Why the hell should my opinion not be allowed on Curb wiki when there is a subjective referenced statement on the site under 'Critical response'?Stupid system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomheppy100 (talk • contribs) 02:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dylan quotes
Hi Warchef. I notice you've added a Neil Young quote (in parenthesis). And you've suggested doing the same for the rest of the list. I have put into this list various references, for examples Andrew Motion's remarkable essay on Dylan, Springsteen's great compliment to Dylan, when inducting him into Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, David Bowie's 'Song To Dylan'. But I have done it via footnotes. If we put these direct quotes (in parenthesis) after each name, doesn't it all become rather unwieldy? best wishes Mick gold15:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now I loook at Dylan article again, you seem to have done something weird to the footnotes. The Springsteen ref has vanished, and all the other footnotes have become garbled. I shall see if I can fix! Mick gold15:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Disputed fair use rationale for Image:The Golden Age Bobby Conn.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:The Golden Age Bobby Conn.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
User:Sceptre has started to unilaterally merge the episodes together, not waiting until the poll has closed. As there is a 3:1 opinion out there that this should not occur and I do not wish to break the 3R rule I was wondering if you could help me with reverting his edits? Thanks. -- UKPhoenix7923:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Album galleries
Hi mate, sorry about the revert to the album gallery on the Gruff Rhys article. I'd created a few myself but someone's going through getting rid of the all - apparently it's ok to use album covers to illustrate the article on the the actual album because it's the "primary means of identification" but, because they're not free, they can't be used for purely illustrative purposes. Someone's also going through deleting album covers that don't have a specific rationale for each article they're used on which I take it you've noticed from the Disputed use comment for the Bobby Conn album cover. Cavie7820:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Disputed fair use rationale for Image:Rise Up!.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:Rise Up!.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
I wrote the "explication" of the passage in the Wake that you deleted. It was meant as a guide for a new reader to extracting the imagery in the sentence, which someone pegged as obscure, but which was the first sentence in the book that I found particularly moving. There are no references becuase it is an obvious reading which only gets at the literal meaning, not at any allusions. I put it in to counter the absurd claim that the sentence is unreasonably obscure.
The passage reads "O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornicationists, but (O my shining stars and body) how hath fanespanned the skysign of soft advertisement" The explanations I gave were:
"here here" is heard as "hear hear" and also as a location
sprowled is sprawled/prowled.
duskt is dusk/dust.
that dust is an allusion to "dust to dust".
fornicationists are connected to dust/dusk through the forshadowing of night implicit in dusk and the forshadowing of death implicit in dust.
That "O my shining stars and body" is a poetic sentiment of the internal reality of a dream.
Fanespanned is "sacred spanning", originating in "fane".
that the skysign of soft advertisement references the stars once again.
That "hoth" and "hath" are symmetrically placed
that "sprowled" and "fanespanned" have opposite sentiments, sprowled is dark and fanespanned light.
I don't believe that any of these things are particularly controvertial, and if they are, just add the alternate readings. Most of these interpretations are in the Finnigan's Wiki, for example. The only purpose of the paragraph was to explain the literal content of the sentence, not to bring out any allusions, which don't interest me very much.
