew from the U.S. and elsewhere in the world to the U.K. just to see the production and [according to their published comments] considered the experience was well worth the expense and inconvenience: published reviews are the source of Billington's generalization. One of Pinter's final performances was filmed and made into a DVD to be shown on British television, and the responses to its broadcast also bear out Billington's statement. His book was ready for distribution in April 2007 and presented at the conference in Leeds (Artist and Citizen: 50 Years of Performing Pinter), where conferees could purchase it "hot off the press"; and they did. (In providing references, I refer to my own copy of the book, which he gave me in Leeds.) --NYScholar 05:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [clarification. After this, logging out of Wikipedia again. --NYScholar 05:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

You provide no reliable published source for this statement: "All that said, in the judgment of this reviewer, the article cannot be considered a good encyclopedia article if it repeats uncritically statements from a single not-disinterested source that seem "overly flattering", irrelevant to Pinter, or judgments of what cannot be known, such as the feelings/motivations of Ms. Merchant and Pinter's literary critics." Billington's statements about the feelings and motivations of Ms. Merchant are based on what Pinter himself told him in interviews; there are quotations from Pinter that are part of those statements. Pinter is the closest source one has about how he and his former wife felt about aspects of their personal experience, and Billington cites Pinter. He also cites others who back up what Pinter said; the generalization in Billington is backed up by quotations from a variety of interviewed sources and from Vivien Merchant's own statements to newspapers and friends (who are cited) at the time. If you have not consulted a copy of the book that is being cited or some other reliable published source disputing it, then what basis do you have for these charges? I say, none but your own conjecture, which just happens to be incorrect. --NYScholar 05:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that it might be useful if you consulted Wikipedia guidance on the use of published biographies and autobiographies in BLP: WP:BLP#Sources. There is no basis for your charges of lack of neutrality about a biographer whose biography you have clearly not read. If Billington, as a biographer, is sympathetic to his subject, that is partly a result of his work on the subject, which, from his perspective, warrants his sympathy. But if Wikipedia editors make clear that they are citing an "authorized" "official" biography of a subject, then any reasonable reader should understand that the source of statements in the biography is the biographer.

If one wants to find reviews of the biography and to use them as sources for providing additional perspective on Billington's biography of Pinter, one is of course free to do so. But one needs to keep in mind that the subject of this article is Harold Pinter and not Michael Billington. Michael Billington provides his own perspective on the facts of Pinter's life that he has documented. That is what all biographers (and documentary filmmakers for that matter) do. Biography is a literary genre; it is a form of literature, and anyone can find out more about the nature of biographies by reading Biography. Editors must keep in mind that literary conventions (such as those pertaining to biographies) exist and that readers have means in Wikipedia about informing themselves about such conventions. --NYScholar 05:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, I object most strenuously to your claim (and it is merely a claim) that in editing this article, I have provided references to Billington "uncritically"; to the contrary, I have been very careful, maintaining "critical perspective," in selecting what to quote and what not to quote in this article. I have also clearly identified the source of quotations and paraphrases by using coherent transitions and ample notes citations. There is no basis for that claim. It violates WP:AGF. --NYScholar 06:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

If you sincerely believe that it contributes to Pinter's biography to quote "a small vindictive triumph for the disgruntled Vivien", then I won't stop you. But let me dissuade you. Personally, I find the episode relatively trivial and unnecessary to recount here; I also worry that it makes Pinter seem ungenerous and even belies his "support" for Ms. Merchant. However, I also recognize my own bias that such one-dimensional characterizations cannot describe a real person's emotional state. Be that as it may, if you do want to include it, I ask that you clarify the original source of that assertion, e.g.,

“ As characterized by Pinter and corroborated by others, it was "a small vindictive triumph for the disgruntled Vivien." ”

That clarifies for the unwary reader that it's a characterization and not a fact like the speed of light. Is that an acceptable compromise?

