Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Shakespeare

Recruitment and drive?

While we've achieved some very significant milestones, we seem to be perennially unable to generate that critical mass that is essential for having good forward progress: project contributors seem to burn out or grow distracted at a far higher rate than we manage to recruit new ones. Lately I've never seen more than maybe 3-5 editors really active within the project at any given time; and that's just too few to keep a good momentum going and makes us far too dependent on large labour-intensive contributions from a single person; and it often means a single controversial issue can stop us in our tracks entirely (too few participants to ever be able to determine consensus).

How do we recruit new contributors to the project?

Would it make sense to try to encourage new people to join by posting off-wiki? I'm thinking of stuff like the various Shakespeare blogs—the amateur ones, but even the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has a blog now—and perhaps even on the Shaksper list? If anyone has an affiliation with an academic institution, perhaps some means could be found to do little advertising to faculty and staff; maybe even encourage relevant faculty to include Wikipedia editing in their curriculum? If anyone writes articles for scholarly journals, perhaps some mention of Wikipedia and WikiProject Shakespeare's need for warm bodies could be snuck in? There are a number of topics for such articles that would be a natural fit for a mention of the project; much like Shapiro snuck in a mention of us in his latest book. And the academic elite have been discussing the topic of “access” lately, so the time might be ripe to do a little advertising along the lines of what several health and medicine-related organisations have done: a lot of people use Wikipedia as their first source for information, so having coverage of the relevant topic there be as good as possible is to their advantage (hence a lot of organisations related to medicine have various efforts designed to improve medicine-related information on Wikipedia).

Thoughts? --Xover (talk) 11:56, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the flurry of activity in response to your points speak very well of the situation! I've only been here a short time, but what you say about contributors burning out or being distracted is very true. In my own case, I was going to do a rewrite of the Titus Andronicus article, but I stumbled upon a couple of William Blake articles and was appalled at how poor they were, so I've been working on that for the last few months (not to mention writing FAQs on the IMDb, and the small matter of earning a living as an academic). Your reference to "large labour-intensive contributions from a single person" is spot on though, each of the six articles I've worked on for Shakespeare has taken me several weeks to write, and that's working on them pretty much every day for at least an hour or two. And of course, that's not really the idea behind Wikipedia.

So, how do we recruit? I don't know anything about the Shakespeare blogs and whatnot, so I can't really comment on that, but the idea of getting students and fellow staff members to do something I would whole heartedly be behind. But there is a problem. Being a young academic myself (I'm 30, been teaching for six years), I've found English academics tend fall into three categories when it comes to Wikipedia:

What is Wikipedia - the older ones

Wikipedia is like Cliff's Notes, EVIL - the middle ones

Wikipedia can actually be a very useful research tool and can really help you out (presuming the relevant article has good editors) - the younger ones

Unfortunately, by far the largest group is Number 2. When I told some of my colleagues that I was working on Wikipedia, they thought I was making a joke; they literally couldn't get their heads around why I'd want to do it. I find that most English academics consider Wikipedia beneath them, and have no interest in editing it. The same goes for Academic journals. I don't know a single academic who would ever publish anything in a journal which included a plug for Wikipedia.

Students would be a different matter however. To address the issue of having students edit pages as part of their course, I doubt that would work. Check out the talk page at the form and content to see a (very) brief discussion about this very issue. As harsh as the guy is there, I think he's right; if every student had to edit on Wikipedia, 99% of the stuff would be deleted almost immediately, which would defeat the whole purpose. However, having said that, there are always those students around who would be willing to help out, who would enjoy the opportunity, and, most importantly, would actually write decent stuff. Personally, what I would do would be to pick out a few students you know (preferably those in third year or doing their MA, but anyone exceptional in first or second year would work too) and personally talk to them about the work and invite them to contribute. Some won't want to do it, some will.

That's about all I can think of offhand.

