User talk:Geogre

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List of things with gaps

Essays

It's new! It's exciting! It's an idea whose time came months ago: The Tags and Boxes Player's Guide Continuation: The Demotion Idea. If RFA is "broken," let's not make it FUBAR: The RFA Derby It's newer! It's not exciting! Essay on Wiki Cults of Personality My attempt at impersonating Marshal MacLuhan: IRC considered Blocklogz, A Wikiwebi Comix: My first attempt at hip artwerkx.

New Messages

Restoration literature

Congratulations on the front page article - seems it's been listed for ages though. It's really nice to see an overview article of such quality there. It seems sometimes, that only the more marginal, niche articles can jump the hurdles, whilst the invaluable overviews get bogged down in disputes and difficulties - getting a single editorial 'voice' for these articles is a real achievement. --Mcginnly | Natter 00:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Nice to see you, on the page where you belong [1]. Rather than those less glamerous pages. Giano 11:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Murmurings about numbered citations on the talk page, though. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Bugger numbered citations Giano 12:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations to Geogre and to everyone who contributed to the article. Newyorkbrad 15:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice article. As for the numbered citations, I'd find some helpful. Not the sentence-by-sentence numbering I know some people hate, but just something explaining which specific bits come from which specific book (or the one website) listed in the references. The bit about the beginnings of the novel as a written form in English reminded me of something I've been reading about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in the introduction by Tolkien of his translation, quoted at Sir Gawain and the Green Knight#The poet. In particular, the bits about how the Gawain poet's language did not survive, but Chaucer's language did, and how that shaped what came after (in particular, the loss of the alliterative verse form of poetry).

I notice at Talk:Restoration literature you say the following: "Please note that this article is part of an ambitious project related to English literature. That article contains brief summaries of each of the classic literary periods, a structure mirrored in most university classrooms and older encyclopedia, and this project is attempting to have a full length article on each "period" of English literature." - you then mention Augustan literature, and from the succession box at the bottom of the article, I see Romanticism is also included in that series (should it be?). I also see that Literature of the Commonwealth and Protectorate is a red link, so I can't see what comes before that.

Will the series go all the way back to the origins of English, looking at Middle English literature and even further back to Beowulf? I also looked around in Category:History of literature and Category:History of literature in the United Kingdom, and found Anglo-Saxon literature, Anglo-Norman literature, and Elizabethan literature. Can all these articles be put together in a sequence to form a series box (also called a navigation box) to act as a contents list for the history of English literature? If so, that would be something to put in the articles, and might be more helpful than the 'succession box' currently at the bottom of the article. I guess what I am asking is what are these literary periods, and are they all ready yet? :-) Carcharoth 16:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean something like:

History of English literature
Anglo-Saxon literature ***
Anglo-Norman literature ***
Middle English literature
English Renaissance literature
Elizabethan literature * **
Jacobean literature *
Cromwellian literature *
Restoration literature
Augustan literature
Romantic literature
Victorian literature
Modernist literature
Postmodern literature

• * - subsection of overview article - not full article yet.
• ** - see also Elizabethan literature - placeholder awaiting material from overview article.
• *** - Add A-S and A-N literature to overview article for English literature.

(Table modified by Carcharoth 18:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC))

See also Template:History of literature. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

That's it! Modern literature is a dab, so I piped in History of modern literature instead. And I think you missed out Augustan literature. Does that go between Restoration and Romantic? I might add this to List of time periods and/or periodization as well. Thanks. I think you should make your little table there into a template and use it to string those articles together. Pity about the red links. Now, I wonder who could deal with those... :-) Carcharoth 17:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, on second thoughts, History of modern literature is really part of the History of literature series (which seems to be a global treatment of literature, rather than just English), so something else is needed there. English modern literature? In fact, the last three seem to need English stuck in front of them, but I don't really know enough about this to be sure. Also, as well as the three red links, Elizabethan literature is just a stub. At the moment, English Renaissance is the link found at English literature, and English_literature#Elizabethan_literature and English_literature#Jacobean_literature would be the seeds for the spin-off articles. Also, modernism and post-modern seem to be subsets of modern literature. Carcharoth 17:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Table modifed. Carcharoth 18:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just turned the articles that you mentioned, plus a few more I found, into a table. I have no idea which pigeonholes should or should not exist, nor which pigeons should be in which hole. But we probably ought to have something along these lines somewhere. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Temporarily here

I'm under orders to not sit at the computer today, so I can only be rebellious and typing briefly. About footnotes, it's frustrating. I wrote many of the blue links in the article. For example, I wrote Richard Blackmore. Now, that article has a reference that gives the whole. The facts there are used in Restoration literature, so I use links as citations. Rather than attempting to graft in all the references used in all the articles on all the figures discussed, I essentially used internal reference. On the other hand, as one person noticed (to my delight), I was trying to demonstrate what I like about a true encyclopedia article: the prohibition against original research in no way argues against having a thesis. An encyclopedia writer is not a clipping service: she or he is an editor and a thinker. Now, I may be a real expert on 1660-1750. I have real and legitimate points of views on these things, and, ultimately, the "proof" for many things is, well, "Read the book." I.e. "read Defoe's novels, all of them, and tell me if you don't agree that they're more based on journalistic biography than Romance" and "read all of Behn's novels and tell me if you don't agree that they're near the Romance more than the obituary biography." In other words, they're just true and not OR, because they're observations also made by other people, but all made in pieces here and there and over there and over there again, etc. They're commonplaces blended by the author. It's what I meant when I criticized the footnote police for wanting undergraduate research papers rather than encyclopedia articles. The nervous sophomore fears to say anything and hasn't sufficient experience to see much that the experts haven't said, in so many words. Print encyclopedias, on the other hand, call on professors to summarize and offer a thesis on the material.

About succession, I have just enough rage for order to like periodization. Let's start with British literature. Anglo-Saxon, early Middle English, Middle English, Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, what is often called "17th century" but what is instead Commonwealth or Interregnum, Restoration, Augustan, "Age of Johnson," Romantic, Victorian, Edwardian, then we get splits with Modernist (Bloomsbury, Symbolist, Absurdist, Naturalist, Realist, Surrealist, etc.), Contemporary, Post-Modern. American literature has Colonial, 19th century, Modernist, Contemporary, Post-Modern. Irish literature has an Irish Twilight, Irish Renaissance, Modernist, etc. Commonwealth is the one I know least about. (N.b. this "commonwealth" is not the same as the other one. The first one is "The period of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell," and this one is "literature of post-colonial Anglophone nations." It can include Canada, and it can not.) Like I said, I know least about that.

I felt like I had done my duty to the ages with the bulk of Restoration and all of Augustan literature, Augustan prose, Augustan drama, and Augustan poetry. I could do a couple of others, but I would be much more tentative and much less expert on them. Geogre 21:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

A modest proposed change to NPA

I have to share this. Regards, Ben Aveling 01:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Well, yes, sort of. The objection is valid, but the conclusion doesn't quite follow.
• Let me digress for a minute. I remember, back in 1992 or so, writing an essay on "Political Correctness." I had been troubled for a few years by being accused of hate speech for using "girl" to refer to a female of my own age (mid-20's). I asked how it could be hateful, when it was intended to be a familiar and peer marker, and I was told that it didn't matter what I meant, because it could be heard as diminutive. I.e. a female hearing herself called "girl" must perforce interpret that word as "immature" and must therefore consider herself always an inferior. The logic is completely absent in that, but I figured that it was no skin off my nose to use "woman" instead of "girl" in all cases of all females over 13 years of age or all non-maidens. After all, if it would always be perceived, or if it might be perceived, as damaging, it cost me an extra syllable and saved me misunderstanding. Therefore, I had made a "PC" change to my language.
• In the early 1990's, all the current hate jocks on radio were screaming about how political correctness was invading American culture, and everything substantive on the liberal political agenda was being dismissed as "PC." I began thinking about what is PC, and how do we get to the absurd level, as well as what is "PC," and how is it such a delightful bauble for the right wing. I came to the following conclusion.
• When there is an utterance, we seem to have two ways we judge meaning. One is to ask the intent of the speaker. The other is to ask the perception of the target. A greasy old man says, "Nice bubs." They go to court. He says he meant it as a sincere compliment and not to make her feel uncomfortable. She says that she heard a dismissal of her value as a person and a demand for sex. Who's right? Well, once upon a time we gave credence to the speaker only. The project of "political correctness" was to give credence to the target.
• The fact is, both of those methods are indeterminate and useless. The truth is that humans never work in such a binary. What we really do is say that a word's meaning comes from the whole code of the language, and that is the society's aggregate interaction. In other words, don't ask the speaker or the listener. Ask the community. Ask the society. Look to twenty or thirty usages and their values. Then you can establish the expectations that both the speaker and the listener should have had.
• /digression. We don't have to take whatever bitter pills passersby want to shove down our throats. We should police those speech acts that are likely to cause a cessation of editing or a disruption of editing ability. After all, such speech acts are just like stalking and the rest in terms of their effect. However, to assess them we have to survey speech use. The problem here is that people don't really do that. They keep saying, "He had to mean..." or "She's a notorious X or Y, and so...."
• The problem is that policing speech acts doesn't mean blocking. It doesn't mean templates. It means negotiating, mediating, moderating, educating, and working. Most people can't understand or won't try to understand my position here, so I usually confine myself to just saying that NPA is not part of the blocking policy, that all it says is that it's nice to be nice and that it's not nice to not be nice. Geogre 04:40, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi from a stickybeak. When there is an utterance, we seem to have two ways we judge meaning. One is to ask the intent of the speaker. The other is to ask the perception of the target. Cf the illocutionary and perlocutionary force of a speech act. And as for maintaining civility, try this. -- Hoary 05:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Before I go offsite to check the ext. link, I'm glad to see other people have read some of the speech act people like Austin. What I think happens too often, here at any rate (to avoid making a sweeping generalization), is that people are so locked into "did you mean it/did you feel it" that they forget that both of those are unverifiable. In truth, communication is speaker and audience, but the medium (I'm one of those) is never transparent. More to the point, the very opacity of the medium (language), the very thickness of it, is what makes communication. People who ramble on about how language is a net of interreliant deferred significations, etc. are missing a big, obvious truth: language is the ongoing, continually manufactured, culture of a group. Neither speaker nor audience own it. (And some people throw tantrums when they find out that language has "infected" them with other peoples' thoughts.) Now I'm off to see those links.
• BTW, I very much dig talking about this stuff, but I'm probably still working on how to explain my little observation. Geogre 13:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
  • (In re the external jump:) Ooooh, very nasty. I've seen some of the meanest, hottest disagreements between word warriors. I saw scholars actually get to the point of blows about whether "fuck" came into English in the 12th (and therefore sound Anglo-Saxon) or 14th (and Dutch) centuries. (It was hilarious to watch, truth be told, as they kept wanting to use the word under discussion. It was like watching three people handling guns get into a fistfight.) I disagree with the "civil" author there, or at least the way that he's going about it, but I'm hardly qualified. Very amusing donnish donnybrook. :-) Geogre 13:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I like I've been accused of a lot of dreadful things, but never of maintaining a civil tone. Pullum is usually great fun. It's a pity that recently he's been using a fly-swatter rather than the, um, whatever it was that he used to get Spock to "interview" Chomsky on the Enterprise, but still it's deeply gratifying to see him being repeatedly and deservedly dismissive (e.g. here) about Strunk and White's silly little book of "style". -- Hoary 15:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Oh, now that's too far! I'm beginning to smell British ethnocentrism. If H.L. Mencken were alive, and not a Nazi, he'd be a good one to call upon. Heck, White could have handled him. Strunk & White are a force of good in the world, but their disciples can be one of the pestillences of the apocalypse. It all depends on the sanity of the reader. The FAC reviewers who hold up their corporate style sheets as if they were Simplicity Pattern patterns (I hope that link has the old sewing company) are silly people who manage to be wicked by dint of their mass. Geogre 16:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
    • • Ha! I got to create a new article! Geogre 16:18, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't tell me sewing is a hobby of yours!! :-) I'm guessing the connection is that author mentioned right at the end. Carcharoth 00:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it was the Welty connection, but I also remember my mother making her own clothes with Simplicity Patterns when I was a kid. I found that tissue paper irresistible and probably ruined some projects before she had a chance to give up on them. I've considered learning defensive sewing (an impoverished bachelor skill), but it went the way of most of my other "it's not as good as home brewing or having a girlfriend" hobbies. Geogre 04:28, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• • • Mencken's a hilarious writer (The Impossible H. L. Mencken is a fine example, and a reminder of how impoverished US newspapers are these days, aside from the worthy Frank Rich and a few others). But I've never been tempted to read any instructions of his on how to write. I don't recall ever having read anything by White (let alone Strunk), except for S&W's silly book, which I gave up after ten or twenty pages; yet Pullum praises White as (elsewhere) an excellent writer who rightly ignored the silly strictures he cowrote with Strunk. Here is Pullum (with Brecht) on the matter. And this kind of thing is on my mind as I recently encountered yet another dim lightbulb slipping on banana-skins [dig the mixed metaphor?] in his indignant allegation that AAVE is "rudimentary". -- Hoary 00:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Not sure

George, did you also intend to delete your own post here?--Van helsing 22:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• No, but she's read it, and no one else was talking about it, so might as well have it deleted. Thanks for noticing, though. I frequently make mistakes, and with my own words they quite often aren't. Geogre 22:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Humble pie

On Bish's talk page, now archived, I derided Vertue saying that Moll Hackabout:

"..was sent to bridewell by Sr John Gonson Justice and her salivation and death."

