Talk:NEA Four

About the SC's ruling

"The artists won their case in court in 1993 and were awarded amounts equal to the grant money in question, though the case would make its way to the United States Supreme Court in National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley." But in that case (for which there is in fact no Wiki entry) the Supreme Court held against the artists and in favour of the NEA. ThomasBabbington1950 (talk) 22:31, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Forward chronological style?

User:Aladdin Sane In the peer review for this article you wrote: "Both as an editor, and a reader, I have a strong preference for the forward chronological style, when I can have it. So far, the article lacks that...and it looks a bit odd to me." could you please expand on what you mean by that? Thank you! Your comments have been very helpful. Croussos (talk) 04:21, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@Croussos: Yes, thanks for asking. And thanks again for helping improve the article. As a volunteer I feel I can afford this bit of TLDR pedantry:

The article's main body is currently ordered 1989, 1966, 1969, 1979, 1981, 1981-1992, 1981, 1989, 1980, 1988, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990.

I suggest that it would read better, and help the reader comprehend what happened, if the body were re-arranged chronologically. (Breaking it into smaller paragraphs may help with this. Also, it may be possible to have two major sections, and sub-sections under each, enabling per-section chronology, and exceptions where needed. There is a pre-history, and a history here, I note.)

I use the term "forward" because here on WP, and in many other cases throughout the Internet, I find other orderings, particularly the reverse chronological style, which in most cases makes less sense.

(This article, however, seems to lack any order currently; that is often the result of having multiple editors independently working on an article, and some editor comes along eventually, and re-organizes stuff. The nice thing is that TIND.)

An easy example of chronology is an actor's biography, that lists their movies from newest to oldest. A reverse chronology makes no sense in a biography, because the person did not live their life in that order. The reason for reverse chronological order here is laziness: It's easier to plop something on top, then find the bottom and carefully add it there. For an example, please compare Mira Furlan Selected filmography with Bruce Boxleitner Filmography.

I recently wrote an article here about a movie, Roots of Blood. Please see the "Reception" section. I ordered the section, 1978, 1983, 1991, and 2014. The reason for that, is because that's the order in which stuff happened. Other possible orderings really make no sense to me within this case, and some order is called for, therefore, I used forward chronology.

Another example of forward chronological style are these Talk pages: You make a comment (older), I reply below that (newer). That's forward chronological order. I call it the "order of reality", time only moves in one direction.

There may be cases where another order is called for, but they are rare. The first sentence of the article Hillary Rodham Clinton is in reverse chronological order, but that was a stylistic choice of the editors who earned FA for the article (the lead section for an FA is very carefully scrutinized), the main part of the main body is sensibly in forward chronological order (political biographies often have "misc" sections at the end, such as "Political positions").

Finally, I recently made this edit to the article Freeman Dyson, sub-section "Warfare and weapons" under "Views". The section was ordered: Hiroshima, Vietnam, Pre-Hiroshama WWII, Vietnam. With a single cut and paste, it is now chronologically correct: Pre-Hiroshima WWII, Hiroshima, Vietnam. It's particularly important here, because this person's views have evolved over many decades, and the reader (me, in this case) needs to understand that.

So, what I am saying is that forward chronological order is a principle to writing all these things to which the exceptions are rare, and must merit a strong justification for that alternative style.

Please feel free to ask any other questions you have.   —Aladdin Sane (talk) 21:08, 30 April 2015 (UTC)