So, as Xover said, Thoughts? Bertaut (talk) 23:41, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Getting collaborations together on Wikipedia is like herding cats. Really the best thing you can do is invite people and set clear goals. People do generally come, it just takes time. This project has suffered a lot of heated arguments in the past that have driven away a lot of good editors, but the same principles hold true. I think we shouldn't focus on FA quite yet. I think we have plenty to do if we get the HVIs, Taming of the Shrew, and Two Gentleman up to GA. I think this would be a great addition to our project and would be a very reachable goal. With luck, we might start getting some more interest with this. FA pushes seem to bring out the worst in people recently, and I'd rather not experience that again. Wrad (talk) 03:33, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the R&J collab. really worked because it is one of Shakespeare's Big plays - everyone knows what it's about, was forced to study it, or has seen a film. --Malkinann (talk) 23:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

@Bertaut: May I join this thread, as someone increasingly interested in what it means to bring students into serious open initiatives online (I take the WikiShx project to be one such). What follows is a pitch for guided student contributions. The context: I'm a Shakespeare scholar and teacher who has been studying the history of crowd-sourced scholarly projects, looking back at what makes earlier ones successful. A few Renaissance scholars have begun to think about how to do such work with undergraduates: see for example Martin Mueller's very thoughtful account of his optional assignments in data curation with undergraduates in his Renaissance Drama course http://literaryinformatics.northwestern.edu/node/63. Reviewing such experiments: their key success factors include 1) careful divisions of labor (for example, the WikiShx's own categories and to do lists); 2) the provision for skilling-up or conferring expertise on student participants (the course itself and specific assignments); 3) an intermediate phase of review (in this case, by the prof). The "students" in question here are college students, not secondary students.

There's a separate set of issues to be addressed in any assignment that asks a student to contribute to public resources such as Wikipedia: the pedagogical value to the student; what it means to spend a serious amount of time on something that will likely be cut, revised, build up around by others, etc.; going public with your scholarship; what the ultimate value of such work is. That's a different conversation.

For the purposes of this discussion, let me address the question of quality that Bertaut raised and my initial thinking about process opportunities and challenges. As I said, I'm new to this space so count on the rest of you to correct me as warranted.

Quality: two pages were recently revised by students in my Intro course: Lady Macduff and Macduff. So far the former has been reviewed by someone and a good portion of what she contributed stuck; some material has been reverted. The latter doesn't seem to have been reviewed yet. The contributors are undergraduates taking their first college Shakespeare course. Take a look at both and tell us what you think of quality.

Process: Throughout the course I've talked repeatedly about the quality of online resources for Shakespeare studies and identified particularly problematic or strong ones; since undergraduates will use these, will us nil us, I see it as my obligation to teach critical use, awareness, and understanding of projects such as Wikipedia. So one option for the final course project seemed logically to be to contribute to the mission of improving the quality of such resources. I created an optional assignment that invited students to choose a page on the WikiShx To Do list categorized as a stub and of low to medium importance, review it for accuracy and quality, propose ways to improve it (which I reviewed), and implement the ones we agreed would be valuable. I asked them to read and conform to the Wikipedia briefing materials on how to edit (including neutrality, verifiability, etc.). In my course, we had spent some time talking about how to understand Shakespearean character (not the same as in a novel, not unified, not a human being but a fictional construct), so these two entries were natural choices for the students. They drafted new entries. I reviewed them and sent them back to do further work (most of which they did) before entering the revisions.

Learning curve: The protocols for working in Wikipedia are more complex than any of us had understood and I don't think we've nailed them completely. For example, I think they may not have always logged explanations of their edits; though the entries themselves were revised, no record seems to have been logged in the history pages; and I don't see ways to request review -- and reclassification if warranted. (If I understand "stub" correctly, I think neither entry now counts as a stub?). These reactions may reflect my own slow learning curve.

Looking forward to your thoughts. UltimateCoach (talk) 15:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

to be, or not to be

Will someone knowledgable take a look at this article (when you get a chance) and decide which version of the soliloquy is the one we should be using? I recently reverted an IP's edits (minor things like punctuation, changing "depriz'd" to "despised", etc), and realized later that he was just editing in a slightly different but perfectly valid version of the text. no conflict and no worries over it, I just don't know which is the appropriate version for wikipedia. thanks. --Ludwigs2 22:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I would use the version from the current Arden critical edition, which has the texts from both the 1603 and 1623 edition. There's no advantage gained by using original spelling, but if you want to include it you should use the version in the First Folio (1623), since it is the version last edited by Shakespeare. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment

The Baconian theory article, rated GA, is currently undergoing an reassessment here in case anyone wants to comment. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:24, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Help

This is all going to get confusing — believe me, I barely understand it myself — so please bear with me.

