Talk:Phineas Gage

Fast review by User:Garrondo

<-- Comments indented to this point are my responses to Garrondo's comments. (Garrondo, as I keep saying this is going to take some time, and I'll have to do it in pieces. Since your points and mine, new and old, cross-reference one another, it might be the best use of your time if you wait until I say I'm done before you go over it. Really your "points 1-5" posted Feb. 15 are the most important thing, but I want to address your earlier points first.) EEng (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Garrondo's comments and edits

First of all I want to congratulate EEng for his work. The article is very complete right now, with many citations and a well researched. However after a fast review I find several issues; specially with style: In general I found the tone most according to a novel, historic book or journal article, but not to an encyclopedia: style in an encyclopedia should be more "cold" with less adjetives and valuation expressions, even if they are in the original sources. Some examples are:

• Weighing 13–1/4 lb (6 kg), this "abrupt and intrusive visitor" (completely irrelevant)

I cannot agree that an article is supposed to be "cold," as you say. Factual, neutral, verifiable, etc. -- yes. But not cold. Quite the opposite: an article should be engaging and inviting, including details which, perhaps, don't have to be there, but which nonetheless increase the reader's understanding of the context, sometimes operating at different levels for different readers. So, for example, Boston Medical & Surgical Journal's reference to Gage's tamping iron as an "abrupt and intrusive visitor" to Gage's noggin is just a fun detail many, but to a sophisticated reader interested in the history of medicine, it conveys the sense of bemused wonderment found in writing about Gage at the time (foreshadowed in the lead -- "The case...calculated to excite our wonder...) and offers a window into the less stuffy and more stately, more literate style of medical wrioting of the time in contrast to today (one of delights of researching Gage, by the way). You won't find writing like that in New England Journal of Medicine -- which believe it or not is the modern title of Boston Med & Surg J!

• Despite Harlow's skillful care (Irrelevant and common sense: otherwise is clear to everybody he would have died)

See below.

• Harlow's 1868 presentation of the case is by far the most informative (An irrelevant valuation)
• A similar concern was expressed as far back as 1877 (better to say in 1877 since we can not know if there has been anybody saying it between him and McMillan)
• Aside from the question of why the very unpleasant changes usually attributed to Gage would inspire surgical imitation: that is quite irrelevant and highly journalistic. It could simply be eliminated.

Macmillan's paper on the (lack of any) relationship between Gage and lobotomy explains why this is relevant, and I've added a note on the subject to the article,

A second problem I find is the great overuse of verbatim citations. The importance of the longer ones is out of discussion. However sentences such as

By November 25 Gage was strong enough to return to his parents' home in Lebanon, N.H., where by late December he was "riding out, improving both mentally and physically." In April 1849 he returned to Cavendish and paid a visit to Harlow, who noted at that time loss of vision (and ptosis) of the left eye, a large scar on the forehead, and "upon the top of the head...a deep depression, two inches by one and one-half inches wide, beneath which the pulsations of the brain can be perceived. Partial paralysis of the left side of the face." Despite all this, "his physical health is good, and I am inclined to say he has recovered. Has no pain in head, but says it has a queer feeling which he is not able to describe."

are really tiring for the reader; when they could easily converted into prose My proposal in this case would be something similar to:

By November 25 Gage was strong enough to return to his parents' home in Lebanon, N.H., where by late December he was improving both mentally and physically. In April 1849 he returned to Cavendish and paid a visit to Harlow, who noted at that time loss of vision and ptosis of the left eye, a large scar on the forehead, and a skull depression of two inches by one and one-half inches wide. Despite all this Harlow considered that he was almost completely recovered.

Finally there is also an overuse of unneeded brackets and (I do not know the name in English), both quite tiring to reading: In addition to verbatim citations examples are:

• then compact ("tamp down") : Could simply be eliminated

People don't seem to know what a "tamping iron" so some explanation is needed. But I rewrote to eliminate the quotation.

• A "fungal" infection: Why not A fungal infection?

Because to Harlow a "fungus" was (OED) "spongy morbid growth or excrescence, such as exuberant granulation in a wound" i.e. the body's own reaction to the wound, not an infection (though this growth was itself clearly infected severely, probably by bacteria; see Macmillan 2000, p.61 for more). Putting "fungal" in quotes alerts the reader that the word is not being used in the usual sense. Even though I'll be reverting your change in this and many other cases, the exercise has been extremely helpful, because it shows where explanatory text (or a note) should be added (e.g for "fungus").

• consistent with a "social recovery" hypothesis: consistent with a social recovery hypothesis.

I'll try to propose further improvements (probably more important than the stylistic changes proposed) along this week. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 08:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Editing

I have the article according to some of the simplest of my above points. However other possible eliminations are more open to discussion. I am going to go ahead with some changes with the aim of simplifying language and structure of some sentences and eliminated not very relevant data. I will add here any sentences I eliminate and their rationale for elimination so if somebody does not agree it can be added back.--Garrondo (talk) 15:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Gage's accident

• (via a laborious process which today might best be thought of as chiseling): Not really relevant to topic and complicate too much structure. Topic is Gage and his accident, not the method of drilling rock
• this "abrupt and intrusive visitor"[6] was said to have landed some 80 feet (25 m) away.. Too much novelesque language but does not really add info (abrupt and intrusive). "Was said to have landed": As everything else in the article we base it in original and secondary sources. Unless there is a reason to doubt it it can be eliminated. Sentence changed to: it landed 80 feet (25 m) away.

It would be incorrect to say, "it landed X distance away" because reports of the distance varied, and since it's a quantitative statement it needs to be qualified as inexact. The only alternative to "...said to have landed..." would be to just say it landed "far" away and that's hardly helpful to the reader. (The distance does matter because it puts a limit on the speed as the bar left Gage's skullm yucky as that sounds).

• Despite Harlow's skillful care. Eliminated skillful: Do we have any indication that it was above what is expected for a physician of that time? Did he do anything unusual? It probably was an average care.

Harlow's management of the case was creative and well above the norm for the time. I've added cites to Macmillan's and Barker's discussion of this.

I will continue with other sections along the week.--Garrondo (talk) 15:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Subsequent life and travels

• in New York City (the curious paying to see, presumably, both Gage and the instrument that injured him) although there is no independent confirmation of this. Recently however, evidence has surfaced supporting Harlow's... There is no confirmation for this but neither there is for almost everything... We base our knowledge on Gage in Harlow's, and there is no reason to doubt on its veracity, specially with the later sentence. Changed to: both Gage and the instrument that injured him). Evidence has surfaced supporting that Gage made public appearances in the larger New England towns For the second sentence a reference is needed.

Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 15:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

EEng's thougts on above

Garrondo, your careful attention is very much appreciated! And I want to mention that you (along with User:Delldot and others) did the really hard work of building the article from scratch long before I got involved two years ago. Many of your recent changes point out weaknesses (some of which I knew about and hadn't got around to ). But many show misunderstandings -- you don't seem to have absorbed the sources cited for the material you're changing, and often the statements in your edit summaries are factually incorrect. To avoid the article carrying misinformation too long, I'm going to revert some of those changes immediately, making the best explanation I can in the edit summaries; later (maybe over the weekend) adding further explanation here.

