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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

the Ginsberg bit at the end

I'm surprised there wasn't a bit where Ginsberg said Pound told him the only way to heal the world was to breed out the white race. Ginsberg was clearly making that up to viciously and nastily bury an 'anti-semite' and try to destroy his literary reputation by falsely claiming he himself thought his work was shit. That this is included here at all is ridiculous - that Ginsberg's obvious lies are quoted as if Pound said them directly somewhere is obscene. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.127.9 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

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.

Why is there no infobox? Harizotoh9 (talk) 06:49, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Harizotoh9 That is a very good question! It probably means that nobody ever made one. Somebody should take on the task to do it! CryMeAnOcean (talk) 07:02, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Re: "Undid revision 850340885 by Ceoil (talk) How can you say there is consensus not to have an info box when the talk page clearly shows that two people agree to have it and nobody disagreed?" - CryMeAnOcean
Two and a half hours, during the middle of the night in the Americas, is not enough time for consensus to form, and CryMeAnOcean, with all due respect you have 179 edits. As such I have reverted, twice now. Note this has been discussed at length on this talk, as I mentioned in the first revert, with a broad consensus not to include a box. For my own part, these days I am inclined towards boxes, but given the fraught and complicated nature of this bio, cannot see one working one here. Ceoil (talk) 08:26, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
(ec) to all: If you look at the article history, you'll see that several made one. A more general discussion is here, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#ArbCom wants there to be an RfC and the drafting of infobox inclusion criteria. It's as long as the title suggests ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:33, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Gerda, from one battle weary trooper to another :), although "that several made one" is a weird sentence. I do appreciate CryMeAnOcean's energy however. Ceoil (talk) 08:35, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
(After church, had no time for history before, sorry:) "Several made one" means:
  1. 14 Oct 2007 by Deor (probably until 26 June 2010, didn't check all in between)
  2. 29 Sep 2010 by SlimVirgin, again 5 October, self-reverted immediately
  3. 25 Feb 2011 by Ksnow
  4. 24 Mar 2011 by MrLJM
  5. 12 Feb 2012 by Tuckerresearch
  6. 17 Mar 2012 by Curly Turkey
  7. 29 Jun 2012 by Soerfm
  8. 1 Oct 2012 by Rrburke (self-reverted after look at talk)
  9. 9 Oct 2012 by Betempte
  10. 10 Jun 2013 by Bubka42
  11. 19 Jun 2013 by Faustus37
  12. 25 Jun 2014 by Xenxax
  13. 5 Feb 2016 by Fireflyfanboy
  14. 4 Oct 2016 by Victoriaearle
  15. 19 Apr 2017 by Elisa.rolle
  16. 30 Mar 2018 by Etzedek24
  17. and today. - To all: please discuss, also at the general place about inclusion criteria. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:36, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Keep on stoking the fires Gerda. Ceoil (talk) 12:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Fires? Facts. I didn't even know what an infobox is until 2012, and am completely cold regarding this one. Just observing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Noting that argument and consensus are not so important to some.[1]. Explain your thinking Harizotoh9. Ceoil (talk) 09:01, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Gerda, all those people just got pinged, myself included (and still on my first cup or coffee). That's called stacking the decks and not helpful. I just saw this discussion, haven't read through, but would like to think about it carefully and slowly and decide about what and when to post in a rational way before it gets out of control. Bringing in all the people who have added infoboxes might not have been the way to go. To me this article represents the pinnacle of collaborative editing on Wikipedia, where compromises were suggested, discussed and implemented throughout, from issues such as what text to include, sourcing, images, formatting throughout (including infobox or not), down to the smallest details such as background colors for the quote boxes, how to format the bundled refs and so on. All the many people who were involved are justifiably protective of our achievement, not in a "own the article" sense, but in the a "this is how Wikipedia works at its best" sense. Victoriaearle (tk) 12:52, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
All those people just got pinged? Exactly. Gerda is an agitator, and aw shucks doesn't cut it. "Just observing" is an insult, after all these years Gerda, and you treat me like a fool. To say nothing of these multi accounts below where In consider silence as consent. Ceoil (talk) 12:55, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, Victoria and Ceoil, - no link would have been talking behind these people's backs, I decided against that. Please copy what you said just above to the MoS discussion about inclusion criteria, linked above, for a better future. - Ceoil, your question above ("several made one") provoked me, I confess that sin. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:01, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Butter and mouth. Talking behind Fireflyfanboy's (for example) back? Give me a break. You are transparent as they come and again you try and fool me, now with utter nonsense. I should open a SPI re you and CryMeAnOcean, the MO is remarkably similar, as I said below. Ceoil (talk) 13:03, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Infoboxes are to just have quick references instead of having to scan the lede or articles. They're boring, and on every other page uncontroversial. Literally all that's been added so far is his birth name, date of birth, and dead. That's controversial? If Erza Pound's life is "complicated", then it just means the infobox should be smaller and stick to areas that aren't up for debate. I'm re-opening this debate, and would like outside viewpoints on this. Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:12, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

More correctly you are reopening this debate following a self instigated edit war. Your arguments, such as they are, are generalist, shallow, and wholly lacking any reading or understanding of previous debates on this talk. "If Erza Pound's life is "complicated" then...infoboxes then to be expansionist. Ceoil (talk) 09:16, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Your tone is a bit defensive, and you seem to act like you WP:OWN this page. And what's up with the phrase "battle weary trooper", and attacking a user for making 179 edits?
Also, I have made one revert. You have made two. WP:BRD applies.
Debates can be re-opened at any time. Looking at the archives, it looks like this issue hasn't been looked at since 2016. That's 2 years. A fairly long time. A lot can change on Wikipedia, in both it's content, software, philosophy, and userbase. Nothing is made in stone and can't be debate.
For my stance on infoboxes, I believe they should be required for biography pages. If various elements are up for debate, simply stick to the non-debatable facts. Date of birth, death, locations, spouses, etc. Don't over think this. People will open up a WP article to just check for some quick basic facts, like when someone died. With an infobox, that's easy. Without one, someone has to start digging through the text or read the entire lead. Also it's a bit silly to have 99% of bio articles have infoboxes, yet a few don't. Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:42, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry Harizotoh9, didnt mean to sound defensive, and I certainly don't "own" this page but, this all seems so sudden, an established editor and a new account tag teaming and edit waring after a talk notice and interval of some two hours. Perhaps I am used to a more collegial and inclusive approach. Nor do I find your arguments ("boring") convincing. Ceoil (talk) 10:01, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt, thank you. I briefly searched the history of the page but did not have time to search every page to see that Ezra Pound had an info box and someone reverted it to nothing.

@Ceoil I don't know why you mentioned how many edits I have. Is that relevant at all? Frankly not having an info box makes the Ezra Pound article look like it's substandard when it is one of the most important and best articles at Wikipedia. We are not in an edit war at all, I just wanted you to experience the feeling that Harizotoh9 must have felt when you deleted the work that he did! Have you considered that readers might think that the info box was deleted by a vandal? CryMeAnOcean (talk) 10:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Well there are rumours of sock puppeting and sleeper accounts all using your type of faux naive speaking voice (the self pitying "aw shucks" username is a dead giveaway), which are used to form false consensus and drive in boxes, so I was being cautious. Per AGF, I wouldn't call for check user or anything. Gerda, you have condoned this behaviour for years. Ceoil (talk) 10:17, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
I condone the behaviour to miss something and add it. I pointed out (above, go to that discussion please, all!) that in a few cases, it has proved controversial. AGF, - why shouldn't that be a user new to the topic (of the alleged infobox wars dating back to 2005)? - Did the article have a hidden message warning someone new? Is there a link to a consensus discussion on this talk? - I don't know. I don't remember to have participated in this article (but have a bad memory). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:27, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil Who are you calling a new user? I registered my account in 2011 and Harizotoh9 is not a new user either. Thank you for being an established editor. I had no idea that when I registered in 2011 that there is some magic number of edits that would make my edits at Wikipedia worthy or not. Also I don't know where you live but mentioning that I am in the Americas has nothing to do with the info box discussion. My username is from PTSD and you don't need to make fun of my username. You are a rude person today. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 10:28, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil Per AGF, you should not use words like "sock puppeting and sleeper accounts" on this talk page because that is not assuming good faith and your asking Gerda to back you up that I have somehow demonstrated "this behavior" ("form false consensus and drive in boxes") is insulting to me. I am certainly not faux naive and I am not malicious; just a normal person who thinks you have been on your high horse. By your leave. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 11:42, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
When I said that the common tactic is for new accounts to adopt a faux naive guise, you encapsulate it beautifully with the phrase "just a normal person". I now also have a read of the intelligence level and the lack of skill in adopting personas. Thanks! Ceoil (talk) 12:00, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil Can you stop the personal attack? I am sure that personally attacking me is not allowed. Bringing up my intelligence level is rude. Please stay on topic: info box for Ezra Pound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CryMeAnOcean (talk • contribs) 12:11, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Pot, kettle, black. You have read the tread right, and why we were disappointed that Gerda choose to summons the likes of you, swearing like a puffed up second rate King George. Ceoil (talk) 13:24, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Break

Proposal: add a Pound/canto typo box: put in everything + the kitchen sink. Because there's little black & white in his life it's not the easiest box, but if we have to have a box then we should include all the gray. I'll try to make a mock up. Victoriaearle (tk) 17:49, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Could you clarify what exactly is being proposed?
  • Exactly. I believe that an infobox should be an extension of the content and this article, in many ways more than others I've worked on, exemplifies collaborative editing at its best. Those who have pitched will understand the proposal. I can't get to a mock up immediately, but the central issue here has always been how to box the person who was caged for treason, while in a cage wrote award winning poetry on toilet paper, got caged for 12 years after, did horrible horrible things, was a bastard in many ways, yet mentored the best and brightest of his generation of modernist writers? The simplicity of In a Station of the Metro (i.,e no box), hasn't worked, or rather invites discord. Instead, should we consider the complexity of The Cantos? I'm willing to give it shot, will post a mock up here when it's finished (it won't be immediately because I have little time for wikipedia), and we could take it from there. Or we could continue to fight over a bog standard box on an article where people admit that they know nothing about the subject but show up to fight for the sake of the fight. I'm tired of the latter and am willing to try to make a box that will fit. It's easier to make a box for a plant, than for a man whose life was a series of intense creativity and serious disasters, but we should at least try. No? Clearly if consensus is that we can't do justice to the subject with a box (which is entirely possible), then that's the consensus. If everyone is ok with it, I'd like to try. But if consensus goes against me, I'm fine with that too. Victoriaearle (tk) 19:48, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Victoriaearle, thank you. I only watch this Ezra Pound article because of his writing; could care less about his personal life. I support you in creating the mock up, whenever you have time. Not having an infobox makes the article look substandard. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 21:17, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks, but you raise the central problem. Because the infobox is content, focusing only on his writing is NPOV; we have to address both his writing and that he was a convicted anti-semitic traitor. This is the biography so the infobox has to give the bare bones biographical details, i.,e place of birth, though I think that's misleading because his parents left Idaho Territory when he was not yet two and he was raised in Main Line Philadelphia. There's a big difference between a western poet and an eastern one. We need to fill in "Resting place" (is he at rest?), then there are all the fields infobox writer wants, i.,e languages he wrote in. Some of the languages Ezra wrote in are English, Langue d'Oc, Greek, Latin, and some he probably made up, and, personally I prefer not to have a box that falls down below the lead into the first section. Anyway, I'll see what I can do, but it will have to include biographical details and be done correctly, because once installed it goes to Wikidata and from there any field can and will be filled and magically show up here, whether accurate, verifiable, or not. Victoriaearle (tk) 22:44, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I liked your 2016 version. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:50, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Victoriaearle, Thank you for your explanation. I appreciate your patience, kindness and help. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 22:56, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I see where you are going. Looking forward to your mock-up. And thank you for doing this, sounds like alot of work. Work permit (talk) 23:26, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
  • "we have to address both his writing and that he was a convicted anti-semitic traitor ..."—non sequitur, and just more of the bad-faith drahmah. Victoriaearle's about to give us an infobox of absurd length to "prove" it's inappropriate. For the record, I've stopped using infoboxes on the articles I've edited for the last couple years, but I find the bad faith in these ridiculous "discussions" utterly disgusting. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:25, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I liked the 2016 version as well. My good-faith assumption is that this is a case of overthinking the infobox. It's not meant to be a summary of the article and there's no need to include all of the intricacies or fill every parameter. The article as a whole must be NPOV, but there is no need for every part of the article to cover every aspect of the topic. My suggestion would be to start with the basics (year of birth and death, schools attended, etc) and then have a conversation about which additional items to add. –dlthewave ☎ 03:56, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
    dlthewave: Please take a dive into the talk-page archives. You're not the first to make the suggestion and won't be the last to be shit on for doing so. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:02, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
    Curly, please stop assuming bad faith and for a moment believe that I'm tired of the fighting. Can someone please link to the 2016 box? I remember adding one once, is that the one you'all are referring to? Can't remember, haven't been very active for the past two years. Thanks. I do think we should have more than "poet" for this box. I tried to experiment, but immediately ran into edit conflicts, so it's gone to my sandbox. I think with child modules a lot can be done. This isn't a case of making an absurdly long box, as Curly accuses, but wanting to get it right. Please give me the opportunity to try. Victoriaearle (tk) 12:30, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
    Thank you. The 2016 version - as all the others tried - can easily be seen, following the links above. I support the call to assume good faith (just for moment believe I wanted to show the versions that have been tried, and by whom, no more). The link to his Wikidata record is on the left when in his article, and I don't think it will be changed much by our infobox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:17, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Please let Victoria work in her own time in her sandbox. There's no rush. SarahSV (talk) 13:39, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
  • No. When we're told an infobox is impossible unless "we ... address ... that he was a convicted anti-semitic traitor [etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.]", the proposal is obviously in bad faith. This is part of the game: assume all those proposing an infobox are working in bad faith (or are insufferably stupid), while insisting that the anti-infoboxers are working strictly in good faith, no matter the evidence to the contrary. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:31, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
I think I'll go for insufferably stupid, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:38, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, both of you. I thought I'd try to design an infobox that might mention political essays, etc., b/c he wasn't only a poet. This was done in good faith, and as a bridge building exercise, rather than a bridge tearing down exercise. Incredibly impressed Curly, with using terms like "spazzing" out, and Martin, jumping in within minutes so I was met with edit conflicts during the few moments I had earlier in the day, and now your youtube link. It's all yours, gentlemen. Victoriaearle (tk) 22:46, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
"Incredibly impressed" with the inevitable parting snark in lieu of discussion, but none of it's mine—I've already stating I'm not supporting an infobox, only calling you all out. Glad to see at least you didn't dump this WP:POINT-y, drahmahtic thing in ("Citizenship: ex-pat, US traitor"?). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:00, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Curly, you should be blocked for your tone here. I use sandboxes to brainstorm & play, and as the last in a long list of editors to tell this to, have been sick as a dog recently. Stop. talking. to. me. like. that. Victoriaearle (tk) 00:21, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I will continue to call out these games as long as the participants continue to play them. You'd see less "tone" if you didn't stoop to sniping people as in your previous comment. If blocks are to be handed out, they'd start with this, and would get to some of your comments before mine. I'd normally sympathize with your condition, but it's hard with someone who's shown you six years of disrespect—right up to this very day. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:54, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
(ec) Thank you, Victoria! - I made a few changes but just revert if you don't like. I'd not need nationality, - rather obvious from birth and education. if you want more items added to poet you can say "plainlist| * poet * second * third" within the curly brackets, and all * at the beginning of the next line. - I love your version with the kitchen sink ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:06, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Gerda, on the scale of things that are important in my life right now, this is extremely low. I resent being pinged into this conversation and shouldn't have jumped in. Stupidly, I thought I could try to build a bridge. Victoriaearle (tk) 00:35, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I think you did. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:19, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I've been told to chill for a moment. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:43, 16 July 2018 (UTC) Unfortunately, I'm now frozen.
Sincere apologies for Robbie & Nicole. (No public domain versions of Frank & Nancy). Martinevans123 (talk) 19:58, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I thought that part of the point of the recent ArbCom case was to stop this kind of needling and swarming. One of the findings was: "Multiple editors, including IPs, have engaged in baiting and goading behavior surrounding the addition of infoboxes." To take action, someone would have to issue DS alerts as soon as it starts, which in itself tends to escalate. But fail to do it in time and you get this.
KrakatoaKatie and Worm That Turned, as the drafting Arbs in that case, please examine what transpired here, and see how the case has made no difference. The background is that the authors of this featured article decided years ago not to add an infobox, because of complexities in Pound's life and work, and there has been regular needling every since. And now again, post-case, including from some of the usual suspects, including (of course) Gerda. SarahSV (talk) 03:15, 17 July 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.

