User talk:MackyBeth

Welcome!

Hello, MackyBeth, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome! Victoria (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Victoria, thank you for these useful links. I started out at the Dutch Wikipedia, which does not have Manuals of Style for Novels and Biographies, with the result that there is much more unfriendly dispute between editors. Now that I have seen the manuals, I understand why out of a total of 1.7 million pages on the Dutch Wikipedia, less than 300 have Featured-status.MackyBeth (talk) 16:19, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Captain Ahab (Moby-Dick)

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 20:18, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Melville (who else?)

You may find this article by John Updike about Melville of interest:
"An Appetite for Truth: On Melville's Shorter Fiction"; Yale Review, Volume 85, Issue 4, 1997.
Also, perhaps Stanley T. Williams is worth a red-link; he could be considered the midwife of the Melville revival (see the second paragraph in section 2.2 of Herman Melville. - Neonorange (talk) 21:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for this. Williams is indeed a very important person in Melville studies. He directed the first wave of Melville dissertations, and some of these have not been superseded since. For instance, Nathalia Wright is still the authority for Melville and the Bible. However, red links are especially ugly if they already appear in the lead.MackyBeth (talk) 15:01, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

August 2014

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September 2014

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  • discovered that his photocamera, which symbolizes the third stage, was no longer working.<ref>Raat (1989', 224</ref>

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Herman Melville
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Attribution vs citation

Actually, an {{attribution needed}} tag means you have to mention within the text who said these things—they can't merely be quoted. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:30, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Done! Reading the second sentence of the page linked in your message, to the attribution needed template, gives me the impression you should not have added those tags, though. MackyBeth
It would have been better if I had gone through all the sources, but I'm only copyediting today and wasn't interested in doing that particular work. What would have been irresponsible would have been to simply pass over it. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:36, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And you weren't even finished yet, I noticed. Your major removal edited was a hopelessly random list which was added back when the current main editors weren't working on the page yet, so nobody is going to regret the loss of that. BTW I saw that you are a comics guy, and interested in Tintin. Ever read the series by Herge's friend Edgar P. Jacobs, called Blake and Mortimer? Classic stuff. Cheers MackyBeth
I know of it, but I've never read it. One of these days. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Invisible Man

Seriously?! I haven't read the book, but I'd imagine it had a happier ending. Anyways, it's way out of place in the lead. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:31, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is going to sound stupid, but I cannot copy links with this Phone I am working with but see the External links at Benito Cereno. It's there. The IM article should be way better than it is, there are some decent online sources. Can't do everything at once though. MackyBeth
Touch screens are a bitch to work with. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:47, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Continued thanks!

THanks once more for your continued hard work! One thing, though, is to remember the four tildes at the end of your TalkPage additions.ch (talk) 04:39, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I still have to get used to this smartphone and thought it did not have tildes, but that sign is actually there, I just found out. There we go MackyBeth (talk) 09:03, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the Heart of the Sea (film)

In case you didn´t know, I thought you might find it interesting that Melville appears as a character in this film. On a related note, today I found this gem: [1]. I think I´ll see it, I like Barry Bostwick. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:13, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this! I always thought it a bit awkward that Moby-Dick, which does not have a story suited for a film, has been filmed several times while the first biopic of Melville's live has yet to be made, while his life is perfectly suited for a great movie.MackyBeth (talk) 13:20, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In the Heart of the Sea got me interested in Moby Dick adaptions, so I recently watched Moby Dick (2011 miniseries) and Moby Dick (1998 miniseries). I thought they both had fine Ahabs. I can´t recommend the Barry Bostwick one though, so, so, bad. Pequod the submarine... It didn´t work. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:37, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Elvis revert