Beyond straight-out factual issues are your concerns about whether certain material is relevant, or whether material can be paraphrased, rather than quoted, without loss of meaning. Again, you really need to read the context of a given quote, as found in the cites, before paraphrasing it in a way which you assume to be equivalent, or which changes the meaning in "minor" ways which you assume are safe. Similarly, you can't assume that omitting this or that material won't damage the reader's understanding of the case it its context, unless you carefully check the cited material from which it came and secondary sources discussing it. Interpreting Gage -- particularly, making sense of the conflicting things written about him in the 19th century -- requires careful attention to the shifting medical and popular meanings of terms we take for granted as settled today. An example of how much less settled ideas about the brain were in Gage's time: it wasn't even generally recognized that injury to one side of the brain tends to affect movement or sensation on the opposite side of the body, much less did many mid-19c physicians accept that brain injury might affect "higher functions" such as language and behavior. So in saying a patient "recovered," he might -- depending on his training and doctrinal inclination -- only mean that movement and sensation are unimpaired, any behavioral changes being ascribed to something other than the brian injury, or simply ignored as not even medical issues in the first place. That's why the article quotes Harlow's and Bigelow's statements about Gage's "recovery" -- to acknowledge them as the two men's individual wordings, each needing individual interpretation according its source. (For example, Bigelow was hostile to phrenology, while Harlow was almost certainly influenced by it to some extent.) To simply write, by paraphrase, that Harlow said Gage was almost fully recovered, leads the reader to interpret the word recovered in its modern sense, comprehending the far wider range of functions for which we now believe the brain is responsible, compared to some (but not all) physicians 150 years ago. And to change Harlow's words, "His health is good, and I am inclined to say he has recovered," into a narration that Harlow considered that [Gage] was almost completely recovered absolutely changes the meaning as a modern reader will interpret it, especially when one considers the question in light of everything else Harlow writes. These issues are extensively discussed in Barker, Macmillan 2000, Macmillan 2008, and other cited material.

You omitted Harlow's mention of Gage's hard-to-describe "queer feeling in the head." This is a phenomenon often associated with certain brain injuries -- see A.R. Luria's The Man with a Shattered World -- and tying Gage in to Luria's description 100 years later vividly ties Gage to the modern theory of brain-injury rehabilitation, for those with the background to recognize it. This is another example of text working at different levels for different readers, and should be retained.

Contrary to what you say, not every physician was a "doctor" at the time (and in fact for a long time in the UK, some classes of surgeons were styled Mr. not Dr.).

In other cases, you've made edits which, on simple grammar and punctuation alone, change the meaning into an incorrect or ambiguous one on its own face, having nothing to do with interpretation. Example: Harlow noted loss of vision (and ptosis) of the left eye makes it clear that the loss of vision, as well as the ptosis, affected the left eye only. Your text loss of vision and ptosis of the left eye is unclear as to whether of the left eye applies to loss of vision, or to ptosis only -- ambiguously suggesting that the loss of vision might have been in both eyes. The parentheses correct this. (Commas could be used instead, but in a sentence with many commas already, parentheses help subordinate this phrase to the larger structure. You seem to dislike parentheses for some reason, but they are completely acceptable in good writing, when used carefully. The same goes for dashes (—) as well, I might add.)

Another important point (I had meant my comments to be brief, but it's not working out that way...): Contrary to what you say, almost everything Harlow tells us about Gage's movements has been independently verified one way or another -- see Macmillan 2000, 2008 especially. That's why, for example, it's specially called out that the Barnum appearance is unverified (despite several ransackings of Barnum archives in locations throughout the US).

As I said, I'll make certain more urgent reversions now, others in time, and if the edit summaries don't satisfy you please start a list here, where we can continue discussion on individual points. In the meantime, please continue to make further changes you think are helpful. I'll either leave them alone (or build on them), revert with explanatory edit summaries, or (in many cases) revert while adding explanatory text so the text won't mislead future readers the way it has you. That seems the most efficient way to do this -- no need to discuss everything in advance (unless you feel the need) -- just be bold and we can revert-discuss as necessary. But please do more carefully review the cited sources before making further changes. Wikipedia Excelsior! EEng (talk) 22:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

(Later) Well, Garrondo, I'm sorry to say I ended up reverting almost all your changes. There's an explanation on each individual edit summary, though in a few places I'll add more explanation here on Talk, but that can't be for a few days. But (and I really mean this) this has really helped, because it showed how many places extra explanation is needed. You'll see one added note already (which I fear you might think frivolous, but it's really not -- the tenor of the times was important to the fate of the case in medical history) and I'll be adding at least two others, one on "fungus" and one on "drilling" -- probably a few more as well. Please do keep making proposed changes, frustrating as that may seem, because they really are helping me see the article in a new light. And please feel free to "push back" here on any of my reversions. EEng (talk) 02:31, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree with most of your explanations and I believe that at least in most cases they are related to a conscious or most probably unconscious sense of ownership over the article. From now on I won't edit any more the article since I do not feel that collaboration is really welcome. Having said this I still hope that we could make a better article together. I will point out some comments, if I feel they are heard and addressed I will continue pointing more, if not I will simply leave you at your own. --Garrondo (talk) 09:48, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear! I was afraid something like this might happen. I really don't want you to feel that way -- remember, I contacted you especially asking for your thoughts, and that was sincere. But look, the only way to work together to make the article better (and there's lots to be done) is to discuss our different points of view. I said I would annotate your original comments in the next few days, and I'll do that, and then we can discuss from there. I don't know any other way. In the meantime if some of my edit summaries don't satisfy you, list them here for discussion. Similarly, please annotate my reasoning above where you disagree. But you really, really have to read the sources cited (the secondary ones, I mean) to understand why many things are the way they are. EEng (talk) 12:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

More than offended I had the feeling of work being useless. Nevertheless I still want to try to work in the article because it is an article I am really interested and in general I believe you have done good work. However I would change to an approach which leaves to you all decisions regarding the article. I will only do peer review, commenting in the talk page. It will be up to you to decide on using it or not and it is there and then were you would have to prove how much open to change you are. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 18:23, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

More comments from Garrondo

Some of my editions were intended to eliminate some quotation marks. I have counted more than 140 which makes 70 quotations. When I read the full article they make me really tired and they are far from improving prose. From my point of view the article will improve if many of the direct quotations are converted into prose. (More comments soon).--Garrondo (talk) 10:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I did a quick check and only two or three of your changes involved dropping quotes, and in those cases they set off unusual terms with which most readers would be unfamiliar, such as "social recovery." If there's a Wikipedia article to link to, that would be better than quote marks, but I can't find one. As I write I realize some of these cases could use italics instead, and maybe that would be better. But I have to get to work now. Let's talk later. EEng (talk) 12:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

That is because I preferred to try what I thought that were going to be simpler editions to more complex ones. I would not use italics, since the problem is exactly the same and additionally the article will not be consistent. Solution should be to convert into prose. There are many places that using the exact same words as in the primary source is not at all a necessity. Some probable examples

• "a vainglorious tendency to show off his wound," an "utter lack of foresight: why not simply a tendency to vainglory from his wound and lack of foresight
• "up and down stairs, and about the house, into the piazza," and while Harlow was absent for a week, Gage was "in the street every day except Sunday," his desire to return to his family in New Hampshire being "uncontrollable by his friends...got wet feet and a chill." He soon developed a fever, but by mid-November he was "feeling better in every respect...walking about the house again; says he feels no pain in the head." Harlow's prognosis at this point: Gage "appears to be in a way of recovering, if he can be controlled." (There are 4 quatations in 3 sentences!!!) A possible alternative for the second part would be something similar to: He soon developed a fever, but by mid-November he had recovered from it, was walking again and had no pain in the head. At this point Harlow thought that he was going to get over his injury if he could be controlled. (I am really tired today; I have just given an speech in which curiosly I have talked about Phineas Gage; so I do not feel capable of thinking something for the first part of the sentence; and anyway these are only examples).
• "riding out, improving both mentally and physically.": is it really necessary to say the "riding out"? Does it add ANY information? Why not simply improving both mentally and physically and no quotes?
• "upon the top of the head...a deep depression, two inches by one and one-half inches wide, beneath which the pulsations of the brain can be perceived. Partial paralysis of the left side of the face." I think the part of the pulsations is probably much to gory and does not really add much. How about something like: and at the top of the skull a depression two inches by one and one-half inches wide which put in direct contact the scalp skin with the brain's surface. Gage also suffered from partial paralysis in the lef side of the face.