Recent edit

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.

A recent edit removed the infobox with the summary "rmv boxclutter". In my opinion, the infobox was a useful element which was added after discussion by several editors. Are there any specific concerns that we can work to address? –dlthewave ☎ 16:07, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

A discussion certainly took place, yet consensus there came none; is about the size was the end result of it I'm afraid. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 16:12, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Apologies, I used a—slang?—term. As you all say, size has nothing to do with it  :) and I widn't want this to confuse things even more. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 17:43, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
How should we address the size concerns? –dlthewave ☎ 16:19, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
In the discussion above, I don’t see a conversation about size. If there is a disagreement about size, I would be happy to make the infobox collapsible. Work permit (talk) 16:48, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Collapsible is a rather unwanted option (for someone who has physical problems hitting the show-button), - we could also drop parameters. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:23, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Please leave it as it is and please let's all back away from this discussion. The infobox that's been called mine and linked as such in this edit and later in the discussion referred to as mine multiple times, is not mine. It was added here on 17 September, 2016, followed by this long, bruising discussion and finally in a fit of frustration I put it back. But I did not design it, I oppose a box, and I do not see any reason at all to continue these discussions. I might, someday, when things calm down, consider creating a box instead of simply slapping back one that someone else created and then years later attributes to me, but this is not the time for it. Thanks. Victoriaearle (tk) 17:32, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you added now what you built in your sandbox, as announced above, and didn't (mean to) say the former one was "yours", just that you added it. Forgive me for not checking the content of the 16 infoboxes that have been tried in the past. - Leave it as it is/was when I wrote that sounds like a good idea. Can someone write that in a hidden notice in the article? I tried once for Beethoven, but don't feel in the position to do it here, having never edited the article. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:44, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
No need to make something go and on and on. No need to reply at all. If an admin could add a DS edit notice to the article, that would be helpful. Victoriaearle (tk) 19:02, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

For those who are watching the Ezra Pound article for a long time, the deletion of the infobox and remaking of it again and again must be annoying. Someone who just started watching it does not know that it has been there and removed many times. Is there a way to lock the info box so that new editors won't be able to do so?CryMeAnOcean (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi CryMeAnOcean, in fact the sequence is the opposite of your telling. In complex bios such as this, out of the blue passive aggressive accounts rarely have a grasp of the more subtle reasons against box inclusion.[2] By the way, in my day if I knew nothing I would have the self awareness to watch and learn.) Typically these accounts lack enough edit history to earn suffrage, but typically as socks, certainly seem to know the well trodden ropes of this "dispute" and which buttons to press.

Contentious articles are a tiny fraction (perhaps some 0.00000006 of the overall article population; some 20 or 30 out of 6 million?), and of course all written by targets of, or persons of interest to, Gerda, who has evidently has chosen to otherwise build up personal ammour by being, litterally in Pumkinsyk's rather disturbing foot steps, the.most.engractring.person.ever.[3], and who views this a zero sum popularity contest. Anyway, for the sake of theatre, and as if you are not a sock, the game broadly plays out this: article development / incumbent discussion / consensus / FAC / two or three years happiness and a main page spot / arrival of a new stalking horse account like you / revert wars & civility blocks / Gerda swoop / usual arguments trotted out / hands over heads / Gerda aw shucks defense / incumbents pushed under a bus / Arbcom recognise patterns of abuse but cannot legislate and so kick to ANI / ANI only has hammers / escalating blocks / repeat rinse.

Personally I find the pro Infobox warriors modus operandus of 'localised wars of attrition well worn and distasteful; their use of sock puppets to lead attacks and demand that incumbents are forced to repeat the same argument over and over, page by page, until they break, in an approach that is clearly reliant on grind, and hopes for mental breakdown and editor attrition, sucks on many levels. I have expressed my disappointment on Gerda's page[4] how she would treat me this way, as if a pawn in her greater game, after so many years of supposed friendship, as well as the technical matter of blatent canvassing, of which Collugilia would have blushed. But of course none of this matters, and we are seemingly still as a community tolerating the blame those targeted game, and its all about CIV, because that's the easiest to understand. Ceoil (talk) 02:32, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Placeholder: please allow me to type and gather diffs before making me run into yet another edit conflict. A post is on its way. Victoriaearle (tk) 03:29, 22 July 2018 (UTC) Facts:

  • Gerda placed this article, the subject of which she admits she knows nothing about, on her watchlist during a discussion at ARCA as seen here.
  • Gerda said she likes my 2016 version. As I've demonstrated it wasn't mine but rather an IPs.
  • Others then took up the meme of liking the 2016 version, before consensus developed.
  • Curly Turkey casts aspersions without a single comment back from any page watchers, here, here, here, and here. Apparently there's nothing wrong with those comments and neither drafting arb (calling out you, KrakatoaKatie and Worm That Turned along with the rest of the committee), cares a whit.
  • Gerda leaves me a very odd message about a bridge and then apparently punishes me for not doing well enough, and again updates a personal infobox log.

Not a single one of these actions are complained about. Nothing. Nada. The consensus on this page is not to have an infobox. I tried to work against consensus and was attacked for it, which is fine, because I'd prefer not to see a box here. But you all can't complain about some things and turn a blind eye to others. This article can't go to TFA, a piece of sourced information was removed today that needs to be reinstated, and you're all just playing your games. In the meantime you're dealing with an editor who's bending not only backwards but into pretzel shape trying to solve a problem that will never be solved. The infobox wars started here with Jack Merridew and his socks & his buddies. It moved here from another page and it's been ongoing since. This is ground zero of the infobox wars. I can give chapter & verse of the infobox wars since the day they started but have tried to stay out. Tonight, I have had enough. I don't care if I get blocked, I really don't, I'm asking the arbs to take a good look at this situation and decide whether it's healthy. Victoriaearle (tk) 03:48, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

@Victoriaearle Thank you for your efforts. Sorry for your medical issue. Ceoil has called people names and talks about incumbent like he owns this talk page and the article itself since he has more edits than anyone. I am no longer interested in having an infobox for this article because of bullying, being called a sock puppet and other names, as it has caused too much vitriol. I would like someone to reply to my question above: Can the infobox be locked while the article itself can be edited? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CryMeAnOcean (talk • contribs) 04:03, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
CryMeAnOcean, no, it can't be. SarahSV (talk) 04:10, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
No he doesn't, I do, and no it can't. Victoriaearle (tk) 04:19, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Gerda, you are surely heading to AE soon; this edit alone is creepy harassment when you already know people are upset. The committee said something about the baiting in its decision; the article talk page has a DS notice on it, and you were alerted in March. Why is this page even on your watchlist if not that you know it has been a flashpoint? SarahSV (talk) 04:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, this is baiting and I dislike the messages on my page. I dislike all of this. In case it's not been clear. Victoriaearle (tk) 04:23, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I would remind all editors to stay on topic. Article talk pages are for discussing article improvments, not general editor conduct. I started this thread to discuss what was meant by the "remove boxclutter" edit summary and what can be done to improve the infobox. Please discuss editor behavior on user talk pages or noticeboards and if arbitration enforcement is needed, please file a report at WP:AE. –dlthewave ☎ 04:37, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
The irony of your "warning" is that it focuses entirely on editors and serves, perhaps intentionally, to distract from substantive issues. These kind of "reminders" are really 'wind them up and see what happens' plays at it best, and least you forget you integral part in all of this [5] Ceoil (talk) 04:52, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The discussion was finished and there was zero reason to start it again. In the past editors such as Mattisse have been particularly good at manipulating these types of situations. And, I have to ask, why is it that CurlyTurkey's conduct elicted no comments or condemnation from you, yet other's comments have, particularly those three who brought the article through FAC? Victoriaearle (tk) 04:47, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above concluded with the addition of an infobox. After that, an editor removed the infobox with an unclear explanation. I'm trying to understand what the specific reason was for removal and whether we can work to improve the box instead of removing it. –dlthewave ☎ 15:06, 22 July 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.

Images

  • File:Ezra_Pound_1963b.jpg: to use this, we'd need to know when and where this was first published - the Getty page for that collection indicates that its contents were largely unpublished, and if that's the case for this specific image it almost certainly wouldn't be free in the US
  • The sculptor died in World War I and the sculpture was
  • File:Toilet_paper,_Pisan_Cantos.JPG: this is a bit complicated. My understanding of US law would be that the reproduction of this image would garner no new copyright on top of that of The Cantos itself. When were the words on this paper first published?
  • Thanks Nikkimaria - this brings up lots of memories. I have notes on old computers, but it's best I try to get the books. I'll have to research File:Hieratic_Head_of_Ezra_Pound_01_(brightened).jpg - the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska died in WWI and I can't say when the sculpture was first exhibited. Might take some time to find. File:DorothyPound.jpg is in from Noel Stock's Poet in Exile where he identifies the photographer & date. Dorothy lent him papers etc for the book, so perhaps it came from her? If it's not free, we'd want to write a FUR to keep it. The words on the toilet paper were published in 1946 - it has a FUR. I don't remember off the top of my head about File:Ernest_Hemingway_1950_w.jpg, so have removed for now. Ruhrfisch created a template for the Hemingway images that were donated to the JFK Library, and if I can determine the image is free will fix the file. Have removed the others and it will take a bit of time to research & fix licenses. Victoriaearle (tk) 03:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

AE notice

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.

A discussion concerning Ceoil's conduct at Talk:Ezra Pound has been opened at Arbitration enforcement by dlthewave Ceoil (talk) 19:56, 29 July 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.

