User:Geogre/Talk archive 25

25 is 1 > 24

I've been maligned, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Aw crap. Have I been maligned and missed it? Is there a userbox for that or something? Friday (talk) 20:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

• I was following behind someone and saw this, so that's what I call derision. Malignity... Well, it's sure more benighted than benign. (Ooooh, a 5 point pun, too!) Geogre 20:15, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit warring on a protected page

Geogre, just because you can edit a protected page, it does not mean you should, when it's been protected for a good reason. Please discuss changes on the talk page like everyone else has to. Neil ╦ 20:22, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The page was degenerating into an edit war. Protection is commonly used to stop these things, and admins don't usually have to go through the steps you suggested - it's usually "protect the page for 24 hours and urge the editors to discuss their changes on the talk page". Unfortunately, many admins believe that they must get that one last edit in so the page looks as they want it to, even if the page is protected. You've been around forever, Geogre. Imagine there was a page (that you weren't slightly invested in) being edit warred over by admins - what would you have done? I didn't mean to come across as imperious, but I probably was abrupt. Sorry for that. Neil ╦ 21:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I do agree on your opinion of en-admins (I won't repat myself, so just see Giano's talk page). Neil ╦ 21:24, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Geogre/IRC considered

Somehow or other, I hadn't run across this page, before -- having glanced over it, I'd have to say that you actually bring up some good points. I notice a slight emphasis on the disadvantages over the advantages, but I suppose any reform suggestion would probably do that. Your major conclusions, at least as guidelines, could be quite helpful. I've wondered about several topics you mention (the lensing effect, for one), previously. If I might presume to make one small suggestion, perhaps changing "inherent corruption" (disadvantage #6) to "inherent potential for corruption" would be easier to demonstrate empirically; if you're looking to make a strong statement, though, feel free. Haven't had a chance to read Kylu's parallel edition, yet, as I've got to head out on a social call. Just out of curiousity, did you have any particular plans or direction for this? I know you've mentioned the possibility of an RfC, at least once. – Luna Santin (talk) 00:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, when I said "inherent corruption," I meant that it was built in, that the medium, simply by virtue of the way it operates as intended, is "corrupt." The licensed term is "corruption," really, rather than "inherent," because I was using the term the way that Transparency International does: opacity of process and lack of accountability. By most definitions of "government corruption," "being unaccountable" and "not being transparent in decisions" is key, so that's how I was using the term. We could only overcome this part of the corruption -- the corruption that is entailed the moment we use IRC for any decision making -- only by having public logging or every single person on the channel (at the same time). Because both of those are impossible at present, deciding anything by IRC is corrupt. That isn't meant to say that the people are corrupt, but the process is.

Thanks for the compliment. I hope that even those most ardently against my position will at least admit that I was thinking the matter through and trying to argue honestly.

I believe that an actual "guideline for behavior" would be useful, but only (argh!) if there were some way of ensuring that it was followed, or that there were consequences for not following it. At present, some of the policemen of admins.irc, at any rate, are mistrusted, to put it politely, and they (some of them) have said that they do not believe that they are accountable to any Wikipedia or Wiki Media generated guideline at all. This has been a consistent hard line held by both James Forrester and David Gerrard. That is what has hardened people into taking potshots -- at least from my point of view. Geogre 02:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I should also hasten to point out that I have absolutely no doubt that 95% of the time that particular channel is just chatting away or silent. I do not think that people go there to be evil, or that people who go there are evil (at least not by virtue of that), but the 5% of over-the-line stuff is aggravating because it's an itch we can't scratch, an error we can't correct, and, most of all, because it's a force multiplying error. When people say -- and they have -- "I had unanimous consent for the block on IRC," that's not only a sign of a bad admin, but it's a sign of how easy it is to be mislead by the echo chamber of IRC.

I could add, by the way, other things that aggravate the problems with IRC, and chief among them would be the echo chamber effect, but it's not really necessary. Geogre 02:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I could be wrong, since I don't read all the relevant pages (and don't really want to) and don't hang with the right crowd (and...), but it seems to me that there has been a bit less "I had consent on IRC" lately. I'm going to guess that the noise (rude, loud, polite, quiet, no matter what form) several editors (I could single out two) have made about IRC - I'm going to guess that it is now a little embarassing to say "I had consent on IRC." That's a good start. The esay idea that if something is urgent, go to IRC to ask people to rush to AN/I, not to action, that will take a little longer. Jd2718 02:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

There is less of that, yes. That is good, yes. However, I worked on the Harvey Gantt senatorial campaign in 1990, I suppose. He was ahead in the polls the night before the election. In fact, he was way ahead. It was going to be a landslide defeat for Jesse Helms. Helms won. It seems that few citizens of North Carolina would say they wouldn't vote for a Black man, but, once they got into the voting booth, they wouldn't. So, we had a minor victory, in that people would no longer say racist things, but we had no effective victory, because they still voted along racial lines. I feel pretty sure that the more recidivist members of the core of admins.irc are unchanged in word or deed, but I think that the "silent majority" is now very quick to point out the need to rush to AN/I (or, "hey, go check AN/I to see about this issue that's really bugging me"), and the silent majority is less likely to be led astray. We should take our victories where we can, in this world, but I really think we shouldn't have to settle in the case of this micro-world of our collective site. Geogre 03:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Correction: it was the 1990 campaign I volunteered for, but it was the 1996 (was it really that late?) campaign where we "won" the night before we lost. Geogre 14:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Bit of a late reply, but: I've noticed your propensity for diction seems to be greater than my own, so it doesn't come as a surprise that your choice of words wasn't casual. Beyond that, I'm glad we had this little exchange, however brief. It's crystallized a few things I've been mulling over. Regardless of what channel policy or ownership may eventually be, I'll do what I can to keep the people I can (myself included) on their best behavior. – Luna Santin (talk) 05:15, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI - IRC takeover/coup update

Just to let you know (since I've heard that you got sick of the IRC channel and haven't been around in awhile) that as of June 15, 2007, the IRC channel was "taken over" by mysterious persons of authority and the chanops was whittled down to 7 persons (initially). Now one must tow a draconian "on-topic only" policy at #wikipedia. The only prior (barely) mention of this was at the foundation-l mailing list. Just thought I'd give you something to make you proud to be associated with Wikipedia. :p Bumm13 13:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, for more fun, read the comments under the last section here. Bumm13 13:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

On-topic-only at Wikipedia.irc? But! That was never very much of a problem. At least that sucker is open to anyone. It's the "admins" thing that is potentially a mess. Anything where "we decide who gets in" is, by its nature, a mess. Anything like that has already had a bit of nonsense in it by being not a place where anyone can edit, and then, when the people accused of doing bad things are the people who decide whether bad things have been done, there is a much worse mess. Sad, sad, sad. Oh, and on what topic? Geogre 13:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, cute. I don't suppose James feels the need to say what it is that this malefactor has done to be kickbanned from James's house? <sigh> If every link to admins.irc were removed from Wikipedia, I wouldn't be sad at all. Geogre 13:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It's been said that we cannot regulate IRC. That may be true, but we can regulate admin conduct.

How about an anti-collusion policy, which could be defined as 3 or more admins talking together off-wiki about specific policy or action decisions. Much like the Sunshine Laws enacted by many states.

I believe I also read somewhere that all editors are considered to be admins, and some just have more tools than others. Lsi john 14:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

You know, I tried to come up with a "here is what you should all bear in mind" thingie. I figure that there is only one way for IRC to be appropriate when discussing on-wiki actions, and that's if the ops are 1) always there, 2) always honest brokers, 3) always enforcing the "speak well of things or refer people to investigate at admin pages" rules. Otherwise, there is no possibility. Back to Bumm13, though: what I'd prefer is not that the channels stay on the topic of Wikipedia, but that they never go to the topic of "what to do about Wikipedia" in the absence of the 3 above conditions. It's a chat medium. Let there be chatting. It's the polluted message of the forum that's the problem -- the "we just hang out and chat and then we coordinate Wikipedia activities" that makes a mess. Geogre 14:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Based on David Gerard's recent edit summary, indicating that there is ownership, I'm not sure that any such policy would be permitted by the 'owners'. However, I've given it some more thought and I think that a Sunshine Policy just might be appropriate.

If three or more admins are discussing (wikipedia) policy-change or actions-to-be-taken, in an off-wiki environment, which is not fully open (and disclosed) to all editors, then they forfeit their admin tools.

I've noticed that read-protected pages exist on-wiki. Sensitive topics, that need to be private, can be discussed on a read-protected wiki-page. IRC is not a mandatory medium, it is simply convenient. If we are all considered admins, we should all have the same access to the discussions. Specific exceptions being made for specifically confidential matters, again, could be in read-protected space on-wiki. Lsi john 14:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

What you're noting is what I've noted before. The current "owners" have stated that they need not listen to anything ArbCom says. Given that, that solidifies the idea that this is a 100% non-Wikipedia resource. If that's the case, then Wikipedia has no more business linking to it and hawking for it than it does SomethingAwful forums. However, the current Wikipedians who use the channel disagree with the "owners" and therefore with the idea of de-linking. I understand. I'm sympathetic.

The problem with loss of admin tools, etc., is that it's a netherworld in policy. ArbCom should not involve itself in off-wiki actions of Wikipedians, IMO. IRC is off-wiki. Therefore, ArbCom would only be in a position of ruling on misuse of tools if a person acted on-Wiki based on something not fully justified and discussed on-wiki. This has been sort of, kind of, how things have stood for a while. It doesn't stop the character assassination and prosecution without representation on IRC, but it does stop acting on those vilifications and prosecutions, or slow them.

My point about admins.irc (and let's be clear: it is only admins.irc that I'm talking about, not wikipedia.irc) has always been that it does nothing, absolutely nothing, better than Wikipedia and that it has, built into it, dangers and corruption that mean that it is always the less preferred way. Some people agree with me. Some people don't. The people who do are scattered about the place. The people who don't talk about me, and it, on IRC. <shrug> Sic transit gloria mundi. Geogre 17:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

If Arbcom should not involve itself in off-wiki activities, how would you suggest addressing personal harassment at the workplace and other off-wiki locations, and publishing editors personal information on websites? I think wikipedia has a right (and a need) to establish a code of conduct which must be followed in order to maintain admin tools. Lsi john 18:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

DYK nom

pfhththththtth. you beat me to the nom, but you didn't notify Bishzilla, so I didn't see it. ya big meanie! Lsi john 18:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

ok, perhaps you did. Just not clearly enough for us peon non-admin non-irc editors to understand. Lsi john 18:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sneaksy, I am. If it's hidden in a Dennis Miller-styled pun on the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, no one can find it. Geogre 19:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeth yeth, musts be sneeksy whens they wants your preshiousss. and wants your preshious they doez. Lsi john 19:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Lazy 'shonen

Lazy shonen take power nap instead of skype, 'zilla regret! 'Zilla appreciate DYK listing, thank you geogre. Article lots of verbs, 'Zilla plenty-plenty linguistic skills. Also good sense of humor, banter with little users on Zilla Talk. [Little users a little scared and charred, 'Zilla learn to banter more gently. Always learning!] bishzilla _ROARR!! 21:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC).

"Scarred and Charred: The Bishzilla Experience" -- sounds like a musical revue. I had to cook yellow rice, sour cream biscuits (that's biscuits, not cookies!), and a layer cake. The last of these is cooling, like a corpse on marble, so I have Cooling Floor Blues (a song by Son House, and if we don't have an article on that, when we do have an article on some pop tart garbage, it'll be another sign that the culture war should be fought with actual guns). Geogre 22:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

But I downloaded Cows With Guns on IRC. so there! Lsi john 03:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool tragic cat

Cool article ! What a nutter. Yer British eccentric and no error. Geogre, please check the very light edit I did, mainly with the notion of making the South Sea Bubble more approachable for the unitiated. Is it correct to call it a stock market crash, do you think? I mean, there was stock and there was a crash. But, while there was also a market, the South Sea Company wasn't the entirety of the market (not far off, though). Would that make "stock market crash" an improper term? A modern reader would take the term on board without needing to click (in contrast to "bubble"), that's what I like about it. There are some new wikilinks also, please see what you think and fix the way you like it. I was maternally outraged at calling a baby "it", I'm afraid... ROARRR!! Bishonen | talk 22:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC).

I did check it, and it looked good. I agree with not calling a baby an it, too. I've been too conditioned by reading sloppy pronouns, I'm afraid. I keep writing, "Don't call people 'that's'," and it never makes a dent. Anyway, the South Sea crash pretty much was a crash all over. When it burst, the national debt had been tied to it in the infamous "sinking fund" (and what an apt name, as it turns out), so the crash meant massive devaluation of all other stocks. I.e. that bubble caused an overall crash, except that I think they locked prices or did some kind of bank holiday. At the very least, it's not so outrageous a link as to be objectionable. It's also more than a stock crash. It's kind of a mass hysteria plus insider trading plus malfeasance plus a bubble plus a crash, and we learned a lot from it -- so much that we've repeated it several times. I see the guy as a classic "you can hang yourself at last" sort of situation. It's a time of sons really hating their fathers (esp. when they're whig, but when they're tory, too). Geogre 23:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

You agree your contributions may be edited mercilessly. I haven't reverted as it would spoil the fun. Yomangani^talk 14:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Ou. Colour me miffede. Utgard Loki 14:42, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I was duped! Oh, well, no challenge there. Anyway, the stupid MoS, thanks to Emmsworth, still has that stupid "if they were born in what is today called the UK, spell things the way spelling is taught in the UK today, but if they were born in what would one day be the US (or Canada, or a US dominated educational system), spell according to Noah Webster's reforms." Grrr. Nothing wrong with the quaint old British spellings, but changing back and forth is a drag. Besides, as I will now rant on any occasion: my spellings aren't "American." They're "reformed." We can reform more, so far as I'm concerned, so long as those reforms don't include "lite." Geogre 19:14, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand

, and I really like understanding. I hope you don't mind me asking, what happened with Charlotte's Web? And what's happening with the jockeying around ArbCom about it now? I mean, I don't feel in general much sympathy for Jayg - it would seem that we edit at cross purposes on Israel/Palestine related articles - but he's usually careful to stay justonthisside of the line. I wouldn't have been shocked had he slipped across, but this allegation makes it seem that he blew it badly. Did he? That would be against pattern. or is there more that is not being said (or that I am not reading?) CW and Jg seem not to have crossed paths before, either. Didn't write on one another's talk pages, didn't edit the same articles. Likewise, KM who brought the Req for Arb seems to have first crossed paths with Jayg on the CW Req for Admin page, and with CW on an unsuccessful RfA for Yonidebest less than 2 weeks ago. So I don't get this. I suspect what U.C. says about the Ombudsman not being the right place for this is correct. But what is ArbCom supposed to look at? And how does Jay, a content writer, get all mixed up with the RfA of a non-content writer who doesn't muck around in anything Israel-related? On the surface it looks bad for Jay, but my gut says there's more here, my brain says the candidate wasn't a great candidate for admin anyhow, and my fingers are typing on your talk page. Feel free to delete if this is out of place. Jd2718 03:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't investigated, but I share your disquiet. Jay and Kelly have not been friends for a good, long time, and Jay and Kelly's Friends have been very frequently on opposite sides. Whether that has led to vindictive actions by either, I don't know, but the hostility almost surely adds accelerant to the house fire (or grease to the ice sheet or ... anything but "gasoline to the fire," as I'm declaring a moratorium on that metaphor). I still need to look into the particulars, so I can't offer any intelligent analysis. Geogre 11:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It's weird. I'm on both sides of the fence here. I have to agree that proxy editing is either all the way out or all the way in. If nothing else, proxy editors can be socks/reincarnations of other users. Imagine that the project goes to a hard ban on Michael or someone like that, and then a proxy editor with a fascination for music acts and inflexibility about them goes up for RFA, and that person's through a proxy. Michael, of course, never edited through a proxy, so this is merely a hypothetical. The point is that proxies either have to be disallowed, or we have to allow that kind of anonymity. That said, revealing it during an RFA and on the RFA page, instead of merely disqualifying the user, is irregular. It opens the user up to public shame. The problem is that it's a violation of the rules, start to finish, to be editing that way. Why was it so late in being checked, or was this information that was known and not shared until the RFA? There are questions, but I think they're questions that need to be asked inside, as it were, rather than out in the open. Geogre 19:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time. That helps. It sounds like ArbCom should take this, but with a different bunch of questions than were originally proposed. The results of the RfA is the only completely non-interesting part of this. And I guess the rest ArbCom should look at, quietly. jd2718, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? was updated. On 21 June, 2007, a fact from the article Swedish Emigration Commission 1907—1913, which you recently nominated, was featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Yomangani^talk 11:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Suspected Socks

Nice fire you have going there. ;)

I have a question, perhaps you can help. Mama's Family has some edit warring going on, which it seems is typical for wikipedia. However, these accounts seem to be created for this purpose. I'm not familiar with the full policies of wikipedia socks-world (though I try to change mine daily). Is it possible to get a casual check on these accounts? Or is a formal process required? Lsi john 12:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears one of them was blocked indefinately for vandalism. Though I suspect its a deeper issue. Lsi john 13:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like they were mostly socks of EverybodyHatesChris, per AN/I. Peace. Lsi john 23:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Another quiz

Yes, it's round two of the Elizabeth Needham quiz. I've now found a little ditty on her which includes the lines "Who Bail, on occasion would find - And keep you from Dolly and Shame". Now what's a Dolly here? Slang for the pillory? The little cart for moving hemp around in debtor's prison? Dolly Parton? 2 points for a definitive answer. ½ point for each reasonable guess. Yomangani^talk 13:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Dolly. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dolly suggests:

• a childish name for a doll
• a wheeled platform / hand truck / wheeled apparatus / small locomotive - see dolly (trailer) and camera dolly
• a wooden implement for stirring clothes in a washtub [very common before the automatic washing machine - various designs - [1] is a common one] - washing dolly is a redlink, of course
• a tool to a hold one end of a rivet while the other end is hammered into shape - see dolly (tool)
• a protective cap added to the end of a pile while being driven
• dopamine

There may be a more obscure cant definition. Perhaps something to do with the hemp bashing at Bridewell? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see dolly does almost all of those (gosh - I even edited that recently!). I doubt a dolly bird or dolly mixture is what you are after. Yes, OED is the way to go. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Brewer's says a "Dolly Shop" is a shop which buys and sells rags and refuse - effectively an unlicensed pawnshops.[2] -- ALoan (Talk) 15:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

• 1841, "Dolly Varden," in Dickens: a tramp who dresses in really bright colors. Sounds like a job for the OED. Utgard Loki 15:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone (Bishonen) with online access (Bishonen) to the OED (Bishonen) would be able to answer this (Bishonen) instantly. I would tend to think that Dolly, aside from a familiar form of "Dorothy," is going to be "making scraps" or "wearing scraps." Thus, bail saves her from working in a rag shop (in Bridewell) or wearing rags (again, in Bridewell). However, (Bishonen) we really need to get someone (Bishonen) to look up 1725 meanings, as I was alerted, today, that South African gold miners had uncovered a nugget that was shaped exactly like my broken tooth, and so I had to go to the dentist, where nugget and half-tooth were married in a most uncivil ceremony, and now the nearby teeth are objecting. Geogre 21:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Is using the telephone legal research? (I have a source). In the meantime, can we get another line or two (preceding, preferably) to improve the context? Jd2718 21:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

For my part, I'm still going to go look at the print OED and other junk, just as soon as I get done administering and grading a big test of a different sort. Man, I wish there were a Works of Ned Ward that wasn't a rare book. Geogre 10:59, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The whole thing is in the last paragraph of Elizabeth Needham (although for some reason I have the vaguest of suspicions that Geogre was hinting that Bishonen could look it up in the OED online...I don't know why, it's just a feeling) Yomangani^talk 23:04, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

We'll see who gets there first. My call will go to someone who did some scholarly work on a guidebook to London's brothels (really, I think so) and I'm guessing I might be fast enough to collect a couple of points.