Now I find that plate 5 does indeed show her "salivation", a cure for the clap prescribed by Richard Rock which involved treating the gums with mercury, causing the teeth to fall out. At least, that is what Uglow tells me. Moll's teeth are on a piece of paper marked Dr Rock to the right of the image. The "cure" caused much salivation, no doubt. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe that cure is available at a knockdown price in Convent Garden in Morning of Four Times of the Day, though it is impossible to make out in the pics I got from the web. Yomangani^talk 16:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

OMG. Look at this website. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That rather takes away the need to do any research! (it even has the answer to my question about the bills in the rear of the Second Stage of Cruelty). Yomangani^talk 18:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a good page. The people she cites are some of the ones I have available (Shesgreen is the annotator to the Dover Thrift I have), but she doesn't catch all of them, so there is still good stuff you guys can get from your Uglow and Paulsons. I could still wish for higher resolutions, and her segmentation of the engravings means that we can't really use them. It's a very good page. The mercury cure was the cure for syphilis throughout the 18th century. The question was how you took it. There was a limit to how much you could take before dying, and so the "rub it on your gums" was presumably a way of getting around the limit. Needless to say, Moll is dying of mercury poisoning, and not syphilis, which takes years, if not decades, to kill. There are even theories that Chatterton died of accidental mercury overdose. The other treatment was, I think, arsenic, but mercury was far and away the most popular cure. In fact, doctors today, I think, still say that mercury is a cure for syphilis, although an inefficient and deadly one. Geogre 11:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I may be wrong about the gum treatment - excess production of saliva, and softening of the gums (indeed, decay of the jaw bone), are both symptoms of mercury poisoning ("Humans or animals poisoned with mercury or its compounds often manifest excessive salivation, a condition called mercurial ptyalism" - what a posh word for drooling.). Perhaps I am mis-reading Uglow - I'll have to check again. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and "humble pie" comes from "numbles" (offal) -> "umbles" -> "humble".[2] -- ALoan (Talk) 13:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Input requested

I would value your input here. --Ideogram 01:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Interested in giving me any pointers

I've taken time out of blocking people and deleting things, to actually write something. Just wondered if you'd be interested in taking a look? The treasure of Loch Arkaig --Doc^g 14:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Totally uninvited, but I still have Geogre's talk page watchlisted for whatever reason - fun article, I learned something today! --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I will definitely take a look. I'm always happy to help with articles. We still need more of them (though maybe not so many on individual songs and "73 Tai Chi positions" and the like). Geogre 19:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

DYK!

On 27 January, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Simplicity Pattern, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Savidan 16:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles on people in green burial movements

Thank you for weighing in. I'll probably bring it to AfD in a couple of days. // habj 14:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounding board

Is an external link to a Spainsh blog post (which, admittedly, looks rather interesting, if rather Spanish) on an English novelist worth keeping?[3] -- ALoan (Talk) 16:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Me, I'd say not. Not because it's Spanish, but because it's Blogspot. I.e. it's purely amateur. For that matter, the novelist herself.... Oh, never mind: I won't start swinging my axe at the historical detective fiction genre.... I have enough people mad at me as it is. (Did you know there was one madman who wrote detective novels featuring Johnson and Boswell as an ersatz Holmes and Watson?) (It all reminds me of slash fiction.) Geogre 03:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought not too, but wanted to avoid WP:OWNership. The books are good, IMHO - they are quite short, so try one if you have not already - not serious fiction, of course, but life is about light and shade. I have not heard of the Johnson/Boswell novel. Not slash fiction I hope? ....

Anyway, you (or interested others) may like to chip in at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jack Sheppard or Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Four Stages of Cruelty. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Help! (not waving, but drowning) -- ALoan (Talk) 20:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hooray! Thanks for the lifeline. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• Congratulations -- to be delivered at your talk page too. Geogre 03:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Indio, California

Indio, California has a parking garage and an ice skating rink! Also a fashion mall which offers customers air conditioned shopping at department stores, boutiques and eateries. Also a famous date grower, one internationally known festival, and two world famous festivals. The Tamale Festival has quote marks round the words "world famous", though, so that probably makes it all right. Bishonen | talk 11:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

• Oh, Lord! Nineteen winters do we suffer for our sins. Here I am, largely paralyzed by the old wound, waiting for a grail knight to come along and ask me a question, and the land goes to waste. Parsifal needs to hurry, for my powers are on the wane. What can we do when they weave their poisons into the flesh and graft their evil fruit onto good stock? Geogre 13:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes essay

Hi Geogre. I've recently been thinking more about infoboxes, and I feel an essay coming on. I've read your essay at User:Geogre/Templates, but I want to focus more specifically on infoboxes, and try and end up with a guideline in the Wikipedia namespace at Wikipedia:Infoboxes (currently a redirect to a list of infoboxes). There is stuff at Help:Infobox, but that should probably concentrate on technical aspects. I also looked at the manual of style, but there doesn't seem to be anything there. Some new thoughts on the matter of infoboxes is here (see also the other sections on that talk page) and here. See also User talk:Carcharoth#Infoboxing. Some of the points I want to cover is the need to draw an absolutely clear line between what should only be covered in an article, and what an infobox should attempt to portray. In effect, I feel they should be a summary of the most important, indisputable points, plus maybe a "see article" thing for critical disputed points, plus data not suited for the article (eg. chemical data and planetary data - though these could go in a subsidiary infobox further down the page), plus maybe machine parsable data (something I have seen others mention, as Google, it seems, are now parsing the infoboxes, though I am wary of mixing up database entry and article layout). The important thing is to clearly define the role of an infobox in relation to the lead of an article and the overall text of an article, and not have the roles overlap. Do you think you would have time to contribute to some of the discussions, or help write the essay/guideline? Carcharoth 12:09, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'll try, if I overcome my semi-retirement that I've been in the last week or so. The aim I had was to prevent the imposition of boxes that weren't needed, or at least guide discussions where a box is and is not wanted. Some things can be standardized, and some things can't. I don't think biographies can. I don't think that people are consistent, and so I oppose trying to make them so, and I also don't think works of literature are standard, either, except in the broadest possible sense. I.e. I'm concerned with the lack of process involved in applying them, the lack of agreement on them, and yet the seeming, "We have spoken: all shall be indexed" approach that the box fans were taking. If we were to allow inconsistent subjects to have a mask like a box, we'd really need to listen to the most skeptical person and include only those things that absolutely everyone agreed upon. E.g. for poetry, I might agree with "Romantic movement/Date/Language," but not "ballad" or "Revolutionary" or "Major works of William Wordsworth." A box with three fields would be lovely, and useless, because the categories would do the same thing. Geogre 12:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Yeah. I'd just noticed that the standard boilerplate that the biography wikiproject spam on the talkpages of 'their' articles asserts: "this article needs [sic] an infobox". I'm poised with the retort "no, it fucking well doesn't".--Doc^g 13:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Just do what I do Doc, and quietly remove it [4] I have done this many times and they have never noticed, or perhaps they are just too frightened to challenge me! Let me know if you want me to do one for you. Giano 14:06, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• "some might say that this article needs ... but I could not possibly comment" or "this article may need..." -- ALoan (Talk) 15:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• When Aloan I write a page that needs an info box, I will add it. That happy day has yet to arrive! Giano 17:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to go and change 'needs' to 'may need', and while I'm at it, I've remembered Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Infoboxes and WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article... I tried that once, but gave up around step 8 (after missing out step 4 of course). Carcharoth 17:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course, it was protected. I left a request, but I don't hold up much hope. Carcharoth 18:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I shouldn't have been so cynical. It has been changed! Carcharoth 23:58, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Doc about the biography infoboxes being overpressed. I've just remembered something else about infoboxes. Sometimes there is a tendancy to include parameters that will only apply to a small subset of the articles where the infobox is used, but then, when looking at the infobox, it becomes tricky to work out which articles are using the parameter, and which aren't. Have a look at Template talk:Infobox Writer#Magnum Opus for how I generated a list of articles that used the 'magnum opus' parameter. I used a category-based system, but CBD suggested an 'invisible link' method that is much less intrusive, and gets the same results. The list ended up at User:Carcharoth/Magnum opus. The discussion at the talk page of the template ended up with another user just removing the parameter from the template. A random look at the pages on that list show that a lot of them still have the "magnum opus=something" bit, but obviously it doesn't display anymore. As the edit was not to the page, no-one who watchlisted the pages noticed, but equally they don't seem to have noticed it not being there when they read the infobox visually (if they do). Strange. Giano, I applaud your removal of a template from a page. Have you ever removed a parameter from a template and had it not challenged (yet)? Carcharoth 14:13, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

WTF is a parameter in a template? Giano 17:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It is like a database field. The things like "birth date", "name", "mother", "father, "name of pet", "number of fingers" - that sort of thing. Each of those is a 'parameter' in a template. You put in "9" for Frodo, and it will say "number of fingers = 9". To use a silly example. Carcharoth 17:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you know the templates with multiple options? One of the citation templates, perhaps - {{cite web}}, for example? You can use the template with multiple "X=something, Y=somethingelse" entries:

{{cite web

| url =

| title =

| accessdate =

| accessmonthday =

| accessyear =

| author =

| last =

| first =

| authorlink =

| coauthors =

| date =

| year =

| month =

| format =

| work =

| publisher =

| pages =

| language =

| archiveurl =

| archivedate =

| quote =

}}

and it displays according to the ones you use. You also leave lots of them out as well or instead. Each of the "X=" and "Y=" things is a parameter. HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Far too complicated - you can sort that sort of thing out for me, by the way have you seen that award on my page that won't display - could you sort it for me?....please? Giano 17:45, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It looks complicated, but it is easy, really, like the ref thing, once you get used to it. I never bother with them myself, as it happens, although Yomangani seems to use them all the time. Shrug. Which award? -- ALoan (Talk) 17:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• The one that says "The Pleiades (photograph by Rochus Hess) are awarded to you for being a star. -- FClef (talk) 02:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)" but has no foto - go on ALoan sort it out for me - you are clever at things like that. Giano 23:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Strange. That category I created got got deleted. Can anyone have a look and remind me what I wrote there? The deleting admin seems to be on a wikibreak. I'm sure I explained there that the category shouldn't be deleted without having the courtesy to ask me first. But maybe I left a note saying delete if not needed. Can anyone around here confirm what the content of the deleted page was? Carcharoth 14:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It was deleted as a defunct empty category after it was depopulated. Before it was deleted, it said:

Category for people marked as having written a magnum opus in the Template Infobox Writer. The category was temporarily populated by adding [[Category:Magnum opus writers]] to the magnum opus field "title section" in Template:Infobox Writer. See Template talk:Infobox Writer for details and the reason for carrying out this operation. The category was then depopulated by removing the tag, after the contents of the category had been copied and made into a list.

HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Infoboxes are like cookie cutters — which are fine for cookies. Paul August ☎ 20:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Yes yes yes and here we go again [5] one of my least known and favourite pages, I know I don't own them, but I do spend ages trying to make them look attractive to read to drag the punters in - why do people do this? Giano 14:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

What, Brympton House? ;) And AEJ Collins. Sigh. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Restoration literature

Restoration literature has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

-- mattb @ 2007-02-06T06:10Z

Ecomorphism

A student from Cornell claims to have invented a neologism - Ecomorphism, although this shows someone else claiming the term neither of them would pass notability criteria I'd have thought (and I wonder about the guys motive for writing it up on wikipedia) - so do I move to have it deleted and risk alienating a potentially good and otherwise capable architecture writer, or is there a wiser Geogre-like path to follow? --Mcginnly | Natter 13:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ecomorphism and left a pleasant message on his talk page. --Mcginnly | Natter 13:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

• My feeling would be that it's best to reason with the author frankly. Just explain that we don't allow protologisms or even neologisms. If you speak to him as if he's a person who can handle the truth, he may turn out to be someone who can handle it. I think we go wrong both with the excessive delicacy of wikilove and much more commonly (since wikilove was last spotted on Wikipedia in 2004) the arrogant accusations of vandalism and the like. We definitely need more people editing in their strengths, but worthy contributors can understand our rules against original research.
• Dear X, I saw your article on Ecomorphism. Regardless of the term's origin or usage, we may not be able to have an article on it at this time. Wikipedia has pretty strong rules against original research (WP:NOR, if you want to read it), and we avoid any lexical matters in the encyclopedia anyway (since Wiktionary is our wiki dictionary). At the same time, we definitely welcome and respect solid edits from educated users on economics and architecture. Because of the policy against original research, I've listed your Ecomorphism at WP:AFD, as that's the process we use whenever there is an article that violates the deletion guidelines. Please stick around, be bold with editing, and don't take any of this personally. Welcome to Wikipedia. ~~~~
• That's about all I'd do. If he's going to freak out that his personal vanity must be stroked by the article, we don't need him, whatever his educational level, but most people aren't like that unless they feel like they're getting insulted by the AfD voters. Geogre 22:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I seem to have soaked up all of the wikilove - but Ecomorphic design seems to be a real thing - [6] and [7] plus many more more Google hits - the second has references going back to 1992. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Check again

Geogre, compare the timestamps for these edits:

• 07:41, February 7, 2007: LuciferMorgan's last edit to that page
• 09:38, February 7, 2007; your warning.

So this edit seems to be in error. Oh you English lit guys. Paul August ☎ 03:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• So he's just not posting to the page. In other words, he won't be nice, but he's not doing more. Ok. I don't want to start blocking people anyway. Geogre 11:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, and "apologize or I'll block you" is not going to elicit a healthy change in behaviour.
  • If a block is ever required for Lucifer, I think it would do more harm than good if you instituted it, Geogre. Ask Yomangani, Kirill, or somebody else who is familiar with him but not involved in the shouting on FAR, to check his behaviour. Marskell 11:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
    • And I should add that I hope a block is never required for Lucifer. He does want to help out, despite being tempermental. Marskell 11:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, we are used to temperamental (with the emphasis on "temper" and "mental"). It is usually best to let people shoot their mouths off - it just makes them look silly. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• I disagree with you, Marksell. I'm not very involved with that user. I haven't commented to him, I believe, on the FAR page. On the other hand, as strenuously as I argue against blocking for "NPA" and against "apologize or else," I argue for blocking anyone who demonstrates an ongoing effort at disrupting a page. For example, the user Ideogram may not curse, but he has shown a willingness to sidetrack discussions onto his favorite subject. That would make disruption, with or without NPA. (Fortunately, it hasn't fallen to me, because in that case I am involved.) What folks asked for, here, was not an apology, but a removal of the profanity and anger-interlaced comments. That's very different. I never expect "apologize or else" to do anything but increase the heat. Anyway, that's my view: the FAR was changing focus from the article to "how unhappy are you about things that have happened elsewhere and in the past?" That was disruptive. I can't imagine what all the "let's block Giano for saying he doesn't like IRC" people would do with those comments. Geogre 12:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess I must be one of your favorite subjects, Geogre. --Ideogram 14:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Just my favorite example, I'm afraid. Geogre 21:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll thank you to try to make your points in the future without using me as an example. But then, you never were any good at separating your personal animosities from what you were trying to say. You could have left my name out of it; instead here we are engaged in a meaningless conversation not at all related to your point. But if you want to continue, I am your loyal servant. --Ideogram 21:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Well, Bishonen did write "I'm willing to take an apology. A good one." I don't see that that will accomplish much. And while you're right that you haven't actually directed anything to him there, he won't perceive a block as even-handed. But disruption is disruption, as you suggest. We can only hope he is calm when coming back (he actually hasn't edited in a day).

