Theatre B‑class Low‑importance

This article is part of WikiProject Theatre, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of theatre on Wikipedia. To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.TheatreWikipedia:WikiProject TheatreTemplate:WikiProject TheatreTheatre B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

	And Then There Were None was a Language and literature good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 10, 2009 Good article nominee Not listed

Novels: Crime B‑class Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.NovelsWikipedia:WikiProject NovelsTemplate:WikiProject Novelsnovel B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by Crime task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Why this page entitled "And then there were none" when book is entitled "10 little indians"? Since when USA outweight original work and rest of the sane world?

The title of the work currently in the english speaking world is "And Then There Were None", and it's a title endorsed by the Christie estate.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The original title was "10 little niggers" not "10 little indians" wasn't it? I'd prefer that the page title were changed to reflect this. 64.30.108.169 (talk) 08:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

^^ this is true, I feel the article should reflect this. Hell look at the first paragraph, "ten little indians" is offensive to black people? How does that make any sense. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:And_Then_There_Were_None_First_Edition_Cover_1939.jpg Teravolt (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why isn't the first edition cover used in the infobox? Every single other Agatha Christie novel article uses the first edition, why doesn't her best selling novel follow this precedent too? I'm going to switch the images in accordance to wikipedia guidelines JayKeaton 20:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC) jake is awesome[reply]

Bold textThis is a super cool book!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.132.8.154 (talk) 13:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was a lot of discussion on this point a few months ago. A point was made that the UK first edition cover has a title which is no longer used and which is offensive. Overall, I disagreed that the points made required a change (And it was my copy of the UK first edition cover which is loaded) however for the sake of a peaceful life, the UK cover was put in the publication history. At the same time, the UK covers were moved out of the infobox on the other Christie pages by me (again, the vast majority of the images are mine) where the US edition takes precedence. Please don't change this back again. The UK cover is there as a historical record and so far, well for a couple of months anyway, everyone has seemed to be happy with the compromise. (I can't believe how often this damn page is changed in comparison to other Christie pages!!!)--Jtomlin1uk 21:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Argh! Too late - it's done! I'm stepping out of this one now. Let battle commence!--Jtomlin1uk 21:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Changing it back. The original cover looks very good down in the 'publication history' section. Marieblasdell 21:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The original cover looks very good down the publication history section? Hobgoblins of little minds? Neither of those points make much sense. Almost every book article uses a first edition cover. It's not just about consistency, this is an encyclopedia. The cover art of the re-re-re-re-re (times 64) print was not made before 1980, meaning that it was made well after Christies death. It is actually inconceivable to use a reprint where a first edition image is available. It would be like the Casino Royale (novel) cover showing a picture of Daniel Craig with a quote on it saying "remade into a blockbuster Bond film". JayKeaton 00:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So there will be no complaints about using the first edition cover then? I'll add it back now in that case JayKeaton 14:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it because of this novel that the rule 'never outrule the corpse' was applied? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.185.96.150 (talk) 03:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not familiar with the saying "never outrule the corpse"/"never out rule the corpse" and Google finds zero results when it is searched for. JayKeaton (talk) 04:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a Latin phrase, and that's only a rough translation. Why do you even care? When the original cover was released "niggers" was an acceptable word. It's not, now, and I apologize to anyone I offended by typing it here. So stick with the original, but add the new title as a subtext at the very least.