In my opinion, the difficult part of reading the wake is not any of the allusions, which are mostly obvious and not so illuminating, but following the imagery and narrative. Reconstructing the images is made easier by an explicated sentence. It would have been nice if you would have produced a gloss to replace the one you deleted instead of just deleting.Likebox (talk) 08:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(respond to comments on my user page, which I will move to my talk page) I see your point about the arbitrariness, but that was not my doing--- the person who wrote the previous version put the sentence up as a particularly galling example of obscurity. Perhaps the whole part beginning with "many find the language confounding" including the sentence should be deleted?Likebox (talk) 20:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also see your point about the subject of the sentence being obscure, but I feel that I understand it nevertheless, despite the screwy syntax. I agree with your changes for the most part, I just don't want a new reader to feel that the Wake is hopelessly impenetrable. I felt that way for many years, and I missed out on the unique experience it provides. That's why I put a gloss in. Maybe it doesn't belong, I don't know. Good luck, and happy holidays!Likebox (talk) 20:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You got me thinking about the subject of that sentence. I tend to think its a form of "he" or "He", the dreamer "he" or a divine "He", a blend of an individual sleeping mind with a universal mind, a mind that comprises both sentiments traditionally considered high and those traditionally considered low. I mean, I tend to read it now something like "here here how He/he hath sprowled ...(...body) how He/he hath fanespanned ...".Likebox (talk) 21:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your kind words. I'm afraid I'm busy with work over the christmas/new year period, but I shall think about what I might contribute. I've always been fascinated by Dylan because of the way his work evaded the normal limits of protest songs. In Chronicles, he writes about how he was first turned on by Brecht/Weill's Pirate Jenny, which obviously deals with injustice, and yet it isn't really a protest song. When I first heard Dylan in 1964, I had read in the papers that he wrote 'protest songs' yet the more I listened to Blowin' In The Wind, the less I could hear any protest. The ambiguous chorus line seems to say: either the answer is so obvious it's in your face; or the answer is as elusive and as impossible to grasp as the wind. And the issues the song addresses - wars, people oppressing people - are hardly unique to the 20th century. The song sounded to me more like a series of Biblical parables. The other thing I found intriguing about Dylan's work in the 1960s, is that you can search his entire song catalogue and you won't find the word Vietnam once. I think that's extraordinary when you think how Vietnam dominated the politics and the protests of that time. Think of Phil Ochs and Country Joe MacDonald. Obviously, Dylan knew at some deep level that the word Vietnam would date a song very quickly. My personal hunch is that Vietnam is embedded in John Wesley Harding, and in Senor, but that hardly makes them protest material. In Rolling Stone (17 May 2007) Jann Wenner asked Dylan if America was a force for good in the world today. And Dylan replied, "Human nature hasn't really changed in 3,000 years. Maybe the obstacles and the daily customs have changed, but human nature hasn't changed. It cannot change. It's not made to change." That kind of thinking sheds an interesting light on the whole concept of Protest songs. best wishes & a very merry christmas! Mick gold (talk) 15:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi warchef, many thanks for your kind words. I’ve been very busy so haven’t had time to reply. Looking back on what I wrote above, I guess what I’m trying to say is: for me the significant thing about Dylan was that in the 1960s he was widely perceived to be part of a ‘protest’ movement. But looking back today, 40 years later, his work does not fit into that category. I mentioned how in 1964 all the papers told me ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ was a protest song. Does anybody hear it that way today? On the cover of Freewheelin’ the notes explained how Dylan wrote ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ during the Cuban missile crisis, and he believed he would not have enough time to finish the song. So each line is the beginning of a new song. But today we know that Dylan sang the song more than a month before JFK’s TV address to the nation (October 22, 1962) initiated the Cuban missile crisis for most Americans. Who thinks of the Cuban misssile crisis when they hear it today? They are more likely to hear it as a song about ecological catastrophe, a warning about a poisoned planet. Hence its use over TV footage of Katrina. Hence the new version at Zaragoza about clean water.
When I try to think of which Dylan song sounds like a protest song today, I’m left with ‘Who Killed Davey Moore?’. It clearly names an injustice, and it fingers 5 or six people or groups as the guilty parties. But today it sounds like one of Dylan’s least interesting songs because it sounds limited. ‘Only A Pawn In their Game’ begins as though addressing an injustice (the murder of Medger Evers, a shocking event at the time) but ends by enacting a whole social process behind the injustice. Similarly ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’. (In a more abstract way, the same is true of ‘Percy’s Song’ which I think is very beautiful. At the beginning, it sounds as though Dylan is trying to right a wrong that was done to a friend, but by the end, it has become a song about how one comes to terms with injustice that cannot be righted.)
So I guess all I’m trying to say is that if I were writing about Dylan’s ‘protest’ phase I would say that he was perceived as part of this ‘protest movement’ in 1962 & 1963, but today he seems to have been addressing much wider issues all along, and thinking about themes of universality, while appearing to be inspired by newspaper headlines of the day. And by 1964, I think he’d left it all behind, and had decided that the injustices and the evil he was combating were things that could be found in Shakespeare and Dante and the Book of Exodus, and would not be resolved by protest marches, hence his aversion to the label of ‘protest music’. (‘I’m not There’ deals with this theme amusingly, I think.)
