User:Geogre/Talk archive 24

Archive 24 is one after 23 and one before 25

Calling...

Call refused. :-( Bishonen | talk 20:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

I pickéd up and thought I was speaking to you, but it was to nothing but the ήθερnet that I spoke. Geogre 12:16, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit help

If you have time, could you please copyedit Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church? Thanks, --Irpen 19:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• Done. Now, DYK it. It sounds like "chaos, ecclesiastical and ethnic, during the occupation" could be a hugely rich (if sensitive) topic for historical research. Geogre 19:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Good articles

Look: I can't even write a "good article" now :(

At least I got to fill in a quiet corner of Essex occupied by various members of the Ruggles-Brise family today. Their home, Spains Hall, sounds nice (Dutch gables, silver leaded drainpipes).[1] It was originally owned by the "de Ispania" family from shortly after then Norman conquest until the 15th century, then by the Kempes, until the 17th century. I wonder if they are related to Margery Kempe of King's Lynn, or William Kempe. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• Looks like a nice house - shame they don't want to demolish it, then I could put it in my new page. Don't worry about the GA - it is even more of a ridiculouse set up than FA - I may even start a GARCstly page to review them myself. Giano 08:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not like there is any magic pixie dust necessary for starting an honorary page. You could start the Dante Awards and just hand them out, together with a little sticker, or I could an Order of Johnson. GA has never interested me, and what I said on Bishonen's page is it: the systems work if the reviewers are knowledgeable enough to know what to trust, what to challenge, and what to reject. If they're not, as the GA owner wasn't, then the process is broken by the reviewers rather than the authors. Geogre 10:33, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's time for me to give out the West Dakota Prizes again— for successfully employing the expression "legend states" in a complete sentence.... --Wetman 12:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that's easy! In Mercator's projection just put in there, 'This is Mercator's projection. The legend states that it is "a new projection of the shape of the world"'. In Mount Airy, North Carolina, one could have, "A map of Mount Airy. The legend states the scale." :-) Shoot, I've done some saints that should win. "Legend states that she bi-located while in a trance" would fit right in with the Theresea of Avilla article. "I'm worth a million in prizes." Geogre 23:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Those uses, and perhaps comparable numismatic ones, are never hooted at by Wetman.--Wetman 01:25, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did Spains Hall (subtle *hint* to those with architectural source books); are you aware of the story of William Ansah Sessarakoo, Geogre? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Gosh - links to Aphra Behn and the macaroni parson! -- ALoan (Talk) 10:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Interestingly, I didn't know of him. It's a bit strange, since he was in London just when I should be paying attention, but I gather that, whatever celebrity he had, he never did anything very political. The later freed slaves were quite important, as they worked for abolition, but he seems to have come away from Barbados convinced that slavery wasn't the problem, as it was fitting for those nasty enemies of his. Oh, and I found another "legend indicates," but I have... no... it's in John Arbuthnot. "According to tradition" = "legend states," surely, and "according to tradition" he got his position by saving George of Denmark's life. Geogre 11:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, if someone has access to JSTOR or something similar, this would be a great source! His family were slave traders, so I doubt he objected to the practice per se. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I've left a little present for Wetman in an article I've just translated from the Danish wikipedia. Does the "legend states" have to be an original work to qualify? Yomangani^talk 12:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

In the same vein, how about "Susannah Carter (fl.1765?) was the author of an early cookery book ... Otherwise, little is known about her life." :) -- ALoan (Talk) 13:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Random Smiley Award

For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Award
originated by Pedia-I
(Explanation and Disclaimer)

♠TomasBat (@)(Contribs)(Sign!) 21:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Random biographical thoughts

Just thought I'd drop by and ramble about biographical articles and infoboxes. Two that I've worked on recently or in the past (most of the work was done by others) are Serge Voronoff (with infobox) and George Washington (inventor) (without infobox). The latter was the April Fools Day featured article. What do you think of them? (You can ignore the infobox if you want!) Carcharoth 12:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I love Serge Voronoff, but the real scream (in both senses) was the guy who inserted monkey testes in men to increase virility. Many people fell for that one. In fact, W. B. Yeats got the "monkey glands." George Washington...I'm not sure what to make of it. It seems a bit like an episode of AlienNation (if that's what it was called...all the aliens took "normal" names like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington). Geogre 01:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Radio 4 mentioned Yeats and the monkey glands the other day. They said it's a common rumour, but his randy dotage was actually the result of a late vasectomy. --Mcginnly | Natter 12:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, the monkey glands could only explain his sluttiness if they worked. I never considered the possibility that they would. :-) (I have no idea whether he really got them or not, but it was supposed to be a super secret visit to Iowa and that monkey plugger's clinic. Dunno, though, and getting them or not would be equally weird and therefore fitting with late Yeats.)

For some danged reason film adaptation is getting a blanking a day now. Someone is really devoted to fudging it up and shows up every day with a new account to dicker around with it. (See how many profane words I can almost type?) Anyway, I've just re-added a section that, I think, had existed in the prehistory of the article. I'm sure everyone knows that it's the article on Wikipedia I'm sort of most proud of. It's not my best, but I saved a single sentence substub to make it. Since then, other people have added stuff about comic books and the like, but it's still about 95% me own words. (You can tell, because there are references but no dammed footnotes (footnotes dam the article by creating a weir that the reader has to wiggle over to keep reading).) This, I suppose, merely confirms that I really want to direct. Geogre 12:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

"Whaddaya think of rhythm bands? hotdog stands? monkey glands? Whaddaya think of Stokowski's hands? ...nah, you just wanna conga!" (Comden and Green, 1940. (Wetman 22:39, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

"We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole

Transmit the Preludes through his hair and fingertips.

'So delicate, this Chopin, that I think his soul should be shared only by friends.'"

I'm sure some annotator or another knows which Pole Eliot was referring to in Prufrock and Other Observations (1919). Geogre 03:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Paderewski: "His brilliant playing created a furor which reached to almost extravagant lengths of admiration", Wikipedia tells us. Note the Wikipedian "almost". --Wetman 04:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that is superb. No one can say that Wikipedia isn't well qualified. It's almost as good as John Gay, who wrote to Alexander Pope (after Polly got banned before performance), "For writing in the cause of virtue and against the fashionable vices I have become the most obnoxious person in England almost." I have always wanted to know who made him insert that word. Our 1911-doped Paderewski author must also have had a pang of conscience, but one has to wonder why that conscience at that time. It's almost worth investigating the original authors, nearly. (Now I'm off to read up on it, as I want to know if those Preludes were recorded in any form.) Geogre 14:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's distinctly leonine photo of Paderewski gives added point to Eliot's sly "Transmit the Preludes through his hair and fingertips." --Wetman 06:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Portrait of a Lady is one of my favorite (sort of) poems by Eliot. Oh, it isn't as intellectually muscled as Prufrock, but it is much more interesting for having the narrator even more of a jerk. Boy means lady. Boy is tutored by lady in ways of society and sex. Boy despises lady and leaves her to die. Boy resents the small voice of guilt at leaving lady. <comic book guy> Best Browning impression ever. </comic book guy> The narrator thinks of "transmission" of the Preludes, while the lady thinks of it as a "resurrection" or seance. One of these two people is all heart, and one of them is heartless. Geogre 10:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Rumors are fun!

Juggling is a tricky business. Still, always best to exercise caution, lest people get the wrong impression...

Yours, Mackensen (talk) 15:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I see no lack of caution, and I will never be privvy to the impressions, as those will always be formulated well in advance by those who merely lurk and wait for an occasion to settle scores. I have no use for that. Geogre 20:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Stubbifying is fun!

Especially corporate bullshit. What do you think, about the right length, hm? I tried to call on skype a while ago, I'll try again after I have a snack. Bishonen | talk 19:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Short, to the point, and says the same thing as the longer form. I don't think that's stubbifying. That's rendering fat. Geogre 03:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I found your comment interesting ...

... so I posted it (this one) on the desk's talk page. Hope you don't mind. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm glad it helped. The discussion has been one that I've promised over and over to aid in, but I'm been negligent. I don't mean that I'm going to turn the tide of battle, or even help much, but I have wanted to offer whatever I could, in hopes that it was something to the point. Fits and starts, though -- I'm always in them. Geogre 21:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

The more informed, educated, or sourced answers we get there, the more momentum for improvement. As for the talk page, well... it's sometimes the typographical equivalent of a night spent in the jungle. First there's silence and some chirping, maybe a hoot and a croak, more silence, a lone howl, and suddenly a never-ending cacophony erupts. (The next evening everything's forgotten, except for the drone in your ears, and it starts all over again). ---Sluzzelin talk 03:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

What a good metaphor! I must say, that's the best encapsulation of wiki-drama I've ever encountered. First, one bird gives its chattering warning signal, and then all the demons of hell begin gibbering. How, though, will anyone know when the conversation is ready to move to an actual guideline or rule? Geogre 10:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Most of the contributors seem to believe in common sense. Rules become the issue, when views on whether and where the line should be drawn are diverging to the point of disruption. It's a series of cycles, User:TenOfAllTrades/RD thoughts was a helpful result of 2006's last quarter. The current outgoing cycle is trying to be resolved in Wikipedia:Reference desk/guidelines. Other approaches exist as well, for instance User:Friday/RD#. Keeping the desk's balance and drive will always be a challenge, and perhaps that is a good thing. One criticism of models of rational discourse has always been the unfairness of time's linearity. We can't complain about that here. And thanks, you made me blush. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Tags and Boxs (redux)

I saw this and thought of you (or, rather, of your essay). Would you be able to add some thoughts? Carcharoth 17:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I've commented. As with other things recently, I've just had an ironically timed exposure to the crisis of tags, too. I just wrote William Rainborowe. I'm delighted that it received attention quickly, and I have no ill will at all toward the person who "improved" it, but both improvements were mistaken. The first was to remove all apostrophes marking plural numbers. The second was to put a tag saying that few articles linked to it. Given that it was a brand new article, that's not surprising. However, more to the point, the tag is just irrelevant in this case. I'll explain why on the Pump page. Geogre 01:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Love to get your feedback on Uncle Tom's Cabin

I know I haven't talked with you in a while (I'm a heel, what can I say :-), but since you've always been interested in literature I wonder if you'd care to give feedback on Uncle Tom's Cabin. I brought this article up to GA status a while back and now I'm aiming to turn it into a Featured Article. If you don't have the time, I totally understand. Best, --Alabamaboy 02:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to it. I do hope you don't mind my general lethargy, though. I've heard that sloth is a sin, but looking it up would take going all the way over there to the Bible. Geogre 19:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram/Evidence#Evidence presented by user:Geogre

Your having passed comment on Ideogram, could I trouble you to have a look and put in a word on Gangsta's contribution as well? As is, it's not quite clear if you're defending him or not. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I have had no comment on him. However, the RFAR slipped, as so many do lately, from one to all parties. Ideogram has behaved abominably for quite some time now. Geogre 02:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

(Ahem.) Ben, in any case, I don't know that the ArbCom is that interested in who's defending who. What they're interested in is evidence, and I frankly can't see that either of you has input any of that. That's the Evidence page, not the Comments page. Bishonen | talk 03:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

Good advice. I have followed it. Regards, Ben Aveling 04:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

No, and nor have I really wanted to present an army of instances on him. Fortunately, you had already assembled a great deal of evidence, or certainly enough, but searching out where and when he began nibbling and nibbling would be dreary. Geogre 13:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

As for CG, I think he's Ali G, only a lot younger. <shrug> The question isn't whether he's a sage, but whether he's ArbCom blockable. I don't think so, in either case. Geogre 14:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

William Rainborowe

Did you even read the talk page? Wikipedia does have have a rule on the subject, here. You give the New York Times as including them, well, I can tell you that the USA Today, my newspaper, and many others are against it. Whether some people still think an apostrophe belongs there or not, this encyclopedia goes by the style of not including it in decades. Now I kindly request that you remove the warnings and realize that although adding an apostrophe to decades might not be completely incorrect, it is not correct. Reywas92^Talk 21:28, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

• I shall continue to write correctly, and I will, indeed, block you, if you edit war. Do you need some links to the blocking policy or the policy on edit warring, or can I assume that you have read them? The MoS does not have a ruling force on any article. It has a guideline voice. Additionally, if there has been a recent bit of nonsense inserted, then it will be removed. Geogre 22:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have read them. No, I did not just add that, it has always said that. Although it is guideline, not policy, that doesn't mean you can just write against what is says whenever you want. I'd also recommend that you do not act matter-of-factly by saying that you write correctly. Not everyone agrees with that rule. On a final note, you are also contributing to the warring. There is no real need for you to revert. I will stop editing here, but will not end my quest against apostrophe abuse. Thank you. Reywas92^Talk 23:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello

I just found you through the Sarah Fielding page. It seems that we share a lot of the same interests. I would greatly appreciate it if you would comment on my Sarah Trimmer article. I have found that asking for personal peer-reviews from experienced and knowledgeable editors is far superior to the peer-review process. I will still post the article in a few weeks, but I like to try to find good reviewers that I can trust in the future. I have read a lot of your pages - they are quite good - so I thought that you might give a thoughtful review. Any assistance you would like on your articles, I would be happy to provide in return. For a sample of my work, see Anna Laetitia Barbauld, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Mary Wollstonecraft; I wrote the bulk (if not the entirety) of these pages.

I was surprised that you said on your userpage that you didn't want to write on your dissertation topic. For me, it is much easier to write on topics related to my dissertation because I have all of the research right at my fingertips and I can easily add in all of those pesky inline citations. If you are looking for a page to do, though, I would recommend Samuel Johnson. I just read on an 18c listserv that I belong to that a very respected professor went to wikipedia to check out its article on Johnson and stopped reading three paragraphs in because it was so inaccurate. I myself know little about Johnson personally, but perhaps you would like to take on the project? I feel like it should be fixed after reading that comment (of course the expert couldn't fix it!). Awadewit 06:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The funny thing there is that my dissertation topic is pretty darned obscure. You know how we inherited (even in the UK) the Yale tripartite division of 18th c. studies (18th 1 = Dryden to Pope, 18th 2 = Novel, 18th 3 = Age of Johnson)? Well, I'm 18th 1 in that sense. I work as well as my lights permit on 1660-1740 on Wikipedia. However, I also have the specialist's curse when it comes to those big articles. I have absolutely no doubt that the Johnson article stinks. For that matter, the Swift and Pope articles are miles away from adequate. I could help those better than Johnson, although I like SJ and got my training there, too, but I feel like there is just so much to do with Swift, Pope, Dryden, Johnson, Sterne, H. Fielding, and the others that I can't begin. I don't want to start working on them if I know that I can't get near fixing them. To fix those pages, I'd need to go through everyone from Mack to Bate, and that's a huge commitment. Since I still haven't finished Dunciad (although I did make sure that we have an article, a fair one, on each and every dunce), I think I'd be wretched at trying to give an encyclopedic overview of such significant figures.

I do understand your plight. I don't know if you've seen Tom Jones recently, but it was nominated for a novel collaboration of the month this month. I was excited until I saw what the collaborators wanted to do to the page (you can see my attempt to rein in the page on the talk page). I pretty much gave up on that and have now started a crusade to change the novel template so that all of the novel pages don't resemble sparknotes (a quick glance through the novels of Dickens, Eliot, Thackery and Austen appalled me). I haven't seen a lot of successful institutionalized collaboration projects, frankly; you have to know what you are writing about, so things like the "Collaboration of the Week" don't work at all. The same people vote all of the time - they can't possibly be well-versed in all of those topics! I plan on doing the Austen page when I get to the Austen chapter of my dissertation, but I shudder to think of the Janeite wars. (The Austen biography is horrifyingly bad.) Awadewit 17:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, good Lord! You have no idea the fights that we've had to prevent boxes from eating up good (FA, actually) novel articles. There was a massive fight over that, and it required that fight to stop the "automatically, every biography gets a box with the following fields, automatically every novel gets a novel box" people. I don't want them at all. The point that I make is that boxes and templates are for things to be consistent, and therefore we can only apply them to subject matter where consistent elements will be the salient information. In the case of insects, that's fine. In the case of novels, it isn't. When I meet people who have consistency in their lives, I will believe that a biography of such lives should be consistent. Until then, each novel, each person, each play, and each poem has its own individuality to such a remarkably thoroughgoing extent that nothing can make them consistent, and no box should be present. I'm already weeping at the idea of a COTW on Tom Jones.

