Talk:Mary Shelley/Archive 5

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Infobox redux

The arguments given against including an infobox in the above, 2008, discussion amount to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Overall consensus on WP is to include infoboxes, both for reader convenience and for the metadata which they emit. I suggest that it is time to add one to this article. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:38, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The decision to include infoboxes occurs on a case-by-case basis. There is no reason to include one here, as it will only repeat information in the first line of the article, thereby not actually helping the reader and marring the layout of the article. Furthermore, it will add a bunch of code to the top of the article, making it harder to new editors to edit the article, as the usability project has demonstrated. In sum, it will add nothing and be detrimental, so I don't see a reason being presented in the above post to add an infobox. Awadewit (talk) 17:46, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The subjective arguments you now present against having an infobox could apply to almost all infoboxes on Wikipedia. Others are simply fallacious. As for you not seeing a reason: you've clearly ignored what I said, not least "the metadata which they emit". Like I said; this seems to be just [{WP:IDONTLIKEIT]]. BTW, the first line of the artcile, on my screen, currently reads "Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February". Her age-at-death, to give one example of a typical infobox property, does not occur (on my screen) until after more than 440 lines. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Infoboxes are not mandatory, and for many classes of article, redundant. Particularly when it comes to the arts, they can be grossly misleading and lead to oversimplification. An argument was made in 2008, and little has changed since. Ceoil (talk) 17:47, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Like I said; no more than WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Does anyone have a substantive reason not to include one? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Not mandatory, redundant, frequently misleading, simplification. Not suited to articles related to the arts. Contains junk html which makes editing difficult. Ceoil (talk) 19:56, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

So not all WP:IDONTLIKEIT; but fallacies, too. Still no substantive reason. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

We are where we are so, if thats your reply. Long time no talk, pigs, bty. I missed these discussions. Ceoil (talk) 20:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

It sounds to me like the only argument for an infobox here is ILIKEIT, or perhaps "everyone else does it". Mary Shelley isn't a footballer, so I don't really see what use an infobox would be to this article. Kaldari (talk) 23:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not clear why you apparently think infoboxes are only for footballers, or why you didn't see "both for reader convenience and for the metadata which they emit" in my original comment, above. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be your problem, not ours. Ceoil (talk) 01:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Andy, you don't get to label all the arguments we've presented fallacies or "I don't like it" simply because you don't agree. We've presented arguments for not having an infobox, as you asked. There is clearly no consensus for an infobox on this article. Awadewit (talk) 01:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

'Andy, you don't get to label all the arguments we've presented fallacies or "I don't like it" simply because you don't agree.' - indeed not; but as that's not what I've done, I'll label your point a straw-man. There is clearly no consensus for excluding an infobox. In order to arrive at consensus, I've asked what the substantivereasons for not having one might be. There appear to be none. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

And yet the rest of us consider repetitious, misleading info, simplification, and making it more difficult for new editors to edit substantive arguments. None of these are strawmen arguments. I consider this discussion at an end, since we are now at the point of repeating ourselves. Awadewit (talk) 13:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

In this case, 'the rest of us' seems to be three of you. The points you now make may not be straw-men (note that I didn't say that the were; so arguing that they are not is in itself a straw-man); but since they do not prevent the inclusion of an infobox in other, comparable, articles, and that inclusion does not prevent those articles from being used an edited, the points; neither are they substantive; they are merely your opinions. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

As far as "reader convenience", that's what the first sentence is for, and we have metadata from the Persondata template. So I still don't see the use of adding an infobox here. Kaldari (talk) 14:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I have already addressed some of the deficiencies of the fist sentence; above. Even if it were improved, infoboxes offer additional user convenience. Persondata is peculiar to Wikipedia; the metadata emitted by infoboxes, the hCard microformat, is a generic, open standard understood by tools such as Google and Yahoo. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that hCard is preferable to persondata for metadata, but it just isn't tenable to make article content decisions based on metadata needs. For better or worse, there will never be consensus to implement infoboxes on all biography articles (the issue is almost as old as Wikipedia). This is one of the main reasons that I migrated Persondata to the English Wikipedia, so that we could have some way to extract metadata from biography articles that wouldn't require modifying article content. I'm open to the idea of adding hCard to persondata, although I'm not sure whether the fact that persondata is hidden will affect its usefulness to search engines or not. There's also the issue of redundancy of course, but I imagine that is minor. Kaldari (talk) 16:24, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we "make article content decisions based on metadata needs", though it is a relevant factor. I suggest we take wider discussion of hCard & persondata the latter (which is of great interest to me, and likely to veer off-topic for this page) to the microformats project talk page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Tony1 (talk · contribs) makes pretty good arguments against infoboxes here (I myself don't care one way or the other). Dabomb87 (talk) 02:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

As does Geogre here. Ceoil (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

"guidelines [sic] … designed to set up a methodology by which we can avoid paralyzing fights" - sadly unsucsessful :-( Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 00:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

No; he makes some ill-informed and unfounded arguments. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 00:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I note you are not above unsubstantiated claims yourself. Ceoil (talk) 01:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The points you now make may not be straw-men (note that I didn't say that the were; so arguing that they are not is in itself a straw-man) is perhalps the most amazing, evasive and circular statement I've probably ever seen from an editor on the run here on wiki. Ceoil (talk) 00:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary; it's accurate and pertinent. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 00:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit Request

there is some inaccurate information on the page, I'm fairly certain that the Mary Shelley in question is not in fact a rune scape player at all. below is the sentence that I think needs to be removed from the article.