With rephrasings similar to the ones above we should be able to eliminate many of the messier quotations(I will point some more ones on Monday).--Garrondo (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

On the other side I agree completely with delldot on the article having a non-neutral, essay-like tone with the bullets section being the most clamorous example.--Garrondo (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

In a more general perspective the article from my point of view gives undue weight to the misuse of the case in comparison to the importance of the case: While in the lead it is commented that it has had great importance in the history of neuroscience nothing else is said but a line to Damasio's theory afterwards. I find the misuse section very interesting but it should come only after a whole section commenting at least some of the following points:

• 1-How has the case influenced the knowledge on the relationship between behavior and brain.
• 2-How has been used by different schools of thought (again only a line in the misuse of the case is said, while the fact that two different schools used it as an example on opposite theories is not really a misuse).
• 3-How it is in accordance with the knowledge on the functioning and damage consequences knowledge we have today on the frontal lobe
• 4-How it is still used as an example in many textbooks (lead should only be a summary of the text below, the line that it is said in it should be expanded in the text)
• 5-A more in-depth coverage of Damasio's theory.

Otherwise it is using a Non Neutral Point of View. The fact is that the consequences commented by Harlow are common in people with frontal lobe damage, so Harlow's description of Gage sequels is still today a valid one. The fact that there may be some factual incorrections in the description should not be given more importance. In this sense only one author (an important and fruitful one nevertheless) says that the description is not correct so the article would be greatly improved if this was shown.--Garrondo (talk) 11:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Garrondo, I've started work on adding my comments and explanations to your comments above, but it's a big job and not nearly done (it's not really something that can be done piece by piece). But I have made some changes to the article which I hope address some of your concerns. Your points 1-5 above are good ones, and I'd much rather talk about them (substance of the article) and worry about use of quotes and other stylistic stuff later.

One particular thing I'm realizing is that you seem to think the article questions the accuracy of Harlow's description of Gage's behavior. It absolutely does not do that, and I've tried to make that even more clear. The issues with Harlow's description are these:

• it's unclear when the different things he says about Gage apply -- some may apply soon after the accident, others years later. And once you realize the possibility of Gage having made a substantial recovery over the years, it becomes really important to figure that out.
• Some of what he says comes second or third hand, and so must be taken with caution (in particular, such stuff may be incomplete)
• As discussed already in my comments further up, words like recovered are very tricky to interpret, depending on the medical training and background of the writer

I think it's also very important that you read up on the key secondary sources -- pardon my saying, but from some of your comments it's clear you haven't done that. And I can understand that -- there's a lot to go through. But the fact is you're the only person taking a substantial interest in the article, your concerns are quite sensible, and there's no way we can have a productive discussion on e.g. your POV concerns unless you have access to the cited materials. Here's what I consider essential reading: Macmillan 2000 (the book), Macmillan 2000 ("Restoring" paper), Macmillan 2008 ([1]), Barker, Ratiu, plus [2] and [3], and finally a Macmillan paper not cited, "Phineas Gage: A case for all reasons" [4]. If you have trouble getting any of those I can help -- I'll even send you Macmillan 2000 if you really need it. It's that important to me that we be able to work together well. (I'd also like to know more about your talk on Gage.) EEng (talk) 15:28, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The truth is I do not have neither access nor time to read the secondary sources that I have not red (Mostly McMillian). It is true that I have not red them, but I do not doubt on the conclusions you draw from them. In that sense I believe that the distortion and misuse is a section that clearly should be maintaineed. The problem is that what I do not see anywhere in the article (but a line in the lead which should be a summary of the article which is not right now) why the case has had such an impact. This missing section is probably the most important point in the article, since with out it the article would be a non-notable anecdote of a survivor. Moreover the misuse section does not make sense without a previous section where it is said how the case has been used since its occurrence until today. We should center our efforts to decide wether this section is a neccesity and what should include.--Garrondo (talk) 16:11, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Great article!

I read the whole thing, was drawn in and was fascinated, really fantastic. It's appropriate for subject. Should be featured. Shame so many people don't recognize talented and quality work, commercial encyclopedia's would pay good money for this. The comments above about "cold" writing being required at Wikipedia is just lol. In fact Wikipedia is 95% awful writing (myself included) so when we see actual rare good work, the crowd can't stand it because it sets off the rest to look so bad and amateur. Anyway, don't take my word, look at the user reviews at the bottom of the page, and article view statistics. People love this article. Green Cardamom (talk) 03:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. A lot of that "professional" quality comes from the work of EEng in 2008-2010. This article was once rated a "Good Article" (in 2007), but was delisted in 2008, before EEng started working on it. It might be worth renominating -- however EEng has not edited since March of this year, so would probably not be available to deal with issues that arise. I could probably take care of minor stuff, but I'm definitely far from an expert on Gage. Looie496 (talk) 15:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say I just got out after six months in prison (they block Wikipedia) so it's comforting to find such friendly voices here on the outside. (Just kidding about being in prison -- you didn't really believe that, did you?) I can't deny I'm tickled by the praise for the article above and below. I did put a lot of work into it, but it's no false modesty when I say that it was others (Garrondo especially) that did the essential work of putting it together in the first place. If I'd started it on my own from scratch it wouldn't be nearly as good. EEng (talk) 01:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Just stating for the record that it was me who missed the "just kidding" part. You are all, therefore, warned as to the competency of my editing! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I'm amazed at how little (relatively) the article has changed while I've been gone, but of course I'm gonna look it all over now. Y'all please let me know if I you think I do something unwise. EEng (talk) 01:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I echo the praise. Far too many Wikipedia articles are cold and sterile (if sometimes littered by the leftovers of earlier POV wars). The passion in this one makes it much more informative and interesting. Where such passion would get in the way of objectivity and NPOV, it of course would need to be toned down. And it's unrealistic to assume that all of our articles will ever get such treatment. But let's not tone it down in a search for anodyne consistency of style. I respect that there are a range of criteria for this, but as far as I am concerned, this is more deserving of being a Featured Article than many others we have. Martinp (talk) 17:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Very interesting read about a very interesting man. The author(s) of this article certainly did him justice. By the way, does anyone else thing that Phineas Gage bears a striking resemblence to Christopher Reeve? Van Vidrine (talk) 19:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The resemblance to Reeve is frequently commented on. Search [5] for Reeve (see esp. the July 24 comment). EEng (talk) 01:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Comments

I see this excellent article has been the subject of numerous comments already so I'll try and keep this relatively brief. I should also say at the start that I haven't consulted any of the secondary sources cited in the article so my comments should be read under the presumption of my own ignorance (I could probably get most of the articles cited but I'm less certain I could locate Macmillan's book-length treatment).

Coverage: As a reader, the one item I'm left dissatisfied about is the coverage of the manner in which the Gage case was used to advance or support theories relating to cerebral localisation or other aspects of psychology, behaviour and brain function. As it stands this is limited to a brief mention of a 19th century dispute in regard to localisation theories and Antonio Damasio's hypothesis linking the frontal lobes to emotions and decision making. Note D indicates that Harlow's (1868) account was, at least until 1974, the second most cited source in 20th century psychological texts. I would like a better sense of what theories or hypotheses Gage's case was used to illustrate or support, however erroneously.

Style: In regard to the writing style, I should preface my remarks by stating that it is excellent overall and I wouldn't favour changes that are likely to render it less engaging. However, I feel there is at times an overuse of both parentheses and dashes. I think, personally, these should be used somewhat more judiciously. Dashes are useful in lending a particularly emphasis to a section of text but retain that effect only when used sparingly. Parentheses, used to clarify a point or term, I'd really only include when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, if overused, both dashes and parentheses can lend something of juddering effect to the reading experience. In regard to the use of dashes, I think that this is most evident in the lead where in many instances I would advocate the use of commas instead. If say, you removed about half of the dashes, the text they are removed from may flow better whereas their effect where they are retained would be greatly enhanced. Similarly with the use of parentheses, some should probably be retained but many, I think, should not and the information would be more easily digested if commas were substituted for brackets or if new sentences were introduced. In fact, in some instances notes could be used.