The situation is that in the process of doing an Category:Uncategorized articles run earlier today, I found two pages in articlespace which were actually draft revisions of Shakespeare authorship question: namely, Shakespeare authorship question Draft 1 and Shakespeare authorship question Draft 2. Accordingly, I moved them into the sandbox space of their creator, User:Smatprt — and was promptly asked by another user, User:Nishidani, why I had chosen Smatprt instead of User:Tom Reedy. After some back and forth, I was advised that the pages in question were copy-pastes from other pages that were already sandboxed: namely, Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox draft and Talk:Shakespeare authorship question/sandbox draft2. So I redirected both of Smatprt's pages back to those targets. And then I had a request from Smatprt, asking me where the RFC had gone — followed only just now by a follow-up message confirming that they had located and repaired the problem.

This last followup eliminates the primary question I was about to ask (namely, what the fug is going on here?), but nonetheless I just wanted to ask if somebody who's much more familiar than I am with whatever the hell this is all about could step in and make sure everything's been properly sorted. I don't feel overly inclined to stick my nose any further into this mess than I already have, needless to say. Bearcat (talk) 01:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes - that was really weird. Somehow in the process of all your page moves (for reasons which were perfectly understandable), the RFC actually dssappeared. Poof, it was gone and no where to be found. After much searching, I found it in the old diffs (it had been striked out?), so I restored it here [[1]], where the primary discussion is happening. I think it's fine now, but it sure would be good to know how on earth an ongoing RFC could disappear like that! Totally weird. But no harm done (I think). Smatprt (talk) 01:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Shakespeare's plays

Could some editors take a look at Shakespeare's plays and see what it would take to bring it up to GA or Fa status so that it could be semi-protected? It attracts an awful lot of drive-by vandalism and could be expanded quite a bit. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:59, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I've had a quick look and see that there are only 38 refs - somewhat below par considering the length of the article. As for expansion of the article, I'm dubious, as there is considerable overlap with other articles (e.g. William Shakespeare). Examples are the categorisation of the plays, the collaborations and the apocrypha. The (to my mind) tendentious listing of a mixed bag of plays in the lede is an open invitation to everyone to add their favourite(s), and there is no explanation, AFAICS, of why these plays are listed and not others. I also think the structure of the article needs looking at. Just my groatsworth. --GuillaumeTell 22:21, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, when R&J is listed before Lear and Hamlet something is definitely amiss. Perhaps some merging is called for? IMO an article on every little detail about Shakespeare is a bit much, for example those separate play articles, as well as an article on each of Shakespeare's children and his wife with lots of over-lap instead of one article Shakespeare's family. I'd rather see one FA article than four crappy articles that look to be almost random jottings. Tom Reedy (talk) 23:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Too much generalization. What exactly do you want to merge? Wrad (talk) 04:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Look at Shakespeare's plays, Chronology of Shakespeare's plays, and William Shakespeare bibliography. There's so much overlapping information in those articles I think they are prime candidates for merger. Tom Reedy (talk) 12:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Of the three, I am personally a fan of the bibliography. I think its format has a lot of potential. Wrad (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe what we need to do is reassess exactly where our project is, where there is overlap, and how best to organize what we have. A lot of new articles have popped up recently. We are going on 1000 tagged pages in the project. Personally, I don't see much use in a Shakespeare's plays article. Like others, I really don't see what it would say that isn't already said in other articles. Wrad (talk) 04:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Well I could see having a short Shakespeare's plays article as a gateway--just a bare description, then maybe 5-6 short sections: comedies, histories, tragedies, romances, lost plays, apocrypha. That way anybody doing a search using that term would find that article, which would direct the searcher to the right page. As fa as individual play criticism, all that should be in the play article itself. As it is, the article is mush. Sometimes the great advantage Wikipedia has over other references--the ability to go into great detail--breeds articles that are liabilities instead of assets. I think this article as it is illustrates that peril.