Mary Shelley is a professional RuneScape player, with a 10 Constitution Defence pure.

thanks,

69.171.157.29 (talk) 01:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

That vandalism has been fixed - thanks! Awadewit (talk) 22:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Please, add interwiki uk:Мері Шеллі. Thanks! --VolodymyrF (talk) 08:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Individualism

Hi, just a quick edit request. Article at start mentions Mary's Shelley's thought being different from the "individualism" of Romanticism and of P B Shelley. This is misleading- P B Shelley's life included many rich, deliberate experiments in communal living. Mary's own thoughts could better be seen in relation to this, not as a direct opposite. As P B Shelley said: "Familiar acts are beautiful through love."

Zangtsal (talk) 13:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC) Chris Starbuck

This article is a summary of what Mary Shelley scholars say about her. While PB Shelley did engage in some communal activities, his poetry, overall, reflects the individualism of Romanticism and Mary Shelley scholars argue that her work is sometimes in opposition to that. We are speaking in general terms here and are following what Mary Shelley scholars say per Wikipedia policy on verifiability. Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Portrait

Here's a portrait of Mary Shelley in case it can be used in the future.--I NEVER CRY 06:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Bishopsgate

With a revival in Percy Shelley's finances after the death of his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley, the couple holidayed in Torquay and then rented a two-storey cottage at Bishopsgate, on the edge of Windsor Great Park.[46]

The link to Bishopsgate here is for the area in the city of London: it should be changed to Bishop's Gate, and lose it's link, as this is the area on the edge of Windsor Park - they're about 20 miles from each other! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.80.68 (talk) 10:47, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Date format

I have just aligned the date formats and English spelling of the article. However, I noticed that there is a reference to "Journal 6th December" which looked like it could simply mean journal entry of 6 December (as opposed to a book of that name). Would someone kindly confirm if my change was inert or whether I incorrectly altered the title of a book? Thanks, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:15, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 83.84.103.239, 16 August 2011

I would like to add a link to the website My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at http://www.maryshelley.nl

83.84.103.239 (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Not done: Someone's thesis project website probably isn't suitable as an external link on Wikipedia. We are not a link farm. — Bility (talk) 21:57, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

maiden name

why did she bear both parents' last names? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.16.140.212 (talk) 23:40, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

English

According to Wikipedia should the bios of people born in the United Kingdom not be referred to by their home countries? In the lede it should be English not British. Sheodred (talk) 17:07, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you please cite where in the MOS it says this? Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:43, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/539744/Mary-Wollstonecraft-Shelley This is to begin with.Sheodred (talk) 23:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Last I checked the MOS was not part of Encyclopedia Brittannica ;-) Your original post said that the reason to do this was because of the MOS. I have searched some and been unable to find it. Per WP:BRD I have reverted and would like to discuss this before any more changes are made. Please do not add dab links and unformatted references to FAs. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I said nothing about MOS, and I made a grammatical mistake when typing, which I corrected when I noticed. You are the admin, you tell me about MOS,, all I know is that bios of the United Kingdom are referred to their home countries, such as Sean Connery, Arthur Conan Doyle, Beatrix Potter, John Lennon, Tom Jones, Dylan Thomas......the list goes on, it also backed up by a reliable source.Sheodred (talk) 03:30, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

You wrote "According to Wikipedia" and the requirement for FAs is that they follow the MOS, so I assumed that was what you meant. Since you asked, the MOS says that the lead does not have to references in most cases (per WP:LEAD) and that references should be formatted to provide the required information and in a way that is consistent with the existing citations in the article (per WP:CITE and WP:V). FAs do not generally have dab links either. As for citing other articles for style quidelines, please see WP:Other stuff exists. I see that another editor has removed your dab link and malformed reference already. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• • There's a relevant and useful discussion IMO at WT:FAC#Disputed nationalities in the lead sentences of two FAs. - Dank (push to talk) 16:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Why did Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin use both parent's names before marrying Percy Shelley?

An unidentified user asked why Mary Shelley used both parents names. The answer is that she was named for her mother who died eleven days after she was born of an untreatable postpartum infection. Her father, William Godwin was very much in love and very much bereaved and wished that since the baby was a girl she would carry on her Mother's name, which was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Wollstonecraft being her mother's maiden name. This the baby girl was given the exact same name as her late Mother: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. In keeping with this honor to her mother, when Mary Shelley married, instead of becoming Mary Godwin Shelley, as most women of that era would do, she became Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, still carrying her late Mother's name. I don't know how to file this information or get it to that user....but that is the answer to the question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.215.201 (talk) 17:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 May 2012

The statement saying that Matilda was an autobiographical novel either needs to be justified or 'autobiographical' needs removing.