In the article Protest song I think ‘Masters of War’ is described as a song about the Vietnam War. But ‘Masters of War’ was written at beginning of 1963 (January or February) and no young person in February 1963 was protesting about US involvement in Vietnam. I think there were only a few hundred Green Berets in South Vietnam at the time. In July 1964, 5000 additional US troops were sent to Vietnam, bringing total troop levels to 21,000. The song came to seem like a comment on Vietnam in 1965 – when US planes bombed North Vietnam for the first time: “you that build the death planes”. Operation Rolling Thunder commenced March 2, 1965, another Dylan connection. Dylan has said ‘Masters of War’ was about the issues that Eisenhower talked about in his farewell address to the nation in 1960 when he spoke of the ‘military-industrial complex’. But because of the world we live in, when Dylan sang a particularly venomous version of that song at the Grammies in February 1991, as the first Gulf War got going, it sounded like it had been written for that moment. (In the same way, when Dylan toured the US in 1974, as the investigations into Watergate gathered momentum and looked increasingly likely to bring Nixon down, the line "but even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked” sounded like it had been written for that moment.
I would certainly agree with your point that Dylan's songs were adapted & appropriated by the 'movement', rather than written for them. I wish I had more hours in the day to contribute to Protest song “But at my back I oft times hear time’s wingéd chariot drawing near”. Best wishes Mick gold (talk) 10:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Warchef, a post script. I’m sorry my last comment was rather rambling and did not focus on the 4 points you left on my Talk page:
his performance at the march on washington with baez, amid king et al. does place him firmly in the thick of things
Yes but even by August 1963, Dylan was less than 100% behind the idea that such huge mass demonstrations achieved anything. Scaduto (p. 151) has the interesting quote at the end of the March on Washington: “Think they’re listening?” Dylan asked, glancing towards the Capitol. “No, they ain’t listening at all.”
his relationship with Seeger & Guthrie, and the huge influence they had on his art, places him very firmly in the American protest-folk tradition of the early 20th century, however little these influences might have manifested themselves directly in his lyrics (always felt Dylan belongs much more to this tradition than to that of his contemporaries; that he agreed with the former's emphasis on realistic social injustices rather than the latter's abstract notions of "love and peace", but that's always open to debate)
Agree that Dylan did not express any vague sentiments about love & peace. Pete Seeger’s enthusiasm for topical song-writing was obviously a huge catalyst for Dylan in 1962. ‘The Death of Emmett Till’ and ‘Who Killed Davey Moore?’ fitted the topical agenda. This phase did not last longer than a year.
it's probably more true to say that his songs were adopted by the movement rather than being written for it (however, one or two exceptions such as "Masters of War', "Oxford Town", "Hattie Carroll" could be argued to be actual "protest songs" - whatever they are)
Agreed. But ‘Oxford Town’ is very sardonic & oblique. It has no message except “Somebody better investigate soon”. As suggested above, ‘Hattie Carroll’ becomes a more general indictment of justice.
he rather forcefully distanced himself from the protest movement -
Agreed. The date is December 13, 1963, when he made his speech to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and said: “There’s no black and white, left and right to me any more; there’s only up and down, and down is very close to the ground.” (The full transcript is in Shelton, p.200 and there’s a long quote in Scorsese’s film.)
I'd like to thank you for starting The New Show page back in June. I was/am a big fan of the show. I happen to have
old videotapes of 8 of the episodes, so I have gone through each of them and summarized the casts and sketches and
have updated the page with this information. The episode that the SCTV website states aired on Jan 27, 1984 likely
did not air on that date as per TV Guide entries, but due to the detail of that SCTV website I'm sure the show
aired and I just didn't tape it at the time. Between the air dates of 06JAN-23MAR1984 there were only 12 possible
time slots, with 2 I believe being pre-emptions. I have 8 episodes on tape and described, there's the other one
about Teri Garr, and I'm not sure if there was a 10th. Do you happen to have any of these other shows on tape?
I have seen an amazon.com entry for The New Show DVD but it doesn't look like it was released. It's possible
that it's on hold. My speculation would be that if there is a DVD, it would only have "the best of" sketches.
As a personal opinion, I feel the best sketches were anything with John Candy, since he seemed to just be made
for this type of sketch comedy show. "Roy's Food Repair", "Mountain Mike", "Time Truck" were really brilliant.
RickLangston (talk) 03:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)RickLangston[reply]
Much respect for creating the Neon Neon page, great job on it too. I was surprised to see no page for it so I attempted starting it but became disheartened fairly quick. Fair play!
