This is an archive of past discussions with User:Eric Corbett. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
That time again ...
Norman conquest of England is pretty much ready for it's next step. I think I'm going to take this one through the MilHist A-Class review before taking it to FAC, but eyes on it before I take it to A-class would be great. Also, as usual, pointers to places where I've assumed way too much knowledge of my readers, etc. etc. Ealdgyth - Talk18:49, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Guess I should warn you I'm now working on Battle of Hastings (Yes, I plan to be alive in 2066 when they celebrate the millenium of it and hopefully AT Hastings. I already warned my son he was going to take me!) Ealdgyth - Talk00:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I loved seeing the Bayeux tapestry in the eponymous town - I recall vividly studying it at school...maybe we can nag Ceoil and co. to do that piece of art to accompany....(chuckle)Casliber (talk·contribs) 00:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I had no idea that her incarnation MathewTownsend was among the most prolific contributors (edits over time), but no surprise, thinking again. - "Moated" - another M among Mattisse, Man and Moone, made me think of Moreton. I can't ask George, - would you have a look at a little moated palace, Holzhausenschlösschen? - Did you know I finally made it to the WP:Great Dismal Swamp? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Everyone ends up there eventually Gerda, one of life's certainties as a Wikipedia editor. I'll be happy to take a look at Holzhausenschlösschen. MalleusFatuorum21:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
BTW, the length of that word reminds me of why I gave up learning German at school. Is there a tax on spaces in Germany? MalleusFatuorum21:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
no, but a space is a space in German, a separation, - you would need a hyphen to connect, - my (unofficial) translation "Little Holzhausen palace" reminds me even more of the hall, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I stand corrected. Maybe I should have stuck with German, but all those declensions just seemed like unnecessarily hard work. I also had the same problem with German that I do with French, the "du" vs. "sie" ("tu" vs. "vous" for French, obviously) distinction. That simply makes no sense at all to me, to say nothing of assigning gender to inanimate objects while considering young girls to be neuter. MalleusFatuorum22:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
That makes more sense to me, as bosoms are of obvious interest to males, almost certainly of more interest to males than females. But it's the idea of having to be invited to switch from the formal "sie" to the informal "du" that I just can't get my head around. It's so ... un-English. MalleusFatuorum23:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
(stalking) It looks odd from outside, but to a native German speaker, it's just the way it is - the "chen" suffix is always neuter, which why you get "das Mädchen" - literally, "the little maid". For homework, consider in English that "through", "cough", "enough" and "borough" all end in the same letters yet sound completely different. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)10:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
A clever poem I'd not seen before. I recently fell foul of something similar myself here on Wikipedia, writing "recreation" when what I meant was "re-creation". MalleusFatuorum10:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
You don't like sentences that begin with "however", which is fine. That objection ain't in any style guide i know, but i'm not arguing. However. (Is it OK when it is on its own?) The sentences was fucked, so I'm hoping you've got a plan B after the revert. Nice bumping into you again BTW. It's a ridiculous time of day - that is to say night - where I am, so I'll leave your copyediting in peace. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:15, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
It's in my bible, Fowler's Modern English Usage. Ealdgyth tends to be a little more circumspect in her language than I do, probably cautious because of her history background. But my ignorance of the subject means I have no such impediment to swinging my language scythe. Hopefully she's as happy with my Plan B as you seem to be. MalleusFatuorum13:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm never shy about fixing any changes of nuance or fact. Otherwise, I'm pretty agnostic about style issues. I write decently - it's usually not TOO hard to understand, but it's not "brilliant" either. I've long maintained that everyone (even Hemingway or Faulkner) benefits from an editor. 13:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)Ealdgyth - Talk
Is that rule for every usage of "however"? I've seen that rule before, but I thought it only applied to "however" when used with a comma as in: "He said this. However, he meant that.", as opposed to something like "However he said it, he meant that." Writ Keeper (t + c) 13:31, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's always wrong, but here's what Fowler says: "Avoid at all costs the illiteracy of using however as a simple substitute for but", and in the example you gave the sentence would clearly be better recast as "He said this, but he meant that". The problem is that in 99.99% of cases of sentences beginning with "However" there's no contradiction with what's gone before, as there wasn't in this specific Norman Conquest instance. MalleusFatuorum13:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Ya got me. I completely missed that. Guess I better head off to the eye doctor for a new pair of bi-focals. — Ched : ? 18:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
You may be interested in ...
The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance by John Boswell. I picked it up but haven't had a chance to really dig into it yet... Ealdgyth - Talk19:48, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Doesn't sound like the sort of thing I'd be likely to read ... I'm a bit of a softie really under this crusty exterior. The executions of John and James Lindsay, brothers aged 11 and 14 respectively, who asked to be allowed to hold hands as they were being hanged together as witches at the conclusion of the Paisley witch trial still brings tears to my eyes when I read it. MalleusFatuorum20:05, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Gropecunt
I knew there was a reason we did that article. Today I persuaded our presenter to do a short piece down Grope Lane in Shrewsbury (a beautiful little town) and he managed to do it without being at all rude :) Hopefully it'll be on in a few weeks. Parrotof Doom20:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Just wanted to say thank you for all your excellent work on Margaret Thatcher. Obviously it's going to see a lot of attention over the next few days, and it's a great credit to Wikipedia that we have a solid article on such an important and controversial figure. the wub"?!"12:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. The article's obviously going to get a bit of a hammering over the next few days and weeks, and there's every chance I'll find myself blocked for a 3RR violation sooner rather than later, but what the Hell. At least it's starting off on a fairly solid footing anyway. Maybe it'll help some people to realise than not all Wikipedia articles are unmaintained crap.MalleusFatuorum13:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I finished (finally!) reading and annotating. My notes are at home, but yes, the printer/editor supplies text up to the bottom of page 6. That editor is confused more than once, placing Saint Helena in the "Ethiopic See" for instance. You asked about "his going on board an India ship bound for Europe; his safe arrival in his own country, where he made his discoveries to the King of Spain, who held several cabinet councils to deliberate on a proper use of these discoveries" (page 1), and I don't have an answer for that. There's nothing more in the minor section on the Teide that follows the book, which (in the tradition of the miscellany, perhaps) was added only because of topicality. Speaking of topicality, have you read Teide#Mountain_of_the_Moon? Maybe ours fits in there as well, though it's very sideways--at least until the sources say otherwise. (That is--was there a tradition that made this volcano a frequent topic of lunar speculation?)
It would be nice to have a scholarly edition; I'll order one through ILL. But I had another question--that area, a day away from earth, with those "spirits", those "illusions" in the shape of men, some of whom speak language--that HAS to be the Paradise of Fools (which needs an article) that you find in Paradise Lost, Book III, where it is science fiction already since Satan cannot see the things that are described--they're not yet there. That passage is based on Orlando Furioso ([1], and probably warrants brief mention in the plot summary, though "Paradise of Fools" can't be said explicitly, I suppose, without some secondary sourcing. But it all makes sense, esp. since all his victuals are spoiled when he gets to the moon--worse, they are transformed into hair and dung, indicating they were all illusory (like the horse Faustus sells to the horse trader). Food for thought. I wish I had time to beef up our article and write PofF, but I'm teaching PL Wednesday so I better get to reading. Plus, I gotta finish The Land of Green Plums by tomorrow. Happy editing, Drmies (talk) 20:23, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but Orlando precedes it, and it contains a lunar voyage. I need to write up PoF and then the comparison will be easily seen. Drmies (talk) 22:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
They're citing direct quotations from the 2nd edition, and we can maybe improve on them if Drmies can get hold of a scholarly edition of the book, so no sweat until then. MalleusFatuorum22:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Watching with interest your improvements to the Man in the Moone article. Minor point, however:
There are three refs (citation 15) to the Clark article in Science Fiction Studies (2007). One of these is fine - 15c, referring to the Martin Marprelate controversy as a possible inspiration for the Lunars' veneration of Martin. But the better source for the links between Godwin and the Green Children of Woolpit (as in refs 15a and 15b) would be Clark's earlier article "'Small, vulnerable ETs': the Green Children of Woolpit", Science Fiction Studies 33.2, July 2006, pp. 209-29 (JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/4241432) - the discussion of Godwin is at pp. 212-5. (The 2007 article was just a postscript.)
I'm new to wikipedia, and still struggling with wiki markup - I hesitate to try to insert this additional reference and to split up the three citations (particularly while others are actively editing the article) for fear of mucking up the existing reference system! If you're going to continue your improvements would you be able to add the reference (that's if you think it's worth it)?
Incidentally, Godwin must have got his information about the Green Children from the edition of William of Newburgh's Historia printed under the title de Rebus Anglicis by Jean Picard in Paris in 1610 (which was also the first time Ralph of Coggeshall's acoount of the Green Children appeared in print, as an extended footnote). - John O'London (talk) 10:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi there. No problem at all about re-targetting refs #15a and #15b to Clark's 2006 paper, which I've now done. I actually made pretty heavy use of it anyway when writing the green children of Woolpit article. Not so sure about which version of William's account Godwin would have read though as there was another account of the story published in William Camden's Britannia in 1610, but as Godwin was obviously familiar with Latin he may well have read William of Newburgh's own account, Historia rerum Anglicarum.
Thanks, Malleus F, but maxima mea culpa, having reread those Clark refs in context, I realise I gave you wrong advice on one of them. The reference re censorship should be to Clark 2007 - only the first ref '...Martin, which might reflect the name of the green children's home, St Martin's Land.' is to Clark 2006. So, two refs to 2007, one to 2006. Since I can now see how the references work, I have just now corrected the wrong one.
