Talk:The Years (Ernaux book)

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Trashy aggregation in presence of actual reviews

An editor has now seen fit, twice, to try to force a trashy aggregation text that says nothing beyond a Facebook-worthy "like", when the article already has multiple, reliably-cited, independent reviews that actually state chapter and verse of what different sources think of the book. They are far better than any amount of "A++" or whatever guff the meta-sites now choose to fluff up their material with. There is no need whatsoever for such rubbish in any article that contains proper reviews; at best, it's a dreadful cheap stop-gap for articles where decent reviews haven't yet been published or are thought to be too much like hard work to discover and summarize: but that is, frankly, the work of editing Wikipedia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:05, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well said, Chiswick Chap. I agree wholeheartedly and await their removal. I would note that it is also unreliable. The Book Marks website "aggregates" a mere 5 reviews, all for the English translation. The Complete Review also aggregates several reviews of the English translation, with only one being a contemporary review of the original French. I can find multiple reviews of the original edition[1][2][3]. Thus it would appear innaccurate to represent their aggregate as "globally" cumulative of its reception. Regardless, it would hardly be an interesting addition to the article as it communicates very little of the substance of the reviewers' critiques. It would be wise of Themashup to disengage the edit war. Οἶδα (talk) 16:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chiswick Chap: in the future, it would be great if you could find a way to give your thoughts without rudely denigrating the good-faith contributions of a fellow editor. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 02:42, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no views on the editor and I never make remarks about other editors; but when an article goes in a wrong direction, I say so. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:54, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rude or not, their concerns were valid. And their tone likely a reflection of the fact that this "good-faith contributing" user saw fit to edit war over the issue. A correct prediction as they completely ignored the talk page discussion on the matter that had been started, resuming their edit war 39 minutes later to again force their preferred version of the article.

And Ed, I would love to hear your response(s) to each of Chiswick Chap's concerns. Because inserting yourself in this conversation to solely pearl-clutch about tone appears no more productive in value to any initial incivility. If you were to look at Themashup's talk page, you would notice Chiswick Chap afterward provided them with a direct warning against edit warring, replete with civility. Furthermore, I reject the underlying implication that Chiswick Chap's "rudeness" was directed at any person or their character. Each and every contribution we make should be judged on its own merits. As I previously stated above, the Book Marks and Complete Review, whilst perhaps reliable sources for other books, were not only innaccurately represented in the article but also far too lacking to be displayed as being exactly reliably representative of anything. And, as with all of these edits by Themashup, could have used the sources themself instead of telling me how some obscure websites graded it. The Complete Review for example only has one rating for any of the English edition reviews with no review consensus. So all I can tell from this information is some website known as The Complete Review graded The Guardian's review an A. If you think this is informative to readers of anything then I don't know what to say to you. There is nothing about how the review published in The Guardian was by writer Lauren Elkin and how she commended Ernaux for her ability to write "personally and collectively" and how she assessed Alison Strayer's translation as capturing "all the shadings of Ernaux’s prose, all its stops and starts, its changes in pace and in tone, its chatterings, its silences." But I guess that would be considered work that is too hard for any of us to do so we should not expect or encourage editors from doing precisely that and not the opposite. Οἶδα (talk) 17:07, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]