Talk:Animal Farm/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Semi-protected edit request on 21 May 2018

Change the spelling in on the word realise to realize, the spelling is incorrect. It is located in the last sentence of the Plot Summary. 24.119.34.33 (talk) 01:01, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

 Not done This article is about an English novel by an English author, first published in England. It uses British English, in which "realise" is the correct spelling. See WP:ENGVAR. General Ization ^Talk 01:03, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Clover

It's not really important, but in the description of Clover, Boxer is referred to as a female. Someone change it?

Clover is the mother of Molly Ianpiano2 (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Proposed standardization of citations/references

In the current Peer Review, one editor wrote, "The citation styles used are a total mishmash. Pick one style and stick with it". I propose standardizing the system in the same manner as Aristotle. I will happily do so a couple weeks from now, unless others have persuasive arguments against it... ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:02, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

DONE. I did only a little spot-checking of the correspondence between article text and cited references. I mostly cleaned up formatting. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk)

Lists, lists, more lists. WP:TRIVIA. This article is in need of major renovation

All that WP:LISTy "In Popular Culture" effluvia can be summarized in a sentence or two without ever mentioning any of the overflowing WP:TRIVIA. There are other lists, too, that need to go... I'll put that on my list (pun intended) of things to do. This article is in need of Major (pun intended) renovation/help. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:34, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

DONE. There is still considerable work of various kinds left to do. I did only a little spot-checking of the correspondence between article text and cited references. I mostly cleaned up reference formatting and deleted WP:LISTs. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk)

Add the unofficial sequel in Adaptations

Animal Farm 2 by Vladimir Pribylovsky (a Russian political and translator of the original book), where the future of the Soviet Union is shown. It's not just "LENIN, STALIN, AND THE END Of EVIL COMMUNISM" like all you Americans think. No, the USSR has a big history and it shows what happened later. It is on Orwell's site. http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/russian/rzf2_vp — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.164.155.113 (talk) 11:14, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 July 2019

In section 2.2 titled "Humans" in the first bullet titled "Mr. Jones" the last sentence states "The animals' revolt after Jones drinks so much he does not care for the animals." I believe that the apostrophe after the word "animals" should be removed for no possessiveness is being shown. Polobu (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Did it. Thanks! Just plain Bill (talk) 22:28, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Edit Request

I plan on adding a Genre/Style section to more accurately correspond with Wikipedia's guidelines for articles. Similarly, I plan on restructuring the article to form a Background section, which will largely combine information from other sections while also introducing new concepts. Furthermore, I plan on adding to the analysis section because I feel that it lacks any discussion of the challenges to Animal Farm that have existed in school/academic settings around the world. I would also like to introduce more citations because I feel that much of the article's content goes widely unreferenced, even if the information is factually true. Flip Deciantis (talk) 21:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Edit Request for section 4.1 (origin)

This article explores the possible influence on “Animal Farm” of a forgotten Renaissance poem about pigs at war with each other. http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/12/professor-publishes-placentius-pugnacious-pig-poem — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amorsui (talk • contribs) 02:05, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

number pf pages

I think it is important to correct the number of pages. The fact is that UK paperback edition has just 112 pages, but almost every other english edition has 130 - 150 pages. It will be good to point it out or remove that kind of information at all. This is maybe just my opinion. Thank you! Anapimpili (talk) 11:19, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Are you referring to the infobox? If so, instructions state "prefer 1st edition, specify edition as needed", which the infobox does. If there's a reason why the variance in pages is significant, I would suggest it be noted in prose, with an appropriate source that discusses the variance. Hope this helps. DonIago (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

The book Revolt”

How strange that this book is so similar to the book „Revolt” written by the famous Noble-prize winning Polish writer Wladyslaw Reymont. Reymont wrote his book twenty years earlier and it was issued in book form in 1924. It was translated and issued in the different languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.192.42.105 (talk) 03:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Revolt

Reymont’s book is also about animal rebellion and is also based on the Russian revolution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.192.42.105 (talk) 03:33, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

More ‘reception’

From the CIA’s “Director’s log” (https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/1951-09-01.pdf) p197, November 19, 1951:

Between 28 and 31 October 105,000 copies of "Animal Farm" were distributed through Austria as an insertion in a CIA-subsidized newspaper [ed: later identified as Die Presse in the Soviet zone of Vienna]. A sellout at the news-stands necessitated an extra run of 15,000 copies.

Might serve as a more concrete complement to the vague anecdote from The American Spectator about balloon drops over Poland.

DisposalCase (talk) 23:30, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 July 2020

Netflix purchased rights to Andy Serkis' adaptation of the novel in 2018. 45.72.233.100 (talk) 12:49, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:56, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2020

Remove Paragraph

Please remove

“The CIA, from 1952 to 1957 in Operation Aedinosaur, sent millions of balloons carrying copies of the novel into Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, whose air forces tried to shoot the balloons down.[43]”

In reception section

There is only one source which is not a super reliable source, however, I found multiple other sources mentioning this operation, but none of them show that animal farm was sent into the countries, but the book Doctor Zhivago was sent.