User:Phantompie
Finnegans Wake
Hi,
I appreciate your efforts to bring clarity and sanity to the appallingly overwritten Finnegans Wake article and I just wanted to volunteer for more editing on it. I have taken a scalpel to the intro and I think improved it. I agree with Gaff that this article could be FA-status one day and I think I know how it can be done. Your contributions were all in the interests of making the subject more lucid and I think that's the only way to go. Hope you're interested. Lexo (talk) 23:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi,
I didn't mean to downplay all your hard work, sorry if I gave that impression. As an article, it has loads of good references and tons of information. Too much, in fact. Some of it reads like people are trying to cram all of Ellmann into an article on one book. I have gone through the Background and the first section of the Plot Summary and been fairly ruthless about cutting and reshaping stuff that seems to me either excessively detailed or just plain ugly. Always amazed by how some English grads can't write English - many passive constructions (in the year such-and-such a something-or-other was written by so-and-so), much sloppy and inconsistent punctuation. Not you of course. :) See what you think.
I would quite like to propose that in the interests of consistency we use the word 'book' rather than 'novel' throughout the article when referring to the Wake. It seems to me that the Wake transcends the novel genre, plus it was the word Joyce preferred. But if you prefer 'novel', I'm cool with that. It would be good to be consistent, though. Lexo (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, sorry, after all my huffing and puffing about improving the article I then went off on holiday and was without internet access for three weeks, and dropped the whole thing. I came back to find that the Background section appeared to have deteriorated stylistically; commas strewn about the place like discarded socks, ugly sentence construction. Had a go at improving it. (Do college students just keep fiddling with it or what?)
I ordered and finally received today a copy of Our Exagmination to replace the one I'd sold years
ago, and also because if we are going to make it a better article it seems wise to review some of the initial criticism of it. Plot synopses of any work of fiction always have to be representative of some kind of authoritative or critical consensus about what the book is about. If you synopsise the Iliad and leave out the death of Patroklos, you do violence to the story. The big problem here is that there's such violent disagreement among the authorities about what the Wake is about, or whether you can synopsise it at all. How do we do it without violating WP: original research? That's the question. Lexo (talk) 11:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again - I haven't finished reading Kitchner, unfortunately. Apart from being busy with work I became suddenly interested in two subjects fairly distant from FW, namely Ancient Greek and the history of Sparta, and all my reading lately has been on those topics. But one of the things I have got from Kitchner is his belief (I hesitate to call it his "theory") that the 'real' characters in the book, the closest it comes to a grounding in everyday reality, are Mr and Mrs Porter who by K's account are dreaming everybody else - HCE is 'really' Mr Porter, ALP is Mrs Porter's dream about herself and so on. I have to say, I reread that section of the Wake (when they wake up and try to put the kid back to sleep) with this in mind and I am almost persuaded, perhaps because I have a 15-month-old girl and my wife and I are familiar with all the half-sleep you get around young children. Anyway, I'd better finish reading K's book before I report anything definitive. Nice to read Our Exag again although Beckett's essay seems more arrogant, annoying, immature and unhelpful than ever. Lexo (talk) 14:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I now realise, having gone through some of the stuff myself, that Kitcher is not the first person to regard the Porters as being the 'real' characters of FW. But I am trying to come to this article not so much as a FW expert but as a good editor, who happens to have some knowledge of the difficulties involved in writing a decent article on this particular subject. Incidentally, I have a copy of Scribbledehobble, the Thomas Connolly-edited supposed "ur-workbook" to FW. Do you have any idea how useful it would be to try and incorporate stuff from this book into the article? Lexo (talk) 22:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to the Novels WikiProject
Hi, and welcome to the Novels WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to fiction books often referred to as "Novels".
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Hi Warchef, I've added another defence of Bjorner, with contribution from Michael Gray. Let's see whether this says the powers-that-be. Please don't remove any more Bjorner refs until we get a verdict. If you agree with what I'm trying to say about Bjorner, pls feel free to add a comment.
I took what you said about the focus of the Dylan article seriously. I think we have removed cruft & shortened the article & improved the refs, so FAR has done us good. But (as I said on Talk page) I'm concerned we don't lose sight of what makes Dylan an extraordinary 20th & 21st century artryist. I'm not v sophisticated at assessing word count of "readability" megabytes, but Dylan article is now 120 kilolobytes, Ronald Reagan is 145 kilobytes (and, like Dylan, a figure of massive importance in 20th century history) so Dylan is not the longest article by a long way.