Footnote 38 should follow the bracket, no?

Note C: I'd actually like to see some of this note integrated into the main text (esp. "The leading feature of this case is its improbability ... This is the sort of accident that happens in the pantomime at the theater, not elsewhere").

Note K: "Contrary to common reports" - assuming this observation is derived from Macmillan, why would it need a separate citation?

An excellent article overall. Will it be nominated for Good or Featured article status? FiachraByrne (talk)

GAN, McMillian and Gage

First of all I want to say that I greatly admire the work done by EEng in this article, which has led it to probably become a great piece, with fine writting and really good documentation. However, I have stated several times that while McMillian is probably a great source, it is not a definitive one, and certainly there is no consensus with his position regarding the well-doing of Gage.

In the section above EEng said: Just for the record though, it turns out Gage did not function "badly", but actually quite well. This comment defines exactly the problem I find with several parts of the article, since it clearly overstates the importance of McMillian theories: it would certainly be more accurate to say that it has been proposed by an investigator that he did quite well, or that some evidence points towards him doing better than previously thought.

I find all sections till the "theoretical use and misuse" very balanced, but from it (included) to the end of the article I believe that some undue weight is given to McMillian, giving the impression that there is consensus on his theories. I find specially troublesome the "use of the case" section, where only a few lines are given on how the case has been used along the history of neurology. However, this section should probably be one of the most important ones in the article, since independently of how truly was the case of Gage he has been an icon used for over a 100 years to explain frontal lobe disorders. This section should explain how has he become such an icon, and it certainly should give minimal importance to McMillian. Moreover, the article should also make clear that many of the problems that at some point have been proposed that he suffered are consistent with frontal brain injuries and that the MRI and neurological knowledge on the prognosis of other similar cases point towards him certainly suffering some kind of cognitive problems for the remaining of his life.

EEng has stated several times that he only has basic knowledge on neurology and neuroanatomy, and he recently indicated in other article that he was involved in the preparation of one of McMillians works. While none of the two facts actually invalidate his huge acomplishments in this article, they may be hindering the advance of the article in what I think are the final stages towards GA and even FA and work with other editors is probably the only way of moving forward from this point.

In summary: I do not think right now the article is up to GA status although it is probably close, with only some (not huge) problems in balance of content along the full article (McMillians importance should be down-toned at some points) (criterium 3) and an (important) lack of content in another section (criterium 4).

I have been involved in the article, so my evaluation does not count as the requiered review for GAN, but I hope that nevertheless is taken into account.

--Garrondo (talk) 07:40, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Some editors know from earlier discussions that I am the second author of Reference #20, and first author mentioned in Note Z, of [6]. I prefer not to broadcast this because (a) I do not want to be seen as playing the "expert card" and (2) my professional work requires that any internet presence connected to my real-life identity be extremely low-profile. I ask that other editors help keep it that way by referring to my identity only obliquely. (I'm not in the CIA or anything, so it's not like you'll be responsible for my death, but it's the nature of my work that everything I write can become the subject of discussion.)

To get this discussion restarted, let me pose a question which I think will be illuminating:

The article says that Gage died in 1860, citing Macmillan. But most sources ([7]) say Gage died in 1861. So how come the article doesn't present this as some kind of controversy, explaining that sources conflict as to the year Gage died? Or should it?

Discussion of this question should encapsulate, in miniature, the larger question Garrondo is raising.

EEng (talk) 02:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I had not seen this after all the edits back and forth on format. I simply do not see your point. I do not see the relevance of McMillian giving a different date. He may or may not be right, we cannot know, but nobody has really discussed Gage's death date over the years (probably few care). As such there is no controversy; whereas many people have make important contributions to neuroscience using him as an example of one theory and the other and such use is by itself relevant and notable.

Once again: I have nothing against McMillian, and he may be 100% right or 100% wrong or somewhere in the middle we cannot know. Future works will go with him or against him, and there is nothing wrong with that. Howevever until them I believe it is a good idea to present his proposals as that, as proposals from an author based on data and his interpretations from that data (that is the problem of history, hardly ever based on hard data). In this sense I have to say that right now the article makes a good job in most sections since it usually presents info attributting it to McMillian and letting the reader decide how much weight he gives to it.

Once said that: even if he is 100% correct is irrelevant. Historical use of Gage's case is notable, and cannot be simply dismissed in a few lines as fully faulty, which is what is more or less done in the use and misuse section right now.

As I have always said: if you really want to improve the article in a neutral tone we could discuss how to do it.

--Garrondo (talk) 14:32, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Soft hyphens

The following is copied from User talk:Bender235#Phineas Gage. The edit in question, by Bender235, changed the markup (a) &emdash;, (b) &endash;, and (c) ­ to (a) a literal em-dash(—), (b) a literal en-dash (–), and (c) a literal soft hyphen, which is nonprinting and invisible in the edit window.

What was the purpose of these [8] changes? En- and em-dashes are hard to distinguish in the markup, and soft hyphens improve layout and appearance -- why did you remove them? [See below -- turns out they weren't removed, just made invisible in the edit window.] EEng (talk) 01:52, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Soft hypens are a bit too much Insp. Gadget for Wikipedia. If you look at the source of the article then, it is basically unreadable, which is something Wikipedia should always avoid. --bender235 (talk) 09:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I see. And you changed the mdash/ndash markup to literal mdashes/ndashes because...? EEng (talk) 11:33, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Because User:Cameltrader/Advisor suggested it. And I don't see any reason not to do it. --bender235 (talk) 18:07, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I said why you shouldn't do it in my initial post here: the literal em- and en-dashes are very hard to distinguish in source. So in removing the soft hyphens you impaired the quality of what the reader sees (and summarily discarded a lot of someone's work) in the name of improving what the editor sees -- a tradeoff already made, in the opposite direction, by those who actually edit the article. Then you changed symbolic dashes to literal dashes, which does nothing at all except impair what the editor sees. Please don't make choices about what is or isn't convenient for the article's editors if you're not one of them. EEng (talk) 13:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, you better get off the high horse here. I've been editing Wikipedia long enough to have an educated opinion on what's convenient for editors and what is not. That soft hyphen overkill you (or whoever) introduced to that article is simply ridiculous. I mean, ...sec­ond, com­pen­sat­ing..., what the hell is that? Could you name any plausible scenario in which it would be necessary for the viewer's browser to break a single word three times? Is there anybody browsing Wikipedia with a 10px screen, or what? --bender235 (talk) 13:34, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Brought this case to WP:MOS. And by the way, just because you contributed to a particular article more than I did does not make you its owner. --bender235 (talk) 13:54, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm perfectly comfortable up here on my high horse, thank you.

• Multiple soft hyphens allow a word to be broken at the one best point among several choices. That you think they imply breaking a single word over several lines calls into question your claimed extensive experience.
• As it turns out your edits didn't even remove the soft hyphens -- what you actually did, using an automated tool you apparently don't understand, was to substitute a literal soft hyphen for each occurence of ­, similar to your substitution of — and – for — and –. But since literal soft hyphens are nonprinting (except at end-of-line), by doing so you have made it not only (as previously explained) very difficult to visually distinguish an en- from an em-dash in the edit window, you've now made it completely impossible to see where the soft hyphens are. Good work.
• This article is full of medical terms and majestic 19th-century quotations, making hyphenation very helpful in avoiding unsightly underfilled lines, particularly in narrow captions and multicolumn notes/references. Your argument that readability of source text (seen by less than one editor per day) trumps readability of formatted text (seen by thousands of readers per day) is nonsense.
• In any event this particular choice, in this particular article, was made (or accepted with no hint of objection) by editors actually working on (or at least monitoring) it. This has nothing to do with ownership -- if you showed any interest in substantive edits to the article that would be quite a different matter from what actually happened i.e. you dropped in to impose your personal ideas of what markup should look like, and moved on.
• When you gain consensus at MOS for regulations micromanaging soft hyphenation please let us know, assuming the universe has not run cold by then. In the meantime, since you apparently don't know how soft hyphens work, or what the automated tool you're using actually does, think twice before applying the word "ridiculous".