Fair enough. I was just working from memory and taking what you said at face value; I ought to have checked myself, but I've been a bit distracted with Maggie Thatcher today. (And as a lapsed Catholic I know it should be "mea maxima culpa". ;-) )MalleusFatuorum17:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I hadn't realised you had worked on the Green Children article. It's another on my watchlist. William Camden's account is I think too brief (and actually inaccurate) to have in itself supplied his lifelong friend Godwin with all he needed to know about the Green Children. Godwin/Gonsales directly credits "one chapter in Guill. Neubrigensis, de reb. Angl." - and that's the title De Rebus Anglicis that it appeared under in the 1610 Paris printing, not in manuscripts or earlier editions. One or two references in Godwin suggest he was also aware of Ralph of Coggeshall's account - and apart from three or so manuscripts he could only have seen this in the 1610 printing of William of Newburgh, in which the editor had included Ralph's account of the Green Children alongside William's - the rest of Ralph's work didn't see print until the 18th century.-John O'London (talk) 17:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I suspect you're right, but I'm not inclined to state any more than what we can find reliable sources for. I came at the green children rather circuitously via Herbert Read's The Green Child, which I also wrote. MalleusFatuorum17:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Actually it's all in Clark 2006 p.213! I'm afraid I came to Godwin via the Green Children - and I found Herbert Read almost unreadable (though I like the pictures by Felix Kelly in the 1945 edition)! Sorry about the maxima mea culpa - I could argue as a lapsed classicist that both are possible - it's just a matter of emphasis 'Most grievous is my error' versus the usual 'My most grievous error'.John O'London (talk) 18:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I'll take another look through Clark 2006 again later in that case. The Catholic chant is "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxim culpa", which is translated as "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault". I discovered that I hadn't really understood Read's book as I'd thought I did until I started to write that article on it. MalleusFatuorum18:28, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your latest edit - I hadn't spotted that the date 'published in Latin in 1629' was also in the lead. I've looked back at Lawton, and see how the misreading happened. If only he'd written 'The Latin text of the latter had already appeared in 1629'! John O'London (talk) 09:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
OK, I'm convinced Drmies, so I've added a bit about the devils and wicked spirits Gonsales encounters on his journey to the Moon. A little strange that he doesn't come across them again on his way back to Earth, but no matter. It would be really good if we could find a source making the same connection with Orlando that you do. MalleusFatuorum13:25, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
We'd best keep an eye on her article then, it's the least we can do for her family and friends. Now that she's gone, it'll be interesting to see what the ODNB comes up with as a check against what we've done. MalleusFatuorum12:46, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. First thing should be to prevent a section developing with dozens of tributes saying the same thing with little flag icons beside them. I hate when that happens. --John (talk) 12:51, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Rather similar to the XYZ in popular culture spin off articles. I'm sure nobody would object to someone creating a similar reactions article, but that kind of trivia will only be going into the main article over my dead body. MalleusFatuorum15:24, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
If it were up to me, I'd fully protect that article for the next 24 hours, allowing only a select few editors to make changes. Otherwise you'll have a complete mess on your hands. Parrotof Doom13:10, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
If it were up to me I'd do the same, as I think a complete mess is pretty much unavoidable as things stand. If John or I get too much involved in trying to stem the flow of trivia we'll be accused of "ownership" or COI, or 3RR, or some other trumped-up charge. John should probably be relatively safe with his admin cloak, but I'll likely be hung out to dry. MalleusFatuorum13:19, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I think that much of the anti-Thatcher commentary I've seen today is exceeding distasteful, and reflects very badly on those such as George Galloway, with his "tramp the earth down .... May she burn in the hellfires" comment. It can never be right to take pleasure in the death of another human being. MalleusFatuorum18:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I have no objection to honest criticism, but talk of rejoicing in the streets and so on is sub-human and beneath contempt as far as I'm concerned. MalleusFatuorum18:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I've never had a very high opinion of the likes of the self-important and self-serving George Galloway or Ken Livingstone, so no real surprise there. MalleusFatuorum19:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Can "self-importance" ever be a synonym for "certifiable"? I do hope that someone such as Galloway is not going to be quoted - talk about WP:FRINGE. Criticism as a balance in an article is fine, of course, but criticism from Galloway ...? - Sitush (talk) 23:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, but John did a great deal of work on it as well. I feel like I'm on sentry duty there right now. But on to less stressful things, I've done some expansion on The Man in the Moone, what do you think? MalleusFatuorum15:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Holy moly Malleus, that's a lot of work you've done. I see you toyed around with the idea of a separate "sources" section. I don't disagree with your decision to undo it, and making a list of sources is probably overdoing it (imagine what such a list would look like for Paradise Lost). I'm glad you started that Religion section: thank you. Drmies (talk) 15:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm like a dog with a bone when I get my teeth into something. I began to feel uncomfortable with a separate sources section after I tried it out, as it would obviously involve some guess work (whose account of William of Newburgh's story of the green children did Godwin rely on, for instance?) but also because the sourcing is particularly relevant insofar as it help to date when Godwin might have written the book. We obviously had to say something about religion, as it plays quite an important part in the story and may even explain why the Lunars called their god Martin, which sounds a very strange thing to do on the face of it. Why not Kevin, or Tracey? MalleusFatuorum16:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Is this correct? I don't think I have all the material here. If it is, the lead should be changed. BTW, I got a note from Broadview saying my copy is on the way; I have high hopes for it. Drmies (talk) 15:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I've checked Lawton's paper, which is apparently the source, and I think that whoever added that claim about the first edition being printed in Latin before an English version appeared misunderstood what Lawton was saying. Lawton is referring to the Nuncius Inanimatus at that point, not The Man in the Moone; lead fixed. MalleusFatuorum19:50, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if this is too much information--"Wilkins says (Discovery of a New World, 1640, pp. 240-42) that he chanced upon Godwin's tale after the completion of the 1638 edition of his own work." I think it is.Nicolson, Marjorie (1940). "Cosmic Voyages". ELH. 7 (2): 83–107.. Drmies (talk) 19:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
It does feel a bit like we're dodging the issue with the genre; Clark, for instance, is very clear in describing the book as sf. And by implication, since his papers were published in Science Fiction Studies, so does that journal. I think we need to state categorically that The Man in the Moone is recognised as a work of science fiction, with as much backup as we can muster. MalleusFatuorum20:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the credit, Malleus. I'm afraid I took the coward's way out and buggered off for a few hours to let things die down, and also to spend some time with my family. She'll be dead a long time. The article seems to have survived reasonably well so far, thanks for your diligence. --John (talk) 18:49, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
We worked on the article together, so you deserve to share the credit. I did my best in fighting a rearguard action in the face of overwhelming edit conflicts, but thankfully things seem to be dying down now, and soon we can hopefully go back and pick off any stragglers. MalleusFatuorum18:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Just something nice and uncontroversial (for a change)
I was just ambling through some pages looking for something or other, when I stumbled across this page; as I read of the exploits of unremarkable people playing a game at an unremarkable level I thought how nice it must be to be British and proud of it. The spirit of the blitz lives on in "2011 could not have started in a worse fashion for the club as the club's pavilion was burned down" Was that a problem? No it was not. It's pleasing to think there are some editors just writing up their local exploits and news for the encyclopaedia without hindrance from fools and seemingly unaware of the politics the rest of us have to contend with. It must be wonderful to be able to edit anonymously and quietly. Giano 18:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Then we will just have to ensure that it's not! I might even join that club myself. I'm actually quite a good a cricket in a very amateurish sort of way. Surely, a picture of me grinning over the stumps would make the club very remarkable. Anyway, it does not need deleting as your government is planning to drive a high speed railway straight through the middle of that beautiful area; quite needlessly because as my noble aunt never tires of saying "No one can afford the price of a ticket to London, so who on earth can afford to go northwards?" Giano 18:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I certainly do think it's worth taking it to GAN, it's a very nice piece of work. I'll have a proper look through later, but given the queue at GAN if I were in your shoes I'd nominate it now. MalleusFatuorum14:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I was under the impression you were doing a lot of reverting today; I'm afraid you're way over, and that only considering the really obvious disputes. Adam Cuerden(talk)22:37, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
If I may be so bold, I'd advise you against responding there unless somebody addresses a question to you. Although I'm involved, it's clear to me that the complaint has no merit. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
It's my impression that you're a stupid arse Adam, with no idea of how to write an encyclopedia article and no sense of common decency. MalleusFatuorum23:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
And a few hundred featured pictures. But you did, technically, violate 3RR you know. And while I was glad to find no evidence you did it maliciously, it's normally a bright-line-in-the-sand thing, you know. Adam Cuerden(talk)16:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
It's exactly as I predicted. My reward for trying to keep some balance and perspective in the Margaret Thatcher article is a vexatious 3RR report. No wonder Wikipedia is now down to just over 3000 active editors and falling. MalleusFatuorum01:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Now, now, the report was correctly declined. After all, anyone can file a report. You're not happy when people wrongly attack you (understandable), but you're apparently not even happy when you're vindicated. When are you happy? :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 01:42, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm happy when I'm left alone to get on with the job and not being hassled by those with an agenda accusing me of coverups, right-wing leanings, and God knows what else. When are you happy? You know as well as I do how things work here, "Oh look, he's been reported at 3RR/ANI/ArbCom ... N times now, he must be a bad 'un". MalleusFatuorum01:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Well, I'm not here to argue with you. My comment was intended to make you feel better. Me, I'm not a happy guy particularly. Some think I'm a pessimist; I prefer to think of myself as a realist who occasionally errs on the negative side. From my viewpoint, looking at the world realistically doesn't give me any great joy. As for your comments about you and Wikipedia, I don't think I have anything of value to add to the long history of comments/advice/opinions/whatever. I will now escape back to my little world of Wikipedia, such as it is.--Bbb23 (talk) 02:05, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
People seem to have got the idea that I worked on this Maggie article because I'm some sort of extreme right-wing Tory, intent on suppressing "the truth" about Thatcher, but nothing could be further from the truth. At general elections I think I've only ever voted Conservative once; usually I waste my vote by voting for the Lib Dems. I worked on this article, along with John and others, because I recognised that love her or hate her Thatcher was a very significant 20th-century politician, and that when she died there would be the sort of media furore we've seen today. Had we not worked to restore this article's GA status I'm sure we'd be in much worse shape than we are now. But very little thanks for that, and lots of POV tagging because the article doesn't say what an evil bitch Thatcher was. (Not that I think she was an evil bitch of course.) MalleusFatuorum02:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
So it goes. Someone doesn't like the subject of an article, they vandalize or otherwise edit unproductively, you revert, they claim you're a fascist/communist/zionist/antisemitist/gun nut etc. I find I'm most often in editorial disagreement with those I probably agree with politically, though those aren't always the most serious conflicts. CNN coverage of Thatcher's career and death was the usual set of highlights with lots of Reagan in there. No Arthur Scargill, no more than three seconds on the miners' strike, nothing on the backgrounds and politics of the Falklands war, nothing on Northern Ireland. MF, our article looks pretty good, and in comparison with what the US media (besides NPR) bring us it's a gem of science and reason. Drmies (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, Malleus. The "rollback" icon made it into the start of a new column on my watchlist and instead of clicking diff, I accidentally clicked it. My apologies. GoPhightins!02:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
What a strange article for you to have on yourwatch list; I'm just about to go out to B&Q as it happens, looking for some shelves and kitchen cabinet doors. I don't like that Accidents section at all, and I'd be very inclined to dump it. If you're reluctant to do it for whatever reason then I will. As you say, every major company is going to have accidents. If there was a pattern of such incidents that would be a different matter, but there doesn't appear to be. I also noted that the numbers in the silly little table in the Operations section don't match those in the text, and I'd dump that as well. It would be nice one day to be pleasantly surprised by the quality of an article instead of continually being horrified. MalleusFatuorum14:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Be careful & let us know you got back ok! The fines (first 2 incidents) are maybe large enough to be "due" for noting (by UK standards, this isn't the US), though its a pity the article isn't any longer - they may be OTT here. Johnbod (talk) 14:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
The article looks like it's got more holes than a large slab of prime Swiss cheese - a lot of tidbits from random news searches and not much to hold it together. Maybe the Malleus hand of doomresearch could strike upon it? Ritchie333(talk)(cont)16:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Here, a small sub-team of an infinite amount of monkeys with an infinite amount of internet connections are attempting to take William Shakespeare to FAC, but one of them is concerned they might have accidentally written an infinite amount of ArbCom requests instead. Meanwhile, one of them says "why don't we just get Malleus to do the dirty work for us?"
