User talk:Morenoodles

April 2007

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. As a member of the Wikipedia community, I would like to remind you to adhere to Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy for editors, which it appears you have not followed at Feminazi. Thank you. THF 04:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You must be referring to this edit. A link was given to an anonymous rant; I gave it its proper title and noted that it was an anonymous rant. The following editor called that description "POV", mistitled it, and called it "a men's rights [sic] blog". In the next edit, you deleted the silly thing with the edit comment "even better, delete it entirely, per WP:EL". Perhaps you too figured that it was merely an anonymous rant. Then the second editor put it back. Then you got rid of it again. I guess you agree with me. Meanwhile, that other editor is muttering on the talk page: "Is this site 'patroled' by feminazi's [sic] who delete criticisms within moments of posting?" Answer: No it isn't -- but there seems little point in attempting to argue with such people.

Since (1) "feminazi" is merely a word used by AM radio blowhards and (2) Wikipedia isn't Wikidictionary, I don't even know why it has an article. Oh well, WP keeps rightwing nutballs (and enthusiasts for "men's rights") off the streets and away from abortion clinics, so I suppose we should keep humoring the the people who think it's "encyclopedic".

Happy editing! -- Morenoodles 08:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia, though you seem very knowledgable and confident for someone so new... perhaps you are an exisiting/previous user? I was going to leave a generic welcome message, but then I saw your comment at the Village Pump (I decided to leave what I typed before I saw it). I agree to a certain extent; there is a lot more crap, but I don't think it's that people are stupid-er, just that there are more people who see Wikipedia. The people who saw it earlier were those who were searching for an encyclopedia, or information, but now Wikipedia is almost always in the top 10 results for most google searches. For example book 1. google books 2. Amazon 3. Wikipedia. For those that you suggested Myspace Wikipedia is 4th and for Neopets Wikipedia is 3rd. I think it's just that Wikipedia is so much more visible that it attracts those that aren't as mature or interested in contributing rather than messing about. I suppose the only thing to do is try and recruit (if that's the right word) some of them. James086^{Talk | Email} 14:40, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi and thanks for your amicable and informative reply. (And yes, I'm "previous".)

I think I was in a particularly sour mood when I posted that message. But really, a look at the Newpages list does seem to confirm my blackest picture about human nature. I guess the thing to do is not to look at Newpages! -- Morenoodles 09:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spring Heeled Jack