EEng (talk) 22:42, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

You're barking up the wrong tree. I'll give you a chance to reply at WP:MOS and explain what people there describe as a "joke edit" of yours, before I revert your edit. --bender235 (talk) 13:46, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Please, no more metaphors -- so far you've got me "barking up the wrong tree" while on "the high horse".

• Your insistence that you are combatting "soft hyphen overkill" is ludicrous since, as already explained above, your edit did not remove the soft hyphens but merely changed them to a form making then impossible to see in the edit window. (That the soft hyphens are still there is easily seen via the hyphenated linebreaks in the live article e.g. in most image captions.) This makes no sense at all.
• Talk:MOS is for discussion of changes to MOS or of MOS interpretation, not forum-shopped editing disputes unrelated to anything in MOS.
• Soft hyphens are part of Wikipedia markup, and in the absence of guidelines to the contrary they exist to be used according to the consensus of editors of the article in question. I am copying this discussion to Talk:Phineas Gage#Soft hyphens so we can hear if any of them finds soft hyphens as objectionable as you do.

EEng (talk) 03:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

End of copied discussion

I would recommend that both of you take a deep breath... The tone of this conversation has not been really productive. Regarding hyphens... I agree with EEng that to change them with literal literal mdashes/ndashes is a bad idea with no positive effects. On the other hand the use of soft hyphens is a tradeoff between readibility of text and accesibility of editing, being the two of them important (this is the encyclopedia that anybody should be able to edit). I have to say that sometimes I have taken a look at the editing text and it does take quite a lot of effort to understand it, so Bender may have a point there. On the other hand in the absence of policy changes in format in an article should be first consensuated.

As a conclussion: I would rather not to use them unless in very specific cases since it is true that use is really extensive at several places of the article and they might be contributing to editors not being able to contribute in the article, while their positive effect is a matter of subjective aesthetic preference (I have for example no problems with spaces).

--Garrondo (talk) 06:57, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I actually don't want to have this discussion here, but rather with a broader audience on WP:MOS, but let me just reply to this: "Your insistence that you are combatting "soft hyphen overkill" is ludicrous since, as already explained above, your edit did not remove the soft hyphens but merely changed them to a form making then impossible to see in the edit window. (That the soft hyphens are still there is easily seen via the hyphenated linebreaks in the live article e.g. in most image captions.) This makes no sense at all."

It makes perfect sense, because the problem with soft hyphens aren't the soft hyphens themselves, but the effect they have on the readability of source code. I mean, lines like inap­pro­priate sex­u­al behav­ior, ina­bil­ity or refus­al are practically unreadable to human eye. Imagine a new editor (or any, for that matter), spotting a typo in this line and wanting to fix it: he/she would most likely have no idea what to do with this mess.

Like I said, the problem aren't the soft hyphens themselves. What matters to me is keeping the source code readable. --bender235 (talk) 08:44, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

These &shys certainly make the code much harder for the editors. Is it worth this inconvenience in order to give the reader a better article? Sure but I don't agree that this is happening. You might be reducing the blank space at the end of lines but you do so at the expense of breaking words up. A word broken over two lines is harder to read. I could see a use for soft hyphens where the word is very long and/or the space is very narrow but this is not the case here. Also, I believe Bender's suggestion to take the discussion to WT:MOS is quite reasonable; the use (or misuse) of soft hyphens is not just an issue for this article but is relevant for most articles. JIMp _talk·cont 13:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

no hyphenation (forgive the stray highlighting)

with hyphenation

Well, I think the difference seen in these screenshots does represent giving the reader a better article.

Most of the soft hyphens are in captions and notes, where the layout is narrow. I also added them in places I saw bad breaks and underfilled lines, particularly in verbatim quotes not subject to editing anyway.

I agree I've never seen any article so generously hyphenated, but so what? I don't buy the idea that soft hyphens are the straw that breaks the markup-complexity camel's back -- the markup in this article, as in any extensively annotated article, is already very complex. (Garrondo, just today in reference to a certain quotation you said [9] "I was going to be bold and move it but I have been unable due to the complex syntax used." Um, but this was after another editor had removed all the soft hyphens [10] -- so should we now remove all the < refs> as well?)

Based on the screenshots I hope most can agree that soft hyphens are justified in at least some places. If editors want to discuss particular instances (or classes of instances, or some systematic way of deciding where to soft hyphenate) that's fine, but if not then mass-removal is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and smacks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT or perhaps WHAT­THE­FUCK'S­ALL­THIS­SHIT­I'VE­NEVER­SEEN­ANYTHING­LIKE­IT­SO­IT­MUST­BE­WRONG.

EEng (talk) 02:47, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not convinced. Most articles never use soft hyphens, and they look OK. If long words in narrow columns cause problems now and then, you might sometimes justify a soft hyphen in such words if you can't fix the formatting to not have images on both sides or whatever is causing the squeeze. But the only way to get there is to remove all the soft hyphens and start over. Where did they come from, anyway? You? Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Consensus at MOS discussion for this specific articles seems that they are overall unnecessary. Moreover, the theoretical improvement throught their use is quite subjective: personally from the two images you show I find more aesthethically pleasant the first, since I really dislike breaking a word in two and have no problem with double blank spaces. I agree with their removal and then discussing if there are any places where they are essential. Also: my problem with editing is specific to this article which is really, over-marked up (and I think I am an experienced editor). Eliminating the soft hyphens might not be the solution (as you say I would have neither been able to change the quote), but it will certainly make editing easier. In this sense I think that your example using my comment is not really fair. --Garrondo (talk) 07:31, 10 June 2013 (UTC).

Thank you, EEng, for the screen shots; I think that they well illustrate my point. Given the choice between the text with overly wide spaces and the one with a broken word, the first seems a whole lot more readable. Of course, this isn't actually the choice we're faced with; WP doesn't adjust spacing to fill the line but leaves a blank space at the end of the line (as far as I'm aware, though I've only checked Chrome, Firefox & Internet Explorer). Either way, though, it seems to me that in general breaking a word up over two lines is too high a price to pay for avoiding a little stray space. On looking at versions of the page with and without soft hyphens, it seems to me that the soft hyphens don't really do much in the way of removing line length inconsistency and the most prominent/noticeable difference is the broken words. When and where soft hyphens may be beneficial is under discussion at WT:MOS; the general consensus is that they are undesirable unless we're dealing with quite long words and/or quite narrow spaces. I don't see either here. Throw out the bathwater, there was no baby in the first place. JIMp _talk·cont 07:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Undue weight of first quote

To have a long quote on the misuse of the case in the lead is in my opinion to give undue weight to such misuse. It certainly is not mentioned in most sources on Gage and is only a central point in McMillans theories. While I think the quote is a good one, I feel that it would better fit in the specific section within the article. I was going to be bold and move it but I have been unable due to the complex syntax used.--Garrondo (talk) 19:24, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not mentioned in most sources on Gage because most sources on Gage are just a few sentences. There are only two modern authors I can bring to mind who discuss in any way the theoretical treatment of Gage, and both emphasize the doctrinal misuse of the case. One of those is Barker (cited in article) and the other is Macmillan's 600-page book and 15+ papers over 25 years. There is no controversy or dispute about Macmillan's conclusions (which are not, as you call them, "theories") and much commentary on it explicitly highlights Macmillan's theoretical-misuse point with approval -- for example (among many others, and detailed cites on request):

• Ammons, Psychological Reports (2001)
• Goldenberg, Cortex (2004)
• Eling Contemporary Psychology (2003): "Macmillan’s study is a colorful picture of how scientists (and subsequently all kinds of people in society) used a particular case to convince others of their own theories."
• Crichton, Lancet (2001)
• Saling, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry (2001): "a study of the mutations that creep into the historicoclinical record in medicine"
• Long, Neurosurgery Quarterly (2002). "Even some of the most prestigious academic researchers have disseminated erroneous information about this most important injury and its outcome"
• Hayward, Br J for the History of Science (2002): "a stunning example of the ideological use of case histories and their mythological reconstruction."