OED

Sorry to be boring, but I have to simply suggest OED sense 2b: "A drab, slattern, useless woman," dial. or colloq.

1648 HERRICK Hesper., Lyrick to Mirth (1869) 38 Kisse our dollies night and day. 1706 E. WARD Hud. Rediv. II. v. 13 And so away he led his Dolly.

A word for Mother Needham's charges, I guess. See Ned Ward in there? Bishonen | talk 08:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC).

• Ned Ward sort of did a guide to brothels. Ned Ward, my buddy, seems to use it simply as "whore." It might be, and this would be useful in the rhyme, "street walker." Needham was a madame, and being the controller of a house was way, way, way, way better than being a street walker, just as being a prostitute working in the house was better than strolling. It could well say, "Had she not made bail, she'd have had to walk the streets/service the jailers/walk the streets for the jailers." Now I wonder if "Mr Seemingly Proper Dickens" meant, with the character name, "Whore clothes Varden" or not. Geogre 10:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
  • By the way, just so y'all know, I'm saving Ned Ward for myself. He needs work, and I've always had a serious soft spot for him. (Back upon a time, he was one of my potential dissertation topics, but it's really, really hard to find a library that has all of his works in its rare book room, and all of the emendations present the sorts of troubles that we've been having here.) He sure is fun, though, and the world really needs new editions. Geogre 10:52, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Gosh - is that the source of dolly bird? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It could be, because that Dolly Varden mentioned above became the name of a fish. If there were an ichtyornithologist, or a 'gentleman scholar' in the 19th c. going around naming everything, it could just be a Dickens fan who wanted the term for "brightly colored female." Otherwise, if it came from the folk, it might be "bright colors like a tramp." Of course, it could also make a sound like "dolly." You know, like to "tooky-tooky" bird.

A "trout"? Oh, beautiful. (You do realise that a dolly bird is not actually an avian, yes?) -- ALoan (Talk) 11:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, "dolly" is also a word in Polari for "pretty, nice, pleasant".[3] Fantabulosa! -- ALoan (Talk) 11:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think you can have 1 point for that, Bishonen (as that was already suggested on my talk page yesterday). The other ½ point I have left has to go to ALoan just for the quantity. I feel I should give Geogre a point too for making the same connection that I did to "street walker", but he tried to set Bishzilla on me yesterday and I'm holding a grudge. Yomangani^talk 12:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Rather hilariously, this suggests that a "dolly" is a sort of scrubber (well, scourer, it says) used it the felt-making industry. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:37, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I could also mention Ainsworth's Nix My Doll[y], Pals, Fake Away, a flash/canting song from Rookwood.[4] But I think the killer is this 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

Doll

Bartholomew doll; a tawdry, over-drest woman, like one of the children's dolls at Bartholomew fair. To mill doll; to beat hemp at Bridewell, or any other house of correction. [emphasis added]

Dolly

A Yorkshire dolly; a contrivance for washing, by means of a kind of wheel fixed in a tub, which being turned about, agitates and cleanses the linen put into it, with soap and water.

-- ALoan (Talk) 13:47, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't got an inexhaustible supply of points you know. I'll just have to make a massive footnote with all the possibilities listed. The hemp beating sounds more likely to me now - this is from 1781 apparently [5] (though if I don't get to mention Ned Ward in the article I'll be upset). Yomangani^talk 14:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The Newgate Calendar, under Jack Withrington, mentions "the commitment of madam the negotiatress to Bridewell, in order to mill Dolly". That seems pretty conclusive. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll owe you 1½. The OED is rubbish, isn't it? Yomangani^talk 14:37, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, Newgate Calendar is pretty solid. However, it's obvious that both meanings are operative, that a Dolly is a woman who has had to beat dolly, which is a whore, and therefore is a whore. I.e. you can be saved from beating dolly and/or saved from turning dolly. Given what those in prison did, and the general system of pay-while-you-slave, there is little doubt that a prostitute in Bridewell of Needham's stature would have been expected to make some money for them. Geogre 18:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I've released her into the wild to see if she can survive unsanitised. No infobox or trivia section so far. Yomangani^talk 00:46, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Good thing FAC catches "writing" problems

Today's main page, lead: "(the B-52) impacted the ground." The reviewers claim to be all over prose, approving only brilliant prose, and "impacted" gets on the main page? "Impact, n. a collision between objects." Maybe the ground had been planed, or jet bombered. Geogre 11:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Geogre, I don't believe that English, grammar, spelling, fact checking or 'literacy in general' are required studies for Wikipedia editors. From my experience, the best editors have degrees in IRC, reverting, paranoia, propaganda and lynching, and spend more time forming investigation committees than writing good articles. Lsi john 12:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, quite. Most of those express vocal disinterest in what they derisively refer to as "content." On the other hand, WP:FAC had a couple of people who, without benefit of degree or interest, proclaimed themselves experts on "what is a featured article." They furthermore "object"ed constantly on the grounds of writing and insisted that they knew good writing. Since I had to endure one or two of those blockheads, and since I have had to watch good writers endure more of them, I have delighted in noticing lead paragraph phrases that a high school English teacher would catch. Generally, people who are expert writers and writing evaluators don't go about claiming it. As I told a very young friend who had gotten his first IQ test and discovered that he was a genius: "It's better if other people tell you you're smart. If you tell them, they tend to not like you very much." Geogre 12:32, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

ASC and Æthelberht

Geogre, hi; I thought I'd post a quick note on your talk page since part of what I wanted to ask you isn't really anything to do with the Æthelberht FAC. First, I just wanted to say thank you for chipping in and commenting; I am not really expert in Anglo-Saxon history, and having someone who knows a lot more than I do give feedback is tremendously helpful. I will be working on the points you raised, and I wouldn't mind betting I'll see some more come up.

I'll reply to most of your points at the FAC page, when I get to them, but there is one thing I wanted to ask you about that is more general, regarding the ASC versions. The C ms is actually one of the Abingdon manuscripts; see Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the listing. That was one of my first FAs, and I have been pondering ever since then how to refer to the different ASC manuscripts when they come up in other articles. I currently use the [A] to [F] notation that Swanton uses, since the letters do seem to be a standard; the square brackets serve to make it clearer to lay readers that there is something specific going on here. The [E] manuscript, when it comes up, could be linked directly to Peterborough Chronicle; but that seems a bit of an Easter egg, which is frowned on. I don't particularly like using "Parker" and "Peterborough" in the text of other articles, partly because there are alternative names (Winchester, Laud) and partly because the [C] and [D] manuscripts, at least, don't have good names. The letters seem like the best alternative to me.

I did think of taking the question to a WikiProject, but couldn't find one that looked sufficiently active and relevant; then I thought of starting an Anglo-Saxon WikiProject, but I don't have the time or energy for that, so I just set what I thought was a sensible standard and started using it. So, if you have any ideas on a better way to do this, please let me know. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 17:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

• I share your frustration, but I'm old, old, old fashioned. I still say Parker and Laud and Winchester. I know that Swanton's sytem is best, and I should have them memorized, but I don't. I can't think of a good way to do it, except either to have A-F articles (e.g. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle A etc.) as the lemmae for our discussions of the MSS and then have each and every one of those other names be a redirect or to have each 'common name' the lemma and the A-F as redirects.
• The practical solution is to say "In C (the "Laud Manuscript"), he is referred to as...." A simple parenthetical costs us only a few characters and stops caviling critics like me in our tracks. :-) It's a good article and more than comprehensive. Geogre 17:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the practical solution. How about if I make the parenthesis a link to the mss section of the ASC article? So it would be "In C (one of the Abingdon manuscripts)". Mike Christie (talk) 17:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

That looks good to me. In fact, it solves two problems at a stroke. (I only did my doctoral minor in Medieval, but I enjoyed it enormously. In particular, I really dug Peterborough and had great sympathy for Orm, as I figure that anything I ever wrote would be lucky to be half so useful or readable. Geogre 17:44, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Æthelberht FAC

Geogre, just a quick note to say I've now caught up with your comments at the Æthelberht FAC. I haven't resolved everything: I've done what I can, but in a couple of cases I'm not sure of your meaning and I've asked for clarification. There are also a couple of places where I've given a more detailed explanation of what I was trying to accomplish in the sections you've commented on, to see if that would affect your thinking. If you could response there I'll go back to work on whatever is left outstanding. Thanks again for the detailed review; it's a pleasure to get comments like that. Mike Christie (talk) 23:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Aye. When my eyes can focus, I'll try to take it all on board and see if all is well. I may be more griping than useful on the accession section, but, to whatever degree I can help sharpen the points and speed the delivery, I'm happy to help. Obviously, it's a strong article now. (This, by the way, is why I don't think it's possible to review every FAC on a page. Folks put weeks into writing them. We should at least give a few hours to reviewing them, each.) Geogre 02:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, not to toot my own horn or anything, but have you seen Peterborough Chronicle? There is a bit in there that could use the new links to the MSS assortment. I went on listing the various unique Chronicles, using the old names. Perhaps you could update those links to the new system, so that section will actually be useful to readers? Geogre 02:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely I've seen it! It was one of the articles that inspired me to take Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to FA. I've made a list of some of the important AS articles on a subpage of mine, at User:Mike Christie/Anglo-Saxon articles; I'd like to try to get all of them to FA eventually. And sure, I'll update Peterborough Chronicle with those links. Despite WP:OWN, I hate to mess with someone else's FA, but since you ask . . . . I'll get it done over the next week or so when I get tired of reading about Rædwald (my next target, after Ceawlin, who's sitting at GAC right now). Mike Christie (talk) 03:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I have not wandered off or forgotten, and I will not leave it without an unambiguous support. Apologies for taking so long. Geogre 01:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem; I appreciate all the input and the timing isn't important. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 10:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CharlotteWebb

Hello,

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

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Newyorkbrad 23:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, my! Automated Brad, I had no idea that I was in so deep, but I shall certainly look and, if pushed, move. :-) I merely stated that I couldn't make head nor tail of the thing. It looked odd, then otter. Geogre 01:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Everyone who comments gets a notice. There's no obligation, although I'm afraid there's no money-back guarantee, either. Newyorkbrad 01:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Rats, and here I thought I was special! (It's what they told me at school.) Geogre 01:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I wish there was an automatedarbspam optout! (there's too many clerks to tell I don't want any...:() El_C 01:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and then you hurt our feelings by reverting them. :( Newyorkbrad 01:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I just want it to be a surprise... :/ El_C 01:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Seriously though, I would like to optout. Can that be arranged? El_C 02:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The Age of Reason

I know that you are not into the whole FA thing, but would you mind reviewing The Age of Reason for content and readability? :) With your interest in the 18c and religion, you are an ideal reviewer. The peer review is here. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 10:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It's later than my happy zone (1660 - 1750), but not entirely outside, so I'll be happy to look into it. I wish I could promise speed, but I can promise thoroughness. Geogre 12:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

But who else is going to know so much about the period in general? :) Speed is of no necessity (the siren song of my dissertation is ringing out) and I much prefer careful reviews anyway. Awadewit | talk 12:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, sorry for responding here, but I'm cogitatin'. In "Historical background," we have opportunities, but they might be red herrings, and I'll mention some general topics and see if you want the information in or out.

1. Background to free thinking in England
   1. How it moves in waves after the first outbreak
   2. How it developed with empiricism
2. The two strains of deism: natural religion and rational religion
3. How busting presses and the like was not unheard of, as the government had responded with trials, prison, and fines for much less than this for over a century.

Thing is, this stuff can bloat out, but it does help establish the context from the British point of view. I.e. in America, it's shocking that a poor printer is prosecuted for a thing like this. In England, the response is much more, "Well, of course he got thrown in jail! Thus always with gadflies." The danger is that these things can either balloon out and distort the flow of the prose, or they can be ridiculously insufficient. I think it can be done with a deft hand, but you let me know if you want me to assemble a few sentences (literally...not paragraphs). Geogre 14:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• (Asterisk as a headnote): I'm going to try to reply to these things as I can conceive of them. As Churchill said of the differences between the sexes, "I can't conceive, Madam, can you?" Well, in pieces, then, and in toto by tomorrow night probably. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I tend to think of the "Historical context" section as a place to explain why The Age of Reason was written in the first place and what specific, immediate historical events it was responding to. (Since most readers don't have a good grasp of history, much has to be explained, as you know; I don't know how many times I have written about Burke and the Reflections on the Revolution in France. His articles are really bad, too - I feel guilty linking to them.) Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

What do you think about a whole section or subsection under "Arguments" for a mini-history of English deism (there just isn't much American deism before Franklin, Allen and Paine)? I tried to suggest some continuities and breaks with this tradition in my discussion of The Age of Reason, but obviously did not try to give a overview of the topic. I would welcome such an overview. (This article is basically taken from parts of my Masters thesis on The Age of Reason - I left all of that out because I thought it might be overkill. I'm glad other people want it, too.) I would think that the various "waves" would be a good idea to include as well as their relationship to Lockean, Berkleyean and Humean empiricism (again, I tried to suggest this connection vaguely in a few sentences, but did not go very far with it.) I think that the prosecutions (e.g. Thomas Woolston) and the class divide would be important to include as Paine and Carlile are both put on trial. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the importance of distinguishing between natural religion and rational religion, although I could be persuaded otherwise. Do you mean "natural religion" as in "all beliefs should arise from the natural world (which just happens to suggest a maker)" and "rational religion" as in "all beliefs should be based on a rational approach to the natural world and the Bible and whatever matches, is true" (roughly) kind of thing? Joseph Priestley, whose biography I'm wrestling with now, is what I would characterize as a "rational religion" kind of guy. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and another thing. You have a good scholar giving a good overview of what the Deists held in common, but...well, they were holding those things in common sort of by the time of Paine. They were... well... they had been two separate strains. The "there is an innate religion from universal revelation, and it is then corrupted by priests" is slightly different from the Cherbury "let's look at all religions in the world and see what few things they have in common and decide those are true, because we can't trust any revelation" strain. The former became very interested in American Indians (e.g. the silly Hermsprong by Robert Bage) because they thought they could get at that "natural" religion. The latter became interested in surveying "China to Peru," as it were. Geogre 17:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. The "unity" of deism was a simplification that allowed me to easily distinguish Paine from the earlier Deists (and not mention Paine's contemporary deists) as well as introduce the major concepts of deism (despite their various methods of arriving at those beliefs, many of the beliefs were extremely similar, especially if you compare them to Arianism or Arminianism).