• • And it was all predictable. When I saw the review go up, I hung my head. I actually posted first in the hopes of averting disaster. Alas. At least some people have had fun on the review talk page. Marskell 13:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• Bishonen was quite clearly referring to the attack on her integrity and reputation, an attack which was a tissue of lies. Nothing more, nothing less. She is quite within her rights to ask for a complete retraction. I am surprised people cannot see that simple fact, understand her reaction and support it. It is totally amazing that one can report the truth of hapenings on IRC and have half of wikipedia demented with rage, and a week later another editor can launch an attack based on nothing but lies and vitriol and no one seems to bat an eye. Giano 13:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, this debate (when inline citations - by which I mean any form of inline citation, inote, footnote, Harvard or otherwise - are necessary, how many are necessary) has been going on for nearly 2 years - look at the links I posted, and the comments by Filiocht (of blessed memory) in 2005. Short of policy being imposed like a deus ex machina, I doubt this issue is going to be resolve any time soon, particularly by a featured article review.

Yes, the allegations against Bishonen were patently false, as anyone who knows anything about her knows; on that basis, the allegations just made the allegeor look angry and daft. I'm sure Bish is quite upset, and completely understanad and agree with her polite request for an apology and a retraction. On the other hand, I would not support a block if they were not forthcoming - I thought we were against banning people for speaking their mind, or as a punishment, or to help them "cool off"? So long as a person can be reasoned with, and they are not being too disruptice, surely it is better to change their mind than to silence them? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:51, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You are correct ALoan, I am against people being blocked for speaking their mind. People telling blatent lies in order to damage the reputation of another in an attempt to win an argument is quite another matter. There is no doubt he is deliberatly lying (diffs are easy ti find) - therefore a retraction is necessary. Giano 15:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey I've just noticed they've done something to cite.php - you can now define the citation anywhere in the article and then list the additional citations as you please - all of the old, ridiculous slog of writing the first occurance of the citation in full has gone - yipee! Christ, it must be time for a wikibreak...........--Mcginnly | Natter 13:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, I wasn't suggesting an apology isn't warranted: Lucifer was totally off it in his posts, while Bishonen's first post was totally amiable. I'm only suggesting that actually asking for an apology isn't going to accomplish anything with such a volatile editor. If he posts the little olive branch imagine on her page, great; if he comes back and starts cursing at everybody, he probably will get a block; if it's silence or respectful, on-topic disagreement, let's let the dog sleep.

As for the IRC issue, I have not followed it, will not follow it, and am indifferent when hearing it described. I could care less—in the best sense of the phrase. (That means, in part, that I have no pre-judgements regarding any of the editors talking here). Marskell 14:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The IRC issue shouldn't be at play. There is a rather hopeless tangle of "Giano is a bad person," "Tony Sidaway got blocked?!," "Kelly Martin got indicted?!," "Giano is a bad person," "IRC is a fun place to organize blocks," "Geogre said something about Kelly Martin and must die," "Why can't we block Giano without warning," "NPA is the law and it means blocks," and about a dozen other things all flowing together, and this "catastraf*ck" (quoting Jon Stewart on Iraq) gets called a bunch of different things. None of them are meaningfully referring, though.

For me, there are two large axes: NPA and IRC. For some people, NPA has silently come to mean, "Make a comment that I can interpret as mean, and I can block you." Under that illogic, several people have gotten blocks. I disagreed with NPA ever getting formulated, much less being called a policy. As it is, though, it does not read as its first authors wished it to read. It says that we don't flame each other and that in a very extreme case a block could possibly result. I have never blocked for personal attacks and do not anticipate doing so, although I can always make room for an extrarordinary case. Tony Sidaway blocked Giano for, essentially, disagreeing (there wasn't even a witticism involved), then blocked again to "cool off." That got Tony blocked. That then set off a storm of navel gazing and incrimination that, one way or another, continues to this day.

The other issue, IRC, is also not as new as the hostilities show. I and others don't like IRC for official communication or official actions. I think it's fine for chattering. When an "admins only" IRC channel was proposed, I opposed it. I still do. When that channel was used to propose, justify, and gather up an executor of a block, with nothing written on the Wikipedia, it set off another storm. The fact that some of the people involved were the same ones as the previous case just allowed for a massive pile on. There's no reason for it to be invoked here, much less discussed.

Anyway, I think Bishonen has a right to ask him to retract his statement, but I never read it as "retract or I'll block you": it looked more like "retract it or be an evil and unfit person who will have earned enmity of an innocent bystander." What's irksome is that Bishonen, Giano, and I, and certainly we and ALoan, Paul August, Filiocht (of sacred memory), Bunchofgrapes, and any other one cares to name don't work to watch each others' backs. We disagree with each other visibly and vocally. We do not demand unanimity. We do tend to agree on what articles are well written, but I think that has to do with other factors. (See ALoan and Mcginnly happy about footnoting systems, up there? Bishonen's FA's use footnotes. I think I'm an army of one when it comes to loathing them.) I saw LuciferMorgan's comments as an attempt to wave a flag and try to gather up allies and infect the discussion with a "Giano/IRC/Bishonen/you're-all-friends" bit of nonsense. (Sorry for going long. I have a to-the-point comment about the FAR to make, but I suppose I'll make it on your talk page.) Geogre 21:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

"The IRC issue shouldn't be at play". I was thinking "I could care less" covered that. Marskell 22:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Feb 8

I'm consumed with the death of A.N. Smith this evening. Can you believe it?

Regarding people who are long dead, and writing articles about them and having them FACed and then having them FARed and lets everybody waste time, I have e-mailed you; I would actually prefer to talk in the e-mail forum. As I say in my e-mail, this is a lot of shit for me as much as it is you for you. Marskell 22:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe it either. --Ideogram 22:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of the Vox

May I ask why "the Vox" article was deleted? Thank you for your help. Tydalwave1 00:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)Tydalwave1

It was a local concern. In other words, by being merely a local favorite or locally significant venue, it failed our minimum requirements of "notability." It was no hostility, but rather an assessment that the article made no claim for the venue's wider significance. Even being the only club in town wouldn't establish such a thing. What separates this venue from all others? What makes it an entry in an encyclopedia rather than in a business listing? Geogre 15:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

RestLit and footies

Forget my note two threads up, and my e-mail if you like, which were written after the vodka ran out. If you're willing "to satisfy the FAR people by using annotative footnotes" we don't need e-mails. I was just looking for a way avoid six people talking at once. So yes, I was thinking "discussed in..." notes, but for the secondary sources, as well as the primary: "...located in his Siege of Rhodes. For a full examination of Davenant's style, see Smith, chapter 3..."

In the references there are specific works that a reader can match to a primary author, such as the bios for Behn and the curious Robert Gould. But how are, say, A Handbook to Literature and The Creation of the Modern World being used? I'm assuming those are massive tomes; it's fair to at least point to chapters that were read in drawing up the page in a footnote or two. I've written to Bishonen that this isn't just window dressing. Your average college student could actually use a page like this for a honeypot of sources. He or she probably already knows The Pilgrim's Progress is "an allegory of personal salvation and a guide to the Christian life" but where to find more info? I know, I know, the blue links are there, but as far as FAR goes, pointing to the blue links is asking people to trust that Geogre wrote and is maintaining all of them...

As for size, "comprehensiveness, not length" is the mantra. Sandy suggests people avoid more than 40k of article prose per WP:SIZE or one of the other guidelines (there's some script that can be run to tally main prose separate from overhead), but there are no hard rules. Marskell 09:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• I'll look into annotating, but the thing is length, again. It's already a very long article. I would like to annotate and give the readers some clues, if they need them, to at least indicate where in an author's work the information is. I'm not sure about digging page numbers, though. I will if I can, but I'll go to chapters if we're talking about critical commonplaces. Geogre 03:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• • I know you don't like the footnotes, but if you note "See Rosen, Ancients and Morderns chapter 10, for more on..." in footnote form, no one concerned about length will count it toward the core prose. And at a glance, I'd say this one is long, but not unusually so for an FA. A few extra KB is an easy trade-off to have a good settlement we can point to in future. Augustan literature, Restoration comedy, the Cantos (noted on Bishonen's talk)—inevitably, these are going to land on FAR because of some random nominator. I would be stupendously delighted if, rather than having a week of flame posts, we could just say "see what was done at Restoration Lit. No biggie."

• • The other issue is your time and internet access. We've left FARs up as long as ten weeks. You can always leave a note on the review detailing when you can work. Marskell 12:03, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Something beginning with C

Perhaps a compliment, or perhaps another C: I have noticed this kind of thing with my some of my biography articles before and kept quiet about it:

Compare my article on Elisabeth Rivers-Bulkeley with an article published in The Herald[8] yesterday. Now, my article was admittedly sourced from the obits in The Daily Telegraph and a report - now subscription required - in The Financial Times, but, hopefully in sufficiently different words to avoid the charge of copyvio (there are only so many ways of reporting the same bare facts); however, many turns of phrase in the Herald article come directly from mine. The Herald article also has some original reporting, and, to complete the circle, I have added it as a source, as it broke the news that she was assisted to commit suicide in Switzerland, but even so... -- ALoan (Talk) 11:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Someone's copying someone. "she remarried, to Robert Rivers-Bulkeley, shortly after he retired from the Scots Guards" "Her father was a car manufacturer with anti-Nazi views. He disappeared in around 1942, and could not be located after the end of the Second World War. Her mother survived ..." "visited England in 1938 with the intention of returning to school in Switzerland but remained in England after Germany invaded [Austria]. She was classed as an enemy alien in 1940 " (Which raises a question for me, which country did Germany invade? Switzerland, or England. Either would be news to me.) "She became a successful broker and also wrote columns of investment and financial management advice for women for the Daily Telegraph, undertook lecture tours and was a guest on Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4 and The Money Programme on BBC TV." And that's just by eyeball till I got tired of it. Anyone have access to turn it in? Regards, Ben Aveling 11:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. Of course you're being ripped off. The problem is that we're GFDL. Therefore, The Herald can rip us off all it likes, if it gives us credit and does not charge. Newspapers crib from each other by habit and practice, and they crib from encyclopedias without reference all the time. It was only a matter of a few seconds before we became the ripped. Can you turn them in? I suppose. The person to turn them in to, though, would be Foundation folks. Perhaps we could ask them for a contribution. Your words are echoed all over the web, now. If you do a Google search, you will find about 50 to 100 of our mirrors out there carrying exactly your words. It's possible that one of those was the immediate source. It is important, of course, for you to document which came first, at least for yourself, on the talk page to the article so that no one in the future accuses us/it of being the copyist. Geogre 11:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, I cribbed my article from the sources cited in the article - compare my article to the Telegraph obit - but I try to only copy the facts and write them in my own way (often rather difficult, when you get down to bare facts). The Herald has a byline - Lucy Adams, Home Affairs Correspondent. I had not noticed the "...visited England in 1938 with the intention of returning to school in Switzerland but remained in England after Germany invaded"(!) (our article ends "...remained in England after Germany invaded Austria" - looks like a sloppy cut and paste to me).

I don't mind Wikipedia being scraped - most of them tell the reader that the content originally came from Wikipedia. I do mind when my words appear under someone else's byline. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Imitation and all that is the sincerest form of flattery, I'm just concerned nobody seems to want to copy me! Giano 12:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Heh - have you seen versions of Dürer's Rhinoceros in French, German and Spanish? <smug>

Anyway, the timing in this case is pretty clear: I created my article on 16 January, sourced from the Telegraph obit and the FT piece; it was a Main Page DYK on 21 January; and the Herald piece was published yesterday, 8 February. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

This is plagerism plain and simple. An email poiting this out to the editors of The Herald would be the thing. Paul August ☎ 18:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have not sent an e-mail yet - is there a central place I should be reporting this sort of thing? (Remarkably, The Times only got around to publishing an obit today - I wonder if they were waiting for the assisted suicide to come to become public knowledge...?) -- ALoan (Talk) 14:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

LM

At the risk of starting the blaze again, I wanted to reply to a couple of comments that you made (and others) on LM's talk page, but did not want to awaken the hornets nest there again. Given that you raised most of the points I wanted to reply to, I have resorted to dumping it here.

• First, and most importantly, I think the only substantial piece of unfinished business is that LM ought to do something about the initial accusation which triggered the debate, on the FAR page, as Paul August has requested. I have already added a comment to the FAR, but it would be so much better for LM to strike the comments from the record.
• LM's behaviour on the FAR (casting wild accusations and being very uncivil) was indeed very bad. Very much more and I would have supported a block - for disruption, not for simply saying bad things. I agree with LM, actually, that it would have been best to bring the issue to the attention of an uninvolved admin on ANI, rather than you or Bish or I (or Raul654 for that matter) blocking. There is a time for kicking over the traces - particularly when the kicks are aimed accurately, as we have seen in the near past - but it is a risky strategy, particular if the kicks are not so well aimed.
• As you say, Giano does indeed have a point about the e-mails - it is very much to be regretted that some people seem to be, in Giano's words, "emailing unsolicited lies and venom about their own particular enemy of the day". However, I doubt that further messages on LM's talk page will elicit any information about the source those e-mails (although I am sure we can all hazard guesses as to their origin) and it could very well drive LM away from the project. I would not want to be a part of precipitating the latter.
• Given Sandy's subsequent message to me, I am not entirely sure who she thought were the "poking" admins (you? Paul August? Raul654? Giano, even though he is not an admin?). Not a very nice characterisation, who ever she was talking about. But I do understand her point about stopping. These disputes have a tendancy to burn out of control, spreading uncontrollably across multiple pages as each reader has to add their own cup of gasoline to the bonfire. Eventually someone has to reach for the off button. That was what I was trying to achieve with my messages to Giano. I could not see anything good coming out of going back and forth again and again. I think that is also why she deleted Giano's posts to her talk page - she just had no inclination to discuss the issue any more - although it may have been more productive to simply say so.
• Yes, as has been pointed out, LessHeard vanU was grossly uncivil in asking Sandy to "fuck off". I understand that they reached an understanding about that without outside interference - perhaps there are lessons to be learned in how quickly that potential flash-point was resolved.