1) I wasn't aware that the article had a different "format of referencing" from every other article (and I'm not sure it really matters), but instead of reverting (which should only be done when there's vandalism or as a last resort; see WP:ROWN), you could have fixed it yourself or left a message on my talk page to let me know (especially a question - which, the ES isn't really the place for that). (2) If you noticed my previous edit, where I removed "Pentecostal" from the infobox, I figured if the person who added it wasn't going to add it to the body then I would -- and I figured I would need to add a source saying that the AoG is Pentecostal -- and since I don't have the book that's sourced there, I don't know if it says that in it. But it certainly doesn't hurt to have more than one (it actually helps). There's a place in the lead where there are 4 cites, and yet a lead section really isn't supposed to have any cites, unless it's something that could be contested. So, instead of unnecessarily reverting one, that's what you could be removing (per MOS). I will wait for your reply before making another change. —Musdan77 (talk) 02:11, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your clarification, Musdan. My understanding of having multiple citations for one sentence is that the text combines material from various sources, material not provided by one source alone. I may be mistaken there, but I just don't see the point of adding a source without adding information from that source. The sentence was sourced, and placing another citation next to the existing one makes it difficult to see where the information comes from, not something we want in a FA rated article. If you feel I reverted you without good reason, then the solution would be that you revert me back and adjust the citation format (!), and I'll let it stand to find out if no other editors see anything to disagree with. Good rockin'!MackyBeth (talk) 20:34, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks for your understanding. But, I'm assuming that you have the book Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If so, can you tell me if it mentions that the Assembly of God is Pentecostal? If it does, it wouldn't need another source. I tried doing a google book search, but it doesn't show excerpts. —Musdan77 (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Unless the index to Guralnick's first volume is sloppy, he does not say, well, not anything really, about the religious type of The Assembly of God Church. The fullest discussion of that church is on page 67, and even there the focus is upon the "fire-and-brimstone" type of preaching and the presence of the Blackwood Brothers.MackyBeth (talk) 11:10, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Musdan77 (talk) 19:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ralph Ellison

"The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents."

Like i said, that posthumous work is one out of many, with no more or less notoriety than the other ones. No reason for that particular one be on the lead in detriment of the others. Coltsfan (talk) 20:06, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You must be joking. He worked for decades at this novel.MackyBeth (talk) 22:07, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Another Elvis revert(?)

I'm not sure why you would revert my reversion of someone removing a tag, by saying, "This is already under discussion at Talk", when it seems that the tag is what started the discussion. Per WP:RV, the subject of a discussion should remain during the discussion. —Musdan77 (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know that and replaced the tag just now. Please join the discussion to agree how many citations for this extraordinary claim are needed and which ones can best be retained. MackyBeth (talk) 16:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Thanks for your message, but I am not at all interested in politics, and the pages I usually edit are not about politics. MackyBeth (talk) 07:46, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Herman Whatever

So much for trusting my memory! In my defense: there were two erroneous edits in the the article's infobox, separated by intervening edits. I assumed that only one edit was the cause of swapping the birth name and the changed name, used Twinkle "undo" and checked the preview. I still saw an error. Repeated. Still saw an error. So I then just made a revision without using Twinkle "undo". By then I guess I had forgotten actual change the family made. Thanks for the correction. Perhaps I should read Melville again—it has been fifty years since I last did so. Neonorange (talk) 09:47, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I already suspected you misremembered the actual original name. In these times it takes some effort to reserve time for reading, but it is really worth it to make a point of reading Melville. Thoreau once wrote: Read the best books first, for you don't know if you will have the time to read them later. Due to a change of circumstances, I haven't had the time to read Melville criticism and scholarship, yet a week or so ago I started reading about Moby-Dick again, and the best criticism is really very enlightening and perceptive. It would be a pity if these insights were to remain covered in scholarly journals and books, instead of being used for Wikipedia articles. Oh, Time Cash Strength and Patience! MackyBeth (talk) 19:20, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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advice on Herman Melville content needs?

Hello, I noticed that you contribute a lot of Melville-related pages! I am a Wikipedian-in-residence at the Brigham Young University library. We have a research collection on Melville, and I'd like to help improve Melville content on Wikipedia. Even though I am studying for a Master's in American literature, I am relatively ignorant about Melville and his works. It looks like many pages about him and his works are well-written, thanks to your (and others') efforts. Are there certain pages that need cleanup that you would suggest I start with? I could also look into creating new pages for some of his short stories, if there is enough coverage to pass GNG. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:07, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rachel Helps (BYU), it's always a pleasure to get into contact with somebody with an interest in Melville. Many pages for individual work need expanding with new information, and with plot summaries, but as far as "clean up" goes, I don't really know. In my Sandbox I have been working on a plot summary for Omoo, but haven't worked on it recently. Cheers MackyBeth (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for the reply. Recently I've been working on The Confidence-Man, although now I'm thinking I'll need to cut some parts of the analysis section and add sub-headings. The short story "I and My Chimney" came up in my research and I think it could have its own page. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 18:40, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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