I do not like the infoboxes myself. The only consistent thing about people is that they are born and they die. Listing authors' "influences" or their subject matters, for example, is bizarre and reductive to me. I tend to leave those fields blank until I am forced to fill them in. Also, I am constantly deleting "Hardback and paperback" from eighteenth-century book infoboxes since that distinction did not exist then and many people paid to have their own books bound. Awadewit 20:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

(Back out): Well, I think the boxes should simply not be there. There is no requirement to have them. Inasmuch as they are simply another element of an article, they can be rejected as easily as a "trivia" section. So far, I have defended the work I have invested a lot of time on, and whenever the issue of infoboxes does get to a poll, they lose. There is a great deal of fronting going on. The MoS people are a plague. The rage to reduce information to a simple set of binary fields and to reduce complexity to form is anathema to actual presentation of information. Geogre 23:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The other point you make is similar to one I've had to make about the Featured Article Candidate page. There are people who are reviewing every single candidate. They say that they are experts on "what makes a featured article" rather than the content of any particular featured article. This seems harmless, except that it requires the invention and then prioritization of a form for the FA. What I've always believed worthwhile about Wikipedia is that it drew the work of any and all, that it coped with inconsistency and heterogeneity, that it focused on information. (The FAC people want footnotes for things like "the mock heroic is a type of poem or novel that emerges in the Restoration." For any academic, that's a commonplace -- knowledge found in all references and therefore an unsuitable note.) Because the experts on the form don't have any expertise in the subject matter at all, they cannot tell the commonplace from the controversial and therefore either wish us to be a wild west of unreliability or a staccato of superscripted numbers explaining such things as "yes, oats are vegetable.") Geogre 19:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I tend to review a lot on FAC, if only to teach people how to research properly. I am constantly opposing based on the use of poor sources (or no sources). It seems to me that there should be a standard rather than a form for FAs (my biggest grips about FAC is the MOS people - there are some reviewers who want all of the writing in wikipedia to look alike - most recently I had a spat over the use of the word "claim" - apparently Locke cannot "claim" anything, he can only "state" something). I understand what you are saying about the footnotes, but wikipedia has a legitimacy problem in the public sphere. It seems to me that it can solve that problem in one of two ways: 1) credential its editors (like citizenpedium) and prove that they know what they are writing about; or 2) reference its articles so that there is no doubt that the articles are reliable. It has clearly chosen route 2 which you seem to endorse with your anonynymity as well. If you want users to judge your work on its merits, I would argue that citations are part of those merits. Since wikipedia has such a low reputation right now, I can see why it needs more citations than an academic work. Why would a lay reader know that "the mock heroic is a type of poem or novel that emerges in the Restoration"? They would not. Why should they believe the wikipedia article just because it says so? This is clearly a very contentious issue on wikipedia right now. I am curious to hear other solutions to the legitimacy crisis, though. Awadewit 20:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

(Back out again): We cannot and must not worry about what "the world thinks" about our legitimacy. Wikipedia began as a The Cathedral and the Bazaar experiment and succeeded a peer reviewed project that failed. I do not worry about what those grumbling on C18-L are going to say, because they are going to grumble anyway, no matter what. As I said, we used to play "spot the errors in the OED" game. As one friend said, "A complaining teacher is a happy teacher." Although I don't agree with that, quite, it's part of the academic game to denigrate the competition. How can you, as a frightened assistant professor or full professor (frightened of tenure review in the first case and being outmoded in the second) prove that you're smart? Well, you write articles, but no one reads them. You write books, but no one really reads them. However, you can sneer vocally at everyone else's book, everyone else's article, and, of course, the upstarts who think that they don't need to sweat the way you did. I do not care what the reputation is, because the truth is that the reputation is far, far, far better than anyone will let on. If we solve the "problem," and I do not think there is one, by going real name only, we have ceased to be Wikipedia. If we do it by demanding footnotes to common knowledge, we will bog down our articles and run off our editors and fail the way Wikipedia's predecessor did. The project began as a testimony to the wisdom of the many to make up for any peculiarity of the individual, and that is the reference system. If that fails, then Wikipedia fails, because I can assure you that footnotes are wholly meaningless.

(still out): I don't know if you've ever done journal work, but I do. You know why articles take an eternity to hit print? Well, yes, lazy reviewers are the biggest problem, but the amount of time it takes is due to fact checking. Fact checking means going into the library and finding every reference used by every author and confirming that every single reference checks out precisely. You might think that there is no need, really, but I assure you that there is. Professionals fake footnotes. If professionals do, what would be the case here? References are no more than onanism if we don't check them, and I sincerely doubt that anyone in "the world" will think we're more reliable with them -- at least anyone inclined to be skeptical, and academics (see above) really, really, really want to sniff at the ridiculousness of Wikipedia (even as they use it on a daily basis). Geogre 23:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression that journals and academic presses, in particular, did not fact check everything. That is why there are factual errors and miscited materials in publications - they rely on the academics to get it right. Awadewit 23:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Instead, I tinker about. I make sure minor poets have articles. I document political dissenters of the 1690's. I write up the polemics and controversies. The only thing I did in real depth was A Tale of a Tub, and that was my M.A. thesis topic. My dissertation was on an unpublished-since-1709 poet. I did Oroonoko because it was trash, but I don't feel up to messing about with Aphra Behn. If the people at C18-L would get off their duffs and start helping, instead of complaining, I would listen to them more. If they showed some flexibility in their understandings (Wikipedia is not reliable or unreliable; it is a starting point and the best resource on the web for a general encyclopedia: finding mistakes is easy -- we used to play this "spot the errors in the 1911" game, then the "find mistakes in the OED" game, but the difference is that we couldn't fix those), I would sympathize. Instead, they ask why Wikipedia isn't up to their most recent article. It isn't because they haven't done anything, and the very few of us working on 18th c. topics cannot be everywhere or be asked to donate our efforts on every hole in the text.

I understand your frustration with C18-L, but I feel that I must soldier on. Perhaps if people see the improvement, they may be convinced to work on the project. Also, I love to put people's pet 18c person/text into google and show them how wikipedia shows up as the number one or two result (wikipedia's Johnson page was #1). I am also constantly on a mini-crusade amongst graduate students to get them to contribute. Even they are reticient. Why are scientists so much more willing to write articles? The science articles here are fantastic. I am embarrassed by the quality of the bulk of the literature articles, frankly. Awadewit 17:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

We get grad students here and there. I have been open and honest with my colleagues about my contributions, as I believe that we have an enormous effect on the world. All over the world, our little words color the interpretation of our subjects, and we disseminate more information more widely and less expensively than any other thing we can do. If you want a career pump, send your material off to Notes & Queries. If you want to remedy the world's ignorance of a figure, go to Wikipedia. Those who sneer are welcome to it, but I'm not alone in being a serious ____(my profession)___ who has written for Wikipedia. There is a noted Behniac here, too, as well as the general fry of grad students making excited, exaggerated, and unsubstantiated claims from a critical point of view. Geogre 19:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, to the point: I would be absolutely delighted to help out. I'm overjoyed for another hand at the tiller. 18th c. is neglected in the academy, and it's neglected here, and it is one of the field where there is a chance to actually make a difference and help out the world. Sorry for the long response. Geogre 14:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It is so neglected that wikipedia had a userbox for every other period of European history except the 18c. I had to create my own. So typical. Awadewit 17:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and as for why I don't say who my dissertation is on, there are few enough of us working on the figure that, if I say, a person might find my real identity. I don't want that. However, it's along the lines of the people working on the poetry of Thomas Warton (and I think that number stands at six, globally): no one doubts that it's important, but there just aren't many. How many people are working on James Thomson's poetry? For that matter, how many are working on "important" people like Edward Young? 18th c. literature is wonderful for being both extremely rewarding to read and still being relatively unpopulated. Oh, you can't say anything new about Gulliver's Travels, but there are dozens and dozens of good authors who still need work done. If you have an interest in textual criticism, the list balloons. There are many, many, many figures we need editions for. Geogre 17:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think about that enough, I'm afraid. Someone has already found me out through my articles, but it was a good thing. We are now exchanging emails and I have early versions of the person's articles that I am going to quote in my dissertation. By the way, I tried to argue that contributing to wikipedia could harm someone's career in that big debate over "credentialling" a few months ago, but I don't think people believed me. In the humanities, though, I really believe it could. I am very circumspect about who I tell about my wikipedia activities. If I had thought about all of this long ago when I made my username, I would have chosen a more anonymous name. I can tell you that the number of people working on eighteenth-century children's literature is small as well. It is more than six, but it is small and insular. I like the topic, because, as you say, there is a lot to be said; it's a fascinating, unexplored topic. Awadewit 17:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

In my case, I simply don't want to know most of the people I "know" on Wikipedia, as I'm almost a New Critic when it comes to Wikipedia input. I want no one to credit me for my real life credentials nor criticize me for them. There are people on Wikipedia who have extremely high profile professions (and I mean extremely). We know each other because we came to respect each other from our contributions, not our user pages, not our claims about ourselves. The people who want credentials are, I suspect, young and/or very inexperienced. Have they never met an idiot with a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D.? Have they never read of chemical engineering professors who are holocaust deniers? Have they never experienced the rainbow of morons, bigots, and Technicolor fools out there with credentials? Have they not learned, yet, to ignore every last one of them and read what the person writes and not what the person says about him or herself. I have, through Wikipedia, met some of these illustrious folks. That's a great addition to my life, but it is a great addition because I met their work before I met them. People who want Friendster and FaceBook and MySpace can go to those sites, as I really am loathe to see Wikipedia turn into yet another web forum or another Slashdot.

I doubt that. I think that they just want to be recognized for the years of work they have put into studying a topic. Sometimes decades. That work is not irrelevant just because there are some crazy PhDs; there are anomalous members of every profession, but that doesn't mean you discount the entire profession, just the anomalous members. I have seen some unfortunate debates on wikipedia that say things like "I don't care what the scholarship says" or "This is my opinion and academics are all biased liberals anyway, so it doesn't matter" that leads me to believe that wikipedia is not some utopian space. These attitudes seem to particularly crop up around issues of gender studies on pages that I write. Awadewit 20:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

(Back out again): Recognized? I'm sorry, but, without real names, how is there recognition? I really think you get more recognition, and better, by having people see one's work and compliment it than have someone see that one is a 33rd degree Mason or some such. For a long time, we had a famous actor editing at Wikipedia. He "left." Actually, he changed his name, because he got sick of people wanting to talk about his acting instead of Wikipedia. We have judges. We have members of Congress. We have numerous professors. We have novelists galore. We have illustrious poets. We have loads and loads of people who categorically refuse to reveal anything about their "real" lives because they want to work on Wikipedia rather than socialize on a basis outside of the project. I really like talking about articles and exploring information, but I really don't like talking about myself. Because of this, will I be asked to yield to a self-identified "expert" who boasts of two Ph.D.'s in divinity? "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," as the New Yorker cartoon said. Well, on the web, no one knows you're not Hans Kung, but if you try to cash his paycheck, there is going to be trouble. Geogre 23:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not particularly interested in socializing either, but I am interested in finding other people who share my intellectual interests and who have the same high standards for articles that I do. That is not always easy to do. If people identify themselves as academics, I know that I have a better chance of agreeing with them on the necessity for carefully-crafted articles. We even agree to a large extent! Awadewit 23:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

All of that sounds monstrously prickly, I know. I don't mean it that way. I am pleased to meet you, and pleased to meet anyone and everyone who has contributions to make to the world's sum of knowledge, and especially on the neglected world of the 18th c.

By the way, have you seen Namby Pamby? I wrote it, but I think it rather stinks. First, I don't know when and how people began to associate the parody with being appropriate to read to children (if they really ever did). Second, I wonder if Ambrose Philips's dreadful Odes ever got used for children. Third, I wonder about the entire history of professionally authored children's rhymes. Was Henry Carey (writer) used for such? Was Ned Ward? I know you're working past mid-century, but these are just issues that bug me about the jot that I know of the field. Geogre 19:07, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I have had a lot of people ask me about Namby Pamby. I have never heard mention of it by 18c children's critics, authors or 20c scholars. That does not mean anything, of course. The poetry/rhymes that are most often mentioned are those published by Mary Cooper (Mother Goose and Tom Thumb collections) and John Newbery around mid-century; Ann and her sister Jane Taylor wrote some collections around 1800. There is also a long tradition of religious poetry (often in the form of hymns) from John Bunyan, to Isaac Watts, to Anna Laetitia Barbauld to William Blake; there is also the famous New England Primer rhyming alphabet. Nonsense verse is really a nineteenth-century invention; I think that most people credit Edward Lear with that. 18c children's poetry in a nutshell (as I know it). Awadewit 20:51, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

(Back out):Well, nonsense verse was practiced by Carey, and Lear credited him as his predecessor. Ambrose Philips's second book of Odes reduced to a 2.5' line with heavy rhyme, and he claimed to write for children as well as ministers. My point was that there is a juvenation of a great deal of 18th c. literature, from Robinson Crusoe to Gulliver's Travels to Namby Pamby, whereby these satires and novels get repackaged and trimmed down to "stories for boys." I was wondering if you knew when this began. I know, of course, that the industry of children's literature has to wait for the value of children to increase. "The child is father to the man" is, after all, a Romantic innovation. Early and mid-century depictions of children is of miniature adults, per Stone. Geogre 23:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is, but it is not just for boys. Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison were also redacted for children; interestingly, they were turned into third-person novels - the epistolary format was totally eliminated. The "Robinsonnade" tradition began early and lasted well into the nineteenth century (there was even a story about a "Robinson Crusoe" dog). Pilgrim's Progress was adapted for children (of course). The Bible was rewritten for children (Ruth Bottigheimer has a whole book on children's Bibles from Guttenberg to the present). I would guess that the Bible is the first book to be rewritten for children. Stone, by the way, has been mucho-challenged. The historiography on the "invention of childhood" is a mess. The question of whether or not "childhood" was ever invented is far from agreed upon. Linda Pollack wrote one of the most vicious screeds againt Stone; it's called "Forgotten Children," I think. And Stone talks more about the family than the child (he has this whole thesis about the rise of various nuclear families) - it is Aries who discusses the child as miniature adult, particularly during the medieval period. Just to give you way more information than you wanted. I was going to work on the childhood page, but it would be such a gigantic undertaking, that I just said, "no." Unfortunately, it is in really bad shape. Awadewit 23:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, well, questioning Stone is one thing. Refuting him is another. All I can say is that every depiction of children I have seen in early period novels and biographies is either as irrelevancies or miniature adults (per Stone). It's quite, quite true that the Lockean invention of the tabula rasa education of the child is a different principle in tension with those, and we see, from the Letters to his son and Advice to Youth and schemes of education a prioritization of the child, but we also see, from the very same authors, a believe in a sort of homonculus or essence that must bear out in the maturation. I'm not sure that the people themselves were sure of what they thought, or that they thought it all at once, either way, but the spectacular emphasis on the child does seem to come 1780's and onward rather than 1680's. Geogre 00:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it all depends on what criteria you are using to define "childhood," though. Holly Brewer's book on "consent" makes an excellent case for shifting conceptions in the late seventeenth century as ages of consent were introduced into the law (inspired by the Reformation). The justification was that children couldn't reason (I'm drastically simplifying her argument here, but you get the idea). If your idea of childhood is happy-go-lucky innocence, then I agree that the idea comes much later (I would put it around 1820 or 1830 or so). But if you are looking for a social shift in thinking about the differences between adults and children, I would say late seventeenth century is a good time. Stone's argument tends to be a little reductive for me and his material on the poor was so atrocious that he had to take it out of the book eventually, as I understand it (there is an abridged version without that those sections). I think he was going for big narratives of history and went a little too big.

FuhNAHMuhNAHLuhjee

Just to lower the tone a little. OMG I love the pronunciation guides in Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. What a hoot. Can you figger what fuhNAHMuhNAHLuhjee is? You have 15 seconds. Bishonen | talk 17:00, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Phenomenology (feh-NOM-uh-NOH-loh-jee)? Lots of schwas in Columbia, clearly. I need to work on my drawl. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, 15 seconds...