It's a bit of a mystery to me why others can't make the simple changes I do, and they are simple really as Ealdgyth will tell you, but there you go. When Drmies and I have finished with The Man in the Moone I'll maybe take a more in-depth look. MalleusFatuorum17:27, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I didn't find it easy at first either, as I was much more used to writing essays/papers/articles in which I was trying to advance a particular idea. I didn't want to be neutral, I wanted to convert you to my latest theory about something or other, or sometimes to sell you something. It wasn't until I got my head around the idea that a Wikipedia article is like an academic review article that it finally clicked for me. MalleusFatuorum19:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I was at some kind of Wiki gathering in a high school gymnasium. Some editor (Maunus? Marek? an M, anyway) complimented me, or criticized me in a roundabout way, saying that in real life I didn't cuss nearly as much; ergo, cussing was unnecessary on-wiki. You were sitting next to me, giving me your notoriously vague advice and noncommittal approval, while I was cutting strips from a stack of brightly colored clothes so I could weave some technicolor item. As I was doing it (warning! allegory!) I got sidetracked and started removing sleeves and pockets (because they'd get in the way of the uniformity of the strips), and then I picked out some clothes that I could still wear, so I never got even my second stack of strips cut. Meanwhile, you were chatting with one of my senior colleagues, a lady from the Old South (so to speak). I found some cigarettes--an old pack of unfiltered Caballeros like my father used to smoke, and a quarter pack (whatever) of pinkish girly cigarettes that were apparently my mom's. (Both lifelong smokers--my father died of it.) Then I woke up. Drmies (talk) 14:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes: it was clear to me that you were my father, and I'm sure I felt guilty because of you when I found the cigarettes, which I intended to smoke--since you despise the habit. In other news, I found the answer to the problem of the introductory paragraphs for TMitM. Now I need to write up Nathaniel Crouch to do away with an ugly redlink. Also, I've asked Broadview for a review copy (they send PDFs) of William Poole's edition, for a class I claim to intend to consider teaching in the fall of 2014, "Tales of the Future". Drmies (talk) 15:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Crouch is now blue. A very interesting character. The article I cited--the first hit in Google, really--suggests there ought to be plenty of material; someone with access to the DNB could easily fill in some blanks and beef it up some. I have some "real" work to do today as well, I'm afraid. And no cigarettes, of course. Drmies (talk) 15:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I've got access to the ODNB, I'll see what it has to say later. Meanwhile, the Sun's well over the yardarm, it's almost 5 o'clock, it's Friday, so cheers! MalleusFatuorum15:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, cheers--enjoy. I'm going to do a few more little things, and perhaps drop a note here every now and then. (There is no urgent need for response.) So the introduction makes sense now, and the ending does too: we are dealing with an abridged version and I'm sure there's more in the "real" thing. I found another note on the language thing and will add that. A bibliography--that is, a bibliography of books read by Godwin and used in TMitM--would be kind of fun: it would make for an impressive list. Drmies (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I've been looking through Poole's book, or at least as much of it as is available on Google Books, and he mentions several things that don't appear in the version I've been reading. For instance, that the Lunars call their god Martinus, that Gonsales is a midget, and most interestingly that the green children of Woolpit were actually Lunars sent to Earth and exchanged for human children", something the inhabitants of the Moon did commonly if they were unhappy with any of their own children. Hopefully the Poole book you're getting will have a more complete text than my 2nd edition. MalleusFatuorum21:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
PS. Martinus is a link with the green children, who claimed that they came from St Martin's Land, so another of the books that Godwin consulted must have been Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicum Anglicanum. A complete list of his sources would indeed be quite impressive. MalleusFatuorum21:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
Martinus? No kidding. That Gonsales is small is clear from the version you linked already, in two or three places--he brings it up in that duel, where he says he killed his opponent though he was bigger, and similarly with Diego, who wanted to get in the Engine first. Anyway, I'll pass on the Poole book when I get it; they haven't gotten back to me yet. Those green children: they'll be haunting me for years. Which reminds me--I hope you have read Sebald's Austerlitz by now; it's on the reading schedule for Tuesday, and it has Manchester in it, and a dream sequence set in some London train station, the hall (?) where the train to Manchester used to leave from. You'll love it, I guarantee it. Sebald, besides Bolano, is the greatest author I've read the last decade--and I say that with all due respect to Muller and Jelinek. Drmies (talk) 03:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
(od) I'd rephrase that- "…like saying that Bud Light and Orval are both beers". Came across a large brown rat drinking Bud out of a can a couple of days back. When it saw me staring at it, the rat pulled the can back into a bush, and carried on drinking. I see the WP article states "Among the people who are able to read Kapuściński in the original…". Did Flann O'Brien write in vain? ("The intelligentsia is that part of a nation, particularly the Russian, which aspires to independent thinking")Ning-ning (talk) 07:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Drmies, I daresay you do have access to the ODNB... As I have found out, we all do, through the printable versions of the pages: you use the preceding link for whatever article you seek, replacing the number with the correct one for that article (found in the index). I made this discovery last year and, most fearful that someone from the website would notice the loophole and close it if it were mentioned in a public place, I told only a couple of people about it and did so with great secrecy, instructing them to pass it on only via e-mail. Alas, the chain does not appear to have work as I had hoped, and knowledge is not useful unless spread around, so here I am. My fears are probably groundless, anyway... I hope. Waltham, The Duke of16:05, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
I am not thirsty for recognition or anything like that, but I'd like to be pulled out of my delusion if my supposed breakthrough is actually something that has been known to people for a while, rather than a useful discovery. Waltham, The Duke of10:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
(Talk page stalker here.) [After a few false starts in using the index, but getting there in the end.] As far as I'm concerned it's certainly a discovery, Your Grace. Very cool. Bishonen | talk12:29, 10 April 2013 (UTC).
I was about to note that, as you proceed down the alphabet, the index inexplicably drifts from the names given for each page (which finally occurs to me may have been due to the continued addition of entries), but I now find this has been corrected—possibly very recently. In any case, I am happy to have offered to the creators of content a service greater than my usual gnoming around and nitpicking. Waltham, The Duke of16:20, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Say, Malleus, I don't suppose you could give me a bit of advice on this? The article's currently sitting at the good article queue, but to be honest it really is time I rolled up my boots, went the whole hog and had a go at getting an article through the featured process. What state is it honestly in right now, and what needs to be done to make it better? I've got two (imho) brilliant book sources, and other odds and ends - what else? I'm a general ignoramus when it comes to MOS issues if I'm on honest, there are so many other people bouncing around on here who know exactly where the full stop goes next to the ref tag that I just seem to usually not bother. What do you and the peanut gallery of talk page stalkers think? Ritchie333(talk)(cont)17:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I'll have a look later and let you know what I think, but in general I think it can often make sense to skip GA and go straight to FA. MalleusFatuorum17:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I've given it a read. A joy to read, very rock n roll. One thing though I think it might focus a bit too much on his rock n roll behaviour and not enough on his music with the who. I know he was Keith Moon but my feeling would be to cover his music a bit more. Also, avoid bullet points in the After death section.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld14:29, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I finally got round to reading the article, which seems comprehensive enough to me; we're talking about a crazy drummer after all, not a "real" musician. I don't think you should have too many problems at GAN, as the article evidently meets the GA criteria. FAC would be a big step up though, and would require some significant work to polish the article. Take the film section for instance. It's five short paragraphs each of which begin "In ...". You'll need to make the prose a lot more engaging to stand a chance of meeting FA criterion 1a. MalleusFatuorum12:30, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay. Well I think before we even get to that stage, we need to make sure the sourcing is up to scratch, as it still seems rather weak in the "Film" section particularly. One of the problems I've had getting this far is trying to present information culled from multiple sources that isn't simply a list of "He was like 'x'. Here's example 1. Here's example 2. Here's example 3." I've found that trying to retrofit sources round an existing article without blowing it up and rewriting it can be an exhausting task, so I think I'll take a break from it when it's got through GAN and attack it with more vigour sometime later. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)13:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
It's always much harder to retrofit sources around existing text. It's usually much easier to start again from scratch, which is what I'd do with all the film stuff. MalleusFatuorum13:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
In praise of banned editors
I've been reminded by recent events of Wikipedia's callousness towards banned editors. I'm thinking for instance of Peter Damian not being allowed to improve the Duns Scotus article because he was discovered to be "socking", and his additions were removed. And there's Ottava Rima, without whom I may never be able to finish the William Harrison Ainsworth series. But most recently I've been reminded that I was the one who removed Margaret Thatcher's GA listing, after which I was encouraged by Off2riorob to try and get it back. Do we really do ourselves any favours by indefinitely banning (which everyone knows means forever, no matter what the wikilawyers say) editors who have clearly demonstrated a commitment to quality? MalleusFatuorum20:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Clearly not -- but if that policy is to change, you would have to start by changing the decree that "... the community has determined that the broader problems with a banned user's participation outweigh the benefits of their [sic] editing."
Wow, that's a scene straight out of Lord of the Flies, n'est-ce pas? I understand the whole civility thing, of course -- but it's not exactly breaking news that creative people in any discipline are often difficult to work with. The world would not be a better place if Beethoven or Wagner or Hemingway or Orson Welles or Dustin Hoffman or Streisand or any of a thousand other geniuses were "banned" by some oligarchy or other. Sounds like that scale -- the one that balances user contributions with user issues -- needs some serious recalibrating. DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!22:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I think back then some administrators thought that they were pioneers in some kind of social experiment to make the web a nicer place; some still do of course, but there seem to be fewer of them now than there were then. MalleusFatuorum22:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Gosh, that was interesting. I have heard you talking about the time you were blocked for calling someone a sycophant but I don't think I have ever read the story as it unfolded before. I kind of agree with what you say as well; I don't think we see as many civility enforcers as we once did. There are still sadly too many who view this project as an experimental virtual society and miss the point of the product being of paramount importance. --John (talk) 12:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I was also once blocked for using the word "wikilawyer", which is apparently an egregious personal attack. Is it any wonder I have such a low opinion of the administrator body? MalleusFatuorum12:45, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Of course they are, if you subscribe to the groupthink that tends to grow up around those who OWN policy. If you've been banned, you've clearly rejected the OWNing in some form. That damages their (and I use the collective "their" to refer to those who have become more about OWNing policy than creating or maintaining content and are members of one of the shadow bureaucracies here) sense of self-worth and accomplishment. You're gone against their group norms (often defined as "the norms of the community" to mask the OWNing), and in doing so you simply MUST be evil. Quite circular to be sure, but it has more to do with protecting and preserving one of the shadow bureaucracies than it does actually doing what the project is supposed to be doing. Intothatdarkness14:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
He helped what seems now an article with a distinguished list of contributors, including yourself. How can we categorise a building that is moated but not a castle? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
You are right for the infobox, especially since the pic shows it, but I asked about a category. How could it be more precise in the lead? Link to moated? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Malleus, out of curiosity what was your own opinion of Thatcher? What do you think of the reaction to her death by a lot of people? And yes, for once we have an article in the spotlight which is decent!♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld13:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Whatever I say will be used against me, so I shall decline to give my opinion except to say that I am not a natural Tory voter and that all those celebrating her death, or anyone's death, are the worst kind of scum. MalleusFatuorum13:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the pictures I saw of the people celebrating looked just like those I saw looting the shops in Tottenham. The under class.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld14:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
During the 2011 England riots, I recall one young lady, on asking why she was trashing and looting a small business, said something like "We're having a go at the rich an' showing we can do what we want", while thinking the business was probably on the breadline as it was, given how much of the High Street has closed down recently. Anyway, Malleus is right - the time to party about Thatcher was in November 1990 or thereabouts. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)17:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
... and I can remember seeing a fairly senior academic dancing in the university library and singing "The witch is dead" at that time! PamD17:58, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Funnily I have a photograph as a kid of about 11 with what was the county head of schools of something which was taken at an event at Dyffryn Gardens and she looks exactly like Maggie Thatcher and had a very similar manner.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld18:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I wish Italy had had a politician of her stature to save us too. It makes me sad to see people having street parties to celebrate her death - she had many faults, but the alternative was a Britain ruled by those currently holding the street parties. Those idiots have no idea what it's like to see politicians drag their country into the gutter and below. Sad day for the UK in my humble and foreign opinion. Giano 18:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I've heard that phrase before, and I'm pretty sure it relates to one of the Axis powers in WW II, but where did it actually originate? — Ched : ? 07:12, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi Malleus, I took the eveing out to read the above and felt compelled to write a note of thanks for co-producing such a great article. It is certainly one I would love to see at FAC. I have also read the annoying OWN accusations from certain editors who are polluting the talkpage, but I just don't see it. Illegitimi non carborundum! -- CassiantoTalk09:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
It is a good article on a very complicated subject, I can see why Malleus struggled with it for a while. I think getting it to FAC would need a heck of a lot of work, not because there's an inherent lack of talent available to do that, but rather because there's just so much social history to get through. Parrotof Doom22:00, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