Your characterization is actually incorrect, so it is not something that I can use. It is actually a fact that Vivien Merchant was both "disgruntled" and "vindictive" in her attitude and behavior relating to Pinter's affair with Fraser, with the separation (Pinter's moving out right after he admitted to the affair), and the divorce. Billington is reporting not inventing there. She made statements revealing those feelings (attitude) and doing that itself was one of her ways of retaliating (Pinter's comment that Billington quotes is actually quite mild; he says that he was surprised because she had said that she would not "do that" (speak to the press about their private life). So I don't think there is a basis to claim that Billington is providing "point of view" there; he's simply coming up w/ a description of already-well-reported facts (based on Merchant's own interview remarks at the time to the press, which were published). Your guessing about these things is not helping here. I removed the phrase, but it really is not what you state at all. --NYScholar 07:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

On the second point, I think we agree that "infinite" is not meant literally but merely as "very", in the same way that medieval Latin began to use the superlative as "very". (Perhaps there's a technical linguistic term for such inflation?) But do you see the danger that unwary readers will read it as written and take it as hyperbolic? As a compromise, I suggest that you should paraphrase slightly, e.g., "characterizes Pinter overall as a complex, abundantly contradictory man." which places the emphasis rightly on "contradiction". Does that sound good? Willow 06:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I hear the "tone of voice" of Billington speaking "infinitely" there; it helps to have heard him speak; it's just a manner of speaking. "infinitely" is almost an oxymoron, since we really have no factual basis for "infinitely"; it is never really "literal"--can't be pinned down to a "finite" literal number or amount. It's a figure of speech (metaphorical). --NYScholar 07:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

For the remaining two points, I would drop the "No-o-o-o-o-o" statement altogether; it just seems, well, silly and unscholarly, and it doesn't contribute significantly to the depiction of Pinter himself. I would likewise drop the "tame" comment or at least provide a reference for it. As is, it comes across as belittling and petty; it's hard for me to imagine how it could be the reasoned conclusion of a scholarly study.

Sorry, but that is a statement reported by a scholar whose work is listed with the British Library and the Lilly Library in Pinter's website's links for "Academia and Libraries" in his official website; she is the Bibliographical Editor of The Pinter Review, and she is reporting on her first-hand experience of the audience's response; they shouted in unison a long drawn out wailing sounding "No," which is being represented graphically as "No-o-o-o-o" accurately. That is what it sounded like. It is really not proper for an editor to describe as "unscholarly" a scholar's account. The account is "scholarly" because it is written by a scholar. Value judgments by editors of Wikipedia are really irrelevant. It is neither "silly" nor "unscholarly"; it's just an accurate report of what the audience did at the time. Given your earlier statements about the (assumed) "target audience" not being "academic scholars", this comment seems contradictory. It gives a little life to the article to keep the description; it humanizes Harold Pinter, who was "beloved" by the audience who wanted to urge him not to give up writing plays because they love the plays. They themselves were a group of hundreds of scholars, critics, and dignataries, were in an audience celebrating his getting the Europe Theatre Prize, and their response is being accurately depicted. I may come up with a description for the "No-o-o-o-o-o" etc., but it is important to point out that the account was being sent by request to a readership of Pinter scholars (members of the Harold Pinter Society); to claim that it is "unscholarly" makes no sense; scholars are human beings too [Critics (including scholars) are "members of the audience" like anyone else (Norman Holland, The Dynamics of Literary Response [1968])] and they have feelings, and they were manifesting those feelings in their response to his rhetorical question. They said "No" in a very loud and encouraging drawn-out fashion [a kind of wail], trying to convince Pinter otherwise (to keep on writing plays). --NYScholar 08:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, I can say sincerely that I've formed no opinion whether you personally are biased or uncritical towards Harold Pinter. How could I, on such a limited acquaintance? I only wished to express my judgment that the text of the article was employing quotes uncritically or unhelpfully for the article. I hope that you will likewise refrain from making premature judgments about me. Both of us should strive to be professional and focus on improving the article.