Whether or not or to whom the title of the first edition is offensive is irrelevant. This is an encyclopedia, not a school report. The first edition cover is the first edition cover. On a similar note the first edition title is also the first edition title, but I'm willing to let that one be as the Christie estate apparently endorses its new name - but I'd like to see this article at least mention why the name was changed, as this is, after all, an encyclopedia. Anybody up to the task? Will the Great (talk) 08:38, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Someone else (not me!) has deleted the entire section on 'Echoes in popular culture'. Looking at the article without it, I have to say I feel it's better (even if vandalism was on the mind of the person who deleted it). I can't help thinking that such a section makes the page more "trivial" in its nature and the article now is about the book proper. What do others think?--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 10:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia:Content_disclaimer and Wikipedia is not censored. The first edition cover was removed from the info box because some people found it offensive. The article was further censored and history was rewritten by IP address "99.225.167.18" in [this] edit, when this editor decided that Agatha Chrisie should not have originally published her book under the title "Ten Little Niggers", but that instead she should have called it "Ten Little Indians" instead. History can NOT be rewritten just because someone finds the title of a book offensive. We cannot mislead, lie or rewrite history just to make sure people are not offended. JayKeaton (talk) 19:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have this article on my watchlist (as I do all of the Christie pages) and week in, week out, someone goes in and changes Indian to Nigger and within hours someone else changes it back. To say the least, it's tedious. The modern printing of the book, as endorsed by the Christie estate (meaning her grandson, Mathew Prichard) uses the non-controversial phrases Soldier Island and Ten Little Soldiers whilst keeping the original US title of the book And Then There Were None. In the (probably forlorn) hope that replicating this change on the wiki page will stop this ceaseless back-and-forth, I have replicated this change in the plot summary whilst referencing what the historical versions were, therefore avoiding accusations of censorship. I've also put hidden notes (or whatever they're called) to make people think before changing it. Please consider whether such a change is necessary before making it. You can bet your life someone will just change it back again and your efforts will be wasted (as mine might be here!!)--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 09:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The rhyme can be the modern version, for sure, but a note would have to be there for readers to know what the rhyme was originally about. The song "Ten Little Niggers" is the basis for this 100 million selling book, it would be very stupid to gloss over this fact just to appease the sensitive readers. JayKeaton (talk) 01:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree with your sentiments, which is what I've tried to do in the note which preceeds the rhyme.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 09:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The link to to the nursery rhyme "Ten Little Niggers" at the top of the article links to "Ten Little Indians" instead, which is a set of different nursery rhymes than the one referenced in the book. Would it make sence to publish the original rhyme under it's own article and link to this one instead? First, it would be helpful for those reading the book. Second, the fact that a nursery rhyme has become politically incorrect does not mean that it can be erased from history. IMHO, publish it in article, discuss it's origin and how it came about, explain how it became politically incorrect and why it is now longer used as a nursery rhyme. Errors of the past should be corrected, but not forgotten. John Larring (talk) 19:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This page is subject to a great deal of revisions, particularly in the use of the words "Nigger", "Indian" and "Solider" in the reference to the name of the book in the past and the rhyme contained in the book in the present. Despite there being notes to editors in the text, unregistered users are frequently changing the page, only for it to be reverted back again within minutes. I would suggest that there are some 3 to 4 such changes and reversals in a week which I, for one, deem to be reverting vandalism (No notes are left by unregistered users as to why such a change is deemed necessary and no discussion is entered into on this page). In my view, it is time that we applied to an administrator for this page to be semi-protected. I'd welcome other's views.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 20:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be easier to just let the vandalizers reveal themselves through their edits and to warn them and then ban their IPs to stop them from doing it again? However, having said that, if these constant edits are creating more work for regular editors for this authors series of books then semiprotection could save a lot of man hours that could be better used in the long run, so I would support it for a trial basis at least JayKeaton (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You make some good points. Since writing the above I applied for semi-protection last night on a page that underwent a lot of revisions with trivia as a result of the broadcast of last night's episode of Doctor Who (which featured Agatha Christie) and that request was denied. It made me realise that protection status is not easily granted. The constant changes to this page are wearying but not overtly troublesome so debate over, I suppose.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 15:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has there been any scholarly discussion regarding the original title, and its retitling, both of which ran afoul of political correctness? I can see the Ten Little Niggers issue being a big one with Christie because, just as with Doyle and Shakespeare and other iconic writers, there is a desire to preserve the original texts and revert back to original texts, too, when feasible. Yet, as you can imagine, if this book reverted to its original title and was solicited to Barnes & Noble it would probably be treated the way Mein Kampf is treated by retailers. There actually is a similar situation involving a James Bond novel, Live and Let Die, which in its original UK edition uses the "N-word" in a chapter title, but all US editions (until I think recently) changed the chapter title. Anyway, my point is I would be surprised if there isn't some journal article out there discussing this situation. 