Here is a reddit article that kind of adds to what I’m saying https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/eppc9s/from_1952_to_1957_the_cia_carried_out_operation/

Note: Sorry if I formatted this post wrong this is my first time doing this Shadowrvn728 (talk) 16:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Edit: Sorry, I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to edit but I just saw a previous post that answered my request Shadowrvn728 (talk) 16:07, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

 Already done per above comment. — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 10:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Hit/struck vs. destroyed/levelled revert

I should have mentioned in this [1] edit wrt near-destruction of the manuscript that the source [2] uses the wording "destroyed" and not "hit". Go ahead and keep/change/re-source as you think is appropriate. Ideolomeme (talk) 22:06, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2021

the animal farm was created by bill nockers 2A00:23C5:4222:4901:212C:69A9:D875:8666 (talk) 18:44, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

This article is about the book. You may be looking for one of the articles here:Animal_Farm_(disambiguation) RudolfRed (talk) 21:26, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

"Reign of terror"

The edit summary for this edit was factually incorrect. A reign of terror can exist without everybody under that reign being aware of it. "Reign of terror" is simply an English phrase meaning "a period of time when a ruler controls people in a violent and cruel way", and is synonymous with "tyranny", "dictatorship", "oppression", or "despotism". As such, Stalin's dictatorship can be legitimately described as a reign of terror. Zazpot (talk) 01:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

While I believe you're right, I also think the edit is an improvement. JMHO. Doctorhawkes (talk) 02:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 March 2021

Andy Serkis is directing the HFR-3D version of Animal Farm after Netflix acquired it. 104.247.226.74 (talk) 23:42, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

 Done. Volteer1 (talk) 06:35, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2021

In the films section, the comma after the word "Farm" has to be removed. 69.165.147.219 (talk) 13:47, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Did it. Thanks! Just plain Bill (talk) 13:56, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

More information is needed

This is the caption to an illustration:

"Foreign Office copy of the first instalment of Norman Pett's Animal Farm comic strip. This example was commissioned by the Information Research Department, a secret wing of the Foreign Office which delt with disinformation, pro-colonial, and anti-communist propaganda during the Cold War"

Readers come to Wikipedia from all over the world. Most people will have no idea what country the "Foreign Office" refers to, or what this office does. 2601:200:C000:1A0:8C8F:BFFB:41E6:A073 (talk) 13:37, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

It is explained in the accompanying paragraph Animal_Farm#Comic_strip. Tony Holkham (Talk) 13:47, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Commas

I am not going to argue with User:Greatder, but I think his second comma is bad grammar, but I'm just a retired scientist with memory problems. Is anyone else watching this page? --Bduke (talk) 06:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

I may not be correct, but I felt the sentence wasn't clear and so added the comma. I would be happy to get a lecture on comma from someone knowledgable regardless. Greatder (talk) 07:39, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

How long did the animals run the farm?

After almost every chapter they say things like next spring or the following summer, but how many years from The beginning of the rebellion to the ending did the animals run the farm? 173.70.194.94 (talk) 13:53, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2019 and 13 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Flip Deciantis.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:17, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Socialist?

This article states that Orwell was a socialist. How could he be a socialist if he criticized socialism ("IngSoc") in 1984? 24.198.105.135 (talk) 01:22, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

For starters, there's different forms of socialism? Also, one can believe in something while also being critical of aspects of it (how many Christians embrace all facets of Christianity?)? DonIago (talk) 13:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Boxer

Boxer actually represents the strong soviet working force. Not the person mentioned in this article. 76.67.165.147 (talk) 15:13, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

The current association is sourced. Do you have a source that supports your interpretation? DonIago (talk) 18:11, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Inferences

There are several cases where the reader of Animal Farm is clearly supposed to INFER something, but the book never explicitly says it, and one gathers that the animal characters in the book never do infer it. I think this is a very important part of Orwell's message: a lot of political lying is tacitly accepted without critical discussion. Occasionally Benjamin the donkey appears to see through the lying, but he never explicitly says anything about it, and one gathers that Orwell deliberately chose a donkey to symbolize the British liberal intelligentsia of his time.

In Plot, at the end of the 3rd paragraph, the article says "In truth, Napoleon had engineered the sale of Boxer to the knacker, allowing him and his inner circle to acquire money to buy whisky for themselves." The book never says that Napoleon did this, only says that after Boxer's death, from somewhere or other the pigs found enough money to buy the whiskey.

Under Animalism, the article says "Later, Napoleon and his pigs secretly revise some commandments to clear themselves of accusations of law-breaking." In each case, the book says that the non-pig animals had mis-remembered this or that commandment. 64.179.154.8 (talk) 19:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

If the article attributes things to the book that the book doesn't actually assert (i.e. if the article contains inferences), then those should either be backed up by reliable sources or ultimately removed as being original research. DonIago (talk) 19:59, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I get what you're saying, but it is literature, it's not going to follow the same rules as a history book. If the author spells everything out like that, it'd be poor writing usually. We're allowed to follow the analysis of the mainstream of literary critics in our exposition, particularly if there are 0% dissenting.