Well, I'm not sure I'd agree about Arminianism, but perhaps one strength of Paine is this very synthesis and blend. By his day, this was a mature philosophy, from Tindal and Anthony Collins, and even (oh, blast...there goes a name...the dude Gildon tried to ride into fame...it's that Wonderbra on the main page...my concentration's shot) Charles Blount (deist). There was a sort of cavalier-er than thou side to it in the 1680's. Then there was a rake-ier than thou side to it in the 1730's. These have distinct styles in writing and thought, and it's the "I'm a hard man who has no truck with delusion" sort (Collins, Tindal, etc.) that Paine picks up after Mr. Hume's agnosticism. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Do you see Arminianism as virtually synonymous with deism? I've heard that view before, but to me Arminians seem more Christian than many 18c deists. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I've read some Tindal and Annet, but neither of them struck me as either cavalier or rake-y. They struck me as trying to sound clever and witty. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• So, you don't think Hume's an atheist? Them's fightin' words. :) Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Another problem: If you read Isabel Rivers, for example, she argues that the early deists used a very similar kind of ridicule to Paine (e.g. Matthew Tindal and Peter Annet). If that is true, there is nothing special about Paine's text except that it sold well. But so many other scholars insist that his language is new and distinctive. That is why I left her out, even though she is renowned. Let me know what you think we should do about that. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I think there's no fear there. If you've read any of the Restoration deists, Paine is 180 degrees from them. I have read Collins, but none of the others in primary, and they all have torturous styles, filled with circumlocutions and heavy periods. Further, they were concerned with philosophical orthodoxy. They sought to follow a particular single line to its mandatory conclusions, where I see Paine as much more of a philosophical handy man. He is willing to kick anyone out of his church who does not answer to his "conscience" (and that is one seriously loaded word, too). Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• I agree, to some extent, but there is her argument and she is a very reputable scholar. Despite the whole NPOV policy, I decided to leave her out since her view is contrary to both my impression of the texts and almost every other scholarly opinion published on the matter. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with your assessment of Paine as a "handy man." I just saw Michael Moore's Sicko today and I think that he is in a direct line from Thomas Paine. His films are not about argument, they are about shock and rhetoric, exactly like Paine's works. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The GA reviewer suggested more on Paine's rejection in America - do you think that is necessary? I thought the quotes I had were sufficient, but perhaps not. Also, since it isn't the Paine page, I didn't want to go overboard on that topic. I have much more to add along that line, if you think we should. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I really don't. Honestly, the usefulness of this work for the philosophical founders was undeniable, but it was directly rejected for going too far. Paine was comprehensible, and that was his virtue and vice, both. The founders were aware individuals, and they had to find a ground for rejecting state religion, even as broad a one as "Christian." Despite what Pat Buchanan thinks, they were nervous about any of that because of what they knew could follow, and Paine was useful for clouding the issue and making it difficult to support a pious homogeneity, but he went too far for them, too, by insisting on a radical individualism that was inviolate. That's the bit that they couldn't hold. They couldn't hold to each man's church being within his chest, because then they would have been paralyzed legislatively in the face of sacrifice, polygamy, etc. They had to hang onto a general code, and so they had to reject his sacredness of the individual. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• "Paine was comprehensible, and that was his virtue and vice, both." - Well said - we should put that in the article. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• What has Pat Buchanan ever been right about? I hate all of that "America was founded as a Christian nation" crap that I hear all of the time. I just want to throw stacks of books at people or show them Jefferson's letters. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The GA reviewer also felt that the article had POV problems, but I think that this is because s/he is a mathematician and anything that sounds like an opinion (such as a scholarly interpretation) appeared POV to him/her. Let me know if some POV has crept in. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, by no means. It seemed well written and temperate, with no POV problems. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The GA reviewer also felt that there was "essay style" in the article. Now, I despise this criticism (and I have a feeling you do too, from your articles) because the prose labeled "essay style" is usually what explains ideas and connections between ideas to the reader. Again, let me know. I try to find a balance between my essay style (which I cannot avoid writing in, frankly) and wikipedia's demands. (See the talk page for a lengthy discussion on this problem and my "narrative" style.) Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, you have an ally in me in that regard. That's an encyclopedist's duty. What are we, a news aggregator like Google? Are we a clipping service? Are we Spark Notes? No! Encyclopedists are performing useful, unique, and challenging work when they synthesize available information and present it in a concise and clear form. There are always biases of selection and exclusion, always colorations in wording, always "original research" in the original combination of facts and order, and there are always conclusions. This is what it means to be an encyclopedist. The grand old 1911 Britannica is now obnoxious to us because they had such heavy footed interpretation, but I find that the problem is less that the writers had points of view, but that they dismissed facts, works, and opinions. It isn't that they said that Swift was a misanthropist -- such a nugget tells us about the UK in 1908 -- but that they say that A Tale of a Tub is not worth discussing or that Argument Against Abolishing Christianity is a worthless trifle. We do not have to immasculate (or inhyster?) ourselves to avoid that kind of error. If we approach our subjects not as fans, but as generous readers, we can avoid 1911's hamfisted approach and still guide readers. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Many editors seem to think that we are SparkNotes. I have seen so many literature pages that are entirely plot summaries (actually, I would call them plot narrations, since they are not really summaries). I totally agree with you on the what an encyclopedist should do. I wish that that role was better understood here. Unfortunately, the idea of mastering a topic in order to write an article on it is rare here (in my experience so far). Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I am glad that finally someone understands that our entries are "original research" besides myself. I have sometimes tried to point this out to other editors, but I have never succeeded in making anyone understand that an article written by you, for example, on The Age of Reason would look different from "my" article. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I sometimes feel that the restrictions on prose in particular lead to the kind of "emasculation" you are referring to. Someone once objected to an article I submitted to FAC because I used the word "claim," as in "Locke claims that associationism is central to the formation of the human mind." It blew me away. I showed them that even philosophers use the word in this way, but they were not swayed because there is some policy somewhere saying you can't use that word (a policy which defined the word incompletely, by the way). Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

A copy editor also suggested these changes: "I feel like there's more on Paine being ostracized in the U.S. later in his life that could be added, but I may have to look that up. It also has some significance in the debate over Separation of church and state, as an example of what one early influential American was thinking, though I'm not sure that really needs to be mentioned." - Let me know what you think of those. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I said, above, some of the ways that he was important for the separation of church and state. Think about it from their points of view. They have to argue to themselves and their British countrymen why they should have no official religion and why they cannot give total freedom to each person to have any action in the name of free religion. They need and want some proof that there is no easily deducible perfect religion, but they can't go as far as Paine does. That said, this is merely the atmosphere of the time, and I know of no American FF writing in his diary, "I like how I can use this Paine guy, but we have to suppress it."

• Jefferson, perhaps. He was canny. He was friends with Paine but discouraged him from publishing the third part of the AR. Although he invited him to the WH after the tumultuous presidential election, it was only after he was elected that he did so. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the interesting side issues is that the entire course was set with Protestantism, IMO. Once the Protestant movements (not the Anglican church, until later) started to say that real Christianity had been corrupted by priests, they needed to have a pure Bible. That opened up the Higher Criticism, and that meant the discovery of a great deal of Biblical indeterminacy. Oops. Additionally, the priesthood of all believers meant that the structures of dogma were weakened/questioned/broken, and that leads to the idea that a revelation was sufficient. Why, then, not reason? Additionally, the priesthood of all believers leads to our Zwickau prophets, "Jack of Leyden" in Swift, and all the exuberant Christian denominationalists (who are cranking up again with Whitefield and Wesley in the time just before Paine), and that creates a huge backlash. It's in this realm that you have possible the idea of the individual finding God by himself, that church authority is weak as water, that Bible studies show potential weakness in scriptural traditions, etc. In a sense, Paine's free thinking is the thud of the cannon ball Martin Luther fired. A side issue, though, and not worth putting in. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• I agree - the Reformation was the beginning of the end, but of course they didn't know it - they wanted "reform." I would also add in the crucial step of vernacularization. The very process of translating the Bible led many scholars, anyway, to realize that the Bible was far from inerrant or even stable. Then comes comparative religion as a result of exploration in the 17c and 18c. Finally, the Germans arrive with "higher criticism" in the 19c. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• I would also look to the visionaries and prophets of the English Civil War and the 1790s as important in this respect. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• All of this interesting stuff should go on a page detailing the history of "free thought" or perhaps even "atheism." But who has the time? I'm already in the middle of too many projects. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, thanks so much! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you in return. Awadewit | talk 02:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, well, I'll reply more to the points above and offer some matter as soon as I can. De nada, though: I like playing with ideas and words, and I enjoy reading really good articles like this one. Geogre 03:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks. I look forward to working on it with you. Awadewit | talk 08:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The Secret

Sekrit e-mail for you. Bishonen | talk 16:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC).

Ah, "the black dog barks at midnight." Got it. Wilco. (I check e-mail before Wikipedia. I still believe in that life over this.) Geogre 19:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

A pox on the assessment drive

[6]. Amen. I just happened to see this on recent changes. As the author of several hundred fairly short articles on composers who lived between about 1100 and 1650, articles which are now written to about the maximum extent permissible without violating the "original research" guidelines, articles which have been largely tagged as "start" or "stub" by people completely ignorant in the topic area and completely incompetent to assess the situation regarding sources, all I can say is -- I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who finds this tagging business to be irritating.

Now if I were truly rouge, I'd just delete that damned assessment drive. Why, I could even have an AN/I drama thread named for me! Sigh. I feel better now. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 19:14, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Dude, I'm glad you spoke up. I've been feeling really alone, and I know that that's the critical feature. A "Project" might be one dude with a -bot or SandyGeorgia and a dude and a -bot, and yet "your article has been assessed and found to be a stub" lands on a talk page. If you want to see genuine horror, look at the talk page of Henry Carey and see when some #!$#$#!@ added a "project cleanup" template on it and then how long the article had to endure that. Mind you, there was never a single word on the article talk page about what had been "dirty" about the article, not a sign anywhere of what the problem was. It just got a tag, possibly even as vandalism, but suddenly a po-faced army has to weigh and say that, yes, yes, this must be cleaned. Well, the "cleaning" didn't result in more than 10 characters, but still the tag sits there, and still I keep trying not to appear to be OWNish. Such, of course, is the way: the "Project" spreads its contagion across the work of dozens of editors, and each of them has to fight the battle believing herself or himself to be all alone.

Yomangani has an article up for FA now, Elizabeth Needham. It was "start class," but one of the devotees of forms and tickets and tags and processes over content manually upgraded it to "B." This is so that it "could become" an FA.

The people who "have been assessing" show no credentials, including no capacity to read and discern, and they even use -bots to do it. Granted, you and I are unlikely to be cowed by a -bot's opinions, but imagine the new author. He's now believing that he must have an infobox, because a Project told him he did. This is, I am convinced, a narrow agenda of some narrow minds to try to control all assessments and judgments on Wikipedia and to reduce it to a bureaucratic case of "first do steps 3-9, then take your form to the office of proofreading, and then take it to the department of metadata processing, and then you may submit it, after three requests have been made and filed at the appropriate desks, to be evaluated as a "Good article," which is necessary before trying to submit it for featured article review." May they wither with the agony of desiccation!

If you ever feel like punching those folks in the nose, let me know, and I'll bring my own axe handle to the party. Geogre 20:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Know what? I think it might be time to unleash another essay. I think I'll call it, after Walter Hilton's book, The Stairway of Perfection, and in it satirize this "take the following steps, and then we won't have to fret with human understanding" approach. The current brouhaha with SandyGeorgia and Tim Vickers on WP:AN is another version of that. People want to put their thumbs into WP:V and such not because there is any flaw in the pages as they stand, but because they want to have a black and white, one-two-three process. Well, as a frequently named "process wonk," it may be surprising, but I think that's utter nuts. I'm for process when it protects our people and defuses the aggregation of power. This is process to consolidate power, to try to set up boards of review and offices and projects that will be necessary steps, small, small bodies that people can place themselves at the head of. It's also process to eliminate assessment, argument, and judgment. It's evil.

Another possibility would be Wikipedia:ProjectAbuse, where people could come to document and discuss projects running amok and running over editorial sanity. The Projects may be well at speaking for Project members, but they must never assume that that means anything. For each member, there are a score of non-members who know about the project and do not wish to play in it. That score does not cede any editorial or personal judgment or rights to content simply because a "project" gets cobbled together. Geogre 14:05, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

"All revolutions eventually evaporate, leaving behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy." Wikipedia was a kind of revolution, and I'm sensing that something is evaporating in the hot sun, and what's left behind isn't exactly what those of us who possess either common sense or specialist knowledge quite want.

You are quite correct about the boards of review, offices, stampers and filers. Eleven easy steps to B-class mediocrity for Wikipedia as a whole. I fear we may have a systemic problem which has to do with the age and maturity (senescence? I wonder) of the project, as well as the failure to harness usefully the energy of clouds of eager newcomers, most of whom are young, inexpert, and accustomed more to contests and games than writing scholarly prose. In any other environment we'd find a leader and send them all off to do something useful; in this anarchic one, they invent contests--who can rack up 10,000 assessed articles the fastest? who can invent the best fastest automated tools to stamp "stub class" on three-paragraph French playwright biographies the fastest? --and those of us who actually research and write those "stubs" are quite outnumbered.

We need to rein in rogue Wikiprojects, indeed. My brimstone is in short supply. Does anyone else care about this stuff? For another example of what we are dealing with, this is a very interesting thread. There has been "civil disobedience" before, at least. Best, Antandrus (talk) 22:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Aha, a place where I can yell at them all at once! It won't do any good. They were proudly huffing and citing "Civil" when a guy said that he didn't like the ratings. It's not "civil" to not agree with a project. It's a Project, after all, and you're just an editor. Editors can be replaced, but not clever -bot operators! I'm not sure what implying that they're all scavengers is, but it's just accurate, from my point of view. (If they want to start an "Assess Articles You've Written" campaign, I'll wish them a hearty hand shake and a slap on the back.) Geogre 22:42, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

No point to this break=

Well, slapping a start class tag on an article is killing it, if an article needs "B" or better to be included in the Wikipedia 0.7 stable release (have a look at this, but caution, it gives me heartburn to think about how these choices are being made), so the scavenger analogy isn't bad. Indeed this is exactly why these "ratings" were starting to bother me so much. (I now preemptively put a "B" rating on every article I write; it feels rather like spraying new patio furniture for termites.) I haven't noticed, yet, the tagging drive for importance. It's bound to be a lovely one. Antandrus (talk) 23:42, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

You know, I haven't done that. Part of it is my being a horse's ass, I'm sure. I think that it would compromise my ideological purity, because it would be tantamount to admitting that the assessments mean something. Like I said, I'm probably being a prick, but I really feel like even assessing my own article is a way of suggesting that there is a point to it. I can't believe, though, that "start" or "stub" excludes from the RSN-no-really-RSN 1.0. That would be unbelievably stupid. Geogre 02:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't let your picnic be spoiled by mosquitoes. Whenever you see a "cleanup" tag applied to an article without any explication on the Talkpage, just delete it, identifying the tagger on the Talkpage and requesting guidance. A further step, directly notifying the tagger, would be an inappropriate courtesy, I should think. Similarly, when a thoughtless and uninformed redlinker links a name about whom virtually nothing is likely ever to be known, I simply make it into a redirect to the page where the name appears. Minimal confrontation with the mediocrity. --Wetman 00:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I actually deplored the assessment bug a year ago. In my conversation with User:Kirill Lokshin, I remarked that "I dislike the assessment system that was implemented in Military WikiProject and then spread to other projects as well. I've even seen people edit warring over how to assess the article. Guys, let's write an encyclopaedia rather than buzz around". He does not seem to share my concerns. --Ghirla^-трёп- 17:28, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's more the idea that we should race to assess. I mean, really! Then it absolutely every single time introduces another layer of judgment. Suppose that Ghirla were to be overly generous. Well, that's going to make arguments. Let's suppose that he were overly harsh. That creates arguments. Why do we need a quality assessment, and why allow it to be devil take the hindmost? We have, for ages and ages, talked about ratings systems. For as long as I recall, we've talked about ways of rating articles to find the 1.0 articles. I even suggested a method, once. The one system, though, that no one in their right mind proposed or endorsed is, "Whoever gets there first just rates it, and then it's disruption or warring to change it." That's absolutely insane. Even the worst and newest of authors has the right to say, "Says who?" to an assessment, and there ought to be an answer other than, "Oh, someone who got here first." Geogre 19:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

As a participant in the WikiProject Biography Assessment drive, might I just mention a few points? (Is this intruding? I am not totally sure. If it is, feel free to delete my comments.)

• As far as I know, no bot is rating articles. I did see some discussion regarding that idea, but it was dismissed. Editors still have to look at each article they assess, although there is a script that many of us are using to make the actual coding of the rating easier. Awadewit | talk 00:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• While I wish that the parameters for each level were more clear-cut so that the rating among editors would be more consistent, I am not sure if that is possible. Awadewit | talk 00:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• I do think that it is useful to have a rough assessment of each article on wikipedia. It makes data collection for essays such as Wikipedia is being flooded easier. Such statistical analysis is quite helpful. Awadewit | talk 00:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• Both the spring and summer assessment drives specifically warned people against rating the article's "importance" unless they were part of that subgroup of the project and understood its aims and subject. Awadewit | talk 00:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• I did not know that editors were placing all sorts of other tags on the articles - that bothers me (I have seen the problems that such tags can create). In general, I think, they are reviewing for comprehensiveness, organization, prose and citations. While comprehensiveness may require knowledge of the subject, it often does not (and many of the stubs are obviously incomplete). A person's life cannot be described completely, for example, if only statistics about their achievement in hockey are mentioned. Awadewit | talk 00:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, while I understand your frustration over the mechanical description of how to write articles, I am afraid that they are all too necessary. Most of the novel articles, for example, rigidly follow the WikiProject Novel template. I tried to change the template, arguing that their structure misleads editors into writing poor articles, but was rebuffed. The same thing happened at WikiProject Films where I suggested (shockingly, apparently) that the template should include sections on "Themes" and "Cinematic style." I was informed that not all films have themes. (Film pages are also usually appallingly written.) The fact that so many editors use the template reveals their dependence on it; the number of times that I have had to explain to an editor that real research is required to write an article are becoming too numerous to count. An explanation of how to research and write an article must be somewhere since it seems to be a rare skill. The FAC on the movie E.T. is a case in point. I asked for a "Themes" section, arguing that an article on E.T. needs to discuss more than the film's plot and ticket sales. It took a while to convince the editors of this (I'm not sure they are totally convinced, though). Now we are working on research. One editor has admitted the s/he does not understand any of the film criticism on E.T.. Disregarding it, then, is apparently fine. Such editors need help learning how to write and research. WikiProjects provide a useful place to do this, since the members supposedly have an interest in the topic and perhaps even some knowledge of it. Awadewit | talk 00:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that you're begging the question, there. If the bad authors are following a template, the answer is not, I think, to try to come up with a "good" template, but rather to kick the crutch out. I don't mean to sound nasty and elitist and all those other things, but the templates are being used to excuse and gild the articles. "You can't say the article is no good: I followed the template!!1!" If people need help learning how to write articles, their best guide is now what it always was: to read good articles. That one step is the most uniformly missing.