23skidoo (talk) 13:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's little point in expecting reasoned discussion of the issue from academia, because academia is systematically left-wing. Mowsbury (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think there should be a spoiler warning in the Characters section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.17.128.28 (talk) 22:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please read the Wikipedia policy page Wikipedia:Spoiler. Any spoiler warning will be deleted.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 05:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The spoiler warning should be moot because the plot synopsis is far too long anyway. 203.196.81.139 (talk) 08:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• A good story but a stretching belief: for example; Lombard is supposed to be a experienced ex-soldier and professional mercenary-yet when he finds his pistol again he doesn't automatically check to see the gun is still loaded or if any cartridges have been fired! If he had seen that one chamber had not been fired he would have realized that Armstrong was lying and Wargrave was not dead and they they were both allies! Of course this would have ruined the entire plot! Secondly Scotland Yard claims they can't trace ownership-yet it is obvious that whoever owns the Island has to have a lot of money-which-everyone else being too poor- leaves only Marstan {who dies first}; Armstrong {who couldn't drag himself up on the beach after his death!} and Wargrave {investigation would have that his assets would have been gone-what could a dying man used his assets for....? Also in the stage/movie version Wargrave fires the gun once during his phoney death-yet if the stage play had followed the original story-there would have been the revolver with three fired cartridges-instead of two!! {The Phoney shot by Wargrave; Claythorne shoots Lombard; Wargrave shoots himself!!!!}
• Lastly there is the part of the ten copies of the rhyming clues-2 of Scotland Yard finest missing such an obvious deduction....? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.126.88 (talk) 23:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, of course. Obviously some suspension of disbelief is required for almost all works of fiction, and this one requires more than just some. Nonetheless the measure of a good book is if it is engrossing, enthralling and you can't wait to learn "who done it". The killing of Blore, in fact, is perhaps the least convincing murder as it could only succeed if the killer, a fairly old man with cancer, managed to topple a heavy statue from a window right onto the head of a moving target in such a way as to ensure death. Quis separabit? 01:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Other inspired adoptions? The Avengers had two episodes with a similar And then there were none storyline: in one Steed and several other experts in different kinds of hand to hand combat are tricked into being stranded on a desert island and killed off one by one; in another Steed former army associates are being killed off one by one until only Steed is left. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.114 (talk) 12:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but what's the point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.247.244.120 (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Lonely guests/strangers killed off one by one is in epsiode of Quincy (TV series) "Murder on Ice" Quincy and his new wife are trapped in a mountainyop lodge with over guests who are being killed off one by one....
• The Wild Wild West (TV Series) also has trapped guests killed off one by one... Were Avengers/Quincy/and WWW inspired by Then there were none?
• The Lost Patrol (1934 film) and 49th Parallel are also stories of Persons killed off one by one... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.83.126.88 (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the original and modern editions, Philip Lombard calls Mr. Morris "Jew" and "Jewboy" with "thick Semitic lips", while some editions replace the word "Jew" with "Morris". [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.28.91.109 (talk) 03:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about Wikipedia politics, this article appears to have a lot of watchers and a no relevant section right now for this snippet (perhaps its best to wait until more references are found?). However, it seems that the reference to the book in the Japanese game Touhou 6 - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil /must/ be notable. The music to a part of a final level is named /U.N. Owen was her/, implying that the last boss was responsible for the mystery here. I say this is notable despite the game being self-published, as currently a Google search for U.N. Owen hits much more Touhou (including the top hit) than Agatha Christie. The games are very popular in Japan among shooting game fans, and increasingly in the West, having very little local competition. More information at http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Flandre_Scarlet 86.20.64.180 (talk) 09:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References in other works is a title in the recognised Wikinovels template however I cannot help but feel that the reference you want to contribute is pretty trivial, irrespective of how many google hits it gets.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 17:46, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, to the contrary, Touhou Project is anything but trivial -- the games have a very wide fanbase both in Japan and in the Western World (and probably many other places), and the music is also very popular. In fact, the infamous 'McRolled' video gets its music from none other than the very song mentioned. The series even has its own page here on Wikipedia . . . not to mention a very in-depth wiki of its own (as evidenced by 86.20.64.180's link). By the by, there's another reference to the book that is used in that game -- the second-to-last bullet pattern (aka Spell Card) that Flandre'll use against you is called "Secret Barrage - And Then There Will Be None?". 