How do you feel about progress of Dylan FAR so far? I still feel uneasy because I don't know what may hit us next, or how they will respond to the defence of Bjorner. As a result of this controversy, Bjorner sent me an email saying he appreciated this discussion of his work in Wikipedia. He also said he was now working as a consultant and historical advisor to the official Bob Dylan website in New York, but he wants to keep this info out of public discussion. Hope all goes well in Vienna. (My parents came from Vienna as refugees from the Anschluss so I've always been interested in history of the place, and have managed to make a couple of documentaries about it.) best wishes Mick gold (talk) 10:11, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nominations have now commenced for Coordinator Candidates for the Novels Project. Any member of the project may nominate themselves. Nominations close on October 27, so if you wish to run make sure you add your name before then. Details on the election process and the role of Coordinators can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Coordinators/October 2008. The voting and question phase of the election will open on October 28 and end November 28.
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Thanks for being bold & starting Dylan legacy. I was trying to think about legacy but you jumped in first, well done. I fear a couple of your footnotes/links don't work: Strummer, Sounes, and one other quote. I tried to fix but couldn't. Mick gold (talk) 14:03, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dylan: who vs. whom
Hi, Warchef. Your revert of "who" in the Hurricaine Carter sentence is understandable. The syntax of this sentence, otherwise excellent, makes it difficult to see whether to use "who" or "whom." So if I start sounding like Grammar Lady, please bear with me.
Speaking of whom, the Grammar Lady http://www.aacton.gladbrook.iowapages.org/id3.html and others offer this advice on who vs. whom: Try substituting "he" or "him" for "who" or "whom." Given that the sentence says "Dylan championed Carter, (who or whom) he believed had been wrongfully accused" our choices are "he, Dylan believed, had been wrongfully accused" and "him, Dylan believed, had been wrongfully accused." Since "him" isn't right, "who" is the answer.
The "he believed" in the ending phrase is what makes the choice especially difficult, because it sounds like "Dylan believed Carter," whereas what's being said is: "Dylan believed (that) Carter had been wrongfully accused." And if that's not true to the original sentence, this is: "Dylan championed Carter, who had been wrongfully accused." Interjecting "he believed" doesn't change the choice of pronouns.
Phew. All this over a four letter word. Anyway, please consider reverting your revert. And if I haven't won you over, try seeking a third opinion from an English teacher or librarian, who I am certain will find in favor of this sentence as well as the above :)). Allreet (talk) 18:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bjorner
Hi Warchef, Thanks for your nice note—your sentiment about Dylan editing is mutual. I'll talk about Viennese stuff in an email. Just wanted to respond on Bjorner. Obviously I've argued that if Bjorner is authoritative source for Gray & Muir, we have a right to regard him as authoritative too. Allreet agreed and seconded that argument. You commented that the cover versions of Knockin' on Heaven's Door were better in the Bjorner version, and I agree, I'd like to reinstate it. The first time I cited Bjorner was the recording sessions of John Wesley Harding. You replaced that ref with weblinks for McCoy, Buttrey, & Drake, (which is fine) but it occurred to me that these 3 musicians are credited on the back of the album, so that is a sufficient WP:RS. One Bjorner ref that I like and cannot see a substitute for is Dylan's evangelical speech quoted: "Years ago they said I was a prophet.." I think it's a great quote, contrasts the mythic status of 1960s Dylan with his new-found humility before Jesus. I even looked in the little book of Gospel Speeches that Heylin edited, thinking I could substitute that, but Heylin hasn't got that speech. I know it's accurate cos I once heard a recording of that concert. Everything in Bjorner is accurate. I've seen stories about Dylan in The Times and on the BBC News site that were inaccurate but Bjorner is accurate. So my position is if Bjorner survives this FAR, we use him. best wishes :) Mick gold (talk) 23:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Coordinators election voting and question time is now open. Project members should vote for any candidates they wish to support by November 28 at the Coordinator Elections. Yllosubmarine, aka Maria, has decided not to be reappointed, her work as sole Coordinator since the last elections in May is highly appreciated by all members of the project.
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Member in Focus
Hi, I have been around this project for quite some time now. Bit of a hiatus earlier this year, but back now just contributing. The Novels WikiProject wasn't started by me but my interest in the subject initially attracted me to what was here. It has developed substantially in the last few years and now takes in all forms of Narrative Prose Fiction within its scope. We are about the content not the format of the prose so WP:Books differs a little in that an implied format is entailed; also they can also focus more clearly on non-fiction. WP:Literature are the "new boys on the block" and are a little more focused on the "quality" aspects of literature, and again they have less emphasis on pure fiction and the prose aspect. Our biggest problem is to maintain a certain focus of interest across such a broad subject area and we need workers who can develop task forces, teams for assessment, teams for peer review and so much more. "So much to do, so little time, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late" to misquote from Alice in Wonderland.