To say that Matilda, a novel about incestuous love was autobiographical and not provide any links to research material is just plain libellous. There is nothing in Mary Shelley's life to suggest that her father was in love with her and he certainly didn't commit suicide of such emotions. That she may have harboured romantic feelings for her father is not enough to justify calling the novel autobiographical, fantastical would be a better adjective.

65.48.219.89 (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Partly done: I added a citation needed tag on the "autobiographical" part. If nobody can find a citation for it, it can be challenged again and removed. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:24, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Done I added a ref. I also note that there is only one mention of Matilda in the body of the article: "While Percy composed a series of major poems, Mary wrote the autobiographical novel Matilda,[75] the historical novel Valperga, and the plays Proserpine and Midas. Mary wrote Valperga to help alleviate her father's financial difficulties, as Percy refused to assist him further.[76]" Note that all it says is is that it is an "autobiographical novel" - it does not mention the incest or suicide themes (although it is linked to the Wikipedia article on Matilda, which notes that many critics call it autobiographical). I do not have access to a full version of Seymour's biography of Shelley, but I assume it is covered by reference 76, at the end of the next sentence. The ref I added is based on the part of Seymour's book I did read on Amazon.com. On pages 235-36 she writes that the heroine of Matilda is young and Mary was only 22 when she wrote it, that both lost their mothers in infancy, etc. Seymour notes that Matilda's guilt over her father's suicide mirrors Mary's guilt that she was not doing enough to help her father, who was near "ruin". It goes on to draw more parallels: both Mary and Matilda are in a relation with a young poet and share frustration that the young poet encounters none of the difficulties that her father did. Finally she points out that Godwin's dislike of the novel was not related to the incest theme (which was common in Romantic literature), but rather in Matilda's desire to die and thus join her dead father, just as Mary had longed to die after the deaths of her children. On page 237 Seymour wrote that Mary exorcised her grief over the deaths of her children by writing Matilda. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello 8v+u, Englih class. Frankestein is a way cool book — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.125.77 (talk) 08:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with your Englih...

Basket Feudalist (talk) 16:38, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 January 2013

in the second paragraph neighbor is spelt incorrectly 94.8.113.42 (talk) 16:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Not done: She's English, so the English spelling is used. See WP:ENGVAR RudolfRed (talk) 18:12, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Science fiction, etc

I added Mary Shelley's citation in the Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Hall of Fame to External links with a hidden comment that is visible here:

• "Mary W. Shelley biography". Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

!-- covers the influence of The Last Man (1826) as well as Frankenstein

see also http://www.midamericon.org/halloffame/ ; Shelley presented by Ruth Lichtwardt, U of Kansas -->

FYI: Earlier I visited, among others, H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, inducted 1997 and 1999. Each is sometimes called the "father of science of fiction", and I covered their latterday HOF inductions in footnotes on that point (to be revisited because I identified them as the earliest HOF members).

The HOF citation begins, "Mary Shelley's gothic-horror masterpiece Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818) has come to be viewed as the first genuine science fiction novel." And ends with a paragraph on The Last Man (1826). She has not been called the mother of SF, as far as I know. But its remarkable that this article does not include the term "science fiction" except in category names and now the Ext link.

There were 36 SFHOF members after 2004 induction of Shelley and others. The institution then joined the Science Fiction Museum, leaving its academic conference home; dropped "and Fantasy" from its title; and expanded beyond writers and editors to illustrators and movie people

--P64 (talk) 19:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Error

Small error which needs correction.. There is a redundancy ("she wrote") in the lines:

Mary Shelley wrote, "I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the world." she wrote. She wrote that the preface to the first edition was Percy's work "as far as I can recollect." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scire9 (talk • contribs) 00:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I have removed "she wrote" at end of sentence. Keith D (talk) 10:39, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Albion House, Marlow

The Shellys' house was in West Street, Marlow, next to Sir William Borlase's School. The school was founded in 1624 and is still there. Albion house is not particularly near the river Thames (which is at the other end of town, about a quarter mile as the crow flies) nor is it large. Maybe it occupied the whole terrace, but it was still cottage-scale. Adamsez (talk) 17:46, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Feminist

Is it right to call her mother the 'feminist', that term did not exist until the 1830s, after her mother died. I think we should be careful labeling someone a feminist unless they explicitly cite themselves as one considering feminism has a mixture of meanings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.238.205 (talk) 05:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I assume you are referring to Mary Wollstonecraft? I think you're right that she didn't call herself a feminist but many other reliable sources do now, retroactively, call what she did and wrote about an early form of feminism.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Relationship with William Godwin

Mary Shelley and her father had an estranged relationship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dcampos415 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Why she started writing horror movies Bulldog2020 (talk) 17:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to any article. - Arjayay (talk) 18:24, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Godwin's influence

Please add this section. Godwin shared high hopes for his daughter Mary as his oldest natural child and the only offspring of the late Mary Wollstonecraft. Godwin gave his daughter a higher intellectual experience than most women of her period. He described her as being “very intelligent.” He wished to give his daughter a more “masculine education” and prepared her to be a writer. . Godwin withdrew his support as Mary became a woman and pursued her relationship with Percy Shelley.