Good luck

Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound photographed on 22 October 1913 in Kensington, London, by Alvin Langdon Coburn
Ezra Pound photographed on 22 October 1913 in Kensington, London, by Alvin Langdon Coburn
BornEzra Weston Loomis Pound
(1885-10-30)30 October 1885
Hailey, Idaho
Died1 November 1972(1972-11-01) (aged 87)
Venice, Italy
OccupationPoet, literary critic
Ezra Pound
(Option 2) Pound in 1913
(Option 2) Pound in 1913
BornEzra Weston Loomis Pound
(1885-10-30)30 October 1885
Hailey, Idaho Territory
Died1 November 1972(1972-11-01) (aged 87)
Venice, Italy
OccupationPoet, literary critic

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.

Good luck pro-infobox editors. There is a set of well-meaning editors who are dead set against any kind of infobox for whatever reason. (And, yes, some others exhibit clear ownership behavior.) Wikipedia is what it is, so I'm not too keen to jump into this battle again. TuckerResearch (talk) 22:51, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Which is a shame Tucker, but its such drive by non-thinking for "whatever reason" line of reasoning that brings us to this point. If the box could remain so trimmed and thus non-contentious, fine. But you know, read up before casting "opinion"; it aint so. Ceoil (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil: Would you be comfortable with the infobox to the right, as long as it stays that length? This seems to be a good starting point for a workable solution. –dlthewave ☎ 03:48, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil: If you look at Talk:Ezra Pound/Archive 2, you'll see I'm quite "read up." But, keep casting aspersions at people you disagree with. TuckerResearch (talk) 14:20, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Tucker, I like infoboxes, but this one really would be difficult to get right, given the complexities of Pound's life. Even his place of birth is a bit misleading, so the simplest of boxes would give the wrong impression. This argument isn't going to change, because the details of his life aren't going to change, so I can't see the point of raising the issue year after year. SarahSV (talk) 14:51, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Place of birth is typically noncontroversial even when the subject only spent a few months there, but a simple solution would be to remove that line from the infobox. We could also add "alma mater" with a note saying which school he graduated from. –dlthewave ☎ 15:12, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
SV, I realize Idaho meant little to Pound, but it is where he was born. That's a fact. How is a fact misleading? I've never understood that argument against a birthplace. And I personally haven't raised this issue in years. I am warning the present editor, who pinged me, that a set of dedicated editors to this page is dead set against an infobox. Anti-infoboxers should recognize the fact that every few months a random Wikipedia reader/editor puts an infobox on the page or asks about an infobox because people like them, expect them, and/or want them. The simplest of infoboxes, with the bare facts of his life should end (or deter) such edit wars and knock down drag outs on this talkpage. (And, SV, I'd like to say your comments were far kinder and reasoned than Ceocil's.) TuckerResearch (talk) 16:04, 23 July 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.

Proposal

There is no consensus to add the proposed infoboxes. (I was involved in the discussion, but supported a basic infobox, and this discussion is now close to a month old.) Outriggr (talk) 01:02, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

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.