My handy Little OED uses IPA - I think - which means I have to work out what things like "rɪ'læps" mean. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, rɪ'læps is a mid-European meat stew. Eat with rice. Full-bodied stuff, I recommend it. Bishonen | talk 18:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

P.S. Cognate with collops, naturally, but it doesn't taste the same. Bishonen | talk 18:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Is mid-European meat particularly tasty? I would have guessed stringy. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not the meat, it's the bay leaf. Bishonen | talk 00:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

It seems like you are all talking around the issue and failing to understand that, on Wikipedia, as in Columbia, there is only one pronunciation, and that is the one employed by the most recent editor, just as there is only one answer to questions of grammar. We can all hang up our robes, stoles, and hoods: Wikipedia has solved all problems of punctuation. Geogre 11:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a wikiproject, a policy, and a few polls to hammer out consensus. It might just work.--Doc^g 11:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

This section gets a lower rating than the previous one... :-) Carcharoth 17:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, my last comment, above, was wholly illiterate. I seem to go through my own little waves of aphasia, when I cannot write. I can always think well enough to convince myself of the truth of my position, but I cannot always see how there might be other points of views. At those moments, I feel that I am a really full participant in Wikipedia. Geogre 20:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

• Alan Bloom and E. D. Hirsch might have some information. The Closing of the American Mind and Cultural Literacy provoked small discussions. Most recently, Religious Illiteracy has been/is on the Best seller's list (NYT). The fundamental complaint -- that today's generation cannot understand the past because it has willfully or accidentally cut itself off from the material and fine culture that "we" share -- has been around at least since Swift (Book III of Gulliver's Travels and Advice for Servants inter al.). It's hard to argue that we are not in a culturally illiterate time, just as it was hard for people in the eras we identify as highly cultural not to see themselves as suffering exactly the same way. Are we really, truly, honestly more ignorant now than we were? It's hard to argue honestly and honestly impossible to know. Perhaps there has never been more than an elite that was truly culturally aware, and that elite has always lamented its inability to share. Perhaps now we have such rapid and open communication between the "classes" that we are more aware of ignorance and feel the illiteracy more. Perhaps X Idol has simply replaced local village gossips as the thing that the hoi poloi concern themselves with instead of culture.
• However, as the question cannot be asked meaningfully and the answer known definitively, the metric by which anyone would judge would simply have to be skewed. Since there is no un-skewed or proper instrument for testing "culture" and "cultural literacy," there is nearly no point in complaining about a biased one. After all, what is being tested is what matters to the author and the author's readers. Beyond that, it's darned difficult (except through a literary Google test, where you look for most-name-dropped terms) what core literacy could be. Geogre 20:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Those absurd boxes

Nice work removing the ridiculous infobox at The Castle of Otranto. If you want to see something else funny/scary, check out the chaos bio boxes have been causing with composers' articles (debate here [2]). --Folantin 10:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. The biobox has been a scourge of mine. I've had to fight tooth and nail (and nail in plank) against that disease. I and others have worked on some biographies that went to Featured Article status and then had "this article needs a box" slapped on and then a box following soon after. Imagine going through the mind and soul numbing process of FAC, and this after devoting the extra effort to research, and then "We simply must shove your content all over the place and save everyone the effort of reading the brilliant prose by reducing this complex and interesting life to a box." It's enough to make even the most mild mannered scientist turn into a monster, and I don't start off as a mild mannered scientist. Geogre 12:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

"Oh, but they're so pretty and they make Wikipedia look really, you know, professional...". No, they make articles look like Pokemon cards. I've noticed a groundswell of opinion against these things amongst the people who've actually written the pages. I came across your comments by serendipity, which was rather appropriate given the link with Horace Walpole. So I looked up The Three Princes of Serendip and - what do you know?- someone thought all the article needed to make it complete was a book infobox. I'd like to see them try forcing an anonymous Persian folk tale of unknown date into that straitjacket. The worst thing is these boxes are really tempting me into violating WP:POINT. I'm thinking of adding the following to the next biobox I see - Star sign:Aquarius; Favourite Beatle: Ringo; Likes: Long, romantic walks in the rain. It would look great on the Bach page, for instance. Cheers. --Folantin 13:47, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. I wonder how much of an advance Rumi got? Who did the cover art for the first CD by Henry Purcell? What chart position did Charles Ives hit with his greatest hit? And, needless to say, the number of weeks on the best seller's list is vital for Deor, and I thought the original hardcover edition of The Seafarer was poorly printed and needed the new paperback.

What I enjoyed about the debate is that a lot of the arguments are exactly those I've been using -- either because the zeitgeist (or wikigeist) has made me appropriate or because I was saying the obvious or because I've had an effect. No matter what, why, or how, we are all on the same unstamped page. Those things wherein there is a small number of salient features can be standardized. I have never seen a standard person, though, never heard a standard composer, never seen a standard painter, and surely never read a standard author (unless you count Stephen King as an author). People cannot be reduced to an index of important features, and therefore there is no "consistency" to ever be sought among people.

"Consistency" is the argument of the machine. Humans without the patience for reading shouldn't be at an encyclopedia at all. Pop-up books and scratch 'n sniff cards are all around us: encyclopedias do not function well in those formats.

There is more history to this than you know, perhaps, going back to Netoholic and beyond. Essentially, a carpenter made a box. He saw that it was pleasing to him. He then formed a confederacy of carpenters, and they began seeking out items that could fit inside the box. They found any number of items that others had dropped (articles with no active editor) and began to stuff them into their boxes. They then used this as evidence that there was a mandate that all items be carried in that box. Utter silence had been taken as consent, and lack of edit warring had been taken as consensus, and then it was exported out to all things by all persons.

This met vigorous opposition, and eventually the sane carpenters began to realize that their handiwork was optional, that there was no joy to building over existing work. That's where I thought we were, but a -bot can jam a box everywhere at once, and humans have to remove it, one at a time. Geogre 15:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I like your prehistoric speculations. I wouldn't be surprised if a cave painting turned up in Lascaux or wherever depicting the first boxmaker being sacrificed to the gods of common sense on a pyre of his inventions. The most fun we had with the composers was the flags. For instance, Josquin des Prez was born in Hainault in the "Low Countries" in the 15th century. Now those old-time folks were distressingly lax as far as issues of definite nationality are concerned, but somebody just had to put a banner for his birthplace, so they chose the flag of the modern Republic of Austria (presumably to represent the Holy Roman Empire).

Don't get me started on bots. I had a run-in with the Project:France bot which went round merrily adding the project template to every page with a French word on it, thus successfully recolonising Canada, Morocco and so on. I have a strong suspicion Wiki World War One will accidentally be sparked off by such robo-activity.

Some people will always value homogeneity over accuracy. I have half a mind to start WikiProject:Theseus to counter infoboxes etc. (Theseus slew Procrustes, remember). Cheers. --Folantin 16:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

What's funny is that I was just thinking that we need WikiProject Lazar to create a place for people willing to risk infection by going around to harbor articles from the plague of infoboxes, templates, and fastidious "tidying" by means of graffiti. Furthermore, there is no effort at understanding the subject matter. That ProjectFrance cannot understand the difference between Alcuin and Wace is no big deal, but the people behind the projects have a desire to bolster their nation/birthplace or their religion/worldview but not a corresponding desire to learn about their nation, birthplace, world view, or religion. Thus, they act in a manner entirely antithetical to Wikipedia because, honestly, at the end of the day, their desires are based upon ideology rather than information. They want to see "X community" get props. Well, we all have our favorite causes, but I long ago discovered that manning a phone bank, doing mailings, and volunteering my time for them are far more effective than messing about with web-based encyclopedias. ("Dr. Hyphen, I admire your feminist analysis of Jane Austen, but don't you think you would help more women, real ones, by working at the shelter for battered women?") Geogre 17:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Lazar or maybe WikiProject:BIOHazard in homage to one of the more enthusiastic promoters of the "box". In fairness to WikiProject:France, I think their bot rampage was the result of laziness rather than nationalism. It's just so much easier to set a bot templating half the encyclopaedia leaving poor human editors to fix the destruction in its wake as best they can. But, you're right, the POV-pushers are the real bane of WP. If you got rid of them, this encyclopaedia would lose half its editors and its overall quality would double within a month. I'm researching a WP:Essay called "POV-pushing for profit and pleasure" which will describe the ways in which the dedicated ideologue can work Wiki in their favour. For instance, I've noticed there's a way of circumventing WP:SOAPBOX. You simply write an article about a polemical book which espouses your views, describe the contents in great detail then add a short disclaimer such as "Some critics disagree with this analysis" to head off those troublesome NPOV concerns. Brilliant. I agree with you about actions speaking louder than words. However, you just know the first thing Dr. Hyphen would ask is, "But what's the theory of shelters for battered women?". Cheers. --Folantin 19:53, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Aha! You've obviously met Dr. Hyphen! :-)

I'm all for theories and practices, all for love and honor and money. I'd like some money for being one of the last remaining Jaussians, but that's not likely to happen. Instead, I'll plant yard signs, caution students to avoid the big generalization, remind them that history is bigger than they are, and then turn back to my pile of unmarked essays as they rush down the hall. It's fine, really. These are the glory days for someone, no matter how foul they seem to me.

The "I'm only reporting this person" end-around is old. There is a sort of top 10 of rhetorical dirty tricks, including the "some say..." and "no one can rule out...", but the most common thing is the POV fork. "You write your History of Israel, and I'll do my History of Occupied Palestine, and you'll never know that I have." Wikipedia is a very, very large room, and there are all sorts of bad things hidden in its corners. Outright porn, outright political campaigning, sneaky pedophile-action-network stuff, and other things are out there, in here, and over there. It remains only for someone to link on another website to a history version of a page. This was, in fact, done in 2004. BushCountry.org had a link it sent its members (and they are members, make no mistake) telling them to "find out the truth about John Kerry" by linking to an out of date version of the John Kerry page at Wikipedia that had been edited to say that the Vietnam wounds were just scratches.

For a century or more, it seems, I've been arguing that we have to guard against advertising and being used/played far more assiduously than we do having a 12 year old write "fArT" on the main page picture. No one listens to me, though, and I turn back to my pile of unmarked essays. Geogre 21:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I've seen the Kerry trick pulled by bloggers. They try to win an argument by pointing to a Wikipedia article - which they've just edited. The only way of getting rid of the truly grim neighbourhoods of Wikipedia is slum clearance, which is why I'm an evil deletionist. Inclusionists claim that the really lousy, POV-ridden stuff will somehow magically improve eventually. Meanwhile these articles attract exactly the wrong type of editor to WP, who realises, "Great, anyone can POV-push here and get away with it!". But XfD doesn't always succeed. A dozen editors fought tooth and nail to save this masterpiece [3]. The thing is, it is an encyclopaedic subject, but none of the article's saviours seems to understand it needs to be written using scholarly sources. After all, why bother with boring stuff like that when there are plenty of online advocacy sites that fulfill your ideological needs? Enough for tonight though. Cheers. --Folantin 22:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

An interesting talk page{{citation needed}}

This article or section needs to be updated. Parts of this article or section have been identified as no longer being up to date. Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

Hi, Geogre. I thought you'd have fun looking at this Talk:Jeremy_Clarkson#GA.{{citation needed}}. It's fascinating to me that an article with 40 references can get a big banner at the front saying "This article does not cite references".{{citation needed}}. I don't think the whole "good article" thing matters all that much in the grand scheme of things: a good article is a good article regardless of whether it has a little banner.{{citation needed}}. But I did find the interaction fascinating: someone comes in, slaps a bunch of tags around, but makes no effort whatsover to actually edit.{{citation needed}}. It's made all the more poignant by the fact that about half of the sentences this user listed as "needing citation" were, in fact, things for which there were already citations elsewhere in the article.{{citation needed}}.

Have a nice day, {{citation needed}} Nandesuka 14:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oh {{citation needed}} Lord {{disputed}}, that is dreadful <nowiki>{{NPOV}}! Nothing enrages me more than tag and run villains. Discussion is king , as Wikipedia is supposed to be about community editing, not community suffering . I had to deal with a rash of "writing needs improvement" tags from a person incapable of following a subordinate clause {{disputed}}, and I did try to be nice. (Ok, I wasn't nice at all. Still, I tried to be nice and simply failed.) I keep campaigning against carpet bombing articles and the imperiousness {{NPOV}} of these jackasses, and, although there are some encouraging signs, it seems like every day that one person retires from this form of hostility, three more show up to start their own. I will go weigh in (to the tune of a ton, if I am able). Geogre 17:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, crap! I am happy to say that I did not note the name of the template that complained that an article lacked GPS coordinates and needed them to be complete or worthwhile. I saw, at Bishonen's page, the mention and the removal of the tag, but it seemed to be one of the more offensively phrased. Oh, and this discussion has been rated Start Class by ProjectWiki Protest. Geogre 10:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that one! {{Locate me|date=April 2007}} What is cool is going to GoogleEarth, finding a place, then clicking on it for its wikipedia entries. If people must use such tags, why they put them on article pages and not on talk pages is beyond me. Regards, Ben Aveling 12:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And the really anoyying thing about that one is that its main proponent cannot see why see why saying that the articles on, for example, The Proms and British crown jewels must be location related "because the article says they are located in London" is utterly unhelpful. How would plonking coordinates on them improve those two articles (not to mention those for pictures hung in the National Gallery, London)... David Underdown 13:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Aha. Well, we have more signs on our articles than Broadway, but they're as meaningful as Washoe on LSD. Speaking of which, where is the "Crystal Ball" tag? Hyperactive five year olds can't play tag as well as our editors (who may well be hyperactive 5 year olds). Good thing no one reads this page except people looking to indict me on something. Let 'em suffer. Geogre 19:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Godwinated, I think. Regards, Ben Aveling 22:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not sure. The people who spend their days reading my talk page, searching for evidence that they can say, "Aha! I knew it" over, or who check my contributions so that they can try to gainsay me wherever I was, deserve to suffer through as much tedium and confusion allusion as I can muster. I hope their eyes bleed and their brains grow. Geogre 23:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Now, this talk page section is classic WP:BJAODN material! Carcharoth 12:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

'Ello, 'ello

Are you to be spoken with without an inline cite, Sir? Bishonen | talk 19:26, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

Leesun ferry cairfoolee, eye shahl sei thees ownlee wahns... -- ALoan (Talk) 20:07, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The fact of me is disputed, and I may need to be put in NPOV. However, the numbers climb, while the information diminishes, in articles, because we must have footnotes and think they are references and references and think they make reliability. I turn back to my pile of unmarked essays. Geogre 20:42, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh... well, I tried Skype at the weekend. No soap. Bishonen | talk 11:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Who OWNS what?

[4]. If you want to head up the organised resistance, I'm willing to lend support any time, anywhere.--Doc^g 14:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been very nasty. I'm sure everyone will read what I wrote as "you're saying that I'm a fool," when what I said was that boxes are not inherently good or bad, but they're GIGO. Anyway, there is no way we need to have a box talk on AN/I. We need to settle this nonsense and curb the "you wrote an article, and now WikiProjectX has taken control, so shut up and admire the box we imposed" impulse, because it creates conflicts and insults people non-stop. I just don't know where or how we can do so sensibly. Oh, high handed comments are a last resort, but there must be a "project people: read this" spot somewhere. Geogre 19:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. Problem is that you actually need to have this discussion with a whole lot of writers who never touch a wikiproject as well. I did consider putting Wikiproject:biographies up for deletion - that would force a community debate. But it is probably not the way to go.--Doc^ga pox on the boxes 19:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

And my current signature is just me letting off steam by trolling for a day or two ;) --Doc^ga pox on the boxes 19:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more with this. A deletion debate may have a salutary effect to curb this kind of behaviour. Eusebeus 20:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm, not sure. If we go down this path, we need to cooperate and write the nomination of the year. The nomination statement needs to be the first blast in a real debate, a wake-up call, even if the nomination fails. Although I'd love someone to explain to me what the purpose of that wikiproject is. Or more to the point: what good does it actually do?--Doc^ga pox on the boxes 20:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The way they have framed their approach organisationally is flawed since the issues raised within one or another group (authors, scientists, musicians, bloggers *shudder*) are discrete and demand their own response. The people best placed to solve those issues are the editors who work within each group. I suspect that there is some editcountitis as well. Going around looking for articles on which to slap infobox tags is a good way to look like you are doing valuable admin stuff, without actually achieving much. More immediately, I am disturbed that someone has waltzed into a group of committed editors and starts behaving so badly when, as a group, the limitations of their template-driven infobox is exposed. That is poor. Eusebeus 21:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of that, talk:The Castle of Otranto is a good illustration. The box demanded a publisher, an ISBN number, and who did the cover illustration...of a book from 1764. I'm mortified under the best circumstances when the Biography Project people come along. The boxes are one plague, though they rarely afflict articles where I'm active, but seeing articles "rated as Start class" (because they lack a box) when they're the sum of all available information on a figure and then seeing the same class for a vanity page is mind boggling. The Project people certainly don't appear to read the articles they label or box. If they neither write nor read the articles, then they are truly exiling themselves from civilized discourse, and I can understand someone thinking that they are best approached with a flame thrower and a can of bug spray.

