This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Phineas Gage article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
Phineas Gage was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
To-do list for Phineas Gage:
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 120 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
First off, this article is great and I wish more articles were like it in tone. But I see that people have raised concerns over prose difficulty before, and it doesn't seem to have changed much. The long sentences and frequent parenthetical sentences confuse me at times. This is especially concerning in the lead, since we're supposed to write a level down. Is there a good reason to keep it this way? Cheers, Ovinus ( talk) 11:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
— Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). Afterthoughts
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"—once termed "the case which more than all others is calculated to excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our physiological doctrines"—Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization, and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"—once termed "the case which more than all others is calculated to excite our wonder"—Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization. He was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
Despite this celebrity, the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (whether before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have"—Gage acting as a "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views.
Despite his prominence, there is little established fact about Gage and his behavior before or after the injury, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have". Gage acted as a sort of "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views.
Was discussing Gage for a psychology class last week and remembered this article. So I gave it another read, and I must say: I really like it, probably because I've become inured to drier articles and articles so dense with mostly irrelevant names that I barely remember anything. Good stuff, and I'm somewhat inspired for my future work. In particular, a liberal use of footnotes satisfies both my deletionist tendency to compact information and my desire for extra info for interested readers. Ovinus ( talk) 02:28, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
With apologies for the delay (I hadn't noticed the last reversion), I'm reverting again the change [4] from
Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...
to
Phineas P. Gage (c. July 9, 1823 – May 21, 1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...
because there's a substantial list of reasons that this change is a detriment to the reader's experience, and nothing at all has been offered to explain how it benefits the reader's experience.
c. July 9, 1823is an incorrect characterization of Gage's birthdate.What we know is that one source reports July 9 as his birthdate, but without itself giving a source; the date is uncertain, and could be completely wrong. That completely different from saying it's "around" July 9. If we're going to have a parenthetical with full dates, it will have to say
Phineas P. Gage (July 9, 1823 (date uncertain) – May 21, 1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...
Against this, the "reasons" offered for including full dates (in the lead -- to repeat, they're already in the infobox) have been:
None of these say anything about how the reader is served by inclusion of this clutter in the article's opening, but merely assert that all articles should look alike -- the weakest of all possible arguments, and characteristic of editors who make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notions of what should be, and then flit off to their next victim, without ever considering whether the page really needed the change they made, or whether the change improved the article at all ... Their editing is an off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all proposition, premised on the idea that what improves one article, or one type of article, will automatically improve every other article or type of article ...
[9].
John F. Kennedy's article makes an interesting contrast. For reasons that are surely obvious, a fair chunk of readers coming to that article actually do want to know right off (and possibly only) the date of his death. Full dates certainly belong in the opening of thatarticle.
Pending anyone explaining how full dates in the lead benefit the reader, I've reverted to the longstanding format. E Eng 05:50, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
editors who make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notionsetc etc, but on the other hand I didn't want to omit your edit summary from the list I gave, lest someone accuse me of understating the support for the view opposing mine (misguided though it is). I figured you'd forgive me. E Eng 05:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Is there a reasoning behind the strange citation style of this article? Why are some references demarcated by their "difficulty" while the others are listed as usual? Besides this, surely the letter system does not work as well as a normal style, as you cannot click the citation in the References section to see where a source appears in the main body? Medarduss ( talk) 23:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
I first encountered {{ ran}} on this page and see more discussion of it here than on the template page.
The template which creates the manual superscript has a bug on the Minerva theme used by the mobile site. You can see it if you use these links:
In each link try clicking the superscript callout links. In the first link, the desktop site has a tooltip and a functional link to References. The second and third links show the bug.
On the second link, the mobile site callouts for {{ ran}} do nothing when clicked. The superscript callouts created by {{ r}} and {{ refn}} on this page will cause a popup with the reference. The popup is the expected behavior. The links from < ref >, {{ efn}}, and {{ sfn}} all create popups. The {{ citeref}} template is slightly different and works on mobile the same way that it works on the desktop site (visible in the Notes section on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse ); the superscript works as an in-page anchor link with {{ citeref}}.
In the third link, the mobile skin (Minerva) is used on the desktop site. The tooltip still works, but something in Minerva breaks the link regardless of the desktop or mobile version.
I hope that this helps and that it is not a strange place to post a bug report. Rjjiii ( talk) 02:27, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Should the headnote read
This article is about the man who survived an iron bar passing through his head
as EEng has reverted it back to and is the status quo, or should it read
This article is about the brain injury survivor
as I would prefer it. I believe the current version is strangely long and detailed. The succinct descriptor used in the short description is more than adequate to quickly describe the person before moving on to the next sentence For the UK musical band, see
Phinius Gage.
Any extra text than is needed is just clutter before you get to the real point of the header. Since I have been reverted and it seems clear we won't agree on this, I'm looking for anyone else's opinion on the subject so we can reach a consensus.