Anyway, it looks like this is blowing/has blown over for now. Sigh. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• I cannot agree with you, ALoan. I wish the I could, but I cannot, because, fundamentally, I saw LM's comments as an attempt at massive disruption that failed. His comments about Giano, Bishonen, and "intimidation" seemed to be an effort at flagging down the general "Giano must be banned" crowd. I.e. it looked like an attempt at dragging in not only extraneous, but vindictive elements to turn the FAR page into yet another intestine-gnawing fight. I don't regard LM as a very high profile problem. Neither do I care much about Sandy.
• I do think that Sandy's efforts at instituting a regime of footnotes without review or consideration is a way of stopping FA's altogether without helping them, but for her herself, I really don't care. Therefore, I regard myself as unconnected. LM did not insult me, and I didn't insult him. The fact that I agree with Giano doesn't impugn my judgment, and I think it's a ridiculous precedent to set to say that people in agreement automatically forfeit their objectivity. At least I do not. If James Forrester needn't recuse when it comes to the en.admins.irc channel, then surely recusal is not a high priority.
• Sandy's comments about "poking" was, of course, dismissive and insulting, as was her refusal to answer a polite query from Giano, as she made a comment directly about him and then would not explain herself. Giano was following the recommended steps in dispute resolution. She was not. I should not care for it to continue, but another way for it to cease is for the person alledging the demotable offense by Bishonen to retract that statement. It stops then. Another is for Sandy not to make unjustified comments about the personalities of other editors and administrators.
• My concern was solely that LM was attempting to disrupt the project significantly. The attempt failed, and I'm glad of that. However, if I feel that he is again attempting disruption, I will block him for that. I don't care about the dirty words, but shouting, "Fight! Fight!" and trying to arrange a rumble is disruption. The rumble didn't materialize (for once), but the user needs a strong and unalloyed warning about the attempt. That is what I was offering, and having it second-guessed was off-putting. Geogre 21:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oh dear. Well, the remarks on the FAR certainly seemed to me like an attempt at disruption, although it thankfully petered ou, but I saw it as railing at the result of the Palladian Architecture FAR rather than invoking "Giano" as a call to arms (the responses to Marskell were just as bitter as those to Giano or you). If the usual suspects had been interested, I am sure they would have turned up in force.
• Neither LM nor Sandy are particularly high profile, but they are two of the more active participants at FAR, and it is a necessary process (some of the articles under review are quite shocking). The best that can happen - and it happens reasonably frequently these days - is that an article is brushed up meet everyone's requirements - look at Parliament Acts or Anne of Great Britain.
• When it comes to blocks, I think the blocker's motive needs to be beyond reproach. We have all seen what happens when that is not the case. I know that it is a frequent refrain of the blocked that the blocker is somehow involved (often simply by virtue of having reverted a case of vandalism or having given a warning first) but this does not seem to me like such a simple case (where the objection can be dismissed out of hand). In any event, outside review is helpful. Perhaps my qualms about blocking are why I don't do it very often. Anyway, there is not much point debating the hypothetical.
• As I said, I thought Sandy should have given a short response to Giano, rather than just removing his comments (and the edit summaries were less than helpful). But it is surely possible to comment on a matter, and then withdraw from further discussion. There is no obligation on an editor to talk to another editor. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The deathchooser Bishhildr, riding into battle, has no need of "sweet defenders".

Absolutely no obligation to talk to another editor, as such. But to offer a drive-by attack while simultaneously declaring the subject closed is surely a poor way of not-talking. So are dramatic edit summaries about how aloof from "drama" one is.

Anyhow. Geogre, you seem to be saying conflict continues because LM's accusations about me committing de-sysoppable offenses are still up on the FAR page? In that case it really shouldn't continue, because I can't say I'm bothered. It was nice of LM to write to me on my page and withdraw what he'd said, there's no need for him to do anything more. The FAR issue is over as far as I'm concerned, it's fine. Don't worry about it, Lucifer. Geogre, it's very sweet of you and Paul August to be concerned for my rep, but I have a hard time imagining a situation where it would matter. If I had a dime for every time I've been called something de-sysoppable... This site is full of hasty accusations, most of them still sitting on the pages where they were first posted. Heck, the last person I blocked, a few days ago, informed me on their page that I'm so flagrantly biased it's impossible to take me seriously. Is that eating away at my peace of mind and my good admin name? Nah.

That said, I can easily understand that Giano, in contrast to me, is still angry about what went down on FAR and elsewhere. Is it open season on him or something? Neither SandyGeorgia nor LM have withdrawn any of the attacks against him.[9] [10] [11] So, he can't be de-sysopped because he's not a sysop—does that mean insulting him is more acceptable than insulting me? It shouldn't. Bishonen | talk 15:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Well, for my part, it wasn't actually about you, dear. LM was saying a thing Untrue, but he was saying something that had within it an implicit threat, a statement about collusion and lack of integrity that I viewed as an effort at singing a refrain of an old song. I know you're above needing a recantation, but I feel like there are outrageous comments, and then there are outrages. This was the latter. I concur that there need to be apologies to Giano, if apologies are being offered, but I'm not so keen on apologies. As Samuel Butler (the good one, not the Erewhon one) said, "He who complies against his will/ Is of his own opinion still." Instead, I wanted a retraction/removal of the statement as a way of officially, and in his own voice, calling off the hounds. That's just me, though. Best of all would be never trying that junk (calling in another fight into a project page) again. Geogre 21:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course it is not open season on Giano. Yomangani, KillerChihuahua and Kirill Lokshin complained about the tone of LM's remarks immediately in the FAR. I was not around until about 10am on the morning on the 7th, by which time Geogre and Marskell were already on LM's talk page. Later, after your request for an apology, I added a comment saying that an apology was due, as the allegations (towards you and Giano) were blatantly untrue. Would Giano like an apology too? Perhaps he should ask for one, like you did.

My concern on the 10th was that the focus of the dispute seemed to be slipping from LM to Sandy. Sandy's initial comment was to complain about "five, six (I've lost count) admins poke at Lucifer"; she then complained about her comment being moved (which it was). There was no need for Giano's comeback "If you bother to check the history the only person who has moved your post is you" (also wrong, actually - LessHeard vanU did it, as he admitted, before regrettably launching into his own tirade). He has since apologised to Marskell and to you. It would be nice if LM apologised to everyone he attacked, including Giano. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Me? Ask for an apology? You take that back, young man! :-P I most certainly did not ask for an apology. (I did request a retraction.)[12]. Marskell, you, and Yomangani asked LM to apologize to me; *I* didn't. Not wanting to sound ungrateful here—I did appreciate the support—but I'm still unpleasantly struck by the contrast, whereby nobody asked LM to apologize to Giano, his prime target. If anybody did, I can't find it. That contrast is why I conclude it's open season on Giano. What happened to Defend each other? ""Model Desired Behavior: if someone else is attacked, defend them." Bishonen | talk 18:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Take a look ALoan [13] Giano 16:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I had to check twice, to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me, but surely that is LessHeard vanU moving comments from above Sandy to below Sandy (giving the impression that Sandy's comments have been moved)? Just as I said above? Or am I missing something? If so, can you please point out what it is? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a technical point - the diff shows Sandy's comment as staying still while the comments above it are moved down, but it could just as well show her comment being moved up (it's a display decision in the coding). The page was rearranged around her comment, which gives the impression of moving it. Agreed, it would have been better if she hadn't gone off on one as a result, but I think that was amicably resolved between her and the mover/rearranger. (I'm not poking, just pointing). Yomangani^talk 16:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Yes ALoan, very clever!!! That is what I have been attempting to explain to Sandy after her ranting and reverting, insulting edit summaries, and not engaging the only person who moved her comment [14] was Sandy herself. Consequently she left my response to her which had been underneath it - high and dry. Of course Sandy could have read this edit here [15], I even politely drew her attention to it would have been a good idea but Sandy kept reverted all mention if it with the summary that I was baiting. I wonder why? Giano 16:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Are we talking at cross-purposes? LessHeard vanU moved some comments down (or, as Yomangani correctly points out, given that you can only discern relative changes from the diff, entirely equivalently, moved Sandy's up) [16]; that annoyed Sandy, who moved her comment back (or, I suppose, per Yomangani, put the other comments back above her comment and moved the ones that had been below her comment above it, leaving then "high and dry", as Giano says) [17] Gosh, the limitations of written communication. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

NO ALoan wrong again. She was moving her comment well away from its orininal place and away from my response to it posted underneath it [18] Giano 17:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we try to agree chronology? (I have left a few comments that I don't think are material out, but we can add them back if it helps.)

1. 00:49, 10 February 2007 - Sandy posted her "poke" comment [19]
2. 06:54, 10 February 2007 - Giano replied to it re "drip fed poison" [20]
3. 12:10, 10 February 2007 - LessHeard vanU moved something (earlier comments down, or other comments up) [21]
4. 16:35, 10 February 2007 - Sandy reunited her comment (but not the replies to it) with the earlier ones [22]
5. 17:01, 10 February 2007 - Giano told Sandy to check the edit history [23]
6. 17:02, 10 February 2007 - Giano posted on Sandy's talk page asking her to look back at LM's talk page [24]
7. 17:05, 10 February 2007 - Sandy deleted Giano's comment on her talk page ("remove baiting, not interested in the drama, pls locate the stop button") [25]
8. 17:48, 10 February 2007 - LessHeard vanU admitted to moving Sandy's comment [26]
9. 20:54, 10 February 2007 - Giano posted again to Sandy' talk page[27]
10. 20:56, 10 February 2007 - Sandy removed Giano's second comment on her talk page ("rmv, stop button") [28]
11. 22:44, 10 February 2007 - Giano posted again to Sandy's talk page [29]
12. 22:48, 10 February 2007 - Sandy removed Giano's third comment to her talk page ("stop interrupting work") [30]
13. 22:59, 10 February 2007 - Giano posted to LM's talk page, referring to his deleted comments on Sandy's talk page [31]
14. 23:08, 10 February 2007 - ALoan asked Giano to stop [32]

Yes/no? -- ALoan (Talk) 17:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

PS - sorry, Geogre, for using up so much of your talk page. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

One simple way to look at it: the sig Vera, Chuck & Dave 23:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC) immediately preceeds Sandy's posting both initially and in the disputed edit. She did, as ALoan says, reunite her comment with its original position. Marskell 17:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

At the end of the day: Sandy's comment was stationary until SANDY moved it OK? Giano 17:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Not really - Sandy's comment effectively moved up when the comments above it were moved down (the diff shows it staying in the same place, but it moved up relative to the comments that the diff shows moving down). Sandy clearly thought it had been moved, as did LessHeard vanU, and she wanted it put back where she thought she had put it. Perhaps the replies to her comments should be moved down too in LM's talk page archive?

Anyway, surely this "you moved it" "no you moved it" is a sideshow from the main event, which is the FAR and LM's comments there? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No you are trying to sidetrack the issue, the issue is that Sandy's comment remained exactly where she placed it until she moved it. When this was pointed out to her she was insolent and insulting. Giano 18:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

PS: I hope you attention to Sandy's edits has not caused you to miss Bishonen's very astute edits above [33] Giano 18:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it's "the FAR and the article itself." LM's comments were a sideshow to begin with, and we're now off-off-Broadway. And no, there's simply no way to deduce "that Sandy's comment was stationary until Sandy moved it." Another user moved it; that user admitted to moving it and has offered his own apologies (and has politely requested nobody refer to him). Marskell 18:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well if this is how the FARC page is run - I,for one, have no intention of visiting FARC or whatever it is currently called again, untill someone has cleaned that page and its inhbitants itself up. Quite frankly Sandy and Lucifer can stew down there together - they can just grab what featured articles they like and do to them what they like - invent what rules and templates they like, someone else can endure and deal with their beahaviour. They throughly deserve each other. Giano 18:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

But that would involve me taking the hemlock (or the Mister Clean, at least). I can only suggest going to the FAR archives and looking at the five dozen keeps over the last seven months. If content improvement of that sort constitutes stewing, throw me in the pot and call me a carrot. It's a shame you've only seen difficult ones. Marskell 18:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you Marskell are an exceptionly nice exception. However, I shall just continue writing, ensuring that not one word of mine ever has again the remotest possibility of ending up that place, and there is only one way to be quite sure of that - avoiding the whole FA circus altogether. Anyhow I'm done with this now <very Roman shrug and sneer> Giano 18:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

FA FAC FAR FARC

I used to enjoy the FA process. There was a time when I spent considerable time there. That's how I met Filiocht, and Geogre and Bish and Giano and ALoan and others of that ilk. I used to go to AfD (then called VfD) to work in what I considered the "basement" and when I'd had all I could stomach down there, climb the stairs up into the ivory tower to work on FA's. That seems long ago now, and I never go to FAC anymore, and only very rarely go to FARC to "defend" or "preserve" one of "my" FAs. I don't think I will do even that anymore. Perhaps we should reinstitute "Brilliant prose"? Paul August ☎ 19:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Mmm - FAC used to be the ivory tower, back in the old days (like, 18 months ago), when you could read any number of finely-crafted articles. Now it seems more of an exercise in form-filling, although some pearls do emerge - I rather like John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, a current FAC. I noticed that Giano tried to FAC Blenheim Palace a while ago but it got little interest, but it still looks pretty good.