Personally I think the main emphasis right now should be on bringing all the play articles up to GA at least. I think the sources should be limited to modern (no older than 50 years) and of course academic, such as the Arden, Riverside, or Oxford introductions. I think that would smooth the editing process quite a bit. Tom Reedy (talk) 04:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I can agree with that. Besides the article for Shakespeare himself, play articles seem to be the most visited in our project. Wrad (talk) 23:45, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Where do you want to start? I'm working on other projects as well as randomly editing Wikipedia Shakespeare articles, but a nice little GA project would help get this funky taste out of my mouth! Tom Reedy (talk) 05:23, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd hate to divert you from the SAQ article. I think work on that is valuable. I would even say that it is ready for a GA nomination. Wrad (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Not quite; there're still a few loose ends to tidy up, but Nishidani is off in the boondocks cut off from civilisation for three months and I can't seem to get any other editors involved. It desperately needs other eyes to reveal its weaknesses. Work has interfered quite a bit the past few days, but I hope to see it to GA and possibly FA before the end of the year. That's the only way it's going to achieve stability so that editors don't have to be hover over it. Once that happens I think Shakespeare editors might be more willing to cooperate on bringing up some play pages up to GA if they know they won't have to suit up for battle every time they turn their computers on. Tom Reedy (talk) 22:27, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I suggest beginning with King Lear and then Macbeth, then you'll have the top three plays at least at GA status. After that work them in order of popularity and critical acclaim, because those are the ones that are most likely to be vandalised and need protection the most. Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, and Julius Caesar would be my guess. Tom Reedy (talk) 13:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Just a quick drive-by comment… I agree that we should focus on the individual play articles, and roughly in the order of popularity. I slightly disagree with the premise that GA and FA articles have some inherent stability that prevents vandalism—it's not a given that GA and FA articles have (semi-)protection, and there's no rule that one shouldn't boldly edit such articles—but since I do think an article that has reached a certain level of quality and maturity is much much easier to maintain, the end result is much the same. I also have some opinions about the various other types of articles that's been discussed in this section, and I've a feeling I may be somewhat in disagreement on several of them, but as I don't have the time to construct a coherent argument right now I'll leave it at that. If we focus on getting the play articles to a decent standard the point is moot, for now, anyway.
I'm desperately short of time, so my contributions will of necessity be limited, but if we set up a somewhat structured process for this I may be able to bring some small things to the table. I'd propose that we quickly hash out a prioritized list—Tom's list is fine by me, we can use it as it stands if nobody objects (modulo the comment below)—and then just start at the top. If we can agree somewhat in advance that, say, in January and February we'll all work on Lear, then I'll have the time to buy the relevant critical editions (my personal collection is limited, and the local library is… well, let's just say I don't spend a lot of time there) and prepare. It'd also give everyone a chance to focus on it at the same time, so we have somebody to work with rather than trying to get anywhere in a vacuum.
I would also suggest we start by each doing a review of the article and sketch out what needs doing, so we have a sort of work-list to go by, rather than individually attempting to tackle it all at once. It makes it easier for people to contribute to limited tasks, rather than be discouraged because we can't quite do it all. in the same vein I'd suggest we do a quick spin through all the plays on the list and bring them up to about GA, rather than try to bring each of them to FA, because at least I tend to get discouraged by the sheer amount of work involved (cf. The Tempest, still not ready for FAC).
And, finally, I think we should try to spend some time on the plays Bertaut has put so much effort into—as detailed in the archives here—as they're fairly well on their way to GA already, and it'd be a real pity to let them languish after he did such a great job on them. I'll grant those aren't the plays that interest me most, but I still think they deserve a decent treatment on Wikipedia.
Anyways, while I'm not in a position to spend a lot of time on this, I'm happy to see some effort towards progressing our articles and will try to set aside some time to help out when I can; and feel free to ask if there is any one particular task you'd like me to tackle (mechanical grunt work like making all refs consistent and using cite templates, say). --Xover (talk) 09:55, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Addendum Regarding the suggested mergers and such, I think that rather than trying to figure out each such case of overlap individually, we might do well to try to start at the top and plan out a structure for the core Shakespeare articles. That way we can look at such problems with the benefit of a clear picture of what a given article is, and thus make it much easier to determine what fits and what needs its own article. For instance, I'm having real trouble getting a firm grasp on what, exactly, a Shakespeare's plays article would actually be. In other cases we can easily allow ourselves to have it both ways for a while; specifically, since my personal interest is in biography, I intend to have GA articles on all Shakespeare's children and immediate family; but that also happens to be a good starting point for making an overview article on Shakespeare's family into which this material could confidently be merged. In this sense, it doesn't matter whether you approach the problem top-down or bottom-up, just pick one and don't try to do both at once, or let an effort from one direction get in the way of one from the opposite direction. Wikipedia, unlike traditional encyclopedias, can cover a topic in both more breadth and more depth; so at heart the problem is one of sensible structure, accessibility, and intuitiveness and not whether a certain aspect can be covered or whether it “deserves” its own article. --Xover (talk) 10:13, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree on your Shakespeare family approach. (The following comment isn't necessarily directed at Xover. It is kind of an open statement to the project.) I really think we need to be careful how we talk about articles in the project. The editor who wrote much of the Shakespeare plays article was one of the founding members of this project and a really big help in its early days. He was competent and cool-headed. I don't think that should influence our decision-making, but it would be a good idea to avoid being overly harsh in criticism of the articles we discuss. Nastiness has really hurt this project in the past. I would just really encourage everyone to be extra careful regarding civility. Wrad (talk) 20:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi all, I've been away, sorry for not contributing. As regards Shakespeare's Plays, I agree with Tom, having a gateway article with just a list of the plays seems to me the best way to go. I've read the article and there is nothing there that isn't available elsewhere. As regards working through the plays themselves, I'm always open to feedback on any of the articles I've worked on, and I agree with Xover's suggestion about a structured timetable. At the moment, I'm concentrating on sorting out some of the William Blake articles (or indeed, creating William Blake articles!). I was about halfway through a complete rework of the Titus Andronicus article, when I switched to Blake, but I still hope to have Titus finished early next year. The only thing I would say about my ability to help out, is I'm not overly familiar with the lesser known plays later in the canon - I'm fine on all the major tragedies and plays like Midsummer Night and Merchant, and on the earlier minor plays (like Verona and Henry VI), but I know next to nothing about plays like Merry Wives, King John, Kinsmen etc Having said that though, I'll be happy to contribute where I can. Bertaut (talk) 17:49, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:26, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Formulating a plan to move forward

