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Archive 1

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. --KenWalker | Talk 06:36, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Crosby and her relationship with the Bowery Mission in New York City

This article uses the reference, Memories of Eighty Years, 1906. Chapter 18 is devoted to Crosby's role in the Bowery Mission starting in 1881. The article also cites Crosby's hymn, "Rescue the Perishing" written in 1869 in association with Dr. Doane.

I think the article would benefit from a clarification or correction of the misnomer that Crosby was inspired to write Rescue the Perishing after attending a meeting in the Bowery Mission.

Examples where the connection between the mission and Crosby and the hymn
  1. Great Heart of the Bowery, John G. Hallimond, 1925, page 91.
  2. www.schfrs.crosswinds.net/hymns/rescue.htm features an excerpt attributed to S. Trevna Jackson: "I [Crosby] remember writing the hymn in 1869. It was written following a personal experience at the New York City Bowery Mission." Page 73.
  3. Songs for all the world, Willard Price, 1925.
  4. "Violet Day at the Bowery Mission," Christian Herald and Signs of The Times, April 8, 1914.
Arguing against the Bowery Mission as the inspirational site are
  1. The Bowery Mission Annual Reports of 1881 and 1883 showing it was founded on November 6, 1880 at 36 Bowery. Thus well after the hymn was composed.
  2. Crosby's biography, Memories of Eighty Years, asserts that 1881 marked "her connection" with the Bowery Mission, page 161. Thus she could not have been in the mission as early as 1869.
  3. Furthermore, her bio relates how she met a man in a YMCA in November 1903 who was the boy now a man who sat in the mission thirty-five years ago and served as the motivation for writing the hymn. His recollection puts the episode at 1868 close enough to the 1869 actual date of authorship.

Lastly the bio is specific about her role in the Bowery Mission. She attended 16 anniversaries of the Bowery Mission beginning in 1881 and on each occasion wrote a hymn. Examples of these hymns are found in the Annual Reports of the Bowery Mission. It's optional, but the first one could be included in the article to give readers an idea of her theme, imagery, words, and so fourth. These comments could be appropriate for the section Career in Writing Hymns. --Rasjisginflu (talk) 20:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)rasjisginflu

Above comments read and noted. See article for significant improvements.smjwalsh (talk) 18:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This article is wayyyy too long

It shouldn't take over a minute to load this page. Over 800 refs? Ridiculous. Someone with a faster Internet connection needs to prune this down, remove the overreferencing, and split it off into other articles where appropriate. This is worse than Larry Norman. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:52, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

So what is the maximum number of refs permitted? I was not aware of any guidelines or policies restricting documentation. I do see major references to the opposite - lack of sources. As to how long an article should take to load, that will depend on many factors including bandwidth and speed of your connection. I dare say article would benefit from creation of sub-articles. I will see when I can attempt them.smjwalsh (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
So how much is too long? WP sets no maximum size for its articles. While 32kB used to be a guideline many years ago because of technical reasons, the relevant article indicates no absolute maximum. Also, the criteria for measuring article size is readable prose not gross size. According, as of today, this article is "Prose size (text only): 108 kB (18342 words) "readable prose size". This is only 8% longer than 100kB discussed. The suggested remedy is creation of sub-articles not reduction in content. If list of articles was based on readable prose, this article would not be near the top. As intimated above, it is the scholarly apparatus that is major contributor to gross size here. smjwalsh (talk) 22:41, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Looking at Special:LongPages shows a strange bias for relatively unknown Christian music figures. Here is a listing of the twenty longest articles about individual people (I left out Jesus because there is no documented evidence of him unlike the other people in this listing):