72.234.50.130 (talk) 00:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the above editor, especially considering U.N. Owen was her? is really popular in the internet, as of March 2009. 118.136.218.51 (talk) 11:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Once again someone has made well-meaning changes to this page to show Indian instead of Soldier as the name of the island and the subject of the rhyme on which the book is based. I would like to say - for the last time but I doubt that - that this is the case for this wording on this page: the first and therefore true version of the book was that published in the UK in 1939 when the Nigger-word was used. This was Christie's choice and - if the manuscript was in existance today - one could see that that choice of word was typed with her own fair hand. Within a few months the book was published in the US and Dodd Mead, the US publishers, changed the words from Nigger (which they deemed unacceptable for the US market only) to Indian. This change presumabely had the agreement of Christie as no word of protest appears in her autobiography or any biographies of the lady. Even if she didn't like it, I have little doubt that her protests would have been ignored by Dodd Mead in the same way that they ignored some of her remarks about the US alternative titles for her books that they chose. From the 1960's onwards protests gathered pace on both sides of the Atlantic about the choice of words used in both of the markets. In the UK the title was changed from "Ten Little Niggers" in the mid-1980's to "And Then There Were None" but the contents of the book remained the same until relatively recently when Christie's literary estate - headed for a long time by her daughter and then her grandson - approved the changing to Soldier. This is the version that has been on sale for several years now in bookshops and you would in all probability not be able to purchase a NEW version of the book with either the original UK or US wordings. This page reflects the current wording of the book as approved by Christie's estate and on sale today but makes plentiful references to the original wording in order that someone couldn't make erroneous claims of censorship. In any case, as it is a British book and the the 1940 US wording was not of Christie's original choice the word Indian has not precedence whatsoever.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 09:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The section "Publication History" claims that "Modern printings use the rhyme Ten Little Soldiers and 'Soldier Island'." However this statement is not sourced, and seems not to be uniformly true. St. Martin's Press publishes a mass market paperback and a trade paperback of the book. The 2001 mass market paperback uses Indian Island while the 2004 trade paperback uses Soldier Island. Both versions are in print in the US and available through Amazon.com, so it's hard to claim that one is a modern printing and one is not. I've marked this statement for verification. --Uncia (talk) 21:54, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have deleted a number of unnecessary references that have been added to this page over the past few weeks. This page is about the book and, in line with the Wikinovels template, also refers to adaptations of the book, be they film, tv or other. Films which "somewhat" mirror the plot, episodes of television series where people die one by one or music on japanese video games are none of these things. To add these things in is to get close to having a "trivia" section which is always discouraged on Wikipedia.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 17:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I understand why the original British title has been rejected in favour of the alternative American title and I accept this may be a controversial move. That said, this is a British book and it has mostly been published in Britain as "Ten Little Niggers". This article should really be given its original title. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 03:09, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, looking at the evidence again, it seems Agatha Christie's estate has approved the renaming of the book. So probably best to leave it. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 03:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Christie estate are commercially motivated, and subject to 21st century political pressures that are irrelevant to Christie's life. The book should certainly be published under its original title, but I suspect it will take a few hundred years for the issue to blow over and authenticity to be respected in this case. In the meantime, the article about an in print book should probably use the current title. Mowsbury (talk) 20:43, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are several full dates with incorrect punctuation (lacking a comma after the year). As an IP user I can't fix this as the article is currently under semi-protection. 165.189.101.177 (talk) 17:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you give a couple specific examples so that I can fix them? Cheers. Imperat§ r^(Talk) 22:42, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've fixed all the dates now. For International Format dates, a comma after the year is only required to conform with normal grammar rules. For example: "On 6 September 1939 Agatha Christie entertained the vicar." is correct, as is "On 6 September 1939, following tea with the vicar, Agatha Christie wrote a short story in which a clergyman is strangled.". --Pete (talk) 21:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I think this is wrong. Please see this page. The elements that make up dates should have commas between them.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 09:05, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In 1965 the story was filmed under the name "Ten Little Indians." It starred Hugh O'Brian, the Wyatt Earp of 1950's American TV, and Shirley Eaton, who had short-lived fame as the girl who was killed by gold paint in the James Bond film "Goldfinger." Wilfred Hyde-White, Leo Genn, Dahlia Lavi and Fabian were also featured. Christopher Lee was the mysterious voice on the tape which accused the guests of their crimes.