Hi all,

Based, admittedly, quite a lot on my own preference—but I believe at least somewhat supported by the comments above—I'd like to try to formulate a plan of action for going forward. In particular I'd like to try to find some way for us all to focus our energies on producing new and improving existing content, so that we make some kind of measurable progress. I would especially like to see us all manage to coordinate our efforts to a larger degree, so we can collaborate on the various tasks. I do very much believe that the sum is greater than the parts here, and I know I work much better on an article when I have someone to collaborate with.

Towards that goal, then, I'd like to propose that we make ourselves a list of articles (well, goals, but roughly corresponding to articles), in priority order, that we agree to attack collaboratively. I'd also like to propose that we plan out some of them in time, so that, for example, we agree that in January and February we all focus on getting King Lear up to Good Article standard and, provided we can find a reviewer, also passed as GA. I know that for my own part this would make it easier to schedule the time, acquire the relevant sources, etc.

My proposed list, based on the comments above, would then be as below. I'm throwing it out as a strawman, so do feel free to rearrange the priorities.

• King Lear
• Macbeth
• Romeo and Juliet
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Twelfth Night
• The Merchant of Venice
• Othello
• The Taming of the Shrew
• Julius Caesar
• Henry VI, Part 1
• Henry VI, Part 2
• Henry VI, Part 3
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona

If we can generally agree on an order (it can be rearranged as we go, if needed; no need for stone tablets here) we can also prepare by listing good sources to use (e.g. for all of them the latest Arden and Oxford editions should probably be on the list, and quite possibly I'd include a Cambridge Student Guide just to be able to source the banal stuff that the critical editions don't bother to mention) to give everyone a chance to be on the same page (if you'll pardon the somewhat stretched pun).