Of course it's empty edits. They don't read the articles, don't write to the articles, don't comprehend the articles, and yet try to "fix" the articles. That is the double offense of pretending to be superior and peeing on the canvas to make it your own. The edits go up, and they get to be "in charge" of something. Ick.

I have to say, though, that an AfD would be out. MfD ends up housing the most vigorous and long winded and least focused debates, and it is Miscellaneous (or amphibious, as it's neither flesh nor fish). Still, although the biography projecters are the most noisome, it's virtually all the Projects and the fundamental etiquette for being a project that's at the heart of the matter. Geogre 01:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I was not really being serious about AfD (MfD as you note). That would simply stir up a shitstorm and achieve nothing but ruffled feathers. And, to be fair, it is only one particular member of the bio project who has his back up over this. The composers project members are of one mind on this topic and will likely revert the dip-in infobox edits of the bio project people. That probably applies to any group where the box template doesn't fit the subject. Some infoboxes are genuinely useful (e.g. with politicans) - I have even added some in myself! Eusebeus 07:12, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Begging your pardon, but I think you're being naive about that. It may well be that the Composers currently are guarding and that a single Biography projector is the problem, but the personnel change, and the price of peace is eternal vigilance. That's why we develop treaties, and why we need a set of hierarchies for interactions between projects and active authors, projects and projects. As for the politician box...it's fine for a contemporary American. Imagine such a thing put on Thomas More. What party and years were his? What photo should we use? These boxes, when well done, are still like nungchuks: fools do more damage to themselves with them than to any opponents. Geogre 10:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, no fight out of me on this - I fundamentally agree with you. Eusebeus 11:51, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Bio Bois

I added my comments over there. I also saw a red-link Doc glasgow put up, but it seems to have been deleted. Where is the WP:UNBOX essay? I want to help write that! Though I do think a picture and an infobox to glance at birth date, death date, locations, etc, is helpful when scanning ("the technique for quickly finding specific information in a text while ignoring its broader meaning") articles. Carcharoth 13:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, Geogre, I disagree with what you've written here: "The box demanded a publisher, an ISBN number, and who did the cover illustration...of a book from 1764." - this is because someone pasted the whole infobox, including the optional parameters. Of course, they should have removed the parameters that don't apply (or better still, label them as "NOT NEEDED", but a later editor coming along shouldn't see the optional parameters as a demand for the silly things, but just quietly remove them. Also, I don't think the WP:BIOGRAPHY project is harmful at all. Just the current attitudes over infoboxes displayed by some people. Carcharoth 13:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's a sketchy policy proposal I made by retooling bits of the guideline on external links (another frequent source of mayhem):

"Wikipedia articles can include infoboxes. Such infoboxes should contain data that is accurate and on-topic. Some infoboxes are welcome but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to have them. No page should have an infobox unless its inclusion is justified. A lack of an infobox is not a reason to add an infobox. Infoboxes to be avoided: 1. Any box that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research...."

The composer boxes stink and it would take an immense amount of time and effort to devise a truly flexible one. I think the basic problem with WP:BIO is its absurdly overambitious scope. Virtually every editor on Wikipedia has worked on a biography article at some time or other. There must be hundreds of thousands of biographies, whereas there are only a few hundred members of WP:BIO and their expertise in certain areas is somewhat limited, to put it politely. It also seems to attract centralising bureaucrats. It would be better to break up the whole thing into sub-projects. Maybe WP has some monopolies or anti-trust laws which might apply here. --Folantin 13:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The biography project is already effectively split up into sub-projects. They have taskforces, and the central people (as far as I can tell) don't really do more than organise talk page tagging and assessments, and dealing with general queries (which is very useful). I've probably grossly misrepresented them, but hopefully someone will correct me if I have. As for your anti-trust thing, that is an interesting idea. Some areas of monopoly probably have already developed, and something to counter that would be useful. Nothing is forever though. Esperanza got broken up, and several similar projects suffered the same fate. I predict that anything that looks broken or over-powerful (even ArbCom), will eventually suffer a slow death of a thousand cuts, repeated MfDs, calls for reform, and eventual dismemberment. Bit of a waste of time, though. Carcharoth 15:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Just picking up on some of this: I've had plenty of the articles I've written for DYK - all of which, naturally, lack infoboxes - classed as Start when as far as I can see they comfortably pass WP:BIO's own criteria for at least B-class. Now, I don't care a hoot about these silly ratings one way or the other, but something like William Savage is surely one of the best resources you'll find on him anywhere, even if you do shell out 200 quid for Grove, or somehow get hold of a copy of Steven's 18th-century bio of him. The article is decently written and well-referenced, and leaves nothing out. All illustrates the folly of this mass-grading scheme. Moreschi ^Talk 18:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a further result of projects becoming too wide in scope. They don't have the human staff to match the extent of their ambitions and so they're forced to rely on mechanical friends like Mr. Bot, who is generally rather stupid. I've had a look at some of the pages relating to WP:BIO's Automated Assessment drive. Automated assessment is a pretty crazy idea anyway, but people are getting excited there because the bot has "asssessed" 10,000 articles a day. Apparently humans follow round in its wake rating the articles too. Some guy claims he is making an effort to assess 200 articles a day. I don't understand how this is possible. You might be able to dismiss the obviously dreadful articles at a glance, but how can you rate the better ones without some knowledge of the subject? You end up dismissing a short article which contains all that is known about a person as a "stub" and you give top rating to articles which look good to the untrained eye but which are full of factual inaccuracies an expert would spot. --Folantin 18:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. The concept that there are topics on which only short (but still near-complete) articles can be written is something that many people seem to fail to see, until it is pointed out to them that not everything can be a nice long, well-illustrated, multi-section, Featured Article. Too many people default to a "length" or "lacks sections or infobox" mentality when assessing articles. To be fair, in fancrufty areas, merge is best for permastubs, but for obscure historical figures, short but well-written articles can be the norm. Someone should really go over and tell the Biography WikiProject that. I'm sure some of them are aware of this, but those who put stub templates on and those doing the assessments, might not be. Non-experts can assess readability, but you need independent experts (ie. not those who wrote the article) to assess extent of coverage, and accuracy of content. Even WP:FAC suffers this to a certain extent. If an article comes up that no FAC regulars know anything about, they can't really reliably assess it if they don't have access to the listed references. Carcharoth 19:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Some of this discussion about WP:BIOGRAPHY should be copied over to the WikiProject talk page, I think, as it is very relevant to what they are trying to do. Would anyone mind if I copied the last few bits of this thread over there? Carcharoth 19:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Carcharoth 22:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• I can't imagine that anyone minds, no. The general idea of automated rating is like Microsoft's infamous "auto content." The people who came up with it meant it as a joke, as a satire of what Microsoft had been asking for, and the MS folks said, "Yes, that is what we want." Automatic assessment is an oxymoron. Actual automatic assessment has another name: prejudice. When we try to take complex objects like biographies and give automatic assessment, it's utterly incomprehensible to me. The humans with brooms following the parade of -bot assessment have holes in their catch pans, if they don't possess great knowledge of the era, if not the particular subject, or if they don't go to Google to see what the competition looks like. Even that won't help the ignorant assessor, though, because a solo hit can mean that we're the best, or it can mean that this is an A7 speedy delete or a hoax or someone's genealogy project run amok. No, it takes the very people who generally eschew boxes and templates and classification systems, and yet there is so much ill will generated by the boorish and bullying behavior of "this is ours now, puny mortal, for we are the Project" that they're either not going to help or won't be believed. Geogre 09:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's best to reply here or at the other venue, but since this is a general comment not limited to the Bio project, it might as well go here.

You've got to wonder how many editors these assessment schemes are driving away. I remember when I first started writing here and I created a new article on a book. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either. Along came an assessor and rated it "Start class", apparently because it had no infobox. It was obvious from his contribution history he was just going round slapping such assessments on pages at the rate of one every three minutes or so. As a newcomer, I'd spent a considerable amount of time working on that article and providing Wikipedia with a page it didn't have before. I'd have been quite within my rights to think "Sod this" and never edit another article again. The bare minimum of courtesy would require these assessors to leave comments on the talk pages so there was at least some way of knowing the way they had arrived at their judgement and some human there you could engage with. In fact some of these ratings templates specifically ask the assessor to do this, although I've rarely if ever seen them comply with the request. Now whenever I see such templates and the reviewer hasn't fulfilled the comments requirement, I simply remove the damn things from the talk page for violating civility policy. --Folantin 10:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The composer people are, a priori, coming from a position of some education. We're past the days of "Mozart was some dude he was played by Tom Hulce who was the Hunchback in Hunchback of Noter Dame" being an article. Consequently, when we attract novel entries, we're probably inherently attracting a highly educated editor. For those of us who (whether smart or stupid) have gone through the halls of academe for a long time, these petty indignities are certainly sufficient to make us walk away.

It's water off a duck's back for us now, of course. We know the people pulling the triggers. We've seen their guns, and we know that they're Nerfs. We know to stand up for our positions. However, when one begins, as you say, having "this is a stub; please help Wikipedia by expanding it" when you've just written all there is that is known about a person, or "this is a stub" put on an article that covers every phase of a person's life and work (e.g. the one I did most recently Francis Hawkins) is absolutely enough to declare a pox upon the thing and wander off to do things more remunerative and needful. (See "stack of unmarked essays," above.)

The rage for order, in human history, is always in equipoise with the energy of creation. Here, the machine has meant that the rage for order has resulted in tags and boxes and labels on every lapel. It's a dystopian's utopia. Geogre 20:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Losing My Religion

Talk:Jeremy_Clarkson#Facts. *sob*. Nandesuka 11:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Archive boxes

Then people just start typing outside the box! You might be more intested in WP:ARCHIVE? :-) Carcharoth 13:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC) Then people just start typing outside the box! You might be more intested in WP:ARCHIVE? :-) Carcharoth 13:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Colour? I want a list of those colour codes myself, where are they? You might have to design your own, or maybe there is a flexible version that can be uesd. Or you can just copy the source code directly and change the colour bit (usually a string of letters and numbers afer a string of #### bits). Or you could just unleash that annoying hummingbird you use. I have grown to rather like it, but I suspect that people would find it so annoying it might get deleted, so maybe not! Carcharoth 13:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be worthwhile designing my own, it could be quite splendid with my monogram "G II" rather like "E II R" I wonder if I would be allowed a coronet on top - I think I could have it in my own colours Giano 13:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Voilà: First you type {{subst:dicussion top}} instead of {{discussion top}}. Then you save. Then open edit mode and look at it. The template has now been replaced ("substed") by the actual code, so you can play around with it, and change stuff, such as the text and the colour. You see my code for the lovely red box above? The bit that represents colour is this:

style=background:rgb(255,0,0);

rgb stands for red-blue-green, the colour components. 255,0,0 is full red. 0,255, 0 is full blue. Etc. 0, 245, 245 ought to be a lovely pale shade of bluish-green. Bishonen | talk 16:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Like that? Much less obtrusive. :-) Carcharoth 17:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Argh! Cyan! More red! There - very restful. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Tsk. Now you can't read the "don't modify" bits! :-) Carcharoth 19:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I went for a nice sage tone - [5] - but some helpful person changed it to "tomato".[6] Shrug. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

True, but now it sings The Internationale. Giano's right: one should say whatever one wants and then immediately "archive" it so that no one replies. That's absolutely the best. Then, if someone does, you can tell them that matters are settled and that they shouldn't write anything. When they protest, you can tell them that they're causing problems, to please say no more. When they say that you're prolonging it by responding, you say that they should leave it alone, or you'll block them. When they say, "You go first," you come back with, "Fine." When they say, "Fine with me, too." You say, "Good." It's beautiful and a sure way to make peace and harmonious editing. Geogre 21:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is called "having the last word--Doc^g 21:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Like this? Newyorkbrad 21:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• No actually it is not word, it is not taking this place so seriously that it drives one insane or even more peculiar than one was to start with. I don't like that shade of red, is there not a pale green or something more ecologically friendly - remember I intend to use this box very frequently - perhaps I should allow Doc (as he is obviously interested), David and Cyde an input on colour as it will probably be one of their comments about me I zap with the box first. Perhaps I ought to become an admin, then I could block them while simultaneously archiving them, perhaps I could just have a bot that blocks, zaps and archives all in one lethal action - the Gianokillerbot. Giano 21:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Giacomo, open the box in Edit mode and look for the word Violet in the code (at this moment it's Violet, but some anti-aesthete may change it at any moment, I guess). You can change the violet colour for any one from this lovely list. Just use the actual name of the shade, never mind any figures and stuff. Bishonen | talk 21:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Very nice, dear. Bishonen | talk 21:48, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Moss green, one of my favourite colours Giano 21:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Nobody will mess with a robot with flashing lights on its chest (even other robots steer clear of them). Talking of chests, this was labelled as a statue of Jupiter: somebody must have been slipping HRT pills in his nectar. Yomangani^talk 00:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that's hilarious: Jupiter appears to have two flashing lights on his chest. Perhaps a Hindu thought that the Romans believed in multiple forms of the chief god? Sure looks like Minerva to me (the spear), but her/his headgear has me baffled. I need to drink coffee or stare at that 245,0,0 box for a while. (Putting the "blink" attribute on the color... nah.) Geogre 09:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see now. The headgear is a tobacco leaf, and she's wearing a bra, and she's "The Republic" of Cuba, and she's not classical in any form. Geogre 09:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps even classical deities need to adapt to survive.--Doc^g 09:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Does she have a big shield leaning against her left hip? I can't see, but I'd bet she does: Athena Habanera!--Wetman 12:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

She does indeed. Athena provided the inspiration and a voluptuous Cuban Creole, Lily Valty, served as the model for the body (the face may have been based on another woman from Havana, Elena de Cardenas y Echarte). Yomangani^talk 00:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I want some credit. I guessed Minerva originally because I was trying to keep the Roman thing going. From the photographer's angle, he seems to have agreed that Ms. Valty's voluptuousness, if not her bifurcated pneumaticism (one's pointing toward Miami, the other toward Venezuela?), was a thing to be celebrated for all the ages. It's a good choice, alright. If you're looking for a spirit of the Republic, Athena's both Athens -> Democracy -> City State and the lady of war and technology. Very good pick in iconography. Geogre 01:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Unbox

Carcaroth, about the WP:UNBOX essay, maybe you mean this one? Bishonen | talk 20:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

T'wasn't an essay, t'was just a rant of folly.--Doc^g 20:26, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That's the one, thanks. It does seem a mite rhetorical rather than serious, but it is a start. Carcharoth 22:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Watch out! There are now rules about where you are allowed to debate boxes [7]--Doc^g 17:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

See.... I know you and I have disagreed pretty vocally about the "archiving thing," and I'm sure you remain as much of your opinion as I do of mine, but all this "you must stop talking now" bugs the hell out of me. It's so much nicer when we do talk, you know? We may not always find out that the villains are not villainous by discussion, but without discussion we get to make our villains into monsters. Tony Sidaway recently had this thing with AN/I's header trying to make all complaints about Kelly Martin go elsewhere.[8] [9] <sigh> No matter how one feels about boxes, templates, particularly magnetic users, etc., I simply don't agree with silence as a solution. Silence is either compliance or brooding, and neither of them is good. Again, I'm not trying to reintroduce that debate (you know the one), but we're getting out of control with "please do not say." Geogre 20:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

In general, I agree. Although sometimes silence is wisdom. But when to make that that call? Ah, there's the rub. I suspect my folly will always be to say that the silence of the Other would be wiser than mine. But then, "for evil to prosper...."--Doc^g 21:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I do try to be consistent, at least here. I know I'm tedious in the name of consistency, but I honestly think that the more we "automate," the less we are what we set out to be (talking about boxes, so as to keep the conversation from malingering on that other stuff). Auto-content, auto-reverts, etc. It's not that I fear machinery, but I fear human laziness, as machinery may be an eternal testimony to human ingenuity, but human laziness is just plain eternal. Oppenheimer (I'm reading American Prometheus after having it on my table for months) opposed nuclear weapons not for their destructive capabilities, but for how inexpensive they were. He said that they were so cheap and conventional forces so expensive that nations would rely on them more and more, and then, when they faced a threat, they would have no method of dealing with the conflict except nuclear weapons. The same is true of bots and auto-anything: it's too easy. It's so easy that everyone will rush to get their autovandalproofbotawb and boxerPorsche and whatever else, and there won't be anyone going along behind, won't be any checking. If you can't get to them all with human brain and eyes, then you can't get to them all. Geogre 01:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup, particularly while edit counts are the currency of RfA.--Doc^g 10:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

And another thing...