It seems pretty complete to me (but then I'm not an authority on the subject). A few years ago, I discovered that some distant relatives of mine were forced to enter the Cleveland Street Workhouse briefly which saddened me greatly. I would be delighted to see this important but hugely tragic subject reach its best. Keep up the great work! -- CassiantoTalk23:20, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Unlike PoD, I don't there's that much missing. The significant social history really focuses on the post-1834 workhouses, which I think are adequately dealt with. Where Wikipedia's coverage falls down, as ever, is in the supporting articles such as the National Assistance Act 1948, the most important piece of social legislation of the 20th century. MalleusFatuorum23:49, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I've just noticed that the Pugin illustration includes a reference to the dead being used to supply anatomists. I think the article could be expanded to include the views of those people who actually lived in them. Also, the timing of the 1834 Act seems a little suspicious given the Anatomy Act 1832 and the arguments about the poor that brought up. I'll get to work on a section, in a sandbox, next week. Parrotof Doom00:19, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
I've done a little bit but I've had a busy week of work. I've just been collating what I've got, I haven't yet put it into any kind of order. Parrotof Doom18:40, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Some interesting material there. My feeling is that it might be possible to integrate it into the existing structure rather than have a new section on anatomists or whatever. MalleusFatuorum19:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree, there's more to process but I think we could expand on entering, and leaving the workhouse - inside or outside of a box. Parrotof Doom20:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Not until next week for me, I'm just too busy with work. I've spent a huge amount lately on the house and business so I'm taking everything I can get my hands on. Parrotof Doom21:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
There's no rush. I'm still covered in plaster dust, paint and wallpaper paste in an effort to do all those jobs I really ought to have done years ago. And now the bloody dishwasher's packed up! MalleusFatuorum21:23, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Tell me about it. I got builders in to replace a flat roof with a pitched skylighted roof, to get more light in the house. Then, while they were doing that, I decided to rip the adjoining ceiling down, because it was ancient and crap. Most horrible job ever. Then I completely rewired the lighting, lagged the ceiling, put plasterboard up, put lights in, ripped the plaster off 3 walls, got a plasterer in to sort out the crappy old walls, cleaned up some exposed brick, PVA'd it, rewired all the sockets and insulated under the floor. And I still have to remove a radiator, install 2 rads in different positions, finish lagging the floor, more plastering, more rewiring, all the woodwork has to be redone, walls painted, skirting painted and a new floor put in. Only then can I buy a big sofa and a huge telly and relax. Oh and I also took about 40 bags of rubble to the tip. Parrotof Doom21:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
I've been making regular trips to the dump as well, but as my local recycling centre doesn't accept plasterboard I've had to go to the one outside Altrincham. I'm considering now whether to buy a ladder or a tower, as the front of the house badly needs painting. Come to think of it, so does the side and and the back. How did you clean up the brick? I'm thinking of making a utility room out of part of our cellar, and that's got brick walls painted white. I think bare brick with decent lighting would look so much cooler. MalleusFatuorum22:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Chisel to get the plaster off the bricks. Plastic scrubbing brush (think old women cleaning flags) and water. Start at the top, 5-6 bricks, change the water, do the next lot. Takes a long time but make sure that water is always clean. Once you've done it all, let it dry, brush the loose mortar off, and then paint it with 1 part PVA 4 parts water. That'll seal them nicely. It's a very labour intensive job though, takes a long time. Parrotof Doom22:29, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Once I've finished the wallpapering, the floor tiles in the hall, and replaced the kitchen lighting I'll have a go at that. MalleusFatuorum22:45, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
I haven't forgotten about this btw, I've just had a load of work lately and what with everything I've spent, I need the pennies. Parrotof Doom21:31, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
That's a relief, I was beginning to think I'd have to write it myself. I was a contractor for many years, and I know you have to make hay while the Sun shines, because it doesn't always shine; feast or famine was always my problem. At one point it got so bad that I was trying to juggle three full-time jobs by hiring sub-contractors, one of whom demanded more money than I was getting paid to do the job. MalleusFatuorum21:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
I am sooo envious, reading all this DIY stuff! I absolutely love doing stuff like that - wish I could come up and help, lol! Pesky (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Little question
I've just noticed that when referencing book page numbers you use {{sfnp|Name|Date|p=}} but I've just used "sfn". What am I getting wrong now? :( I've just been loaned "A History of Emley" and I'll try to add some page numbers later. PS are all my sfns wrong. J3Mrs (talk) 12:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
it's not that you're getting it wrong, just that we're doing it differently. I switched to {{sfnp}} for visual compatibility with the way that sources are presented, "Arrowsmith, Peter (1996)" for instance. Having bracketed publication dates in both places seemed to make sense to me. MalleusFatuorum12:47, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
BTW, that Emley article's going better than I expected. I'd anticipated loads of battles. Hope I haven't spoken too soon. MalleusFatuorum12:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes it is, I haven't looked at the book yet other than a quick flick through when I picked it up. J3Mrs (talk) 13:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
While disconnected from my computer I found something that might be of interest to you in the Emley book. In the week of Emley Feast in 1826, John Turton sold his wife at Emley Cross to William Kaye for two half crowns. After Kaye died she returned to her husband and they were together for the next 30 years. J3Mrs (talk) 17:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Of course. Pobjoy, Harold Norman (1970), The History Of Emley – A West Riding Village, Ridings Publishing Company No ISBN p 132 PS Her name was Mary and William Kaye lived at Scissett. J3Mrs (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Sadly, I had to return my book on the Free Trade Hall to the library, as someone else wanted it, so that project is now on hold. MalleusFatuorum18:20, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
I'd forgotten about that but we've been really busy for a fortnight and will be for another week or so and sometimes I forget what day it is. J3Mrs (talk) 18:30, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Harrison FAC
FWIW, your recent comments about the lack of an overarching narrative in the article were taken quite seriously, and acted on with due dilligence. I know you are busy, but if you could find the time to take a glance at George Harrison, perhaps even make an edit or two, and maybe a few comments at the FAC, your effort to improve this area of the project would be greatly appreciated. Cheers! GabeMc(talk|contribs)05:43, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not going to comment at the FAC, but I shouldn't be seeing things like this after so long there: "In 1974, his 45-date Dark Horse Tour of North America suffered received poor reviews." Also, you don't achieve "several best-selling singles and albums", and there's a mix of "recognised" and "organized" in the article, again something I wouldn't expect to see after all this time. MalleusFatuorum21:06, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
You've worked so hard on this I really hate to leave you in the lurch. It's a big article, so give me a day or two to have a proper look through. MalleusFatuorum21:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's not for me to dictate to you, bearing in mind that so many Americans seem to have a love affair with commas, but I'd definitely get rid of them. Your choice though, all that really matters is that you're consistent. MalleusFatuorum02:56, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Not currently, just periodically. For instance, just ask ArbCom for clarification on whether or not I'm allowed to restore a thread to the RfA main page from the RfA talk page, where I'm forbidden to post, and see what the reaction is. Last time it was "Burn the witch!" MalleusFatuorum22:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Right, well an Ivory Tower can do strange things to a person's mind. They can try to ban you all they want, but I saw the last AN/I thread and it didn't look to me like there would ever be a consensus for banning you. GabeMc(talk|contribs)22:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
You may be right, I can't keep track of all the ANI threads about me. Anyone might be excused for thinking that I was some kind of monster, whereas in reality I'm one of the most generous and helpful editors that Wikipedia has ever had. MalleusFatuorum23:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
I know you don't put much stock in such things; still ...
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
I recently placed Margaret Thatcher on my watchlist when I saw that she had died. I noticed that you worked hard at keeping the article in proper condition, and wanted to thank you for that. I do understand that there is little real life value in "barnstars", but I did want to find a way of noting your efforts. Thank you sir. — Ched : ? 17:21, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Ched. It was once a featured article, but it slid down the rankings until it lost even its GA status, which spurred John and I to work on it knowing that it would be hit hard when Thatcher died. We grafted away to get it back up to GA status by pretty much rewriting the whole thing, which is why it's so galling to have to sit and watch all these recent "improvements" and charges of POV flying around. So much so that I've taken the article off my watchlist, as I was getting too steamed up about it. MalleusFatuorum17:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I've had a look through the talk page and my opinion can be summed up as Facepalm . I tend to stay well out of the way of articles where the subject's media attention has exploded, and don't even think of reading it until the heat has died down from the tabloids. I did the same with Jimmy Savile last year, and I'm doing it here, now. I appreciate you feel different, Malleus, as you had a large hand in writing it, but I think it's just best to just let whoever wants to POV battle over the article for the minute to do it, then clear it all up when everyone's forgotten about it and it's all blown over. I'm just waiting for the first cry of "but it doesn't violate WP:BLP anymore!" Ritchie333(talk)(cont)14:41, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't feel differently, I feel exactly the same, and I've taken Maggie off my watchlist until her funeral has receded to the back pages. MalleusFatuorum14:47, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Big hugz - nice to see you back :D Ahem ... ah-hm [Pesky cruisin' for a bruisin', perhaps...] Gotta point this out, can't resist. "Spurred ... I on to work on it". Love it! Very West Country Farmer-esqe ;P (Remember that you love me, really.)Pesky (talk) 17:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
It's nice to be a bit back, but I can't do "really back" yet. I can't sit for very long at a time, and I think that with 50mg of morphine every 4 hours, doing any article work would count as editing under the influence, lol! Pesky (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Malleus, and dear visitors, please feel free to expand/improve this little article, on a subject you all know much better than I do. Thank you in advance. Drmies (talk) 02:05, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
I've actually stayed in the Great Eastern for a week. I thought it was pretty shabby once you got past the public rooms, and a bit creepy. MalleusFatuorum11:39, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
No kidding! Can you read this? Thank you all for your help. I see someone's been fucking with my reference formatting, but it's for the greater good, I imagine. :) Drmies (talk) 17:59, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
I fuck with everyone's reference formatting, so it's nothing personal. I can read the reviews, but not the book; is it something you think I'd enjoy reading?
I know, Malleus. And I've learned how to copy and paste, and that it's good to stick with a format if someone who knows better knows it's better. That book is one of the best books I've read in the last decade; words (almost) fail me. And his The Emigrants is very good also. I wish he hadn't died (relatively) young; he was the kind of writer that comes along very rarely--he's compared with Borges, for instance, but he's not abstract or intellectual. I read Austerlitz without having read the blurb on the cover (older edition) or a summary elsewhere, and that's the way to do it. Really, I can't say enough about it.
Yes, I was thinking about that and meant to drop you a line, but my grading got in the way. I think we're almost done. That is, I did some more searching and I really couldn't find any more big critical issues that we haven't covered. I'd like to wait until I get that book in (it's taking a long, long time), to confirm publication information and to see if we missed something.
The only thing I'm wondering about (confirmed by the article I sent you) is whether it needs a sciency paragraph. I think it probably does--a separate section that includes mention/discussion of magnetism, the medium through which he flies (he can breathe...but I have not seen anyone discuss it), and perhaps the motion/speed/duration. Problem with the mathematical article is that it's a thought experiment with no interest in what Godwin and his contemporaries knew and thought. That the return journey takes shorter does not seem to be based on the math of motion from one rotating body to another rotating around the same center, and his acceleration toward Earth seems larger than the necessary escape velocity to leave Earth in the first place--but again, that's not a discussion I've seen in print (yet).
I'd like to be able to expand the lead a bit, with a scientific note. The first paragraph is historical; a bit of detail on the mechanics of his journey and what he finds there is really a propos. I might give that a shot later on tonight or tomorrow, depending on circumstances. But, to cut this long answer short, we have a GA here right now, I believe, with room for improvement and FA potential. I hope that PDF comes in soon. Drmies (talk) 23:57, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
And can I tell you (all) again how much I appreciate your help with the hotel? I can't believe you actually stayed there--before the renovation. Right now it's 250 pounds a night, the cheap rate... Drmies (talk) 00:00, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
When I stayed there I wasn't paying, the company I was working for paid, but it was definitely a very creepy place I wouldn't be in a hurry to go back to. MalleusFatuorum00:10, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
If I were an FA reviewer I'd note that the lead says "notable for its role...", with a reference--but the article does not actually explain this. That part needs a paragraph in the "Influence" section, where right now only its literary influence is discussed. Sorry, I sound like a critic, and I'm telling myself this more than I'm telling you. Worse, I have to close this netbook since the girls need to eat, and I'm the cook. I'll be back. Drmies (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
A "sciency paragraph" sounds like an interesting idea, but I'd prefer to see the science distributed throughout the article at the appropriate places. I've been quite surprised at the sophistication of Godwin's astronomical knowledge, and I disagree with you about the maths. The return journey obviously never took place, but if it had it would have been shorter because of its different pursuit curve. Anyway, we'll sort that out later. MalleusFatuorum00:23, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Better than peanut butter
Malleus, I know you said you don't like opera, but when you take a next break/pour next glass of wine could you give this your attention and let me know what you think? Puccinni. (In 55 secs this unpretentious guy causes a sophisticated lady in the audience to wipe a tear, and in 1 min 20 sec the pretty female judge is emotionally unraveled and disarmed! [Wow. Jealous!]) p.s. Perhaps the vid is known by all of Britian since 2007; if so plz excuse, I just myself discovered it. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Ok, "Malleus nightmare" = forced to eat peanut butter & attend opera. (But forget 'opera' ... did you hear Potts sing his heart out? It's raw. It's fresh. It's ... music. It's ... love.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:16, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
It's not just opera and musicals, I hate ballet as well. I've only ever been to one, and we had good seats right at the front, but from there it sounded like a herd of elephants rampaging across the Serengeti as the dancers leaped and pranced. Come to think of it, I don't much like any form of dancing ... maybe I'm a born-again Puritan. MalleusFatuorum18:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
thought you might appreciate this ...
This user does not engage in Groupthink, and sometimes thinks outside the box.