I propose adding the version of the infobox shown in this section. –dlthewave ☎ 16:59, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Which input, specifically? –dlthewave ☎ 18:45, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree, it would he helpful to say why. Work permit (talk) 01:16, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I oppose the first box and support-as-compromise the one I added below it ("Box 2"). (I am traditionally anti-box on such articles but am trying to meet half-way so that these time sinks come to an end.) The first box makes the mistake of providing unnecessary detail in the caption; it has "Idaho" rather than "Idaho Territory" for his birthplace; it specifies an image size for no reason that I can see. It's this kind of cumulative lack of care that makes us skeptical in the first place. I also support the second box only if it is not expanded "by attrition" later. If it's expanded, this "support" becomes "oppose" for the purpose of gauging historical infobox sentiment (ha!). Outriggr (talk) 00:38, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
I fully support your box if that leads to consensus. No matter the outcome of this discussion, I strongly support a comment referencing this discussion on the talk page. Work permit (talk) 01:13, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Sure, we can certainly establish consensus for a certain version of the infobox, making it clear that there is no consesnsus for a longer version at this time. Of course we can't prevent future editors from reopening the discussion and agreeing on a different version.
If material is added against consensus, the solution would be to revert back to the consensus version, not remove it entirely. I agree that we should have a hidden note mentioning that empty categories are intentionally left blank. –dlthewave ☎ 12:20, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. this is a content discussion. We are seeking a consensus. Arbs are not involved. Work permit (talk) 11:57, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Nah - you are voting. No one has said why this particular article needs an infobox. You're trying to discuss what goes into it, without saying why there should be one. As you are not bothering following the rules you should, I have no doubt Arbs will step in to point out your errors.
  • Support version 2 This puts a few basic facts in one place where readers can quickly find them. Wiki articles aren't always read from start to finish; some readers who are familiar with the subject might use it to check basics such as the birthplace or year of death, neither of which appear in the lead. There is no need to fill in all of the empty fields, especially for things that can't be summed up accurately in a few words, but I would support carefully adding a few more simple items such as education after appropriate discussion. –dlthewave ☎ 12:37, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • A few points and questions:
    • In my view calling out editors as binary "pro-infobox" vs. "anti-infobox" is counterproductive and doesn't help in fostering good will. We are all Wikipedia editors, neither good nor bad, and don't need to be slapping labels on others.
    • Do we have consensus to add a box? If not, that would be the first place to start.
    • Is there a rush? Personally, I'm having difficulty keeping up, not every editor is here every day, and the discussion has been heated. Recently discussion on Stanley Kubrick was shut down to reconvene in a few months. I'm not suggesting we do that, but there does seem to be some pressure to get this resolved right away that I don't quite understand. Is there a reason for it?
    • Re the various boxes: thanks to Tuckerresearch for including "literary critic" in his version. Outriggr gets close to what I've been trying to articulate in terms of accuracy. "Idaho Territory" is right, "Idaho" is not. Slight tangent here: there's an anecdote associated with the image which didn't make the cut in the article itself: when Elkin Mathews was preparing Lustra for publication he hired a talented young photographer to photograph the author for frontispiece. Pound was ill with the flu or some such jaundice when one morning Alvin Langdon Coburn showed up at his flat. Pound had a high fever, but he put on his dressing gown and sat for the photograph, which is a nice example of early-20th photography. Because of size issues that's not in the article, but as it is now, the photo in the lead mentions the date, (Pound was only about 27, Coburn a few years older) and the caption gives credit to the photographer. I would like to see those details kept.
    • In my view, "Resting place" is an odd term. Regardless, Pound is buried in the cemetery on Isola di San Michele, for the sake of accuracy.
    • It would be difficult to keep the box from getting larger, fwiw. Any featured article requires some ongoing and sustained stewardship, (Outriggr's recent edits show how much this has degraded and it needs work), and having more discussions about which fields to keep or not to keep isn't terribly productive, fwiw. Victoriaearle (tk) 13:02, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for voicing these concerns, it really helps us understand the objections and ways to move forward.
  • It's common practice to propose a specific version of content so that editors may understand exactly what it is that they're supporting/opposing. This helps prevent an "include" !vote from being misconstrued to support whatever infobox the proposer decides to add. In the past it seems that many editors have objected to inclusion due to quality or content concerns. While these concerns are valid, the "include/exclude" format prevents us from moving forward and discussing ways to address those concerns. Of course editors may support "no infobox" in their "oppose" !votes. –dlthewave ☎ 16:58, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • There's no rush. I plan to keep this open for at least a week or longer until discussion dies down, to give less frequent editors time to respond. You will have plenty of time to give your input.
  • The proposed version doesn't include "resting place." In the event that there is consensus to add this, we could use the "person" infobox which includes a "burial place" option.
  • Discussion is part of maintaining Wikipedia and consensus can change in the future. We can't permanently prevent the infobox from growing, but we can make it clear that current consensus supports a particular version. –dlthewave ☎ 16:58, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not really a new editor, nor am I even new to writing featured content (and, by default, having it featured), so the concepts of how to discuss don't necessarily need to be explained to me. I edit infrequently; Ceoil edits only on weekends, others perhaps also infrequently. A week is about three weeks short of the standard RfC time of 30 days, so, in my view, that's quite short and does seem rushed. The most important part, though, is that we have not reached current consensus to have a box at all. I've struck the bit about "resting place", he did die in the hospital in Venice, so that is correct. But again, this underscores how willing you appear to quickly substitute "person" infobox to accommodate a comment made in error, and seems to support Outriggr's fear of expansion by attrition only. Victoriaearle (tk) 18:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The dates, that he died in Italy, and that he was a poet and literary critic are in the lead. The place of birth isn't, but it's misleading because he was there for only 18 months, so the area had no influence on him. Option 2 leaves out the image caption, arguably the most interesting thing about the image. If you click on the photographer's name, you see which other figures he photographed at that time, which gives you an idea of Pound's notability. And the idea that the box won't grow is unrealistic. It will become the focus of endless discussion about which fields to fill in and why not and consensus can change, and on and on. SarahSV (talk) 14:06, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Wholly agree about the caption, although I'd just use surname "Pound". Not sure I agree that any box would necessarily become "the focus of endless discussion". Certainly disagree about place of birth - a fact is a fact, and I suspect this would be no more "misleading" than the place of birth of very many other BLP subjects who soon "moved away" for whatever reason. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Apparently I wasn't clear about the caption. Outriggr is correct that for the box the image is over captioned. Either we have the image with the caption, which tells the smallest part of a larger story, or the box. Victoriaearle (tk) 18:22, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I've struck some of the info I wrote this morning, and there's a warning here in terms of why we provide citations, particularly throughout in featured articles. Pound hired Coburn himself; Pound had jaundice when Coburn showed up at his flat in 1913; Pound posed in his dressing gown. Pound liked the photograph enough to use it as a frontispiece when Lustra was published in 1917. The date is important because Pound was only 27; Coburn a few years older. The place is important, because how is the person who sees in the infobox that this poet born in Hailey, Idaho, was in London when the photo was taken? That he lived in London is very important. The discussion just about the caption is illustrative of a., the research and knowledge that goes into putting together an accurate box., and b., the amount of discussion that we can look forward to in the future as this tiny box gains new entries. Victoriaearle (tk) 20:13, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Right, again your comment illustrates the familiarity that's required in stewardship. I took a swing through the article earlier and was somewhat aghast at the images that have been added. As you know, images in a featured articles need to be free and I won't bore you with the amount of ink that's been spilled, or rather the number of bytes racked up, trying to get permission to use images, correspondence I've had with the Getty, the Beinecke Library, various other libraries, New Directions, Pound's publishers, etc. the 1963 image is not free and can't be used in the lead, nor should it be in this article. I have doubts about the image of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture, because it's a three dimensional object. We've had it in the article in the past and have had to remove it, as well as many other images. The images that were here when the article went through FAC are the images that passed FAC review, so really Nikkimaria should take a swing through and look at the licenses. Using the modernist photographer Coburn, who experimented on Cubism and Vorticism with Pound using mirrors for his photography, to illustrate the lead of a modernist poet makes sense. Using a non-free image taken in Venice in 1963, because we want a simple caption to fit a box, doesn't. Victoriaearle (tk) 21:37, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Oooh, it's like a minefield, isn't it. I see the sheet of toilet paper is also not free. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:56, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Yep, hence the extensive FUR. I'm not sure the Coburn image is free either because all of Pound's copyrights have been renewed, but I might have sent in an OTRS for it from New Directions, or it's recently become free if it's now visible on archive.org. Or maybe we need to write a FUR for it. As you know, each featured article may have some number of non-free images. The editors who worked on this article for a number of years secured licenses etc., consulted, and made decisions in regards to which non-free content to use. If this is to be presented as a binary "anti-infobox" vs. "pro-infobox" issue, which it is, then you'd be wrong. The decision not to include the box was made before those wars started and now is a prize to be won, or points to be scored, in those wars, and screw the complexities. Victoriaearle (tk) 22:06, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, which images did you want me to look at? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:59, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, Nikki, I'm about to go offline again for a few days and maybe it would be better to follow up separately in another thread, but we were discussing File:Ezra Pound 1963b.jpg as a possible lead image in the suggested new infobox. File:Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound 01 (brightened).jpg caught my eye too as one that might not be allowed and it looks like a few others have crept in too that might be questionable, but I can follow up on this another time, or you can remove anything that's not properly licensed or has been added since the FAC. Victoriaearle (tk) 01:34, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
  • This was a particularly difficult bio to write, and although the main editors are now broadly in agreement with the article's textual presentation of various biographical events, dates, friendships, motivations, stylistic characteristics and what have you, these agreements were the result of a few years intensive research and extensive debate. The resulting text is not perfect but hopefully to the benefit of the reader and approaching a degree of nuance found in reliable tertiary sources.
  • If the important aspects of Pound's life are to be reduced to metrics and predetermined fields in a box, with only single or a small group of words allowed as solutions, the shades of grey will be lost, and all is either black or white. We have seen the danger of this already with the seemingly trivial point of "Birthplace", which might at first appear as the simplest of fields to be filled.
  • Regardless of the stated commitment by the supporting editors to keep the infobox at a reduced level post this discussion, that is not a realistic, sustainable, approach, and not reflective of how wiki works in real life, either short term or more to the point, over many years. The full template is well known, and it is natural for helpful passer-bys to fill up a bunch based on quick google searches. I do this myself, but the issue here is that the literature on Pound wildy disagreed on a variety of aspects of his life and work, on areas that would be uncontentious in 99.9% of bios. And therein lies the road to edit war hell.
  • i.e. I see a slippery slope / wedge in the door issue looming here. The above mentioned edit wars will inevitably be founded on the basis that, well, in July 2018 there was consensus to add a box, but it is missing many features that have been slightly modified, "improved" or added since....so why can we have them.
  • Having participated in earlier narrowly focused "infoboxes are good" vs. "Infoboxes are bad" type discussions in archives that did not address substanstive issues does not give non incumbent editors suffrage or authority in claiming understanding of the key underlying complexities of this bio.[6] The same editor, whoes net contributiion then was "In fact, I don't understand why it was removed from previous versions of the article", made this claim right after making accusations of "OWN" (see the irony), and should reflect. Similarly, I don't get the feeling that many agitating here have read the page and are quite aware of how complex (thats one word) this bio is.
  • I apologise if I was otherwise curt above. I am certainly invested in maintaining article integrity, ie rather than watching entropy. It's a pity that it became apparent that Outriggr's compromise solution (which I was at first enthusiastic for) was unworkable given some entrenched views.
  • To say again, I am broadly in favour of infoboxes, and use them quite often, but there are instances where the reader is unserved by being offered reductive bulleted fields to summarise a particularly complex and difficult life. Ceoil (talk) 23:10, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
"[U]pon examination your arguments are weak, ill informed, and don't stack up. Your claims and diffs are misleading. Gi[v]en your very apparent lack of due diligence before wading in, have come to conclude that you lack both the depth of knowledge and any intellectual curiosity to have credibility in this discussion. You are just taking this around in circles, and rather than exploring the issues, are seeking to personalise and drag it all down." TuckerResearch (talk) 14:51, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil: The "slippery slope" issue is one of the reasons that I proposed a specific infobox instead of posing it as an "infobox or no infobox" question. This discussion makes it clear that we are talking about a certain version of the box, and any additional items would require further discussion and new consensus. –dlthewave ☎ 15:10, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
@Dlthewave:, yes and it is a good idea in principle, but I just can't see how it would be enforced. If there was a solution, I would support. As somebody who is agnostic about the temples, but feels strongly about the wider dangers of placing one here, the slippery slope I dread is one where the incremental addition of every additional field invites antagonistic editors to the discussion[s] one, including by new comer evangelists (of either persuasion) to whom the whole thing has to be rehashed. That way lies (for me and others) indicates a future of hight mental health professional consultancy fees and expensive antidepressant medication bills :) Ceoil (talk) 15:19, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose either a full or minimised infobox. I have been persuaded by Ceoil in what he wrote above this post of mine. If we let the infobox be a photo of Ezra Pound it will force the reader to read the complicated but informative article which took years to write by dedicated editors. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 00:34, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you CryMeAnOcean. Ceoil (talk) 00:46, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Again, by these arguments, every infobox on every person's page should be removed. How can you simplify T. S. Eliot or Jorge Luis Borges, or Dwight D. Eisenhower or Martin Luther King, etc., etc.? (And categories at the bottom of all articles should be removed too. Look at this one: "People from Hailey, Idaho" and "Writers from Idaho"! How shocking!) Ezra Pound can't be the only person on Wikipedia who is so complex and complicated that he can't have an infobox. (But, it's okay if we don't have an infobox on this Wiki article. That's how Wikipedia works.) TuckerResearch (talk) 15:12, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
With respect, you are missing the point, and not for the first time. I and others have specifically said that we generally support and use infoboxes, but this bio is fraught with difficulties, on top of which we dont believe a reduced box is tenable in the long term. Read above and see here for the specific difficulties. A you do not seem to realise the difference between a Pound box and one on Martin Luther King, (how random), I believe this is my second time in as many (cumulative) posts in calling you out on professing knowledge in areas which you clearly have none. Ceoil (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
So, your contention is, if someone doesn't agree with you, they are ignorant at best, stupid at worst. You know, but "with respect." TuckerResearch (talk) 14:33, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
No, I am saying that upon examination your arguments are weak, ill informed, and don't stack up. Your claims and diffs are misleading. Gien your very apparent lack of due diligence before wading in, have come to conclude that you lack both the depth of knowledge and any intellectual curiosity to have credibility in this discussion. You are just taking this around in circles, and rather than exploring the issues, are seeking to personalise and drag it all down. Ceoil (talk) 14:43, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
So, now you are saying we must clear our Wikipedia and Pound credentials with YOU before we deign to offer any edits to this page? Sounds like what you are saying. Please refer again to the comments of a previous editor on this talkpage about elitism and paternalism. All hail Ceoil, Duce of the Pound Page! TuckerResearch (talk) 14:47, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ceoil: I don't see how the discussion you linked is relevant, have you read my response to the IP who also linked it? That proposal was for a much larger infobox and the "birthplace" field is the only part of the comment that would apply here. –dlthewave ☎ 15:19, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
That comment is in response to a proposal for a much longer infobox, and most of the points concern items such as spouse, natoinality, alma mater, 1963 photo, etc. wich do not appear in the currently proposed version. In fact "place of birth" is the only part of the comment that could conceivably be applied to this discussion. –dlthewave ☎ 15:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
There is a lot of WP:BLUDGEONing going on, mostly from you Dlthewave, but others too. It would be better if there were a lot less of this going on. – 213.205.194.163 (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. The arguments against the infobox are so elitist and paternalistic. How do you know which facts are going to mislead people? Who made you the thought police, protecting the great unwashed against facts? And the whole mythologizing of Pound that he was too complex for an infobox is snobbish nonsense – he was a man who was born in a place and died in a place and did things in his life, just like everyone else. If anyone wants the shades of grey they can read the article. A person is not diminished by the bare facts of their lives. So let’s not be elitist or paternalistic and trust that people can think for themselves. Epinoia (talk) 22:48, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Neutral. I like the box Outriggr proposes and expected to support but some of the comments in the past few days concern me. Suggesting infobox person, not part of the initial proposal, and suggesting that a free image be swapped for a non-free one aren't encouraging. And, keeping the context in the image caption would be nice.
    We should adhere to FoF 2 of the original 2013 case. I'm not convinced consensus exists to add a box, let alone which fields should be added. But the comment directly above is indicative of many such over the years and generally they're soul-destroying; these types of comments speak to FoF 6 in the 20018 case.
    Today, I took a look at the article history; apparently I removed the box in 2010. I don't remember an edit I made eight years ago, but do remember discussion about the box somewhere. I must have believed agreement existed, but searching for eight year old discussions isn't a good use of volunteer time.
    The various discussions in the past 8 years have either ended in no consensus or a consensus against the box, but in the end the push to have a box feels like a point scoring exercise that won't end until one is in place (or rather, won). It's exhausting, disruptive, eats into the small amount of time that could be spent working on the project in a more collegial and constructive manner (i.,e building content) so, I'm neutral. Whatever happens, happens.
    I reject the OWN argument, if it were true every edit to the article would be scrutinized and reverted, but that's not a pattern on this article. The only pattern is that infobox discussions are opened periodically, and editors pick up pitchforks, which again, isn't productive.
    Huge apologies it this comes across as emotional - I'm tired, and have had enough. Victoriaearle (tk) 20:15, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per Sarah, Ceoil, and per the comments I've made above. Neutral is a nice stance to take but giving that one of the discussants has been reported to AE, it's obvious that a very clear cut consensus has to be achieved. My earlier offer to design a box, that was summarily and cavalierly shot down, is a course I might still be interested in, but as far as I can tell we can't achieve consensus for any type of box and that's the first place to start. The information included in the current small box proposal can all be found in the first sentence of the article lead. All it achieves is to wrap the information and the image in a box, thereby gaining a wedge on the page with a box, any box, with no clear guarantee that it won't grow. Moreover there's not been any statement from the discussants in terms of tending the article to keep the box small, thereby adding an additional burden of stewardship to the three primary editors. One final point: there's a concern with Pound, because a lot of us who work this page think of him as poet or a modernist or a literary critic, but we can't forget, ever, that he was an antisemite and the flavor of his writings and beliefs can always be resurrected. I would be very concerned to see him glorified. It occurs to me that this article probably falls into American Politics discretionary sanction territory. Victoriaearle (tk) 21:12, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
What? "summarily and cavalierly shot down"??? Are you joking?? Nobody was even that fussed. You claimed multiple edit conflicts - "oh! the sky is falling!!" Then you went off ill. Even Gerda wanted you to produce one. Something about building bridges or whatnot? It just never appeared. 86.187.162.97 (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
This is all a big bait, but whatever. [7], [8], [9]. And yeah, I get that showing weakness here is always fatal. Victoriaearle (tk) 21:38, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Victoriaearle - I am sorry if you found my comment "soul-destroying" - I have found you to be intelligent, thoughtful and caring and I think we are very fortunate to have your balanced input on this page. Perhaps Wikipedia needs to take a stand on infoboxes and either make them part of all bio pages or ban them altogether as they seem to be a contentious issue on other pages besides this one. Epinoia (talk) 22:48, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Epinoia, (1) You have 434 edits to date, yet seem to know (a) the workings of arbcom (b) the vagueness of its rulings to date (c) the proposed choices presented to them over the years. (2) The wording and tone of your throw the toys out of the pram "either make them part of all bio pages or ban them altogether" approach is very familiar to me from, concidently new accounts of similar history and tenure who agitate on this topic. Funny how you showed up after the CryMeaRiver account apparently conceded (3) Words have meaning and consequence "so elitist and paternalistic. How do you know which facts are going to mislead people? Who made you the thought police" vs. "I have found you to be intelligent, thoughtful and caring". You cannot have it both ways. Please. Ceoil (talk) 14:35, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Epinoia! Don't have a different opinion than Ceoil! Otherwise you are "professing knowledge in areas which you clearly have none"! TuckerResearch (talk) 14:41, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil - I never said or intimated that Victoriaearle was elitist or paternalistic - I have great admiration for and appreciation of her and her hard work on this page - Epinoia (talk) 17:45, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil - I should point out that my 434 edits do not really do justice to the nuances and grey areas of my knowledge and expertise - also, it is interesting that your first response is an ad hominem attack in an attempt to publicly humiliate me and belittle me for my supposed lack of experience and knowledge - I never disrespected you personally - I will leave you to decide if this is the approach of a elitist snob or not - and if you are really out to belittle me you have to do better than that, it's kinda lame - Epinoia (talk) 19:47, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Epinoia, I didn't come down from the sky yesterday, so don't treat me like a fool. Re "I never disrespected" you: How in the name of the lord can you explain this post so: "The arguments against the infobox are so elitist and paternalistic. How do you know which facts are going to mislead people? Who made you the thought police, protecting the great unwashed against facts? And the whole mythologizing of Pound that he was too complex for an infobox is snobbish nonsense".[10] You seem rather the first mover in the "Publicly humiliate and belittle" game, although you have begridegingly half apologised twice now. You can't have it both ways. Ceoil (talk) 20:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- I meant "you" in the general sense of everyone who proposed such arguments, not you personally - and I do find the arguments elitist and patronizing - but that's the arguments, not you personally - Epinoia (talk) 20:16, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
No offence, but that strikes me as rather irresponsible, and again wanting your cake (the incumbents are elitists and should be shamed) and eating it (but Im aw shucks lovely who would never say a bad word against nobody). If you are going to disparage, at least have the courage to stand over it. Ceoil (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
"No offence" - If you are going to say something offensive and insulting, at least have the courage to stand over it. Epinoia (talk) 20:55, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Ok so; your wavering indicates a lack of both conviction and character. If you are going to try and humiliate people, at least admit to it afterwards. I mean, we can all see your words...that you *just wrote*. Ceoil (talk) 21:57, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Support: I'm probably gonna regret getting involved in this but, what the hell. I had never read the article prior to reading these discussions, I'm still not entirely versed in its messy history, and I only became aware of this discussion in the first place because I happened to be in contact with Victoriaearle about a completely unrelated topic when she started receiving messages about this, which piqued my interest. I'll be honest, I shook my head more than once when reading this thing. I don't understand why such protracted and heated arguments are necessary for something so uncontroversial?
    Where was Ezra Pound born? Article states his Birthplace as Hailey, Idaho. (note: the source used on the article does not state "Idaho Territory"; if true, this needs its own source or can be removed as original research.) Both the article and source cited confirms he Died on 1 November 1972 of an intestinal blockage at the Civil Hospital of Venice. The lead describes his Occupation as "poet and critic". These are all stated facts which can be included on an infobox. Arguments about "But what will people add to the infobox in future?" are moot; focus on the actual proposal as stated above. None of the opposition votes above offer a compelling argument on why this article should deviate away from Wikipedia's stated goal of being clear and accessible to all users. Homeostasis07 (talk) 22:57, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • RE Idaho vs. Idaho Territory, it's in Stock, not Moody, and the refs got shoved around during the FAC. But whatever, Idaho didn't become a state until 1890, Pound was born in Hailey in 1885. You're now the second editor to comment who has been involved in a FAC I opposed in the past year or so. The knives are out. Victoriaearle (tk) 23:26, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
I've explained above Victoria how I came into contact with this discussion. Feel free to fix the Idaho reference, in that case. BTW, here I was under the impression that we just wrapped up a pleasant, cordial, collaborative discussion. No knives involved. Homeostasis07 (talk) 23:59, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
It was this and then your comment that followed. For some odd reason my library got rid of most of their books and no longer carry Stock so I'll have to order. I'm beyond exhausted to trawl through the history to find the version where it's sourced to Stock, so the fixing will have to wait, but it is a good catch. That said, this is a lot to deal with all at once. It's what comes with stewardship, but being a steward is exhausting. Victoriaearle (tk) 00:15, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, Victoria. I hadn't seen that IP edit until you pointed it out here (started reading this entire page several hours ago – in between my own projects and looking up "solipsistic", among other things – so didn't notice that edit). I noticed Gerda's bridge building thing on your talk, but didn't really understand any of it (at the time; I do now). BTW, I'll try and find a Pound-specific source for Idaho Territory in the next few days. Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