Among early sources, exasperation with theoretical misuse and distortion was expressed by Smith, Dupuy, Ferrier, and Jackson (all cited in article)

EEng (talk) 21:13, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Wait a second... I just realized there is no "long quote on the misuse of the case in the lead"! What are you talking about? EEng (talk) 00:45, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, now I know what you're talking about -- the pullquote just after the lead. I agree it looks awkward there, and I've moved it as you suggest. EEng (talk) 04:45, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I do not say that McMillian is wrong and he certainly makes a point that Gage could have recovered better than thought (although it is a theory since it is far from proven as we still have very little information- him appearing in pictures or even having a job are not a clear-cut proof that he had no personality changes-. He does however prove that the case has been exagerated) , but the misuse of the case should be given similar importance to other parts of the article. Right now the quote of the lead seems to indicate in my opinion that the case is most famous because of its misuse than because of its use, which it is certainly not the case. I am just proposing that it is moved to the specific section of "misuse of the case". Independently of whether the case was true or not as told, he is not famous because of the misuse, but because it is believed that his personality changed.

At the very least (I am not an expert on the bibliography) A Damasio disagrees with McMillians, and uses his case as an example of personality changes due to frontal lobe injuries, with his theories having a great impact and no mention in them of the "abuse". Similarly Stuss in his (really important) book on the frontal lobes also uses Phineas as an example of personality changes due to frontal lobe injuries without any mention to its overuse. Finally all recent modellings (Ratiu, H Damasio) of the injury should also be some indication that Phineas is still more important because of what his changes could have been and have been thought to be than to what they might really have been. --Garrondo (talk) 07:23, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I had neither seen your last comment nor your change: problems of following the watchlist from bottom to top.--Garrondo (talk) 07:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I have finally moved the text down to the specific subsection on misuse. --Garrondo (talk) 09:25, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Phineas Gage/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Maunus (talk · contribs) 01:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I will review this article. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• First read through: The article is excellent and will be a GA soon. I do have some comments and suggestions that I hope may be helpful. I will have the article on hold at least untill reading the nominator's response to my comments.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

• The article is currently in a state of quality that clearly passes the GA criteria, the only thing precluding my passing it is the requirement of stability. Once the article has been in a stable state for three to four days I will pass the article, if it still conforms to the criteria. Meanwhile, I will not be following the debates on the talkpage or the article's development. I will be unwatching the page and will ask the nominator or some other contributor to notify me when the article is reasonably stable. I will not fail for lack of stability unless the instable state protracts beyond the limit of what is reasonable for a review. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:54, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

1. Well-written:
   1. the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and
   2. it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

This is one of the cases where the criteria are not fully helpful. The article is definitely well written, but at the same time the prose is definitely not "clear and concise" - but rather flashy, wordy and convoluted. Many sentences are much too long for easy reading and to my mind overuse complicated constructions with embedded clauses and even quotes, too frequently using dashes to splice sentences into eachother. To me this serves to draw attention to the prose itself and away from the content. I am not going to fail on this because of the admitted subjectivity of taste of writing, but I will very strongly recommend a copy edit with ease of reading in mind, breaking up complex sentences and disentwining some of the flowery language. This I would particularly recommend in the lead where the two first paragraphs are in fact each a single sentence. To quote Faulkner, sometimes to achieve good writing one must kill all one's darlings.

1. Verifiable with no original research:
   1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
   2. it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;[3] and

It is very well supported by citations. In fact I find the amount of quotes from primary sources, both in the text and in the notes, to be excessive to the point of sometimes being confusing, but on the other hand this is also really useful.

1. 1. it contains no original research.

Yes

1. Broad in its coverage:
   1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[4] and
   2. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Here I concur with FiachraByrne in wishing for a section describing in more detail the use of Gage's case by subsequent neurological and psychological theories, as well as in popular and educational literature. The "use and misuse" section is quite scant here, taking into consideration that Gage's case is used so widely. Particularly it would be interesting to know whether his case support any such theoretical points at all?

1. Neutral:
   1. it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

yes

1. Stable:
   1. it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

yes

1. Illustrated, if possible, by images:
   1. images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content

yes

1. 1. images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

yes

• Comment The prose is mostly fine but I agree there might be an over-reliance on the dash technique. For example this sentence:

"In 2009 a daguerreotype portrait of Gage was identified—the first likeness of him identified other than a life mask taken around 1850. "

Could be rewritten as:

"In 2009, a daguerreotype portrait of Gage was identified, the earliest known likeness of him other than a life mask taken around 1850. "

The lead section and first few paragraphs seem to have the most dashes. There are folks much better than myself at grammar. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors for requests for help. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I hacked at these dashes in the lead section, and left a comment at Talk:Phineas_Gage#Revision to the introduction. A few more of the dashes might be removed, but they are no longer a fixture that would annoy a reader unused to or unappreciative of this stylistic choice IMO. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. With respect to the concerns about the prose, I've made some edits that I hope simplify some of the more complicated sentences. Perhaps those concerns are no longer a significant issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - yes, it was worth pausing in this case. I've smoothed out some more sentences and removed some of the dashes to make the style more typical of Wikipedia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:24, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
• Comment b reviewer As I wrote, I wasn't going to fail it on prose, but I do think the changes constitute an improvement. I am going to let it sit a little longer as there seem to be several editors working on the article right now, so when it finds a stable state - I am guessing in a couple of days - I will read it over again and probably pass it. By the way, who is the actual nominator? User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:28, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

This edit says it's CurlyLoop.

I've come fresh to the article, which is informative and interesting. There are still 'citations needed' in the Notes; these could be fixed by a little textual surgery, and the Notes are indeed a bit too copious; if all those explanations and quotations are needed, probably more of them should be in the text really. I agree, too, that the 'Theoretical use and misuse' section is probably too slender, given the depth the article goes into otherwise: 'due weight' implies a fuller treatment of the extensive theorizing about the case. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:46, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

• I think this article is struggling to comply with "the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation." as the prose is neither clear nor concise, and it does not comply with the MoS. My efforts to copyedit it have now been reverted three times without good reason so I am withdrawing from helping improve it, but I would be very put out if this article passed. Not to put it too bluntly, there is a WP:OWN problem here. Unless that is fixed, the chance of brining it to the requisite standard (for MoS and prose) seem slim. --John (talk) 18:04, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I have reinstated one of your reverted edits that removes a lot of superfluous in-text markup from the source. There is definitely too many editors working on the article right now for it to pass the criterion of stability. I do want to pass the article though, because it clearly is very close to the standard, so I will keep it on hold until it finds a stable form hopefully though consensus building here on the review page or at the talkpage. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:11, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

What has "too many editors" got to do with stability? The issue that's being fixed is the quality of the prose; there's very little, if any, material being added. Eric Corbett 17:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of what kind of work is being done an article that have six to eight different editors editing simultaneously over a period of days is not stable. Particularly not when coupled with somewhat heated discussions on the talkpage requiring consensus to be formed.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

• Nominator's comment Sorry about the slow reply, I have been busy IRL. I broadly agree with the reviewer's conclusion and further comments about the prose, especially the use of dashes. I'm not as confident about the conclusion that it's not broad enough as, compared to the main contributors to this article, I'm no expert. So it's hard to know what's missing. I'll have a look at how easy it is to clarify the prose and try and address the other typogrammatical problems too. Thanks! CurlyLoop (talk) 10:24, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Revision to the introduction

Subject to JVdb's permission, points have been numbered below to ease discussion

• 1. I have made a revision to the Introduction, but only to put it forward. I did like the previous introduction, but maybe it can be simpler, and I hope this will help. If it is reverted, perhaps we can discuss the following and incorporate any that are agreed upon.