But reinstituting some form of "brilliant prose" is an excellent idea :) Are we going to go for the original model, anyone can add any article that they like, or perhaps a club system (say one proposer, one seconder, and a blackball)? Yes - please can we have a prose club, with nice leather chairs, a well--stocked bar, and waiter service? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Amen, Paul. Once it got to "subsection 9 of the cite form C has not been fulfilled by the station chief of registrations" and that civil servant's triumph, I was uninterested. When Jack Sheppard went up, I stayed well away. There was a reason for that, other than laziness. I had been heavily involved in it earlier. Silly requirements without substance to them and the insistence on regularizing things are anathema. Poison, bad faith, and pettiness overwhelms both the elevation and demotion process. The idea that there even are long time commentators like Sandy and LM seems contrary to me. Who is an expert on all subjects? Who is a peer to all things? To be a universal reviewer, you have to be perforce a superficial reviewer. To be a gargoyle guarding the gates of FAC, you have to be looking solely at the clothes, not the person. LM's initial reaction to Restoration literature on FAR was explosive, a revival of an old grudge. It worries me that there are people so encamped at a single project page that they can even have grudges like that. (When I have been an FAC reviewer, I've stuck to the things I can do well, and (gasp!) I've read them.) Geogre 20:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess I am a long-term reviewer too. I tend to comment on two sorts of article - ones that I know reasonably well, and can comment on knoweldgeably, and ones that I do not, so confining myself to language and stylistic points. I still prefer to do the copyediting/tweaking myself, if I have the time. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't want to bring that up, but that's the other fundamental disagreement. If I see that there are stylistic issues at an article, I make the changes. If the primary authors don't want those changes, and if they rise to the level of readability, I will object. Otherwise, I won't. The point is that I would never say "criterion 2c not brilliant prose <sigh> <far too busy to explain>." I would either make the changes or not object. That's why it's not possible to be a reviewer of all FAC's. Geogre 11:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The Ultimate Solution

Well ALoan, a few hours ago you wanted an interesting subject, if ever there was an FA in the offing (which I no longer write) so from now on we are going to have what I deem to be Oklanderliga och utmärkta artiklar (catchy isn't it?) (Raul can help me adjudicate them - he'll need a job soon - if the gossip is true!) - anyway where was I? Ah yes, it is Mrs. Morley or was she Mrs. Freeman - I forget, anyway like my lovely Hannah, you can put in just as much or as little as you like about the husband, plus as much sex and violence as is fitting or encyclopedic, I would do her myself, but I like the truly sexy ones so I'm saving her for myself (I just edited her [34] God she is beautiful) So off you go ALoan and write the first of the many "oklanderliga och utmärkta" articles which will grace wikipedia. Once given, the status is guaranteed never to be removed - I am working on a template right now but of course that is for my Consuelo not your Sarah. Giano 20:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"Oklanderliga och utmärkta artiklar" - is that Danish? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's Navajo. Geogre 11:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Swedish: utmärkta artiklar and oklanderliga is something like flawless which makes Giano's version stricter than the Swedish wikipedia. I bet it is just added to stop us cutting and pasting the Swedish featured articles directly (det var synd, vad ska vi göra nu?) Yomangani^talk 13:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

My translator gave Oklanderliga as irreproachable which is perhaps more apt. --Mcginnly | Natter 14:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, how can I take a language seriously if is has no featured article on a certain 16th-century armoured mammal of our acquaintance, or heroic East End wide boy? On the positive side, sv:Jonathan Wild has a funny blue star - Jonathan Wild ... var en av de mest berömda förbrytarna i England (Jonathan Wild was one of the most widely hated men in England, perhaps?) After the self-proclaimed Tjuvfångargeneral met his death by hängning (!), he inspired the Tiggarens opera and the Tolvskillingsoperan. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

"famous criminals" not "widely hated men" - Swedish looks nastier than it is. Yomangani^talk 14:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you a Swede by any chance, Yomangani? -- ALoan (Talk)

I like ice cream with cloudberry sauce and a good game of Kubb and I sometimes scream "Burn Bockjaevel" while I'm sleeping, but no, I'm not. Yomangani^talk 15:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That sticky game looks awfully familiar. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Also feel free list excellent copy-edits at new page Bishzilla/FARCE ! Bishzilla | grrrr! 22:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

What I've got to say about it

I'm content to let the past be passed and have been. I think Sandy's actions have been boorish, under the best interpretation, and they have been a clear case of flaunting the recommended dispute resolution process. I can't imagine that anyone wants to go up the ladder on that particular time sink, though. LM's comments were petulant and misguided, in my view, and I considered them disruptive. If he's not disrupting more, so be it, but I think any effort to divert a river of conflict from one page into another to be a very bad thing, and I will block for it. The problems with FAC/FAR are, from my point of view, clear. I know full well that some people disagree wholeheartedly. I should love to point to my content contributions in comparison to theirs, but that's not the point. The point is solely whether they are correct or not. They could write never a word in article space and be right or wrong. However, I apply, and some other people do, too, genuine academic standards, which is ostensibly what our "references needed" is about. We need to make sure our facts are verifiable. However, the wiki method means that one FAC voter says, "It's too looooong" and another "It's too shooooort," and one FAR person says, "Footnote 'sky is made of air'," while another says, "The footnotes are useless and all to online sources." Committees don't decide FAC or FAR for good reason: they can't. As long as the din of "footnotes by my favorite format are a requirement, and I live here, so don't hope to pass by me" is dominant, I will consciously avoid specific references and thereby avoid any article I write the bulk of from getting nominated to FAC. Geogre 21:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Geogre,

"I'm content to let the past be passed and have been." That's good. Regarding exact "right and wrongs," on the "sidetrack" and the "sidetrack to the sidetrack", it's been established that:

• "LM's comments were petulant and misguided."
• Sandy did not in fact "move" her comment, but reunited it with its original place.

Beyond that, I respectfully say you're conflating. A dead horse (this really is a dead one—we're mutilating the beast) on FAC/FAR is not FAC/FAR itself. There are threads open to move toward the right meeting of "cite every line" (which I don't think you want and, which, I'm rapidly deciding, I don't either) to "point the reader somewhere for the bulk of the content" (which, I've seen at least, you'd agree with).

If you want to point to "content contributions", point to them. Sandy's are (literally) an order of magnitude greater than yours and mine over the last six months. Marskell 21:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that last statement sincerely. Templates and tags are not content contributions. They're formatting contributions. -Bots can put any of us to shame in that regard. More to the point, the ... well... let me politely call it the rage for order involved in format contributions is actually somewhat alien to the messy, anarchic impulse behind shaping narratives. Encyclopedia articles are a form of imposing order on the universe, but they are a form of imposing entropy on it, too. <academic aside> The strict order is lexical, where a term's multiple contexts are limited to those of most frequent use. Encyclopedic knowledge adds contexts to a term and shows the term operating in as many contexts as possible in a meaningful way. The limitation is "meaning." The encyclopedist limits and expands contexts, imposing will on the potentially infinite discourse and imposing creativity on the limitations of lexicality. </academic aside> I don't much care about Sandy's moves, but she was flying in the face of dispute resolution when she was asked to explain and not to be rude and simply reverted (and insulted in the process). As for going back to FAC, I'm not sure. I poked my nose in from time to time, but LM's comments showed, as I pointed out, that he was simmering, harboring, and continuing. The last time I did say something (a bit forceful, I'm sure), Sandy did the same: "Another FAC ruined by you." That kind of, "I live here, and I remember every quarrel, and I continue every time out" is pretty corrosive. Geogre 00:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between placing a cite request (which the editor in question almost never does) and making small, but needed minors. If someone makes my dashes and date formats consistent, removes a typo, makes a cite.php correction, audits for clunkers in the prose, and rvv's along the way, I consider it a content contribution—an incredibly tedious content contribution that few people do in full. And I don't find it stifles creativity in the slightest, but actually aids it, because back-of-the-brain hesitations over form slow down the primary work of filling out pages (2007-02-14 like the last page I looked at, or 14 February 2007 as Nature and Science are wont to do?...). As for being asked to explain, the Q&A above from last night speaks for itself.

Anyhow, I only popped up again to see if you were coming back to the review (I doubt LM is, on that particular one). If you're not, I guess it'll muddle along. Perhaps Yomangani will make one of his splashes. Marskell 09:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Holy smokes

Just seen John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough on FAC here. It is written from a military standpoint, but balanced by an overview of the political intrigue. I am sure there are many areas that could be addressed in more detail. I have given some comments, but perhaps you have a few dimes to add (2 cents may be insufficient). -- ALoan (Talk) 15:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, my goodness! Does the author appreciate why it's impossible? There is a new biography written every year, just about, and each of them is panned by some/most reviewers because none of them can manage, in book length, a fair representation of Marlborough in each sphere. He's such a different person with the Queen, with Godolphin, with the Opposition, with Walpole, with the Hanoverians, with His Wife, with his troops, with his political aspirations, with his money, with his letters, that trying to contain all of that disparate, divergent coverage in any article that doesn't spawn daughter after daughter is just impossible. I will read with charity, though, and hope that it's a short article that hints all the explosive discussion rather than attempts to fairly represent it all. Geogre 21:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster

An editor has asked for a deletion review of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article or speedy-deleted it, you might want to participate in the deletion review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayvdb (talk • contribs) 13:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have done. I deleted on the basis that the article had been around for months with no improvement and yet managed to never once explain where the thing is or to cite verification for what it had done. Geogre 21:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Gail Nelson

Hello. I just noticed that you speedied this article based on both A7 and on BLP. I don't remember anything about BLP, but will gladly accept your assertion that it violated that. I am pretty sure however that the article did assert notability as all of the Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA state titleholders' articles are marked as being winners of their state pageant. I respectfully request that you restore this article, or, if you feel that the BLP can not be published, please place a copy of the article in my userspace as a subpage with the critical information removed so that I may use it as the starting point for a new article. Regards --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 03:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• If, as you say, every state winner for Miss America and Miss USA has an article, then we need an RFC on the matter. The problem is not that these women should never be spoken of, but rather that this is frequently the extent of their biographical accomplishments. Given the fact that there are 50 states and sometimes 52 winners per year, we are looking at 350 articles with little more than "born here, won this" just to cover these for one pageant from 2000 and 700 virtually empty articles for both pageants. A biography should cover a life, and these young women are really starting their lives. Therefore, a simple mention for each woman in the article on the state pageant is best, with no link to a separate article, unless the women go on to be notable for something else (becoming the national winner, fame in another sphere). Geogre 11:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was not saying that each of these has an article, just that I thought that the articles in question did successfully assert notability. Also, as with other biographical articles, several of them do start as stubs and then get rounded out with additional detail over time. If you feel that there is nothing particularly notable about this one, I will concede the matter since I don't have the ability to see the deleted content and therefore can't truly make an informed decision. Certainly, if there is sufficient notable biographical information out there to justify an article, someone may always recreate it in the future. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 12:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

WorldVentures

An editor has asked for a deletion review of WorldVentures. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article or speedy-deleted it, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Virgil06 00:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Taj Mahal RFC

Its been nearly a month since posting an RFC to determine whether or not we include the theory that the Taj used to be a Hindu temple. How and by whom are RFCs usually closed? I started drafting a closing section here and started to tally up the for and against positions to get some idea of where the consensus might be. I stopped when it occured to me that it was starting to look like I was presenting the results of a debate as a poll. The debate suggests a majority are in favour of removal altogether, some of these and others are in favour of a very limited inclusion and a small minority would like a fuller inclusion. I'm considered contacting the participants and asking them to comment on specific limitation proposals I made towards the end of the RFC. Do you have any advice? cheers. --Joopercoopers 14:25, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• That's a darned good question. Who does close them? I've never been busy bodied enough, myself, but if you'd like to call me in as an outsider (assuming that others would accept my point of view) to summarize the results, I will. I can write a "comment upon closure." As for what it means to be "closed," I'm not sure, except that it's probably simply a matter of thorwing a template on the page. Geogre 21:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks Geogre, you've been so helpful with this but could I ask you to keep your powder dry on your offer? jpgordon suggested during the RFC that we refer to WP:NPOV#Undue weight, whilst reading between the lines, this might demonstrate a partisan position, it will be easier to make the RFC's consensus stick with an active member of Arbcom summing up (and at least familiarise one member with the issues if ever we have to take it that far).

• • The thing is with the issue is that whilst pretty much the rest of the world doesn't think the Taj is a Hindu temple, increasingly quite a lot of people in India do. My most reputable and erudite source, Ebba Koch even gives some print room to the idea in a chapter called 'Everyones Taj Mahal' which explores the way in which the building has become global property, and typically for well known buildings, provokes myths and legends that suits everyones prejudices. My personal preference is that something is added to the article to this effect and we include the theory in that context. take care. --Joopercoopers 01:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Thought I'd give you an update User_talk:Jpgordon#Taj_Mahal_RFC - it seems the RFC's aren't actually closed they're just removed from the RFC page after a month or so. He interprets consensus as an obvious weight of opinion (which we've certainly got), so I've proposed a rewriting of the 'Myths and Legends' section on the talk page. regards --Joopercoopers 12:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Very good. When there are minority points of view held with extreme passion, it probably does do to follow Josh Gordon's wording exactly. Your own idea for including the point of view but containing it was best, I thought. After the revert war over content comes the POV fork. I.e. next up for the believers in Hindu Mahal will be a separate article. That should be easily dealt with, however. Geogre 12:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• • This is what I get for saying, "Poor JoopersCoopers, having to deal with that. Glad it's not me": Talk:Lazarus and Dives is now getting hammering insertions of The Jesus Project's point of view. Little did I suspect that the auteur being Showgirls was a noted scholar on Christianity. Geogre 18:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

An old idea

I've borrowed your idea Demotion applied to current wheel war. Thought you might like to know. Jd2718 04:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• No problem. Must say, though, that I didn't even know there was a current wheel war (except that, just as "it's always happy hour somewhere in the world," there is always a wheel war going on somewhere on Wikipedia), but I will take a look. I wrote the thing back when it seemed like some very bad actions were taking place, but the sanctions were limited to all or nothing. It's never all or nothing, any more than it's all right and all wrong. Geogre 12:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • What a horror! I know who I think is in the wrong. Shoot, it seems to me that the wheel war itself testifies to the notability of DB. If he wants to be gone from here, making himself the project's bette noir isn't the way to do it. These things always seem to happen, though, on either side, when someone decides to act without discussion. "Discuss, then act" isn't a very hard rule to remember. Geogre 02:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

So who? Anyway, I followed the discussion of principles (and not deletion procedure). And there was some discussion of a timed desysoping, although they ultimatedly didn't really go there. Jd2718 04:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed prize

I have found an image that I find simply too attractive as an award. Therefore, I propose awarding the following image image:Bauer-Stalo.png to any troll who continues to butt his head against the wall despite obvious signs of failure and imminent brain damage. Here is the image. Geogre 18:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The Award of Mindless Persistence in Pursuit of Trollery: Awarded to ____ for selflessly sacrificing his/her dignity, brains, and reputation for the amusement of others.