I might also suggest that we try to be better about communicating what more personal projects we're involved in or contemplating, so that those that might take a fancy to it have a chance to contribute. For instance I know Tom (and Nishidani) has been doing a lot of work on Shakespeare authorship question; Tom has mentioned that he's planning to do some work on Susanna Hall, which I'm interested in and so will try to see if I can help out with; I've recently started working on Edmond Malone (which I'll post separately about, btw) and would very much appreciate some help there; and Wrad recently made an effort to bring Banquo through to Featured Article (in which I spectacularly failed to be of any help whatsoever). I believe Wrad (IIRC) had also expressed an interest in trying to bring one of the Sonnet articles to GA, which would also be a nice little collaborative project.

I think, if we can sketch out a rough plan, it might also be worthwhile to send out a newletter, using one of the newsletter bots, to everyone listed as members of the project on the front page. If we have something conrrete for them to contribute to, it's much more likely that they'll help out.

Thoughts?

PS. These are hardly novel ideas; Wrad originally had much the same approach when I first became involved with the project. Credit where credit is due, and I'm certainly not going to try to claim I'm due any of it here; I just think they're good ideas, and may be what's needed to build up the momentum we need. --Xover (talk) 11:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

PPS. Regarding the newsletter, I once made an abortive attempt to create such a newsletter. For inspiration, or as a mere curio, you may want to take a look: User:Xover/Sandbox/4. --Xover (talk) 11:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Just checking in here to say that I'll be happy to help, mainly on the copy-editing front after others have done the spadework (my last serious Shakespeare studies were many years ago and I haven't kept up with modern scholarship - though I've learned a lot from discussions here). As far as the plays listed above are concerned, the ones I know best are Macbeth, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I'd also be happy to tangle with As You Like It, The Winter's Tale and Love's Labours Lost. Romeo and Juliet is already a FA, so I'm not sure what it's doing in the list. I'd agree that King Lear ought to be high priority, but personally I find it too upsetting and tend to avoid it. I'm moderately familiar with the others listed, except The Two Gents. --GuillaumeTell 22:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Sources for an article on Edmond Malone

Hi all,

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm primarily interested in biography and history, and as a result I'm also interested in the biographers and editors of Shakespeare (how very meta of me). Particularly I'm fascinated by Edmond Malone, and recently started to work on that article. However I'm finding a bit of a paucity of sources. There's Prior's old biography—which is mostly suited for colorful quotations, it's not particularly scholarly rigorous—and Peter Martin's relatively recent biography. I know Samuel Schoenbaum in his Lives also does a bit of chronicling of the various biographers and editors. But, as I complained at Talk:Samuel_Johnson#A_request:_any_mention_of_Edmond_Malone.3F, despite Martin's emphasis on Malone's relationships with Samuel Johnson and James Boswell (and several other of the contemporary literary and political figures), his biography exhibits a remarkable paucity of material on those persons. There is also Margareta de Grazia's Shakespeare Verbatim, which Martin often cites (mostly because he's about to counter it), but the thing was horribly expensive everywhere I found it and it's not obvious to me that it contains much that's useful for an article on Malone.

In any case, I got stuck on the article—mostly, oddly enough, in trying to find something interesting to say about his career as a lawyer in Ireland, without boring the reader to tears—and would very much appreciate more hands and eyes to help bring the thing forward. If the subject isn't of sufficient interest to you to invest article-writing and study into, then even structural or stylistic discussion on its talk page would be helpful for me. When I'm working in a vacuum I tend to grind to a halt whenever I hit a hard problem (I'm not good at leaving hard stuff for later, or making something good enough and come back to perfect it later), as well as being particularly prone to staring myself blind on a text as I'm writing it, and having fresh eyes and an outside perspective is immensely helpful in getting on with it.