I am sure that someone must have read at least one of his magazine articles... -- ALoan (Talk) 16:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox discussion at Philosophy Wikiproject

I know that you have an interest in infoboxes, so I thought that you might be interested in this discussion regarding the philosophy infoboxes. They have fields labeled "influences" and "influenced" which are totally out of control on many pages. There are links available at the discussion. Any insight you might feel like offering at the debate would be welcome. I understand if you are burned out on the issue. Awadewit ^Talk 02:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, for pity's sake! I will weigh in, but philosophers should know what's wrong with this, especially if I know it: the idea of a genealogical approach to the history of philosophy is rooted in the 19th century (at least for us). Genetic history has some validity, but it has its limitations. For one thing, it prioritizes the sort of apostolic succession of philosophy, and, for another, it leaves people who learned simply by reading out in the cold. I'm assuming, incidentally, that we're talking about the legitimate form of "influence," which is "studied under," which is how the 19th c. historians of philosophy worked. They were reacting to the notion of the Academy at Athens and seeing certain major philosophers as doing the same. E.g. they saw that Hegel had been the professor of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Marx, and that was very exciting. Well, post WW2 and the purging of Jews from Germany, how's that going to work? In England, where pretty much none of the philosophers studied with each other, how does that work? Well, how it works is by assumption, guess, and inference, and that's no way to work history or philosophy. Geogre 11:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Those are excellent points that have not been brought up yet at the discussion. My argument focused on the exclusion of non-philosophical influences and how that made the boxes POV because they endorsed a particular narrative of intellectual history. Awadewit ^Talk 17:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the philosophy infoboxers took their cue from across the campus, someplace where the boxes are actually useful. Template:Chembox is great, when you are distillnig a solvent and urgently need to know its boiling point you just look to the top right of the article. And the box looks so sleek!

But philosophy, or biographies in general? A lifetime's achievements just can't be compressed into four or five keywords. Seems we need some editor education, and folks need to take a lesson in taste. Dr Zak 19:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

If I were to wax philosophical myself, I would grumble about teleological views of history and valorizing the fathers, patriarchy, and all sorts of other things. As it is, I'll just say that "influence" makes these people either into astrology signs or British Invasion bands. We need to look at philosophers as philosophers. Their philosophy will be realist, idealist, existentialist, pragmatist, analytic, etc., and that's all you need. All philosophers are supposed to be influenced by all philosophy prior to them. Geogre 21:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Amen. And another thing: the genuine giants of any subject had such an influence that one cannot simply compress what they did into three words to fit into a box. Look at Albert Einstein, or at Bob Woodward, the chemist. To put Woodward into perspective, I'm not well-known at all, yet my Woodward number is 3, and I'm busy getting it down to 2. Dr Zak 22:33, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, and we're all supposed to be influenced by everyone. Giants of the field have an effect, positive or negative, on all subsequent thinkers. Imagine a philosopher today not influenced by Wittgenstein. Love him or hate him, you know him, and you have to respond to the people who followed him. We're all still influenced by Descartes, for pity's sake. In applied sciences, like chemistry, we have to be influenced by all the elders who succeeded, because the sciences themselves are cumulative. If you're at DeVry or M.I.T., you're influenced by Ohm and Faraday and Watt and Mach, etc., because they made the blocks you build with. "Influence" is a silly concept overall, in my opinion, because it's only practical when it means "imitates." It's fair to say that my old punk band "was influenced by" Talking Heads, because I was doing my best to imitate David Byrne's lyrics. It's fair to say that my essay writing is "influenced by" George Orwell, because I used to try to imitate him. I no longer do, but the theory of "influence" is that some remnant of that imitation remains. Well, "imitates X" is a silly thing to put in any box. If the artist, philosopher, musician, or writer made it to Major status, then there is no value whatever to "has stylistic similarities, due to imitation, to." Geogre 01:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and on the subject of Woodward numbers, we have similar things in the humanities. There were certain major masters, and their students trained professors whose students.... I've got a Frederick Pottle number of 3, I think. (Hmm, it's red. That's ok. I don't feel like writing up all the drama surrounding the Boswell Papers.) Geogre 01:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Temporary solution?

Why not fight fire with fire and use the technocrats' tools against them with this handy box? Feel free to modify as appropriate. This is meant to be a very flexible tool.

This article really wouldn't be improved by an infobox, so please don't add one.

Perhaps this too:

Intelligent thought may have gone into producing this article. Please don't "assess" it with a bot.

--Folantin 10:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, if only! My fear is that a template saying not to put a template on there would mean nothing, because they don't see the articles, don't read the articles upon seeing them, don't understand them if they read them, and do not hand edit the articles after failing to understand what they failed to read after not seeing. Instead, they feed our work to the Moloch of their -bots. Besides, why, they reason, shouldn't an article have five or six templates? So what if some templates say things about the other templates: what's important is "consistency," because that's professionalism! (Blug to them all!) Geogre 21:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and I'm also forgetting the principles of reverse psychology and WP:BEANS. Some innocent Procrusteans are probably still unaware of the very existence of the infobox and they might regard these templates as enticing adverts. Still, it was fun stealing from Satan's kitchen. --Folantin 22:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It's possible that Yomangani has the right idea: it has to be a picture. I think Wikipedia has discovered a new and interesting addition to the DMSO or whatever the Big Book of Crazy that psychiatrists use is called. There is a new cognitive disorder, whereby persons are capable of writing words but only of reading pictures. It's a sort of unilateral aphasia coupled with reverse autism: the incapacity for picking up emotional or social cues from anything but a picture, and the inability to read communications from anyone, but with the ability to write like a spinning air raid siren. We'll need a name for it.

The problem (I keep saying that, and so it appears that I should be saying "a problem," as these are all different ones) is that innocent and honest people are getting dragged down by the riff-raff. Talk:The Castle of Otranto shows a person who understands and believes in careful boxes. Well, ok, good egg, upright citizen, and if all were like him or her, we'd never be talking like this, but he (or she) is a lone voice in an ocean of babble. Geogre 11:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Try confusing them:

Yomangani^talk 23:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Pictures communicate on the level of our graphomaniacs, but what they'll do next is put in a bigger picture, and move yours, and then have a POV fork with a different set of pictures. Soon, it'll be a grand game of Husker Du. Geogre 11:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I had the inoffensive little broom there, which was replaced, so I see your point. Yomangani^talk 23:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The Saddest Edit I've Ever Had To Make

is this one. Nandesuka 02:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

:( The user made several hundred of those edits, adding that horrific and often totally inappropriate notice to many articles. I've mass reverted all the ones that other people haven't gotten already. Good catch. --Gmaxwell 02:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

John Vanbrugh

I'm disgraced—I'm being accused of involvement in John Vanbrugh! My good name in tatters!

Plus, here's the link I mentioned, to the talkpage of Customer experience management with the old VfD vote and some comments of mine. I deleted the article as copyvio; it was recreated with different content; I prodded it, as it was weak and incomprehensible; and somebody has now redirected it to Customer relationship management, which I strongly supect of being another copyvio! Sigh. I suppose I'll get to that, eventually, but it sure takes persistence, this game. Bishonen | talk 21:33, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

Up your street

You're needed here! I've replied, provisionally, here. Bishonen | talk 10:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Image:WWE New Years Revolution.jpg

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Boxing boxes

Now, as a rule, I don't canvass opinions, however I thought this debate might be of interest--Doc^g 18:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Great chaperone rolling about uninhibitedly on the floor

I swear you hadn't sent me any of those quotes before. :-D Bishonen | talk 18:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

It was abysmal trying to deal with that junk. Romance has moved to a new height. Ugh. Women should accept instruction in submission. It hurt. I look forward to dental work today. It'll be a relief. Geogre 12:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Smile!

The Sunshine Man has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I just had my dental cleaning, so I dare not smile, for fear of causing retinal damage. Therefore, I will have to smile back deep down on the inside, where it counts. Geogre 19:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

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Unreformed MPs and other fauna

I think we largely agree on the merits of the article. I've mostly plastered forcemeat (studded with the lovely currants of inline citation) over the factual bones of his military and Parliamentary service. Is there a there there? Perhaps. There must be a wherefore behind his buying (?) Tregony from James Adam Gordon, then resigning a year later (over Reform?), and was his role in suppressing the riots in 1842 connected with his leaving the lieutenant-colonelcy the next year? I can speculate, but without the appropriate sources (I note that the ODNB biography of his father was based largely on correspendence), nothing more.

Nonetheless, I think there's something to be said for "statutory notability", so to speak, for certain classes of people like MPs. We, as a community, tolerate nonentities like Áed of Scotland, or the large number of bot-generated articles giving census data for places like Dog Breath, North Dakota. I think the reason for this is that we value completeness, as well as notability. People expect to be able to look up individual kings of Scotland (or something like it), even if that particular king turns out to be a complete zero, historically. I think the same argument applies to MPs: a great many can be shown to be notable with more or less difficulty, but sometimes one picks, say, one of Lord Lonsdale's ninepins and discovers a nullity. Given that Wikipedia is not paper, I think it's fair to let in articles like this for the sake of completeness; if nothing else, it at least collates some information and makes connections not otherwise obviously discovered, and the History of Parliament project holds out some hope for their eventualist redempetion. Choess 06:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've never been content with "eventualism." My feelings are that sometimes a vacuous something discourages, rather than encourages, a helpful something, as there are some people who want to write an article rather than nibble at it, and there are people who will see an erroneous or misleading article and conclude that Wikipedia is everything They say about it and go away. Examples of the latter among major figures are thankfully more rare these days, but, as an example, I enjoy writing about literary and historical figures from the Augustan era, but I won't touch Jonathan Swift, despite being a specialist on him, because the article needs to be razed before it can be grown again from clean soil. All of the 1911 implants in Wikipedia are deadly as well.

The problem with the MP's is that I agree that being an MP might be sufficient for signaling us that this individual could bear a biography, the service in Parliament doesn't give us anything by itself. One of my favorite 1898 DNB comments (found frequently) is "...Parliament, where he was never recorded as speaking." It's their cute way of saying, "He rarely attended and never did anything." Given the numbers of individuals who have served in Parliament since 1200, we've got such a mountain of names there, and there simply must be a hundred silent voters for every generation's Pitt, so I would regard the position as saying "there may be a biography to be written" but not "there must be a significant historical actor here." It's a first bar to cross, in other words.

Oh, and this particular person? I quite agree with you. The various titles and Valuable Awards seem to paint a picture of a quite suspect individual who was in the thick of things (and on the wrong side). It's the very sort of thing that "I remember Mama" memoirs don't regard and that genealogists like to gloss over, which is why this type of biography is no type of biography at all. Very tough research task, too, unless one were to do some significant work with primaries in the local area (and hope that the memoirs and letter collections and regional histories are still extant).

I can't change my "vote," but I am glad to see that we agree with each other on substantive issues and simply interpret the facts differently and with a slightly different philosophy. Geogre 12:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The ultimate biobox page

Check out this dog's dinner to see why you should always say no to the damn things. (Yes, it's really vital we tell readers Paderewski's birth and death dates three times on the same page whilst giving them the impression he died in New York City, France - wait, I mean the USA).

I'm not attacking the user who added it; it's the very concept of the biobox itself which has led to this absurdity. (Back-up link in case someone changes the page in the mean time [10] - I'd rather keep it as a perfect visual argument against the "box" for a while). --Folantin 10:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Box needed! Box needed! I didn't look for your name in the deletion vote over "box needed," above, but, if you didn't get a chance, look up above and see the bit signed by "Doc." That's a vote on the "infobox needed" template. If'n we kill that, the varmints might not find their way to the articles. Then again, some helpful individual at ProjectCarpenters will, no doubt, still think it vital that the article on Saint Joseph have a box describing what brand of tools he used. That, however, can be turned away with a punch in the nose (like a shark) more easily than the blinking light of "infobox needed! bot says so, so now we must plug it in." Poor Pederewski. His place of birth will kill him, you know. There is a ... significant ... Poland 4Ever group editing, and they may want to dress him in more flags. (By the way, I really think that those lines from T. S. Eliot ought to be in there. I'll go get an exact quote, if you like, as I'm pretty sure that "Portrait of a Lady" (published in Prufrock and Other Observations (1919)) exists on the web in a legal copy from the Poetry Foundation...amazing website, that.) Geogre 12:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

It was 1917, not 1919, so my memory let me down. However, I was right. Here is a link to the fabulous Poetry Foundation and the poem itself. Geogre 12:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a great poem. Didn't know the "latest Pole" was Paderewski, but should have guessed. Also, I saw this coming two weeks ago [11] - but (same volume of Eliot) I am no prophet- and here's no great matter- I think anybody could have predicted that sooner or later the boxes would lead to that trainwreck.

I've just been pondering more potential "Frankenstein's monster" bioboxes. How about George Antheil, modern American composer who also invented a torpedo, in collaboration with Hedy Lamarr no less? We need a composer/naval weapons designer biobox right now! And a Central European Hollywood vamp/naval weapons designer biobox while you're at it. --Folantin 13:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The obvious answer is to combine all boxes into one. After all, as the boxers have said before, "You just don't use the field that doesn't apply." I'm sure that no one would attempt to fill in every field. That simply would not occur. Therefore, we need to synthesize all person-based and animal-based boxes. Therefore, we can get, for Hedy, that she is in the order Animalis, that she had natural breasts (from the porn bio box), that she made 138 films, that the geographical coordinates of her place of birth are X x Y, that her nationality is several, that her racial makeup (also the porn folks, but others as well) was Caucasian, while her ethnicity was various, that she was preceded by one person and proceeded by another as a scientist, that she was a graduate of this high school, that she was bipedal, that she was influenced by Bach and Newton and Brando, that she was not a vegetarian (coming soon, no doubt), that she was brought up before HUAC (or was she? can't recall), that the national anthem of her place of birth was this, etc. After all, what's important is not knowledge, but putting everything in its place. Now, some people say that Wikipedia attracts people with Aspberger's Syndrome, but I'm sure that it's just an urge to be helpful for those who do not like to read. Geogre 15:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"Racial makeup"? Can you imagine what the bioboxes would have been like on Wikipedia South Africa had it existed in the "good old days" of this[[12]]? We had a lucky escape. "Natural breasts" - reminds me of the comment Groucho Marx allegedly made about my favourite bad film (starring Hedy) that it was the only movie in which the hero had bigger tits than the heroine. Thanks to Wiki-bioboxes we could finally determine the truth of that statement in a scientific manner. --Folantin 15:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I just read Ms. Hedwig's article. We'd need to add "topless in" fields, as well as "lawsuits won." I know no one has the latter yet, but we will soon have a WikiProjectLawyers, and they're going to need it. "Race" is a scientifically bankrupt term, a genetically meaningless term, and a culturally useless term. Naturally, Wikipedians want to use it. There are people who want desperately to see people naked who either share or do not share their own sense of the external markers that make self. Even though I grew up in the segregated South, I've never understood either the fears or attractions, the taboos or fetishes, of race. Maybe I'm defective. Maybe they're all screwy. By the way, Wikipedia has been almost entirely free of the women's-X projects so far. They must occur, and when we get a redivision of the world along Y chromosomal lines so that every female is subsumed into another taxonomy, we're going to have yet another truck involved in the pile up. Geogre 19:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it's almost inevitable that such a POV-pusher/trainspotter fusion will occur here in the not to distant future. For the moment I believe many of the infobox problems are coming from another direction, namely this mighty project and its illustrious founder who seems to be on a mission to insert microformats (whatever they are) into virtually every page via the medium of the box[13]. Maybe we should have a policy to remind people "Wikipedia is not a technocracy". --Folantin 11:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Press release

So, you spot an obituary in a newspaper. You find we have a decent-ish article, which can nonetheless be expanded like this.