I'm not sure why you'd think I'd want to curse you, block you etc. (The reference to it being the best article on Monster in My Pocket #46 was meant to be a bit of gentle fun-poking at the authors not a genuine plaudit). I'm not really interested in the article, but as it wasn't garnering either attention at FAR or edits in the article I thought I'd comment to see if it provoked a reaction. I'll normally come back and have a look at fixing an article if nobody is dealing with it, but if editors are engaged I'll generally leave it alone. Yomangani ^talk 16:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From the quick search I did before commenting on the FAR it appears there is a real dearth of sources for the topic. I would have expected a couple of solid near-contemporary books on the subject to flesh out the story, but it seems to have failed to engage the interest of the public long term other than as a name for a bogeyman. Mike Dash's article (originally published in the Fortean Times and quoted 3 times in references and external links!) seems to be the best freely available work on the subject. Yomangani ^talk 12:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Noodles, I came here to thank you for your thorough, and thoroughly witty, examination of this article. A pleasure. KillerChihuahua^?!? 22:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As discussed on Talk:Spring Heeled Jack, I seriously doubt User:Dreamguy is in a position to provide you with the review of the literature you requested. Since he has not responded to your post there, here is the information you require. It seems less provocative to post it here than there, and I certainly don't want to add fuel to the flame of the existing discussion. Anyway... The first significant contribution to the subject was a review of the earliest reports (1837-38) published anonymously in Charles Dickens's weekly All The Year Round on 9 August 1884, pp.345-50. It was not referenced, but was based on rereadings of contemporary newspapers and also on three early 1838 pamphlets on the subject which are no longer extant. Reading the piece against the known corpus of newspaper articles from 1838 allows one to tease out elements that must be sourced from the lost pamphlets; this article is thus of considerable historical importance. Henry Shaen Solly, in his The Life of Henry Morely LL.D, Professor of English (London, 1898) publishes the claim that Morley was responsible for one hoax account that appeared in the press in 1838. From his brief discussion it appears that the article referred to may have been that which appeared in The Observer, 14 January 1838. John Ashton, Gossip in the First Decade of Queen Victoria's Reign (London, 1903) pp.27-30 contains a short review likewise based on contemporary papers and the missing pamphlets, but it also lacks actual references. Memories of Spring-heeled Jack's hold over the imagination of Victorian children appear in Notes & Queries 8S, IV, 22 July, 9 September, 21 October 1893 and 10S, VII, 16 and 30 March, 18 May, 22 June and 28 September 1907. Recollections of the 1877 Aldershot 'flap' written by soldiers serving at that time can be found in Lord Ernest Hamilton, 40 Years On (London, 1922) pp.162-4 and Major General Sir John Adye, Soldiers and Others I have Known (London 1925) pp.25-6. Elizabeth Villiers, in Stand And Deliver (London 1928) pp.238-52, contributes another unreferenced history, based in part, she states, on interviews with a living witness to an appearance by (a) Spring-heeled Jack. Elliott O'Donnell, the thirties ghost-hunter, produced two short chapters on the subject that were the first to contain footnoted references to contemporary newspaper articles. These can be found in his Ghosts of London (London, 1932) pp.147-9 and Haunted Britain (London, 1948) pp.73-6; his interests lay in the paranormal aspects of the case. Valentine Dyall's sensationalist article in Everybody's Magazine, 6 March 1954, introduced some of the mythology that now surrounds the Aldershot sightings of 1877. It is not referenced and some of its assertions are demonstrably not true. Richard Whittington-Egan, in Liverpool Colonnade (Manchester, 1955) was the first to draw attention to the Liverpool reports of 1888; he also discusses Jack's supposed appearances in Liverpool in 1904. His account is not referenced but, it is stated, is based in part on interviews with persons alive at the time. Peter Haining's The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring-heeled Jack (London, 1977) claims to be authoritative but contains few references; some of those that are printed are demonstrably fraudulent and erroneous, as discussed in my Fortean Studies paper on Jack. Haining is the earliest source for several of Spring-heeled Jack's best-known supposed assaults, including that on a barmaid named Polly Adams (1837) and the murder of a prostitute, Maria Davis, in November 1845. I contend that these events were likely invented by Haining; for a discussion, see Fortean Studies 3. Two papers by David Clarke in short-run British specialist magazines introduced much new information about Jack's supposed appearances in Sheffield in 1873; see 'Of Spring-heeled Jack, boggards and other bogey-men', UFO Brigantia, November-December 1986, and 'Spring-heeled Jack', Earth, Autumn 1987. Clarke is in my opinion another competent Fortean scholar, and holds a PhD from the University of Sheffield. More recently, Hobbs and Cornwell discuss, in their contribution to a compilation of folklore papers, Monsters With Iron Teeth (Sheffield, 1988), Spring-heeled Jack scares in Glasgow in the 1930s. Their paper is fully referenced. The journal Foaftale News, produced by the International Society For Contemporary Legend Research, contains discussions of Spring-heeled Jack and similar entitites in issues nos. 47 (October 2000) and 48 (January 2001). These contributions are only partially referenced, but are written by academic folklorists. Roman Golicz, Spring-heeled Jack: A Victorian Visitation at Aldershot (Don Namor Press, Farnham, Surrey, 2004, 2006) discusses, with references, the 1877 Aldershot 'flap'; this short pamphlet is based on original research, and takes the view that Jack was a paranormal entity. Jerome Clark, in The UFO Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, volume II (Detroit, 1998) has a fairly lengthy, referenced entry on the subject. Jacqueline Simpson, the well-known British folklorist, and Jennifer Westwood also discuss Jack in their recent The Lore of the Land (London, 2005). Both Clark and Simpson base their discussions largely on my research, however. I hope this information is of use; if you need more, feel free to contact me. I apologise, in the meantime, for allowing myself to become so riled by User:Dreamguy on Talk:Spring Heeled Jack. Mikedash 01:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, thank you for this long and informative reply, which I fear you must have typed through gritted teeth, not least because of the suspicion (well founded, I must admit) that I would have access to virtually none of these sources.

Your paper is rather too long for me to want to read it on the screen, but by no means too long for me to read on paper. I therefore intend to print it out today and to read it.