Mary’s first two novels, Frankenstein and Mathilda may be seen as a reaction to her childhood. Both explore the role of the father in the daughter’s socialization and the control the father has on the daughter’s future. As a result, it is not a surprise to that the father in Frankenstein appears a lover and villain.

In later years, Godwin came to expect maternal support and consolation from Mary. She responded to his expectations and she cared for him until he died. Shelley’s last two novels, Lodore and Falkner reevaluate the father-daughter relationship. They were written at a time when Shelley was raising a son alone and supporting her aging father. In both novels, the daughter eludes the father’s control by giving the father the traditional maternal figure he asks for. This relationship gives the daughter control of the father.

Dcampos415 (talk) 17:18, 23 June 2014 (UTC) dcampos415

Semi-protected edit request on 16 October 2014

In the section on Percy Shelley, it says that they returned from Lucerne via the Rhine to the Dutch port of Marsluys. This is an error. The name of the town is Maassluis.

Humandecoy (talk) 19:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Humandecoy, the name of the port was also brought up in a peer review, Wikipedia:Peer review/Mary Shelley/archive1. Marsluys was the name used by Mary and Percy in their diary, so has been kept authentic. However, the name does link to Maassluis. Julia\^talk 22:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 November 2015

• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's family

Dagostino (talk) 00:42, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 01:30, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

English Renaissance??

I'm unfamiliar with the process of editing Wikipedia articles--& don't have the time to learn now, but I am puzzled by the box to the right of the article on Mary Shelley which designates her "Period" as "English Renaissance". She lived from 1797-1851 and published her horror classic FRANKENSTEIN in 1818. This is a good deal later than the English Renaissance, which is c. the late 15th to the early 17th century--a good 175 years or more before Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley's heyday. Might somebody fix this?65.78.9.247 (talk) 07:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Done. --- Professor JR (talk) 10:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

The novel Frankenstein: or, the New Prometheus was written in 1816

I would like to create an infobox for this article.--Leglish (talk) 16:51, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Although the novel was published as Mary Shelley in 1818, the story was written and completed by Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in 1816. I do not have a reference to cite, but the story is that Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary were rowing on Lake Geneva when Lord Byron issued a challenge as to which of them could write the scariest story. Mary completed the story the next day (and won the challenge).

I am confused why the novel is always credited to Mary Shelley, not Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin or Mary Shelley nee Godwin. Drbits (talk)

Lede too long and detailed

The lede of this article is by most standards too long and contains undue detail for an article lede. Many of the details now included in the lede should be merged as appropriate into respective sections of the body of the article. I may have time to undertake that later on, but am hoping that another editor may take a shot at doing that before I am able to do so. --- Professor JR (talk) 20:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Clarification re relationship of William Godwin to Fanny Imlay

The second paragraph of the intro refers to Mary and her half-sister, Fanny, being raised by "their" father. Fanny's father was Gilbert Imlay, not William Godwin. Perhaps this sentence needs to be reworded as "raised by Mary's father"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Niobecat (talk • contribs) 23:21, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Have fixed. Thanks for pointing out the problem. --- Professor JR (talk) 07:24, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

In the third paragraph, the first sentence reads as follows:

In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, the then married Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The bolded word "the" should be "she", so the sentence would read:

In 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, she then married Percy Bysshe Shelley.

I hope that I have followed the rules and that this request is clear enough.

--30mag (talk) 13:17, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Done RudolfRed (talk) 16:06, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

TFA rerun

Any objections to throwing this article into the pile of potential TFA reruns for this year and next? Any cleanup needed? If it helps, here's a list of dead or dubious links. - Dank (push to talk) 23:59, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 September 2017

Please change (I will put the words that need to be changed in BRACKETS) the following: To deal with her grief, Shelley wrote the novella The Fields of Fancy, which become [BECAME] Matilda [,] dealing with a young woman whose beauty inspired incestuous love in her father, who ultimately commits suicide to stop himself from acting on his passion for his daughter [,] while she spends the rest of her life full of [IN DESPAIR, NOT FULL OF] despair about "the unnatural love I had inspired".[101] The novella offered a feminist critique of a patriarchal society as Matilda is punished in the afterlife through [THOUGH] she did nothing to encourage her father's feelings AMGunn (talk) 06:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Partly done: Except for the "full of despair" part, are you sure? it seems grammatically correct to me. regards, DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 07:20, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Question

"In June 1812, her father sent Mary to stay with the dissenting family of the radical William Baxter, near Dundee, Scotland." -- Kaldari, this is an opening paragraph in the first section. The pronoun is wrong on the first mention, and should be a noun instead. I didn't want to fix it as I didn't want to get it wrong, and I wasn't completely sure who the pronoun refers to. Assuming I've read it correctly, should it read: "In June 1812, Shelley's father sent her to stay with the dissenting family of the radical William Baxter, near Dundee, Scotland."? Cassianto^Talk 22:54, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

@Cassianto: I believe your reading is correct, although the article is referring to her as "Mary Godwin" at that point (rather than "Shelley"). Kaldari (talk) 00:27, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, now swapped. Cassianto^Talk 07:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Request for infobox

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Could I implemente a infobox please?