• I've always thought of the template as a starting point, not an ending point. I also agree with you on the reading part. That is also one way to improve one's writing, as you well know. Awadewit | talk 03:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

A good template is bad, not because the people who constructed it were malicious or stupid, but because it's a template. I suppose it's possible that there is a film somewhere without a theme, just as, of course, it is possible for there to be a film without dialog, or without a producer, or without a soundtrack (yes, I know: there is always a theme if there is any intentionality, but I suppose it's possible that there could be a robot-made film that would lack therefore philosophical outlook and motivation and therefore lack theme). Any time we come up with a 1-2-3, we miss something or we impose regulation on something that might not want to fit. The problem remains that people want to have these assurances, these templates, these processes that can guarantee a product. A good author doesn't need them, and I think a bad author won't benefit from them. Inexperienced authors could gather ideas from them, but only if they understand them as hints and suggestions rather than templates, and they would still be better off reading some FA-classed articles.

• I don't think of templates that strictly, I suppose. I have always thought that they should be guidelines that offer good ideas to help editors decide on content and layout (the kinds of "hints" you are suggesting). I did not realize that they were being used in this strict sense, this procedural way. The two templates that I have spent the most time with (novel and film) all mention that other sections than those listed can and often should be included in an article. I think the problem often lies in the users not being careful or imaginative. (The people who programmed the robot would have to be considered.) Awadewit | talk 03:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Look at the steps for a biography. Infobox mandatory. To that I say "no." In fact, I say "never." I do not want a box intruding into the reading space of an article I read, and I will not plant one in an article I write. Then there is this "biodata" that's mandatory. Since I don't believe any two lives are consistent, I don't think any consistent data is meaningful. When there is a standard human, there can be a standard biography. Until then, we can recommend some likely methods of approaching the subject, but even if we went with the bland requirements of the DNB format, we'd be encouraging readers to skip (just the way I do with the DNB... father was a knight of Surrey, mother daughter of a yeoman of the farm... and this is not presented as meaningful in any way... just a shadow of the 19th century's belief in inherited qualities).

• Again, I agree with the assumptions behind what you are saying (although, all people are born and die - so far), particularly with the "recommendations" part. I suppose that I always just assumed that editors realized that templates are recommendations that don't work for every person, book, etc. Silly me. I should have known better. How would you instruct new/inexperienced researchers and writers? I feel that there must be more than just saying "read a quality article," because I have found a striking inability in my college students to draw conclusions. I am not sure that the majority of editors could read a good example and from that deduce the principles that go into writing a good article. Awadewit | talk 03:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have written many, many biographies. Except those that made FA, they are all, universally, "start" or "stub" by this assessment drive. I don't think I'm being overly vain if I say that this can only be the case if the person assessing didn't read the articles or didn't understand the words. In some cases, like Nicholas of Flue, Wikipedia has worked well, and the article is nice and juicy and explains well. It's 3 screens. It's "start" class, despite the fact that nothing can be added without going entirely off track.

• I would assume that that article has been rated "start" because someone didn't think there were enough citations; personally, I would rate it a "B." Since the WP:MOS is supposed to be followed for "A," that is the only reason I wouldn't give it an "A" rating (citation of websites, heading capitalization, etc.). Frankly, I care less about those things than I do content and good writing, but others care a lot (there seems to be dash police - I don't know if you have had them come by your articles); I am willing to bow to some arbitrary rules (such as heading capitalization) for the sake of community sanity. (By the way, that is just the kind of infobox I find intrusive.) (Since you seem proud of your "starts," I won't change the rating, unless you want me to.) Awadewit | talk 03:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I know we get swamped. I know we have swarms of ignorant. I know we get exuberant and inexperienced authors who will say the most outrageous things, but I just don't think a template is going to do us any good, and they will use those templates to argue that their articles are guaranteed good. Geogre 02:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I am curious as to what you think would help the problem, because it obviously is one. If templates that suggest ways of organizing and researching an article aren't the way to go, I am interested in hearing and promoting the alternatives. Awadewit | talk 03:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, Lordy, we're getting hard to address -- arguments are going all over the place, like a chainsaw going through the Prior Analytics (apologies to Elvis Costello, whose description of a prospective lover as "like a chainsaw through a dictionary" has always seemed the best image ever met with in a pop song), but let me try to pick up that glove there on the ground. :-)

Ok, what would be the way forward? Since I criticize the FAC people for "object, this article's author has not brought me a shrubbery, nor cut down a tree with a herring" but never offering the normative, I suppose an alternative to the 1-2-3 approach would be.... I can't believe I'm saying this.... Perhaps if the projects or the subprojects or just the clever and wise were to offer up a list of exempla. Let's not have any of these have any special stars, awe-power, choruses of angels singing the Te Deum, or anything of the sort -- just "these are really good examples of this subject matter" with, and this is a kicker, commentary on what makes each example well done. Let the new authors figure out from the examples what the "rules" are and apply them as appropriate to his or her own article.

We all know how much the eager and young want a list of guaranteed steps. I have had any number (ok, virtually all) of my students essentially wish for a list of steps to take. "If I do this, I get an A, right?" echoes in my ears every term. "If you write a good paper, a really excellent one, you get an A" won't work, because they want steps. I sympathize. I want to know the steps, too. It's just that a person can set very low minimums ("grammatically sound") and vague optimums ("proper word choice, vivid language, employing appropriate resources") (yeah, "minima" and "optima," but those sound like cars). The thing is, students have their idea, and they want to go. They do not want to read, because they don't think they have to. They already know how to write, they think. They already know what they want to say, they think. Reading is boring, when they're full to the brim with the impulse to speak. It's like conversation: they don't want to hear, only speak.

So, if we have, "These are great examples" and "here is why this one is really strong, but this one looks different and yet does its job superbly" would probably frustrate people who just want to speak, who just want to tell the world about "Transformers 2 is a movie that will probably come out in 2009," but for those who follow it, it might help break the mind forg'd manacles of "I followed the directions, so now it's an A."

Bourbon would be ok, but, as an 18th c. person, anything Bourbon suggests The Pretender. Perhaps it should be patriotic rum. Geogre 12:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, now my talk page has lit up, as well as that other page. LOL. I have a bottle of fine bourbon calling to me; perhaps it may assist me in crafting further responses. Want me to pour you some?

• Virtual alcohol - that I can do. Awadewit | talk 03:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Certainly none to this one

More seriously, I wouldn't object to people organizing expert editors in their disciplines to do assessments. I for one would like to see which of the many thousand articles on "classical" music really are desperately needing expansion. Maybe I should shut up and make such a list based on my own opinions and knowledge. I bet you could do the same in your area. I just don't want to join that huge MMORPG masquerading as a project. Antandrus (talk) 03:16, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with that peer review idea as well. If there is a scientific peer review, why can't there be a history peer review or a literature peer review? I find it odd that science is being privileged here (alright, maybe not so odd). Although it is useful to have "outsiders" read pages so that we can determine if they are accessible, it is difficult to rely exclusively on such reviews. If I had eighteenth-century experts reviewing my pages as well, I am sure that they would be that much better. Awadewit | talk 03:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• My userpage contains a long list of eighteenth-century articles that need improvement. It seems like I will never get to them all. Every time I go to an eighteenth-century page, it seems, there is either nothing there or total drivel. (By the way, I wonder if the high number of classical music pages is coming from the fact that each piece by Bach (thousands in and of himself), Mozart, Beethoven, etc. has its own page.) There certainly are some odd projects, but if that is what the editors want to edit and that is what they know about, well, who am I to say no? As long as they discuss World or Warcraft well, I don't have a problem with it. Awadewit | talk 03:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Ah! Profuse apologies for the Bach, etc. comment. I forgot to read your userpage before responding. By the way, I really like your layout. Do you mind if I steal some of it? Awadewit | talk 03:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Look at the steps for a biography. Infobox mandatory. To that I say "no." In fact, I say "never." I do not want a box intruding into the reading space of an article I read, and I will not plant one in an article I write. Yay! As the self-confessed coperpetrator of a (minor, somnolent, to Awadewit perhaps "odd") project, I'm now thinking of drafting a new principle for that project, one that explicitly says that infoboxes are redundant. The better writers already realize this obvious fact; the slower ones and the conformists will be able to cite it as gospel truth. -- Hoary 03:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

You know, the thing is that it doesn't have to be intrusive, ugly, etc. It's not that it must be. However, for those boxes to be neutral, as opposed to negatives, they have to be planned-for. If a person going for the full body rewrite, or the de novo composition, has planned on a box from the start, and if that person picks and chooses very carefully for the elements that are applicable and (gasp!) meaningful for the particular person (I deal, incidentally, with a good number of people whose births and deaths are unknown; we're pretty sure both events occurred, but not when, much less where). Allan Breck Stewart, for example, is a worthy entry. He is important enough to have a Wikipedia article. So, born? died? profession? parentage? successors? What field of a biobox would be useful there? All that is known is in the present article, and it cites sources. Stub class! Anyway, back to the boxes: boxes are virtually always afterthoughts. They're "applied" to existing articles, and they get applied in the usual way: every field is sacred, every field is great. I have found boxes to be additions absolutely nowhere. I'm not joking. The royal genealogy/succession things are ok, mainly because I've gone to the wrong Queen Mary most of the time, but for a human with a life? No. I have never yet learned anything from a box, never yet found the box to help me remember. I have never yet had a box contextualize the person. So, if they're applied after the fact, they probably compete with the article, either in graphical space or informational presentation, and if they don't add context.... See, if an author plans it, it can be a thing indifferent. If a templateer comes to insist that "All" articles of an arbitrarily discerned type "must" have a box, we get absurdity and counter-contextual. Look at poor Paderewski. Composer box! Pole box! Politician box! Biobox! Those have all been applied, but the author of the article has fought tooth and nail to cut them off. Poor guy: he should have known not to do more than one job if he wanted anyone to read an article on him. Geogre 12:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Does your "odd" project (no offense intended) explain to its editors how to do research on its topic? That is what I think is the most important information to convey - what kinds of sources are reliable and useful for constructing an article in a particular discipline or on a particular topic. Awadewit | talk 03:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Alas no it doesn't. I'm grateful if I can read something that comes from a disinterested website or a book (any book): I'd love to be able to add constraints such as "articles in peer-reviewed journals or books from university presses or comparably stringent publishers" but this would be unrealistic for "my" project (though definitely not for physics, 18th-century literature, etc etc). As for research in general, my memory tells me that, way back in the last century, although it took me a couple of undergraduate years before I knew how to cite stuff "style"-ishly (I'd merrily confuse foot/endnote and bibliography styles), it took a mere couple of months of undergraduate work before I, together with my classmates, had acquired the basic (field-unspecific) principles of library research; notably the idea that a credible source had to be unambiguously specified for anything that wasn't common knowledge. (We acquired this fast because we'd get failing grades otherwise.) Anecdotal evidence suggests that undergraduates these days are unlikely to acquire this idea, perhaps because expectations are so low. I hope my view of undergraduate education is unjustifiably bleak, but I don't suppose that WP can expect an average level of scrupulousness of editing beyond that of an average undergraduate education. -- Hoary 07:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that there's no escape from judgment and argument. I know we'd like to cut that down, or at least cut a switch by which we could swat the obviously silly, and I know that a template or a set of standards can be used that way, but, one way or another, that reflects a person's judgment. It always does. It always will. When it gets farther from real people with opinions arguing it out, it gets more mired in programmatic mediocrity, as Antardus says. I sympathize with the desire, but it's a double edged sword. It can be used by the weak writers to protect themselves, the person who came up with the standard to be self-important, and by the more "consistency" oriented people to force changes that do not belong.

Since it's always going to be argument and judgment, let's just realize that we had it right before: vague standards allow maximum operation of judgment, greatest opportunity for establishing consensus without tick marks on a form. (Undergrads.... Yeah, it's not that they don't learn that they need to research as much as that they will perform all their research without once standing up. If it's not on the web, it doesn't exist. If it is on the web, it had better be in the first screen of Google hits. 100% web, and an inability to tell personal opinion from peer reviewed interpretation, bolstered and qualified fact from allegation.) Graduate students learn to research, and it's a shock. Our graduate degrees still mean something, but our undergraduate degrees may mean even less than they did when they meant less.

At the very least, I can suggest one change that should be mandatory and go into effect yesterday: No passive voice constructions may be used in the assessments. Try that one. "This article has been found wanting" is much more deceptive and insulting than "user:Bobotheclown drove by this article at 90 mph and figured it was probably a stub class article." A reviewer should be answerable for the review. Sign the damned things. Let readers, as well as authors, know that no one is suggesting that this assessment is a fact of nature but the judgment of a person. It is, so let's not lie about it with the passive. Geogre 14:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Templates and infoboxes and dash-mania, etc. are, of course, handy WP phenomena that make many editors feel that they are highly productive and corrective stewards of the WholeProject... I have hardly been editing for the past few months, for a variety of reasons, but largely because I couldn't bear seeing so much shit-content. Somewhere up above someone raised the spectre of debates concerning importance assessments... well, I had a gander some months ago at the Wikimedia page dealing with the 1000 articles every WP should have... If you need a brutal downer, check it out*. Leaving aside the unserious, too many people are concerned with the meta-issues of WP and not the writing and information itself. I was first attracted to WP (back in 2002) because it had the potential to be a place to gather information on subjects in one location on myriad obscure (and familiar) subjects. Now it's a site where shit gets rated, as far as I can tell, with notable exceptions.

I'd like to see a loose collective of strong editors/writers working on the articles of their individual choice, but also keeping an eye on each other's work... simply building good content - bolstering and defending it (as necessary). Obviously some of that happens anyway, but every good WP editor has come across other good editors for whom they have an affinity, whose work they often assist/critique, and it would be a good thing to extend that further into a slightly more self-aware collectivity. Pinkville 03:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

*e.g. Until I added them, there was to be no article on Noam Chomsky and none on Photography. There is no article on Psychology. There are 18 articles on computers and Internet, including Mouse (computing).

And this one is just plain wrong

Ah, I'm glad that this thread didn't pass into the night unnoticed! :-) I see you responded below my comment "For what it's worth, there are disadvantages to very large wikiprojects like this one, but this probably isn't the right time to go into detail on that." - and that this does seem to be the right time now... The biggest problem, in my opinion, is inexpert editors incorrectly assessing on specialist topics. The big advantage, in my opinion, is inexpert editors learning things by reading lots of articles. Unfortunately, that might turn them into infobox generators, rather than FA-standard article writers. I do think that WikiProjects should do specialised assessments, and that large projects like WPBiography should concentrate on indexing and keeping track of the "people" articles. The specialised workgroups should be doing the assessments. Unfortunately, it may be too late to stop this "assessment drive", but the best approach might be, after this is done, to say something along the lines of: "oh dear, lots of these have been inaccurately assessed - please can you ensure they are all placed in the correct workgroups so that an expert can redo the work and make the correct assessment. Thank-you." I have personally upgraded many "short but complete" articles to B-class. But there should also be something written into the assessment pages that make very clear to people that obscure, specialist subjects often have articles that may look like start-class, but will in fact be B-class (since everything available is not very much, but is there) - ie. If you don't know enough about a subject, just classify it by area and move on without assessing. If necessary, create a new class along the lines of "needs expert assessment". Now, you might say that all articles need this, but some of the more, shall we say, modern/popular topics, don't need experts. The large wikiprojects versus small ones issue also needs more discussion as well. I see that thread has two nice pictures. I wonder if there is a suitable picture to illustrate large vs small wikiprojects? Also, Geogre, you have a competitor in the wikicartoon world, to wit User:The Psychless (heavily involved in that assessment drive) and User:The Psychless/Template humor. Enjoy! Carcharoth 08:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Aha. Well, I blaze the trails, and others follow. :-) Actually, that one seems more moderate, but there was one at the end of that thread whose self-importance had me reaching for the brass knuckles. I really, really don't like folks puffing up, here. I know that's at least a little hypocritical, but I'll tell anyone who asks: I'm just some dude. I write well. <shrug> Some people have red hair, or personal beauty: I have writing skill.