@Homeostasis07 What were you thinking to get involved in this with no past history on this page? Ceoil is going to call you a sleeper cell or a sockpuppet. lol CryMeAnOcean (talk) 23:06, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Damnn it CryMeAnOcean, you beat me to it. Russians under the beds!! But anyway, presumably you know why, sockpuppet.
Come on, Ceoil. Calling people a sockpuppet or sleeper cell or anything else insulting is not AGF - assume good faith guidelines. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 23:39, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
But note how newcomers are again now, aggressively debating the addition of specific fields, one by one, as if all the discussion above never happened Dlthewave what did you expect with your non policed reduced infobox? Oh wait, I already know the answer. Ceoil (talk) 23:25, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Feel free to take a breather, Ceoil. Your attitude and interactions with users who are genuinely trying to take part in this discussion leaves much to be desired, merited by previous "vandalism" or not. Homeostasis07 (talk) 23:59, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Crymeariver. The sleeper cell thing was obviously a joke, and an attempt to alleviate tension. It's actually you that derailed the conversation away from substance and with the inflammatory remarks after Homeostasis07's comments, which were on point and thus to be welcomed, although this later "vandalism" comment I dont get. Wot? Ceoil (talk) 00:04, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Ceoil. Yes I understood you were joking here in this section even though you edited your post to call me a sockpuppet again. I am referring to your rude accusation of calling people a sockpuppet and sleeper cell previously in the section called Infobox? which was closed and nobody should edit. You can refer back to that accusation above. CryMeAnOcean (talk) 00:24, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Vandalism comment was in reference to the fact that people have been arguing over whether to include an infobox on this article for several years, and that there's obviously been an issue with "sockpuppets" and IPs in the past; or at least that's my take-home from several of your responses here. Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:19, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
So it had no basis, and was a vague badly aimed impression in other words. Rigght. Ceoil (talk) 00:34, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
In the eight years since I removed the box this is really only the third such "discussion" and the second really nasty one. But yeah, people parachute in and try to add a box periodically and get everyone riled up. If there hadn't been mass canvassing this time it might have died right down. Canvassing is never helpful. Victoriaearle (tk) 00:23, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Which is why I suggested an RfC to get genuine consensus on this once and for all; a consensus which would (predominantly) be based on the opinions of uninvolved editors. I don't think Ceoil would be up for that, taking into account his "newcomers are again now, aggressively debating the addition of specific fields, one by one" comment, directed at yours truly. I genuinely don't understand why stating simple facts could be controversial. Alas... what did I say about regret? Homeostasis07 (talk) 00:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
We need to close this now and people need to take a look at the article history. I need to go offline. I would be opposed to an RfC, particularly one that doesn't allow primary contributors to participate. Victoriaearle (tk) 00:53, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Ditto (about going offline). But I didn't mean to say that regular/primary contributors wouldn't participate at a future RfC, just that they'd be one piece of the puzzle. Hopefully you'd have 20-30 other users making informed decisions along with them (first thing's first: protect the page so only extended-confirmed users can contribute. If people wanna contribute, they can do so through their accounts, not hurl insults via IPs.). But it was only a suggestion. Homeostasis07 (talk) 01:06, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

At everyone: this article is about an antisemite convicted of treason against the US. I'm not opposed to a box per se, but it's important to get it right. We can't glorify him as a poet only, from Idaho no less. Either we have no box, or a complete box. Two weeks or so ago I tried to pitch a complete box and saying it again. But right now, someone needs to step in, stop the discussion and allow a decent amount of breathing time before even more fuel is added to the fire. The combination of inboxes and American politics since 1930s is a powder keg. The reason there's no box, is that this is no about a person who was much more than a mere poet and we have an obligation to the project to be careful about what goes out to google. Seriously. Victoriaearle (tk) 01:57, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Precisely. If we cant agree on birth place, what hope do we have with one or two words summaries of his anti-semitism, active support of fascist regimes and those degrees of treason. It does seem people have not read lead, not to mind the article. Ceoil (talk) 02:20, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of my eyes rolling yet again, because I have no idea what the basis of this argument is supposed to relate to: if someone is described as an antisemite convicted of treason (an insult/description, and a fact/criminal conviction, respectively, but none of them professions as far as I'm aware), then that person can't have their primary occupation shown? I'm going to reiterate, this definitely needs fresh eyes (an RfC). Arguments on both sides are loaded with insinuations, but nobody has the bottle to directly come out and say what they mean.
You're now objecting to a short infobox because it would exclude the more controversial details of his life, but you don't want an infobox at all if it does include those controversial details, because they're too complex for an infobox? Is this really the self-contradicting argument I've gotten myself involved? Add a Criminal convictions field, then. Jeez. *exasperated sigh* Listen... have fun arguing amongst yourselves over and over again about an infobox for the next several years. I'm gonna go back to my pop music and video game articles, because this is all too childish, even for me. Homeostasis07 (talk) 18:10, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It is clear to me now that a consensus can never be reached on what should go into an infobox for this article. Therefore, we should have no infobox. There are very good, solid reasons on why this consensus can not be reached. An extremely short info box just summarizes the first line of the lede, so while the content is uncontroversial it is also useless. Given his short stay in idaho, his birthplace is meaningless in understanding his life. A long infobox would have to include not just his literary achievements, but his other "accomplishments" as well. Given the complexities of Pounds life, it is astonishing that this article has achieved wp:fac status through consensus and cooperation of multiple editors. Consensus building efforts would be better spent making the article even better.
I would like to add this discussion has been very useful to me. Previous discussions have touched on many of the same points, but this discussion has been structured and thorough. I thank the veteren editors who have highlighted these points, both pro and con. I think this discussion will be helpful to any "new" editor of this article who happens to stumble along and wonder why there is no infobox, so I do believe the discussion was not in vain. Work permit (talk) 02:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per reading much of the discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:36, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Revisit: Let’s return to first principles. What is an infobox? An infobox “represents a summary of information about the subject of an article.” What is a summary? Webster: “A brief statement or account of the main points”; Oxford: “covering the main points succinctly”. So an infobox is to state the main points of a biography briefly and succinctly.
There are good examples of infoboxes on the pages of Gertrude Stein and T.S. Eliot. There isn’t one for James Joyce (I don’t know why, I haven’t been following that page.)
One point of contention seems to be that, although he was born in Hailey, Idaho Territory, he was raised in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. This can be addressed by a line in the infobox:
Born: Hailey, Idaho Territory, USA
Raised: Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, USA
Another issue seems to be his anti-Semitism. I believe that his influence as an anti-Semite is negligible while his influence as poet, essayist and literary critic is immense. Therefore, to present only the salient facts, we could list his occupation as poet, essayist and literary critic and leave the anti-Semitism, treason charges, etc. out of the infobox. The issues are well covered in the article so it’s not as if anyone is trying to hide or deny the importance of the information, it’s just not what made him influential. The Gertrude Stein infobox does not mention her time working for the Vichy Government.
Another issue is Pound’s citizenship. It is unclear if was ever an Italian citizen. Nationality could be omitted from the infobox, or listed as “American (and possibly Italian).”
All the other fields seem to be fairly straightforward: alma mater, degrees, literary movement, notable works, wife, partner, children.
The T.S. Eliot infobox is considerably longer than the Gertrude Stein infobox. My recommendation would be to include as many salient facts as possible in the Ezra Pound infobox, similar to the T.S. Eliot box, to prevent later editors adding to a truncated infobox and starting yet more contention. (ps: I'm not a sockpuppet.) Epinoia (talk) 21:18, 30 July 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.

I'm done...

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.

I'm going to retire from commenting on this talkpage about the infobox (for now). I hope everyone can see User:Ceoil's haughty and rude comments above. (And, admittedly, my snarky and rude comebacks.) He has accused one user of sockpuppetry, he has accused me of lacking knowledge, and he has basically said we must clear all edits with him. If you look at Talk:Ezra Pound/Archive 2, he once said I don't have a "clue" about Pound, so my opinion on the infobox should be discounted. This behavior is off-putting and just sad. Ceoil, you can have your Ezra Pound page, I shan't expend my time and brain on it anymore. Like I said above, I'd like to see an infobox on this article, but if not, no skin off my nose. Peace. TuckerResearch (talk) 15:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Your enlightening and carefully thought opinions on how to best serve readers with the complex genesis of early modernism, and its aftermath during and after the world wars will be sorely missed. Ceoil (talk) 17:20, 29 July 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.

Motion to close

I think we need either a respected wiki elder or trusted admin to judge consensus and close (either way fine by me at this stage), as prolonging is clearly not going to throw either new arguments nor further light, and extension seems to be angled towards baiting and blocks. Ceoil (talk) 15:03, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Oppose close at this time Although there may be no new arguments, there may be new !votes. As Victoriaearle pointed out, we should not be in a rush to close this, as some editors may not have had a chance to contribute. –dlthewave ☎ 15:13, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
    That's fine, but are we advancing towards a solution or is there further canvassing/ signalling/ sock incarnations to be done.[11][12] Perhalps Gerda will reappear. There is the proposition of a reduced infobox, that has traction, but no commitment as to how it might be maintained in practical terms. Specifically, I'm asking you Dlthewave, as now the main "adult in the room" proposer. I do not want this to fizzle out inconclusively and have to face another traumatic rehash in 2023. In other news, this week I'm seeing increasing belligerence, baiting and nonsense, and more activity from sleeper accounts, which does not forebode for a pleasant future. We all have things to do, so, if you have thoughts as to how the proposal might work now and in years to come, now is the time to say. Ceoil (talk) 17:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
We don't have the ability to ensure that the consensus reached in this discussion is maintained indefinitely in the future. Regardless of the outcome, consensus may change. The best we can do is make it clear that current consensus supports a certain version and that any additions would be against current consensus. We would have grounds to revert any additions. In the short term, the 1-year moratorium on further discussion will cool things down a bit and prevent major changes during that time. –dlthewave ☎ 13:03, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Dlthewave others might stop by to comment, but most have wisely stayed away, and, as you know, this is a discussion, not a !vote. In terms of discussions, it's one we can do without, the only consensus that's emerging is "no consensus" and I stand with Ceoil in calling out to a wiki elder or trusted admin to take a look at this discussion, decide whether it's a good use of editor time, whether it requires moderation or whether it should be closed. If a similar discussion is moved to other articles where I've been the primary contributor (sorry if that sounds "ownish" but the truth is that someone usually researches, writes, polishes etc., to get these articles to FA level), then yes, it does appear strongly that there's something going on, and frankly it's not healthy. Victoriaearle (tk) 17:52, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
  • It's often said these are discussions, not votes, but this one really has had some good, respectful, and thoughtful talk that may improve the article. Let's let that continue, not rush to close. Jonathunder (talk) 12:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I support closing the above discussion as well. Somewhat amazingly, two editors have switched their support to oppose based on the arguments - wow! In a fairly small discussion (by number of editors), I would say that is telling. Outriggr (talk) 22:30, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Category:Critics of Judaism

@User:Ceoil: Please read [13]. Please read the article about the religion of Judaism. Imagine how criticism of that religion would look like. Read the articles in the Category:Critics of Judaism (only from A to R, because the letters S to Z are still full of antisemites).

And then explain to me

What exactly was Pound's "criticism of Judaism"?

  • "You let in the Jew and the Jew rotted your empire, and you yourselves out-jewed the Jew. Your allies in your victimized holdings are the bunyah, you stand for NOTHING but usury." How is this "criticism"?
  • "He refused to talk to psychiatrists with Jewish-sounding names, dismissed people he disliked as "Jews", and urged visitors to read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), a forgery claiming to represent a Jewish plan for world domination."

You call this criticism? How is it even related to the religion of Judaism? Even Pound himself called it antisemitism later: "But the worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-semitism".