This correction is based on the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) as well as personally having viewed the 1965 movie several tmes.

This review is transcluded from Talk:And Then There Were None/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Hi, I will be reviewing this article soon. It may take me a few days to finish, so I'll try to post my review in sections. Cheers, Ricardiana (talk) 04:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The writing is not bad overall, and the article mostly complies with the Manual of Style, but there are definitely some problems.

• The plot summary is very long. An encyclopedia article should be more concise. I suggest just cutting some info out - for instance, there's a long section on the characters in the plot summary but then a separate section on "Characters" later, which is a little repetitive. Some info you might be able to split off into separate articles - like the poem. In any case, the plot summary needs to be pruned considerably.

Mostly done. I've pruned off the Characters list, but I haven't gone over the majority of the actual plot yet.

• Once the plot summary is over, there are a lot of bulleted lists in the article for films, etc. They are definitely a nice visual break after scrolling through so much unrelieved text in the plot summary, but the MOS doesn't like [[2]], so re-write them as paragraphs.

•  Done

• The "other" section is basically trivia, at least in format. Some of the info, like the pastiche, could just be part of a more broadly titled film adaptation / interpretation section; other stuff like the Spiderman bit is just trivia and will have to go, sorry.

 Done

• I think it would make more sense to put the "Publication history" section up after the plot summary and before getting into the films, etc. As it is I was reading about the book, then about films and computer games and then back to the book again. I would put all the book stuff together. Publication history could even go first, before plot, which might help to defray some of the past edit wars over the title.

•  Done

• Some of the sections are very, very short, like the Geography one. I'm not sure the really short sections need to be their own sections - work the information into existing sections - the geo. info could easily go into the plot summary - or else beef things up a little. Is there more info on the graphic novel or video game?

•  Done

• There are a number of local sentences I found unclear, but they were all in the plot summary section and I don't see the point in nit-picking if someone is just going to re-work the whole section anyway, so I'll save any local comments for later, after that section has been pared down.

• The "Bibliography" section only lists Taves, but none of the other sources. You could do two things here: one, get rid of the section altogether, since you have info under "References," or you could create a "Notes" and "References" section (I just did this to Nancy Drew, and Emily Dickinson, which is a Featured Article, has this layout as well).

•  Done

• Since the lead is supposed to be a summary of the article, you could add some more info to it - mention the adaptations into various media, for example. Ricardiana (talk) 04:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• The "Literary reception" section is basically "So and so said: 'X.' Another person said 'Y.' Mr. Q: 'Z.'" It needs to read less like a collection of quotations and more like a synthesis of various opinions of the work. Paraphrase more. Ricardiana (talk) 04:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good here. One thing I do suggest - not for GA status, but just to make the article easier to work with - is re-doing the ref tags so that they refer quickly to fuller info in a References section - the example of Emily Dickinson cited above shows what I mean. The reason I recommend this is that it's just so much easier to edit when you're not faced with a huge long tag - although perhaps in this page's case, you want to make it harder to edit...hmmm....Ricardiana (talk) 04:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good here as well, except for the issues aforementioned with the overly long plot summary. Ricardiana (talk) 04:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fine here. Ricardiana (talk) 04:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Normally this would fail GA because of the edit wars, but in the case of this article the edit warring is I think inevitable. I suggest requesting semi-protection of this article at some point to try to cut down on that. Also, kudos to whoever thought of adding warnings about making changes - I hope that is helping, although it may be too early to tell. Ricardiana (talk) 04:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Current images look fine. It would be nice if you could add one or two more; trailers are in the public domain, I'm told, so you could use a still from a trailer, or a picture of a movie poster or something like that. Ricardiana (talk) 04:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of useful stuff but the ordering of the sections (e.g. put the publication history straight after the plot summary) is against the wikinovels template.--Jtomlin1uk (talk) 08:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Do not, however, forget the spirit behind these guidelines. If they make editing or reading more difficult for a particular novel or for novels in general, change them or ignore them, preferably with some explanation on talk or meta pages. Many novels do not necessitate layouts such as this, or have special requirements that do not fit the template exactly." ~ I think this page might be an exception due to the edit wars over the title. The page has been semi-protected at one point evidently, it's had semi-protection requested but denied at least once, it's had the cover of the novel bat back and forth between versions in the past, and the page has invisible warnings to editors about the publication history. Seems to me just putting the publication history earlier on the page, rather than burying it at the bottom, might help with that. Thus my suggestion. Ricardiana (talk) 15:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Imperator has made number of good changes. Looks like this is what's left:

• Plot summary is definitely better. Can still be pruned a little, which I see someone (Imperator?) is working on. In the process, there are some awkwardly worded sentences that can be shortened or eliminated in re-writing. Here are some examples:

• "Thus, with his mental make-up the way it was, he became a judge, ordering the death penalty in all cases where he firmly believed the accused person guilty, so he could enjoy seeing them crippled with fear by the knowledge that they would soon be hanged." I'm all in favor of long, rolling, Dickensian sentences, but I think this one has a few too many clauses. Also, some of them are awkward: "with his mental makeup the way it was" could be "given his mental makeup" or something like that.

•  Done

• "He then picked them off one by one, reveling in the mental torture each survivor experiences as their own fate approaches." Inconsistent use of verb tense.

•  Done

• "After Vera (the guiltiest of the "condemned" according to the judge, since she not only deliberately allowed a child to drown but then managed to pass herself off as a heroine who had tried to rescue the boy) hanged herself, Wargrave, who had been watching from the bedroom closet, pushed the chair against the wall." That long parenthetical divorces subject from verb, and is info that could be covered in the character listing or at least re-worked here.

•  Done

• The "Other" section is still written in bulleted form, so that needs to change. In addition, I suggest either incorporating the info in to the film adaptation section, or retitling this section to be more specific, in order to avoid people adding trivia - I notice somebody did just yesterday. Even "Other film versions" might help with that.

•  Done I've also added a note that will hopefully deter addition of trivia.

• The citations to Taves only give author's last name - there should be more info. I'll go into the history and put it in if no-one else does.

• Add something about film adaptations to the lead, as the lead should summarize the article. Could also mention video game and graphic novel.

 Done

• "Literary reception" is still mostly a collection of quotations, mostly focused on reception. I added a quotation from a critic with an opinion about the significance of the work in general. What the section needs now is topic sentences of some kind, and perhaps breaking up the quotations. Something like this would read more smoothly: "Reception of the book was uniformly favorable. Early critics called the novel "ingenious" and "fascinating." Writing in the such-and-such periodical, so-and-so wrote that .... Other critics were similarly laudatory .... blah blah."

•  Done

That looks like all that's left. I can make some changes myself, but I'm not allowed to do the bigger stuff. I'll keep checking back in. Best, Ricardiana (talk) 17:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed all of the points but one (the citation to Taves). I'm afraid that I'm pretty hopeless in that area, so it would appreciated if you could help do it ;) Cheers. I'^mperator 19:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Taken care of. Ricardiana (talk) 22:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Imperator has made a lot of good changes to this article, and it's much improved. I've put it on "On Hold" status for one reason, which is Criterion #1, the writing. I gave some examples above in the "Progress" section of some problematic sentences, and Imperator immediately went and changed them, so kudos to Imperator. However, sadly, those examples were just examples, not the only problematic sentences. So, I've put the article on hold; in a week, time will be up and I'll check back to see what changes have been made.

To give some guidance, I think that the main problem section is the plot summary. The "Characters" section has some problems as well. The writing in the rest of the article is fine.

I would list every problem sentence except that there are a lot of them. So, instead, I'll make a list of the kinds of problems to look for.

• Long parenthetical statements, especially those that separate subject and verb or that interrupt a clause. In general, keep parentheticals short and to a minumum.
• Eliminate wordiness. There's a lot of that here. To give just one example: "ten little figurines of soldiers." "Soldier figurines" would do just fine and eliminate the "of"; "figurine" implies little, so "little" is unnecessary.
• On a related note, eliminate repetition.
• Watch punctuation. A sentence should not have multiple semi-colons, for example, unless you are separating items in a list; semi-colons should not be used for commas; and dashes should be used sparingly.
• Tone. The "Characters" section reads like the back cover of a 60s paperback. For an encyclopedia article, the language should be more matter-of-fact and less dramatic. Readers only need to know the character's names, professions, and past crimes. Descriptions of their appearance, etc., are what make fiction great and encyclopedia articles not so great b/c encyclopedia articles don't have that kind of thing. -As a guide, the description of Dr. Armstrong is perfect. The others should fit that pattern.
• Consistency of verb tense. I gave one example already, but there are others, particularly in the "Postscript" section.