Cerebral726 (
talk) 19:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
American brain injury survivor (1823–1860). E Eng 20:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't feel too strongly, as long as we retain the key ideas of bar-through-head. However, I can't help pointing out that DE's suggestion just above cuts a mere 2 words from the current wording, but at the same time is distinctly less vivid and direct -- kind of medical sounding [12]. E Eng 06:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Phineas Gage article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
Phineas Gage was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
To-do list for Phineas Gage:
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 120 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
First off, this article is great and I wish more articles were like it in tone. But I see that people have raised concerns over prose difficulty before, and it doesn't seem to have changed much. The long sentences and frequent parenthetical sentences confuse me at times. This is especially concerning in the lead, since we're supposed to write a level down. Is there a good reason to keep it this way? Cheers, Ovinus ( talk) 11:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
— Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). Afterthoughts
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"—once termed "the case which more than all others is calculated to excite our wonder, impair the value of prognosis, and even to subvert our physiological doctrines"—Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization, and was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
Long known as the "American Crowbar Case"—once termed "the case which more than all others is calculated to excite our wonder"—Phineas Gage influenced 19th-century discussion about the mind and brain, particularly debate on cerebral localization. He was perhaps the first case to suggest the brain's role in determining personality, and that damage to specific parts of the brain might induce specific mental changes.
Despite this celebrity, the body of established fact about Gage and what he was like (whether before or after his injury) is small, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have"—Gage acting as a "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views.
Despite his prominence, there is little established fact about Gage and his behavior before or after the injury, which has allowed "the fitting of almost any theory [desired] to the small number of facts we have". Gage acted as a sort of "Rorschach inkblot" in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support for their views.
Was discussing Gage for a psychology class last week and remembered this article. So I gave it another read, and I must say: I really like it, probably because I've become inured to drier articles and articles so dense with mostly irrelevant names that I barely remember anything. Good stuff, and I'm somewhat inspired for my future work. In particular, a liberal use of footnotes satisfies both my deletionist tendency to compact information and my desire for extra info for interested readers. Ovinus ( talk) 02:28, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
With apologies for the delay (I hadn't noticed the last reversion), I'm reverting again the change [4] from
Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...
to
Phineas P. Gage (c. July 9, 1823 – May 21, 1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...
because there's a substantial list of reasons that this change is a detriment to the reader's experience, and nothing at all has been offered to explain how it benefits the reader's experience.
c. July 9, 1823is an incorrect characterization of Gage's birthdate.What we know is that one source reports July 9 as his birthdate, but without itself giving a source; the date is uncertain, and could be completely wrong. That completely different from saying it's "around" July 9. If we're going to have a parenthetical with full dates, it will have to say
Phineas P. Gage (July 9, 1823 (date uncertain) – May 21, 1860) was an American railroad construction foreman ...
Against this, the "reasons" offered for including full dates (in the lead -- to repeat, they're already in the infobox) have been:
None of these say anything about how the reader is served by inclusion of this clutter in the article's opening, but merely assert that all articles should look alike -- the weakest of all possible arguments, and characteristic of editors who make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notions of what should be, and then flit off to their next victim, without ever considering whether the page really needed the change they made, or whether the change improved the article at all ... Their editing is an off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all proposition, premised on the idea that what improves one article, or one type of article, will automatically improve every other article or type of article ...
[9].
John F. Kennedy's article makes an interesting contrast. For reasons that are surely obvious, a fair chunk of readers coming to that article actually do want to know right off (and possibly only) the date of his death. Full dates certainly belong in the opening of thatarticle.
Pending anyone explaining how full dates in the lead benefit the reader, I've reverted to the longstanding format. E Eng 05:50, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
editors who make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notionsetc etc, but on the other hand I didn't want to omit your edit summary from the list I gave, lest someone accuse me of understating the support for the view opposing mine (misguided though it is). I figured you'd forgive me. E Eng 05:43, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Is there a reasoning behind the strange citation style of this article? Why are some references demarcated by their "difficulty" while the others are listed as usual? Besides this, surely the letter system does not work as well as a normal style, as you cannot click the citation in the References section to see where a source appears in the main body? Medarduss ( talk) 23:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
I first encountered {{ ran}} on this page and see more discussion of it here than on the template page.
The template which creates the manual superscript has a bug on the Minerva theme used by the mobile site. You can see it if you use these links:
In each link try clicking the superscript callout links. In the first link, the desktop site has a tooltip and a functional link to References. The second and third links show the bug.
On the second link, the mobile site callouts for {{ ran}} do nothing when clicked. The superscript callouts created by {{ r}} and {{ refn}} on this page will cause a popup with the reference. The popup is the expected behavior. The links from < ref >, {{ efn}}, and {{ sfn}} all create popups. The {{ citeref}} template is slightly different and works on mobile the same way that it works on the desktop site (visible in the Notes section on: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse ); the superscript works as an in-page anchor link with {{ citeref}}.
In the third link, the mobile skin (Minerva) is used on the desktop site. The tooltip still works, but something in Minerva breaks the link regardless of the desktop or mobile version.
I hope that this helps and that it is not a strange place to post a bug report. Rjjiii ( talk) 02:27, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Should the headnote read
This article is about the man who survived an iron bar passing through his head
as EEng has reverted it back to and is the status quo, or should it read
This article is about the brain injury survivor
as I would prefer it. I believe the current version is strangely long and detailed. The succinct descriptor used in the short description is more than adequate to quickly describe the person before moving on to the next sentence For the UK musical band, see
Phinius Gage.
Any extra text than is needed is just clutter before you get to the real point of the header. Since I have been reverted and it seems clear we won't agree on this, I'm looking for anyone else's opinion on the subject so we can reach a consensus.
Cerebral726 (
talk) 19:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
American brain injury survivor (1823–1860). E Eng 20:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't feel too strongly, as long as we retain the key ideas of bar-through-head. However, I can't help pointing out that DE's suggestion just above cuts a mere 2 words from the current wording, but at the same time is distinctly less vivid and direct -- kind of medical sounding [12]. E Eng 06:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)