All this is in the article. Try searching the article for "juda". The only hit is in the categories. If you can find any valid justification for your revert, name it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:52, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Hob Gadling; apologies, I wasn't trying to add Critics of Judaism, more to remove Antisemitism in the United States. Maybe we need more input and opinion for others here. Ceoil (talk) 14:27, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
To be clear he was Anti-Semitic in the United States and in Europe; dangerously so in Europe...Modernist (talk) 14:29, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Hob, in this case "critic of Judaism" seems to be a euphemism for "antisemite". The question is which of the antisemitism categories should be used, perhaps both "Antisemitism in the United States" and "Antisemitism in Europe"? –dlthewave ☎ 15:23, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

United States, I'd say, but per Modernist, both may be applicable. But can we let this open at least for a few days. Ceoil (talk) 16:27, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
I will now replace the Criticism category by Antisemitism, which seems to be uncontroversial as well as better than "criticism". I let you folks decide about breaking it down further but I suggest Category:Antisemitism in the United States, Category:Antisemitism in France and Category:Antisemitism in Italy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 00:28, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
Oh right. I will refrain from sorting the categories alphabetically this time, since there is that much opposition to it. Bye. --Hob Gadling (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

"Nazi sympathizer"

I believe "fascist sympathizer" (or, better yet, simply "fascist") would be a better descriptor of Pound. Though he did support Hitler, his involvement with the Axis was almost entirely with Mussolini: Pound engaged heavily with fascist propaganda, but it was largely for Italy and not Nazi Germany. Moreover, the citation linked to the sentence, presumably for this claim alone, doesn't anywhere call him a "Nazi sympathizer" (at best it categorizes him with other "Nazi collaborators"). Is there any rationale for tying him directly to Nazism as opposed to general Axial fascism? anthologetes (talk • contribs) 13:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

This actually seems to be a quite recent change. I agree that it is an important thing to mention in the first paragraph—Pound's involvement with Mussolini has had an enormous impact on this reception—but, as above, I disagree with the wording. Given the recency of the change I will modify it shortly if there are no objections. anthologetes (talk • contribs) 14:52, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Wadsworth family connection

I believe the claim that Mr. Pound was descended from the William Wadsworth branch of the family to be incorrect. Information on geni.com indicates he was descended from the Christopher Wadsworth branch. Although Christopher and William were once thought to be brothers, recent DNA analysis has indicated that there is no relation between these two large colonial families. Cstrong01 (talk) 21:38, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Cstrong01, do you have a reliable source confirming this? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:37, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Revisiting the Infobox issue

Greetings. This morning, while looking over this article, I noticed it lacked an infobox. This seemed astonishing to me, given that most major figures on Wikipedia have infoboxes. I worked diligently to create one, and immediately after submitting my revisions, they were removed by a bot. A frequent editor of this page clued me in to the fact that this debate over infoboxes has occurred several times before, and suggested I check into the archived discussions. Having done so, I simply fail to understand the logic behind the opposition. Much of the most recent debate on the matter consists of personal attacks (see WP:BITE) and meaningless vague pronouncements about how "Pound had a complex life, therefore to give him an infobox would be reductive." This is, to me, laughable -- many people (most people, in fact) have complex lives, yet they still have infoboxes.

The information contained in an infobox -- bare facts about the individual in question -- is not debatable: dates and places of birth and death, spouses and partners, children, profession. While scholars may quibble over the nature of Pound's anti-Semitism and the extent to which it clouds our reading of his work, no interpretation of Pound's life can call into question the following: The man was a poet, a translator, and an editor who was born in Hailey, Idaho in 1885 and who died in 1972 in Venice. He was married to Dorothy Shakespear, had an affair with Olga Rudge, and from these relationships produced two children, Omar and Mary. There can be no debate about these facts, and as to the quibble over Pound being raised elsewhere, I'm not sure this matters -- place of birth does not imply the place in which one is raised. If this is such a problem, just add a second line to specify in the infobox that Pound was raised elsewhere.

A common point of contention seems to be that an infobox does not reckon with Pound's anti-Semitism. So what? This issue is taken up in the lede. Articles on any number of fascist military and political leaders from this period do not mention, in their infoboxes, that they were anti-Semites. Neither does the infobox for Henry Adams note his anti-Semitism, nor that of Philip Larkin.

For these reasons, I am proposing that the infobox issue be revisited. Infoboxes improve the readability of an article, allowing visitors to quickly gather particular information about dates and relationships that would otherwise be buried deep in an article. --RealDoctorBrane (talk) 20:19, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Support – I support having an infobox for this article – cheers – Epinoia (talk) 20:22, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • What other articles may or may not do is neither here nor there - discussions need to be based on the specific context of the article, and I don't think this edit addresses the previous issues discussed. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. It's annoying to have a long biographic article with no infobox and have to read through walls of text to extract basic information. I do think there is some abuse of "crimes against PC" in infoboxes so that anyone with ties to racism, fascism, anti-semitism, anti-gay, etc is likely to end up with that in the box (and people favored by the left are likely to have derogatory things kept out of their infoboxes). But this is at most a reason for talk page discussion of whether to list particular negative information about Pound in the box, not a reason to not have an infobox at all. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 03:40, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
    Use Google. It's simple. CassiantoTalk 07:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

My recent edits

4 September

I made a few changes, as follows:

  • I removed fascist sympathizer from the first sentence, which looked odd nestled among the poetry.
  • I restored some of the FA lead, including "clarity, precision and economy of language"; "He was responsible for the 1915 publication of Eliot's" etc; and the quote from Hemingway (which I know I've gone back and forth on). In any event, "Angered by the carnage" should begin the third lead paragraph and not be subsumed into the second one, because it's about a different topic and gets lost.
  • "lost faith in England", rather than Great Britain.
  • I've added the serial comma in a few places, because sometimes the article uses it, sometimes not. I vaguely recall that we decided to use it.
  • I increased image sizes, mostly upright to upright=0.9.
  • In the Imagism section, I moved some text higher to avoid two blockquotes being so close.
  • I turned some long refs into short ones (note to self: check the Nadel 2004 page number), and added some sources. I also added the title to a citation and I think some page numbers.
  • I slightly changed the way we summarize Wendy Stallard Flory's view in "Legacy".
  • I added Michael Reck's article in Evergreen Review as the source of the 1967 meeting in which Pound supposedly repudiated his antisemitism, and some text from Reck to "Italy (1958–1972) and death" and "Legacy".
  • I restored File:EzraPound Pavannes.JPG, currently in "World War I, disillusionment", which meant removing Eliot.
  • I added two external images in boxes: the Wyndham Lewis one of Pound reclining in 1939, in "Turn to fascism, World War II", and one of Richard Avedon's photographs from 1958 in "Italy (1958–1972) and death".

Suggestions: I think we ought to change the way the article ends, and not give Pound—or more accurately Pound via Michael Reck—the last word on his antisemitism, particularly as Reck points out that he was saying this to Ginsberg (in the meeting in 1967), who he knew was Jewish.

We also ought to change throughout, including in the lead, that he was engaged in "criticism" of the Jews. It wasn't criticism. In the month that the mass gassing of Jews began in Auschwitz, March 1942, Pound was broadcasting: "And the big Jew has rotted EVERY nation he has wormed into. A millstone. ... It were better you were infected with typhus."

Also "he was paid by the Italian government to make hundreds of radio broadcasts criticizing the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Jews" makes it sound as though the Italian government sought him out to do this. He persuaded them to let him do it. We should make that clear.

To start with, I would like to move the Reck antisemitism quote back into the 1960s (section: "Italy (1958–1972) and death"), where Reck and others talk about Pound being depressed. I'll wait a bit in case there are objections. SarahSV (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Pound was one of a tiny number of citizens of Allied countries who did radio broadcasts for the Axis, and the only one who was famous in his own right before doing so. He did it for years and it ruined his life after the war. This is extremely notable among the facts about Pound and belongs in the first sentence as "fascist collaborator" (not "sympathizer"). 73.89.25.252 (talk) 21:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
I don't disagree, but it seemed odd as written, because we raise it then make no further mention of it until the third paragraph. This is your version. "Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ... was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist collaborator. His contribution to poetry began with ..." Perhaps if it's expanded a little, it will flow better. SarahSV (talk) 22:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps it should be rewritten and then included in the lead. He was a nazi collaborator and it should be stated upfront...Modernist (talk) 22:04, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
Does this work? SarahSV (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
It works, but have changed " and was" to "who became". Ceoil (talk) 23:00, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
It looks good to me: "Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ... was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, who became a fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920), and the unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos (1917–1969)." SarahSV (talk) 23:02, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
Among other improvements, today's changes give a lead sentence that subtlety delineates between the man and his work. This makes the current second (major poet) and third (Nazi propaganda/collaborator) paragraphs less jarring than they might otherwise be. Ceoil (talk) 23:19, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Stock

According to Swift, The Bughouse, 2017 (pp. 199–200), one of our article's sources, Noel Stock (1929–2014), was the editor of the New Times of Melbourne, which published "the most virulent" of Pound's articles in the late 1950s. Swift writes: "These quasi-anonymous journalistic pieces are often ugly, and ugliest, perhaps, for what they never quite say, but only imply. Pound never calls for violence, but preaches brutality in code."

The articles include antisemitic and anti-desegregation views: "The jew [note the lower case] managed sob-stuff in the jew-run agitations against 'race prejudice'." What America needs, Pound wrote, is "race pride".

According to The Blade, Stock, who had no degrees, became a visiting professor at the University of Toledo in 1969, apparently on the strength of his work on Pound, and a professor of English in 1971.

Stock wrote at least two books about Pound, and translated works with him. He was the editor of Ezra Pound Perspectives (1965). I may have misunderstood what Swift is saying about Stock being the editor of the newspaper; Swift writes (p. 200): "Noel Stock, who edited a newspaper called New Times in Melbourne, Australia, in which Pound published the most virulent of his pieces ...". But for now, I've removed Stock as a source, except for the edited volume. It wouldn't be appropriate to use the editor of the antisemitic pieces as an independent secondary source. In addition to that concern, the books are from 1964 and 1970 and should be updated anyway. They seem to have followed Pound's account of himself very closely. SarahSV (talk) 19:05, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Stock acknowledges this in his The Life of Ezra Pound (xiii, 442–443). It seems he wasn't the editor of the newspaper but worked for it. Pound would send him the articles using various names, and Stock would arrange for their publication. The editor apparently didn't realize it was all Pound. SarahSV (talk) 02:41, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

9 September

I've continued with the maintenance/update, as follows:

  • I've removed the quotes from the lead again (I'm really sorry for the back and forth). Given the reading I've been doing, it all felt too gushing.
  • I'm doing a lot of text-source verification, and adjusting text/page numbers as appropriate.
  • A few subheadings have been added to keep the sections shorter.
  • Created a separate section for The New Age, as Tim Redman identifies this as important. Expanded it a little.
  • Ripostes cover moved higher, and Cathay cover/title page (boring looking) removed.
  • Quote box from Cathay added, and titles of poems added to quote boxes.
  • Added photographs of Amy Lowell and Ernest Hemingway.
  • More details added about the number of articles he wrote for this or that journal (e.g. search for "He wrote 180 articles from 1932".
  • Added more about the antisemitism (search for "with names he deemed Jewish"), some from Anthony Julius (search for "overt, deep and practical").
  • More detail about the diagnosis (search for "Personality trait disturbance").
  • More about Kasper (search for "had written in a term paper").
  • Added a section on the New Times articles (search for "at least 80 unsigned").
  • Stock now used as a primary source for some of the New Times information; Swift as secondary source.
  • I've moved the antisemitism quote that ended the article (the "suburban prejudice") into its own section about the meeting in Venice (search for "Meeting with Ginsberg, Reck, and Russell"), so we'll need something else with which to end the legacy section.

That's all for now. SarahSV (talk) 03:30, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Pension payments

Ceoil, you changed that his father's pension had stopped arriving to "the pension income owed to his father ... had ended". Can you say which source you used and what it said? SarahSV (talk) 06:43, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

That was just wording changes; I'm not working off sources atm; will change back momentarily but not sure of the difference? Ceoil (talk) 07:03, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Ok get it now. Reverted...good call. Ceoil (talk) 07:07, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
(ec) Your edit said that the pension payments were over, had ended. The sources (the ones I've seen) say only that the payments had stopped arriving. This is before the father died. SarahSV (talk) 07:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Yes I realise now, from a quick look at Marsh, 2013, p. 153. Ceoil (talk) 07:16, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Moody p 4

Hi Victoria, re: your note, Moody says: "Thaddeus was behind this appointment, having acquired claims near Hailey and hoping Homer could protect his interests" (p. 4). SarahSV (talk) 21:00, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok thanks. I read that as Thaddeus was supportive, not that he arranged the job. I did know he had interests in the Wood River Valley, so, yes, "behind" probably means the latter.

