Talk:Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution

text of portrait

there are clear errors in the text put today under the portrait: Thomas Jefferson's name is replaced by John adams. Factually correct text would be:

Thomas Jefferson was Vice President under his political adversary, and later the House took 36 votes to determine the positions of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, third President and Vice President. The mayhem inspired the 12th Amendment.

213.243.157.114 15:47, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In any event, it is much, much too long. -- Emsworth 15:53, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

We're tring to make captions complete sentences and explain the relevance of the image to the article. This style of caption does end up longer than captions that are not complete sentences. This one doesn't seem particularly excessive. I've corrected the factual errors. 81.168.80.170 16:56, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think anything longer than a couple of lines is excessive and inelegant. I disagree with the changing of captions to make them explain their relevance. This is an encyclopedia, not a picture book; anyone who wishes to understand the captions must merely read the adjacent text. Lengthy captions are only appropriate when the adjacent text is not necessarily relevant to the picture. -- Emsworth 17:19, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Can you shorten those captions (or craft new ones) to an apporpriate length to help the readers survey the article and understand the relationships of Jefferson and Clay to the article? -- ke4roh 18:59, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

I strongly feel that the adjacent text would suffice here. -- Emsworth 19:54, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've made a new attempt, with captions that explain the relevance of the figure but in a much briefer way. Emsworth, please see Wikipedia:Captions and raise any issues about the principle of explaining relevance there. 81.168.80.170 21:10, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

While 81.168.80.170 was taking another attempt at captions, I was writing here: I strongly feel that the captions should provide some context (see Wikipedia:Captions). What would you think of a compromise involving some especially short captions like "Mayhem surrounding Jackson's elections spurred the amendment?" I'm not sure I understand well enough why Clay's picture was inlcuded (as opposed to any others), so I'm not sure I can write the best caption, but I might try something like "The amendment precluded Clay's presidency." -- ke4roh 21:18, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

The captions I have just added both (a) indicate the relevance of the image and (b) are not too long. Just noting that I absolutely oppose the reinsertion of the previous seven-line captions. -- Emsworth 00:06, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"portrait" as verb

I have seen English texts where there is written "portraited". Actually, it is very practical. Only with 10 signs, you have a reference in, for example, a caption of picture. It makes the reference unambiguous, in cases where several names are mentioned in the text.

I admit that probably the texts I have read were American-English. However, there is no need to enforce those strict British grammar regulations here in Wikipedia. 213.243.157.114 00:12, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)