The thing I've said to the FACers is, "If you are <sigh> too busy <sigh> to review an article thoroughly, then you're too busy to review." The same is true here. If you can't review it properly, then you can't review it. Do not fear for the project goals, because it's better, esp. if what Antandrus says is true and all "start" and "stub" classes are going to be automatically excluded from the "RSN" release of the infamous Wiki 1.0, that the thing be done well than that it be done quickly. What is the advantage of crappy assessments shot from a cannon? How is that actually better than no assessment? Which is more important -- the good will of authors or the completion of a project's self-designed goals? I know which side of those questions I fall on. Geogre 14:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's fix it (said the homeowner of the stray)

I honestly have little idea what should be done about this assessment drive now. I thought the awards would help attract more people to the drive, it did so, but it encouraged very quick assessments. Some of the articles you've used as examples, they should not have been rated Stub or Start. I've seen some of your articles Geogre, and they are very well written. I really do not know how I, or anyone else is supposed to make people assess correctly. Perhaps reducing the amount of awards down to one award, a biography barnstar for a 1,000 articles assessed would be the best way to deal with the assessment drive. I will be posting a new workgroups proposal at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Biography, soon, either later tonight or tomorrow. I hope we can try and work towards a common goal instead of bickering like politicians, no matter how "stupid" the assessment drive sounds we were trying to improve Wikipedia. Regards, Psychless 04:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(butting in ... I do lurk here) I think we should organize people to assess articles in topic areas where they can identify whether or not an article is 1) genuinely a start, and can be hugely expanded, or 2) already represents most of what can reasonably be written about a topic. It's easier in some areas than others: I'd bet it's easier to determine how much is available on a hockey player than on a Renaissance composer, for example, since the information on the former can be found on the internet, and the latter requires knowledge of hard-copy sources in libraries. (Some of which are on JSTOR and elsewhere, I know.) Any proposal for improvement I would welcome, and I'd love to hear what Geogre has to say.

Recently I've been changing the assessments in "my" area that are just dead wrong, e.g. stub or start to "B" if the articles are reasonably complete. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 04:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I apologize to casting so wide a group of aspersions that I caught the reasonable and sane in with the frenzied in the net, Psychless. I think there are a couple of different axes along which to try to improve: "author relations" and "assessment validity." So...

1. Author relations
   1. Authors are (at least this author is) ticked off by the fact that the assessments appear one night in their sleeps. Yesterday, it was an article. Today, it's a stub class. So, if assessors were asking for input before applying the assessment, then active authors would jump up and explain or improve, while dormant articles could be aptly rated by whoever's view.
   2. The most vital thing for me is the use of the passive voice in the assessments. I assume I don't need to talk about the general evils of the passive voice, so I'll just say that, in this case, the passive construction contains an intoxicating element of power in it. It sounds final. It sounds like Wikipedia has seen your work, and Wikipedia are not impressed.
   3. The only way around the passive is to have a signature line for the assessment. Indicate who did the assessing, when, and confess that it might be out of date. That way, authors have someone to talk to (and, if the person won't talk, then they know that the assessment can be removed or changed, because the assessor was doing a drive-by).
2. Validity of the assessment
   1. Antardus and others have the right idea, but we can try to make it more practical. I should be clear that making his recommendations work is going to carry danger with it. No joke.
   2. "Biography" is too large a category to be handled from a single focal point, perhaps, and so it might well be that groups need to be devised, with the knowledge that there is going to be overlap. Paderewski is a good example: he was a famous person, a Polish minister, a Polish patriot, a pianist, and a composer. If there were groups that assessors voluntarily joined in, and if the groups defaulted to getting second or third readings for any borderline or unknowable biography, there would be some checks and balances. These groups may need to be as various as the Category tags that are applied, or they may be broad enough to be "video game related biographies" and "rock and roll" and "17th century, Western Europe."
   3. The danger is going to be that we can unfortunately and unwillingly create a cadre and edit wars. If we address this ahead of time by saying that assessments can have a flag indicating that they're contested (and therefore the 0.7 people would need to go and look carefully before excluding or including) with no demand that the contested nature be solved quickly, then the assessing group could at least get a guideline that they need to drop back if a war breaks out.

Anyway, there is one more thing that is possible, and that's the second chance assessment. It's not going to be glamorous, but a second wave of assessors of assessments might help. Right now, though, the assessments come in with the sound of a gong, and the assessment itself looks like it, unlike all else on the wiki, is divinely generated and impossible to remove/revise. Geogre 12:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Query Aren't the assessors at least listed in the edit history? Awadewit | talk 12:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure, just as the "author" is. However, this is about the article as it reads rather than whether experienced and cranky people can find out. The passive voice not only hides who did it, but when it was done, as well as why. Per above, or below, or wherever, it jerks a thumb over its shoulder and says, "Oh, don't believe this is a stub? Click on this and find the description and read it." Again, it seals up the matter by saying, "It has been determined" rather than "I think." It tries to stop the interrogation and alteration. If assessments are signed, the people at the project will be able to very quickly see which assessors are doing a lousy job, because those talk pages will be littered with complaints, appeals, and demurrals. I cannot think of an advantage to the passive, and I can think of a half dozen reasons why the passive makes everything, including the validity of the assessment, worse. Geogre 12:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I just realized I got my own header :). The best way, in my opinion, to get valid assessments is to get better workgroups set up. Then, people can go through articles in a workgroup they're interested in or have some knowledge in, make sure the assessments are correct. Then they can add data (explained in my proposal) and add comments. Comments could give a sentence or two on what the article needs to improve on, if anything, and the assessor would sign their name. Comments are transcluded into the template, so it will be easy to see who assessed it. However, people need to comment on my proposal for it to ever get done, so please do so :). Psychless 14:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

You should really develop a proposal. If only someone would! (I'll look in a bit, but I've got to say that the passive is an offense to nature. Even if it said "WPProjectBioSubPrjBabel rated this page as X" it would be better. However, the passive voice is passive aggressive.) Geogre 17:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

God

I love the idea of thundering "There is no god" while God thunders right back. There is something about a questionner who will not let go of a point, not even hundreds of words, and many different responses later, that sets me off. It is a form of what here is called something like "Wiki-lawyering" that I find exceedingly tedious. (Every university lecture hall has at least one student just like that.) However, that is my issue and I should not take it out on others. I should especially decline when I am at best, at risk of, and at worst, already into, the same thing myself. I apologize once again. I would respectfully submit, however, that there is an enormous difference between (a) providing references to all the best thoughts on the question, and (b) debating the question amongst ourselves. All too often, it is the latter course we (and I) pursue. Bielle 01:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, quite right, quite right. I've got only one bit of immunity going for me: age. I had decades of taking that bait and fighting those battles, and I'll fight them again, if it seems that there is a way to win. For the most part, I think most of the people we see at that desk aren't interested in an answer when they ask a question like that. They're just going, "Oh, yeah?" Well, that can't be answered, because the other fellow isn't listening.

I think we can say something like, "My own favorite is X" because that leaves the other guy with no choice but either to go into the personal (and be ignored) or wander off and look for a SomethingAwful forum to go pester. For that matter, now that Conservapedia exists, why are they bugging us in the first place? If they want a fight, they can go get one there. Our best tactic is to bore them away. :-)

Incidentally, Marquard's essay really is wonderful. He basically says, "We let God off the hook for evil by making it our own doing, but then we found out that we couldn't fix evil, either, and now we're nervously shuffling our papers and saying that uncertainty and methodological bias keep us from ever knowing the answer, and that's why we are scared to death of ever being an expert." It's great stuff. In fact, talking about it has motivated me to go find a used copy and order it. (Seems it's Oxford UP, not Yale...but I could have sworn it was Yale.) Geogre 01:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

(This is slightly embarrassing, but I am likely older than you are. I was old enough to read about Kennedy's assassination when it first hit the papers.) I do know better, but sometimes, I just take off. In the past week or so there have been dozens of what I would designate as "baiting" questions, and twice as many honourable, diligent editors trying to find not just an answer, but an answer that will stop the further questions. It's not leg-pulling exactly, because the questionners are completely humourless. In a classroom, its purpose was principally to waste time by diverting the lecturer from his/her agenda. It may have the same purpose here; just people with too much time and too small a life. I'll be good now. And thanks for the note about the Marquard essay. I will check the local library for it when I am in town next week. Bielle 02:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You have got me, I admit. I was alive when the assassination occurred, but not yet reading. I don't actually think these are along the same lines as the "Professor, what did you think about the President's speech last night" time waster. Those are, of course, the clock watchers and usually the students who like the teacher. They'd rather chat than learn, and they're tired. That I can deal with. I think this is rather the other sort, the sort one only meets with on the Internet. I don't know what they did before (except prank calls, perhaps).

Long ago, I moderated a FidoNet forum ("before" the Internet, as they say). The Feminism echo was half full of "You dumbass women need to stop your whining your all a bunch of dykes." The Christianity echo was filled with, "Your all dumbasses who need to wise up to the real world." The History echo was filled with, "I hate this crap why should I have to study this stuff it doesnt mean anything anyway." In other words, there are people who go looking for a fight. They're not looking to waste your time: they've got a beef, and they want to prove to the universe that it should apologize.

Honestly, it's either a sneer or an emotionally knotted explosion, and what it most emphatically isn't is a question. The people who do that, "Can God make a rock so big that He can't lift it" nugget are, I think, half the time expecting to stump people. They think they're onto something (instead of just on something). The one thing they want most is excitement, argument, and passion. If we give them things to read, they go away, generally. I admit, though, that I haven't been looking at the reference desk much in the last few days. We may have some really pernicious trolls now. If that's so, we can only starve 'em.

I do so tire of people wanting to get even for what they perceive as slights done them by their upbringing by insulting other people. Geogre 02:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The time-wasters I remember best were the "But what would have happened if . . .". It took me a few years to come up with the response for that one. Just once every year did I have to say: "There, that's your essay question for next week, and I want references cited." Oh, the power . . .!

For many of the baiting questions, I do believe we will find a teenage (and sexists over the world, forgive me) male behind the ones about penis size, and whether to dress on the right or on the left. (I swear I can hear them giggling as they type, even when their grey beards get caught in the keys.) The worrisome questions are all ponderously polite and stilted, heavily over-written, with a whiff of "victim" that comes all the way across cyberspace. For some reason, The Ref Desk is taking both groups extemely seriously. I understand why we should do so with the "teenage" group; it will lose interest as it fails to raise even a single exclamation mark. The deadly serious ones, though, just thrive on serious answers. If you can't spot them by the initial question, all the subsequent ones, in the same detailed, weighted language, are clear indicators.

That's my rant for tonight. Thank you for your patience and your interesting responses. Bielle 02:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I have just seen the OP's response to your last comment. I am now blinded by the light coming from your armour; it has been polished to hold an edge. :-) And I am off to my next hopeless cause, which I think will be explaining the use of the apostrophe in names ending in "s" to a sign-language class. Thanks again. Bielle 04:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ooooh, try His genitive. :-) I was disappointed to see Swift use the his-genitive in the 1730's. I can only assume he had a point to it that I missed, as he was too careful with language to believe that it was the source of the apostrophe genitive. Geogre 11:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Disgracing myself all over again

Hey, my listcruft is on AfD again. The nominator mentioned how poor the "Keep" reasons were the last time — stuff like "interesting" and "well written" — so I guess people daren't break out those again; instead, he's getting a flock of "Keep per WP:IAR and "Keep per WP:ILIKEIT. :-D This time I've fanned the flames by commenting myself ("speedy the sucker"). The only trouble with deleting it, for me, is that there won't be yet another good-clean-fun AfD on it. Bishonen | talk 08:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC).

I thought that list was fascinating! I won't vote, if you don't want me to, though. Awadewit | talk 08:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh, thanks. For the compliment in the first sentence. I wouldn't offer an opinion (and truly don't have one) on your !voting or !not-voting ! Bishonen | talk 12:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC).

I've weighed in. As the archangel of deletion (ret.), I can't quite type that k-word, but I think I esplained to them wha' they messin' wid. It's "original research" to say that it's an important subtitle? I nearly spit coffee on my monitor. Geogre 11:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Geogre, the best AfDs tend to have that effect. I've replied to yours. Bishonen | talk 12:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC).

Birds

Hey, I know how much you like photographing birds [pauses politley for storm of jokes to subside], take a look at the ones Lsi John just posted on my page, of the Battle of the Birdfeeder. Aren't they great? Bishonen | talk 21:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC).

Stay
OUT
of my
IRC CHANNEL!

And you thought wikipedia squabbling was bad! Peace.Lsi john 23:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Finches are sloppy eaters, and they're fussy. I have flocks of mourning doves that stay alive solely because the house finches spill 3/4 seeds. They also spend a lot of time worrying about who else might be getting food. A dog that chases two birds will get neither, they say. Geogre 02:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. We have two doves that land on another finch feeder (with a tray under it), and actually knock seed out of the feeder and onto the tray. Then they eat the seed from the tray. That feeder is a bit harder to photograph, though I have a couple I may post (if they turned out). Peace.Lsi john 02:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I mainly feed with black oil sunflower seeds, and I have cardinals galore. It's like a mini-Vatican there. However, once the gross beaked house finches found it, that was the end. They show up in the scores, and they occupy feed ports even when they're pausing and relaxing between bites. However, some tufted titmice are showing up now, and the cutest bird in the world: the black capped chickadee (flying over, getting a single seed, and flying away to crack it). I'm now too far south for the cool birds (slate eyed junkos I miss) and not far enough for the other really cool birds (the Mexican and Central American migrants) and too far from the ocean (and feeding the wrong stuff) for the other super rare birds. Some years ago, though, I saw a White wagtail in South Carolina. It was a Eurasian exile who simply got his compass set on "east" and had come from Asia to the eastern coast of the US. There are some interesting birds nearby (the white ibis is not odd to anyone around here -- they seem common as flies -- but they're non-native and not found in most of the US). Geogre 12:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I've only recently acquired sufficient lenses for my 35mm film camera to be truly useful. Now I'm working on proper lighting, depth of field, and such. The power-winder was a nice addition. (My wife recently bought roughly $700 in used equipment as an anniversary present.) I've gotten some interesting series/sequence shots, like the one above where the bird is in inverted flight. I'm also considering a bee-hive project which will fit into the photography (and my new macro lens). Peace.Lsi john 15:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I've got a Tamron 80-300 zoom (boooo! telephoto is the way to go), but it has a macro setting. The down side to any zoom is that, even these days, there is a happy spot in its focal range where it's sharpest, and there are fuzzy bits until and after that. Well, the good news is that this Tamron's lens's happy spot is 300 mm in macro. My best lens ever, though, was an all glass and steel manual 200 mm telephoto. Life looked better through that lens than it did with my eyes. I called it my "berry lens," because I was able to grab a rain glazed berry hanging in space. If only a/f lenses were cheap, the way used manuals were. ("Oh, yeah, your new a/f body will handle all your legacy glass." Never buy a camera from P. Inochio.) Geogre 17:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

My rig is a Minolta x-700. In the recent purchase I picked up a spare body that was in good shape. I have the standard 50mm that comes with them. I also have a couple tele's in the 75-200 range, and a couple in the 28-80 range. And a nice closeup macro. I have a doubler, which seems to work okay, but I'm interested in getting a 300mm if I can pick up a good one for a good price. Peace.Lsi john 17:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Most of my bird shots are taken with the 200mm zoom, at a distance of about 3-4 feet, with asa 200 film. Peace.Lsi john 17:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Mysterious kettle-drummer

Hello Geogre, I'm currently rewritng the Battle of Ramillies article. This picture shows the capture at the battle of someone who, according to James Falkner in his Ramillies: 1706 was 'The well-known kettle-drummer of the Bavarian Electoral Guards'. You can see the english cavalryman reaching for the his horses' reines.

He was clearly well-known enough to for someone to have a painting commissioned depicting his capture - Falkner says some historians say he was immediately given to Queen Anne.

I know the military history of the period is not your field expertise, but do you - or your friends - know who he is? Have you seen him mentioned in a literary source for example? Thanks.

Couldn't help overhearing, as I lurk here for my betterment. The painting is late C19, so the incident may be legendary. But the King's Dragoon Guards captured kettledrums at Ramillies: see here: is the painting at their HQ at Cardiff?. The Danish Fifth Jyske Cavalry Regiment also captured two French kettledrums at Ramillies in 1706 see here.--Wetman 01:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Queen Anne tried to foist off all the colours, standards and general crap taken at Ramillies on the Guildhall in 1707 (or maybe 1708) but they didn't have room for it. They only managed to squeeze in 40 or so of the colours and the Elector of Bavaria's kettle-drum (so I guess it was the kettle-drum she got rather than the drummer. She wouldn't have known what to do with the poor boy!). I'll remember where I read that some time, as I'm sure you'll want a reference. Don't know who did the painting though. Yomangani^talk 01:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

December 1706 apparently [7]. That's not where I read it originally but it's close enough. (Of course she might have kept the boy and just given the drum to the Guildhall: she wouldn't want him banging away all night.) Yomangani^talk 01:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, my guess is that we'd need to look at 1706 in literature and 1707 in literature and possibly 1708 in literature and look for poems celebrating the battle. Those would have possibly had some thing about the heroic little boy who beat the drums to call the Bavarians. We have Gildon (ick) writing Libertas Triumphans (re Battle of Oudenarde) in 08. We have, in '06, An advice to the poets: a poem occasioned by the wonderful success of her majesty's arms, under the conduct of the duke of Marlborough in Flanders by Blackmore; Congreve, the same year, also about Ramilles, A Pindarique Ode. . . the Conduct of the Duke of Marlborough; The Battle of Ramilla by John Dennis. None of these poems is really a standard now, but any of them (esp. one of the Whiggy ones, like Blackmore) could have been in the early 19th c. Any of them could have given the inspiring story of the famous boy or the famous drums. I don't know them, though. Whether any can be found on the web for easy searching...I'm not sure. They're not hot topics. Geogre 02:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Do you have access to the Grove Dictionary of Art? They might explain the painting in better detail. Geogre 12:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

My work is closed for the rest of the week due to the boom-boom celebration, so I won't be able to check the print version until Monday. Geogre 12:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks chaps, and thanks Geogre. Hope you didn’t mind me asking - it was a relatively trivial detail but my curiosity has been somewhat allayed because it looks as if this ‘Well-Known’ incident is not so well-known afterall.

