Talk:King's Men personnel

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Question

OK, I see this could work. What does this sentence mean, though:

This entry does not duplicate information; for data on John Honyman or Thomas Pollard, see John Honyman; Thomas Pollard.

...? AndyJones (talk) 16:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply

You're right; that was poorly put. I think it's better now. Ugajin (talk) 07:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lord Chamberlain's Men

BTW, I notice that Lord Chamberlain's Men has a fairly substantial prose section on the personnel that might fruitfully be merged into this article; which would have the additional bonus of providing more prose for the article (which is quite List-y right now). --Xover (talk) 07:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cuts

The material added to the beginning of this article was redundant and contained errors. (The King's Men did not disband in 1642 — their theaters were closed on them; Bird, Bowyer, and Pollard were sharers in the company, not "common actors.") A slimmer, more direct and simple approach can be desirable. Ugajin (talk) 09:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ugajin. I'd meant to leave a note on your user talk page to let you know I'd rewritten and expanded the lede for this article and ask you to check it for any errors, but it must have slipped my mind. My apologies.

However, the rewrite was a good faith attempt to improve the lede to comply with the Manual of Style and particularly the guideline for lead sections and summary style. Perhaps, rather than just reverting all of it, you might be persuaded to work with me to improve it? For instance, if the word "disbanded" carries the wrong connotation, let's rephrase it so it's more accurate. If I'd confused the people mentioned as "common actors" then we simply need to move them where they belong and put the actual "common actors" (or a different label if you prefer) there instead.

See also the relevant discussions on Talk:King's Men (playing company). --Xover (talk) 10:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable. Perhaps I was too abrupt. Ugajin (talk)

Ah, I see you've expanded the lead section. Excellent. Instead of trying to modify it directly in the article I think I'm going to just put some suggestions here to avoid disrupting the great work you're doing on the article. Do, of course, feel free to disagree and disregard them; I've no delusions my opinions are any more valid than yours, and they are after all just suggestions.

Anyways... The first sentence strikes me as a bit awkward. It reads a bit like a dictionary definition of a term: Foo personnel n. the people who work for Foo. The title King's Men personnel already tells you that so the rest of the sentence becomes redundant. It's also a bit awkward to say that the King's Men personnel were also the people who worked for the Lord Chamberlain's Men; the article is about the personnel of both companies, so it seems natural to treat them as equals (Lord Chamberlain's Men personnel could fruitfully be a redirect to this article).

The rest of the paragraph talks about the playing company, not its personnel — which is what the article is about — and the next talks about the lack of evidence. I think it would be better to spend less words on talking about the company in favour of a few sentences on the distinct groups of people (i.e. what's in the “Terms” section), and on the people themselves (which is what the bulk of the article is about). For instance, the lede should establish the notability of the article's topic, so it would be good to mention that Shakespeare was a player and sharer here, that Richard Burbage was their leading man, and Will Kempe and Robert Armin their clown, etc.; mention at least a few of the people who are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles. --Xover (talk) 18:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply

Xover: I've made some changes in line with your suggestions. See what you think. Ugajin (talk) 02:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]