That's it for tonight; I'm going off to bed myself. 3) sleepy Willow 06:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Reviews of Billington's biography

Reviews of the revised enlarged edition entitled Harold Pinter are not in print yet or online for citing; once I find some I may cite them in this article. As I stated in an earlier note citation since deleted (due to prior comments and reviews to shorten the notes), it includees a new chapter (which I quote from and cite) and the Nobel Lecture text in an appendix. For some customer reviews (if one wants to do one's own "original research" as well as to read the book), one can consult online book sites like Amazon.com, e.g., Customer reviews. I think that I have been very judicious in selections of quotations from Billington's book; in the "Public criticism" subsection of the Honors section (where I was asked to place that section by an earlier reviewer/commentator), I have cited the very articles that Billington quotes from, so that one can read the contexts for his quotations in the articles. To quote from the articles is highly problematic, because, in some cases, they violate WP:BLP and online versions are posted in message boards and forums and blogs, which one cannot post as sources due to WP:BLP#Sources: they are not reliable sources, so the printed citation must suffice. People can search for non-permissible sources of the texts themselves, but one can only cite a reliable published source of the original publication. (If one goes way back in the editing history, one will see some problems of violations of WP:BLP previously corrected in this article. --NYScholar 06:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Vivien Merchant

Re: Vivien Merchant: there is no "gossip" being presented in this article. One can keep in mind that she is dead and thus WP:BLP does not apply. Nevertheless, one expects to be respectful, and I believe that Pinter himself, Billington in citing him and others, and I are being respectful of her memory. She herself contributed to tabloid articles by phoning the press or responding to press inquiries during the separation and divorce stage of her relationship with Pinter. The article called "People" from Time Magazine is a reliable published source of information about what she said [that is quoted in this article on Pinter]; it also contains a comment which I have not quoted; I removed it from an earlier version of this article: it's still apparently in the article Vivien Merchant note 2: It's a rather silly comment about her rival's foot size, and it is not appropriate for this encyclopedia article, in my view.

It was put into the VM article w/o a source; at first I took it out; then I found a source for it: to find the history, one has to click on newer edits for a bit via diffs: 62433801 and, e.g., 62436800. --NYScholar 08:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [provided links. --NYScholar 08:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

Nevertheless, it is well known that Vivien Merchant was quite "vindictive" relating to the divorce, and that she did indeed say that she was going to sign the divorce papers, Pinter and Fraser went ahead and planned their wedding and reception, and then she refused to sign the papers at the last minute, and they were stuck with not being able to get married and having to hold the reception as a party prior to a wedding. (That was in newspapers at the time it happened, and all Billington is doing is generalizing about a news-documented fact.)

[I've removed the quotation, but not because it is incorrect or wrong or unprofessional to include. Just because it makes no difference to me whether or not it is there. It is in the source and people can read it there. (Added. --NYScholar 07:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

Otherwise, I preferred to use the more general paraphrase about how grief-stricken she was at the affair and demise of the relationship, which is not "gossipy". Again, as an editor, one is trying to remain neutral but still compassionate and humane and trying to avoid gossip, to use reliable published sources of pertinent information.

Reliable published sources document the fact that Vivien Merchant was distraught over the break up of her marriage to Pinter (he talks about that quite a bit in comments to Billington quoted verbatim in the biography) and that, in effect, she drank herself to death after she realized that she was not going to get her husband back; in one quotation in a newspaper article (that I have not quoted in this article on Pinter), she asked if there was a "pill" that one could take called "husband" (it may still be in a note citation in Vivien Merchant). That pretty much says it all. Instead of pills, Vivien Merchant relied on alcohol to assuage her distress. (That is discussed in the biography by Billington.) I do not think that Billington exaggerates or misstates the situtation that he describes relating to the couple's breakup.