Those poetry recommendations also look interesting - even if they don't shed any light on this minor matter, they still sound interteing to me as an amateur highly interested in anything Marlborough related. I shall hunt around. Thanks once again. Raymond Palmer 13:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting closer. Thomas Carlyle, History of Fiederick the Second Called Friederick the Great vol. 1, 1866, some talk of the drummers, although, of course, Fred's not the emperor at the time. Harrumph. Not quite there, I'm afraid. Certainly, if Falkner calls him famous, we'd need to have the drummer famous around Falkner's relation. I'm just not sure.

I did find, amusingly, a reference to "Ramillies wig" "...so-called from the famous Battle of Ramillies; it had a long, gradually tapering, braided tail (known as ramillies tail) which was tied with a large bow at the top and a smaller one at the bottom. In 1736 the officers of all horse and foot troops were required to wear them." That came from Martin L. Wolt, 1951, Dictionary of Art from Philosophical Library (pub). I am fairly sure that the "Ramillies tail" -> "rat tail."

Hey, I have access to an annotated Covent Garden Journal -- woo-hoo!

Right: back to business: Fascinating bit you guys definitely want for your article: Concerning the Act of Union (1707), "The Church was won over by an Act guaranteeing the existing Presbyterian Establishment; greater commercial advantages appealed to many, the prospect of better government to others, while the battle of Ramillies, which seemed to point to the certain downfall of the French, no doubt influenced the result." This is p. 453 of A Shorter History of England and Greater Britain by Arthur Lyon Cross; Macmillian, 1920. (Daaaang...this looks like a book I want by my side at all times. Off to Alibris soon.)

Sorry, but that's all I can find. However, Mr. Palmer, if you are interested in Marlborough, he dominated 1702-1735 like few others. He's Caeser in a good sense (Addison) or bad sense (Swift). He's vainglorious or a savior of the nation. He's corrupt or honest. He's General Westmoreland, Field Marshal Montgomery, and General Patton rolled into one. Geogre 14:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Ooh! Nice quote from ALC - I shall use that. I'll rummage around and see what else I can get regarding Ramillies' influence on the Act of Union. Not sure why it's called a Shorter History. That's a 1,000 page book! But they are practically giving them away an Alibris (second hand, that is). Gen Patton and Monty rolled into one? 'The horror, the horror'. Raymond.

On August 1, I imagine I and Alibris will have a talk about getting that book. At 1,000 pp., it seems like it will be a good value of dollar per word. I think the don in question was suggesting that the Scots might hope for the Pretender and therefore a Stuart who would owe much/all to Scotland if France were able to defeat England. The loss at Ramillies seems to have inspired quite a few people to think that Marlborough had won the war and defeated France. They didn't know the war was going to last another 5 years. You know -- we pulled down this statue of Louis, so Mission Accomplished? It's around '12 that we get the really serious worries about Marlborough having too much power. I'm so bad at milhist that I don't even know if the spoils system was still at work on the land. I know that the navies took prizes and paroles, but would our friend have gotten rich (or his soldiers) from the vanquished, as well as the quarter masters? If so, the analogy with Caesar would have been even scarier. Geogre 14:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

$3.00? $3.00? That's less than the cost of lunch! I can get a 970pp history for $3, hardcover? Wheeeee! Geogre 14:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

(Ok, the $3.00 was "poor" condition, and a $4.00 was "good" with a former teacher's notes ("a feature, not a bug"), but $8.00 after more than the cost of the book is added as S&H. Still.) Geogre 14:20, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I’m dubious about buying second-hand books from the Internet. Often described as in ‘Good Condition’, when they arrive they are often only fit for the dustbin (trashcan). However, for the past year I had been looking (everywhere) for Prince Eugene of Savoy by Derek McKay. It’s a book long out of print. I found two in the US for $130 each! And two in the UK for £60 each – all second hand described as being in ‘Good Condition’. But, barring a lottery win they were not heading for my bookshelves. Then, I checked back at Amazon many months later, and “wow,” there was a copy, selling for £5!!. When it arrived it was in near MINT condition – dust jacket near perfect, pages unread. I’m still smiling. Raymond

My feeling is that $8 is within the realm of "oh, crud" money. I.e. I can afford to make a mistake under $12. After that, I care. After $30, I care a lot. After $50, I buy after months of research or saving my pennies. I've run across far too many overpriced used books. I know for a fact that libraries dump shelf copies, because I used to have to dump them myself, and some stunning stuff shows up at the used book store at $1.00 a volume (that the store pays). The store owners then look up the book to see what it should cost and charge that. I don't begrudge them a living and hope they flourish, but they're going to have that copy of The Works of Jonathan Swift that they grabbed from a library dump on their shelves for a long, long, long, long time if they think that, because a library will pay $285 new for it, I will pay $125 for it used. It's not "don't want to" but "can't." For the rare find of rare finds, though, I keep expecting to find 1898 Dictionary of National Biographys laying about. They all got shed when the 2004 edition came out (I mean 1898 version, not printing), but they seem to have either been nabbed immediately or not been dumped by the libraries. Geogre 17:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Taking a break from FAC

Well, I have finally been pushed over the edge. I am taking a break from submitting any more articles to FAC for a while. See the the last few entires of this FAC. It's just the inconsistency and ridiculousness of everything that is getting to me. Some articles without quality research sail by, but mine gets bogged down in dashes and dates. Whatever. Awadewit | talk 02:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Precisely my point. Well, precisely one of my points. Hoary did it right, I thought: he had his comment, brought up the issues, and didn't let that affect support/oppose. If a person comments, the author usually wants the feedback, but the author knows more about the subject than the reviewer, in most cases, and can decide from a position of expertise whether a given substantive change should be made or not. In the case of writing, it's usually a small matter, mistakes, things of that sort, and the changes are better just made by the reviewer. However, what gets me, what has gotten me, what will keep me from being anywhere near FA-ing an article again, is "OBJECT (never comment, never "please look at this") MoS Battleoftheday and has not placed notice on talk page of the peer review request being complied with and has not been stamped by the office of promotions and consideration." It's my peeve above: there is no way to automate quality, and there are no steps that can make up for reading and thinking. This is aggravated by the fact that each of these gestures essentially refers the debate backward.

"Object: MoS says that all English subjects must have British spelling," for example, says, essentially, "You cannot argue with me, because it's in the MoS." To have prevented that, you'd have to go to the MoS to argue. The MoS argument participants aren't necessarily writers, but they're definitely not the FAC people, and so, instead of "Is it appropriate to hold up an FA because of a stylistic preference for one thing or another" being debated, it's "Go over to another page, with another group of people, and debate 'is this better or worse than keeping the spelling whatever the author started with?'" Different arguments. That argument, incidentally, is likely to be referred backward again. At the MoS fight, you might find the endash or emdash or hyphen people saying that the matter is settled, because the developers said that endashes work better with metadata. Therefore, you'd have to go to the metadata debate. You'd have to argue there and find out of "developers" said such a thing or one developer said such a thing a year ago. Each of these "rulings" points a finger over its shoulder to those other guys, who have ruled, so shut up.

The answer is a greater boldness among authors under review and a greater activity by Raul perhaps ("perhaps" the latter) in saying, "I appreciate that this is your preference, but the Manual of Style is a set of preferences and not mandates, and I believe your objection to be inactionable." Let the director decide, or let the objector make changes, or let the FAC fail if endashes can actually deem an article not FA. I walked away when they were doing 100% "no footnotes!" I hate footnotes. I have a reason to hate footnotes, but, sorry, that's an argument for that other page and you missed it. A pox upon them.

I have found SandyGeorgia's reviews more arbitrary and less useful, myself, but any move to "Object: preference" is a sure way to have more and more Go-Bots and DeathNuMetal bands on the main page and fewer and fewer articles on history, philosophy, and literature. Geogre 12:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Whenever I comment at FAC (only a few times in total), I try to raise my points, discuss them with the primary author or nominator, come back, and only then say support or oppose. Wading straight in with support or oppose (or object) is too confrontational for my taste, and rude to boot. Sometimes, if there are major problems, I will oppose straight away, and wait to see if anything gets fixed. But I always prefer to discuss and come to a conclusion, rather than make a comment and walk away. Carcharoth 12:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Amen. Ok, the incredibly silly FAC's should be opposed. Fine. That's not an excuse for what I increasingly call the "You must bring me a shrubbery" approach. (Footnotes! Bah! And Giano was right to say that it was his personal preference to not have infoboxes. That's mine, too, but we all know that if an author plans for it and does it intelligently, it's fine. It's just not a preference. That's a really nice word.) Geogre 12:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I usually oppose FACs right off when the research is so bad or the page so incomplete that it would take weeks to complete the article. Otherwise, like both of you, I like to "comment" first in a constructive manner. I once suggested to someone that they not oppose on tiny, insignificant grounds, but rather comment (I felt that it conveyed a nicer atmosphere) and was rudely assaulted. Awadewit | talk 17:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I like Geogre's shrubbery analogy (do you have a shrubbery essay?). I definitely feel that I have amassed an entire greenhouse of shrubberies for Mary Martha Sherwood. I appreciated, as well, that Giano admitted the infobox was a personal preference; Tony1 never seems to admit that some of his suggestions are preferences as opposed to rules. Awadewit | talk 17:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Cardinals?

I'm gona go out on a limb and guess that you don't have any like these:

My goodness, no. Our cardinals are bright red (m) and brown/red (f). Either shadows are making that gal look green, or she is green. Also, I thought our cardinals made bigger nests. I've just put out a thistle feeder and hope that the chickadees figure it out and the dagnabbit house finches prefer it, so as to give some relief to my dual black oil sunflower seed feeders. I have so many eastern cardinals here, tufted titmice, and even bluejays (can't fit at the feeder, but they're happy for spillage) that I'll still go through $30 in seed every 10 days. Geogre 17:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

So do your cardinals sing "beeer, beeer, --chips chips chips chips chips"? (memories of living in the Deep South) ... Antandrus (talk) 17:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, real cardinals do, so why not the birds? (Actually, the worst ratio of bird beauty to song has to be the chickadee. Cute, cute bird. Ugly, ugly song.) Geogre 19:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Its the green foliage that makes the green cast. I posted a few more of her here. The males are BRIGHT red.. I'll upload one in a bit. She's a very subdued brown/grey/red and is almost impossible to see until I zoom in. Peace.Lsi john 18:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

We have some bird around here whose song I cannot identify with the body, but I'm referring to it as the "Austin Powers bird," because its song is that dreadful "Austin Powers" theme. Da-da-deet-dee, da da-da-dee-dee. If I figure out which one it is, I might shoot it, just for singing that tune. My thistle feeder got chickadees on it after only 2 hr, so I'm happy, and so are they. Geogre 19:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

WoodPecker

I'm sorta partial to this guy. We have several in the yard. I love the 3rd one.. He's soaked in the rain and definately having a bad-feather day! Peace.Lsi john 18:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the hairies. We get some pileateds and occasionally, just very rarely, a red headed woodpecker, but the latter are so terribly endangered by the forestry business wanting nothing but pine that it's a very, very rare but totally unmistakable sight in the suburbs. "I saw a red headed woodpecker!" "Oh? Was it about 4' tall?" "No, about 6"." "You didn't see a red headed woodpecker." (No, I know -- but they are nearly a foot tall and seem like pteradons when you see them the first time.) Geogre 19:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, those sure look like telephoto shots rather than zooms. Geogre 19:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Most are done with a Minolta 70-210 (I cropped them, obviously). (I just got a shot of Mama Cardinal feeding her baby, on a tree branch. Damned thing is I had to use the doubler to get close enough. Super sensitive focus, tons of light loss, had to put it on Manual and drop the iris to increase depth of field. I think I shot it at 1/30th - 1/15th on a tripod. I hope it comes out.) Peace.Lsi john 20:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It was one of those.. get it now or dont get it at all sorta things. I'm hoping they didn't move during the shot. I WANT A 300 :) Peace.Lsi john 20:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, why do you say they look like tele shots rather than zoom? (The feeders hang right outside the kitchen window, so the shots aren't more than 3-5 feet away. Peace.Lsi john 13:01, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The focus. A zoom tends to preserve all elements of its frame in focus but narrow the frame. A telephoto makes everything except the object in focus a wash of colors. This is precisely why I love a telephoto: the focus on the object is much, much harder, and the loss of everything else is gorgeous in the right circumstances. If you're photographing a football game or something, a zoom is nice, and most Americans are zooming for that, but if you're doing nature photography, that telephoto effect is stunning. Geogre 13:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Ok, that explains it then. Due to my shots being at the very minimum distance for that lens, and maximum zoom, it has the same effect on depth of field.(I said focal length above bleah, but meant depth of field).

My biggest challenge, with the feeder setup that I have, is foreground lighting. I generally run the camera on auto-aperture and auto-shutter and handle focusing and zooming manually. With the bright background, it under exposes the foreground image. (In order to control depth of field, I will occasionally manually set aperture and only use auto-shutter). Using a flash is difficult in these photos, as a) my flash is fixed mounted to the camera and I don't have a remote cable for it, and b) the windows reflect the flash. Peace.Lsi john 13:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

That's everyone's problem. Try to take a picture of a path dappled in sunlight, and you either burn the sunlight or kill the shadows. Color stock film has a lower range of contrasts than black and white (which is why the 'moody' photographers go with b&w). My own solution has been to fix it in post with Photoshop, but there is no simple answer. If you were outside, you could use a neutral filter to try to kill the white spot burns and then overexpose, or you could put an awning over the feeder to keep it from being in high light. It's going to be easier to darken them than to brighten yourself in these cases. The other thing, if you're really hard core, is to get a light meter, meter for the focal point.... It's not easy to take in both. A side flash is the usual answer, but you can't do that with glass between you, and the birds won't want you to join them. Fixing it post is the easiest thing. Geogre 14:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility (suggested by a pro at the camera store), once I get a remote 'cable', is to tape the flash to the window. Though I'm not sure how that will turn out, given that its going to be less than 2 feet from the subject material. Poor Blind Birds. As for washed out, I've also tried setting the camera to 'auto over expose' by 1-2 f-stops. But my 'photoshop' skills are nonexistent. (not to mention the cringe when I consider my wife's response to taping the flash to the window.) Peace.Lsi john 15:48, 9 July 2007 (UTC) (

Yyyyyeah, I wouldn't do that. First, the shop guy is selling stuff. Second, taping the flash to the window is an attempt at defeating its range finder and trying to transmit cleanly. Well, it'll do the first. The second is very doubtful. If it works at all, you're going to get an improperly balanced flash (the glass is going to eat and distort the light). Setting a side fill flash outside with a hot wire... I suppose it would work, and if you're flashing from the side, you might not blind the birdies... it's just that the easier thing is to darken yourself. Honestly, you can manipulate your camera's placement's light more easily than you can the birds' light. Photoshop Elements is affordable, comes (well, came) with a real manual (ah, memories), and is easy to use (esp. since it has an "auto fix" thingie). Of course, don't do any "autofix" of any sort until after you've cropped, because computers are stupid under all circumstances and work by math rather than what's important. Geogre 19:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually in his defense, he wasn't selling, since they don't have a remote cable for my flash. But I agree that his suggestion is problematic (which is why I haven't rushed out and purchased a cable). The 2nd and 3rd mama cardinal photos (above) are examples of my overexposure attempts (for similar reasons - the close leaves reflect bright and her nest area inside is dark). What I've settled on (for the time being) is to simply take 3 or 4 different shots with varied exposures (unscientifically of course!) and hope that one of them turns out. One thing I am doing now, that I wasn't doing, is paying the extra $1.50 and getting the photos put on a cd at the time of developing. Its fun, and it gets my mind off of wikipedia for a while! Cheers. Peace.Lsi john 20:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

How to write a biography in ? steps

See here for my slapdash attempt to describe how to research and write a biography article. I would appreciate your contributions. Perhaps we can finally remove those steps, infobox and all? Awadewit | talk 09:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You betcha. "Biography in the Right Number of Steps." Geogre 13:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Lists

Geogre do you really hate all lists? What about List of cultural references in The Cantos? And am I wasting what's left of my youth trying to complete this monster: List of cultural references in The Divine Comedy? Paul August ☎ 15:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I do hate all lists, but there is a secret there. The "list of cultural references in The Cantos" is exactly what I faced when I was doing Dunciad. I really wanted to have a master list of all the people swiped and why, so I invented a category. Basically, it's the intertext of The Cantos (FARC! does not have cite.php and author has not chopped down a tree with a herring! obviously an awful article because it does not have a form on its talk page indicating that it had requested a peer review from the office of copyproof, and no photos of Confucius, and no "in popular culture" section). In other words, it's a clever, clever attempt at turning our article to useful emendation. It isn't a list, in other words, but a companion text. I take it you'd like me to poke my nose in over there? I've never been that good with Mr. Pound's magnum opus (Yvor Winters said Pound (and Eliot) was like "a barbarian in a museum" -- he was wrong, of course, but Winters couldn't overcome the need for in situ context). Happy to help, if help you think I can. Geogre 19:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(A Comedy of Cantos) I think you may have not have noticed that I mentioned two lists. The first one pertaining to The Cantos was completed by Fil I believe, hence its WP:FL status. The "monster" that I'm trying to complete is the analogous list for The Divine Comedy. Any help there would be most welcome. But given your dislike for lists, I really just wanted to make sure that you didn't think such endeavors were simply a waste of time. Paul August ☎ 21:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Lists are probably always intertext attempts. The Star Wars fan is trying to get a whole side-by-side of Jango Fett's parents by trying to get the "List of Jango Fett references" or something. The question is whether or not the intertext is actually active. That's where I don't know. If so, the list has a use. If not, it doesn't. For it to be active, it has to be intended or has to expand the meaning of the iterations collected. If, for example, knowing that the Gita is used twelve times by TSE helps each instance of a reference mean, either to the life or the world view or the comment made by the insertion, then it's active. If the collection shows a pattern otherwise invisible ("Hey, it looks like Pound has more references to Dante than Confucius, and so this idea that he's going for an ideogrammatic meaning is probably not as valid as the idea that he was stuck to the vertical allusiveness of the old, European/patristic allegory"), then it's active. If it's just a basket of fruit picked from the orchard, I guess it's not. I don't know if there is a clear way to determine if a list is useful or not.

