Talk:Robert Irwin (writer)

Unsigned editors

Notice how so many of the people with petty problems with Irwin are unsigned and are writing from IP addresses, not under editor names.Dogru144 00:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no axe to grind on this issue but this seems like a slighty unbalanced entry - it's only about Irwin insofar as it's about Irwin on Said, isn't it? Surely someone must have something more to add on Irwin's own work and other work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.46.193 (talk) 23:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Widely praised?

Hello all, I am new to Wikipedia, so bear with me if this comment seems out of place. If not, then it's as good a start as any :)

The article claims that Irwin's book is 'widely praised', yet offers only two articles reviewing the book - one of which is in some points quite critical of 'Dangerous Knowledge' (NY Times). Allow me to quote a few passages to illustrate this point:

But the long roll call of unfamiliar savants, presented in lightning-quick sketches, and the profusion of obscure Arabic texts make the historical section of “Dangerous Knowledge” occasionally tough going for anyone not familiar with the field.

The book, although readable.. comes a little late in the day. Mr. Said died in 2003, and some of the arguments that Mr. Irwin advances were thrashed out by Mr. Said, Bernard Lewis, Ernest Gellner and others more than 20 years ago.

What Mr. Irwin makes abundantly clear, whether he fully realizes it or not, is that “Orientalism” cannot really be refuted.

I furthermore urge you to read other reviews of Dangerous Knowledge, such as the one by Hitchens in the Atlantic, lambasting the book. http://www.powells.com/review/2007_02_20.html

That leaves us with only one article that was lukewarm at best in its review of the book. That hardly makes the book widely praised, in fact that phrasing could be constituted as a POV. Should that be the case, I think it should be removed as POVs have no place in such an article.

88.70.228.37 (talk) 12:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)TheThird

-- Alright then, away it goes. 88.70.247.225 (talk) 17:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)TheThird

"I furthermore urge you to read other reviews of Dangerous Knowledge, such as the one by Hitchens in the Atlantic, lambasting the book. http://www.powells.com/review/2007_02_20.html"

And I'd urge you to actually read that review. "Lambasting the book"? It's a 95% positive review. CravateNoire (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed! It is, on reflection, a great mark against his (Said's) book that it did not consider the work of Goldziher, whose preeminence Irwin has reasserted in a wonderfully readable thumbnail chapter that leaves one yearning for more. Is that what unsigned calls 'lambasting'?

Quotes

Shouldn't the quotes, irrelevant as they are to the article as such, be included - if at all - in a seperate quotes page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.76.55.100 (talk) 14:55, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move to Robert Irwin (writer), redirect Robert Irwin (author) to Robert Irwin (writer), with a hatnote pointing to Robert Irwin (real estate) SilkTork *^YES! 10:25, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

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Robert Graham Irwin → Robert Irwin (writer) — Irwin isn't known generally known by his middle name, his books and reviews of him always refer to him simply as Robert Irwin. See here for example. Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC) 84.92.117.93 (talk) 21:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

• There is already a Robert Irwin (author) about a different person. Station1 (talk) 05:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Hadn't noticed. I would suggest moving that article to Robert Irwin (real estate). 84.92.117.93 (talk) 18:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose "writer" is ambiguous, per the note by Station1. The current name is less ambiguous, and an ok way to disambiguate, since it is his name. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 14:03, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Does he use "Robert Graham Irwin" professionally anywhere? City of Destruction (The Celestial City) 18:11, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support move. If people who are looking for this article won't be able to identify it using the man's middle name, then by definition, the middle name is not disambiguating. Simply giving the article a different title from other articles is not disambiguating. Craig Robinson (basketball) is probably the only Craig Robinson of the five on Wikipedia to have skipped the second grade, but calling his article Craig Robinson (skipped second grade) would not be disambiguating it from the other four. I have moved Robert Irwin (author) to Robert Irwin (real estate), as he appears to be known as a "real estate expert" rather than for his books specifically, and support moving this Robert Irwin to Robert Irwin (writer). Propaniac (talk) 16:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support. He's not known as "Robert Graham Irwin", he's known as "Robert Irwin". Include a hatnote to the real estate guy. Fences&Windows 17:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. Since Robert Irwin (real estate) is also a writer (of non-fiction), "writer" is not really disambiguating, and is not a usual disambiguator anyway. Perhaps Robert Irwin (historian) or Robert Irwin (novelist) might be better titles than "(writer)", as they are unique to this person. Robert Irwin (author) could then be redirected to the dab page. Station1 (talk) 05:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

From this article (which is all I know about the man), it appears significantly likely that users could be looking for him for either his fiction or nonfiction work, so I would be reluctant to use a disambiguator that would seem to exclude one of those areas. "Writer" still seems best to me (also, there are plenty of articles that use it in their titles, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, and even if there weren't, it really doesn't matter whether a disambiguator is "usual" if it's determined to be the best to use). I've gone ahead and redirected Robert Irwin (author) to the dab page, as I meant to do when I moved the other article, and my vote would be to continue redirecting there regardless of where this article goes. Propaniac (talk) 17:12, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

First, completely agree that it doesn't matter if a disambiguator is usual if it's best. I meant only that author was a more usual qualifier than writer, but I could be wrong about that. In either case, though, author and writer, although perhaps not strictly synonymous, are close enough that it doesn't make much sense to me for Robert Irwin (author) to point to one page while Robert Irwin (writer) is another page, since both are authors/writers. The alternative is to rename this one because it's the primary topic among authors and redirect Robert Irwin (author) here, with the hatnote pointing to the real estate author. Station1 (talk) 05:52, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

So, up above, you said you wanted to move this page to (historian) or (novelist) and redirect (author) to the dab page. And now you are saying that if this page is moved to (writer), then (author) should redirect to (writer). Since this discussion is about where to move this page, perhaps you could bluntly clarify whether you object to moving it to (writer), and then if necessary we can have a separate discussion about where (author) should point. (I disagree that there's no connotative distinction between someone known for writing and someone known for authoring, but on the other hand I really don't care whether (author) goes to the dab page or to this article.) Propaniac (talk) 19:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear; I see I may not have been. I actually have no strong opinion as to where this article goes, if anywhere, and neither support nor oppose any particular move. I was merely bringing up points for discussion that I thought might have been overlooked, starting with the first bullet where I suspected the other author might have been missed. The only "oppose" !vote (not by me) mentioned "(writer)" was ambiguous, so my "comment" threw out a couple of qualifiers I thought might be less ambiguous (I noticed he's described as "British historian and novelist" on the dab page). Whether or not there is a distiction between author and writer is irrelevant to this case, imo, since it appears that both of these people are authors. So I guess my only real point is that "(author)" and "(writer)" should not point to two separate pages: if the article is moved as proposed, "(author)" should redirect here; if the article is not moved, or is moved to something other than "(author)" or "(writer)", then "(author)" should continue to redirect to the dab page. Station1 (talk) 03:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. Propaniac (talk) 16:43, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.