In the meantime, I'll say that I've got the impression that DreamGuy's heart is in the right place but that he's jumped to certain wrong conclusions about your paper and your motives here, mixed with odd interpretations of WP's policies. I think and hope that the article can be sorted out. I also hope that my awareness that I am completely ignorant of the subject (though I hope slightly less ignorant after at least partial digestion of your paper) will prevent me from damaging the article further. If however I do screw up (not hard to imagine), please don't hesitate to put me in my place or to revert the article. And I hope that you don't abandon the article. Morenoodles 07:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all through gritted teeth; this is a specialist topic and one that's so far evaded the attentions of mainstream academics, so I wouldn't expect you or anyone else to have access to many if any of the sources that do exist. One of the reasons this article exits in the state it does is that I failed to make my own material widely available until pretty recently, so User:Shauri, the original author of most of it, had to rely on less reliable sources.

The daft thing about this whole pathetic spat is that I broadly agree with Dreamguy's interpretation (I think there's reasonable evidence that two, and perhaps only two, of the 1838 incidents, which had multiple witnesses, were 'real' in the sense of there being an actual assault, but I think the witnesses likely exaggerated the severity of the events and the perpetrator, if one did exist, could very easily have been a local drunkard or a bored aristocrat) - I just don't agree with the way he expresses himself. I will continue to monitor the article occasionally and try to remove the dafter accretions, and I do think it's a pity that the attentions of people like Dreamguy discourage me from thoroughly revising the article and indeed from tackling several other (more mainstream historical) topics on Wikipedia to which I've devoted many years of research, but that's by the by.

With regard to the sources, I have in fact transcribed virtually all of those referred to above with the intention of eventually publishing a much expanded 'calendar of sources', and if you really want to take the trouble to read some of them I would be happy to email you my working document; you can reach me via my website which is referenced on my user page if you want to request this. I wouldn't blame you, however, for not wishing to go so far. I think, in any case, that the attentions of a non-specialist editor such as yourself can only improve the article as it stands; good luck. Mikedash 14:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for my prolonged absence -- not only from SHJ but from anything else at WP.

I've read your paper and found it most interesting. Various inferences are rather obvious, such as that the writings of Haining and the like, though no doubt diverting ways to pass long evenings in countryside B&Bs, are utterly unsatisfactory as WP sources.

But then again [pardon me for being rude for rhetorical purposes for the length of this paragraph] your paper is self-published on the web, and comes directly or indirectly from a journal (one I've never seen) that seems to come from somewhere at the raffish end of academia. Perhaps you just made it all up. Hang on though: Just yesterday I read the IHT version of the NYT review of your new book. The review, by one William Grimes, is less enthusiastic than it might be, but he does say that the author "marshals his evidence carefully and lays out events clearly". Now only a total nutjob would go to the trouble of making up all that stuff about SHJ, not making any money from it (as it's a free download) and risking a reputation for scrupulousness upon which his income depends. So I (relievedly) reject this unpleasant hypothesis.

So I buy it. (The paper, I mean. Though for that matter I plan to buy the NYC book.) I'll be busy for a little more time, but after that I hope to have another bash at that SHJ article. -- Morenoodles 11:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Elizabeth Báthory

Hi. I've appreciated your edits to Springheeled Jack as enforcing WP:NPOV and other policies (even if I do think your claims about me above are uncharitable -- I do not think my views of policies are "odd" nor that I have misinterpreting Mike Dash's intentions, and of course you were much to polite in responding to his personal attacks on me above).

There's another article that perhaps you would want to take a look at. Recently there's been a very aggressive anonymous IP address user editing the Elizabeth Báthory article to remove NPOV wording to outright try to make the article state that Bathory did, in fact, take baths in blood, did write a diary confessing to murders and witchcraft, and all sorts of other highly biased comments. I would appreciate it if you would add it to your watch list if it isn't already and take steps to prevent such blatant unscholarly personal opinions from remaining in the article. Thanks. DreamGuy 20:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DreamGuy, putting aside what I may have said about you, I don't see where Mike Dash perpetrated anything like a personal attack on you.