Info boxes

You know how you are interested in informative info boxes? - Well, I gave just spent the last five minutes following a link from Doc G's page in total awe, wonder and amazement - Then I came upon it - the most informative bio-box if all time! [35]. I'm wondering whether it should become compulsory information but alas no records exist for Palladio - should it be de riggeur for FAs I wonder? Should we notify the folks at FARC of the new requirement? Giano 08:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that's nothing. There was another one that had "blood type" as an item. Having sexual orientation is nothing. How they know what he does in his spare time and what he enjoys is beyond me: I do not know and do not wish to know. And then there is all that fantasy or fantastic writing in the article. I just wonder that they don't list his penis length, since the female pornoboxes list both the women's measurements and whether they are enhanced by surgery or not, so it would be fair play. The fact is that we have a goodly number of dreamy eyed "fans." At least the porno star fans can't pretend that they're really interested in the history of film. Geogre 11:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"I just wonder that they don't list his penis length" - brace yourself Geogre - they do! Giano 11:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

And, of course, it's good to be in a box. That's just where a person wants it. Geogre 11:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• What I want to know is - is it cited by a footnote? - I mean how does one know for sure how these things are ascertained - for instance are climatic conditions, on the day of measurement, considered - I think a certain section of wikipedia who conern themselves with matters of citing etc should carry out a thorough investigation - for instance I don't think the word of the individual concerned shpuld be taken for granted - I remember at school we had a boy who said............Giano 12:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The Niki Taylor article lists her shoe size in the infobox. (Oh, and hi!) Utgard Loki 15:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point, Giano. I think we would need a footnote for the feet of Niki Taylor (a shoe note), as I'm sure she'll say they're small, and for Peter North's pole we would need a footnote to guard against Wikipedia editors with penis envy making it smaller. Also, of course, we will need a reference to the exact lab that documented the blood type of the Asian porn actress. And then, of course, we cannot allow any statements to work simply by logic. Now, if I were to say something like "If the Restoration is defined as the shadow of the king's personality, then its end in drama occurs much more nearly with his patronage rather than person" somewhere, then that needs a footnote! This is known as logic envy. If our reviewers don't have it, then our authors must not demonstrate it. Geogre 21:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, honestly. I write an article on an interesting chap who has been dead for two weeks now. There are four edits in the page history, three of which are me writing it. And the fourth? "This article is about a recently deceased person. Some information, such as the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change rapidly as more facts become known. Please be aware that while vandalism is usually fixed quickly, it is particularly likely in these articles." Grr. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Quickly...

An "if/then" statement has been our primary example of original research for quite some time. "Simple matters of logic" that include the adverb "arguably" should be sourced. Marskell 05:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• Then that is incorrect. Our original research policy is at WP:NOR. An if/then that is entirely licensed is original research. An if/then that is based on the prior paragraphs is not. It is a rhetorical device to avoid endless declaratives. In the case of "arguably," this is simply the case. The translation is "you can call it Raymond, or you can call it Ray, or you can call it Ray Ray," not "could it be that UFO's founded Egypt." There are "arguably's" and "arguably's." The fringe folks use it and a hinge to get in nutty stuff, but that doesn't mean that everywhere the word appears there are fringe views that must have a footnote, and your citations here are exactly what bothers me here: the tick marks of finding this word, this word, and that one without the context, without understanding or applying the understanding of what the policy statements are about or what the prose in question is saying. Geogre 11:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

NOR is now a redirect to WP:ATT (hasn't quite settled down).

I did look at the context: the article is engaged in periodization and I see absolutely nothing unreasonable about asking for a source. That it's arguable because it's arguable would be a fine argument in a non-dynamic editing environment in which User:Geogre's name and credentials were a matter of a record, but this isn't that place. If we call it arguable we should point to someone who's argued about it... It doesn't matter whether it is logical, simple, or (infamously) whether it is true; it only matters whether it can be attributed to a reliable source. Everyone on the review keeps making reference to the academy, and I find it rather baffling: this isn't the academy, and Lit. academics do attribute specifics in-line, regularly and at predictable points. Defining a period is one obvious place to expect it. Another, of course, is for direct quotes. Can we at least agree that those should be cited? Marskell 12:37, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

"Lit academics" do not cite things like "people call it the Restoration because it was the Restoration of Charles." They cite things that are controversial. Rhetorically, one builds a thesis by establishing the case. The case established, one proceeds. Thus, "If what I have said is true (and it is), then it follows that" = "ergo" in a syllogism. This is not "arguably" as "some people of undefined identities say." This is "the case may be viewed one way or another, and for this discussion this is the view that the author is highlighting." Again, do we need to footnote V/I/R? The hilarity is coming now with questions about footnoting Gould. I've read every poem he ever wrote. I've read every poem that Alexander Pope has in print (except his translations). I've read every poem that Swift wrote that's in print. If I wanted to say that Pope and Swift were influenced by Gould, I would need to prove the case. If I say that Gould says X or Y, he just does. There are no footnotes to provide, because these works are found only in selected rare book collections at certain universities. There will be an edition of the poems, but there is not one now since 1710. Still, good luck to anyone who wants to insert those footnotes. I'll tell you the names of the poems and which edition (Poems or Works), but citing page numbers in Sloane on Gould, for example, would be akin to quoting page numbers in the OED. There is only one. I would reject any paper that noted the way the FAC voters want things noted and the way that the FAR voters have wanted. You have a more moderate and sensible point of view. Geogre 20:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, ok, ok. "'Lit academics' do not cite things like 'people call it the Restoration because it was the Restoration of Charles.'" Assuming you aren't being facetious in calling my POV "more moderate and sensible", you can guess very well that I agree we don't need to cite sentences of this sort and that academics would not. And I'm absolutely cognizant of the fact that once something like this is cited a flood of cite requests for nearly as obvious sentences will arrive (I just posted as much to Bishonen); I do not want a cite for "Rochester was noted for sexually explicit work". Ok? Really. But I would like your opinion on sourcing re following:

• Direct quotes. Do you agree there?
• I know it's devilish, but "Statements likely to be challenged." Let me pick one: Behn is "the first female professional author in English." I was taught as much (at a school that knows what its teaching), but suggestively, not as a matter of the canon. It's a statement likely to be challenged because it's bold, and given that it's presented in quotes, it should be sourced. Oui ou non?

Now, I can imagine that you don't want to go down the "likely to be challenged" road, because you worry about idiotic challenges, such as whether the Restoration refers to Charles II. But surely, surely, if we agree that some things could be cited we can agree on working forward: obscure notes, exceptional claims, and so on.

As a last point, I disagree that arts academics only cite things that "that are controversial"—or perhaps I'd quibble with your definition of controversial. Topographical points that are obvious as points of fact, but resonant throughout a paper, will be cited early in a paper (e.g., periodization). Marskell 21:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• Remember how I said that I used internal links for reference, because it's an omnibus article? Aphra Behn is a good example of that. I have not written or rewritten a word of Aphra Behn because of some personal disquiet with Behniacs. However, I did Oroonoko, and then people ported that material into the Behn article, including citations. So, both in the Behn article and the Oroonoko article, we have the statement cited to Janet Todd. I did the citation to her instead of any of the other people who say it because Todd tones the statement down a bit. She was the first professional female novelist. She was not the first professional female author (as Woolf says) nor the first female novelist (as Sackville-West says and as Dale Spender said). I did not want to port every citation from every biographical article into an omnibus article. The example I used before was Richard Blackmore. In the biographical article, I go into some detail about the reception of each of his "epic" poems on King Arthur. However, they were derided almost as soon as their furore was over, which was about a year. Therefore, they got a big reception immediately (royal pleasure) and then became a standing joke (town wits). In Blackmore, I take care with each. In Rest Lit, I present the town's judgment (that they were dull poems by a dull man). Again, citation is one thing, but citing and citing and citing and citing what has already been cited in one of the articles that is blue linked in the prose bugs me. Geogre 02:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I do remember your note about blue links, and I posted in reply that "pointing to the blue links is asking people to trust that Geogre wrote and is maintaining all of them." It is a tension on Wiki. I'm more "centripetal": working on, and sourcing to, a main article and letting the blue links take care of themselves. But this creates its own problems, and is arguably bad practice (e.g., having a blue link stub you've never actually looked at contradicting what you say in the main article...eek.)

Anyhow, I cited Todd "in sentence", per your comments. In general, Behn is now the best sourced author mentioned in the article. Could you throw the page one already discussed bone?: a reference or two for periodization. I understand that the Restoration (at least it's beginning) is almost as clean as a beheading (but not perfectly clean, considering Paradise Lost). Could you point to some chapters people might read? As noted, I think cites of this sort are perfectly in-keeping with academic practice: a "lay of the land" citation, that occurs early in good articles. Marskell 21:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Uhhh, anywhere! Seriously. Any work. I'm not being snotty: there is no disagreement. You do not cite things that people do not disagree upon. Do not cite that the sun is a star. Do not cite that it seems to rise in the East on Earth. Pick any of the damn Oxford Guides, Companions, etc. or the Cambridge Histories of or Random House Dictionary. Honestly! The controversy is when it ends, and that's something that the article does not assert definitively. The article is very clear that there is no one ending, and it proposes a new solution by arguing that different genres show a change of form and content at different times, so a citation there is also not needed. Then again English Restoration says when it was, I'm sure. Restoration literature would be the literature of the Restoration. One reason Paradise Lost falls out is that its form and content belong to the Interregnum, even though its dates do not, and so it's conventional in colleges to study it outside of the Rest. Lit. class, but that's just the academy. Geogre 22:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that the Sun is a star is a tautology and we don't need to cite those. "Restoration literature would be the literature of the Restoration" is also a tautology, but you're disproving it as you type it by noting disagreement over its ending (the absence of consensus is itself an assertion that ought to be cited...) I only other bother because I can only turn to papers on-line, given a lack of book stores or libraries where I'm at. This, for instance, notes the clean break idea, but with caveats.

"You do not cite things that people do not disagree upon." We'll just have to disagree there. I'll give you an example (sorry for another long post). It's a bit of a curveball, because it's a different discipline, but the point holds: "Andean Peru has long been identified as one of the six major world areas where 'civilization' developed under largely endogenous or 'pristine' conditions (Fried 1967)." (The opening sentence of this) Now, this amateur is guessing that there isn't an archeologist alive who isn't aware of the six canonical cradles of civilization, and that Peru is one of them. So why does the author source this incredibly generic statement? Because, as I said previously, it's a topographical observation that is resonant throughout the paper and deserves expansion, even if completely obvious: "this is our starting point, it's agreed upon, and if you want to read more about it, go here." Marskell 12:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• No, I regard the beginning of the Restoration and the general definition of it as a tautology. However, a precise definition is difficult. This is similar to what you should (haven't looked, don't want to) find at novel. Everyone knows what a novel is, and yet no one knows exactly what a novel is. We know it's a long fiction, but how long? We know that it's a fiction, but how fictional? We know that it is not in verse, but sometimes they are. Because of the slipperiness of precise definitions of "novel," "first novelist" or "first woman novelist" or "first professional novelist" gets gnarled. However, we know that the Restoration is the literature of the Restoration. That's obvious and un-notable. What it means precisely has to go to each genre, each field, etc. (Yes, of course there are caveats. Paradise Lost isn't the only one. In fact, we can argue that non-"Restoration (genre)" stuff was written during the "Restoration (historical era)" and that some "Restoration (genre)" stuff was written in the "Interregnum (historical era)," with the most famous being Hudibras.)
• The six cradles.... I don't think that needs to be cited, myself, except that, in a book or monograph, it's usually a good idea to present a large note outlining previous discussion. That's something I do, myself, if I'm trying to present a common misconception that I'm going to break or refine. It's a thing we do, also, when we're going after the saints and villains of history. A piece of that appears in Restoration literature in the "drama" section that Bishonen wrote. She quoted some materials that give a flavor for 19th/early 20th century responses. I didn't feel like I had the time/space for anything like that. I also really didn't want to engage in the "the historical positivists were wrong" argument. They were wrong, but I figure we know that by now, and I'm still fond of them. Geogre 03:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The title for this thread has become a misnomer, so I won't reply at length. We have some philosophical differences over what is OR, I think, but I understand your position. I would say (not at all glibly) that your comments make you a good candidate for Citizendium. My position remains that if anonymous twelve year-olds can edit we must source the "breaking or refining" of misconceptions and the "proposal of a new solution" to any academic dispute. My larger concern in posting to you, as said in a previous thread, is that I want a solution in the current FAR to point to later; believe me, I've got better things to do as well. Marskell 19:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

..for your comments at User talk:Kosebamse/Wikipedia is not a sentient being, which I have discussed there a little. You input is always appreciated. Kosebamse 20:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Sops and frumenty for all!

At long last, the long-overdue nomination of medieval cuisine as an FAC is under way. You are invited to grab your fill of potage, quince pie, a subtlety worthy of a pope, and all the beer you can drink! Oh, and don't forget to make a few comments while you're digging in...

Peter ^Isotalo 21:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

hello....

and thanks very much for your fine food for thought - rather like a good meal, I may need a small nap to properly digest it all! I'm beginning to think that the issues that people who cannot seperate from their avatars face are not solely their responsibilities. There may be a systemic cause behind it all. I think that's what i was getting at when saying wiki-love was an unhelpful concept - perhaps I should add that to some people its been undoubtedly dangerous - constantly encouraging them to invest more and more in their personae (and if you look at the contributions, withrawing very worringly from that nasty real world). But what can we do about it beyond sharing this understanding? not sure.....