Thanks. In Memoriam A.H.H. (talk) 23:44, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

I see there were discussions back in 2008 and 2010, but it's been almost seven years - what's the consensus these days? While not mandatory, infoboxes appear to have become increasingly common for biographies, so perhaps it will be different now. Certainly nothing in that reverted edit is accurately described as "drivel." --tronvillain (talk) 23:54, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose the addition of an IB. In this article, it simply repeats information included in the well-written, concise lead nor does it allow for the nuance required in this particular biography. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:02, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose -- I am neither for nor against infoboxes, in general. In fact, I consider them to be a great tool on complicated articles such as royalty, music, film, political, sports, military, and geographical articles; however, I consider them to be utterly useless everywhere else. Here are some of my reasons for not including an infobox here:

1. Undisciplined expansiveness: A maximum-inclusion approach to fields that leads editors to place repetitive, sometimes downright silly information in the box. (There needs to be clear, prominent advice about not using every single field in every circumstance, and rather the need to ration the information, shaping it to the context.)
2. Visual degradation: The way this infobox squashes the text to the left, particularly on smaller screens, and restrict the sizing of the lead picture.
3. Prefabrication: The prefabricated feel this infobox gives to this article: "here's quick and dirty info if you can't be bothered to read on—the very name of the box" says it all.
4. Disconnected particles: Its domination of the very opening of this article with chopped up morsels that seem to contradict the continuous, connected form and style of the running prose. (If the justification is that adding an infobox provides both genres, the problem is this utter visual domination at the top—and see the next point.)
5. Uncertain benefit for readers: The failure of anyone who promotes infoboxes like this to explain how they are read. (Do readers look at them first, before embarking on the lead? Does the existence of infoboxes encourage readers not to absorb the main text? Do readers hop from article to article looking only at infoboxes—an argument I've heard put for retaining blue-carpeted linking practices within infoboxes? Do readers just glance quickly at the infobox and then read the article proper—in which case, what is the relationship between the infobox and the rest, and does the former reduce the impact of the latter through pre-empting basic information that the reader will encounter in the running prose? What functionality is missing when an article does not have an infobox?)
6. Better as lists: The fact that infobox information seems, in design, to be for comparison between topics. (If this is the case, the information would be far, far better in a WP List, where the form is much better suited to comparison, and the relationship between lead and table can be made to work very well indeed; see WP:Featured lists for what I mean.)
7. Fictitious technical benefits: There has never been a centralised RfC or similar that means we need to provide dross for the deeply flawed nonsense of Wikidata. The information on the subject is already at Wikidata, so it doesn't need to be provided again by having an infobox. An infobox does not need to be here again in order for Google and others to use: they strip info from Wikidata, not here, so it's absence here does not affect either Wikidata or third party users.

There was a consensus not to include an infobox in 2010 and Wadewitz, the late author of this fine article, decided she did not want an infobox. Let's not do her the disservice by shoehorning in a rather stupid infobox and making this article look silly and amateurish. Cassianto^Talk 09:56, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support, to be clear. I see the infobox was removed back on 18 January 2008, was added again 21 March 2015, and lasted until 20 December 2017, so apparently the large numbers of editors in that nearly two year period didn't have any problem with it.
  1. Expansiveness: If information is available, it's not apparent why an encyclopedia shouldn't provide access to it, and repeating information from the article is the point, not a problem.
  2. Visual enhancement: The smallest of screens, phones, work just fine with infoboxes. And in desktop mode, the infobox won't push the lede text to the left significantly more than the opening image does, and may in fact fill some of the empty white space alongside the contents. All of this is subjective, but I actually find its absence visually jarring, and a narrow box of text under the opening image is no sense "utter visual domination."
  3. Uniformity: this is an encyclopedia, not an artisanal craft, and infoboxes are now commonplace on biographies: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Lord Byron, William Godwin, William Shakespeare, and so on. The "here's quick and dirty info if you can't be bothered to read on" is a virtue, not a vice.
  4. Benefit for users: anyone who wants to just read the article can still just continue to read down the article, but someone who wants quick access to basic information in an established order and format can glance over at the infobox.
  5. Comparison': infoboxes are great for comparing things and people - just open a couple of tabs or windows and there you are, without having to search out a list which may or may not exist.
  6. Technical benefits: Wikidata has to scrape from somewhere, and infoboxes seem to be a great place to do it from. That's not necessarily relevant to this article, where all of the information has probably been extracted (though amazingly the Frankenstein article didn't have the full publication date until this year), but generally worth keeping in mind.