SHJ aside: The unpleasant Hungarian. She's only a very dimly familiar name to me: I think that perhaps I once read a description of some "cult movie" or other that said the movie was inspired by her. As I look at the article, it seems just the sort of thing that would attract the least scrupulous book-writers and the silliest WP editors. I tend to think that the quality of WP articles on people like this is a lost cause; I'd much rather put effort into articles about people who are of no interest to 13 year olds. But I'll try to take a look. Morenoodles 08:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. The worst problems we've been having recently are well in hand, as I got another couple of editors to show up and help revert the anon who was pushing his views onto it, and the things he was trying to add were already well discused on the talk page before he got there, showing a broad consensus of people disapproving of the kinds of things he wanted in the article, so the worst at least is over for now. DreamGuy 09:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FAR

Would you be interesting in revisiting Wikipedia:Featured article review/Spring Heeled Jack and declaring Keep or Remove? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear. I'm sorry about my absence. But I'd have declared "Remove" and it was anyway removed, so no big deal. I'm glad to see that the article isn't as awful as it was a couple of months ago. Another year and it might be back as FA. Morenoodles 03:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows 2000

I'm somewhat interested in finding out what sources you feel we have missed on the article Windows 2000. I should note that I was the principle author, many have made changes since I got it to FA status, but I agree that it needs some prose cleanup. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 16:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I have actually retired from Wikipedia (see User:Ta bu shi da yu), I only came back to see how the old articles I wrote were changed as I was curious. Have no urge to get into long and contentious argument, just wanted to solicit some feedback. - Tbsdy lives (talk) 16:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I've said elsewhere, I really don't know.

I suppose the primary significance of Win2k was commercial: it was a product that made a lot of money for its publisher and that a lot of companies and people wanted or felt compelled to use. A very large percentage of them probably didn't consider any non-Windows alternative for a moment. The article is right not to pretend otherwise.

Further, Win2K seems to me to be about as good an OS as MS has ever produced, and very good by any standard. (Certainly much better than the dreadful Vista, which I occasionally have to use and which -- but I'm preaching to the choir.) Microsoft has put out a great quantity of informative material about its OSes, most of it by all accounts excellent. No doubt anything that it put out that was willfully deceptive would have been torn to shreds in Usenet and perhaps thereafter in the then-important magazines like PC Magazine and Byte: MS wouldn't have wanted that.

I'm sorry, I'm not a system engineer and I also have not made any academic study of OSes. But in addition to all the unconfirmed rumors, hype and venting, I have seen intelligent comparisons of OSes. (I just forget where I saw them, damn it.) There's one in the article as it stands: that about the effective prices of Win2K versus Linux. (I'm a bit suspicious of it, but this is by the way.) Were there no comparisons of robustness, speed, etc.? I've also seen academic studies of OSes, I think published by Springer. (Certainly nothing with "turbo," "unleashed," etc. in the title, though even these books are sometimes quite intelligent, just with packaging dumbed down by the publisher.)

I have a queasy feeling about the article. But even as it stands it's very much better than the huge majority of WP articles and I think also some FAs. While I criticize aspects of it, I don't intend to knock it, and time permitting I'd like to nudge it into something even better. My own little contribution to that is likely to be textual, and while I'm fiddling inexpertly with the prose I may make my own mistakes, which I'm happy to see fixed.

The prose seemed very careful and professional for the most part but it wasn't a professionalism that I thought was desirable. I regret that my way of expressing that offended you -- I should have phrased it better or just shut up about it. Anyway, I didn't have any author in mind as I hadn't even glanced at the history or the discussion page.

I'll be busy for the next couple of days but then I hope to return to the article. Morenoodles (talk) 03:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nimrod Expedition

Thanks for your interest in this article. I note that some of your changes (e.g. unlinking "stigma", GBP, etc.,) are reverting things introduced by other editors - they are not things that I would have done myself, but one sometimes must bow to the conflicting judgements of others. There has been considerable copyediting since the article came to FAC; what is vexing to me is that the article was nearly a month on peer review, and hardly anyone took any notice of it there! Anyway, thanks again. Brianboulton (talk) 16:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad that my edits are thought useful.

I'm all in favor of useful links. I'm not in favor of those that merely seem to add more blue underlines. Really, "stigma" seemed to be used in a very humdrum way that does not need sociological elucidation by Erving Goffman and indeed might well clash with the presumably precise definition that Goffman used. Similarly, there's no point in linking "Manchurian ponies" to Manchuria, as about the only thing I can confidently guess about "Manchurian ponies" is that back a century ago they weren't imported directly from Manchuria.