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Over the last month I have been working on a portal for our project. So am happy to announce that the Novels Portal is now up and running.
Boylo: Thank you for getting this newsletter back on its feet and going again. No Boylo equals no Novels Portal...heck, without you, we wouldn't have had a newsletter for these past months...so, for all of the members of the Novels WikiProject, I want to thank you for the time and effort you have put into this project, and I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors. Thanks, pal.
This month's Collaboration has been selected by popular vote and is : Novel. As this is our Project's premier article, all members are asked to assist. The next collaboration is due for selection on 21 November, 2008 so cast your vote.
Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other.
Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention.
I've put the review on hold until the end of Jan to allow you time to address the issues I've raised. Let me know how you get on, and if you have any concerns about what I've said in the review. Regards SilkTork *YES!16:28, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well done. Splendid work. You have worked with a fine spirit throughout and never lost your patience with my quibbles. Warm regards and much respect. SilkTork *YES!17:01, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent! Thanks a million for all your help and sage advise, I can honestly say that the article is infinitely the better for having gone through the GA process, and especially for having received your excellent analysis. It was a pleasure :) peace Warchef (talk) 17:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes things work out well, and sometimes they don't. In this case we worked well together, and I'd put that down to your profound knowledge of the subject, an excellent work ethic, an ability to actually write well (unfortunately not that common on Wikipedia!), and your gentle patience with my petty quibbles. What are you going to work on next? SilkTork *YES!17:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As you can see, this is about as bare-bones of a newsletter as you can get. The reason for this is that the newsletter has and will be inactive, but we wanted to get a last one out detailing the current state of our project. The truth is that WP:NOVELS is in bad shape. Only a few editors are active in editing inside of our project. Our Peer Review section, this newsletter, our task forces, and our collaboration center are all dead; although a collab is picked each month, not a lot of work seems to occur.
Out of these ashes, we are proposing that the project start an A-class review system. This will hopefully bring people together for reviewing, and will perhaps get the project some sorely-needed attention from others who can come in and help rehabilitate it. Final plans have not been established, but we will see about getting a mass message out to all of the project members if/when it is set up; discussion of this can be conducted on the General Forum.
This newsletter will probably be the last we will have for a long time, as neither Ed nor Kevinalewis have the time to create these every month. However, if any editor is willing to step up and create one, we would be glad to assist you in making it up.
If you don't want to create a newsletter, but would still like to help, there are plenty of things that can be done. As detailed on the right, the Novels Peer Review section has four articles needing attention, but only one review has been done; one from May, one from November, and one from December have not had any comments left on them. Please consider helping out there; even a 15-minute review would help.
Talk between Kevinalewis and the_ed17, the two project coordinators, has led to us deciding to suspend elections for coordinators indefinitely. With the exceedingly low amount of participation in the last elections (five total votes), we do not feel that it is worth it to try to set up another election.
20 positions remain unfilled at the Job Centre. Members who are active project contributors are encouraged to apply even if they can only do a position for a short time.
Collaboration of the Month
This month's Collaboration has been selected by popular vote and is : Shantaram (novel). The next collaboration is due for selection in April, so cast your vote.
Peer review and assessment news
Peer Reviews are still open for four articles – Sector General, Petals of Blood, Scenes of Clerical Life, and Flowers for Algernon. Feel free to submit any novel-related article that you are working on for review, but please consider stopping by and reviewing an article; we need more reviewers for our articles (there is a PR that has been open since May)!
Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other.
Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention.
There is a moving discussion & survey going on, on the page "Bitch". Your opinion has been requested, click here to vote, it is urged that you vote in a timely manner. Thank You.
Coordinators election. An election has been long overdue, and therefore one will begin shortly. If you wish to stand, please put your name in by June 28, when voting will start. Members are encouraged to vote for the candidate they wish to support by July 21 at the Coordinator Elections. The Ed17 has decided not to stand for re-election. His work as Assistant Coordinator, along with Kevinalewis, since the last elections in October is highly appreciated by all members of the project.
17 positions remain unfilled at the Job Centre. Members who are active project contributors are encouraged to apply even if they can only fill a position for a short time.