Of the top six, half are relatively unknown Christian music figures. Most people on the list are leaders of sovereign states or other high-ranking political figures. JIP | Talk 09:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Of the 20 people you list, only 2 could be regarded as Christian music artists. In any case, is that an important consideration. While they may be unknown to you, let me assure you that both are major artists in their field. Crosby is he most prolific writer of hymns in Christian history, probably writing more than 10,000 (compare to about 400-500 songs by Dylan), was best known woman in USA a century ago, and her sheet music sold in excess of 100 million copies. While article is long, she lived 94 years and had prolific careers in three separate areas" poetry, popular music, and Christian hymns. Of those listed above, 5 I have never heard of, but that's OK, as I can now read article to find out what makes them important. So your position is that politicians are more worthy than musicians? Crosby arguably made a greater contribution to hmanity than Tiger Woods or Ted Kennedy.smjwalsh (talk) 21:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm quite sure I'm not the only person here on the English Wikipedia they're unknown to. However, based on what you say, they should be known to the majority. I don't think politicians are more "worthy" or "important" than musicians, but I think they are generally better known. There are two other musicians in the list, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, both of which are near the bottom of the list. I am sure far more people have heard of Adolf Hitler or George W. Bush than Fanny Crosby or Larry Norman. Still, I don't quite think the article should be trimmed just because she is less known than them. The article should be judged by its own merits, to see what parts are relevant and what are not. You have said earlier that both Hitler and Bush have many subarticles. Are there any for Crosby or Norman? JIP | Talk 22:00, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
There are 3.6 million articles on English WP. Unless one is a genuine polymath, the vast majority are unknown to most people. The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to collect all knowledge (literal understanding of term). I'm not convinced that the vast majority of WP readers should know any one particular article. That should not be the measure. As an Australian, I along with most Australians know something about (say) current PM Julia Gillard, but I dare say she is little known beyond the 22 million people in Australia, although she is very important here. I dare say the Kardashian sisters or Paris Hilton are better known than Julia Gillard, but few would argue thay are more important. A person may be very important but relatively unknown. There are those like Crosby who were very well-known in the late 19th century but far less well-known today. There are those who may be well-known by many of the 2 billion Christians in the world, but little known outside the church. In any case, article size as you suggest does not relate to perceived importance of the subject. I am more than happy for editors to trim judiciously based on a thorough reading of the article rather than some arbitary standard of appropriate length. I have wriiten articles that are far shorter than this one because sources and subject matter determine length. There was an attempt to create sub-articles in Larry Norman in the last week or so, but disagreement currently about whether merely shifting material is enough. One editor argues that there is fancruft so should be removed irrespective of length, whereas others seem to be concerned about length only. The two issues are related. As an inclusivist, I'm more than happy to know more than less. smjwalsh (talk) 22:26, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I am all in favour of splitting both Fanny Crosby and Larry Norman into subarticles. JIP | Talk 22:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I agree. But what about Jiddu Krishnamurti? Here we should only focus on Crosby. I would rather create more sub-articles than delete well-researched content.smjwalsh (talk) 22:47, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Another thing: This article has ten interwiki links to articles on other Wikipedias. This article is almost 5.5 times as long as all of them put together. JIP | Talk 19:27, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
So will you help me increase their length. Size on other wikis is irrelevant. Some people are more important to one language group than another. It could easily be argued that the other wikis inadequately cover the subject of this article.smjwalsh (talk) 21:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Part of the size inflation is due to the cut-and-paste style of referencing. For example The Hymns and Life of Fanny Crosby is cited 122 times, and each time the full name of the book, publisher, and author is repeated. If the WP:CITESHORT was followed, each of these would be down to "Blumhofer 2005 p 310". Bernard Ruffin's book is similarly repeated 30 times. And this helps fix inconsistencies - Blumhofer is described as "Edith Blumhofer" and "Edith L. Blumhofer" when citing the same book. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:32, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Fair comment. If it was up to me, I would use the usual format used in dissertations etc, eg MLA style, but because WP articles are often frequently edited or even re-arranged, op cits, and ibids are discouraged. Is there a way these references can be quickly consolidated? Difference in citing same books often refer to different editions of book, which, for example, with Ruffin, also contain different pagination and content.smjwalsh (talk) 22:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Take a section like "Career in writing hymns (1864-1915)"--none of it really pertains to the article at hand, plus every person listed has their families inventoried, and their photos are there, and those of their wives and dogs, and the houses they lived in. That's the prime definition of bloaed. A list of names wikilinking to their articles would suffice, and their names mentioned in the relevant sections of the biography (though which section would that be? the article is so long it's illegible). Drmies (talk) 17:46, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Lyric citations

Is there really any need in this article to cite sources where lyrics can be found, unless those lyrics are quoted? It makes sense to do this in the forked List of works of Fanny Crosby but here it just seems like unnecessary overhead. - Sitush (talk) 05:03, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

now that the list of works has been split off, that does make sense. LadyofShalott 08:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion: split list of works into a separate article

It is quite common for prolific writers to have separate "lists of works" articles. While it would not solve the issue of being over-detailed (which is otherwise being addressed), it would help with the overall size problem. --LadyofShalott 17:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. I think that can be done now, although I would hope that some of the citations used for that section & its subs could be tidied up a bit.
I also intend to be reducing the Further reading section: anything that is cited inline should not be in that section, and of the remainder there really does need to be some pruning. smjwalsh should be involved in that as s/he presumably knows those items. I certainly do not! - Sitush (talk) 18:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Will look at this early next week. smjwalsh (talk) 16:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
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