Of course, though, happily I'll plop into the Divina Commedia and see what I can do. (Homer, Homer, Homer, Virgil, Homer, Homer, Virgil, Virgil....) Geogre 21:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Well any help would be appreciated, but don't feel obligated. Completing that list will be a Herculean task. I don't want you to waste the rest of your youth, there being more of it. Paul August ☎ 21:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, the biography assessment drive?

Hello. Check out Popa Chubby. It has been assessed and not found wanting. Why, it's rated just the same as Dorothea was. Read it. Then delete it. I would have deleted it myself as unencyclopedic vomitus, but I wanted to show it around a bit, first. Remember: it not only escaped being deleted by the New Pages patrollers, but it was assessed by someone from the biography assessment drive. Geogre 20:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Good grief - so do my friend's garage band get an article on wikipedia too? --Joopercoopers 09:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

See? We've gotten so inclusive that I suppose, and I'm giving as much good faith as I can, that the people doing new page patrol figure that anything long is acceptable? Really, it should have been caught when made, and then it doggone sure should have been caught when the assessor came by, but there it is: stamp of approval and all. Geogre 12:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Taj

Remember this one? I put it down for a few months when I ran out of steam doing inline references. I'm back again with renewed vigour and want to get it sorted out. Its still got a way to go :- the tomb description needs rewriting, there's a section on how it influenced European art and architecture - notions of the picturesque etc. - There's some more to be written about "The taj today and the future" - I'm going to provide a fully annotated plan - There's a section on the plinth and terrace to finish - and then adding appropriate images and a final copyedit.

But the main thing is its already far too long. I'm in two minds 1. Swing an editing scythe at the whole thing and chop it all back to the stubble (I've had enough of a break to be not too precious about doing this now) or 2. Content fork it into a main Taj Mahal article and an Architecture of the Taj Mahal article. Any thoughts greatly appreciated. --Joopercoopers 17:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm more inclined toward the second option, but this brings us immediately to the crisis of the object. The Taj is the architecture and geography, but these are so superbly done that they create the culture, the history, and the weird thinking ("Dude, play your flute in there, and you can, like, hear the voices of the dead tell you about the end of the world"). In other words, the main article would be the architecture, except that no one would allow it to stay that way -- they'd have to tack on everything. Meanwhile, very great detail on the architecture is conceivably too much. Best would be to transclude to two daughter pages. 1. Taj Mahal in culture, 2. Architecture and siting of the Taj Mahal, with summaries of those articles in the FA article. (This is what we were trying to do with Restoration and Augustan literature: each type of writing is its own article, but the thesis and highpoints of each is represented in the main). Geogre 18:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much Geogre, thought provoking as ever. So for clarity - we end up with 3 articles - an overview Taj Mahal page which uses summary style to deal with 2 subpages Taj Mahal in culture and Architecture of the Taj Mahal (garden planning and general siting are all just part of architecture in my view)? God, we have enough problems with IP edits on the one page.....but it sounds like a robust structure.

I'm a touch worried you're reading the article as the 'the architecture created the history and culture' I was trying to demonstrate how Mughal culture and history, and the tensions of an islamic aristocracy in a Hindu state created the building. It's quite correct of course to say that after it was built, the architecture created the culture and 'sensation' that has surrounded it since. But the architecture was demonstrably formulated to express heaven/paradise in every way they could possibly think of - including flute playing (for brevity I thought I'd left out the mention of Paul Horn's 1968 'session' - I now have visions of a young Geogre on the hippy trail....). PS I picked up a quote from Mark Twain the other day "that soaring bubble of marble" - do you happen to know if he ever visited or was he just commenting - his wiki biog (for I have no other) only mentions travel in the middle east and a penchant for indian fire surrounds? --Joopercoopers 20:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to get back to you on Twain (always reminded of the joke: How can you find Mark Twain? Follow the twacks), but the joy of summary style is that it frees you from the IP bandits. You can quietly and placidly create an "origins and building of the Taj" article and then quietly and peacefully write a "architecture of the Taj" article...no one's going to mess with either of them... and then "Taj in history and culture." Again, all calm, peace, and serenity, and then you can put them all together into the Taj article. That way, you get a double barrier against the warriors. If they want to muck up Taj, you can argue that transclusion summary style prohibits etc. and scare/confuse them off. Similarly, if they really want to make it clear that the Taj was created by Hindus or something, they can go hop up and down on the Creation of the Taj article and leave the main one alone. They get happy fiddling with it and the FA article gets left nice. It seems to me to be particularly attractive in cases of culturally sensitive masterpieces.

(Just reading my favorite living philosopher today, and he has this wonderful phrase: "apotheosis of aesthetically good works." He was a student of Gadamer's, so he's talking about something juicy -- something along the lines of the "hyper-real" in Umberto Eco. If anything is a pre-historical example of the apotheosis of the aesthetically good, the Taj Mahal is it. It is, of course, itself a literal apotheosis, but it is similarly deified in an aesthetic pantheon and has become more than itself. It has lost its aesthetic activity (the act of pleasing) in the presence of its aesthetic essence.)

Twain went Egypt way, but I'm not sure about him and the Taj. I'm not an Americanist, although I am an American, so I don't know his career well enough to say. Geogre 21:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

mmmm. a cunning plan twiddles moustach. Thanks --Joopercoopers 21:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime did you catch my note on Giano's page re. Introduction to general relativity? After years of befuddlement the mist have cleared quite a bit on the subject after reading this article. I've been almost gushing with praise and thanks to the author......quite unseemly.....I should put it on FAR for spurious stylistic reasons if passes, just to address the balance. --Joopercoopers 21:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I do like to butt in uninvited (second time this week)...Twain did visit the Taj and wrote about in Following the Equator Gutenberg plain text version. I suspect he wrote about it elsewhere too as he was a big fan, but I don't know where (Google could probably help) Yomangani^talk 00:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Yomangani that's excellent. Gutenberg is just fantastic - I was talking to someone the other day who told me that a new machine has been invented for book shops and universities where they will print books for you there and then - In print runs of 1, while you wait - It will revolutionise publishing. Publishers are positive about it because they can easily flog their back catalogues. thanks again. --Joopercoopers 08:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

See? I know Twain the way every red blooded American knows Twain: somewhat only. I know he had amusing things to say about foreigners the world over, always making fun of the boorish American even as he made fun of the equally boorish aliens. My favorite Baldric line is when he relates his first name, "Piss off." He knows this because he remembers the other youngsters when he was little saying, "Oh, here he comes, Piss off Baldric." :-) I haven't been looking at other peoples' talk pages, so I missed the thing about General Relativity, but surely he's not a commander on the ground and must be an enemy of The Deciderer. Geogre 02:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

No one wants to follow up on Gadamer? Ok, well, I'm going to add a new quote to my user page, then. Geogre 02:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Geogre, my education lacks both French and philosophy (Unless Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance counts). Curiously, just last week I ordered Russell's History, an encyclopedia of philosophy and an idiots guide to plato - you might say I have some catching up to do....--Joopercoopers 08:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Germans, in this case, but they're even more out of the way than the French philosophers. Gadamer is chief of the post-war school of German hermeneutics and therefore is dismissed by American and British philosophical schools generally. He had a number of students who went on to be influential in their own right. One was Hans Robert Jauss, who attempted to locate hermeneutics in the philosophy of mind and history, and one indirectly was Odo Marquard (my favorite) who is the most interesting of all. He took his degree just after the war and, as he said, turned his mindset of alarm into a philosophy of skepticism. Skepticism seems to me to be the only possible German philosophy after the war, and we in the US really need more skepticism. Pragmatism is well and good, but there is a sneaky faith in methods hidden in there, a sneaky belief in adequacy, while good skepticism limits the joy one can have in pragmatism and the comfort one can take in empiricism. I find it very attractive in my own post-patriotic age (the Watergate generation, if you will). Geogre 02:43, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't really comment on the relative merits of skepticism vs. pragmatism but I was thinking about the 'Watergate generation' on the way into work. It's odd that people cite it as a great watershed, the great breaking of trust. I was thinking the end of deference to authority had been a long time coming; vietnam, the big baby boom and the rise of the teenager, civil rights, the post-war beats, do Americans see Watergate as the last straw? Is it all part of a gradual shift away from governments controlled by a privileged elite to more democratic forms? Certainly there have been rearguard actions taken by the adminsistrations - Mccarthyism etc. I was also thinking about an interesting documentary I saw a few years ago called The Power of Nightmares. Despite a slightly conspiratorial stance, it had an interesting thesis - that quite a bit of US policy in the last 40-50 years was about trying to unite its own society by overinflating foreign threats. The activities of Team B were particularly interesting. I don't really know what to make of it all, as a casual observer from the other side of the pond. But we're in interesting times - limitless joy is found on the otherside of the brain - learn guitar. --Joopercoopers 12:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The thing about Watergate is not that it had any intrinsic or even extrinsic power, but it was the first nationally televised hearing that went on for days upon days and put Presidential staff under oath to lie. We got to see and hear them, in their own voices, offer lies and look like criminals. What it did was take away the mystique of the king. "Hey, hey, LBJ/ How many men did you kill today" and "Buffalo Bill what did you kill" were one thing, but Watergate showed us an indubitably cruel, crazy, and criminal president and a horde of thugs mixed with statesmen. After it, you could not believe that "the President did X," because you were aware of how it worked. It was the demystification, among other things, of the process that made the office into a creature.

Another element is that it wasn't possible to be of another opinion. Prior to Watergate, it could be a fight: Nixon is a wise man/ Nixon is a war criminal. After it, the people who thought him wise simply couldn't hold to that line. Oh, some could, I suppose, but most of them took a particular line that we have heard ever since, "He had bad advisers." I.e. the demystification of the process, the removal of the aura on the office, became the technique for shielding belief in the man.

Finally, these moments of big swings are never justified. They just happen. I was 10, so I wasn't very political, but those against Nixon simply learned more and felt it. It felt like an epochal moment. In fact, September 11, 2001 didn't feel like one, but Watergate did.

Post-scriptorially, as it were, my generation has been desperate for a label. We were the punks. We invented "Generation X." We invented "slacker," and possibly because we felt the pressure to have a name but couldn't find one that fit. As Paul Westerberg said, "We've got no war to name us." Coincidentally, I've noticed that the people of my age who watched the Watergate hearings tend to be inoculated against wild eyed faith in presidents. We're both more liberal and more conservative, but we tend to be either one in a highly cynical way. We are going to be Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh: disbelievers (the former "triangulating" endlessly to achieve goals he believes in and the latter absolutely indifferent to right and wrong, morality and truth, to achieve personal wealth and glory). Geogre 12:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this one of those "connect the articles" games? From Taj Mahal to Watergate in only three steps? :-) Carcharoth 18:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Happy Geogre's Day!

Geogre has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Geogre's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Geogre! A record of your Day will always be kept here. Love, Phaedriel 00:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yay! Henceforth, every July 12th the serving girls will light tapers, the oblates chant praises, and the lords and ladies dance a quadrille in my honor! Woo-hoo!  :-) Thank you, Phaedriel. Be sure to take a few months for yourself, too, the lady of intelligence and friendliness. Geogre 02:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear G, it's so beautiful and nice to see you liked the tiny gift, which is most deserved, and the least I could offer you for being so wonderful. I only wish I had more time to talk more to you now, but real life is truly demanding all my attention at the moment - besides, I'd rather save them for a more private venue. I promise, I'll get back to you by email as soon as I can - and I hope you enjoy the rest of your own Day with every fiber of you, my friend :) Love, Phaedriel - 22:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Phaedriel. I hope all is well with you and look forward to typing with you. Geogre 02:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And from me - a drink with me and bacchus --Joopercoopers 22:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)obviously, I'm on page one of Russell - but enjoying it already

• JC's bird on the right is not what one would call over developed is she? Giano 22:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Giano, you might want to take a look at what happens to the people who diss Bacchus. The ladies go crazy for him. Geogre 02:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• • Piss of Giano - that's my drinking pal! OK he's a bit fey and knows the lyrics to show tunes - but hey, he has short pockets and long arms. --Joopercoopers 22:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

• JC calm down. You are from London I expect - all perfectly normal. I can hum "The Lonely Goatherd" myself - just not in public. Giano 22:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

• I assume it was a typo but I like the expletive "Piss of Giano". I shall use it constantly now: "Oh, Piss of Giano! I have a flat tyre/my house burned down/a bot rated my article as Start" Yomangani^talk 22:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I've heard him called worse. I however, have never been accused of being from London! hrmph...--Joopercoopers 22:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, this is not allowed. This space reserved for being nice to me. JC -- the painting does seem a bit more bishonen than star, but one has to remember Ned Kynaston and Dame Edna. I'm in some need, after all, of a pat on the head these days. I've been driving about all day wondering if it's even worth asking some questions or knowing their answers. This always happens when I go on one of my philosophy jags. It's disheartening being a skeptic. Geogre 02:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Waffles on Geogre Day for Everyone (if he shares).

Peace.Lsi john 02:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Coming Soon

Mama Mocking Bird feeding chick. With closeups of fuzzy chick.

Unfortunately it will not be in time for Happy Geogre Day.

Stay tuned... Peace.Lsi john 00:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That's ok. Mocking birds are mean little buggers, but a ton of fun. I've never personally been dive bombed by them, but I have had the crisis of watching a friend get scalp-scraped by one and laughing. It was hilarious, and yet I had to feel guilty about laughing. When I lived in NYC, mocking birds had made an incursion (and yet global warming is "a hoax" according to Imhoff), when that's far too far north for their historical range, and the locals thought it was "a noisy boid." The thing sat on the telephone wire doing impressions of car alarms. (This was living in da Branx.) Geogre 02:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

TOO FUNNY! Oh thats rich!

The chick I photographed was hopping around the neighborhood, fell in a sewer, was rescued by a neighbor, and was being tended to (fed) by mom. I shot 3 or 4 rolls of film on it and actually had it on my shoe, and later on my bare foot. At one point I was laying flat on the ground within 4-5 feet of it and mom came to feed it. I moved slightly, to get the shot, and she flew off.

Later it wandered into the high grass of an unkept yard and I 'helped' it back onto mowed grass, but this annoyed mom and seems to have damaged our relationship beyond repair. After that she wouldn't even let me stay in the same yard. I tried laying down, sitting still, hiding behind a tree 15 feet away. No joy. She'd sit on a telephone wire and cack at me. She even hissed a couple of times. But she never dive bombed me, so I'll count myself lucky. Peace.Lsi john 12:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Here, by the way, is my own backyard mocking bird Geogre 02:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A mocking bird from my back yard last year or so.

Our's seem to be more slender and less robin shaped. Photos should be available later today. Peace.Lsi john 12:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Turns out, Wikipedia doesn't have a very good picture of brown thrashers. I have two nests in our yard, with one just outside the window in front of me right now, and if I toss seeds out, they pose for pictures. I just hate taking photos through glass, and thrashers are very shy birds. Few birds can hide as well or do hide as often. Neat guys, though. Geogre 12:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Camera, tripod, 3' remote shutter release cable, place camera 2.5 feet outside backdoor, pre-focus on feed-distance, wait inside... click. :) Peace.Lsi john 13:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Then again, with that setup, you can easily end up with this shot:

Wrong depth of field on pre-set rig.

More here. Peace.Lsi john 18:58, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

While we wait

Our mourning doves at the thistle feeder: (they'd be better if I didn't have to shoot through a screen).

More here.


Peace.Lsi john 13:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And, just what the bloody hell do you think you're looking at?

Do you really think you look any better before your first cup of coffee?