I had nothing to do with GBP, unless perhaps by accident.

I have a small but growing list of questions about the article, posted in the discussion page. I'd be interested in answers some time. Morenoodles (talk) 03:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. The edit concerning pounds was by BuddingJournalist. Morenoodles (talk) 11:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Miss Pakistan World

I have been trying to notify the author of the problems with the article and have even nominated it for a 'speedy' but the author seems contempt on deleting and rewording the article into her point-of-view which really bugs me now. Do you think, judging by the changes she has been making, that this article should be nominated for deletion via AfD. Please reply. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 09:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. The article as it now stands should certainly be deleted. However, if you take it to AfD now the likely result will be lots of votes saying something like "Keep but improve". If it was kept, would it actually improve, or would it continue to be a vehicle for advertising? One simple question before considering AfD: Does the subject merit an article? (I really don't know.) If it does, then the people who keep making it promotional should be stopped. If it doesn't (or if it does but the promoters can't be stopped), then yes it should be deleted. Morenoodles (talk) 09:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On a scale from 1 to 10 as high, notability of this article would be somewhere in the middle. The author and her associates wouldn't let the article grow organically. I know this article may be created again. It is better to deliver a sense of respect towards this encyclopaedia to the author for not spamming it with her organisation's blatant advertising by just deleting it once. Hopefully she'll agree upon using a more democratic/organic approach. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 09:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If an article on the subject is worth keeping, start by getting the advertisers to lay off. If they don't, they'll be in trouble. Morenoodles (talk) 10:20, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I already have several times, but they deliberately keep deleting the content. Then they try to delete all traces of such conversations as well. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 10:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This edit of yours is understandable but wrong. People can delete any message from their own user talk page. However, they can't delete it from article talk pages. Have they done so there as well? Morenoodles (talk) 10:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. But the only reason why I made it so was because this wasn't my first message to them. Another of their associates as I came had a decent conversation with me and all this still persisted. I know it wasn't right to write a message like that but they wouldn't take notice after several of my replies. I don't consider doing anything wrong. It's just that I want them to really take responsibility and note what they're doing is wrong. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 10:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even most of the pictures used in the article are pure copyright violations. Arun Reginald (talk · contribs) 09:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting, but it's a separate matter. Morenoodles (talk) 09:46, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ayumi Hamasaki

Hey, thanks a lot for your contributions to the Ayumi Hamasaki article! It's much appreciated, since articles like that don't have very many experienced writers working on it. The Transmogrifier (talk) 07:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to help.

Sorry, I didn't think it should (yet) be an FA, and said so. But I didn't want to kill its chances a second time, and maybe I, personally, did this. Frankly I know little about Hamasaki and have little interest in her, but I'm in a penitent mood and the idea of (carefully!) working on a subject about which I know nothing has a special appeal. Let's get this article FA'd, OK? But let's not rush it. Morenoodles (talk) 09:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for all your help! Needless to say, the article wouldn't be where it is today without your copyediting, so...

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		I present you with the Copyeditor's Barnstar for you work in whipping the prose of Ayumi Hamasaki into shape. Happy editing! Ink Runner (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sedona method

I responded to your question. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:02, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel

Hi. Thanks for copy editing Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. I have responded to you at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. Regards, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 20:12, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to have helped with the article. I do hope that it's featured. Morenoodles (talk) 09:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ping: NY 382

Hey, I liked your comment on the FAC. And btw, the comment is solved.Mitch32^{(Go Syracuse)} 13:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks

Thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with 80 support, 2 oppose, and 1 neutral. I appreciate all the comments I received and will endeavor to justify the trust the community has placed in me. R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:40, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hurling AfDs

You really should break the hurling AFDs into separate entries instead of attempting a group deletion. You would have more success, and if one player on your list gets enough sources to pass WP:N, it will torpedo the whole nomination.--2008Olympian^chitchat 17:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If people want articles on these people badly enough to rustle up a few crumbs of evidence then they can have them for all I care. But thanks for the tip: these sportsmen seem decent enough, but of course there are times when groups of self promoting complete non-entities cry out for deletion. Morenoodles (talk) 08:13, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]