Talk:Little Amal

Major edits by new editor

The article has recently received a number of major good-faith edits, first by unregistered editors, then by a newly-registered editor (possibly these are all the same editor, since they deal with the same subject-matter). Some new material was added only to the header, with citations there, but not in the body of the article. Some edits removed material which had been supported by citations. Some edits added inappropriate material, such as details whose proper place was the article about The Jungle (play), and not here, and the added citation did not mention Little Amal. Those edits had to be reverted, because they were major edits which mixed useful material with errors, and the simple solution is to start again, adding only the useful edits.

I have therefore read carefully through the last set of reverted edits, and I have added all the useful material into the body of the article (where it belongs), with citations where necessary. I have omitted any material which does not belong here.

If you are a new editor, please discuss major changes here, before editing. Please do not add new material or citations to the header. The header is the first paragraph on the article page, and its function is only to summarise the body of the article. New facts should be added to the body of the article, with citations.

Note that the usage of the word "animatronic" is growing and changing. The word has in recent years been used mainly to describe robotic animations, but in Europe the recent emergence of huge, human-controlled puppets, especially those used in street performance, has created the need for a new type of puppet description. So the word, "animatronic" has been used by some media for this purpose. Where there are new inventions or new developments, language-usage has to change, and we must respect and include that usage. Storye book (talk) 18:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi - my edits are coming directly from the producer of The Walk, with whom I am working. A lot of the language used in this article doesn't reflect the nature of the production. We would like the article to begin as such: Little Amal is a 3.5-metre (11 ft) puppet of a young Syrian refugee girl who travelled from Gaziantep on the Syria-Turkey border to Manchester in the UK between July 27th and November 3 rd 2021. Her journey was known as The Walk.

The character of Little Amal first appeared in the play ‘The Jungle’ by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson which was first produced at the Young Vic Theatre, London in December 2017 and subsequently at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. It was directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin and designed by Miriam Buether.

The Walk was produced by Stephen Daldry, David Lan, Tracey Seaward and Naomi Webb for Good Chance Theatre in association with the Handspring Puppet Company.

The artistic director was Amir Nizar Zuabi, the general manager was Sarah Loader, the executive producer was Kevin Fitzmaurice.

The name Amal means 'hope' in Arabic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MMELan21 (talk • contribs) 13:41, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply.

• Firstly, as I understand it, Wikipedia strongly discourages editing by people paid by the subjects of articles, and I believe that such editors are obliged to declare on their user page that they are paid editors, and/or that they are the subject of an article, or that they are closely associated with the subject of the article. The reason for this is that their edits may not be objective or that they may not be unbiased. I do not know whether you are paid to edit this article, but you have admitted that you are closely associated with the subject of the article. Therefore in my opinion your edits need to be moderated by disinterested parties, such as other editors who are not personally associated with the puppet Little Amal, The Handspring Puppet Company, Good Chance, or its owners, designers, etc.
• Secondly, the puppet did not travel independently across Europe. It was carried between venues, then at each venue the puppeteers walked it around. That needs to be made clear. If we did not make that clear, it would look as if the puppet walked independently right across Europe without being carried between venues, and it did not do that.
• Thirdly, the Itinerary section makes clear that the official walk dates for the puppet are not the only dates when the puppet was performing, or when local venues created their own entertainments and activities in connection with the Walk. That means that the dates in the Itinerary cover extra time. We cannot ignore the extra contributions of people at local venues, because they were part of the Event, whether you chose their dates or not.
• Fourthly, the details of The Jungle (play) are already dealt with in that link. If you want to add details about that, add them to the article about the play. Those details do not belong here.
• Fifthly, the header (opening paragraph) of Wikipedia articles is a summary of the main text. There is no need to add extra material to the header when it is already in the main text, and cited there.
• Sixthly, the header already says that Amal means "hope" in Arabic.
• Seventhly, in Wikipedia articles, every fact must be cited from an authoritative second- or third-party source. Any edits derived from a primary source (e.g. you knowing the producer of the company) are liable to deletion, because a. we are unable to verify your edits, and b. we cannot know whether your edits are a promotion of the company. Company promotions are strongly discouraged on Wikipedia, as I understand it.

