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Happy editing! Mattythewhite (talk) 00:59, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your copy edits on the Agatha Christie article. :)  ~ RLO1729^💬 12:46, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Not at all. I enjoyed it. Thanks for recognising the work. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 12:49, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

GOCE

Hello:

F.Y.I. Even though I placed the GOCE tag on Agatha Christie and neglected to remove it yesterday (my bad), because you had made some edits your user name appeared in the tag. Hence my request. I did not realise this is how the tag works. Regards, Twofingered Typist (talk) 13:34, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense! Nice edits by the way. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 13:52, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Christie edits

Hi, we seem to have come back to the article at the same time. Please continue with your edits and I'll make mine when you're finished. Cheers,  ~ RLO1729^💬 13:13, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that. Can you please check I successfully restored your edit? --84.64.237.205 (talk) 13:15, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

All good now I think. Please continue your edits. Thanks,  ~ RLO1729^💬 13:19, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! --84.64.237.205 (talk) 13:23, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

PS: In the lead, the revision to In September 2015, on her 125th birthday, And Then There Were None was named the "World's Favourite Christie" in a vote sponsored by the author's estate. is not quite correct. The previous text coinciding with her 125th birthday was intended to account for the fact that the "naming" did not occur exactly "on" her birthday. Is there a better way to express this?  ~ RLO1729^💬 13:26, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Huh. Let me look at that. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 13:28, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I just removed it. The reader can do the arithmetic themselves and less is usually more on these factoids. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 13:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, great. The additional detail is given later in "Formula and plot devices" (where it says to mark).  ~ RLO1729^💬 13:35, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, the comma after In September 2015 in the lead please.  ~ RLO1729^💬 13:37, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits, great work. I'll add some questions/comments below as they arise:

• In "Personal qualities", the original direct quotation I DO like sun, sea, flowers, travelling includes the capitals (MOS:PMC says "In direct quotations, retain dialectal and archaic spellings, including capitalization").  ~ RLO1729^💬 14:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Interesting. I was going with MOS:EMPHCAPS which says not to use capitals for emphasis. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 14:03, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

    The difference is possibly that editors should not use them for emphasis in an article, but others may in their own writing.  ~ RLO1729^💬 14:08, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

    • Maybe. If you read further down it says Do not write with all capitals for emphasis; italics are preferred (see § Do not use for emphasis, above). In quoted material, all caps or small caps for emphasis can be replaced with {{strong}}. As a stylistic matter (which this is), I strongly dislike using capitals for emphasis, which is why I replaced them with italics. If it's important to retain the formatting of the original, we could discuss that in article talk? --84.64.237.205 (talk) 15:13, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

      Normally, I wouldn't mind either way. In this case, we are quoting the subject of the article who is an author, so I would prefer to "quote it as she wrote it" (to coin a phrase!). I think keeping the caps remains truer to her style, and why not if the MOS allows it? But yes, we can certainly discuss it on the Talk page if you'd like. :)  ~ RLO1729^💬 15:23, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

      I started to add a Talk page discussion item but it occurred to me that removing the caps from a quote of something Christie said (to an interviewer, for example) would be better under MOS:EMPHCAPS, as that would just be changing the newspaper's style. Reviewing the source, it is not clear to me if they are quoting an interview or Christie's writings. Happy to go with italics if I can't find a specific source in her writings.  ~ RLO1729^💬 01:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

      Ultimately on matters of style, we should defer to the letter but also to the spirit of the MoS which on Wikipedia is very much against excessive use of capitalisation. Personally I find it jars and works slightly against readability. What a great old source! Thanks for sharing. Ah, well if it's a quote in a paper it's likely to have just been the newspaper's style which we can more easily change to ours. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 02:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• In "Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple", Doyle and Holmes are now dup linked (see "Early literary attempts").  ~ RLO1729^💬 15:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oops, good catch. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 15:31, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
• Original is "best whodunit novel".  ~ RLO1729^💬 15:39, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your vigilance. "Whodunnit" is the more normal spelling and "practiced" only exists in US English. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 15:45, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
• Can also confirm US spelling "practiced" in Julian Symons quote.  ~ RLO1729^💬 16:11, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • That's surprising in a UK writer. If it's important we can go back to the US spelling; was there not a UK edition of the book? I'll check as well. Thanks again for your time and trouble. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 16:16, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

    You're welcome, and I'm appreciating all your edits as well! My co-editor Tbytheriver and I have been working on this article since October last year and took it to GA status. The recent GOCE editing was requested in preparation for FAC nomination so your additional refinements are very welcome too.  ~ RLO1729^💬 16:23, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

    It's been an absolute pleasure. I found that the book has a complex publication history; OpenLibrary's 1985 UK edition has the quote on p 98, spelled the UK way. Symons, Julian (1985). Bloody murder : from the detective story to the crime novel : a history. Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books. p. 98. ISBN 0670800961. OL 2870950M.. Need to take a break now but I will be back later. I'll be sure to look in at article talk as well. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 16:41, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

    Yes, I'll be returning to the article tomorrow.  ~ RLO1729^💬 16:44, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