Consensus can shift, and articles don't belong to anyone (even one of the major editors). Eventual change is not a "disservice" to anyone, and to assert that an infobox makes an article look "silly and amateurish" is an insult to countless other articles - I'm actually having trouble finding another major biography without an infobox, though I'm sure they exist. --tronvillain (talk) 15:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm asserting nothing. I'm telling you they do make articles look childish and amateurish. If you find that insulting, that's your problem. Cassianto^Talk 16:27, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Wait, what? Assert: "to state or declare positively and often forcefully or aggressively." So, literally what you're doing. And yes, I find declaring the work of massive numbers of editors to be "childish and amateurish" to be insulting, unsurprisingly. --tronvillain (talk) 16:40, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Again, your problem. Hardly "work" copy and pasting a bunch of code from one article to another. I suggest you get over yourself. Cassianto^Talk 16:50, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The pot calling the kettle black. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.--tronvillain (talk) 16:55, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Here's an idea: instead of trying to take ownership of the top, right hand side of this article, go away, buy some books on a subject you find interesting, sit down over the course of a few weeks, and at all times of the day, and write, in your own words, a stunningly beautiful article the likes of which you see here. Oh, and talking of "insults", do you know how insulting it is to spend a small fortune and copious amounts of time writing an article like this only to have a drive by editor come along and force an infobox on it? Cassianto^Talk 17:04, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

You're pretty possessive of this article if the mere discussion of the possibility of a shift in consensus makes you this defensive. As I said, we'll just have to wait and see. And no, I don't need link to biographies without infoboxes (I did say they presumably existed), but I definitely had to dig a little past the major ones.--tronvillain (talk) 17:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The same can be said of you who's continuing to scuffle to add one. Re: "looks" vs. "is"-to say that Cassianto insulted the work of countless other editors is a misstatement on your part. Saying something LOOKS a certain way vs IS that way is a big leap of original research. We hope (talk) 17:15, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

That's some impressive lawyering. It's not at all insulting when you say "I'm telling you, Martin looks fat.", right? And you can counter that with "They said Martin looks fat, not that he is fat." A qualifier like "to me" would make it less an assertion of fact.--tronvillain (talk) 17:22, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

There's also a difference between someone saying they're going to start a fire and someone actually starting one. Tea leaves can also be read any way you want. We hope (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Hah. Welcome to the Wikipedian toxic pit of the Anti-infobox Cabal, tronvillain! :-) A headache is guaranteed. Have fun. -The Gnome (talk) 17:49, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Comment Both sad and amusing to see that someone has nothing more constructive to do than to try reviving a week old discussion and that he/she has support in clinging to the stick. We hope (talk) 12:42, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Tronvillain, please do not alter your comments after they have been replied to, thanks. Also, some of the information you are adding here regarding additions/removals of IBs appears to be missing the full detail. The article was created in September 2001 without an IB; it was added on 30 July 2006; removed on 11 February 2008 by the editor who did substantial work on it bringing it to FA; discussions took place regarding an IB in 2008 and 2010 when consensus was against it; a drive-by editor added it back in March 2015 against consensus. SagaciousPhil - Chat 17:01, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I believe I started that edit before it was replied to - I should have added an edited date to the comment after the edit conflict, though I'm not going to worry about that for minor corrections. Anyway, I linked to all of those, except the creation and the original add, and creation of a stub without an infobox is hardly surprising.--tronvillain (talk) 17:11, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see, so stubs shouldn't have IBs? Hmmmm .... SagaciousPhil - Chat 17:14, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

No, it's just unsurprising when they don't.--tronvillain (talk) 17:19, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support infobox- per my previously expressed views. This !vote won't come as a surprise to anyone here and I won't be losing much sleep over this; I doubt we'll get a consensus either way. jcc (tea and biscuits) 17:15, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

  Fancy that, still following Cassianto then, Jcc? SagaciousPhil - Chat 17:18, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm loving the hypocrisy given that all the regular characters seem to be here too. It was actually Gerda's comment on Alex's big "solve the infobox wars" proposal page, which I have watchlisted. Anyway, I think it's best I withdraw here, so take me to ANI if you want. jcc (tea and biscuits) 17:24, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

"regular characters"...so that'll include you then? Cassianto^Talk 17:50, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• dif for altered comments We hope (talk) 17:29, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I have removed this editor's various PAs. The dif to check is here. Doing this to ward off complaints by the editor for altering his remarks. We hope (talk) 18:53, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I've removed a PA made against me too- the admin should check this too. Comments like that should be made at ANI (with diffs and all), not flung as an accusation in a civil talk page discussion. Diff. jcc (tea and biscuits) 19:20, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

But they were. Your response. My response. My response 2. It's 2018 and my response here remains the same. We hope (talk) 19:31, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and as far as I can tell, I didn't take you to ANI, and you didn't take me to ANI, but that discussion was about how you spent a whole day replying to every comment I made- but now you're editing them as well? Also if you're going to do this- link to the right diff please. I honestly have no idea what you're trying to pull here with the whole admin help thing. jcc (tea and biscuits) 19:36, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

AN is a place where people reply to comments which I did. If that's stalking you, then many others must be guilty of stalking also when they respond at AN/ANI to a topic of interest. Your interest in what I either did or didn't do here that day or any day could be considered following or stalking. "What you're trying to pull here"-trying to remove PAs by you without the sirens going off that your comments were redacted and I want an admin for verification of the reason for the removal. We hope (talk) 19:49, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Cassianto has reverted my removal of the personal attack as ridiculous, so I've reverted yours as a similarly ridiculous stunt. I don't think things should have to be this way- where people are pulling stunts like yours to try and "win" discussions whilst silencing the opposition, where people are gaslighting others, where personal attacks and accusations are considered normal. In the spirit of cooperation, I've removed part of the offending sentence- but I've restored the rest, since Cassianto is right- this is ridiculous. jcc (tea and biscuits) 20:04, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