On a side note - the point you made that nobody knows anyone is particularly self-evident at the mo. in the volumes of comment about essjay - and here's an interesting person / personae question - if he just retired that username and came back as someone else, making no mention, would that be unethical? I'm going to go for a swim and ponder that one....... nice to talk with you, by the way! Purples 04:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

• I see what you mean about the wiki-love, and it's an interesting question. Perhaps we need to understand wiki-love (sounds like another entry for Sexual practices of characters in Star Wars (which had better not be blue)) as having a good, agape, form and a bad, erotic, form. I mean those words, by the way. If we say, "Good for you! You edited an article," we're being supportive in the hippie/open source/new Utopia-without-flesh sort of way. That's fine. If we say, "That's great! I love your userbox. Do you like Kylie Minogue?" we're sort of loving the persona of the person (the person of the persona, so erotic).
• The dark question you have about essjay is one of those fundamentals. If he really killed his phantom and created a new one, we should say, "Great. It's always the product we want anyway, not the name." If he can write like Hans Kung, we don't care if he isn't Hans Kung. If he can create articles and offer edits like Archbishop Romero (yeah, I know he's dead), then we don't care if he isn't Archbishop Romero. So, if he re-incorporates, no big deal. On the other hand, if he reincorporates to bring power relationships and prestige and such with him, and if any of that were based on inflated or borrowed credentials instead of the work, then it seems like we're just getting old wine in new skins. It depends to a large degree on who knows the new name. If the old supporters do but the old interrogators don't, it's just sleazy. If no one does, it's fine with me. Geogre 13:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Please explain

You made a comment about me on WP:AN/I, I have asked there that you explain it. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the first time any of my administrative actions has ever been reversed due to some sort of fault of mine, I would like a little more information about what specifically invalidated my personal attack block, and have made such a request back on the WP:AN/I thread. Diffs would be nice. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 20:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Diffs? It's the stinkin' policy, man. Blocks for personal attacks are in "extreme cases" only. This wasn't one. What kind of "diff" is going to make anything clearer than that. I'm not interested in another electronic tarbaby fight, though. Read WP:NPA. Geogre 21:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I know WP:NPA, there was a long term patten of personal attacks, and several warnings. I suppose we will agree to disagree here, but I am not convinced I erred in any way. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 21:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I came here to find out why you thought I had some sort of conflict of interest, since you did not tell me what that is I am going to ignore that accusation. As for your reference to a tarbaby fight, well where I am from "tarbaby" is a racial slur, I hope you meant it in a different manner, I have no idea what it could be. ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 21:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Good Lord, are you really trying to find a racial slur in that? I suspect you have some kind of problem, but it isn't me or my words. Read the story of the tarbaby. "The harder he hit, the deeper he stuck." That's about the extent of the trope. Anything beyond that is just perversity. Geogre 04:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The primary meaning of the term is just a big, nasty mess. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

In this case, it's the sort of argument where the more decisively you strike, the more entangled you are. It is a term for the very kind of conversation that the one on AN/I is. Imagine trying to get driving instructions from a Rogerian and then attenuate it with bad attitude, oxen being gored, dogs not being in the hunt, and every other sign of trivial bother, and that's what a virtual tarbaby is. It has nary a thing to do with red neckery and everything to do with actually reading Joel Chandler Harris. Geogre 04:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm being oppressed! I'm being oppressed! --Joopercoopers 02:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It's just the violence inherent in the system. Geogre 04:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Your recent comments on WP:AN/I were right on the money!!! Cheers! MetsFan76 04:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Metamagician is another older person, and Duk says it all very well. I point this out only because there is life before WP:NPA and life after it. I think Duk's timeline for when the misery started is too late, but I very much remember when "NPA" was proposed, debated, and, I thought, defeated as policy. The hair pullers at the time predicted we'd be overrun with "help, help, I'm being oppressed." Obviously, I agree with blocking for disruption, but "making me cry is being disruptive" just doesn't work for me. Geogre 13:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Request

Can I ask for a peace treaty here? I know we disagree, perhaps we can leave it at that? ^HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 21:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we all have to learn to live in unity and harmony Giano 21:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course. I have no interest in hostility. I'm consistent in my opposition to "blocking for personal attacks." Geogre 22:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Unblock

Hi Geogre,

Just wanted to say thank you for unblocking me following CBDunkerson's and HighInBC's blocks. Thanks also for your comments on the issue on AN/I - it always cheers me to read your words of great sense. 81.179.115.188 00:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC) (Worldtraveller incognito)

• De nada. One thing that can be said for me is that I'm consistent. I've always been against the divine right of admins, and part of that is not having the unindictable and unquestionable (and sacrosanct) users. People will go into weeping hysterics if they think there is "censorship" of an autofellatio picture, but they think that stifling community interaction is making a healthy environment. It makes a repressed and angry environment. It makes for cattiness and backstabbing and passive aggression, and those are not characteristics of happiness or health. Geogre 03:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi from Joaneglish

Thank you for your kind message. I'm flattered you noticed... One of the things I do in es:wikipedia is translating from English, and I've wondered who was the person behind some of those articles. I think they are really great!!. I like English literature from that century, with Henry Fielding being one of my favourite writers. The only point that I find hard to understand is all those religious controversies about "high church" and "low church" and "dissidents"... It's difficult to find a way of translating those concepts so related to Protestant churches. As I also translated "Elizabethan theater" (from it:wikipedia) and Anglo-Saxon literature, I would like to complete a history of English literature, with boxes below like the one that can be seen in "Augustan literature", so I think I will keep on translating... Any way... Anything you want, I'm here or here.--Joanenglish 20:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I have translated and sum up the articles "low church", "high church", "dissident", "Bangorian controversy" and... "Convocation", I think! I had to do it, of course, for the article about "Literatura augusta" (Augustan Literature). Your explanations have helped me understand them. Than you very much for your help. It's been very nice of you.--Joanenglish 15:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree with you and am behind you

Regarding this issue, I agree with you and I am completely behind you. I will no longer be writing for FA status as I was trying to do with Morning Musume-- but instead to go back to just providing information for the masses. Thanks for putting it so clearly for me, because I was really conflicted -sigh- One part of me told me to write how others wanted me to write, one part told me to write how it was readable and usable.. for some reason I went with the former rather than the latter and that's going to change. abarry^✓ 02:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You know, I'm still going to use citations when appropriate and references always, but the people at FAC, not the process of FAC, makes it impossible to even consider it. It is impossible to be a universal FA reviewer, impossible to be an expert on "what is a featured article." Things have been like this for a year now, so I have little hope of seeing them get bored and go off to do other things, and, more, they have now held court for so long that new reviewers at FAC think that that's how to behave. Feh. Geogre 12:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

It is all very sad, but not that bad, Wikipedia will still have very informative and readable pages, they just won't be called FAs any more. Giano 12:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you (we?) can start a campaign for an alternative to FAC. People talk about RFA being broken, and AfD being broken, but, at the end of the day, those processes matter less than the peer review and evaluation processes for articles (as opposed to evaluating editors and deciding when it is worth having an article on a particular subject). If FARC and FAC are broken, then there are serious problems. BTW, I have an architecture question about Bristol Temple Meads train station. Who would I ask about that sort of thing? Carcharoth 12:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

My campaigning days are over, my wiki-destiny lies in other fields, but if you found an alternative the same "know-all" crew would just descend with their rules and regulation. Tell me whay you want to know about the station on my talk. Giano 12:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. I get the point about how it would all start up again. But ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. I'll try and remember to ask you about the station on your talk. Carcharoth 12:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The "Good Article" thing was supposedly an alternative, but it was so watered down from the start that it never had a chance. Because its impluse was toward articles that fell a bit short of FA, it ended up having no definition. The old rules for FAC were ok, but there are people there now who have simply worked exploits and made themselves famous for always being there. They've made it their mission to review every FAC and look for a checklist. It's a social problem more than a regulatory one. Oh, and Giano, what time is the 3:15 to London? Geogre 12:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

<snippo - see below: User talk:Geogre#Random off-topic thread>

To interject, I just started this. It may be explanation creep, but it may have some value in reducing the worst of the referencing requests that are really at the heart of this problem. Marskell 13:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and sorry for dragging this thread off topic. I had a quick look at the FAQ and it looks good. One thought - the footnotes don't work unless you explain what the "Smith" source is (I'm guessing you made that one up), and also explain the source for "Genesis" - ie. mention an edition of the Bible or Torah or whatever. Carcharoth 13:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of what you think of the FAC, I don't think calling them "morons"[36] is productive. Surely you can make your point without name calling George. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh? Who exactly did I call a moron? Was it you? Was it him? Was it her? Anyone in particular? Also, watch what you're calling me. My name is Geogre 20:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I actually appreciate Geogre's creativity in insulting FA reviewers. He rarely uses the same word twice. If anything "morons" was a little sloppy. Marskell 22:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I also did not say that FAC was for morons, or run by morons, or composed of only morons, but rather that those morons who comment with "Not my favorite footnote method, object!" were insufferable. They are, and I won't suffer any fools gladly, or those at all. However, the response has been fainting goats coming to tell me how personally affronted they were that I had specically called them morons. Were I more petty, I'd say, "So, you're saying that you cannot comment on an FAC other than footnotes and that you are so stupid that you think footnotes are a reason to object," but I'm not that petty. Instead, I stand by my statements: I will no longer submit articles and have to deal with such morons. Geogre 02:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I see, it is the sort of insult that is worded in such a way that it is okay, alright, never mind then. Sorry for getting your name wrong, it was not intentional. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 02:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Random off-topic thread

Sorry to use this page as a dumping ground for my thoughts, but, in the same vein as ALoan, honestly, I go away for a few days and I come back and find the Wikipedia up in arms about some Essjay controversy. <sigh>. Moving on, I've been reading and re-reading that "3.15 to London" comment, and it makes no sense to me. Is 3.15 the answer? (I live in London, BTW - and that is about all I've revealed about myself on-wiki, though I'm currently wrestling with the problem of how to upload some photos I took recently without revealing more of my identity than I really want to). Carcharoth 12:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless they are photographs of you they won't reveal anything about you. Giano 12:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I suppose I am being paranoid, but I think I might have found a solution. Thanks for the advice. Carcharoth 13:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

PS. I'm debating whether to go and dig out the old threads about the Essjay controversy. What I am wondering is: (a) is it worth it; (b) has lots of stuff been deleted (as various Wiki-criticism sites say) and (c) what does it all mean? I agree totally that content is more important than the names and Wiki-power politics, though anyone flaunting credentials (fake or not), always makes me slightly suspicious. Carcharoth 13:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the answer. It's one of the old schoolyard questions. 1. Who's buried in Grant's tomb? (Grant) 2. Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of iron? 3. What time does the 3:15 to New York arrive? With the last, you can obfuscate it some with a lot of fake algebra.

The Essjay "controversy" is potentially a deep crisis, though not because of Essjay. To some degree, he's simply the symptom. In fact, the disease may be, to some degree, the same one lurking behind the "Giano affair" and the "Kelly Martin affair" and the others. It may be the same as the one around the "irc issue." It is the extension and extensibility of online personae into "trust" and "real world" contact (and the invasion of Wikipedia by "real life"). If David Gerrard and Tony Sidaway live down the block from each other and go to the pub every so often, is that important? If Kelly Martin is really hanging out with Jimbo, is that significant? The ugliness of the Essjay goof (where we look even worse to the public) comes about partially because of the persona being projected out into the real world, instead of the real world's person being projected into web space. It's a crisis that is, like FAC, social rather than legal, and we have people who do not yet have virtual-space-oriented minds. Geogre 13:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The ironic thing is that I, personally, have a 'real' online presence (not much, but enough) - ie. using my real name. In that corner of the web, I don't mind going by my real name, but here, I decided to be a little bit more cautious. Even saying things like this gets me paranoid. I've interacted online for several years, and I always subconsciously felt that not hiding behind a pseudonym is best in some cases, but not ideal in other cases. There are pros and cons to both, and I've never really been able to reconcile the two. Someone using their real name (or at least not actively trying to keep secret who they are) tends to be more, shall we say, restrained. But then you also have to be more in control in other ways as well, which is sometimes good and sometimes not. Any advice for the photos issue? I'm positively itching to make a start with these photos I have! Carcharoth 13:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Once, on FidoNet, I used my real name all the time. On a scholarly listserver, I used and use my real name all the time. Wikipedia is different in many ways. Here, people of the oddest stripes appear, and people of the oddest stripes are attracted to this place. I have a paper that I'm going to do about this last, but suffice it to say that the more immersive and inclusive an online "world" is, the more inviting it is to those who have dissatisfaction with their "real" social lives. This is not to say that we're all Bozos on this bus, but it is to say that, if one is profoundly unhappy with real life prejudice and mistreatment, an online world is particularly attractive, and such a world will be more inclusive than it would be to someone without such a wound. I.e. people with such misery will go in deeper and have it assume greater importance than those without such unhappiness. This is not a moral or character judgment as much as an observation.
• Therefore, it is significantly more dangerous, both personally and professionally, to be known under one's legal name on Wikipedia, no matter how restrained one may be. First, one's potential responses are limited to the blandest. Second, the most odd things will set off one or another of our crazier visitors. Third, Wikipedia has become a political battlefield in a literal way (during elections), so editing or reverting edits brings with it potentially abusive attentions. Finally, women are at particular risk from being under their legal names.
• As for the pictures, I do have a recommendation. What I did was go into PhotoShop and duplicate the background layer. I then did a new blank layer. That new layer I set to 20% opacity. I grabbed the pen tool and chose a color. I then traced my picture. I pasted that layer into a new document/photo and then used bucket fills with colors to create the image of my face that I use on my user page. Thus, it's me, and it's not me. It was like my user name, therefore: an impression of me rather than a totality of me. (Deeeeeep, man.) Geogre 15:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. You should probably get back to discussing FAC, but just one more question, as I fear everyone has misunderstood. I have no desire to upload a picture of myself (really!), but I just want to upload selected pictures from my travels, and in some way obfuscate it so that if someone stumbles across my real-life travel photos page, they won't make the connection (I would remove most of the pictures selected for Wikipedia, but the pattern would still be obvious if anyone bothered to look, and some pictures might be used in both places). Of course, most people wouldn't bother to make the connection, but still. The idea of uploading photos under my real name and keeping the photo-uploading account separate from my editing account occurred to me, but then who would put the pictures in the articles? :-) Oh well, I guess I'll sort something out. Carcharoth 15:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'd rather not talk about FAC. You could always matte in a photo of Essjay into every picture. :-) Actually, I think you're overestimating, slightly, the amount of attention people have. They have text search tools galore. If you type "Carcharoth" anywhere besides here, they'll know. However, visual analysis tools are, fortunately, still quite rudimentary and inaccessible. Unless they have another reason to suspect it's you, they won't see your pictures. Geogre 20:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the advice. Carcharoth 10:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/InShaneee

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/InShaneee. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/InShaneee/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/InShaneee/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel Bryant 23:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Congrats!