I wonder if everyone has the same feeling of omniscience that I do after a few glasses of wine? If they do, then all I can say is that they're wrong and I'm right. MalleusFatuorum18:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
I probably need a glass of wine. ... although actually I usually prefer a beer when I'm throwing darts or shooting pool. — Ched : ? 19:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
My only complaint is that most of the bars (pubs) close to home for me only have the soft-tip boards. I do have a steel-tip board at home, but I don't get much company. I enjoy it greatly, but I'm not particularly "good" at it. And I agree, sobriety does interfere with my concentration. — Ched : ? 19:17, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
America, what can you say. Those soft-tipped boards are for kids. I have a set of lightweight titanium steel darts that are a dream to throw. From years of experience and experimentation I discovered that my optimum alcohol intake before a darts match is 2–3 pints of lager; less than that I'm useless, and much more than that I'm useless. MalleusFatuorum19:21, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Darts was invented by an elite team of researchers, to cater for those who found the test card too exciting to watch. The project was abandoned after a rival team developed snooker. (Seriously, I—and I think every other person from Every Other Country In The World—find the ability to watch sports about which nobody could possibly give a toss one of the most baffling aspects of the English character. And I speak as someone who finds cricket exciting.) – iridescent19:32, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
No argument from me; baseball lies somewhere between trotter racing and televised poker on my personal scale of things I'd never pay to watch. All three are still some way ahead of darts and snooker—the only thing that even runs them close is a few years back when Sky tried to televise angling. – iridescent19:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Box? What's one of those, then? When it comes to watching sport, then cross-country jumping is a pretty good one to watch. Better by far to see it from a position alongside one of the fences. But neither gives you anything remotely like the buzz of actually doing the thing. Pesky (talk) 16:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Don't sell yourself short. Without your identification of the underling problem, the weakness in the overarching narrative, then perhaps we may have spun our wheels for quite a bit longer with few positive results. I really want to thank you for your kindness and encouragement. Wikipedia can be a cold and thankless place at times, so it was both a relief and a reassurance to me that the community often does pull together for the good of the project. Also, thanks for addressing Tony's 11th hour comments. A negative review or two at the end can sometimes be a de-rail IME (as I'm sure you know), but since you dispached with his concerns post haste, I didn't even have to worry. You're the best Malleus, and while I don't see how I could ever repay you, please know that I "owe you one", big time! GabeMc(talk|contribs)20:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Funny you mentioned this at JW's talk page, looking at the article she isn't notable except for that lawsuit. This is a classic case of WP:BLP1E would you agree? Russavia (talk) 21:56, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
As it stands the article is pretty marginal I think, but she's appeared in a few films so I expect that more could be added to her article by anyone interested enough to do so. There's obviously way too much on her IMDb court case, which ought to be chopped back, but I doubt that an AfD would be successful. MalleusFatuorum22:29, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
I really, really hope so. There's no actual legitimate reason not to do it that I can see, and it has pretty good support so far. I might just be naive, but I'm hoping it'll be relatively uncontroversial. Writ Keeper (t + c) 23:31, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm less than pleased. I'm currently weighing the benefits of replying to him directly; not sure it's going to do any good. Writ Keeper (t + c) 18:03, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
It won't do any good. Scottywong's tactic is to try and derail the proposal because I'm in favour of it and he hates me. Editors like him should never be allowed to become administrators in this "admin for life" environment. MalleusFatuorum18:07, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
I probably shouldn't keep posting here, Malleus (or is it master?), since apparently it's considered fraternizing with the enemy or some shit. But God damn, this is seriously starting to piss me off. Writ Keeper⚇♔19:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Being an administrator, you've perhaps been immune to this kind of thing, but it's the bread and butter of everyday life for the rest of us. To be fair to Tparis though, he's in the American military, so you can't really expect too much independent thought from him, or indeed any at all. MalleusFatuorum19:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
I come from a military family (though none of them were career soldiers, and I myself am not in the military), so I don't accept that. People tend to forget that, while yes, subordination and discipline are big parts of the military, you also have to be a leader of men, and unless you're the lowest of privates (TParis is not), you have to know how to give orders as well as take them. Leading people requires earning their respect--loyalty is earned both up and down--and I don't see how implying that one person is a mindless stooge of another has anything to do with respect. I'd like to think that TParis just didn't think his post through all the way, but the fact that he would even mention that, regardless of what he says about me, is bad form and a low blow. I had always hoped you were wrong about people never forgetting a grudge and people not being open to criticism, but now I'm seeing how you got there, and it's not a pleasant trip. Writ Keeper⚇♔19:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
TParis is also in the Air Force, which has a service culture that is quite different from the rest of the military. There's a specific mindset associated with them as well as certain behaviors and reactions. The Air Force tends to view its NCOs as technicians and not as leaders, and then when they reach a specific rank they're supposed to automatically change into leaders. It doesn't work very well. Intothatdarkness20:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Tparis isn't really a "leader of men", he's a programmer in the USAF. I was myself a programmer for the UK's Ministry of Defence, so I know what the job entails. And I know that rank and holding grudges is a very big part of that job. MalleusFatuorum20:18, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I know. Quite familiar with the USAF and its rank structure, social customs, and so on. I've seen him post that way before, and can't say it surprised me to see it again. Intothatdarkness20:21, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
In my time at the MOD I don't think that non-commissioned officers were given the opportunity to become programmers. We all had to be "proper" officers", or civilian officer equivalents. MalleusFatuorum20:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
TParis can have an off day. However, he usually will try to deal with criticism with greater honesty and integrity than the rest of us. Kiefer.Wolfowitz20:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
TParis will think about a sincere politely worded criticism. I agree that he makes more mistakes than say Nikkimaria or Ched, but among editors who make mistakes he is among those most likely to consider criticism and act on it, with little concern for pride. (I make a lot of references to Elmore Leonard, with good reason; those unfamiliar with Leonard may think that I am grinding a Leonard axe. Perhaps it is pardonable for TParis---if he has not recently reviewed MF's RfAs, bad blocks, taunting at ANIs, and Arbcom leaks and "decisions"---to think that MF is unjustly concerned about administrators. No doubt the moneylenders thought that Jesus was over-reacting too....) Kiefer.Wolfowitz09:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Will he? Opposing an idea because of whose idea it was is the very essence of an ad hominem argument, something that Tparis would do well to reflect on. MalleusFatuorum10:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
While waiting for someone to notice Sharpe, Paley and Austin at GAN, I wonder if it would be worthwhile submitting a companion piece, List of works by Sharpe and Paley at FLC. It contains details about the works produced during one period of the practice, and I think satisfies most of the criteria for FLC. It could of course do with a copyedit, and I wonder if you would do that, and give any other necessary advice. I never really know how "professional" the text in the "Notes" column should be. Some FLCs seem to get away with phrases, but I have tried to compose sentences, without, I hope, too much repetition. Cheers. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 10:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Cripes, that's on its way alright. Your Brandwood et. al cites go nowhere, and Hartwell et. al's book Cheshire has no footnotes pointing at it. Otherwise at a glance it looks like a very solid FL candidate. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:37, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Looking a little closer, you've got some citation overkill. If the information in a table is already referenced there, the lede doesn't need it. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:56, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your remarkably prompt help. I have re-worded the notes about this church, but I think that the list, as it stands, is a bit confusing. As I see it, the PRACTICE existed from Sharpe's foundation in 1835 until Harry Paley's death in 1946. This list includes the works of just part of the practice, during the nominal PARTNERSHIP of Sharpe and Paley. I think that in some way we have to draw a distinction between the two, and am not sure that the list reflects this. The opening sentence is now much tidier, but not an accurate reflection of the reality; it was not a practice in itself, but a phase in a long-lasting practice, each phase sort of merging into the next. The way I have re-worded the Bolton-in-Sands Notes reflects this, but the lead does not. Have you any suggestions as to how this can be dealt with in the lead? And do you agree with the suggestion that most of the citations should be deleted from the lead, as these are cited within the list itself? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 16:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
I've a go at re-wording the lead, see what you think. I have a couple more questions for you, but I'll post them on your talk page. MalleusFatuorum20:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Last question: It's been done with film awards and literary prizes. The people who write lists of Listed Buildings seem to prefer lots of citations (I seem to remember you being one of them, but I could be misremembering). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:43, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Cornwall is a county in England, full stop. I've got absolutely no time for these pettifogging pseudo-nationalists. If they want independence then let 'em have it, no great loss, but until then they're part of England whether they like it or not. MalleusFatuorum16:44, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
It's a ceremonial county, but administratively it's a unitary authority area. But regardless, I agree with Malleus—"England, UK" is redundant. Those fields are about geography, not politics, so there's no need for both "England" and "UK"; we just need to tell the reader that the place is within another place whose name they would recognise. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Do you remember those kids at school who used to write "England, UK, Europe, Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way, the universe"? MalleusFatuorum18:56, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh no, anything but county arguments. I learned all the counties in England and Wales from an old picture puzzle of my dad's, then somebody at school said they were all "wrong", at which point I understood how political wars start. Bottom line is I know people who are happy to refer to themselves as living in "Greater Manchester", meaning they live near Manchester, but not in it, others from exactly the same place start to go purple with rage and steam comes out of their ears if you describe them living anywhere other than "Lancashire". And then there's that large town by the River Usk estuary called Newport, which is in Gwent, WalesMonmouthshire, WalesMonmouthshire, EnglandMonmouthshire, WalesGwentthe UK ... well, you get the idea.... Ritchie333(talk)(cont)09:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi - I hope you don't mind me starting a new section, but your worthy discussions with Drmies on this topic have been getting a bit too fragmented under other heads for me to listen in to!
I've just bought a copy of the Poole (Broadview) edition of TMitM - apparently the last one in stock at Amazon-uk. Very useful - includes the Nuncius Inanimatus (in English), and extracts from other relevant texts (eg Mark Ridley's A Short Treatise of Magneticall Bodies and Motions (1613) in case you decide on a 'scientific' section). It's probably now the best modern edition to refer to, and the introduction is very full and may supersede most of the other discussions. I gather it has been reviewed in Science Fiction Studies (38.2, July 2011) but the review doesn't seem to be accessible online.
A couple of things I spotted suggest it could have done with a bit of copyediting - placing St Helena among 'the Pacific islands off the west coast of Africa'(!) and some confusion over the date of the introduction of the Gregorian calendar - 1582 and 1572 on the same page. (I hadn't realised that if you calculate on the basis of the dates, astronomical data and journey times Gonsales gives, he was using the Julian calendar (as in use in England) at the start of his voyage, switching to the Gregorian calendar (as in Catholic countries) halfway.)
There's more on the Chinese episode than I'd seen before, and a section decoding the Lunar language. Nothing new on the Green Children - Poole seems as unaware of Clark's articles as apparently Clark was of Poole's earlier papers! So I still think Clark's suggestion of the Martin Marprelate connection is worth keeping in (like my old favourite Geoffrey of Monmouth, I'm pretty sure Godwin would enjoy merging two sources into one imaginative whole). And more of his contemporaries would have been aware of the Marprelate controversy than ever read William of Newburgh.
Poole believes Godwin used the 1587 printed edition of William of Newburgh - largely, it seems, because Godwin cites W of N in his Catalogue of the Bishops of England in 1601 when only the 1587 edition was available. But surely Godwin would have turned to the new Paris printing of 1610 once it became available? (Poole suggests the reference to the Green Children 'that fell from Heaven' in Robert Burton's Anatomy of melancholy (1621) inspired Godwin to read W of N again, so it's not as if he was relying on something he'd read back in 1601.) And it's not just Clark's view that Godwin had access to the 1610 edition - Clark cites Lawton (Rev Eng Stud 7 (1931)) - quote 'Godwin's citation of William's work as "de reb. Angl." indicates that he made use of the 1610 Paris printing of William's history, edited by Jean Picard, for, as Lawton points out (39 fn. 1), De rebus Anglicis ("Concerning English Affairs") is the title carried by Picard's edition...' (Clark 2006, 213). And since the 1610 edition included Ralph of Coggeshall's account alongside, that means that Godwin could have used elements from Ralph's slightly different version. Poole rather ignores Ralph - his footnote on Ralph is inaccurate (but that's down to the source he quotes - highly respected but in this case wrong!) (Sounds like a Wikipedia verifiable source!)