Hello, I've checked back in and the bad news is that I don't think that this article is a GA just yet. I will be asking for a second opinion, however, rather than just failing it, since I'm new to this process.

My main reason is that not all my previous comments were addressed. I do appreciate that Imperator made a number of changes to address some of those comments. However, I was able to go in today and make a number of changes to eliminate wordiness (I cut nearly 1000 words on one edit alone), repetition, etc., as well as some issues with punctuation and so on. I know that it's OK for a reviewer to be bold and make changes herself, but my impression is that those changes should be minor. I don't know if the changes I've made are minor enough to be kosher or not, and I don't want to get in trouble for passing an article I've done too much work on. On the other hand, without some such changes as I made, I think the article would have failed on criterion 1.

So we'll see what the other reviewer thinks. Here are my thoughts:

1. The plot summary is still way long. Do we really need a blow-by-blow of each person's death?
2. The character summary was pruned a little, but I see someone added back in much of what was cut. I stand by my previous comments on this section.
3. The literary reception and significance section is still rather chunky and clunky. Also, it focuses almost entirely on reception, and not very much on significance. I added a few quotations from a modern critic, but today as I'm flipping through Google Books I'm seeing other possibilities - Out of the woodpile By Frankie Y. Bailey, for one. This raises a new concern, because while a GA needn't be completely thorough, it shouldn't leave out anything important, and modern assessments of literary significance are definitely important to include in the section on literary significance.

So, I will be asking for a second reviewer shortly. Ricardiana (talk) 17:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support a fail. However, since the criticisms I'd suggest (see below) haven't necessarily been covered before, you might want to consider giving it a day or two more before making a decision. However, aside from the several small issues, there's two large problems (two unreferenced sections, and an apparently less-than-comprehensive coverage of its reception) that I don't think can be solved in a short time without a lot of work.

1. The word "Niggers" is wikilinked in the lede, but not "Indians" further down. I think the two terms should be treated with consistency, so I'd probably wikilink both words, but only in the first instance where they occur outwith a mention of the book's titles (in the ==Publication history== section)—personally I try to avoid wikilinking bold text unless absolutely necessary.

    Done

2. I'd agree the Plot summary section is out of proportion to the rest of the article. More importantly, it's entirely unreferenced. You can either reference the book itself as a primary source, or use CliffsNotes or similar; see this link as an example. Note that this particular site requires registration, but if you can find something similar it should help you.

   Doing. I've added one citation to bookrags, but intend to use book itself more.

   Hmm, I respectfully disagree. The MOS says that citations should be given "when adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, when quoting someone, when adding material to the biography of a living person, when checking content added by others, and when uploading an image." None of this applies to a plot summary, and as a college instructor I have a big problem with the idea of citing Cliffnotes, Sparknotes, Bookrags, or anything similar. I also simply don't think that those are reliable sources. Ricardiana (talk) 04:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

   I see where you're coming from with this, and checking some on-Wiki discussions (e.g. here and here at the Reference Desk), their reliability is disputed, especially at Featured level. I'm not from the US and don't have first-hand experience of them, so I may have been mistaken in how "scholarly" these publications are considered.

   Nevertheless, I'd still prefer to see references either to the primary source or a reliable secondary source of some description. Such citations act both as barriers to passing vandalism (someone slyly changing "the butler did it" to "the housekeeper did it" is slightly more difficult to get away with if it conflicts with an external source), and also to demonstrate that the summary is not original research. However, as the primary reviewer the decision is yours; you won't see me demanding a review if you pass this sans citations for the synopsis. --DeLarge (talk) 10:46, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3. The section heading of ==Characters in "And Then There Were None"== can simply be cut down to ==Characters==

    Done

4. In ==Literary significance and reception== there's a spelling error: other reviewers were "as complimentary".
5. In the same section, you don't need to give exact dates for when each critic said what; that should be covered by the citation.
6. Same section again: "Such was the quality of Christie's work that many compared it to Roger Ackroyd." No initial wikilink to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and because you've given an abbreviated title, this reader (not a Christiephile) thought you were referring to another author rather than one of her earlier works.