I see you've done a ton of work here. Unfortunately I can't help but I thought I should try to read some of it. It's never been an easy article to work on. It has deteriorated to it's good to see it being polished. Thanks for all the work. Victoria (tk) 21:05, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

You could be right about "behind" meaning supportive. I took it to mean he secured his son the job because he was a powerful figure hoping his son would protect his (the father's) interests. I'll be focusing now on building a subpage about the broadcasts so that we can summarize it here and get the length down a little. But it's like wrestling with a school of octopuses. I am flagging. SarahSV (talk) 21:12, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
The problem with the length is that I always wanted to explain that Thaddeus owned silver mines in the Wood River valley but if we put in every little detail the article gets too long. It's never been easy. A sub-page for the radio broadcasts is a good idea. I'll try to stop back again in a few days. Victoria (tk) 21:23, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
I keep coming across fabulous details about his life in London that need to go in, but we just can't include everything. Ideally we'd have subpages on everything: Pound in London, Pound in Paris, etc. Anyway, the broadcasts subpage is quite hard to write, because I don't yet know how to describe the background of his embrace of fascism/antisemitism, so I have more thinking and reading to do. But I hope it won't be long. SarahSV (talk) 21:48, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
The money details are important and maybe worth thinking about how to keep to keep them in. My sources are packed away, but from off the top of my head this happened: Thaddeus owned silver mines in the Wood River Valley region of Idaho Territory (or he owned stakes in mines); Horace went to Hailey when the Registrar's office opened (it was an important office because it kept track of all the mining profits in the region and was associated with the department of treasury); the effects of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act were profound causing the Panic of 1893 - this is an aside of sorts ... but in his early life Ezra was exposed to making of money, the actual making of coins, through his father's employment, and he was a young child during the depression of the 1890s. It would be interesting to know how that affected his later thinking re economics.
Splitting out the radio broadcasts is a good idea. I always felt that less than half the story was told in the effort to stick to summary style.
Yes, London. Lots of wonderful and quirky details in the London section. Idealistic young men and women and a terrible war that changed everything. Victoria (tk) 00:11, 28 September 2020 (UTC) P.s - there some stuff in User:Victoriaearle/Ezra Pound Sandbox that may or may not be helpful but thought I'd point it out. Victoria (tk) 23:12, 28 September 2020 (UTC)
Victoria, thanks, that's a useful list; good sources. I'll start going through it carefully tomorrow. SarahSV (talk) 02:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Remaining issues

With the exception of the first, these would ideally be covered in stand-alone articles:

  • The effect of his behaviour on his wife. She apparently became a thin and anxious person.
  • His attitude toward women generally; not sure what it would be called.
  • "Ezra Pound in St. Elizabeths"
    • His interest in the occult.
    • Ezuversity, although note that it began before St. Elizabeths (e.g. see Laughlin, Pound as Wuz).
  • "Ezra Pound's music"
  • "Ezra Pound and the troubadours"
  • "Ezra Pound's poetry"

I'll add more here as I think of them. SarahSV (talk) 22:28, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I think there should be a separate "Ezra Pound bibliography" page, too. (Eliot has one: T. S. Eliot bibliography.) TuckerResearch (talk) 15:59, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree, good idea. SarahSV (talk) 22:16, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
I doubt that his association with troubadours is enough to warrant an entire article, their influence would fit better in the main and the proposed music and poetry ones. I hate being the person who brings up issues but makes no active effort to solve them – as such I will try to draft a music Pound article in the upcoming weeks now that my schedule is freeing up. Aza24 (talk) 10:26, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Music

SlimVirgin, I see that you have been doing a lot of work with this article and it seems to be bringing a host of improvements. I wonder if perhaps Pound's musical contributions/efforts are somewhat ignored in the article? I only see a single mention of Le Testament de Villon, and no mention of his (rather famous) praise of (and influence from) troubadours. This Grove article sums this all up nicely. Obviously there's not need to add a whole section on these things but surely a two or three additional sentences would be beneficial? I'll leave this up to you as I do not know much about Pound myself. Aza24 (talk) 01:01, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Aza24, thank you for the kind words and the source. Ideally we'd have a separate article about Pound's music, but I'm afraid I'm not in a position to write one or even to write a few sentences. If I were to attempt the latter, I'd prefer to find a source independent of the usual Pound scholarship, because there is disagreement about the extent to which the scholarship has promoted Pound. (I should stress that I mean no disrespect to the scholar highlighted above; I'm speaking generally.) When it comes to his music, I would find it difficult to judge whether I was summarizing a neutral, or at least a more distanced, source unless it was obvious. SarahSV (talk) 04:05, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi Sarah and sorry to butt in. This version in the "Literary criticism and economic theory section" mentions Pound's study of troubadour poetry, sourced to Bacigalupo (1999). I trust the Cambridge Companion from which that was taken (if it's not there now). Certainly during my Pound studies in grad school there was an very strong emphasis on the troubadours - in fact an entire semester-long course devoted to it. It informed his poetry. I've not read the rewritten article, so it's best to take my opinion with a grain of salt. Also at some point I moved a lot of text to do with music into a separate page - can't remember what happened to that. Again sorry for butting in. Victoria (tk) 21:36, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
The best thing might be to write a separate article (even a brief one) about his music and the troubadours, then we could summarize it here in a few sentences. The most obvious place for it in this article would be where he meets Olga Rudge. Josh Epstein could be another good source; he has an article in The New Ezra Pound Studies (CUP 2020). SarahSV (talk) 07:15, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
Le Testament de Villon is a separate page, copied from this article ten or eleven years ago and probably written by Fillioch. It should have a single sentence in this article, escpecially as it's intertwined with when he met Olga. It's in this version, last para of the "Paris (1921-24)" section.
The troubadours shouldn't be conflated with his music. When he learned the Provencal language for his degree in Romance languages, I believe, he returned repeatedly to the poet troubadours and their themes, particularly in the cantos. The single sentence in style would do the job since we mention early on that he studied Provencal. For reasons of comprehensiveness a single summary style sentence would do the trick. I do have material in my sandbox for an expansion but it's been sitting there for more than a decade :) Victoria (tk) 17:30, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
FYI, the article Le Testament de Villon is a copyright violation taken from this, pages 3–5. It was added to Ezra Pound in February 2006 by an SPA. SarahSV (talk) 05:57, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I've restored/added this:

Pound worked with George Antheil to apply the concept of Vorticism to music (apparently to the embarrassment of Antheil),[1] and managed to write two operas, including Le Testament de Villon, which he started when he arrived in Paris.[2]
  1. ^ Carpenter (1988), 431–433
  2. ^ Carpenter (1988), 386

The issue was considerably more complex than that, but the above is perhaps better than nothing for now. I want to make sure we don't wander into hagiography, as some of the sources seem to. SarahSV (talk) 22:46, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Aza24 and Victoriaearle: How do we account for his having written two operas and music for violin with these descriptions of him? "Pound write an opera? Why, he doesn't know one note from another" (William Carlos Williams). And "Ezra couldn't even carry a tune" (also Williams). "Pound, who described himself in Who's Who as 'poet and composer', was unworried by his lack of knowledge of musical notation." More at https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/may/31/poetry.artsfeatures.

The sources say (if I've understood them correctly) that he didn't play an instrument, didn't know how to write musical notation, was tone deaf, and could not carry a note. The words of Le Testament de Villon are from François Villon and the music was written by Agnes Bedford. Carpenter describes it as "nearly tuneless". Are we misleading the readers by saying he wrote two operas? SarahSV (talk) 03:28, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

An explanation here, but it sounds so unlikely for someone who couldn't sing or hold a note. SarahSV (talk) 03:58, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

The addition you've made is perfect; it's not worth going beyond that. Do we confuse the reader? I was confused the first time I read about it, so yes, to an extent. But it's important to remember he was a modernist artist and tried various techniques. According to this chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound, the author writes that Pound understood the strong relationship between poetry and music. As an aside - Provençal is a lovely language - and he was a lyrical poet.
All that said - the opera was quite awful. The author of the chapter goes into detail about the opera what Pound attempted, but it's absolutely not germane in this article. He does mention that Pound played the bassoon (not well) and that we composed for Olga.
The author also explains that Pound knew modern musical notations, and medieval notations the troubadours used. Sorry for the long post and sorry again for butting in when I saw this on a rare day of stopping by. Victoria (tk) 22:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I had to remove it. So far as I can see, he didn't write operas, no matter how the sources describe his actions. They say things like: "His reach passes through the physical science of sound to offer many epiphanies." SarahSV (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't notice. I wouldn't have bothered to post. In the meantime, to prevent myself from butting in here, it's best I unwatch. Victoria (tk) 22:55, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
Re: his studies, it's worth bearing the following in mind when writing about Pound and language. After he had lived in Italy for about 20 years, the editor of Corriere della Sera wouldn't publish his work because he regarded Pound's Italian as "incomprehensible". Latin was his major at university, but years later his translations were so poor that a professor of Latin said: "If Mr. Pound were a professor of Latin, there would be nothing left for him but suicide." He "translated" from Chinese, knowing no Chinese (copying someone else's notes); one scholarly source said Pound used "a kind of clairvoyance". But we follow the sources, so we call it translating. I'm concerned that we're doing the same thing when we say he wrote operas. SarahSV (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
It is quite jarring to mention out of the blue that this famous poet composed an entire opera but not say anything further; I think the removed sentence addressed these things well and I would suggest it be added back. I would still object to the absence of mention to troubadour influence, if the style had effect on his poetry, this would certainly be notable as a unique influence. I mean, he called Arnaut Daniel the "greatest poet who had ever lived" after all... I think you're giving yourself unnecessary constraints trying to find a "source independent of the usual Pound scholarship", in fact, such a restriction may even be impossible, who is going to write about the famous music of a man known for poetry other than the "usual Pound scholarship"? :) To the point of his lack of music knowledge I don't see how that's particularly relevant, there are many composers whose notational (or instrumental) skills were weak or non-existent. In any case, such a detail would be better explained in the proposed music article below. Aza24 (talk) 10:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
Do you really know composers whose theory was non-existent, who couldn't (or could barely) play an instrument, who couldn't (or could barely) write music, who could not sing, who had no sense of rhythm, and who were tone deaf?
There is a problem with hagiography in some of the Pound sources, and it can be hard to tell when you're dealing with it except by looking outside Pound studies to compare perspectives. I found this NYT article by Richard Taruskin that says "calling them operas was as idiosyncratic as everything else about them". He dismisses everything except Villon, and ends by saying "The Villon opera, and it alone, constitutes Ezra Pound's slim sound claim to musical immortality," although elsewhere in the article he uses scare quotes around the Villon "opera".
I'm going to add a footnote based on this to the section about the Paris performance. I agree about adding something on the troubadours. SarahSV (talk) 15:12, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Infobox

How come this man doesnt have an infobox? - Joaquin89uy (talk) 07:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Because the article authors decided not to include one, per MOS:INFOBOXUSE. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:53, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Citation changes

This edit changes the reference system throughout, which goes against WP:CITEVAR and WP:FAOWN. Such a change needs to be discussed on the talk page and shouldn't be implemented without consensus. Grimes2, in the meantime, please revert the edit and bring the reasoning behind it to be discussed. Thanks, Victoria (tk) 18:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Mary?

Who is the "Mary" mentioned in his return to Italy? "Marcella Spann, ostensibly acting as his secretary. Disembarking at Genoa, the group arrived three days later ... to live with Mary"

If Mary is Marcella Spann, this should be stated! If she is not, "Mary" should have a surname. Eschatologicalguy (talk) 11:11, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Eschatologicalguy, have clarified that it was his daughter Mary de Rachewiltz. Ceoil (talk) 13:50, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Era Fascista

I removed the sentence "From around 1932 he began using a dating system that counted Benito Mussolini's March on Rome in October 1922 as year zero.[1]" -- as noted in the edit summary this Era Fascista was official in Italy at the time so him using it didn't seem to be that unusual to me. I could be wrong, though (having only surface knowledge of both Pound and Fascist Italy), so I'm leaving it here for reference. Arcorann (talk) 11:33, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Wilhelm (1994), 70–71
Yes, agree. Removed now. Victoria (tk) 20:18, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Infobox in article