Congrats, apparently you're a Category 4 tropical cyclone! :P – Chacor 02:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, dear. Did they spell my name right? Just for calling me "George" instead of "Geogre," I'm going to have to hit something really hard. Let's find a land mass! It'll just be a cooling off strike. Geogre 02:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Moods of the Geogre

Geogre word of the day: non-iteration. No, change my mind: evil. No... molested? Compulsive? Butt?

Favorite school of Geogre-type philosophy: stoicism.

Geogre's favorite rhetorician: Old Testament God.

Geogre's favorite biblical event: Job comes out in boils.

Everything just fine in Geogria, Geogre... ?

Bishonen | talk 21:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

• Now, now. OT God is the last word when dealing with impertinent creatures trying to redraw their maps. Jonathan Swift, on his birthday every year, would read from Job 50, when he cursed the womb that bore him and the first breath he drew. We all have a Job to do, and the Stoics never get off the porch to hunt dinner. Geogre 01:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Dotty sketch of Sundry people, with Geogre, in a Pairsian Prak. Pin the tail on the Geogre. (He's the one disguised as a dog.)

Favourite musrical: Sundry in the Prak with Geogre. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are worse things to do than de-drape Bernadette Peters. Geogre 01:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Something mind altering [37] to look forward to Giano 07:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"We make sure that all the content reviewers are diven off. Then we make sure that everyone else thinks that reviewing means saying, 'Did you get a 3rd party copyeditor?' Then we make ourselves so cliquish and despised that no one wants to be around us, and then we get overwhelmed when one of our group goes quiet." That's my paraphrase, anyway. How did we ever review FAC's before? Geogre 10:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

You're good

You're really good. And nice, too! And furthermore flattery will get you everywhere. Come stroll in a Pairsian Prak with me. Bishonen | talk 03:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

Oh, it'll get removed, or there will be a "last word, nyah nyah" after, or all the indents will change, or .... The fact is that it won't ultimately make a dent in the people who want to believe in conspiracies. I left out Bunchofgrapes, as he explained, himself, why he had "suddenly" shown up, and ALoan, whose presence hasn't been questioned (yet). It's such a bore, though, to see Atalanta's apples roll into the bushes and everyone go after them. Geogre 12:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW, pedanticism alert: I got that story wrong on purpose. Think what would have happened if I had mentioned the person who really had the apples to start with (not related to Atalanta), and then imagine what sorts of comments that would have generated. Dull, dull, dull. Geogre 15:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you will care about this, but I really hope you do. I feel sure the person you were just a few months ago would have. Your statements on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/InShaneee/Workshop, that Bishonen is praising just above, are losing much of the once quite high respect I bore for you. It is one thing to "speak truth to power" when an admin is bullying a non-admin, and I respected you for that, a lot, I even supported you for arbcom. But Tony Sidaway isn't an admin any more, and you still are. You have a higher standard to live up to than he does. Instead, you are close to becoming the bully. Please. Stop it. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:12, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

AnonEMouse, I don't know what Geogre will say to that, but to me it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know that Tony Sidaway has a lot more power than Geogre? You should, if you want to discuss who's bullying who. Irrespective of the formal status of each, Tony has all the power of friends in high places. Try to imagine Geogre—or, hilariously, Giano—getting away with a small fraction of the disruption Tony has been pulling on the workshop page. I can't offhand think of any "mere user", or admin, who would have behaved the way he does and not be blocked or at least page-banned by now. To take another venue, Tony effortlessly, one hand tied behind his back (the hand of adminship, in that case), has bullied me out of the wikipedia administrators' channel—made the experience so unremittingly unpleasant that it's in practice impossible for me to use it. I haven't been there for six weeks or a month or whatever it is, because Tony squatted on it—unhindered, supported, filled with the juice of power. (I have no idea if the situation is still the same, he could have been ousted by now for all I know. I don't go there and my friends don't, so I have no way of telling.) Speaking frankly to Tony isn't bullying, it's an act that takes courage. Bishonen | talk 17:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

Don't buy it. If you're really mad at the people "in high places", argue with them, not with their less powerful associates; and, frankly, do it nicer, so people can tell the difference between you and them. I will admit that I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't follow the infighting here. But I used to be able to tell who was right and who was wrong quite easily, with a glance. That now I can't is what I'm worried about. Change back, please. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

• Argue here with people in high places? What on earth for - My dear Anonymous - you have no idea at all what you are talking about. If people in high places actually gave any indication of even listening, let alone agreeing there would be half the infighting. This takes place between those with complaints and those self appointed little people who defend the sinisterly silent and highly placed in order to curry favour and answer on their behalf in return for a crumb dropped on the IRC admin channel or wherever (certainly not here) it is the highly placed currently hang out to do their bitching. Giano 17:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

For myself, I will say this. I am consistent. I felt that Tony was introducing "I have been involved by private means," which I take as "IRC is official." I also noted quite clearly a serious slandering of the motives of everyone involved in the "con" side. All of us were explained away as a sort of conspiracy of trivial minded people. Most of all, I simply saw no reason for him to have stayed away from every element of the discussion until RFAR and then be everywhere. Additionally, his presence and the tit-for-tat that it had engendered had obscurred the issue of Inshaneee and WorldTraveller. I never threatened Tony, never invoked "admin power," never bullied him. I may have ridiculed him -- that's for the reader to decide -- but I thought the person I actually ridiculed was Phil Bosworth, after he attempted to do the same to me. Finally, I've been pretty quiet on the /Workshop for a good while. Geogre 18:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

People are fuckin dumb

There's a reason that education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the big, wealthy, business interests that control all things and make the big decisions.

Forget the politicians, the politicians are put there to give you that idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, and they've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, and the City Halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.

They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interest. They don't want people that are smart enough to sit around their kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

They don't want that, you know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And now they're coming for your social security money. They want your fucking retirement money; they want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you sooner or later because they own this fucking place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the Big Club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you in the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to believe, what to think and what to buy.

The table is tilted, folks, the game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard working people, white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what colour shirt you have on. Good honest hard working people continue —these are people of modest means— continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all, at all, at all.

And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans are and will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth, it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. — George Carlin

El_C 22:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"There's a reason that education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed." Just to provide an alternative dish for thought - was it ever a good idea to educate the lower orders? Were they not happier in their ignorance - plumbing, mixing cement, and doing what the lower orders do! What do we have now over educated people who have no jobs - and have you tried to get a plumber lately? All very worying. Giano 22:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You cannot plumb without an education, it is tricky stuff. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 22:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't be facetious Higginbt - very dull thing to be Giano 22:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I was being literal, it is not a simple profession. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 22:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Very astute observation Higginbtm - you obviously speak from experience. Giano 22:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No first hand experience unfortunately. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 22:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Pity, I have dripping tap. QED. Giano 22:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And I'm left wondering whether one would be blocked for asserting plumbing credentials without offering verification.--Doc^g 02:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Depends on whether it's a union shop or not. Now me, I live in a right to work state. "Right to work" is one of those great phrases, like "peace maker missile." It means "right to slave, right to union bust." People are fuckin' dumb, though. Furthermore, it's hard to avoid suspecting that Carlin is right, but for Noam Chomsky's reasons. The primary enemy of a democracy is the people. From the moment a politician takes office, he is at war with the voters. He must force his will upon them, and an educated votership is an unhappy populace, and an unhappy votership means decreased power for incumbents, and that means that every single politician is interested in more American Idolatry and less CSPAN. However, the United States has always harbored an anti-intellectual streak, but it was a streak we used to fight, not valorize. We lionize a man so stupid that he falls off a Segway, and we suspect that a war hero must be "part French" because he uses words of more than one syllable. I grew disillusioned ultimately with the voters when Dukakis lost. Geogre 03:52, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• And I, everytime Nader comes in third. Hamster Sandwich 16:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh, yes, in 2000. In 2004, not so much. I don't think he "cost" anyone the election. The Supreme Court cost the world an election, not Nader. In 2000, Candidate Bush seemed like a bland leftover sandwich of nothing. In 2004, he looked like the heart of darkness and the face of the void. Geogre 02:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

thought you might be interested......

[38] - having written this - you'll no doubt immediately see that my comment is kinda like a diluted version of some of your own thoughts.... I'd be really interested to read any insight you might offer about the whole shebang - I've been following some pretty confusing conversations around the wiki today (Guettarda related - if you've crossed paths...) and I think we're living in pretty interesting wiki times..

regardless, i hope you're well!

cheerio! Petesmiles 08:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

We are. I keep saying that I'm working on this grand academic paper on the matter, and I am, but fitfully. I will be happy to look, think, and comment (not necessarily in that order). Interestingly, a version of the subject is showing up in the "Any thoughts gang" section of user talk:Bishonen, where now we have had one hysterical reaction to the "you mean anyone can edit it?" response to Wikipedia. Let me look and think and then comment. (I'll try to maintain that order.) Geogre 10:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I've commented. My comments make sense in the before-coffee world I'm in right now. If they still make sense later, or to someone who has had coffee, then that'll be nigh unto a miracle -- for which I will take no credit. Geogre 10:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Taj Mahal in Literature

Do you or Bishonen or other wordwrights happen to know of references to the Taj Mahal in Literature or Poetry? I'm particularly interested in how its fame found its way to the west. Primarily this seems to have been from romantic and picturesque painting, the reports of the east india company and the journals of travellers - and then Thomas Daniell's Oriental Views, and later it was an early subject of photography. But I'm hoping to ensure I've not missed an obvious gap in the literature side of things. The mughal court histories are the main source of historic details regarding the construction. Kipling described it as the 'Gateway through which all dreams must pass' and the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore's described the tomb as "one solitary tear hanging on the cheek of time". Aldous Huxley is one of the few dissenting voices regarding the building's beauty 'The world admires; but I cannot. I wish I could........' he disliked the expensiveness and picturesqueness and judged it as 'the product of a deficiency of fancy, a poverty of imaginations' (clearly the door was shut for him that day). Any ideas? --Joopercoopers 00:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I've been absent. I want to check, but Oliver Goldsmith's Citizen of the World (1761?) would be where I'd look for high profile stuff. As England conquered India, India material keeps showing up in British fiction piecemeal. The fetish for the "oriental tale" (usually harems and The Turk, but then Oriental Potentates and the Khan, and then the Native) was a bit before the Brits knew about the Mahal. The problem is that these tales are very low profile. Even with New Historicism and Feminist rediscoveries, the tales are not much in print or on the web. Anyway, back to the hunch: I wanted to answer you with a yes or no, and I still might, but, if you're more energetic than I am, I'm fairly sure that all of Citizen of the World has been typed in on the web, which means that it would be possible to text search it for "tomb" and "funeral." This is the time when all those Hindi words dropped into English (Juggernaut, pyjama, etc.). Geogre 10:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed - shampoo - Indian!, pajamas - Indian!, pundit - Indian!, cashmere - Indian!, veranda - Indian!, pariah - Indian!, thug - Indian!, cummerbund - Indian!, rattan - Indian!, shawl - Indian!, loot - Indian!, punch - Indian!, jungle - Indian!, khaki - Indian!, calico - Indian!, cushy - Indian!, dinghy - Indian!, dungaree - Indian!, juggernaut - Indian!, bungalow - Indian!, bandana - Indian!, toddy - Indian!, chintz - Indian! (well, Goodness Gracious Me!) [39] -- ALoan (Talk) 11:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Pucka! Aloan cheers. --Joopercoopers 12:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. many thanks. I've no idea if I'm more energetic than you Geogre, but the christmas turkey is still lingering around my midriff so the excercise will doubtless be good for me. take care --Joopercoopers 11:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, good grief! I can NOT believe what Citizen of the World links to. This is why deletionism is the only thing that makes any sense. Who on earth thought we needed an explanation of a term used by the UN? What monolingual cultural blindman thought it necessary to explain, and poorly, this? Cosmo = world politain = city member :: cosmopolitanism, a concept promoted by such revolutionary guys as stinkin' Alexander the Great and which was the forming principle of, oh, Hellenism has to be "a term used by the UN. Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! (That's my wail of despair.) (Goldsmith's essays/book used to be pretty famous, by the way.) Geogre 11:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, more thinking, after coffee: the best place to spot the Taj among the English would be in the literature of the Grand Tour (please be a link to the tour, and not to a model of automobile). What was a gentleman's chance to be a barbarian abroad and a boy out of control turned into a genteel aspiration of the risen bourgeoise toward the end of the 18th c. There were guide books of various stages of informality. Before Baedekker cornered the market, there were hilariously chauvinistic "go see the wogs" books aplenty. So, there were older literatures of personal reflection ("I went on the tour, and this is what I saw") and books of highlights ("when going, be sure to see the Great Pit of Pitch"). The latter follow considerably after military borders. Finally, for a tip, and this is far too deep a stack of books to go into quickly, there is a substantial literature of criticism and analysis of travel literature in English. For a while, it looked like Travel Literature would be the next big thing in 18th century academic studies. It died out or reduced to a simmer, but there was good stuff for a good while. Big topic, though. Geogre 11:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Checking: Grand Tour is a good article, and, in particular, its references are exactly where I'd send you. Paul Fussell is easy to read and interesting -- a good writer as well as expert -- and both of the other books listed there are first class. They're both from the early burst of renewed interest, and I highly recommend them. Geogre 12:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

No

Masterful and masterly are useful, precisely because they mean different things. Either one is consistent in that words can mean any number of arbitrary meanings that one has reached by simply assigning that meaning to it and agreeing by consensus that it is a correct meaning, or one is consistent in that words have definite meanings which are not so easily be conflated as is the case with masterful and masterly. I adhere to the latter, in the interests of grammar, whilst realising that grammar is an instance of the former. --Knucmo2 00:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you did not just open up the proscriptive/descriptive dichotomy. I was trying to be nice, you know. In fact, vocabulary changes, and connotation changes more quickly than denotation. However, given the fact that orthography and the denotation were in flux to about 1730, I was saying that I could have made a mistake by contemporary lexical standards by reading and internalizing the language of my field of interest. Being pedantic about it is really a bit gauche. Geogre 10:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

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).[40] 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)

Well...

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)