Please feel free to butt in as much as you like, it's good to hear another view. Drmies has succeeded in blagging a free copy of Poole's book I think, so I'm sure he'll have a view as well. I'm leaning somewhat against the idea of a Science section, but what do you think? MalleusFatuorum20:34, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
Just finished sending the previous message yesterday evening, switched on the television to find it was in the middle of a programme about Isaac Newton - just a reminder (if any were needed) that Godwin's science is pre-Newtonian (so there's no such thing as "gravity"). Gonsales himself attributes his faster journey back to earth either to his gansas' eagerness to get home or to the 'attraction' of the earth being greater than that of the moon (presumably because of its size?). - John O'London (talk) 08:41, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
I watched that programme myself last night, very enjoyable. I might extend the discussion on how Gonsales explained that his return trip was quicker than his outward journey. MalleusFatuorum12:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
John, thank you for that long and useful note, and Malleus, thanks for 14 helpful edits. I still haven't received my Poole but I'm about to email the rep. Yes, gravity: I think it's mentioned in the Pursuit Curve article, and made me raise an eyebrow. Drmies (talk) 01:44, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
The first chapter of Poole is available on Google books, and I've taken what's seems relevant from that. The pursuit curve material is interesting, I think, because it shows that Godwin was right but for the wrong reasons about the return journey being shorter that the outward journey. Gravity has nothing to do with the pursuit curve, but I've expanded the note slightly to reiterate that Gonsales explains the discrepancy by the Earth having a stronger magnetic attraction. I think we've done pretty much all we can with the book, what do you think? MalleusFatuorum11:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Here it is, the strange note from Simoson: "For the first few moonward miles, the birds strain at transporting Domingo. But thereafter, earth's pull of gravity vanishes." Anyway. Yes, I think we're good. Whatever else appears will not stand in the way of GAR, or significantly change the contents of the article. (I've emailed the Broadview rep again.) Go for it Malleus. Drmies (talk) 14:31, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Just tidied up a minor glitch in the references, that seemed to have Neville Davies in 1967 commenting on Poole's edition of 2009. John O'London (talk) 10:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Malleus--forgive me for my forgetfulness, but have I sent you the Poole edition yet? I don't think I have. I'm looking at it right now and it's a good read so far. (I do like Broadview; I'm using their Beowulf version, translated by Roy Liuzza, this fall.) Drmies (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
You have, yes, although I haven't read it yet. When we've got what we can from Poole I'm thinking we might as well go straight to FAC given the queue at GAN. MalleusFatuorum10:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Hello Malleus Fatuorum. With regards to this, what a very clever and kind fellow you are. If you object to the commas (I don't feel like arguing grammar with you, maybe someone else will, or you'll correct yourself), please at least have to decency and diligence to make things consistent (which will take considerably more time than jackleg reverts and glib comments), as there are still many instances of the kinds of commas I added from before my edit. Thanks, my apologies for the unworthy character that I am daring to disturb Your Highness and best regards – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 16:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Malleus wasn't incivil you. (But it's fun and self-satisfying, isn't it, to initiate hostilities and personal attacks, and then blame the other guy.) Tacky. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2013 (UTC) p.s. I suggest you take your feelings, pack 'em up into a neat little package, then take a long hike.
It's editors like you ὁ οἶστρος who make this place such a miserable environment. You know nothing and you're not prepared to learn anything, because you think you already know everything. MalleusFatuorum18:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
"ὑποκριτά, ἔκβαλε πρῶτον ἐκ τοῦ ὀφθαλμοῦ σοῦ τὴν δοκόν, καὶ τότε διαβλέψεις ἐκβαλεῖν τὸ κάρφος ἐκ τοῦ ὀφθαλμοῦ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου." (nah, that obviously ain't by me – which you are naturally aware of, as you're the erudite one here, while I'm just ole know-nuthin')
And way to transparently not address the issue at hand. All the best to you two lovers (if you really are two people) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Generally speaking, British articles will not use a comma after a date expression "In 1990 this happened", while American articles will often use one "In 1990, that happened". It's common for articles to be inconsistent since different editors will vary in whether they add them and it's easy for people to overlook them. But yes, consistency is the goal, you just have to be careful which way you standardize them (based on the subject of the article). Mark Arsten (talk) 20:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) In the article in question, if I remember correctly, there were more instances of with-comma before my edit, so you're saying that, when harmonizing, "national ties" (not so easy determinable in many cases, anyway) of a subject are still [and always] taking precedence, even if style was very lopsided (not the case here, though, if memory serves) towards "the other side"? Anyway, I get the feeling we're giving this way more thought than the guy smugly reverting me was (I doubt he was giving it any thought). Nice "talking" to you, take care – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 20:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
I suggest that you shut the fuck up before you make even more of a fool of yourself than you already have. You don't remember correctly, you have no idea what you're talking about and you're a fucking bore. MalleusFatuorum20:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Not to belabor the point, but your edit here introduces inconsistency even in the small portion of the article that the diff viewer shows. You add a comma to "In 1985, Brady..." in the first paragraph, yet the very next paragraph's "On 3 July 1985 Topping visited Brady..." is left without a comma. More generally, though, are we really fighting about commas four days after the edits happened? Can we not do that? It's rather silly. Writ Keeper⚇♔20:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
You could also say I didn't remove all the inconsistencies. But if one follows Mark Arsten's argument that this is wholly subject-dependent and this really is a BrE vs. AmE thing, then the article should've been harmonized in the other direction, anyway. Moreover, while the reverting user's tone / behavior irked me considerably, yes, I agree, let's move on. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 20:55, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Making changes in the name of consistency is rather pointless if you're not going to fix all the inconsistencies, yeah? :) Writ Keeper⚇♔20:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, if I make something 90% consistent up from 60%, then that's progress. But, as I wrote, if Mark Arsten's right, I should've harmonized in the other direction anyway. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 21:08, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
What you should do is to fuck off now, as I've seen just about as much from you as I'm about to take. Anything else you post here will be deleted. MalleusFatuorum21:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, well, you know, Americans as a generic species aren't really in love with commas, but edit summaries are summaries. American teachers are taught to teach a plenitude of commas, that's a fact; it's part of "formal" writing, sometimes misunderstood as "grammatically correct writing". One of the things I'm grateful to Malleus for is making me realize that in US formal writing the comma is indeed (well, one might argue) overused. Inspiration, best to apologize for the sneers and sarcasm and move along. Drmies (talk) 14:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
When talking about commas the phrase drilled into us by one of my English teachers is often at the forefront of my mind: "When in doubt, leave it out". But of course there are many things we're taught in school that turn out to be over-simplifications or even downright untrue, such as the "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'" nonsense, or the exhortation not to begin a sentence with a conjunction; I've lost count of the number of times someone has tried to "correct" my grammar when I've started a sentence with "But ..." for instance. Some of us go through life learning, while others seem to want to eke out for as long as they can what little they learned in school, and the even less they understood. MalleusFatuorum15:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
I got into beaucoup trouble from a succession of English teachers for asking exactly WHY we could not begin sentences with conjunctions; none had a logical answer, of course. Many of these myths originated with a few Latin-obsessed shut-ins who were trying to make English grammar conform to that of Latin –- hence the veto on split infinitives -- and the ruling against stranding a preposition, which drives me particularly nuts, and up with which I will not put! DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!15:39, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
Yes. I don't know if you can read this on GBooks; that's the subject matter for tomorrow's class. :) That "preposition" rule is no doubt based in part on the name (that English grammatical terminology is Latin-based and partly invented, partly promoted by those 18th-century grammarians: "pre" means "before", and prepositions are related to nouns one way or another, so there must be a noun following it. Never mind that ordinary language couldn't care less about such artificial rules. Malleus, my academic sentences haven't gotten much shorter, but they certainly have a lot less (fewer) commas than they did before. Drmies (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
You may have heard the story of the Aggie (that's a student at Texas A&M) who travels up to Harvard to visit a friend. They are supposed to meet at the library, so he stops a professor in the Yard: "Excuse me, sir, but can you please tell me where the library is at?" Disdainfully, the professor replies, "Obviously you are a visitor, because no Harvard student would EVER end a sentence with a preposition!" "Oh, I see," replies the Aggie, somewhat taken aback. "So," says the professor, "would you like to rephrase your question?" "Sure. Can you please tell me where the library is at, ASSHOLE?" DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!22:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
It came as quite a surprise for me, one day after nominating, with the stunning picture, then that was not taken ... - anyway, thanks for adding life to it! Did you know that the model for his sculpture Christus in the Mainz Cathedral is a ballet dancer with African roots? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
I think a comment in that last link is very interesting, and deserves to be in the article: "... his ballerinas seem to elude gravity, they appear to hover as if they have lost all contact with the floor". That seems to be an important feature of Oswald's work, and you could attribute it to the galleria, so no need for an external link. MalleusFatuorum19:42, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
It would obviously be better if you could find an independent critic making that point, but in the meantime a quote would do. MalleusFatuorum20:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Life finally got unbusy enough for me to actually tackle the review ... I've dealt with or replied to all your points (or at least I think I did... it's been a wild week here and I'm getting pretty frazzled and forgetful). Ealdgyth - Talk21:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
I know how much you love DYK. Regardless, many thanks to you and your talk page stalkers; it's much appreciated. Drmies (talk) 15:49, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
If the front page had more excellent pictures more prominently displayed then I might be more inclined to look at it from time to time. Tony1 had some good ideas for putting a bit of pazazz into the main page layout, but as with so many other proposals for changing anything here it came to naught. MalleusFatuorum19:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
That pic is - as many others - from a banned/blocked user. - I put our little palace on top of my talk for today, replacing the usual. Did you know that I am quite proud of this edit? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. - I didn't dare to do it without a friend from Israel on my side, to be honest. It's so strange to insert and see things move to the left. - Stunning pic. Not aceptable as FP here, remember? - Next person lacking a lead: Matthias Eisenberg. Die Evangelische ref has good details on him as a person, not yet in the article, just discovered, feel free to add, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
It's difficult to take any language seriously in which you have to read the letters from right to left but the numbers from left to right. Crazy. MalleusFatuorum12:50, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Has finished it's Peer Review (such at it was and what there was of it) and is probably ready for a final polish... I've got an art festival this weekend, but will be free enough to work on it at FAC next week... 18:52, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Ealdgyth - Talk
Yes, Malleus, I was a bit taken aback to see that you somehow weren't able to compose a more universally palatable edit summary in that instance. (Was it 'writer's block'!? [Notice how we always apply AGF in instances like this.]) Let me try and help by offering some suggestions you might consider to use as alternative edit sums under similar conditions in the future (BTW these have all been carefully developed by WMF and thoroughly tested at The TeaHouse, so you can rest assured they are 100 percent pillar-compatible and will never let you down): 1) "Heavens to Betsy, what a confounding conglomeration I seem to have found here! Let me help." or 2) "Jiminy Crickets, what a chaotic chorus of constructions I seem to have discovered here! Let me help." or 3) "My word, what a hodgepodge of good-faith edits I seem to be finding here, that seems to possibly have gotten a little bit out of control. Let me help."