Do you think that maybe Napoleon didn't sell Boxer to the knackers to get whisky money? Or that the writer didn't intend for the reader to infer this? If you do, you'd be essentially alone among the millions of readers of the book. If you can find one single critic with any kind of reasonable standing (some expertise in the subject, and not a fringe nutcase, semi-literate clack-box, or troll) who states that, possibly we could talk. Herostratus (talk) 04:16, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

If critics have made these observations then it should be easy enough to provide sourcing for them, should it not? DonIago (talk) 06:02, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Not necessarily. It would probably be hard to find references for a number of things about the book, such as "the book is a three-dimensional object" or "the pages are made of paper". See WP:SKYISBLUE.

Part of Orwell's message is that a lot of political lying is tacitly accepted without critical discussion, but his mechanism for doing so is not making his descriptions vague so as to lead the reader to thoughts like "Hmmm, maybe the vet had recently bought the van from a knacker, and maybe Boxer was taken to hospital and cared for, and the pigs got their whisky money elsewhere, and Orwell, by giving a description that leads the reader to believe otherwise, is showing how this sort of thing works". You're way overthinking this. Again: if you can find one single writer saying this -- I'll loosen the criteria and say if you can find any human person saying this in print -- then we could talk, possibly. Can you? Herostratus (talk) 12:04, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this article explicitly asserts either that the book is a three-dimensional object or that the pages are made of paper? However, if it did, I would imagine that you could find an appropriate source at book or probably just add a citation to a dictionary. In the end, providing a source is, in my experience, the path of least resistance, versus arguing over the need for one.

In any case, us posting things that we're "supposed" to infer, no matter how "obvious" we might believe them to be, without providing supporting sources, is the textbook definition of original research. DonIago (talk) 15:27, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

To add my 2c, to say something is inferred without providing any sources is the epitome of WP:OR. Doctorhawkes (talk) 00:12, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, sure I can say it is a book and point to book as proof. I could also say the Queen Mary 2 is a book and point to book as proof. Book says nothing about Animal Farm or the Queen Mary. Book just says that a book is "typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover". Well that proves nothing. Perhaps Animal Farm is inscribed on clay tablets. Let us find a reliable source where a critic says "Animal Farm is an entity made of many pages made of paper bound together and protected by a cover". Sheesh.

Good grief. If you feel the need for refs for these sorts of things, find them and put them in yourselves. Here's the Cliffs Notes for the event, which says "[Boxer] lives (and dies) for the good of the farm — a farm whose leader sells him to a knacker the moment he becomes unfit for work" and "The scene in which Boxer is taken to his death...", so at least Cliffs Notes doesn't think he might have been actually taken to the hospital. That's all the work I'm going to do for you, for the rest, well, get to work.

But wait. Is Cliffs Notes reliable? It's just their personal opinion, isn't it. "Animal Farm is a book" is a statement of fact. It can be confirmed or falsified by getting a copy and looking at it and feeling it or subjecting it to number of reproducible scientific processes. "Boxer is taken to his death" is just somebody's opinion. It can never be proven or falsified. Apparently the fact we couldn't find even a dipsomaniac hobo or backward child who contests this doesn't seem to matter to you all.

If your answer is to throw up our hands and say "Cliffs Notes, Well jeez I've heard of them, so what they say must be objectively true", that isn't very satisfactory.

And so on with really anything that can't be scientifically demonstrated. John Rodden is used a ref here for some stuff. But who is John Rodden? An adjuct professor... [redacted]. He doesn't have an article here, which we do have about two million biographical articles here so take that as you will. So what if he decides that Old Major is a metaphor for Karl Marx rather than Alexander Humboldt. I could wear a tweed jacked with leather elbow patches and puff on a pipe and say the opposite. It's just something that can't be proven either way. So why are we taking this thing that might be true or might not, and saying that it is true. And so on.

But if you do have the personal opinion (again: opinions!) that for some reason what flows from Rodden's pen is objective truth, I'm sure he has something to say about Chapter 9 one way or the other. I don't have Rodden's book, but you all are the ones exercised about all this, so it's on you to go get a copy and figure out what the objective truth is about what happened to Boxer. Herostratus (talk) 06:41, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Is calling us the ones "exercised" about this after you've posted a message like this one intended to be ironic? DonIago (talk) 15:01, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

No it is not, because you all started it. Anybody can cause cause other people to get irritated by starting a thread taking a position like the one you all have, and sticking to it. Tell you what though. I'm not terribly interested in this turning into an insult party, so let's back off here. I'll come back in a while to look at the article and if anyone has done anything untoward to it, we'll take it from there. The article is what matters. Or, if you want to go on, we could have a WP:RFC I guess and get more eyes on it. You'll come prepared with evidence that you've sought instances of some person with reasonable standing indicating the Boxer was murdered and, after reasonable diligence, have been unable to do so, but that you did find at least one carbon-based life form which agrees with your proposition that Boxer having been murdered is dubious. Fair enough I guess. Herostratus (talk) 17:22, 24 September 2023 (UTC)