In case you still don't understand what the problem is, let me give you an example. We probably have an article about a very well-known world leader (or ex-leader) whom you don't like, and who perhaps says things that may not be true. Suppose we let that world leader's best friend and colleague edit that article? Would you want that to happen, or would you rather that the article were written by a disinterested party, and peer-reviewed by other disinterested parties, in order to prevent bias? Rules to protect our articles from self-promotion and whitewashing have to apply to all articles, including articles about honourable people and companies, and including the one about Little Amal. That is only fair. Or to look at it another way - those rules also prevent right-wing fascists who hate refugees from editing the article to glorify the stone-throwers while pretending that they are experts on the subject because, according to them, they own your company.

If you really want to contribute to information about Little Amal, why not give us brand new information that we don't know, with a second/third party authoritative citation (unconnected with your company)? Even better, why not contribute photographs of Little Amal to Wikimedia Commons? The category is here, and the upload page is here. You will see that we don't have photos of Amal in all the countries that she visited. That is a serious gap in our collection. No doubt you can help us with that? Storye book (talk) 15:21, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Regarding edits made on 18 January 2022. Uncited edits are checked in all available sources, and are deleted if they do not match any sources. I cannot find any third party authoritative source which says that Jungle was not seen before it played at the Young Vic, or that it premiered in 2017. I can find nothing to show that the character of Amal was not originally created in some earlier incarnation of The Jungle play, in Calais. Please provide a citation to say that the play was not seen by any audience before it played at the Young Vic in 2017. Then we can reinstate your edit. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 18:29, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Regarding edits made on 26 January 2022. Properly licensed images were removed and replaced with images uploaded by the abovementioned editor. All those images were uploaded without the permission of the authors or copyright holders, and all were under threat of speedy deletion. In my opinion, from December 2020 that editor has been uploading mostly uncited material based on inside knowledge, and may or may not be an undeclared paid editor. At the very least, those edits appear to have been made on behalf of some of the companies or staff involved with Little Amal and The Walk project. Storye book (talk) 17:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Just so editors at this page are tracking, MMELan21 has created a WP:POVFORK of this page at The Walk - Little Amal. I've redirected the fork and directed them to gain consensus for their changes here instead of forking the article. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 05:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The editor MMELan21 has been attempting to add to the article the company name, "The Walk Productions Limited", as a co-designer or producer of the puppet. These additions were uncited, therefore removed. I cannot find a citation for this fact - apart from the fact that that company claims copyright to The Walk website. That alone does not give the company a free mention in the article. I await a citation to confirm that the company directly assisted with the design, creation etc. of the puppet, and/or the production of The Walk. That means an actual citation with url, please, not a direction to go watch a load of videos in the hope of snagging some quote or other. Storye book (talk) 21:09, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Animatronic Puppet

Hello there I was a part of the design and manufacturing process for Little Amal and "animatronic" and "partly animatronic" is an incorrect way if describing the way that we built and designed Little Amal. The designers are very keen indeed that this falsehood does not continue to be repeated and become a fake fact. I will remove the description again now, for the 4th time, and trust that the facts, evidenced with broadcast and written interviews, will be respected going forward. SarahEL0401 (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The "partly-animatronic" phrase in the article is backed up by an explanation in the main text and a citation. Please do not remove it without explanation. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 17:07, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I will ask the designers to write you a letter explaining why Little Amal it is not an animatronic puppet. I trust this will be acceptable. SarahEL0401 (talk) 17:08, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Firstly, before you do that, I would advise you to read the article properly. Do a page search for "animatronic" and you will find the relevant explanation and citation, which both come from The Walk website, and the video which you, yourself, have recommended in one of your edit summaries. Secondly, editing as a paid employee or other representative of the company which is the subject of the article, counts as conflict of interest, and this is strongly discouraged by Wikipedia. You need to declare yourself as a paid employee or other representative of the company on your profile page. Editing with proper, peer-reviewed, third-party citations is the way forward. Attempts to pressure individual Wikipedia editors with letters is an example of the reason why Wikipedia does not encourage editing by people who have a conflict of interest. This encyclopaedia takes a neutral point of view on all articles, and requires proof of facts contained in those articles. Without proof of facts, and where there is evidence that editors such as yourself may have conflict of interest, our articles would no longer be trustworthy or neutral. Storye book (talk) 17:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Storye book. I understand and I have read the amended article and your new citation and I have read the Wikipedia community guidelines including the correct way to raise disputes which is why I have opened this channel with you, with huge respect for your experience.