• In "Critical reception and legacy", Novelist Raymond Chandler ("Novelist" deleted): I've been pulled up in the past in this article for not giving some description of an authority when first quoted, so have tried to do this consistently throughout the article.  ~ RLO1729^💬 23:19, 30 June 2020 (UTC).
  • This is a tricky one. If "consistency" brings us to write sentences like The writer Jack Black wrote... or The critic Steve Brown criticised... then it should be avoided. I've made a couple of minor adjustments in this vein here, and this was one; I was influenced by the relative fame of Chandler to omitting his (well-known) profession. I'm a great believer in 'less is more' when writing, and if you can miss something out without substantially altering the meaning or the import of the sentence, then you should do so. Having said that, as with any of my edits, you are free to disagree, to revert, or to discuss (as you are doing, and thank you for that). If it's very important to state that Chandler was a novelist we can put it back. Do you think it is?--84.64.237.205 (talk) 23:42, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
    • I would prefer to include some description to provide readers with a quick context for him (he may be "well-known" in some circles but not in others, hard to assess), and to avoid going around in circles with other editors again asking who for this person. I don't see it as quite the same as "a writer wrote" as we are not quoting from one of his novels. However, reviewing the text, the repetition in professional novelists. Novelist Raymond Chandler is clumsy; perhaps professional novelists. The writer Raymond Chandler criticised?  ~ RLO1729^💬 23:50, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Similarly for people selected by [artist] Peter Blake.  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:11, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

      I think the fact that we immediately explain that this was for inclusion in a work of art is adequate here. That's almost into "The writer wrote" territory, for me. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

      What about people selected by artist Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous work?   ~ RLO1729^💬 00:15, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

      That would work, except I'm a strong adherent of writing "the" in cases like this, so I would have people selected by the artist Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous work... Does that work? --84.64.237.205 (talk) 00:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

      It certainly would, thanks.  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• In "Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple", we have "Doyle" and "Conan Doyle". I suggest "Conan Doyle" throughout (after first use).  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Heh, bit of a bugbear of mine that; his surname was 'Doyle', not 'Conan-Doyle' or 'Conan Doyle', but I accept that the latter is in widespread use and seems to have been encouraged by him during his lifetime, so I guess you're right. It should certainly be consistent, and I'm sorry to have introduced an inconsistency in the process of trying to bring consistency and flow to the article. I'm going to do those two fixes then get some sleep. I will look at this some more tomorrow; the good news is, it's now a well-written and well-sourced article, which with another round of peer review should easily be eligible for FA. Well done for all your sterling work on it. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 00:12, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Great, thanks. (And for your excellent work and collaborative approach.)  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• Is the "Just" in Nearly all had one or more favourites among Christie's mysteries and found her books still good to read nearly 100 years after her first novel was published. Just one of the twenty-five authors held with Wilson's views. not quite npov?  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:26, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  I scratched my head over that one too. It's certainly over-written:

  In 2015, in honour of the 125th anniversary of her birth, twenty-five contemporary mystery writers and one publisher gave their views on Christie's works. Many of the authors had read Christie's novels first, before other mystery writers, in English or in their native language, influencing their own writing, and nearly all still viewed her as the "Queen of Crime" and creator of the plot twists used by mystery authors. Nearly all had one or more favourites among Christie's mysteries and found her books still good to read nearly 100 years after her first novel was published. Just one of the twenty-five authors held with Wilson's views.[137] my emphasis

  There's got to be a more neutral and elegant way to say this. I'm about to raise why we don't mention the original title of And Then There Were None in article talk. Then I really am going to get off to bed! --84.64.237.205 (talk) 00:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Tbytheriver: Your suggestions for the "In 2015" para above would be very welcome please – as well as for any of the changes discussed here of course! :)  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:45, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• One last thing; in this edit you added the {{snd}} template to reference titles. I don't think we are supposed to do that; see Template:Cite web#COinS for example. Would it be ok with you if I made these into manually spaced en-dashes in title fields? --84.64.237.205 (talk) 01:05, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Please do, thanks. I'd lost track of which dashes were which in the revisions of dashes by various editors recently; apologies for adding these unnecessary templates.  ~ RLO1729^💬 01:35, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Duly done. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 02:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks, should they be en dashes "–" rather than just dashes "-" ?  ~ RLO1729^💬 02:15, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  Gah! Sorry. All fixed now I think. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 02:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• I think your Ten Little N.... edit was rejected as vandalism because it the came from an anonymous IP address account. You may need to ask another editor to upload the final version of the new para.  ~ RLO1729^💬 00:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The Agatha Christie Star for you!

		The Agatha Christie Star
		The Agatha Christie Star is hereby awarded for making a significant contribution to the Agatha Christie article.  ~ RLO1729💬 02:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Not sure if you get into this sort of thing but thanks for great copy editing anyway!  ~ RLO1729^💬 02:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very kind of you. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 10:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Other articles

I wondered if you would care to give any of these articles a pre-FAC review: George Insole, James Harvey Insole, James John Joicey. Cheers,  ~ RLO1729^💬 04:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd be happy to. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 10:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

George Insole edits

Many thanks! Glad there weren't too many issues!

• Thomas' or Thomas's: The BBC grammar website indicates either is acceptable. If it is just a style issue, I prefer the original. Thoughts?  ~ RLO1729^💬 01:06, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Just saw your comments on the article's talk page - thanks. I'll respond there.  ~ RLO1729^💬 01:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Other articles

If you're up for it, I have also taken the following (shorter) articles to GA and would appreciate you casting your eye over any of them that take your interest (of course, also OK if that's none). I have just given them the once over myself, trying to put into practice everything I have learnt recently during this copy edit spree but you may well pick up other things I have missed.

Charles Wilkins (writer), Frederick Vincent Theobald, Governor's Body Guard of Light Horse, Peter Hammersley, The Red Dragon (magazine), Thomas Stephens (historian)

Your thoughts on which of these (if any) might be worth pushing forward to FAC would also be appreciated. Thanks.  ~ RLO1729^💬 06:08, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I will try to look at these over the next days. --84.64.237.205 (talk) 09:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

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