On Jul 21, 2006, at 8:56 AM, Michael Hopcroft wrote:
As anyone who's been in a college literature course can tell you, there are many important things to ask about any work of art that go well beyond what happened in it and who was involved in tis creation. "why is this important?" "why do people talk about it, and what about it do they discuss?" "what does it mean, both intrinsically and in the context of the times and situation in which it was created?" "what reasons do those who dislike or dismiss it have for doing so, and how valid are those reasons today?" "has the way the work has been percieved changed signficantly between the time in which it was created and now?" The same can be said in many respects for the creators of a work; "Why was Shakespeare?" and "Why does Shakespeare matter?" are even more vital questions for a scholar (and encyclopedia writing is an essentially scholarly exercise) as "Who was Shakespeare?"
This is very true and correct, and is exactly the sort of questions we look for in better Wikipedia articles.
<snip sensible paragraph on pop culture not being different from Shakespeare in terms of these questions>
Meanwhile, many wikipedia writers seem to be letting relatively minor things occupy more of their attention -- not because those things should not be included, but because they stop with them and do not go any further.
I agree; I can only explain this as finding sources than answer the questions above are harder than finding sources for the more minor aspects. But we certainly should have both.
<snip sad, but common, example>
To partly answer that question: Burr matters because he was one of the first true "TV stars", because he had a knack for combining gravity with subtle humor which brought to vivid life one of the seminal characters of the medium of television, and his charisma enabled him to trancend the mold of the "leading man" stereotype of the era -- helping prove in the process that the new and not-well-respected medium WAS worthy of the attentions of a serious actor. In short, if you want to understand the way mass media developed in the United States, Raymond Burr is VERY important. Yet only his sexuality was considered important by whoever did his wikipedia article (unless it has been edited further since I I read it).
That's a *great* explanation! Please don't give up on Wikipedia - if you can do such writing, and are willing, we are delighted to have you - don't let anyone convince you otherwise.
When writing a pop-culture article, even a stub I wish would be completed by others, I have made a practice of showing, as best I could, exactly what about my topic is significant. Because anyone who approaches editing cultural Wikipedia with any degree of serious should realize that they ARE scholars -- even if they're scholars of the Collected works of CLAMP rather than The Collected Works of George Orwell.
And we greatly thank you for doing that. Please keep up the good work.
Jesse Weinstein