On April 23, a fact about the protagonist Cousin Betty in Honoré de Balzac's La Cousine Bette appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column.
On April 25, a fact from the article Blanca Olmedo written by Lucila Gamero appeared on the main page in the DYK section.
On June 15, a fact from The Road to Yuba City by Tracy Kidder appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column.
- Contributors are Alan16, (who searched the archives).
Task force and related news
His Dark Materials task force has begun. This task force is dedicated to improving all articles in the scope of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The main purpose of this taskforce is to expand, cite, and promote all articles in scope of the series. They welcome any advice or help that members of WikiProject Novels may be able to offer. If interested, drop a note on their talk page.
– Position of editor for the task force has been undertaken by Pmlinediter.
Hi, I have been a member of this project for a few months now, and after finally gotten to grips with Wikipedia I have decided to take on the role of writing this newsletter (currently by myself, but any help would be appreciated) with some helpful tips from The Ed17. After undertaking this I realise why it was so difficult to keep it going. I will, however, persevere. From the members, I would encourage you to vote in the Coordinator elections, and take up roles at the Job Centre. The project has struggled recently, and I am hoping to try and revive it. If, with the publication of this newsletter, there are a couple of things that aren't quite up-to-date (like the Collaboration part), you can be certain I am working on it. I will be trying to get a newsletter out on around the 21st of every month. Finally, thanks for the help Ed. Regards, Alan16 (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Current debates
A Kenneth Oppel task force has been proposed. You can comment here. Oppel is a Canadian author who specialises in Young adult fiction.
Novel related news
American writer Michael Hemp wins the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award in the Action/Adventure category for his novel, The Nadjik Pheromone.
This is my first attempt at the newsletter, and I hope it at least gets close to the previous high standards set by Kevinalewis and The Ed17. I will once again encourage you to vote in the Coordinator elections, as I hope it could be the springboard to revitalise the project. I'll keep working on the newsletter, partially because I like the stress, and partially because we need it to get members and would-be members interested. Hopefully the start of great things. Regards, Alan.
Collaboration of the Month
Because there has been little activity on our Collaboration page for a long time, I have made an executive decision, and chosen The Tin Drum as our Collaboration of the month. All members are asked to assist where they can. The next collaboration is due for selection on 21 July, 2009 so nominate and vote.
Newsletter challenge
This month's article is Mindplayers by science fiction author Pat Cadigan. It is a previous, uncompleted challenge.
Announcements and open tasks
WikiProject Novels • (inc. novellas, novelettes & short stories) Announcements and open tasks
Recently a new worklist had been created and quietly arrived, the Cleanup listing which gives a fairly comprehensive hit list of "novels" related articles that have been tagged for something or other.
Since then a new Article alerts listing has also been added of more topic and "urgent" items worthy of our attention.
WikiProject Novels - Coordinator Election
Hello. To begin, every member of WikiProject Novels will be getting this message (the joy of macros) so if you wish to get in touch with me, please post a message on my talk page. I would encourage anyone who so wishes, to stand in the Coordinator Elections. If you wish to stand, please do so by 23:59pm, June 27. Voting will the continue to 23:59pm, July 21. Can everyone please check-out the Coordinator Elections page. Also, the collaboration of the month is The Tin Drum, so if you have any spare time, please check it out. And I apologise to the seven of you for whom this will be a repeat message. Regards, Alan16 (talk).
Coordinator Election
Hello. The Coordiantor Election has begun. All members are encouraged to vote by the deadline, July 28. To vote simply add support to the comments and questions for.. section of the member of your choice.
The July 2009 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Alan16(talk)
WikiProject Novels - Narnia Task Force
Hi! You would be glad to know that a new wikipedia ad has been created by Srinivas to encourage users to join Chronicles of Narnia Task Force. You can display that ad on your user/talk page too using the following code: {{Wikipedia ads|ad=190}}
The August 2009 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. Alan16 (talk) 17:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Warchef! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 12 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:
is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.
If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion,
a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.
Non-profit organisation that seemingly existed between 2005 and 2013, and (in that time) doesn't appear to have generated more than trivial coverage that would seem to meet WP:GNG or WP:NONPROFIT. On GNG, I cannot find much more than trivial "event listings", or bios in local papers (on those associated with the theatre) in which the theatre/company itself is not the main topic. On NONPROFIT, the scope of the theatre company's activities do not appear to be national or international in scale.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