You find more information, which you add. And the article is looking quite nice.

You keep digging, and then you find the old version, that you wrote at lunchtime, looking back at you. With no attribution :-/ Perhaps I can forgive newspaper hacks when they do this, but a university should know better. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is a phone number at the bottom of the page... Could someone local ring them up and ask their policy on unattributed reuse? Regards, Ben Aveling 07:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, for.. why does it all have to be so complicated?

Here we go giving up on that merge again. fl.? fl.? Flicker? What does "fl. 1745" mean? That the Jacobite died at the age of seven? Disgruntedly, Bishonen | talk 22:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC).

I suspect it is an incompetent abbreviation for 'flourished'--Doc^g 22:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, "floruit", gotcha. That may be an academic habit from the early 14th century, indeed. It does set off a ghostly clanging of bells. I worry about the average Wikipedia reader being supposed to get it, though. I mean, I actually am an early 14th-century academic, and I didn't. Bishonen | talk 22:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC). (P.S. Note learned reference to "As late as the early 14th century" Monty Python sketch.) Bishonen | talk 22:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC).

Oh, I'm not even sure that's what it means - and at any rate you are right, it will be incomprehensible to all but elite geniuses like us.--Doc^g 22:35, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, merged, Geogre, and the 2005 book added. The latter with some reluctance, see talk. Bishonen | talk 23:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC).

<sniff> Those of us who possess proper Classical educations do not fear the Latin. Yes, it means "we don't know when he was born, when he died, or anything else, except that he was active around this time." It is common in the 14th century with painters and thereafter with rebels and scalliwags. In this case, I can think of no more concise method of indicating this besides the venerable and respectable flourit. (The baker's abbreviation.)

The merge looks great, and we have only to worry about Scots nationalists and Stevenson fans having a morbid interest in the murders changing the article. Whatever are the odds? Geogre 11:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Alas, we're all nationalists now.--Doc^g 09:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

John Arbuthnot is ashamed, I'm sure! Actually, from a far outsider's point of view, it seems to me that Scots in general have run the UK a good bit of the time. I know that that doesn't equate to fair economic policies in the north itself, and having pretty landscapes doesn't help, since you can't eat the scenery, but, however much the English sneer at the Scots, Scottish folks have been way high up in most of the British governments since the Act of Union. Geogre 01:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

It needs help from the wider community now

Well, if you're still in for fits and starts at the reference desk (though I don't blame you one bit if not), have a glance at the developments at this thread and following ones, as well as this post at WP:AN/I. This latest falling action in the drama has had some nasty side effects as well. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Sadness

Check it out: Fil's eyesore properly hung out to dry. [14] Mind you, a dash has been fixed. [15] Bishonen | talk 13:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC).

I doubt it

See "General comments": "This user is not Grace Note (talk · contribs)." Bishonen | talk 01:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC).

The artist as a young man ...

As a title for a section describing the early years of a young poet's life, which is better, "The young poet" or "Young poet"? Paul August ☎ 20:23, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

"Early life"? "Early poetry"? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, "early career," I suppose, keeps us from mistaking "poet" for an identity. (I.e. poet is a job title rather than a state of being, despite what the Romantics would have you believe.) I would prefer Early years, though, for something more ambiguous. Who da pote, though? (And don't you know we're only supposed to write about rap videos, pop tarts, and video games now?) Geogre 21:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

That's all very fine, but neither of you have answered the question. (hint: it was a multiple choice not an essay question, another hint: one of the choices above is nonnegotiably proscribed). Paul August ☎ 05:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Surely that is a false dichotomy - we can think outside of that particular box, can't we? None of the above! Anyway, how about "Early years"?

But if you want to pin us down, don't we tend to dislike section titles starting "The..."? Even so, that is sometimes required to avoid ambiguity or for stylistic reasons. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh <stalked PA's recent edits> this is W. B. Yeats, and you already have a section entitled "Early life and work"? Wouldn't "Early poetry" do? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:17, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Seeeeee.... well... there is the pre-weird, the weird, and the post-weird (aka "the nutso") with Yeats. His earliest stuff is essentially Romantic. Anyway, Early poetry or Early poetry and change the other header. I've forgotten the name of the volume of his that was The Landmark volume that announced Modernism, but, if I could remember that, I'd call it "Poetry before <volume name>." At least that way his career is being broken into sections according to accomplishments rather than the vague-ish "youth." Anyhow, that's me. Essays are me. Geogre 11:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok I'll come clean. I wanted opinions unclouded by context, but ... you guys just refuse to play by the rules. You're the type who would respond to the "Knock, knock" of a Knock-knock joke with "Come in". Although it wasn't an open book test, as the sneaky Mr ALoan has figured out, my "pop quiz" had to do with my recent attempts to save W. B. Yeats from the FAR gallows, per Bishonen's "Sadness" just above. The issue here is with the "the" thing and this edit and edit summary. I like the sound of Filiocht's original choice of "The young poet", and think just "Young poet" sounds wrong. And while I agree that in nearly every case starting a title with an article is bad form, I was taken aback by the apparently absolute nature of the proscription, as interpreted by some. Ok now you know the rest of the story, so have at it, you now have my permission to ignore all rules. Paul August ☎ 14:24, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I did say "... don't we tend to dislike section titles starting "The..."? Even so, that is sometimes required to avoid ambiguity or for stylistic reasons." It is perfectly possible to argue that this is one of those cases. The tendancy is not an absolute prohibition.

We also have a tendancy to avoid "non-negotiable" guidelines, and to ignore all rules. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Paul, if you don't like the outcome of the FAR, you can always take it to ArbCom.... Newyorkbrad 15:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this a clear war on content? Honestly, the people listing these things on FAR/FARC are engaged in a battle against anything literary, scholarly, or educational. These listings cannot be honest, and the prosecution of them obviously is not. Before I hear one word against Yeats, I want to hear from the speaker of an article that she or he believes is a valuable and first class article. Let's see what they hold up as an ideal. Is it Ohio Wesleyan? Is it Super Morphin' Transformers? Is it High Elf Dreedle's Massive Sword? What? I have suspicions that they either do not have positive ideals or that what they wish as a model is entirely worthless. Geogre 21:34, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm just a thick Paddy

But if I could get my point across as well as this maybe I wouldnt get in so much trouble. regards--Vintagekits 21:45, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought I was being rather indelicate and impolitic, myself. When I'm in high form, or high dudgeon, I can really wind out the figures. When I'm just cranky and fed up, I have a tendency to be unfortunately direct. Geogre 00:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I should point out that I am aided by the fact that I do not like the "grand" family my family hangs from. Geogre 00:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

That's well said. There are members of my family who are borderline notable, but I wouldn't go there for anything. As it happens, I'm part-agreeing and part-disagreeing at User talk:Geogre/Draft‎. Best, Mackensen (talk) 23:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I really did try to have an even handed examination of IRC at that essay I wrote a long while back. My conclusion there was that the whole can be guided by a simple rule: if you are speaking in favor of something on-wiki, then go right ahead. If you are speaking of how to improve something, have at it. If you are going to complain about "vandals" or "those people," then you're on thin ice but probably alright. If you are going to complain about a particular person, a user, or a specific article/template/category/vote, etc., then you are out of line. It's great to go chat about nothing (or, of course, sex, which seems to be what it is always doing), and it's great to go get ideas for articles or cooperation, and it can even be useful to hear the latest news (if it's news and not slander), but any "we must stop <faction>" or "isn't everyone tired of <user>," then lay off.

Anyway, I think ArbCom was close to making a statement about IRC use and blocks back in the "Giano affair" and the following "Betacommand" situation, but then it all got shunted off into other energies and solutions. I, for one, was told, "If this breaks down" and "If there is another abuse" then it would be time for a new case. I'm not interested in a case. A case would be a dreadful time for all. Instead, I think ArbCom should clarify its position so far as it does have jurisdiction. If the problems persist after that, or if those involved on the IRC side choose fire and defiance, then the answer is to simply unlink the IRC channels from Wikipedia's pages. It would be nice if that didn't have to happen, though.

Oh, and my family.... Ugh. I've got a lot of failures, and the ones who succeeded and got famous...shudder...were at least as infamous as famous. I do not understand the mania for inherited fame. The various memorial organizations -- sons of Confederacy, true sons of Liberty, etc. -- mystify me. I enjoy knowing the story of the family, but I can't imagine what fundamental breakdown would be necessary for me to believe that it had anything to do with my pitiful life in my huddled corner of a garret. Is it supposed to make the van down by the river that I live in warm in the winter to know that a few hundred years ago some genetic donor waggled a sword and bore a title? I don't get it. Geogre 01:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but think of the future! When people will say: "a few hundred years ago, one of my ancestors was one of those flame warriors on Usenet, who was there at the beginning of Wikipedia! All hail the glorious ancestors!!" - kind of thing. I'd drag up an Arthur C. Clarke reference like you did below, but can't think of anything at the moment. There was something in Imperial Earth, if I recall correctly. Carcharoth 15:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Society for the Reformation of Manners

This really is in your bailiwick, I am sure :) -- ALoan (Talk) 10:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

• Both Bishonen and I have talked about writing the article, but neither of us could get solid information. It's interesting that your source is Rictor Norton. I think he has written extensively about molly houses and vigilante prosecutions/lynchings. I'm surprised that you didn't (or that Rictor didn't) mention Charles Hitchen, as they were conducting sweeps and set him up. Geogre 10:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Norton was the only intarweb source worth mentioing. The rest was pieced togather from snippets at Restoration comedy, Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, John Gonson and Society for Suppression of Vice, with a pinch of background knowledge. It is very partial and incomplete, so some expert <hint> help would be gratefully received.

I should have remembered Hitchen. Added. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to find some time, ALoan—the subject is very interesting. Bishonen | talk 01:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC).

Speedy tool

I, too, and you too, can now write perfect speedy reasons in one second flat! Just click on the link in the header here and follow the instructions on the page that shows up. This is the first time instructions have been simple enough for me to actually add something to that famous entity "your monobook"—I feel so smart! (There were some great tools by Zocky in it before all right, but Zocky had added them, not me.) In fact, why aren't I a developer? Do try this tool, Geogre, the drop-down box of speedy criteria is brilliant. Bishonen | talk 01:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC).

Yes, and you can even edit them, and add details! KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Ref Desk: Location of God

I don't want to stir up a great controversy as I don't have a position to defend here. So, I have come to your page and not added to what is on the Ref Desk page. I am curious as to why you say "there can only be one Begotten Son of God"? (If the quote is inexact, I apologize but every time I go to another page to "get" a reference, I lose the first one and have to type it all over again, and all this on dial-up.) I thought perhaps you meant that the very nature of the belief system of Christianity demands that there be only one such. The other possibility is that you have/know of a belief system where God says, "I can only have one son." I am not trolling, just looking for greater clarity. Bielle 01:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem. This goes to the patristic sources. The Nicean creed says, of Jesus, "begotten, not made, of one being with the Father." If there is to be "one salvation," then there can be only one Christ. The questions that open from that are many. Could there be one Christ who appears in different bodies? (The fathers rejected the idea that Jesus/the Christ is only in a form apparent, as that's Gnosticism. Jesus had be be incarnate and in the flesh, so there cannot be Jesus going off to planet Zadar and appearing to be in their bodies but truly not, not if it is to be an actual redemptive sacrifice.) As one person did follow, it is entirely possible that other planets would be without sin. Arthur C. Clarke was being completely orthodox with Childhood's End, when he has an unfallen race that is similarly unable to ascend to heaven, for the orthodox view is that paradise is only possible because man is special and only man is capable of sin, and therefore redemption.

Anyway, a good bit of this stuff does start to sound scholastic after a while, but the various churches had to work out their positions in the 1960's, if not before. Geogre 16:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It is truly amazing where "belief" takes us, and where it also prevents us from going. Thank you for your learned response. Bielle 18:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Theology is interesting in that it is much more the exercise of logic from pure deduction. If we take the following truths, then what must also be true? From such assumption -- Bible being true (whether literally as well as spiritually or as philosophically and spiritually but not necessarily literally), God is loving, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent -- then how would these lead logically to unknown situations? Theologies of revealed religions tend to develop extreme logic, although they can, of course, also follow their logic so far as to abandon their foundations (e.g. indulgences and the various things that Martin Luther objected to). Geogre 20:02, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

"nyah nyah" isn't much of an answer?

I resent that. Vranak

• Amended, but "all theists are stupid" is not exactly how you answer a religious question. Name calling is easy. Thinking is hard. Geogre 16:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't agree with you more! But I never said (or suggested) that theists are stupid. On the contrary, I'd say hardcore scientists are stupid. Vranak

Categories

Am I alone in thinking some categories ar getting more and more ridiculouse [16] Giano 20:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Wikipedia: a guide to what you just saw on TV!" I can not understand people who feel that they need to recreate their TV experiences on the web, or vice versa. The world has run out of ideas and has gotten hyperactive about sucking the marrow out of the few that remain. Geogre 00:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

John Arbuthnot

Loath as I am to even mention the word "Arbuthnot", what was the point of this edit? The article's a bio of a British person, written in British English — what's the point of changing one word from British to US spelling? (edited to add) - yes, I know the article's effectively yours - and is unique in being apparently the only Arbuthnot Kitty hasn't tried to claim (until I removed it from the category, he even claimed Sandy Arbuthnot as a member of the family despite his being a fictional character) - just seems a funny edit — iridescenti (talk to me!) 22:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

It was my reversing kittybrewster, essentially. After having nothing to say about the actually famous Arbuthnot, he suddenly showed up with full ruff extended over someone deciding to change all the spellings to "British." These changes went in pieces and bits, and generally I reversed them. I did this based on the MoS, just as they did theirs based on the MoS. Since I was here and fighting tooth and nail about the MoS when that silly section got inserted by a solo editor, I knew how little standing it really had. What the MoS says is, basically, "Don't go changing an article from one to the other" but "If you want, you can try to write with the one that is 'appropriate' to the nationality of the author." Since the article was already written, I insisted upon the first point. Because John Arbuthnot was Scottish, they sought to use the latter.

I missed one of their changes. The thing is, the reason for the first cited principle is exactly that: when people decide to insert their preference in orthography, we're going to be inconsistent and end up with articles in a mid-Atlantic stew of forms. If it is entirely "American," that's fine. If it's entirely "British," that, too, is fine, but having it be honorable and then honourable is rather ugly. I was just spotting one I hadn't before.

By the way, the reason I use quotation marks here is, first, that no one can be "British and not American" if there is no United States. Therefore, Richard the Lionhearted can't be "British not American" because there was no "American" for him to be. Similarly, Cotton Mather can't be "American not British," because there was no such thing. Additionally, these strange distinctions in orthography didn't exist until well after the two nations were independent of one another. Finally, the better terminology would be "Reformed" (for American) and "Conservative" (for British) because every single orthographic change called "American" was proposed and adopted in England. It wasn't until Noah Webster went ahead and made the changes that the folks back in London got upset about it.

To me, being all bristly, and especially being mindlessly so, about this stuff is to afford unwarranted and irrational importance to a few letters that mark a period of English imperialism that most Englishmen would no longer support. I prefer the "American" version because I grew up with it, but not because it's right or special, and it's natural to me. Now, Mr. Webster's reforms, which he got from England, were designed to make orthography reflect speech more nearly (who says "thea tre" or "co lour?"), but I figure that they're so feeble in themselves as to be unable to really claim that as a point of honour. :-)

Sorry for the long answer. No one ever actually asks me why I get so vexed with people campaigning for national orthographies, so I think I had to get that off my chest. Geogre 01:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough (and if Kittybrewster really wants to be accurate, it should probably be in Scots spelling which is different again). Personally I doubt anyone cares either way (aside from some proper names like Labour Party, Canadian Tire, Neighbourhood Watch etc) as long as it's consistent (I'm a US citizen living in England, so both spelling systems seem "right" to me). I hadn't read the previous versions and thought you were changing the spelling to make a point - for reasons with which you're no doubt familiar I've been paying more attention than usual to Arbuthnot articles lately — iridescenti (talk to me!) 14:12, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I wish your doubts were justified! It's true that there aren't many people who go around trying to "fix" articles to reflect their national(istic) preferences, but there are some. When they strike, they always say that the MoS supports them, that Caedmon simply must have "British" spellings. (And I've thought before of doing a translation into Anglo-Saxon for them.) Geogre 19:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Other stuff exists

Geogre, as the scourge of AfD, if you haven't already read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, you must. Please don't argue, just read it. It's both funny and useful. Bishonen | talk 00:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC).