    Done

7. In the last two paragraphs of this section, you use "critics" in the plural, but only cite one for each viewpoint you're expressing. As expressed above, I think this hasn't been covered to the level of comprehensiveness required. What you might want to do is split this section in two, covering contemporary and modern analysis discreetly, and searching out more commentary.
8. The opening sentence in ==Film, TV and theatrical adaptations== is very run-on, and lacks punctuation.

    Done

9. The ===Television=== subsection should be better written than just five bullet points. It looks doubly bad because the sections around it are all properly written prose text.

    Done

10. The first three sub-sections are, like the plot summary, entirely unreferenced. Not even a link to the IMDb page of each film?
11. Given how short it is, I'd make ==Other media adaptations== a sub-section of the the one above, which I'd rename to something like ==Theatrical and media adaptations==. I'd then just mention the game and the graphic novel in a single paragraph. The current way of writing it gives greater prominence to the game than any of the TV adaptations, for example, by going into more detail about release dates etc. That's very... Wikipedic (sic), and not in a good way. In fact, I think I'd go further; just subsume the video game and graphic novel mentions into "other variations" since they're hardly notable. The game got mediocre reviews, and the graphic novel's only been out for a month.
12. The fifth reference (Howstuffworks.com) isn't formatted properly (see WP:Footnotes).

     Done

Apologies for being the bearer of bad tidings, but hopefully these criticisms can help improve the article in the longer term. Regards, --DeLarge (talk) 23:13, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, sorry for not being responsive; I have just gotten Bart the Fink to GA status. Now that I'm back, I've made quite a few changes, and have encouraged a fellow editor to help copyedit the article. Thanks for waiting :) Cheers. I'^mperator 02:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I don't think the article meets the GA criteria. Here's some stuff you can improve:

• "And Then There Were None" should only be bolded one time in the lead.
• The plot section needs to be shortened down.
• The "Film, TV and theatrical adaptations" needs to be referenced.

I suggest you withdraw/fail the nomination and work on the article a bit more before nominating it again. —TheLeftorium 13:22, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Per this and DeLarge's comments, as well as my own, I don't think that this article passes in its current state. I encourage you to submit it for GA again once my, DeLarge's, and TheLeftorium's concerns have been addressed. Ricardiana (talk) 00:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The section describing the sequence and MO of the murders doesn't make sense, lines are repeated and confused. 86.144.25.248 (talk) 23:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We can't change original versions. We must respect original text. If we change it then this is not Agatha Christie anymore! We must respect truth even if we don't like it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.253.60.154 (talk) 14:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia isn't censored? Are you kidding? There is no way to edit the topic paragraph, which is historically inaccurate. The book was originally called "Ten Little Niggers." Wikipedia is just as corrupt as the idiots who want to rewrite "Huckleberry Finn" to replace "nigger" with "slave." A huge middle finger to you douchebags at Wikipedia -- you are HUGE censors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tlinn80 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 29 July 2011

Anyone can edit the article, it is not protected, simply click the "edit" button at the top of the page. The material is not "censored", if you look at the article history, you can see that an IP editor vandalized the article by changing the wording less than 16 hours ago. This is also supported by the overwhelming talk page consensus supporting the use of the original title. I just undid the IP's edit to restore the original wording and image in the article. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 05:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough -- but you guys don't include the <EDIT> option in the topic paragraph, which is awfully confusing. And this is coming from a guy who designs websites all day. Really, guys? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tlinn80 (talk • contribs) 05:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that it was decided early in the days of the wiki that having a section-edit button for the lead was considered unattractive, so it was remove for the sake of appearance (with the logic that the full page edit button was available via the top tabs. However, it was made available so that each user had the option to add it for their own user-profile (I set it up on mine long ago, so had to search for where the switch is located): select the My preferences link at the very top of the page, then go to the "Gadgets" page; scroll down to the "Appearance" section, and add a check next to the line "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page". From then on, you'll see a section-edit for the lead section as long as you're logged into your account. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 06:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]