Incidentally, I view this as a long-term project. My output is a bit in fits and starts—a burst of edits over a couple of days, and then maybe weeks or even months without any discernible progress—so there'd be no need for anyone to free up and invest a lot of time for this right away. I'm more looking to get more people to watchlist the article, and to chime in on its talk page whenever you have some thought about something. Anyone inclined to contribute more actively or greater degree would, of course, also be more than welcome; but I realize this is a rather obscure and, for most, boring topic so I've no exaggerated expectations; anything you can contribute with would be very much appreciated! --Xover (talk) 12:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Even a worm will turn

The brief article Even a worm will turn is tagged as an orphan, and also challenged as a definition which should not be in Wikipedia. I added two links to the article and changed the template ratings, but I would appreciate some attention to this brief article and its two tags. --DThomsen8 (talk) 16:18, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

???

how was the balcony scene portrayed in the 1996 romeo and juliet movie??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.71.177 (talk) 18:11, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Tragic Error

I noticed an error. This page lists "The Tempest" as a tragedy. That is far from true. This play is a comedy, known as a romance in these days. I would love to see that corrected. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.16.167.67 (talk) 02:01, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Research Help page

Hi folks,

The page seems to be locked but I could add a small correction and improvement to the "Research Help" section of the WikiProject Shakespeare page:

"For journals, one could consult Shakespearean Surveys" -- I think Shakespeare Survey (CUP) is meant here?

It would also be helpful to add these important journals: Shakespeare Quarterly, Borrowers & Lenders (online, open access), and Shakespeare Studies. UltimateCoach (talk) 03:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Shakespeare Authorship Question from the doubter's point of view.

I find the Shakespeare Authorship Question page to be biased. It presents all Anti-Shakespearean arguments as hopelessly flawed, not allowing for the reader to judge. The page also exploits the weakness of alternative candidates to undermine the sincere questions that exist about Shakespeare's authorship.

The key to the problem of Shakespeare's authorship is simply Shakespeare as scholar. Shakespeare is believed to have added at minimum 1,500 new words to the English language. All these words were culled from other languages, both ancient and modern. Shakespeare did all this without leaving a single trace of this skill? Nothing? No play, no poem, no letter, no journal in his own hand? And no mention of any writing is his long and detailed will? This is why there is a question.

And once one begins to look at the known facts of Shakespeare of Stratford's life, the questions multiply.

The terrible danger playwrights were in during Shakespeare lifetime; facing frequent questioning and arrests. Though Shaxper (the actual spelling of his name.) of Stratford, unlike virtually all other playwrights of his day, was never questioned and never arrested. Even after one of his plays, Richard II, was used by the Earl of Essex to help foment his rebellion; there was indeed an investigation, and some actors where questioned, but no one thought to question Shakespeare? Why? Did everyone know that Shaxper of Stratford was not Shake-Spear the writer?

Added to this is the absolute fabrication of the tourist site of Stratford-upon-Avon, where every site is appears to have been falsely established long after Shakespeare's death. Not only are all the sites in no way connected to the plays and poems, they only speculatively have any connection to the real Shaxper, the historical actor and theatre manager. I have been reading about the histories of these sites and it is absolutely appalling. Tourists started arriving in Stratford long before the sites where created. And they were simply created. If a building had long since been destroyed, a new one was built and said to have been the original. As with virtually everything associated with the “historical” Shakespeare, the tourist sites in Stratford are pure speculation. “It is fairly certain” that the house on Henley Street is where Shakespeare was born and brought up, complete with, as the birthplace website proudly states, “recreated replicas.” The grammar school in Stratford has lost all records from the period, but “is almost definitely” where Shakespeare received his education. This institution even claims to have his original desk, which is “third from the front on the left-hand side.” On and on the fantasy is created with an avalanche of qualifiers like, “most biographers agree.”

Added to this, the frequent biographies that come out on Shakespeare almost every year. Each one taking the handful of facts known about his life and panning them out into hundreds of pages of speculation stated as fact.

Added to this, that very few colleges and universities present anything to their students beyond the traditional story of Shakespeare. "An, at best, grammar-school educated boy who wandered into London, got involved with a theatre, and suddenly started producing masterpiece after masterpiece. Only to retire to Stratford for his final years, and have nothing whatever to do with writing again."

Keircutler (talk) 20:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Uh oh. You've spoken the forbidden words. Now that you've mentioned the authorship question without dismissing it, you will be hounded, ridiculed and attacked from many sides and by many peoples. Just ask User:Smatprt what happens when one dares to try to engage objectively with the authorship question. Any attempt to even partially validate it will have you topic banned post haste my friend. Flee. Flee while you still can.Bertaut (talk) 02:08, 30 December 2010 (UTC)