• "Othercrapexists" is the most common argument I've seen from the desperate. The "inherited fame" is old, old. We used to get it in the form of "she is the 2nd wife of Popstar" and "is the son of Actor." The odd, minority British thing of "is a tiny peer" argument didn't show up until now, but it has a hundred precedents already. Geogre 11:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, rats. I was hoping it would be a more general statement on how things outside of Wikipedia do in fact exist. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, yeah. There is Wikipedia, and then there is IRC. And then there is Uncyclopedia. And, uh, well? (For me, loads of things exist -- viz. my rarely being on AN/I these days and, when I am, being pretty mean.) Geogre 11:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what Grapes is referring to. Outside of Wikipedia? What does that even mean? Bishonen | talk 10:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC).

clearly OtherStuffExists outside of Wikipedia, Bunch, that's where you're doing most of your existing these days. Not that we mind... we trudge along without you, abandoned, while you play your Wiiiiiii. KillerChihuahua^?!? 13:11, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Koans

Wikipedia:The Zen of Ignore All Rules. Yeah. Bishonen | talk 10:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC).

• "IAR" is so obviously nuts... Ignore all rules, including this one. It would be fine if it were meant to be a paradox, but, of course, the zealous and hasty people who promote it never thought of that. Geogre 12:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no spoon. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Spooning? El_C 03:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

FAR problem

As a request, I'm struggling with a FAR on W. B. Yeats at the moment. I'm fine with the need for cites and expansion etc, but the article seems to be an uneven balance between a discussion on his work and his personal life. There is plenty blood and sex in both stories, but I'm finding it hard to disentangle them out into digestible sections. I would appreciate an informed opinion from you on this, before I waste a whole load of my time wandering around. Thanks for any help. Ceoil 03:51, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

18th century pop culture

I know you like these, so here is a little quiz:

This is an extract from a satirical will supposed to be that of Elizabeth Needham. Any idea who the blanks are or who "little Quibus" might be?

"a picture of Sodom and Gomorrah to indorsing D―n; an ounce of Mercuris Dulcis to Beau C―e, of St. Martin’s Lane; her estate to the Duke of Wharton; her library to Ned C―; and a receipt to cure a clap to little Quibus"

(I think 2 points for D-n, 3 points for Quibus, and 1 point each for either of the other two). Yomangani^talk 13:37, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The likeliest C-- would be Curll, Edmund. The beau...got me. "Quibus" is "whozits" -- "whatzizname" -- so it could be any one at all, and it doesn't have to follow the Q/K, either. Wharton's an obvious choice. It's the D-n that has me. Any idea who wrote the will? Utgard Loki 15:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It was in the Weekly Journal, or The British Gazetteer probably in October 1726 author unknown. Yomangani^talk 15:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Weekly Journal had Defoe working for it for a while, and he was interested in prostitutes. Curll sounds right to me, esp. given that "Curlicism" is a by-word for pornography at the time. A Beau of St. Martin's Lane...just too hard to nail down right now. It's a nearby location, though, and I think still a nice part of the City. D-n.... Let's suppose that this goes to "Endorsing D--n." Who endorsed her? Who was it that the whiggish Weekly Standard would be accusing of acting as her screen? Dean? Hmm. Are you sure that it's D - n? One dash? Geogre 19:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

They are all one dash, so I assume the one dash stands in for as many letters as necessary. I did like the way the Duke of Wharton didn't even merit one dash though. Yomangani^talk 20:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

He was persona non grata all over. Pope and Swift had independently taken swings at him, and they were Tory satirists. Nathaniel Mist published one of his "letters" and had the press broken over it. Wharton was one of the true sources of the Hellfire Clubs, too, so you could take a shot at him without fear of prosecution in 26. I hate it when they do only one dash. It makes identification hard. I'm sure, though, that someone could do the ID's instantly, and then I'd feel like an idiot. (I'm used to it.) Geogre 00:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

From the Nathaniel Mist article: "He joined the household of the Duke of Wharton, and in August of 1728 (the same time as public disaffection over the ministry was peaking with the popularity of The Beggar's Opera in London), Mist's Weekly Journal published "The Persian Letter" by "Amos Drudge" (the Duke of Wharton). It explained the corruption and loss of liberties in "Persia" after a usurpation. Over twenty people were arrested for this publication. Copies of the issue went for as much as half a guinea. In September of 1728 another issue again made too explicit an attack on the Walpole ministry and the royals, and so the presses were destroyed." Geogre 00:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, Walpole, the John Reid of the 18th century (I've just done a rather half-hearted article on the poor Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn, put out of work because he couldn't take a joke). If you get inspired and can fill in any more of the blanks let me know - I'm dredging the bottom for sources on Mother Needham now. I'll see if there is any mention of her in connection with Curll anywhere. Yomangani^talk 01:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oops. I was wrong (and so were you, I think). I just re-read Swift's "A Character of Lord Wharton," and it's 1710 and about the Earl. The hated 1720's figure is a Duke. Walpole took over an extinction. It's the same trickery that occurs when I refer to Bolingbroke and a Shakespearean overhears -- different lines entirely -- or Oxford. Swift is attacking the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1710 and already past the age of 63. The hated of the 20's is, I believe, different. I think I want to find one of these guys for researching. Geogre 10:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I'd say that Walpole is the Mrs. Thatcher. I really see a ton of similarities between the two, and I'm not sure she didn't, too. Geogre 10:53, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Further in the "I've forgotten more than I ever knew" world, here is from that great millstone about my neck, Dunciad: "Dulness says, "Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around/ The stream, be his the Weekly Journals, bound" (II 267-8), while a load of lead will go to the deepest diver and a load of coal to the others who participate. "The Weekly Journals" was a collective noun, referring to London Journal, Mist's Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, inter al." I'm not sure that your Weekly Journal is a similar collective noun, but the reference is from nearly the same year. Furthermore, we know that Arbuthnot was interested in Needham, as was Pope here, so .... Geogre 11:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking Needham's customer was Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton, so either you were only partially mistaken or our article is (obviously it needs to be footnoted using cite.php so we can be sure!) since it mentions the Hellfire Club connection (still, there were a few of them about, so I suppose they could both have been involved with one). You'll have to explain to this to me though, "Furthermore, we know that Arbuthnot was interested in Needham". How? Feel free to make me look dim now (That's John Arbuthnot, right? Not kittybrewster). Yomangani^talk 12:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

And how does Thomas Cooke sound for "Beau C―e, of St. Martin’s Lane" - not sure whether he was either beau or of St. Martin's Lane, but he fits the C-e. Yomangani^talk 13:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I meant that I was wrong about the Wharton. I've now gone digging a bit. I see "Lord Wharton," and I never know which lord Wharton they're talking about. There were, it turns out, three to choose from. James Wharton, Duke of Wharton, was the one that Mist was involved with. He was a jacobite of the bitterest stripe, and by the 20's he was fair game for anyone. He had run out of money, was reduced to begging, and was so "libertine" as to have shocked his jacobite buddies once too often (at his wedding reception whipping it out and showing all what he was going to "stuff" her with later). Then there is Thomas Wharton, Marquess of Wharton, marquess of Malmesbury, and marquess of Catherlough. This guy was Swift's target in 1710. In Ireland, he had gotten a salary of ₤12,000, with an expense account of £3,000. (This is an era where a wealthy person in London might make 200 a year.) He was calling himself "Honest Tom" and the whigs the "Honest Party." Then there is your own Philip Wharton. Here's the kick, though: they were all contemporaneous, all in the news, and all cad enough to be satirized by someone. It only takes my memory being slightly sloppy to get them in a pile.

Thomas Cooke sounds ok. Have you a biographical source for him, or should I dive into the DNB to see what they've got? Lately, I've been touching lightly on musicians, but I'm a bit bored by them. I don't know how revolutionary Richard Ayleward is. I know I've sung his songs at church, but that doesn't tell me much. If it were the difference between Talking Heads and Pere Ubu, I'd be all over it, but "four solo voices in the same register" just doesn't register to me. I think, "Didn't the Beatles do that, too?" This is not to even mention Frances Norton, Lady Norton, who apparently did great needlepoint. Geogre 21:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Frances Norton did needlepoint to one of these. Not one exactly like this, but a chair, and the important thing is that it's a photo.

My source for "the Duke of Wharton" claims he was Charteris' cousin, but I doubt that helps much, they were probably all his cousins, and they chuck "cousin" around like it's going out of fashion anyway, plus if there were three of them around, there's no saying that two or all three of them weren't customers. I think Cooke had a pop at Pope at sometime (or maybe the other way round), but we haven't got an article on him and I've been trying to get into the online DNB for three days to see if there was anything on Needham (and then Curll and now Cooke), but it just keeps spinning (Fidel doesn't want me to know). I suggest that a photo be added to Frances Norton to enhance the article. Yomangani^talk 22:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, well, if there is a picture that makes it alright. If it's good enough for a dead saint, then it's good enough for a dead needlepoint poetess. Here's the deal, then: if, by Monday, you're still gasping for air on the two later Whartons, or Cooke, I'll look at my manual CD-ROM of the DNB (i.e. it's a finger holding the pages open while listening to a CD on headphones). As for Curll, I've already mined that baby. The DNB won't give you anything I haven't already put in, probably. I believe in the thrill of being first author, so I won't grab any of these, if you want them, but, if you want to let them go free, I'll step in. I like dull witted dead reprobates. They're more fun to write about that the heroes, and it's satisfying to have them die with some justice upon them, as it gives me hope that today's "celebutantes" and pop tarts and "tycoons" will also have indignities that will repay us for all the suffering they've inflicted on us. Geogre 00:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

At the moment I'm only really interested in connecting them to Needham (linking the right Duke, even if it is a redlink, and seeing if Cooke ever lived in St. Martins, so I can footnote the possibles for the will). I want to put her up at FAC and have a fight measured discussion with all the "too short" opposers. Yomangani^talk 00:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

"Object! Criterion 2c. Writing (sigh) errors. I don't have time, far too busy, to tell you what any of them are. Did you get the requisite peer review form stamped at the office of copy edits?" I'm told, though, that I am entirely imagining this phenomenon. It never was and never has been. Apparently, asking reviewers to read the damned things is too much. Geogre 03:53, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've researched and will write up Thomas Cooke. The 2004 DNB cuts down on a great deal of the detail of the 1898 one, but not in this case. One still finds essentially unaltered accounts, and Cooke is one of them. It went to 3 pages, and he's a very, very, very minor fellow. He could be the target in the satire, but I couldn't find anything about his being licentious. He was just a whig party hack until the 30's, when it seems like everyone swapped sides. Geogre 20:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah well, it was too much to hope that it would say he was a client of Needham and that he was mentioned in a satirical will. I've ordered a book by E. J Burford which promises to tell me all about her, but never having heard of him, I'm not sure how reliable a source he is (no doubt I shall find out when the book arrives). Yomangani^talk 13:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, see this Thomas Cooke (1703–1756). It was hard to disentangle all the information from the ancient format the DNB used to use (all translations, then all plays, then all prose, then notable controversies, then politics, etc., and I'm trying to just stick to chronology, with the Pope fight separated). Geogre 19:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Literary dunces looks like an article in the making... Carcharoth 20:27, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It's actually an article in the finishing, alas. If I ever, ever, ever manage it, I must finish Dunciad. It would be easy enough for me to do. I think I've been leaving it incomplete on purpose, as I feared it was too good. Geogre 00:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I almost feel sorry for the poor bloke now, it looks like his Dunce-ness will outlive his other achievements. It's strange how interconnected all the 18th century London stuff is: I was adding a little footnote about The Battle of the Books to Four Times of the Day only yesterday and here it is again. Yomangani^talk 23:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, very connected. The population of London was about 100,000. Think about how small that is. It's large enough to generate a juggernaut of literature and endless quarrels, but it's small enough that all the players meet. It's possibly the ideal size for a literary town to be productive. It needs to be smaller to have a flowering of genius, I think (e.g. London in Elizabeth's time was about 30,000), and if it gets larger the geniuses start to feel alienated and angry. At 100,000, it seems just enough to have two dozen newspapers, periodicals, and books at any given moment. Oh, and paper was cheap. That's another big, big thing. In a smaller town, the playhouse can get your ideas out to everyone. Once it's 100K, you have to print books, but you know they'll be read. Battle of the Books is such a standard nugget of a trope in the 18th c. that it is a cliche by 1740. Practically everyone knew or did their own version of it. That said, I'm a fan of Swift's, but it's not actually that good. Geogre 00:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this agreeable

[17] Marskell 14:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Masques and (eventually) Pope

Hi Geogre. I noticed you adding Walter Pope to your list of new articles, and had a quick look as I have a side-interest in astronomers. May take a closer look sometime, but I got distracted by your link to Spectacle. Were you aware of the masques laid on by Anne of Denmark in the Jacobean era? See Anne of Denmark#Patron of the arts. I also, while in my Jacobean mode looking over Qp10qp's shoulder, read the following fascinating article that described the lavish shows put on for Anne when she married James and was coronated and feted in Edinburgh. See here, search for "Entry to the City" (about halfway down) and read from there. Does that count as a 'spectacle'? :-) Carcharoth 22:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

PS. Old discussion I picked up on and replied to here. Carcharoth 22:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey. Walter Pope needs help. Either he was no kind of astronomer, or the DNB authors just didn't want to tell me about what he did. They also were amazingly dismissive of his poetry. The 2004 DNB, as I say above, is fascinating for the relics it preserves as well as the editorial trimming it did. Both can be uncomfortable, and this was one of those "revised by" articles (i.e. 1898 with any new matter). Therefore, he would bear primary (gasp! original!) research. The subtext was "one of those Restoration rakes who couldn't keep it in his pants and got undeserved positions," but that simply can't be true.

Spectacle... Oh, for the days when I felt I had a grasp on that thesis! There are just so many things to say about it, both in terms of its dramaturgy and its economics, that it takes being in tip-top form to approach it (or profound foolhardiness, which I have in greater supply than the other).

The question is spectacle as conspicuous consumption and spectacle as a series of special effects, and are they different? There seems to be a coterie spectacle in masques that is a form of conspicuous consumption, like drinking Goldschlagg, and then there is the series of wires and explosions that went before the boards and had London agog in 1695-1728. It's also a race to outspend and out-amaze, and so it has a differently motivated conspicuous consumption. One is a testimony of personal wealth, and the other is offering increasingly rare simulacra of caviar to the masses. It's...interesting...difficult...and worthy of someone's doctoral thesis. Geogre 02:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Does swapping miniature portraits in ceremonial negotiations count as a spectacle? See John de Critz. Getting closer to the current day, I am reminded of the shows put on by people like P. T. Barnum, and, a bit earlier, the amazing automata built and showcased in the 18th and 19th century, such as The Turk 'chessplaying' machine. But I think Anne's entry to Edinburgh definitely qualifies as conspicious consumption (lots of gold and ornaments and food and drink), and some mechanical stuff as well: "From the same arch there had been suspended a great globe, coloured red, blue and green, made very ingeniously with internal iron rods. In this globe there was a Councillor's son, aged about eight, dressed in red velvet clothing, and over his red velvet clothes he wore a white taffeta cap. And the globe was so cleverly made that when it was lowered on a pulley it immediately opened up to reveal the child standing in the globe, on a level with her gracious Highness' carriage." I wondered, elsewhere, whether all this influenced Anne's later involvement with masques. Would she have seen similar court displays in Denmark, or was this a peculiarly Scottish/English thing? Carcharoth 02:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It was more a Spanish, then French thing, but the English got on the bandwagon early. Even Milton wrote a Masque (Comus). However, those public spectacles were regarded as "natural" and "decorous," because they were lavish displays for a national purpose. This is in comparison to horrendous expense to make your horrendously expensive "house" put on an horrendously useless entertainment (where the king would portray a woman, and Nell Gwynn would play a man), which was just to show how really rich you were, and how much richer than the last nobleman who did it you are.