• 2. 'now remembered'->'remembered' as he has only ever been 'remembered' for these things.

• 3. +'at the age of 25' as I think it helps the first sentence stand alone - combined with birth and death dates it helps the reader understand he lived many years after the accident.

• 4. Regarding '—at least for a time—', I feel that any recovery he made is best relegated to later in the introduction, as his fame is due to the improbable nature of the physical accident and survival, and the medical interest in the effects. The extent of his recovery was not known until recently, meaning it was not an important aspect of his notability, and in any case the recovery fits within 'effects on his personality and behavior'.

• 5. "no longer Gage" - the sentence was already used 'profound effects'. I think "no longer Gage" can be omitted without loosing too much of the punchiness, and removing it simplifies the sentence considerably.

• 6. I feel that the last paragraph of the introduction, about the daguerreotype and social recovery hypothesis, needed to be more of a summary of the recent findings (the 2008 advert, 2009 daguerreotype, and 2010 portrait) and the impact these findings have had on scholarship and our understanding of the man. Describing the 2009 daguerreotype and not talking about the 2008 advert and 2010 portrait felt a bit imbalanced and odd.

• 7. It would be nice to say something like 'With no new primary sources about Gage having been made public since 18??, there has been three new portraits and a report unearthed since 2008, sparking a scavenger hunt in North and South American.' :-) When was the last 'new' info, prior to 2008?

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:26, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The accident

Subject to JVdb's permission, points have been numbered below (continuing the numbering from previous section) to ease discussion

• 8. I note that we don't have any details about his life before the accident. Did he have brothers or sisters? Who were his parents? Where did they live in New Hampshire, and what type of home did he enjoy? We know of one sister, and that her husband was "D.D. [David Dustin] Shattuck, Esq." and we know a little of there whereabouts.

• 9. The nature of the accident feels a bit hard to grasp quickly, due to the interspersion of quotes. A nice tight and clear description of the rod and its trajectory, using modern language, would be a good addition as it would give people something they can easily quote/reuse, afterwhich a few choice quotes could then add colour and details that only have precision in the original words.

• 10. In the process of adding a concise summary of the accident, it might be necessary to drop "the American Crowbar Case" from this section, as it could be mentioned in a section more about the myth rather than the fact. It would be nice to known when this term first appeared, and how it was popularised.

• 11. The ride into town is described by the distance traveled, however I recall the duration of the journey also being recorded, or perhaps it was the time period between accident and being seen by the physician that is known?

• 12. We read that friends attended. Are there any details available about family visiting him in Cavendish? If not, we might revise "his desire to return to his family in New Hampshire" to indicate he had not yet seen his family "his desire to return to in New Hampshire to visit his family".

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:27, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Some comments:

10. Better now?

11. No source gives the time (vs. distance, which is known) of the ride to town. (Oxart, so a slow ride -- I don't think oxen can be inveigled upon to pick up the pace.)

12. Harlow's notes (1868) for Sept 14 say Gage "recognizes his mother and uncle", who apparently arrived sometime after 7 am. This is only 14 hrs after the accident, and Lebanon is 30 mi away, so the family must have summoned almost immediately (no telegraph or railroad!), consistent with the idea that Harlow and Williams quickly pronounced the injury mortal. The uncle was likely Calvin Gage (brother of Phineas' father), or possibly some brother of Gage's mother (whose names I forget at the moment. (We've invested substantial time determining where everyone was living at various points in the Gage timeline. Of course all of this is OR, but aren't you impressed?) Anyway... On the whole I don't see how this detail, on its own, adds to the reader's understanding in any useful way, but I have an idea on using it in a note on Harlow's early vs. later prognoses (vs. Gage's prognosis -- from the start he insisted he would recover).

EEng (talk) 05:43, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Abbreviations in infobox

I don't like having things abbreviated in the infobox; on first use they should be spelled out in full as not everybody will know what they mean. --John (talk) 14:20, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Image widths

The apparently randomly varied widths of the images, all down the right hand side, are ugly and distracting. I understand the problem that the indented quotes go wrong if images are as is usual alternated, but I don't see why we need images of four different widths, clumped higgledy-piggledy in rustic fashion near the top of the article, where frankly several of them do not belong. We can work around the indentation problem using :: instead of the quote mechanism (yes, I know, it's klunky), and while it is never possible to have every image exactly where it should ideally be, we can surely do a little better than the mess it is now. Take an objective look at it for yourselves. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

BTW, where there's an image at left, :: doesn't work any better than {{quote}} i.e. the presence of the photo at left keeps the quote text from being indented relative to article text proper. EEng (talk) 01:36, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with this. --John (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not my placement and sizing but the result of two other editors' actions [11][12]. So now I've restored [13] the placement and sizing which obtained for several years, though in a moment I'll change the order a little. EEng (talk) 00:45, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:IMGSIZE the images should be at the default size to allow logged-in users to set their own sizes, unless there is a special reason to depart from this. --John (talk) 08:12, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Better look again at WP:IMGSIZE, which explicitly endorses use of the upright parameter, which multiplies image size relative to the user's Preferences-selected default image size.

• You complained about the uneven img sizes introduced by other editors, I fixed it, and you have twice now [14] returned them to their uneven-sized state. I will now once again restore the uniform sizes.
• I have also moved the iron-through-skull diagram back to the lead, where's it's been for a very long time and where I think it's appropriate. Can we leave of discussion final img placement and sizing until the text is more settled?

EEng (talk) 01:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

"Remarkably"

I removed this but I see it's been restored. We don't usually use words like "notably" (as it's self-evident that we are noting it) or "remarkably" (as it's self-evident that we are remarking on it). Why would we do so in this instance? --John (talk) 07:52, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Because you misunderstand WP:EDITORIAL. (We're talking about [15].)

• Saying something is remarkably small is little different from saying it's very or unusually small -- though sources are needed to support such adverbs, which is all WP:EDITORIAL calls for.
• The cites in the "First-hand reports" and "Distortion" sections amply support that the remarkability of the smallness of the body of known fact, but for the avoidance of doubt I'll add specific cites on this point.

EEng (talk) 01:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with EEng - this is not editorializing, but simply good varied language. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:37, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Final comment

WP:SEEALSO and WP:PROSE are worth a look if anybody ever felt like getting this to GA standard. The verbose notes could be trimmed by about 90% as well. Good luck! --John (talk) 18:06, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

As the reviewer, I disagree with your assessment that the current state of MOS compliance or lack thereof should be a hindrance for GA status. I agree that the notes should be trimmed and the prose made clearer, but it is not a requirement for GA.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:13, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I have just moved one note definition from the infobox to the notes reflist. I will move the rest in a series of edits (please though continue to edit the article as normal). This will make the source correspond more closely to the display and the note text will be easier to review. --Mirokado (talk) 21:00, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Peace, love, and hapiness

The following comment has been copied from User Talk:EEng

In your recent edit you are doing two separate things: You are dumbing down the prose to "emit facts without relating them to each other", which is not really an improvement, but almost seem to be an attempt to make a point, and you are trimming the quantity of notes quoting primary sources at length, which I think may be an improvement. The GA article is currently at a rather delicate stage where I will be forced to fail it if the article becomes too unstable. I would really hate to have to fail it because it is a great article and your work is impressive. If you remain receptive to critique without taking it personally and discuss the recommendations with the other editors on the talkpage instead of through editsummaries, I think it should be possible to find a way to make the article work as a compromise between your personal preferences for article writing and those of other writers. As I have already said I am not a stickler about the prose, and I will not fail on prose concerns alone - especially not because it clearly is well written, just using a different style from most other articles.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:06, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