The issue that we have here is that unfortunately I regret to say that you that you have come to the wrong conclusion of how to describe the puppet. I am speaking from intimate expert knowledge and context of Little Amal developed over three years. I appreciate that this also means I could be said to be biased - and I shall declare myself as a paid person as you suggest - but instead of seeing myself as biased I see myself an informed expert. I am sure we both agree that facts should take precedect over interpretation, and I therefore need you help with how I can prove those facts to the excellent standards of Wikipedia, particularly if I am not allowed to use internal sources, which come directly from the creators.

I appreciate you are a much more experienced editor that me and I truly respect that experience and wish to learn from it. With your experience in mind, I would appreciate your advice on how we can move forward and reflect the facts as received directly from the creators of Little Amal. They have written many articles in publications worldwide about the manual human-powered operation and low-fi design of Little Amal. They have not publicly declared "Little Amal is not animatronic", but the absence of such a statement does not make the opposite true. I am looking forward to your advice and expertise. SarahEL0401 (talk) 17:50, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The answer is simple. In one of your article edit summaries you yourself recommended as a source "an interview with creators Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler of Handspring Puppet Company who describe Little Amal as "very low tech" in the video interview which can be found on the video gallery page of The Walk website". So I watched the video. In that source, one of those men says that the eyes of the puppet are controlled by a small computer. That makes it a partly-animatronic puppet. Storye book (talk) 17:59, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I will seek the creators advice on this. The conclusion is to perhaps describe her as a manually operated puppet with animatronic eyes. I shall revert back upon consultation with the experts. SarahEL0401 (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Producers of The Walk

I have several times attempted to add the lead producer of The Walk, The Walk Productions Limited, to this article. TWPL was the lead producer of the production and this addition has on several occasions been removed with no explanation. I will add again and include a citation. SarahEL0401 (talk) 16:46, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

This addition of "The Walk Productions Limited" to the article would have been accepted, had you provided an authoritative third-party citation. LinkedIn is a primary source which is not peer-reviewed or authoritative. Therefore that counts as Own Research, which is not permitted here as a citation. Please provide a suitable citation. Editing Wikipedia is a steep learning curve. It is better to stop, read and learn Wikipedia's rules, or ask for help, before attempting edit wars without explanation. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 17:07, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Please confirm that the following is sufficient evidence. This page was not written by anyone associated with The Walk Productions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lan SarahEL0401 (talk) 17:11, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are not permitted as citations. If I could have found a citation in that David Lan article, which could be used as proof of the involvement of The Walk Productions Limited, then I could have added that company name to the article. But the David Lan article has no citation at all, to that effect. So we still need an authoritative, peer-reviewed citation before we can add the company name to this article. I suggest that you look for a book, newspaper or magazine article (online or printed), which clearly says that the company was involved in the production of The Walk and/or the creation of the puppet. Then give us a quotation, name and date of the publication, article name and page number or url if possible. Storye book (talk) 17:29, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Okay thank you I will find such an article. SarahEL0401 (talk) 17:52, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for finally finding a suitable citation. That is much appreciated. I have moved it to the main text, because we do not normally put it in the header, which is intended as a summary of the main text. Storye book (talk) 15:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)