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closing per WP:SNOW. No specific rationales for an infobox were given in the RfC, nor supplied when challenged, which suggests to me the RfC was more likely to be started in order to be disruptive than to improve the encyclopedia. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:20, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Should there be an infobox in the Ezra Pound article? KlayCax (talk) 05:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Previous discussions of this exist, and are probably worth skimming for what the rationales, pro and con, have been:
These discussions range from in-depth quasi-RfCs to dismissive WP:OWN-ish arguments, and from comparatively recent to too old to matter (because the earlier discussions pre-date WP's userbase coming to be >50% mobile users).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:47, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • I would loosely support the notion (despite previous arguments – consensus can change) as long it is kept quite simple like the one at Gertrude Stein, and does not include various parameters full of debatable or misleading over-simplifications; see previous dicussions above for some detailed analyses of problems that may arise. Just because a parameter exists and something could be put in it does not mean that it must. I lean this general-support way because mobile users in particular seem to find infoboxes helpful, and the community has shifted markedly over the last decade+ from treating infoboxes as dubious "maybe" features to a more-or-less standard part of an article, though not a required one. And various inherently problematic parameters have been removed, while others are now more narrowly constrained in their use by the documentation. I realize that including one at all will necessitate some additional watching for unhelpful changes to it, but so it goes. In short, I think the debate is different now, and while some early objections have merits they are not all pertinent any longer, nor is a decision of this sort set in stone forever just because people weren't keen on the idea 13 years ago.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While sports and politician bios can benefit from infoboxes, as a Signpost report notes: "Infoboxes may be particularly unsuited to liberal arts fields when they repeat information already available in the lead section of the article, are misleading or oversimplify the topic for the reader". I disagree with including an infobox in this article because, among other things: (1) the box would emphasize less important factoids, stripped of context and lacking nuance, whereas the excellent WP:LEAD section emphasizes and contextualizes the most important facts; and (2) as the information that would be in the box is already discussed in the article and is also seen in a Google Knowledge Graph, the box would be a redundant 3rd (or in some cases 4th) mention of these facts. -- Ssilvers (talk) 09:55, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Falling into the camp of "Infoboxes are standard but not a requirement" described by SMcCandlish, Support a conservative infobox. I would also like to point out that that Using an infobox also makes its data available to third party re-users (such as DBpedia) in a granular and machine readable format, which is becoming an exceedingly more common use case as the years pass. - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 14:38, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • KlayCax some notion of what would be included in the infobox and why it is needed is missing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
    I'm intentionally leaving it up for the RFC to decide. For now, the debate is whether there should be an infobox at all. KlayCax (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
    Oppose, no reason given and no explanation of any value added provided; per Victoriaearle's analysis, not helpful for this article, and trying to summarize the complexities outlined by Victoria into infobox parameters would be misleading the reader. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Support a conservative infobox - I think that infoboxes are particularly helpful for people who are browsing on mobiles, to give them a quick idea whether they want to read the article. Even relatively sparse ones are helpful to give a quick "tombstone" summary: who the person is, when they were active, what they're notable for. I agree with Ssilvers that expansive infoboxes are better suited to officeholders and sports figures, who have a lot more objective stats, than artists / writer / singers, but I don't think that means no infoboxes for these types; just a relatively short one. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 14:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's all in the first sentence. They are more often than not redundant in biographies. I find them useful in science articles, but that's about it. Graham Beards (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Graham Beards, who sums it up neatly in a few words. Less is more, people. ——Serial 16:16, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose for this article because the idiosyncratic nature of Pound's life that doesn't lend itself to the binary nature of infoboxes. To go through a couple of examples (and I believe I've written this up in earlier discussions):
    Birth = he was born in Hailey, Idaho before Idaho was state. But that's not where he was from or grew up. To say he was born in Idaho suggests he was a westerner but in fact he was an easterner. This is explained in the article. If we had an infobox the field would have to be born in Hailey, but from Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.
    Died = Venice. But he was in Venice after having been charged with treason (in Italy), imprisoned (in Italy), almost executed (in the US), sent to an asylum for 11 years (in the US), then, I believe as part of his release conditions left the US for the rest of his life.
    Spouse= Pound married Dorothy Shakespear but had a 50+ year relationship with Olga Rudge. He was with Rudge when he died, though Dorothy was still alive. There was some sort of kerfuffle between the two women regarding his burial in Venice. Rudge had a daughter with Pound; at least one major biographer details the timeline of Dorothy's only pregnacy - not going into detail here.
    Education: He started at University of Pennsylvania but for some reason transferred to Hamilton College (there was some issue with grades), receiving a Bachelor of Philosophy. He then returned to UPenn where he was essentially kicked out of the PhD program.
    Occupation = ??? As far those of us who worked on this article we realized he didn't really have an occupation. He wrote poetry; he was involved with the short-lived but important imagism movement; the same for vorticism; and so on. He worked as an editor for small magazines and journals and fostered young new writers - most notably Hemingway & Joyce. He broadcast anti-American propaganda during World War II, for which he is sometimes best known; he was captured in Italy and during his incarceration wrote some stanzas of the Pisan cantos on toilet paper whilst being kept in a cage in the sun. He won a literary award for the Pisan cantos - an award that no longer exists - which set off an uproar in the US. He was a traitor to his country.
    Notable works= very subjective and would need to lean heavily on sources. The short poem in In a Station of the Metro? The Cantos? His quite substantial work in translations?
    I'm out of time and need to be somewhere soon, so stopping now. Victoria (tk) 16:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
    All of these are easily soluble, mostly just by adding richer parameter content than usual: Born in Hailey, Idaho, but grew up in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Died in Venice; there's nothing complicated about this death place despite all the life-history rambling above. Partners: married Dorothy Shakespear; also had 50+ year relationshp with Olge Rudge. Education: BPh from Hamilton College; also attended University of Pennsylvania. Occupation: Imagist and vorticist poet; editor; propagandist. Awards: Include the Italian one (whether it exists today is irrelevant and it being controversial is a reason to include not exclude it). Notable works: This is always subjective (specifically WP:DUE and based on the work's notability level as best we can assess it) and would lean heavily on sources; when do we not lean heavily on sources? In short, all Victoriaearle's objections/issues are obviously surmountable problems in "arguments to avoid" terms (especially given that a parameter existing does not require that it be included, and consensus on a per-article basis determine which ones to include and what to put in them).
    Honestly, this infobox would not be any more difficult or confusing or otherwise problematic than the one for Jim Morrison, who was born in Florida but spent his entire adult life from 19 onward in Southern California and very strongly identified with it; died in Paris despite having no serious connection to the place; was married but had a long-term relationshp with another woman at the same time and was a bigamist if you count his second extra-legal, pagan wedding [though Patricia Kennealy isn't presently in the infobox for some reason, presumably a consensus against including her there]; attended multiple colleges and universities but got a degree from only one; was a singer, a songwriter, and a poet (published, not just an amateur one); and has lots of notable works that range from albums and concert films to poetry books and recordings, but which are not listed in a notable works parameter because such a parameter is not required and not always all that helpful to include. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:34, 7 December 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 03:53, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
    These proposed "resolutions", to the extent they address the problems noted, undermine some of the other support rationales, particularly around granular machine-readable data. In cases like this, it can't work both ways. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:39, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
    Then do some of them simpler, just as they are done at Jim Morrison and other articles. We surely have literally thousands of articles that just give a birth place and leave "but really grew up in" discussion for the article body (which is the only actual complication of this sort in what I suggested above; your "These proposed 'resolutions' .. undermine some of the other support rationales" is pluralized exaggeration).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:53, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Doing them "simpler" brings us back to the issues Victoria raised; the fact that other articles may have similar issues is a problem for them rather than a solution for here. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:00, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
    Right, putting simplified info in this proposed Infobox would be misleading to our readers. Unless they read at least the Lead section of the article, they will not understand the basics of this biography, let alone nuances. -- Ssilvers (talk) 09:50, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Victoria's analysis. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Victoria and Ssilvers ("they will not understand the basics of this biography, let alone nuances"). And the nuances here are extremely polarising, and lead to significant differences of opinion between the nominators during and even after the FAC. Every word in the current lead has been carefully chosen after protracted and often heated debate. To reduce the thought behind the final wording, to bullet points for Google, well, thats not progress to me. Ceoil (talk) 18:24, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Victoria. No proposal has been supplied, but the important things to know about Pound - innovator, near-genius, fascist, mad - are not the sort of things infoboxes are good at explaining. Johnbod (talk) 18:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Support - MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE says the purpose of an infobox is to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article. This article is long enough to justify an infobox. Myself and undoubtedly other users find infoboxes as a helpful tool to find quick facts without having to wade through copy. It it wise to remember the purpose of Wikipedia is to benefit readers by acting as a widely accessible and free encyclopedia. An infobox would make information easier to access for some number of users. That benefit alone justifies inclusion. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 20:05, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Victoria. Some subjects are not good at being pigeon-holed, and Pound is certainly one of those subjects who it's difficult to do that without making a pig's ear of things.
    And to the closing admin a reminder of the ArbCom restrictions on decisions in IB matters WP:ARBINFOBOX2 states that

    All editors are reminded to ... not turn discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general.

    - SchroCat (talk) 20:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
Shsshh, SchroCat - wait till near the end of the discussion before pointing that out! Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 7 December 2023 (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.

Recent edits

Posting here regarding many recent edits. Quarkny this article is a featured article. That means it's been through extensive review by quite a few Wikipedians, and it means that changes need consensus. See also WP:FAOWN which gives primary authors latidute in terms of reverting to stable versions. Ceoil and I are the primary authors (the third is dead) and I see that your changes have been reverted. In fact I would have reverted had I gotten to it first. See the following diffs for samples only of reverts: here because of sourcing issues, again because of sourcing issues, here for using for sourcing issues, again and again.

Featured articles require high quality secondary scholarly sources. In the case of Pound's biography most of the sources are book sources. Wikipedia is never acceptable as a source. Nor are most other web sources for an article of this caliber. Furthermore, material is being inserted between the citations, thus separating the text from the cited sources. We can't do that.

The most recent edit cites Blast! (which is a primary source). The Kenner source is okay, but it's already included in the bibliography so only needs a page number here, not a template in text (citation templates aren't used in this article). Also it took years to get the article to reasonable size and to incorporate Wikipedia:summary style. The most recent change would be better in the Blast! article than here. Please bring questions to the talk page to discuss changes and additions.

In the meantime I want to rollback to a clean version (maybe even a year or so back) and then have a restart, but will wait till the weekend and for input. Victoria (tk) 00:19, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for getting in touch with me. I started working on the Blast section of the article because of the interpretation offered in the next-to-last sentence. I don't recall the exact wording, but it was something like: "Pound extended Imagisme to art and called it Vorticism." The embedded quotation from Blast doesn't support that statement and the statement itself is glib and vague ("extended"?). Not at all helpful to a Wiki reader seeking a rudimentary understanding. I was also bothered by the fact that the advertisement Pound had quoted was ignored. Cubism and Futurism weren't even linked to Wiki articles. Maybe Cubism can be overlooked, but Futurism no. And if there's no mention that Pound contributed poems to Blast, why is this section here at all? I understand your concern for "reasonable size," but only so much can be omitted without jeopardy. I worked hard to get to my final version. I hope you don't delete it. It may be a little longer, but I think it's far clearer and more informative than the original. Quarkny (talk) 01:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply and for the explanation. The quotation from the cited source, David Moody's biography Ezra Pound Poet - it's not from Blast. As for linking, we don't link inside of a quotation - that's why not linked in this instance. Featured articles have to adhere to all the nitpicks in our manuel of style. Let me mull this over. Probably the section can reworded to pull out Cubism and Futurism from the quotation and link them with wikilinks and then the quotation can possibly be paraphrased or attributed so as to avoid confusion. How does that sound? With the caveat that I won't be able to get to it immediately. Victoria (tk) 01:44, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
P.s - sorry I replied while looking at an old version of the article. The version of this article that went through review is looks like this. I think it's more clear. That said, this will take some time to check the various versions against the sources and then to move in an acceptable version. Victoria (tk) 01:55, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
What you suggest seems fine to me. I was uncomfortable with so much quotation, but thought it preferable to the lack of clarity.
I've been looking at the second paragraph of the Ulysses article:
Ulysses chronicles the appointments and encounters of the itinerant Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early 20th-century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland's relationship to Britain. The novel is highly allusive and written in a variety of radically changing styles.
The second part of the last sentence is my doing, and no one seems to mind. I've started to work on the too-long sentence preceding it ("reasonable size"?)
I've whittled it down to this:
Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus.
I know: the last part of the sentence is missing. It's so close to sheer gibberish that I don't think it can be saved. Do you think it's really necessary? If so, I'll try to compose a replacement that contains the same phrases: modernism, as so on.
I promise not to do anything without your approval. 2603:7000:9700:8D83:DBBA:7FA4:7B9E:A76A (talk) 17:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Something like this as the second paragraph of the Ulysses article?
Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus. It situates historic events, modernization, British rule, Irish nationalism, and the Catholic Church within the setting of early 20th century Dublin. The novel is highly allusive and written in a variety of radically changing styles. Quarkny (talk) 18:32, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, I've been busy in real life. My books are temporarily unavailable and it'll take a few days to retrieve them, but once I start digging into the this article I might find more that needs to be done, so I want to have them at hand. Also would like to give time for others to chime in here. In other words give me a few days. Re Ulysses - not as familiar and don't really have Joyce sources. It would better to post to the Ulysses page and see what others think. Victoria (tk) 02:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

National Vanguard source on meeting with Ginsberg

Currently, the article presents the claims by a neo-Nazi in a neo-Nazi publication as being of equal weight to Reck's recounting in the NYRB, even providing a long block quote. Surely the National Vanguard is not remotely a reliable source for this article, especially compared to the NYRB? Does someone have a good source for the Matthias Koehl claims or can they be removed? --2003:E7:574B:9CC2:3922:E74E:FFD0:95F8 (talk) 18:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Margaret Cravens

I'm surprised there is no mention Margaret Cravens in this article. There is an entire book about Pound's relationship with her here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ezra_Pound_and_Margaret_Cravens/UDJbAAAAMAAJ?hl=en Best.4meter4 (talk) 11:55, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

The important bad things have no citations/sources, while the trivial uncontroversial points do

The early large paragraph about Ezra Pounds support for the nazis has zero citations, sources, or examples in the entire paragraph. The only sourced bit is an innocuous part about "attacking" "finance capitalism." RandomEditor6772314 (talk) 14:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The paragraph you seem to be referring to is in the lead section, which is not required to have citations. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
It's quite odd that there's no citations of these bizarre criticisms. For instance, it is stated without evidence that doctors viewed Pound as a narcicist. Which doctors? Upon what basis? Where is the evidence? Or that he was unfit for a trial (for what)?
96.59.79.27 (talk) 96.59.79.27 (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
Hi OP, as Nikki says, the lead is a summary of the main article body, and as long as the claims are referenced there, the lead doesn't need to do the same. The doctors opinions are explained and cited in the Ezra_Pound#Diagnosis section. Ceoil (talk) 17:54, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
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