Please don't feel bad about this one particular incident; we (non-Admin) editors all experience slip-ups once in awhile. Just use this opportunity as a learning experience and I'm sure everything will turn out fine. And remember, if you have any questions at any time, don't be afraid to ask -- helping one another in a collaborative editing environment is what we do here. I'm sure in time these concepts will become second-nature, and your editorship will even become a model for others to follow. Happy editing! Ihardlythinkso (talk) 02:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe there's any need for such language as you used when you rv'd me. If you really think that the reflist looks better now, perhaps you ought to go to Specsavers. Jodosma (talk) 07:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't care what you believe, as you're clearly a hypocrite coming here to complain about my alleged rudeness by being rude yourself. Now run along, there's a good chap. MalleusFatuorum11:03, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Ok, but I still think that the reflist in John Nevison looks better with two columns rather than three; the "orphan" at the top of the second column looks strange. Ciao :). Jodosma (talk) 12:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I get three columns, with the middle one being the last part of reference 1: "University Press, retrieved 12 April 2013 (subscription or UK public library membership required)". If I make the text size larger, it goes to two columns. Try playing with the zoom on your browser and see what happens. BencherliteTalk13:10, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Strange how so many here seem to believe that they're automatically entitled to respect, another much abused word here on Wikipedia. MalleusFatuorum14:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
But that's a general point Bencherlite, nothing to do with this specific article. Jodosma's time would be better spent in expanding this underdeveloped article, and adding more citations, than wasting my time here. MalleusFatuorum14:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm overwhelmed with all the attention, so sorry I've been such a fool about the appearance of things. Don't know why, maybe I'm too old for all this stuff. But I won't give up. I'll take the very good advice offered by Malleus and spend my time on something more fruitful (within the Wiki of course, there's nowhere else for me). Jodosma (talk) 20:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm perhaps being particularly dense, only just being on my second cup of tea of the day, but I don't see the problem. Which particular citation(s) are causing the problem you see? For me, PoD's change has made no difference at all that I can see. MalleusFatuorum11:15, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
If I clicked any Staff citation in the notes section, instead of taking me to the book, it took me to the Daily Mail citation. Parrotof Doom11:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I just realised after I posted what was going on, more caffeine required. Seems like a strange bug to me, but your fix seems to work well. If there's a cleverer way to do it then I certainly don't know of it. MalleusFatuorum11:22, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Question
How do you properly put a link into a citation to show that the source is subscription only? I messed around with my monobook.js and now a script I'd forgotten about is warning me about minor errors in articles I've written. Some of those errors are because I've put {{subscription}} in the title field. Parrotof Doom14:14, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Ok that works, thanks. I found a cool script that lets you auto-install scripts, it's here. I also have one that fixes ISO dates, so that's nice too. Plus one of those is highlighting citation errors too, which is useful. Parrotof Doom15:38, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I've been using the one that highlights citation errors for a while now, very useful. Another useful one is the script that flags up whether someone's an admin or not. ;-) MalleusFatuorum15:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Interesting developments at the talk page there. I have changed my position; I now believe there is enough of a body of comment to make a brief mention of the negative reactions to her death acceptable. I've asked for suggestions towards drafting a suitable sentence. I would be interested to know your position. Of course, there are still people there arguing against my former position even after my concession, and I have been taken to AN/I again for un-Californian language. She was certainly a controversial and divisive character. See what you think, and of course feel free to disagree with me. --John (talk) 21:23, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I do resent this POV charge BTW. As I've said elsewhere, I'm no natural Tory, and I bent over backwards to try and be neutral, as I'm sure did you. MalleusFatuorum21:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
As we've discussed, the assertion that I am part of some pro-Thatcher cabal would be amusing if I wasn't being taken to AN/I twice a day for it. I think it's the fact that I worked so hard to treat the subject fairly and build balance and consensus into the article over a period of years that make these slurs so hurtful. I knew this would be difficult. We knew the risks when we did the work; she was always going to die some day, and this was always going to happen when she died. I still have no regrets and it remains one of my proudest bits of work on the project. --John (talk) 21:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
At least now you know how it feels to get dragged to ANI twice a day. You get somewhat immune to it after a bit though. As you may recall I was somewhat reluctant to get involved with Maggie's article as I knew it would be tough, and one day it was likely something like recent events would happen and cause it to be trashed. But like you, looking back on what is was like after it lost its GA blob and comparing even what's there today, I think we did bloody well. Especially in coming up with a structure that made sense, and seems to have survived recent events largely intact. MalleusFatuorum22:01, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
The structure was all your idea I think and it was an excellent one. I did a lot of work finding sources and quite a lot of writing and copy-editing. I reckon you did about 65% of the work and I did about 25%. GeometryGuy and Mr Stephen chipped in as well. Thanks for defending me at AN/I; I'm going to try to get through the rest of today without being mentioned at any of the noticeboards. Oh, and thanks for offering to look at Lecen's Uruguayan War article. I don't mean to sound paranoid, it's just a question I feel I have to ask. I don't have the historical knowledge to just look at it and say whether it is biased or fair, and I don't have access to the sources either. --John (talk) 17:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
John, please rewrite "GeometryGuy" as "Geometry guy", lest you get indefinitely blocked for harassment, outing, and disruptive editing. Kiefer.Wolfowitz14:25, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Since the "one or two sentences" that have been proposed, and to which no one seems to object, have not yet been added, may I humbly suggest the two sentences I added 10 days ago (seems like an eternity now) -- one from the current Prime Minister and one from the current opposition leader, which seemed like a neutral presentation to me:
David Cameron, the current Prime Minister, said: "It was with great sadness that I learned of Lady Thatcher's death. We've lost a great leader, a great Prime Minister and a great Briton." Current Labour leader Ed Miliband said, "The Labour Party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength."[1]
I find the some of the edits to that page quite incomprehensible. Were I Scottish, I would be shamed into silence by such edits as this [8]. One can only be thankful that her at times ruthless tenure of power prevented such low-lifes from running the UK into the mire and thus influencing Europe. Just imagine if the EEC were today having to bail out the UK as well as various other states. I remember studying the exploits of Arthur Scargill, had he won, once the Soviet block fell, I wonder where Britain would have been left - probably eating the rats spreading from the unemptied rubbish bins of the previous administration. One sometime has to take a greater and more aerial view, but 'what ifs' are always tempting. Best if I refrain from editing that page. Giano 19:04, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Personally I find the taste of boot polish disgusting- but I suppose a thick enough skin on your tongue would make it palatable. Ning-ning (talk) 20:31, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Holzhausen
Named after the Schlösschen, the Holzhausen-Quartett with baritone Berthold Possemeyer performed a parody chamber musical with the "durchtrieben" title "Ein Sommernachtstraum" Durchtriebenes Kammermusical nach William Shakespeare. Wanted: best translation of "durchtrieben", I get crafty, cunning, sly, scheming, - but they all seem not quite right, please elucidate --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:42, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
In this context, I'd agree with Nortonius' "tongue-in-cheek" as a good translation for "durchtrieben" title, but it's not quite right for the actual title "Ein Sommernachtstraum" Durchtriebenes Kammermusical nach William Shakespeare. Was the chamber music performed around Midsummer's Day, perhaps, (obviously drawing from A Midsummer Night's Dream)? Shakespeare of course left us no "chamber music" - it is possibly a similar 'gag' to P.D.Q. Bach - so the "Kammermusical nach William Shakespeare" would be 'durchtriebenes' in the sense of 'joke' or 'made-up' chamber music. --RexxS (talk) 16:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for many good ideas, "artful" is too high class. It's hard to translate a pun, "durchtrieben" is literally "drive through", and the drive in it is pretty much the drive as in drive theory, it's also about thoughts behind the obvious, and not to think the whole thing is too serious, - more suggestions welcome, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
We'd need to understand the pun to come up with a good translation, which I frankly don't. But if "drive through" means what it means here I'd be inclined to use the word "convenience", as in "convenience food", or in this case "convenience chamber music". Nobody could take that description too seriously. MalleusFatuorum19:20, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Made me smile, but can we take it to an encyclopedic article? - I suggest to wait with a translation until it is requested, and then probably take crafty, thanks, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't like crafty. If it's a pun in German then it ought equally to be somewhat comical in English, even if the pun can't be translated directly. But it's your choice of course. MalleusFatuorum20:17, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Not crafty then - it's difficult for me who never heard that word before, - leave the title untranslated for the moment. Possemeyer is another article without a lead, btw, DYK in a few hours. Did you know that he sang Elijah with us and I don't find the date? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
"teacher" trying: "treiben" (verb) is to drive, like cattle, "Trieb" is a derived noun, one meaning: "(almost) instinct", "getrieben" would be "driven by ...", "durchtrieben" - I don't know. Anyway, I summarised (not translated) it as "parody", will be on the Main page for half an hour more, DYK, but I drove it also to project Opera (DYK that John Eliot Gardiner was 70 yesterday? DYK who cropped his picture?) and to my user, for you, Malleus, who hates opera, both temporarily, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:36, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Bit more workhouse.
If you search for 'George Catch workhouse' in Google Books, there's a lot of info on one of the most notorious members of staff and a book by Norman Longmate has a lot of detail. This book [9] links George to anatomy. :) J3Mrs (talk) 11:57, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll look that up. I've got a little bit to write on workhouse infirmaries first though – can't believe how long it's taken me to write this bloody article. I almost wish I'd never started it. MalleusFatuorum12:08, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Talkback
Hello, Eric Corbett. You have new messages at [[User talk:Andrewman327#British Motor Syndicate|Andrewman327's talk page]]. Message added 20:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
Given that this is supposed to be a project to build an encyclopedia, rather than an online police state dedicated to making everyone be nicer to one another, everyone should be editing more and adminning less. Too many admins simply have no idea of what it takes to build a decent article; to take a current RfA example, ten DYKs simply don't cut it. I could write ten DYKs in my sleep. MalleusFatuorum19:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't think that's selfish at all. Each of us needs to get something positive out of this venture, a point singularly missed by the banhammer-swinging admins. I learned quite a bit from Tony1 about the difference between writing an encyclopedia article and the kind of writing I'd been used to, and I've tried to pass that on by example, with varying degrees of success. MalleusFatuorum19:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
If you get stuck on something I'm always willing to help, but I'm a great believer in the "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day ..." old saw. In my earlier days here I deliberately worked on a wide variety of articles, to try and establish some kind of template for those who wanted to write similar articles. It was a complete waste of time. MalleusFatuorum20:08, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
You mean "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and he'll lounge around all day in a boat"? --RexxS (talk) 22:04, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
We each have different skills Dennis, and together we can do so much more than any one of us could do alone. You're great at the research, but if you'll forgive me you're crap at organising your material. I on the other hand am rather lazy, and prefer that others do my research for me, then I can just polish their prose and take the credit for a job well done. ;-) MalleusFatuorum22:35, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Lots of people ask me to look at their articles Dennis, but to be honest I don't think I do anything more than they could have done themselves if they'd taken a proper read through. I just move a few commas around and ask "what did you mean by saying that"? MalleusFatuorum00:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
Without your cloak of invincibility I'm afraid I can't afford the luxury of giving an opinion. I'll just stay here down in the trenches, fighting the template bombers. MalleusFatuorum17:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
You're missing some good fun then. From User:WereSpielChequers/Going off the boil? #The greying of the pedia: "If its true that teenagers typically have an 18 month wiki-career whilst silver surfers stick around until death, senility or banning, then the community is transitioning rather than uniformly shrinking.". I'm going to aim for 'senility' as the least dramatic exit-route. --RexxS (talk) 19:20, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
A couple of years ago I was teaching a course in the northeast of England. Towards the end of the second day I started to hear thumping noises from outside the classroom window. When I opened the blinds I founds kids jumping off the roof of the building onto the balcony outside, and then onto the roof of a nearby garage I think it was. I know there's a name for that kind of insanity, but it escapes me for the moment. Sadly none of them were seriously injured, although a few looked pretty sorry for themselves lying on the ground after missing the final jump. MalleusFatuorum20:15, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
The name for it is "evolution in action" - it's how natural selection deals with stupidity in the gene pool. --RexxS (talk) 22:04, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
The strange thing is, I can imagine myself doing something like that when I was a teenager. So it's hard to condemn the little shits. MalleusFatuorum
I was the boring bookworm who didn't do that sort of stuff when I was young, and am now indulging my mid-life crisis by cycling in London traffic. Glad to hear that there are still some teenage rebels around, most of the teenagersscreenagers with damaged attention spans that I know would be very shocked if they discovered what teenagers used to do, including in some cases their own parents. ϢereSpielChequers22:35, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
A quick question to you and the talk page stalkers
I know Wikipedia has changed since my time, but can you or anyone else here see any redeeming qualities in List of plain English words and phrases? As far as I can see it violates a shedload of policies—indiscriminate list of information? ✓; subjective personal opinion reported as fact? ✓; incorrect and misleading "facts"? ✓ (if anyone really thinks "not often" is a synonym of "rarely" they shouldn't be trusted with a Myspace page, let alone the Sixth Most Read Site On The Internet); misuse of inappropriate sources? ✓ (it seems to rely almost exclusively on Bryan A. Garner, whose writing guides are aimed specifically at American lawyers, are controversial even within their narrow target audience, and have very little relevance to real-world usage or to anyone outside the CMoS bubble…).