It is also well-documented that when she acted in Old Times in London (about 1971), she already had a drinking problem; it got worse after the split up of the marriage. I have not included all that in this article because the main focus of this article is its subject Harold Pinter and not his first wife. She has an article in Wikipedia devoted to her as a subject. --NYScholar 06:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC) [corrected. --NYScholar 07:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)]

I'll add the following source to it when I can: "Death of Vivien Merchant Is Ascribed to Alcoholism", The New York Times 7 Oct. 1982, accessed 13 Sept. 2007; according to coroner's report based on a pathologist's report summarized by a doctor quoted in that NYT article, she "drank herself to death". --NYScholar 11:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Perspective on neutrality concerns

I believe that the neutrality concerns are secondary to the writing in resolving the GA nomination, so I'd like to work on the latter first. I also am happy to see that many of my concerns about overstatements have been resolved; thank you and well-done! Before moving on to main work of clarifying the writing, however, I'd like to clarify my concerns about neutrality. You may wish to consider them, not for passing the GA, but for the more important goal of making your hard-won prose more persuasive to general readers.

• My principal concern has been that statements such as "infinite complexity" will seem hyperbolic to readers unused to such turns of phrase. For such readers, this will raise doubts about the trustworthiness of Billington's subsequent assertions, which would be unhelpful for an article that relies so heavily on his biography. I understand that Billington was merely using a figure of speech for "very", rather than hyperbole; however, I am suggesting that the lead should be written with skill to avoid the appearance of hyperbole. Alas, we live in an all-too-cynical world, where many might say, "Oh, the biographer is just hyping his subject to boost his book sales, just as producers promote their movies in glowing, unverifiable terms." Do you recognize the danger? I feel that the article has excellent content and is well-researched, and it would be a pity if we inadvertently caused a cohort of readers to doubt it. Therefore, as a fellow editor and not a GA reviewer, I encourage you to be conscious of such appearances, and be understated, removing such intensifiers (e.g., "highly controversial") and redundancies (e.g., "sharp critical acumen") when they are not necessary.

• As an encyclopedian, I have a lingering uneasiness with depending so heavily on a single biography. Suppose that we were writing about Bertolt Brecht, George Orwell or George Bernard Shaw; would we be content with a single, friendly biography written with the subject's imprimatur? However, I won't hold up the GA on that account, since I appreciate that the source is clearly referenced, and that there is no feasible alternative at the present. Let's reconvene in fifty years and see how things stand! :)

• I also have misgivings about the encyclopedic notability of the "resounding No", although I won't let it stand in the way of the GA. On the one hand, I agree with NYScholar that it nicely illustrates Pinter's fervent fandom and their despair over receiving no more plays. However, I ask myself whether someone with no emotional investment in Pinter would find the episode noteworthy. I suppose so. By analogy, I could imagine that Wikipedia might cover the fans' reactions to the breakup of the Beatles, to Sarah Bernhardt's forty years of "farewell tours", or to the funeral of Walther von der Vogelweide (now there was a wild time! ;), although none of these gets much coverage at present (at least after a cursory search).

Anyway, I've flogged that dead horse far too long; sorry about that! On to the writing! :) Willow 19:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

How to tackle the writing?

I recognize that writing is often a matter of taste and I'm conscious of the ancient adage, de gustibus nihil disputandum est. However, I'm hopeful that we'll agree on most changes, since they are likely to be "trivial", such as grouping related ideas into paragraphs, ordering related paragraphs sequentially, breaking up long sentences and long sections into more digestible pieces, and that sort of thing. Although I'm obviously not a Pinter scholar with forty years experience, I can speak with authority about what is easy to understand for a college-educated person who is not au courant with the conventions of literary scholars. Together, I'm sure that we can find a mutually beneficial solution! :)

I propose the following approach. Rather than debating every minute change in detail, why don't we change one section at a time? I'll make a few "trivial" rearrangements, which you can accept, revert or amend, and so forth until we finish that section. Thence to the next section, and so on to the end of the article. Does that sound agreeable? I pledge to maintain accuracy, and promise to be affable and reasonable. I hope you will likewise try to imagine how someone might fail to understand your prose (a difficult task for everyone, I know).

As an aside, I promise not to ask you to change your reference style, except in cases where it is unclear which source is being referred to. Agreed? Willow 19:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)