End of copied comment

• My edit summary was not very clear. In saying I was "copyediting [perhaps I should have said undoing] ... conversion of careful prose into short declarative sentences emitting facts without relating them to one another", I was trying to explain I was restoring the careful prose, which related the facts to one another rather than just emitting them.
• I didn't trim the notes. An important use of notes is for extensive quotes and so on which may be of interest only to a subset of readers, while keeping the main text uncluttered for other readers.
• I appreciate your taking on the GA review, though I should point out I didn't nominate it, and what I was afraid would happen is what, in fact, is happening. I think most of the changes have been improvements, but many show misunderstanding of the subject, failure to consider surrounding material related to the text being modified, enforcement of misremembered fragments of alleged policy and guidelines, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and so on.
• I am very careful to revert or modify only the parts of others' changes I mean to alter, while leaving the rest in place, and giving very specific edit summaries explaining my reasons. That takes time, and often I've just gotten started on a series of changes when another editor rushes in to mass-revert, giving an edit summary that ignores the reasoning given in my summaries. Of course some fraction of issues won't be resolved until there's discussion on Talk, but an initial round of edits with careful, informative summaries by everyone can resolve most issues (e.g. second editor points first editor to appropriate guideline) and for the rest, lays the groundwork for discussion on Talk.
• It's time to trot out some comments left here about two years ago ([16] -- some irrelevant text trimmed out):

Great article

I read the whole thing, was drawn in and was fascinated, really fantastic. It's appropriate for subject. Should be featured. Shame so many people don't recognize talented and quality work, commercial encyclopedia's would pay good money for this. The comments above about "cold" writing being required at Wikipedia is just lol. In fact Wikipedia is 95% awful writing (myself included) so when we see actual rare good work, the crowd can't stand it because it sets off the rest to look so bad and amateur. Anyway, don't take my word, look at the user reviews at the bottom of the page, and article view statistics. People love this article. Green Cardamom (talk) 03:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. A lot of that "professional" quality comes from the work of EEng in 2008-2010. [...] Looie496 (talk) 15:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I echo the praise. Far too many Wikipedia articles are cold and sterile (if sometimes littered by the leftovers of earlier POV wars). The passion in this one makes it much more informative and interesting. Where such passion would get in the way of objectivity and NPOV, it of course would need to be toned down. And it's unrealistic to assume that all of our articles will ever get such treatment. But let's not tone it down in a search for anodyne consistency of style. I respect that there are a range of criteria for this, but as far as I am concerned, this is more deserving of being a Featured Article than many others we have. Martinp (talk) 17:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Very interesting read about a very interesting man. The author(s) of this article certainly did him justice. [...] Van Vidrine (talk) 19:17, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

EEng (talk) 01:52, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It is always a problem when people nominate articles without the involvement of the main contributor. And I know how bad it feels when people take an article you've worked on diligently in all kinds of different directions than the one you've laid out in your mind. The hardest part of wikiediting is having to accept others ruthlessly editing one's baby-articles. And more often than not we don't think of other peoples work or ideas when we rush into to change an article according to our own tastes or our interpretations of the MOS or guidelines. As a reviewer I try to be more broadminded than some. You are right that edit summaries can be used to communicate usefully with other editors - but as you know often other editors don't read them or respond to them when making subsequent edits, which is why I think the talk page is better when there are so many editors involved here. And note that I agree with the praise you've received for a really well written and researched article.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Caption style

One editor [17][18] changed this caption:

[etc etc] Note partially detached bone flap above forehead

to

[etc etc] There is a partially detached bone flap above the forehead

with the edit summary "Inform don't instruct." I've heard this before -- that it's somehow insulting to "command" the reader to note something -- and I think it's absurd. (By that reasoning, articles shouldn't have a See also section.) Note is a standard, compact way to point something out, and it's silly to bloat the caption this way. Same goes for changing above forehead to above the forehead.

The additional volume of text isn't large in this example, but where space is at a premium even a little bit can matter. Plus, it just sounds weird.

EEng (talk) 02:59, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

MOS:NOTED. And, not to be bitchy, WP:OWN. --John (talk) 13:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

It is unreasonable to accuse the main contributor of ownership everytime he or she objects to some modification of their work, particularly when they do so with a sound reasoning and justification. In order to maintain a good editing environment it is necessary that contributors show a modicum of respect for those who have put in the bulk of the work, and it also sometimes require them to defer to the judgment and taste of the main contributer. This kind of respect is in fact written into several of our policies that state that MOS choices of the main contributer should be respected and not changed simply because one's taste is different. If we are to improve this article collaboratively I suggest that we start using the talkpage for reasoned argumentation, and I also suggest that we start focusing more on content and substance and less on issues of aesthetic taste and form.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:18, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Also you seem to be misapplying MOS:NOTED which is about using editorializing language in texts, and specifically talks about the phrase "note that". It is entirely encyclopedic and not editorializing to use the phrase "note ..." to draw attention to a particular aspect of an image.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:21, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not a case of being different, it's a case of being wrong. Eric Corbett 14:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Well from where I am standing it is a case of respecting the work and choices of a hardworking context contributer of which we have none to many.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:24, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Not when they're wrong, as in this case. Eric Corbett 14:26, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

In this case "being wrong" is apparently just another way to say "disagreeing with Eric Corbett".User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

You would do yourself a favour by actually reading what WP:NOTED has to say and avoiding personal remarks. Think you can do that? Eric Corbett 14:32, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

You would do Wikipedia a favor by finding somewhere else to show off your grand editorship and knowledge of what is right and wrong so that we can get on with reviewing this article in a collegial fashion. You think you can do that? User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:46, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

So you can't then. Didn't really think you could. Eric Corbett 14:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

You are a funny man.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:02, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

• Three points.
• 1) GAR is peer review. Part of that is unavoidably going to be review by one's peers, and if each suggested improvement is met with "I like it fine the way it is", then yes, that's WP:OWN.
• 2) There is no provision in policy or practice on Wikipedia for us "to defer to the judgment and taste of the main contributer (sic)". If you believe otherwise, show us where it is written down.
• 3) MoS says we should not use constructions like "Note that..." I've known that for years. I've pointed out the MoS section that states this. It's an interesting article and I can see a lot of work has gone into it. --John (talk) 16:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

1. No that is not WP:OWN. OF course the article writer likes it the way it is because that's why they chose it like that. That is not WP:OWN unless they do so against policy or without good justifications for their choices. 2. Yes there are several places in the MOS where it says to defer to the choice of the main contributer, for example regarding citation style. 3. MOS compliancwe is not and has never been a GA criterion. GAs are not FAs. Noone has objected to writing out contractions like "i've" etc.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:23, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Gosh what a lot of red herrings in one short post. You should start a fishmongers! We are not talking about citation style. The article does not contain the string "I've" as far as I can see. Are you thinking of a different article? --John (talk) 16:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I actually misread the last point you made to mean that MOS discouraged contractions like "I've known that for years" sorry about that. MOS discourages use of "note that" in the prose because that is usually editorializing, using "note feature X" in an image caption is something else entirely and is not included in the MOS injunction. IN anycase the MOS is a guideline, not a law, and GA doesn't require compliance. And the point about citation style is to show that YES the MOS does show that when there are several valid style choices the MOS tells us to respect the main contributer. As it should.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

But that discretion only applies in cases where there are equally valid alternatives, such as in citation style or date formatting. It does not apply with fundamental errors such as directly addressing the reader in an encyclopedia article. Eric Corbett 17:42, 18 June 2013 (UTC)