To me the whole thing looks more like Orwell's guide to Newspeak than a legitimate Wikipedia article, but since someone's obviously devoted a hell of a lot of time to it I don't really want to delete it if anyone can think of a reason to keep it. – iridescent 200:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's less than a month old, with effectively a single author, who's only been editing just over a month. I really can't see any encyclopedic value in the article, and it would probably be kinder to Fluous (talk·contribs·logs) in the long run to explain what's wrong with the list and take it to AfD than to leave him/her to create other similar articles. --RexxS (talk) 03:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I am indifferent. It doesn't appear to be doing any harm. It provides a useful back reference when trying to figure out why User:another has trashed a piece of perfect prose. Could be of use to non native British English speakers trying to translate a technical article they need into their local language. It could form the basis of an impromptu lesson for year 8s, on register in English. Four weak reasons- do I win a prize? -- Clem Rutter (talk)09:21, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
My opinion of these "vital articles" is that rather few of them are are even marginally interesting beyond a brief dictionary entry. MalleusFatuorum01:16, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
We spoke a while ago about using Wikidata as a single back-end for facts across all Wikipedias, so I thought you might be interested to see an example edit where I've replaced a hard-coded name (Ma Ying-jeou = the President of ROC) with a Wikidata link that can be maintained from a single place. Eventually, this could perhaps be incorporated into {{Infobox country}} so that would be one less parameter to deal with in the text that an editor sees. It's still some way off, but your technological solution to the infobox problem is getting closer. --RexxS (talk) 21:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Since being called a technological dinosaur by administrator user:Scott Martin on another site that must not be named, because I tried to put his hat on straight about QR codes, I think it's best that I leave any further developments to the ignorant children like him. MalleusFatuorum21:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
If you're not in the mood it's not a problem. I came to ask because John left his review unfinished and you didn't show up. So I was going to tell the delegaste that he should close the FAC. --Lecen (talk) 16:17, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Please don't be despondent about my oppose Lecen. I think the article is ever so close and just needs a final polishing, which would be better done out of the limelight given how long the nomination has been open. I was quite sincere in offering to help, and I'm pretty sure that you could have your FA in a few weeks time. MalleusFatuorum20:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
An IP user has changed "hung, drawn and quartered" to "hanged, drawn and quartered" in the lead of Glastonbury Abbey. I am not confident enough of my grammar to revert - any thoughts?— Rodtalk16:55, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Parrot of Doom has a morbid obsession with stuff like that, as do I if truth be known. But moving on, how do you think we're doing with Montacute House? I think it's starting to look pretty cool. MalleusFatuorum19:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Yerse, at the risk of mutual back-slapping, I was thinking it was rather like a miniature FA - the new interior images are terrific, but I'm not sure I can be bothered with the fuss of an FA; GA is quite stressful enough. Giano 19:29, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Giano, please remember you're talking to a lady. We Europeans surely know how to treat ladies. ("What are you doing out of the kitchen? I thought I told you to clean my shoes before you could go to bed. And don't forget you've got a big job on tomorrow, cleaning the whole house on your hands and knees.") MalleusFatuorum20:51, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
It's already at GAN, so that's for Rod to worry about, not us, although I'll keep an eye on it nevertheless as I'm sure you will. I sometimes think that FAC is a good example of the law of diminishing returns, but having said that I've just nominated The Man in the Moone to what I hope will be rapturous applause. We'll see. MalleusFatuorum19:49, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
I rather thought the disembowling, sometimes live, was apart from the hanging, drawing, and quartering. But perhaps that's just in the Bronx. VєсrumЬа ►TALK19:53, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Please stop attacking other editors, as you did on The Man in the Moone. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia. This edit summary was an uncalled-for attack on a well-respected editor. For all you know, it was Drmies who put that comma in there. Please calm down. 01:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Oooh, I very nearly exploded then, which would have have been a disaster, as I'd probably have spilt my gin and tonic. Anyway, how do think we're doing? MalleusFatuorum01:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I think we're doing fine, antiChrist. "Simply" I added when I introduced the more specific "Renaissance" utopia; its removal is fine with me. Well, I'm going through Poole one step at a time, and the next paragraphs are on travel literature--for some reason that doesn't strike me as very exciting to summarize, but we need to pay it at least lip service. I've been adding little Poole references to articles all over Wikipedia, which is kind of fun, and along the way ran into this poem. Anyway, this will be done before too long. We do need to go through again for consistency. Since I brought the green children up earlier, so maybe note d. needs to be looked at. Same with Purchas, now mentioned and linked twice--I took care of the with an "aforementioned" (for some reason I'm reticent with self-reference in wiki-writing). Anyway, as I said on the talk page, FA is fine. I admire your ambition, Malleus, and your sympathy for the overworked GA reviewers. Drmies (talk) 01:50, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
It's not ambition, it's impatience. Patience has never been my strong suit. We've got the whole weekend before the ordeal by fire begins. MalleusFatuorum01:55, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Better late than never: "A loan that you had requested: Loan Title: Der fliegende Wandersmann nach dem Mond : Faksimile druck der ersten deutschen Übersetzung, Wolfenbüttel, 1659 / Loan Author: Godwin, Francis, 1562-1633. is now available for checkout." :) Drmies (talk) 22:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
The Dutch use commas to separate (really, not separate) independent clause. It's an abomination of God's creation, and I have disowned them for it. Drmies (talk) 04:20, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh my. So the Dutch write like this, and you read it like this too, and then you disowned them, and yet the 'mericans love them some commas too? That's okay. I enjoy capitalising Nouns such as Cat and Dog. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:27, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
"Except here on Wikipedia of course." - Yep. BTW, is it really necessary to mention that a book won an award when the book is just used as a reference? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:39, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Not usually, but in this specific instance I think it is, as it adds weight to what might otherwise be considered just another run of the mill opinion. MalleusFatuorum04:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
Since when could anyone NOT say "fuck" with impunity? Did I miss that memo? In New York City, where I've lived far too long, "fuck" isn't even a word — it's a comma. And we all know Mal's position on commas... :-) DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!03:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Ah, my error. I thought WP was a collegial spot. Apparently not. I've growed up several times over, so, sadly, fucking on WP is, by elimination, just being childish and churlish and reveling in one's don't give a crap except for my stuff attitude. Look at me, I said fuck! Me iz is all growed up! And we wonder why WP is withering at the vine. A sad and puerile display, children. Next you'll be stomping your feet in the sandbox. VєсrumЬа ►TALK19:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh, and DoctorJoeE, I expect I've been living in NYC a lot longer than you have. But apparently in a nicer neighborhood. VєсrumЬа ►TALK19:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
No answer; I thought not. Funny how these guys take their shots and then flee. I always chuckle when somebody says "Wikipedia isn't censored" -- because there are always people trying their best to censor it to their own concepts of "collegial" behavior. DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!13:13, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I always had the impression that New Yorkers were a more robust lot than Vercrumba appears to be, but I think what these censoring freaks mean is "I'm the only one who's allowed to censor Wikipedia". MalleusFatuorum13:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Depends on your reviewer I guess, and as that's likely to be me I'll say that I don't like external links in the body of an article. I've made a small change to show you what I'd do. MalleusFatuorum20:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
I haven't actually looked at the article yet to be honest Dennis, but be sure I'll be all over it like a swarm of locusts quite shortly. I've always thought that GA reviews are collaborative ventures, so I'm sure it will end up just fine. Fingers crossed. MalleusFatuorum16:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I tend to be a little tougher where the article is already at a good level (or I hate the nominator), to try and push it along a little further, but I like to think I'm always fair. It takes an hour or two before new nominations show up in the list, so I probably won't be able to pick up the review until later this evening. Unless someone else picks it up before I do, in which I'll climb over the barricade and help you. MalleusFatuorum16:35, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Query...
Could I rephrase "What non-local goods that appear in the archaeological record are usually luxury goods." to "Non-local goods appearing in the archaeological record are usually luxury goods."? I'm trying to learn this whole "brevity" is the spice of writing thing... Ealdgyth - Talk18:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you! If I disturb something you feel strongly about, feel free to revert. I'm mainly adding explanatory footnotes and culling stray "the"s. Ealdgyth - Talk18:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Just one thing Ealdgyth: "The political structure of western Europe changed with the end of the empire. Although the activity of the barbarians is usually described as "invasions", they were not just military expeditions but migrations of entire peoples into the Empire". Are we going with "empire" or "Empire"? I'd lean towards "empire", but we obviously need to be consistent. MalleusFatuorum22:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Careful with "the"s. I find American editors use fewer than are found in British English and American academic published English. In particular sentences beginning say "The historian Bill Sykes ..." need the "the". Johnbod (talk) 12:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'd agree Johnbod. I'm quite accustomed to seeing sentences start "Historian Bill Sykes ..." Doesn't send me into a swoon at all, unlike the misuse of "due to" or "however". MalleusFatuorum15:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm very accustomed to seeing them on WP, & changing them if I can be bothered, but not in books published by Yale UP etc, or the top US journals, who sub-edit it away. It's a key marker of journalese, & accepted in The New York, but not London, Times. Johnbod (talk) 15:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I've just looked a few of my own contributions, and it's a construction I seem to use fairly regularly, as in the Green Children of Woolpit: "Historian Derek Brewer's explanation is even more prosaic: ...". To stick a "The" in front of that sentence would seem entirely artificial to me. MalleusFatuorum15:45, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Besides, in this particular case I've let Ealdgyth keep all her "In the 13th century, mendicant orders ..." commas, as it's not a uniquely English subject. But these are minor matters that shouldn't distract from what is a truly magnificent effort on Ealdgyth's part, on a topic I think very few would have dared to touch. I'm full of admiration for what's she's done. MalleusFatuorum16:04, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
I'll second that. The one that really gets me is a sentence beginning "French artist Paul Gaugin..." which we get a lot of. Does an adjective make any difference to you? Johnbod (talk) 17:43, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
BTW, I changed the dates for Otto II, but there's maybe something you know and I don't that makes 967 correct as the date he became Holy Roman Emperor. MalleusFatuorum15:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, Otto II was crowned emperor while his dad was alive - and was for all practical purposes co-emperor for those years. Germans were tricky that way. Ealdgyth - Talk15:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I've finished my "last comb over" ... hunting for anything I forgot or needed explicated or that looked odd. I've double checked the images for licenses and sources. I've cited all the captions where information not in the image description is included. I've gone through the citations and references and made sure every citation has a corresponding bibliographic entry. I've made sure that the short citations are all consistent. I've checked for DAB links. I've checked for duplicate links (there are some, but most are at the bottom of the article where the original link was in the lead... 10,000 words between should allow a dup link!). Anything that I've forgotten? Ealdgyth - Talk18:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Anyone else notice this this misguided response in Salon to the misguided NYT op-ed by the thoroughly unknown writer Amanda Filipacchi that was discussed here some time ago? Nothing to be done about it, I suppose, except try to educate this Andrew Leonard guy — but if he couldn't be bothered to take the few minutes it would have taken to try to understand the category system, I doubt that he's educable... DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!20:32, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Are we reading the same article? Leonard's position seems quite reasonable to me. And as for categories, what a gigantic PITA they are even at the best of times. MalleusFatuorum21:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
The title is "Wikipedia's Shame", with a subtitle including "the lust for revenge". He describes the issue (which was a tempest in a teapot), the overreaction (by a single editor), and the fact that by the end of the week, all was essentially resolved. The system worked. Where's the "shame"? DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!22:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
The shame is that he's undoubtedly correct in suggesting that the lust for revenge motivates a good many editors, as RfA teaches you. MalleusFatuorum22:41, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Malleus that Leonard's position is more nuanced than most of you admit, and that Leonard is correct that agenda-driven angry editors control many articles. Revenge is an important animus at RfA and ANI.
The original NYT article was written by somebody having trouble with the notion of set inclusion. However, the NYT is one of the world's best newspapers. Kiefer.Wolfowitz07:03, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Maybe I've just been lucky (or naive), but I don't run into many of those "agenda-driven angry editors"; perhaps I'm editing the wrong stuff! And yes, NYT loves to remind us (and itself) of its best-ness on an annoyingly constant basis. My regard for the Gray Lady has decreased steadily over the years — as has its quality, IMHO. But New York is the only US city left with 4 daily newspapers (I can't think of more than a couple that have even two), so we take what we can get. DoctorJoeEreview transgressions/talk to me!13:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Filipacchi isn't as unknown as you claim, and a lot of the backlash was along the lines of "but they just don't understand". "Blaming the reader" is not a fruitful way to answer this, it was pointed at the CfD for the American women novelists (or whichever one it was). Our category system is a mess, and it also appears to be skewed. On top of that, yesterday it became clear to me that there is indeed the appearance of a kind of revenge. That doesn't make the Filipacchi articles or the Salon piece all that great and well-balanced, but still. Drmies (talk) 17:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Strangely enough I've never read it. A little like you with your Normans I guess, I don't find witchcraft particularly interesting until the 17th century, when the essence of its religious roots start to become evident and people began to think more clearly about what is after all an impossible crime. MalleusFatuorum18:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
No, you shouldn't, it's a good username. I always thought it meant "hammer of fools", but I don't really know Latin, so I have no idea if that's right or not. Writ Keeper⚇♔18:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
That's exactly right. In fact I was forced to change it fairly on in my "career" to a non-sexist version, having originally chosen Malleus Fatuaram, which some took to mean a hammer of female fools. MalleusFatuorum18:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
What are the odds--I walked into the copy room just now and on top of a stack of papers, apparently used by our College Bowl team, is the question "What is Malleus Maleficarum?" Drmies (talk) 18:40, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Now you can tell them it's a fucking book they all ought to have been familiar with if they're over the age of 14. Or words to that effect anyway. MalleusFatuorum19:51, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
