Talk:Al Jolson/Archive 2

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Use of quotations

This article is a good opportunity to talk about how quotations are used. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which, like most encyclopedias, is meant to be a reference book of facts. When a person writes about a subject they love, their impartiality is already gone, and every bit of information about the subject's life is included. The fan wants the rest of us to be fans, too. In another context that might be OK. On Wikipedia, not so much. One other consequence of this excessive love is that it attracts the opposite, people with strong feelings against the subject. The article becomes a battleground. Trivialities are elevated and distorted. Professional editors and writers know better because it's their job to maintain neutrality.

As for quotations, many of the more useless ones get buried in sections usually titled "Legacy" "influence" or in this case "Legacy and influence" which may be redundant. Nevertheless, these sections become excuses for the fan to say, "See how many people like the subject as much as I do! So they must be right!" Maybe. Love for a subject isn't what Wikipedia is trying to convey. Fact is the currency of Wikipedia. The best I can do is give you some of the facts of a person's life. Then if you are interested, you might read a book about the subject. Wikipedia is more like the first word than the last word, a place to begin rather than a place to draw conclusions. Conclusions are often subjective. Legacy and influence are almost impossible to gauge impartially. If you think of one life as a pebble in a pond, who knows who far the ripples extend?

Less figuratively, it's easy for a good editor to spot material that has little to offer. Here's one: "In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway wrote that "Zelda Fitzgerald...leaned forward and said to me, telling me her great secret, 'Ernest, don't you think Al Jolson is greater than Jesus?'" What does this contribute to the article? If I removed it, is anything lost? Hemingway was a novelist, and A Moveable Feast is a posthumous memoir about his early years as a reporter in Paris. Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald was a friend. His wife Zelda was an emotionally disturbed alcoholic, like Fitzgerald. I'm uncertain what to make of her remark about Al Jolson being greater than Jesus. More important, though, why is it here? I suspect the writer doesn't know either, perhaps tickled by an amusing remark. That's not a good enough reason. It's silly and provocative, the sort of remark she would make. Does it provide any facts the reader can use? What does it have to do with legacy or influence? If it's meant to indicate Jolson's popularity, hasn't that point been made repeatedly and excessively throughout the article? Why does that point have to be made more than once? The section leads with the introductory fragment: "A few of the people and places that have been influenced by Jolson". By placing this quotation under "Hemingway", the assumption is that Jolson influenced Hemingway enough to put this sentence in his memoir. Is that assumption true? Did Jolson influence Hemingway? Were they friends? It's Zelda Fitzgerald's remark, not Hemingway's. For all I know, Hemingway never intended that sentence to be published. More to the point, the section is too much like an indiscriminate list, something against the rules of Wikipedia, which discriminates. Knowledgeable editors and writers know how to discriminate. It's their job to discriminate thoughtfully and give reasons for their actions. They ought to at least be open-minded enough to ask questions. One has to approach each article with a blank slate, having cleared one's mind of as many assumptions as possible.

Block quotations take up a lot of space. They are often used indiscriminately and often include irrelevant information. It's better to uses pieces of quotations, something knowledgeable writers and editors know how to do. Even better is paraphrase, which is more difficult. It takes less space, yet allows you to include more information. Knowledgeable writers and editors know how to paraphrase. It's the reader they have in mind, not their own interests or the members of the Al Jolson fan club. Every biography on Wikipedia is about a notable person. You have to be notable to get into Wikipedia in the first place. So it's unnecessary to say how great a person is. State what they have done with their lives, then let the reader decide. You may be tempted to influence what the reader thinks. But that's not impartiality. It's not good writing, it's not good editing, and it's not good for Wikipedia.
Vmavanti (talk) 18:43, 27 December 2018 (UTC)