The other side is the "raree show." This is what Pope means by "first to bring/ Smithfield muses to the ears of kings" -- the first to bring freak show and carnival spectacle to court. That's the kind of spectacle that all the conservative writers derided, and which even the practitioners tries to distance themselves from.

The thing is, there is a mix between these two at some point. We have Barnum-like hoakum and masque-like display meeting somewhere along the line in the opera, the pantomime theater, and the "harlequin." Then we have a largely undocumented side tradition to keep in mind, and that's the puppet show. We think of these as children's entertainments now, but they were done in regular theaters, and they were a cheap way to transport a full play out into the provinces (when you couldn't afford sets and actors). The point, though, is the total devaluation of the word. What all of these have in common is that the audience is flatly forbidden from thinking about things. You do not learn anything, or ask questions. You stand slack jawed.

I see complete parallels with Hollywood, myself. We are now doing just what they did: competing for bigger and bigger special effects and computer graphics and competing to do away with screenwriters and plots and, most especially, character. The tight and thoughtful scripts of yesterday are gone in favor of Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer's Go-Bots 2: The Revenge. Prior history indicates that this will keep going until an entirely different form of entertainment emerges to kill it altogether. Geogre 02:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hollywood, eh? :-) Not much to add, but thanks for that. Carcharoth 07:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

And eventually, Pope! :-) If you get someone who was a fellow of the Royal Society, a useful resource is the Royal Society's Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2007. From there you can search for 'Pope' in the box at right. This link might work, though it only gives a few snippets of extra information, it might be a start. Carcharoth 07:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The Battle of the Books

For you two guys, and any others peeking in, the Battle of the Books is both an actual tract written by Swift (and then by tons of other folks), based on Le Lutrin, and a way that critics today refer to a thing that is hard to write about. There is this... thing... this... tiff between various writers. It seems stupid at first. Here's basically what happened: in France, a man named Fontenelle wrote an "Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning." He said that it was time to finally retire Aristotle, because modern science is more informative, and the modern scientific method and Cartesian method had made all of the ancient learning obsolete.

He's obviously right, right?

Well, "Aristotle" isn't just Aristotle, and "moderns" aren't just moderns. More of that anon.

William Temple wrote, in... 1692... Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning. The French "Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns" had provoked a bit of fuss for about 4 years and died out. Temple wrote, in English, to condemn Fontenelle. That got a response from William Wotton and Richard Bentley, the first class classicist. They took the "modern" side. Temple was far too eminent an individual to answer tradesmen like them, so his proxies answered. William King (poet) and Francis Atterbury counter-attacked. Jonathan Swift was Temple's "secretary," and there is good evidence (A. C. Elias Swift at Moor Park) that Swift thought Temple was a bit of a fool, but he thought Wotton was an idiot. Swift adapted Boileau's Le Lutrin (one of the ones who had answered Fontenelle, but not in that work).

Swift did not pitch the struggle the way that Temple had. His "Battle" is a development. His contrast is between observers of nature and artists vs. critics and refiners. His battle is between original geniuses and critics/engineers. He sees the modern sciences as derivative, just as he sees critics as derivative. In his battle, the makers kick the butts of the parasites, and he has a side metaphor of a spider and a bee. Temple had said that science is good because "we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants," but Swift sees science as the recombination of observations and rules set down by those who do the hard work of observing and thinking directly.

Ok, that's one dynamic. Through the century, you see people doing this critics vs. artists and vision vs. reflection and observers vs. cataloguers (and true learning vs. reference work learning).

There is another side, though. For Temple, a noble, the ancients are the value of the original and derivation of blood, as well as a fabled foundation. Swift is not so foolish. However, Swift sees the "stock jobbers" and others who make money by shoveling money from place to place, and he regards them as parasitic or worse. These "new men" had positions and money, but they had no learning, no wisdom, and were victims of "enthusiasm" in religion. The battle is often pitched as aristocracy vs. capitalists. It is also done as "old methods of deriving worth vs. new money and new men." It's in this scheme that you get the Cooke reply. This is the bit that stayed hot, because Robert Walpole was a minister who saw all of England's future in mercantilism and capital generation.

Obviously, Walpole was right. Obviously, that side won. However, what you see in the "ancients" group is either a fussy defense of the aristocracy, a gullible defense of capitalism, or a cranky protest against the soulessness and moral vacuity of capitalism. It's important to remember that the loudest protests at the immorality of capitalism came from the churches, not the socialists.

We have a Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, but I despair of reading it. It's just too multi-faceted an argument to write about succinctly. I've been reading the primaries on both sides of it for 20 years, and I don't think I have a handle on it. Geogre 01:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Wha...? Sorry. I think I fell asleep there. I think you need more wikilinks. And not ones that are red-links either... :-) Carcharoth 01:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns - leaving out indefinite articles? What next? :-) Carcharoth 01:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, you owe me $25! That's what I normally get for that much of a lecture. (See John Henley or maybe Orator Henley or John "Orator" Henley. His profession has not flagged since his death.) Geogre 11:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

And if you want to read the original, I can let you have a fine first edition (second state) of A Tale of a Tub for just £3000 (though reading it would actually be somewhat risky as it is a little loose internally, it's otherwise a nice example). Or you could get the Oxford Worlds Classics edition for less than a tenner. Yomangani^talk 12:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

<snort> Anyone who pays that much for a 1st ed. of Tale is making a huge mistake. It's the 5th ed. that's worth money. 5th, 1st, 3rd (it has to do with the notes and the "Apology for the &c."). If you're going to buy an inexpensive one, go to Alibris or the European equivalent, and get a Guthkelch & Smith 1920 OUP ed. If you don't care about a reprint, get the 1958 reprint of the 1920 Guthkelch & Smith from OUP. OUP has ceased scholarly publication and gotten into thinking it's a trade publisher, so these are all used books, but they're not rare. The Ox Classics is a student edition. You don't want one of those, I hope. Utgard Loki 12:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't go trying to knocking me down now. Original binding. Never mind the writer, feel the quality. The people making the huge mistake are those buying Harry Potter for 10 times the price (though I said that last year when I should have been buying). Yomangani^talk 13:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I had a 3rd ed. I bought it for $375, and it was in excellent condition. I sold it for rent some years later. 3rds are 3rd in price, with 5th's getting the most from people who know what they're doing and 1sts getting most from people who just like to get 1st editions. I'll pay you... $400 for it. That's worth, like, ten times that in pounds. Geogre 20:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I got it in a job lot, most of which was water damaged, but there were a few decent pieces. Thanks for your generous offer but I shall wait for a buyer with a better grasp of exchange rates, and for the big revival of interest in Swift when they make the movie (See mankind be universally improved in this years summer blockbuster - Quentin Tarantino's Tub Story!...hmm, so $400 you say?). Yomangani^talk 12:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, for anybody who hasn't sworn off FAC completely, I have Four Times of the Day up there at the moment, attracting the usual massed ranks of Hogarth fans. Yomangani^talk 13:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you really have a 1st ed. Tale? I don't know about 3,000 pounds...can't imagine that even an excellent condition would fetch that much, but I'm way out of touch with rich folks, and rich people who are also book readers are a real minority. I have a 1st of vol 1 of a serialized Humphry Clinker, but it's not worth anything (and it's falling apart). The FAC looks good, and I'm going to vote "yes with cavils" (NOT "yes if you bring me a shrubbery" but "YES, and here are some bushes that need trimming"). Geogre 18:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but sadly (or only semi-sadly if you are selling to them), rich folk who don't read are the people that buy expensive first editions. I could knock it down to move it, but I'm not in a hurry. And my topiary shears are at the ready for the FAC. Yomangani^talk 22:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Can't Find a Reference

I posted the original content on the pyramid scheme allegations for Usana (I'm new to posting, so please be patient) and you reverted to someones previous changes that did not cite a source I'm wondering if you could direct me or at least post a link to a reference where it says the SEC dismissed the charges against Usana because the article being cited makes no reference to such a dismissal. Thank you.

No, my reversion was simply a few words at the end only. I didn't revert the sourced statement. It was rather the "ex-fraudster turned anti-fraud" thing, which seemed to dismiss the testimony of the speaker. In other words, that characterization was not NPOV. It's sufficient, usually, to list the guy's title, which is the version I was aiming to revert to. The questionable character of the critic seems to me to be neither here nor there in our reporting, although it would be very important trying to evaluate. Since we report, rather than evaluate, I thought that was a bit over the top. Geogre 02:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I believe I understand then. I added that in to placate the person who made the initial changes to what I submitted and assumed that you may have been the initial author as well (without signing in). The version you reverted to does, however, emphasize Barry Minkows previous conviction for fraud and undermine him. Would my original post (which did not include that paragraph at the bottom) be more in keeping with what Wikipedia is meant to report?

In my view, yes. My problem with the Usana article is that it seems to me far too close to the line. I had wanted to see the thing itself deleted, as I felt that its primary purpose was to legitimate and aid in recruitment of more distributors. Wikipedia has always been targeted by MLM and pyramid organizations. Since the article survived a nomination for Articles for Deletion (I think), I've added it to my watchlist simply to make sure that it doesn't go back to the hawking form it had originally taken. When these articles are new, their advocates drum up all sorts of "support." Within a year or two, the whole thing is forgotten, but, in the meantime, we've been used, and that really annoys me. I'd recommend making any change necessary for reporting plainly and dispassionately the circumstances of the company. The legal gamesmanship of MLM's are deplorable, to me. Geogre 20:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Since we are in agreement on the matter I'm going to re-instate my initial contribution to the article and, hopefully, improve upon it in the near future. My original intent was to monitor this article as well due to it's having been used more as an advertisement in the past. I will try to keep informed of the situation and if, at any time, I learn of the charges being dropped or dismissed I will be sure to add a reference if no one else beats me to it. I have to assume that the initial person who changed my post is not interested in accuracy. Thank you for your time and effort, it is much appreciated.

Re: Giano's block

This is in reply to your comment here. I have also posted this to my talk page.

Geogre, Giano moved my comments out of their place in the preceding thread and into a new paragraph, presumably to remove the comments from their context in the prior discussion. I suggest that you read that discussion. I first politely asked Giano not to make comments that could be construed as being uncivil or personal attacks, saying "even if that is not what you intended. We must be sensitive to how others will perceive what we say, even if we are commenting in good faith." After several more comments in which I reiterated my polite exhortations not to make remarks that could be regarded as uncivil, Giano made these edits, following which I said to him that "The problem is not what you are saying but the manner in which you choose to say it... you make the accurate observation that there are no formal processes relating to access to the channel, but you do it while making snide remarks about David Gerard." After all of that, Giano then made this edit, following which I blocked him. The block was not for making that edit alone, but for making that edit after all of the ones preceding it, and after my having warned him - patiently and politely at first, and explicitly acknowledging that he may not have intended to be offensive - not to make further such edits.

I invite you, Geogre, to explain why, in this context, you have chosen to unblock Giano. --bainer (talk) 15:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• Please assume good faith. I moved your post so it could be clearly seen and responded to, as you slipped a little thing like a block in mid thread. You did not post it on WP ANI either, I can understand that you were ashamed of it but hiding it like that was a bit naughty. Giano 16:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Giano, my assumption was that you moved it for clarity and because it warranted being in a visible section. I think it is bad faith to assume you moved it to obscure it, expecially since it made it more visible. However, keep my support by not adding phrases like ashamed of it but hiding it. That does not do you any credit and loses my (and others) respect. I'd caution you to stay away from judgment and bad faith. Let others own those traits. As someone pointed out to me, wikipedia editors and admins are not stupid. We don't need help seeing bad faith. Lsi john 16:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

You provided a diff as the reason for your block. That diff speaks for itself, in or out of context. There was no incivility in that diff. Furthermore, there was no incivility that I could see in the entire conversation. Harsh? perhaps. Incivil? No.

Involved admins should not use their tools to block in situations where they are involved, without very very very clear warnings, which you did not provide. Your block was wrong. Period. Lsi john 15:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore: if you felt the need to type that much of an explanation, then its even more clear that you should have taken this to AN/I for someone else to review before blocking. Lsi john 15:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The blocking policy is pretty clear that you should seek agreement with the blocking admin or seek a greater consensus before unblocking a user. And the part of the blocking policy that says not to block when involved in a dispute speaks only of content disputes. ^(H) 16:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• H, I'm speaking about my personal opinion. (And I can't speak for Geogre). The rules and policies are setup to address the needs that existed when they were setup, as well as to anticipate future needs. The more fundamental issue here (for me) is the "spirit" of those rules and policies. This was not a clear-cut case of blatant incivility, and did not warrant an immediate block, with no report to AN/I about the block. I do not condone Giano's attitude nor his blatant judgment. And, perhaps after further review by other admins, there might be a consensus for blocking (though I doubt it). But from my perspective, the block was inappropriate. Consensus should have been reached 'before' the block, and if we AGF, then immediate unblocking should be done, to reverse what appears to be an unsupported block. Then, review it and reblock if thats the consensus. Lsi john 16:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• The only thinh we have seen today as the fear of the IRC admins concerning their channel being exposed for what it is. Giano 16:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Giano, pls read my above comments. Your attitude lowers your credibility. Lsi john 16:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the block reason. The block reason provided a diff for its explanation and a characterization of it as being "incivility." It carried with it a 24 hour block. In cases of entirely out of line blocks, especially if one believes that the blocking administrator is engaged in a content dispute, an unblock without consent ahead of time is justified. Additionally, though, the need for discussion is on both the unblock and the block. A review should have taken place on AN/I. Indeed, a review should have taken place of the editing of the page on AN or AN/I, and we should have opted for that instead of blocks of any sort.

The diff cited in the block showed no incivility, nor even a "personal attack." It was factually accurate, although it was most assuredly unfriendly. Let's be honest: I am no more friendly or kindly disposed toward that page than Giano, or the now maligned Friday, but the authors of the page showed enormous hostility and derision toward all outside views as well. So, if we've got pot and kettle (and I'm probably some form of cutlery), then our position ought to be "slog it out in a proper venue" rather than block.

If we need only feelings to justify a charge of "incivility," then I should speak up and say that I found the page as it was frightfully uncivil, in that it simply could have no effect but to reignite a fire or fuel a firestorm. I could see no usefulness to it, if it were not going to have a single word (ok, a phrase) of limitation on the behavior on the channel, was going to be closed to adversarial points of view, and was not going to contextualize the channel (with some of the unflattering information Giano added), and, on the other hand, I could see some bad effects of its existence. Friday moved it for deletion, and that was handled with viciousness and derision. There was ugly met with ugly, and I can't see any justification for a block.

I am sorry, though, that I did not investigate fully enough to see the dialog between yourself and Giano and that I did not talk to you before unblocking. Geogre 18:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate you saying that, because the thrust of that discussion was important to understanding the block. The essence of that discussion was my attempts to explain to Giano that the problems were largely not with what he was saying but the manner in which he was doing so. The comment about access to the channel is a good example - he was correct in saying that there are no formal procedures for access, but he said so by way of a comment that could easily be interpreted as a snide insult to David Gerard, even if that was not what he intended.

Another admin might have simply blocked Giano for the initial edits to that page alone, instead I chose to politely warn him, and assume, where others may not have, that he may not have intended to cause offence though his edits could easily be regarded that way. The block only came after Giano pointedly made further edits of the same calibre not once, but twice.

Finally, would you consider explaining why you believed that I was engaged in a content dispute? I have never edited the page to which Giano's edits were made. --bainer (talk) 00:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• I am sorry you have been embarrassed by this revolting spectacle Geogre. "Thebainer" place his block in the most inconspicuous place possible and sat on it - no posting anywhere. My page. - so I moved it somewhere more obvious simple as that. That disgraceful page will be re-written to reflect the truth, that I promise every editor here, especially those that have left because of IRCadmins victimisation and petty persecution. Giano is here to stay so IRCadmins can either like it or they can re-write it themselves, this time honestly - and if it is not honest it will be changed. So they had better get to work, a novel experience for some of them, because the diffs are all out there waiting to be discovered. They wanted this page now they have it. Giano 19:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)