No stunt, an effort to cause you to discuss this in the civil manner as you claim to without PAs-which you aim at Cassianto regularly in these dicussions. We hope (talk) 20:07, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

It's a two way thing- I had to ban him from my talk page (something I don't think I've had to do with any other editor) because of the abuse and harassment I was getting. I'm ok with his insults to me on talk pages- I can choose to ignore that and some of the more clever ones even make me smile- but when it's on my user talk page as well then that's too far. jcc (tea and biscuits) 20:14, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

...and how upset I was with it, too. Cassianto^Talk 20:17, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Did the other editor deserve to be called an attack dog by you? We hope (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Their reply was a personal attack that focused on the contributor (me), rather than the substance of my arguments, but you knew that. jcc (tea and biscuits) 20:30, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

BULLSHIT! We hope (talk) 20:31, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Beautifully demonstrates the level of discourse here. jcc (tea and biscuits) 20:34, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Merely following your lead. We hope (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

• I am closing an "adminhelp" above, because nobody has said what help from an administrator is required. However, I will take the opportunity to suggest to the editors involved in this quarrel that there is probably something they could spend the same time on which would be more beneficial to the encyclopaedia. Also, most of what has been said in this section of the page is not related to editing the article Mary Shelley, so it absolutely does not belong on this page. If the various editors concerned really think it is worth continuing then they should do so somewhere else. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Here, here. Cassianto^Talk 21:29, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

• Since the discussion is all but over; I have made the decision to no longer pursue for a infobox being added to Mary Shelley due to the lack of consensus. Thank you debating and discussing the issue. In Memoriam A.H.H. (talk) 19:09, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Vegetarianism

Any interest in NOT suppressing discussion of Mary Shelley's vegetarianism, although it seems to be common practice throughout the Wikipedia project? MaynardClark (talk) 19:57, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Suggest an edit and some reliable sources I guess?--tronvillain (talk) 22:29, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Mary and Percy repeatedly advocated and promoted vegetarianism in their writings. Perhaps the term 'promoters of vegetarianism' would be more 'evidence-based' and therefore acceptable to the interested sets of Wikipedia editors. The current Wikipedia articles on Percy Bysse Shelley and Vegetarianism and Romanticism and A Vindication of Natural Diet assert as much about them, with their sets of putative 'evidence'. More wholesome ways to be vegetarian may exist and may have existed throughout Western history, as I personally have often claimed and still believe, specifically in religious contexts. However, if establishing a person's vegetarian dietary practice is going to require such a high standard, perhaps we can hold that same far higher standard to claims that Der Fuhrer was vegetarian (which a current Wikipedia article on Adolf Hitler seems to claim, contrary to all negative historical research by those who think that Hitler really wasn't vegetarian. See Adolf Hitler and vegetarianism, which claims that "Towards the end of his life, Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945) followed a vegetarian diet." We don't know what was intended when that word 'vegetarian' was used, but we know what organizations of practicing lacto-ovo or vegan vegetarians meant when they called themselves 'vegetarian'. "It is well known that Hitler is a vegetarian and does not drink or smoke. His lunch and dinner consist, therefore, for the most part of soup, eggs, vegetables and mineral water, although he occasionally relishes a slice of ham and relieves the tediousness of his diet with such delicacies as caviar ...". IMO, that string of words does not describe a practicing vegetarian of any consistency worthy of the term. But perhaps we could agree to see this claim as a significant historical dispute, but if 'birthers' or other 'denialists' today doubt something that stands on less evidence, they are politically 'shouted down' as if 'they lacked the brains they were born with.' MaynardClark (talk) 23:44, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

If Mary "repeatedly advocated and promoted vegetarianism" perhaps you should easily be able to produce some references that support that. Note, someone's husband advocating vegetarianism, or having character in her book be a vegetarian aren't that. I really don't care if she is or no and it's entirely possible that she was, but for us to say "she was a vegetarian" rather than "her husband advocated vegetarianism" or "Frankenstein's monster was a vegetarian" there needs to be actual evidence for it. An article about Hitler is a completely unrelated - go edit that if there isn't adequate evidence for him being vegetarian.--tronvillain (talk) 13:38, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

No one here is interested in suppressing discussion. However, the burden is on you to back your claims with high-quality sources and if you consider burden of proof to be "suppressing discussion" then we can't help you. --Laser brain (talk) 13:47, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

It's not MY goal in life (to argue this literary point). So much seeming hearsay pervades what humans write, even if they are widely regarded and well-read. Some of the (putative) 'facts' are authored by what become known as 'lightweights' in academic circles. However, my personal goals would be more concerned with and aligned with the determination of facts in the natural sciences relevant to the practice of whole foods plant-based diets that could be evidence-based rather than ideological. I think that efforts of social scientists (including historians) to determine facts may involve somewhat orthogonal but not entirely different skill sets. But along the way, I notice what appears to be a great deal of seeming interest in holding mention of one's interests in their own customized forms of vegetarianism to a higher standard of proof or verifiability. I already noted the other Wikipedia articles which make such statements about the Shelleys. I suspect that denialists have an implied 'burden of proof' to establish that the couple was a mixed coupled (bound together only by sexuality and not by ideas or values). That's a complex phenomenon if the vegetarian community of practice had ostracized (free love advocate?) Percy so that he could not find another vegetarian and ended up with a mere concubine who may have been fascinated with the idea, but not sufficiently to adopt the practice in her own life.

However, we can read that a Shelley Society was organized in London and that George Bernard Shaw became its secretary. However, whether or not Mary Shelley practiced a strictly vegetarian diet is not pertinent to the (hopefully evidence-based) choices I make in 2018 on what (plants) to eat (and why). [Nor do I think that their personal morals are 'ethically normative' for vegetarians or anyone else today.] MaynardClark (talk) 19:25, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

However, one might look at Fiona Sampson's In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein, published to mark the bicentenary of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. The Wikipedia article on that book also fails to mention (putative) vegetarian themes' {which we think been intended by Mary Shelley (1797–1851)}.

Perhaps Mary was not in fact truly a committed and consistently practicing vegetarian, but one could only hope (in the spirit of truth-seeking) that the entangling uncertainties that her intimacies of thought and body suggest could be untangled with scholarship, however (ir)relevant later seeming 'scholarship' on this topic might (*not) prove to be(come). The dietary truths of her historical actions? Time, circumstance, resource limitations, interest limitations, and shortage of critical acumen might prevent our seeing through that miasma as clearly as Wikipedian editors could wish. Oh, well. MaynardClark (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

It's a small thing, but from her letters in 1824 (emphasis mine): "Absolutely, my dear Hunt, I will pass some three summer months in this divine spot, you shall all be with me. There are no gentlemen’s seats at Palazzi, so we will take a cottage, which we will paint and refit, just as this country here is, in which I now write, clean and plain. We will have no servants, only we will give out all the needlework. Marianne shall make puddings and pies, to make up for the vegetables and meat which I shall boil and spoil. Thorny shall sweep the rooms, Mary make the beds, Johnny clean the kettles and pans, and then we will pop him into the many streams hereabouts, and so clean him. Swinny, being so quick, shall be our Mercury, Percy our gardener, Sylvan and Percy Florence our weeders, and Vincent our plaything; and then, to raise us above the vulgar, we will do all our work, keeping time to Hunt’s symphonies; we will perform our sweepings and dustings to the March in Alceste, we will prepare our meats to the tune of the Laughing Trio, and when we are tired we will lie on our turf sofas, while all our voices shall join in chorus in Notte e giorno faticar. You see my paper is quite out, so I must say, for the last time, Adieu! God bless you." And while WP:NOTFORUM, couples can have different beliefs or values without calling one of them a "mere concubine."--tronvillain (talk) 22:48, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

If she lived until 1851, that was 27 years before her death at 53 - more than the half-way point in her life. Claims about 'Hitler's vegetarianism' are far LESS rigorously defended, and we have plenty of evidence that he didn't follow a plant-based diet consistently, though Wikipedians seem to want to say that Hitler was vegetarian. I wonder whether the only 'take-away' from this discussion might concern the precariousness of 'single-issue ethics' and diet as 'an ethically relevant factor' but not a guarantor of ethical normativity in the behavior of the historically-existing biological individual. MaynardClark (talk) 00:55, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Again, the Hitler article is completely irrelevant, but as far as I can tell, it has a lot more evidence than there is for Mary. Show me her contemporaries describing her as a vegetarian, or her describing herself as a vegetarian, or writing anything that explicitly advocated vegetarianism. I've shown you evidence for eating meat, and all you've provided is Percy and unsupported speculation about how many values a married couple have to share, but he'd been dead for two years at the point of that diary entry.--tronvillain (talk) 13:50, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Unless someone has a source to cite about Mary Shelley being a vegetarian, I'm going to close this topic. Kaldari (talk) 04:44, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request, 30 January 2018

In the Lake Geneva and Frankenstein section, please change "The story has been fictionalised several times..." to "The story of the writing of Frankenstein has been fictionalised several times", to make clear that it is not Frankenstein itself that is being referred to. 2001:BB6:4703:4A58:8D0F:F46A:ACC2:AB5A (talk) 23:05, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

 Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:28, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's creation

Mary Shelley wrote the novelFrankenstein, has lots of movies base off it. The first one, was in the same title as the novel, was released at 1931, and fellow good actor, Boris Karloff,acts as Frankenstein's monster. Then, after that it got popular, and Frankenstein's monster was known as 'Frankenstein,' which is the person who brought the monster to life (in the book and movie) It is about a crazy scientist named Henry "Victor" Frankenstein, who made a whole new soul that he made come to life. The monster that he brought to life had an assistant, and the assistant brought Henry the wrong brain; he brought the abnormal brain instead of the normal. Then, you will have to read the book or watch the movie to find out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:E9A0:9070:E8FC:72ED:8E3:3213 (talk) 04:08, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

What exactly does a monster's assistant do? Is it some kind of internship for monsters in training? EEng 19:40, 2 May 2018 (UTC)