Peace.Lsi john 02:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

My goodness. We are in the awkward teenage years, aren't we? Your birds do actually look quite different from mine in the languid heat. Are you in the West? Our mocking birds are less speckled, generally, or perhaps I'm looking only at males or something. Geogre 13:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll be uploading a few more adult mocking bird photos shortly. I assume you've popped over to my Photo Gallery. Peace.Lsi john 14:46, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I loved those pics! Do you get many hawks? Maybe you could, um, get a picture of one of those mocking bird chicks being... No, the thought is too horrible. On the other hand, do you own a cat? :-) You might also like Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Animals/Birds, which features Image:Hawk eating prey.jpg... Carcharoth 17:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh. I read your comment to my wife and she made some snide remark about your future abilities to reproduce.. haha. But to address your question, we have at least one hawk that lives in the neighborhood. I've seen him land on the phone lines several times. And, about a year ago, he was in our neighbor's backyard eating a rabbit (which are plentyful). Regretably I did not have the proper lenses to capture that shot at the time. Perhaps I should stake out a rabbit for him? Peace.Lsi john 17:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Stake out a rabbit? I feel sick now. I don't mind watching nature documentaries, but handling dead animals? Not my thing. I do have a picture of a squashed hedgehog, but that's about it. Glad the rabbits are plentiful. Should help the next generation of mocking bird chicks survive until they have learnt to fly (that might have been why the mother bird wanted the chick left in the long grass by the way - she instinctively knew it would be safer there). I was serious about the cat, by the way. Birds (and particularly nesting birds) do sometimes seem less common when there are cats in the neighborhood. Carcharoth 18:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

a) I meant tie up a live rabbit as bait. And I was joking. It was in connection to your Hawk/Cat .vs. cute baby chick remark. b) We have one or two cats that sometimes come through the yard but its infrequent. Not many wandering pets around and we live on a creek with lots of trees. When I was searching to make sure that the Mockingbird chick made it through the night I saw about 30-40 Goldfinches in a neighbor's tree. I uploaded a bunch of goldfinch photos but I think I want to rename them.. as soon as I figure out how, I'll post them to my gallery. Peace.Lsi john 18:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, don't mow the long grass... :-) Glad to hear the rabbits are safe from you as well. I'll check my humour quotient next time. Carcharoth 19:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

STAMP, STAMP, STAMP...

I wondered if you have seen this? The title of this section refers to a favorite theme of yours regarding assessments! I'm about to reiterate your "passive voice concerns" over there. Carcharoth 17:41, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Some picture humour as well (though to understand what happened, you have to look through the history - the pictures, and their captions, only appeared late on in the 'discussion', and the last one to appear is the first you see, though that is the Photoshoped version). Carcharoth 18:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice to have you show up

at that Article Assessing discussion. I was begining to feel like Christian among lions and that's confusing because I like (in real life) the latter better than the former . Oh yes, by the way, I'm not only descended from Otto I, but also Otto II. Carptrash 19:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I like both the Christians and the lions, but I don't like the damned passive voice construction being used to hide some person driving by my hard work at 90 miles per hour and tossing "stub class" out the window. Grrr. My people include the glorious and inglorious, and the nearest I have been to writing about any of them was a page I did on a battle where, alone among all the troops of his side, my great-great-grandfather managed to get killed. I shouldn't malign him. It might have been the pivotal death that assured the others of a great victory. At any rate, the worst of the articles, as Antardus has pointed out, above, are those that require specialized knowledge. The gulf between reviewer and author is so vast that the assessment is utterly meaningless. The nearer the judge and the author, the more validity there is. The more time taken, the more validity. However, setting a process as a goal is a sure way to achieve a full book of gibberish. Geogre 20:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

One of my sculptors Corrado Parducci in the 1920s was instructed by one of my architects Wirt Rowland] to create sculpture for his buildings that could be appreciated while driving by in a car. 90 mph was not mentioned, but I believe that this is a similar situation. If you google Alexander Phimister Proctor my article on him is the first thing that comes up and it is (opinion) better than what else can be found on the WWW. However I am not going to go back through it and footnote every claim I made, though I do include the sources I used at the end of the article. But I'm preaching to the choir, I suspect. When I was about 10 I was attending a boarding school run by Christian missionaries and the movie Quo Vadis played . Shortly there after the students made these nasty whips out of braiding three reeds together and had a campus wide whipping war. Since I was raised an atheist I was on the Roman side of the fight and we were outnumbered 5 or 6 to two dozen. We got pretty soundly thumped, though I caught David James ear with a shot and drew the most blood. Anyway, it's made the Christian and the Romans, with their allied Lions, a favorite analogy of mine. I know beter than to try to take on the bureaucrats of this universe, but some days I just can't help myself. Enough said. Carptrash 21:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. "If you google Alexander Phimister Proctor my article on him is the first thing that comes up and it is (opinion) better than what else can be found on the WWW". This is one of the main reasons I am still an active contributor to Wikipedia; those of us with specialist knowledge of a topic, in my opinion, have a duty to ensure that the first Google hit on that topic is something accurate, thorough, and reliably sourced, when it is in their power to do so. If it weren't so, I'd be writing for Citizendium. It's useful to keep this in mind when one is irritated by a particularly persistent cloud of stinging gnats. Since "anyone can edit", indeed anyone "does" edit. This situation shall probably not change; indeed it may get worse, as more and more MySpace refugees stumble across the Wikipedia border and organize themselves into widget-making factories and tagging contests.

There are a few calm and sensible voices on that talk page (as well a handful that have made me angrier, for their outrageously aggressive ignorance, than just about anything I've encountered in three plus years on this project), and we may indeed see some "reform" on the assessment drive. It could start with promises of people not to assess topics about which they know not a damned thing. That would be a start. If people start to complain, as they have, as we have, and if those people realize they are no longer alone, then things have brightened a bit.

One of my ancestors was badly wounded at the Battle of Saratoga, during the Revolution. A British cavalry officer cut his face completely in half with a saber slash, right down the middle. Fortunately for me he survived, and while the wound doubtless affected his comeliness, it left him fertile. Maybe they did it in the dark. Just had to add that to tie in with Geogre's initial comment. Cheers all, Antandrus (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, heck, I can't leave for bed without adding this gem. My gr-gr-gr-grandmother was a Creek Indian. She married into the family in 1835. Let's see. Why might a Creek indian marry a Caucasian settler? This fellow was the son of a man who had a tree named after him in a county near here. What great deed had he performed to get a mighty tree named after him? Well, he was tied to it and publicly flogged so often that they starting saying that "That's ___ ____'s tree." This same doughty pioneer had been rejected from a jury at age 90 for drunkenness. I come by my meanness naturally. Geogre 02:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, the Battle of Saratoga, in which Benedict Arnold saved the day for the colonials. In any casy, let's all hang in here, be nice, niceish anyway, and see what develops. Carptrash 23:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Just picking up on the comment by Antandrus: "It could start with promises of people not to assess topics about which they know not a damned thing." - don't forget that not everyone taking part in that assessment drive will be reading that talk page. Do make sure to go to the talk page of editors that you see giving out wrong assessments and tell them so. That is the only way they will know they are giving a wrong assessment. Carcharoth 23:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I want to answer more fully, but it's late, for me, and I just went to the Harry Potter film. (See? I'm not entirely a po-faced academic!) I agree with Antardus and Carptrash. I'm delighted that Google's first page for A Tale of a Tub brings up my boiling down of the 1920 Guthkelch and Smith apparatus (with some 1980 A. C. Elias, and all those mostly bad articles I read for my MA thesis). I'm delighted that the first page of Google turns up my Ormulum and my Peterborough Chronicle. The former tells more than my textbooks told when I had to translate it in class. The latter could always have more but has more than I got when I was getting a high priced degree. Furthermore, there are dozens and dozens of articles I've done that make all that a book library could give me available to everyone with Internet access. Now, of course, none of these will make it to "Wikipedia 0.7 which is coming RSN" (and has been since I started here in 2003, only we used to call it 1.0), but, when I really think about it, I didn't sign up to write a paper encyclopedia. I signed up to a volunteer online encyclopedia that would test the Cathedral and the Bazaar thesis. (A thesis, by the way, that is utter bullshit and completely bankrupt, but not for the reasons that the dolts of the old publishing thought. At some point (RSN) I'll have a paper in print that discusses this. Of course, I won't tell anyone here about it.) If they want to print it, then that's fine: I'm ok with their not having my articles. When I go to write a published article, I do things differently. It's a different task, with a different audience, and porting from one medium to the other is foolhardy. Geogre 02:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

So I'll trade you Lothar I and Adabert II for your tree guy. Best I can do to match him is a soldier who went back to southern Ohio 17 years after he marched through during the Civil War and adodpted a 16 year old. hmmmmmmmm? Carptrash 02:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It could start with promises of people not to assess topics about which they know not a damned thing. That would be a start. Except they're doing it in alphabetical order by first name. Now, unless the universities have started offering Kenneth Studies or Sandra Science, that spells trouble. I don't really understand the point of the biography project anyway- its scope is way too broad. With this campaign, they seem to have succeeded in diverting their entire membership from actually contributing any content to biographical pages - quite an achievement! I notice they've also dropped the requirement to add comments explaining their assessments as these irritating indications that a human being has been involved in grading got in the way of the big push to have everything done and dusted by September. --Folantin 07:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

That's not really surprising. We need a curriculum in D-F instead of students earning D-F. No rationale for the goals has consensus, and whatever discussion went on about methods didn't seem to include a very wide variety of voices. We've had endless talks about 1.0 and version ratings. Honestly, they've been going on for three years. The one method no one ever supported was, "Devil take the hindmost, and the first one to stamp it is right," and all it took was the development of "project" hegemony (and the rise of some people) to make that version -- the one version no one liked -- operative. This is what happens when we fail to get consensus: someone just goes ahead and does what he wants. No one would have noticed, if there hadn't been Projectors. Geogre 13:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Kind of like nature abhors a vacuum? Anyway, see Wikipedia:Assessment overhaul. Maybe that can get people realising that inaccurate assessments are bad. Carcharoth 16:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

"Cheers"

Geogre, have you seen this stupidity? Damn. I'd love to tell such people what to do with themselves, but fear that that would only encourage them. Feeling a bit lost. -- Hoary 04:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I remember when I was widely cursed as a "process wonk" for wanting people not to be blocked before being warned, for not wanting IP's indefinitely blocked, for demanding that there be discussion on Wikipedia, rather than on IRC, and now the real "process wonkery" proceeds without much opposition: stamp with form, use passive, check for boxes, check for previous forms, go to the next. Perhaps what I said all along was right: the people calling me names never cared about articles or the content of Wikipedia, only the socializing of the socially maladroit. Well, whatever the reason, what drives me crazy about all of this is that every part of it is based on faulty assumptions, and yet it's so easy to do, so pleasing to do, that no one is interested in reason, validity, or justification. I know that some people have begun changing the assessments that they think are wrong -- which is entirely right so to do -- but I'm nearly at the point of supporting an anti-assessment, where people go back and simply remove assessments that seem, not right or wrong, but merely fast. Why would one project have more validity than the other, after all, if we never had a discussion about the project's goals and methods and never achieved consensus? Geogre 13:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm nearly at the point of supporting an anti-assessment, where people go back and simply remove assessments that seem, not right or wrong, but merely fast. Careful now, you're liable to be threatened with "action" [8]. --Folantin 14:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, no! It's a Good Thing, Anthony, a very good thing. [I must not think bad thoughts], or I may have to go down the memory hole, where history is. (When right, remain calm. When wrong, bluster.) Geogre 14:30, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Do you know the original Jerome Bixby story (I prefer it to the TZ episode, wonderful though that is). Sometimes ... I just want to "think" that assessment drive deep, deep into the cornfield.

I wouldn't care about any of this but for the "RSN" release, which you and others have mentioned, and for the obvious issue of disruption. Many good editors, myself included, are so steamed about having our articles "tagged" (I typoed "gagged" there, and the error made me laugh, before I fixed it) that we have stopped writing for the moment, and have started watching these threads in fascination and horror. I think I need to go write about a maestro di cappella or two now prior to our afternoon picnic. "Cheers", Antandrus (talk) 16:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read, it, no, but I kept thinking that the article on Wikipedia should mention the obvious fact that the story is about McCarthy as much as it is about freaks. I think the TZ's making Anthony fresh-faced and attractive was a good choice for their medium, while making the child a monster works in literature (as Tailgunner Joe was not very attractive himself). In fact, my clever-clever appropriation (and Exene and John Doe's) is probably a pretty plain theme: you must be a patriot, all is well. "Had anything been wrong, we certainly would have heard." Anyway, 60's and early 70's television's attempts at encoding politics is one of my hobbies ("Star Trek" is the most transparent; their dealing with hippies and Timothy Leary is funnier than even "Dragnet"). Anyway, back to wearing a Project Label proudly, below. Geogre 17:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, we share a hobby here. Remember the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers? There's some good political commentary in the 1950s and 1960s, even when it's from the crazy side. Remember "Dr. Smith" in Lost in Space? Ever read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (darn, I know I have a dusty copy here in my thousands of books). Dr. Smith is the right's caricature of the intellectual: effeminate, ineffectual, cowardly, and -- gay. The contrast with the Man of Action (can't even remember his name now) was intended to be a strong one, but it's the Robot, Will, and Dr. Smith that I remember from that show. If I recall correctly, Dr. Smith was a professor of philosophy. (I'm a bit older than most Wikipedians, as, I suspect, are you, and most of the others objecting to the Assessment Drive-By.) I love watching those old TZs: sometimes they're works of genius, and all done on a tiny budget. --And now back to our regularly scheduled programming: Antandrus (talk) 21:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Don, Don was the man of action, the Nietzschean figure on the show. In fact, I would argue that Nietzsche and fascism is the operative fable, there, because Dr. Smith is not only a queen, but he gets others to protect him, like a "slave race." I remember thinking that Don was a chowderhead and that Dr. Smith was the most offensive creature ever devised. (Penny is all I remember... like Maryann and Jan....) Robot is interesting, too, because, like Spock, it shows the romance of reason without humanity. HAL is the only proper answer to that. I used to be annoyed that intellectuals could only be scientists or bitches, or ineffectual bumblers who had to be rescued. The only exception was perhaps King Tut on "Batman" (not intended to be serious, of course).

The beautiful hippie children singing, "Coming into Eden, Yeah brother" while their twisted scientist leader takes them to a planet where all the plants are filled with acid on "Star Trek" was my favorite political allegory. It suggested a left wing scientific response: "They have pretty dreams, but they need hard edged cynical bastards like Kirk to protect them." (Of course Body Snatchers, and Blob (it can be someone you know!). The whole idea that They are amongst us is one type of political freakout, and it's as easy to see now as all the radiation-themed stuff coming out of Japan in the 1950's (the Toho stuff in all its guises).

I miss that, actually. We no longer have entertainments that are serious enough to stupidly reenact the political fears. All we have is a choice of superhero to testify to our mindsets. (I'm a follower/believer in/reader of H. R. Jauss's reception-aesthetic. The reaction to art shows us the political and historical moment, and we should study reception. When the public clamors for more and seems excited about something new, that's a good bellwether for the cultural fissures and frictions.) Geogre 03:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I rarely do this, repeat myself, but I wrote this and buried it 4 indents in on an obscure spot, and it is my most concise statement on why I think this stuff is worth our concern:

I have been clear why I care. First, and most trivially, these assessments are supposed to play a role in the RSN-really-0.7. That doesn't worry me much, except that it's the multiplication of an error. Secondly, the assessments are offending authors. Thirdly, and the one that gets my goat, they are using the worst rhetorical dirty trick of all, the passive voice construction, to assert power and evade responsibility. If you woke up one morning to find a letter saying, "You have been assessed criminal," would you not wonder who had made that determination? Would you not wonder whether it was a prank or a legal summons? Well, both readers and authors of articles here may well wonder who "has assessed" an article and "found" it "to be" a "start" or a "stub," and yet they have to dig through history to find out who and click through many pages to find out what the heck it means. At the same time, the person who does the assessing gets power and a kick of status by throwing such labels about. This is psychologically and morally reprehensible.

Finally, I care because the Projects are asserting rights above the editors. When an editor removed assessments, he was threatened with "action." If I were to organize an assessment removal project, I would no doubt have the same basic, Wikipedia-determined rights (volunteers) as the Projects, but it would seem to you to be a horrible abuse, I'm sure. Project assessments are the opinions of a person, a person who is not signing, and represent no more than that single person's opinion. That person might be acting on the behest of a "Project" but not with the authority of any, not with the power of any, not with the consent and consensus of any. I oppose, have opposed, and will forever oppose any attempt at growing power and differential rights on Wikipedia. That is why I care. Geogre 15:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The bit about 0.7 is annoying and an insult to our collective vanity, but that's really not entirely it. It bothers me as much that Hoary and Antardus's articles won't make the cut as that mine might not. (Edmund Curll just got assessed correctly. Yay!) We're going to have an inferior product if there is no quality control. Version systems can work, with a little planning, but not like this. (In my own ancient version of an idea, there were three assessments needed, and they were averaged unless there was a severely out of line assessment. Any assessor who consistently scored a delta above 1.0 was asked to stop assessing or to explain why the variance was present.) The truth is that if you want lots of process, you have to have lots of process. Hitting the accelerator when you buy a car is not healthy: you need the traffic laws. Geogre 17:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I am your willing thrall. Best regards, Hamster Sandwich 17:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. I hope that means that you liked the comment. I don't think I'll be able to express my feelings in a more concise form, and I'd like to at least think that the points stand. Geogre 03:18, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Hoary and Antardus's articles won't make the cut....: I'm a dreadfully slow writer and a victim of revisionitis and collapses of confidence and so forth; worse, I seem to be fascinated by subjects about which little, if anything, is available in a language I read with ease. That's why the total number of "my" articles with which I'm happy can be counted on the fingers of one hand -- no, make that the thumbs. Improbably, said article got through GA without any particularly silly or irritating requests, and the obscurity of its subject may have kept it safe from the biography-infobox squad. I wouldn't care if it were downgraded to "B" (actually I'd find this blackly funny): I would be mightily annoyed if some nitwit decided to bolster its GA-ness via the addition of bio-infobox and other crap designed by/for people who think that USA Today is a fine newspaper. -- Hoary 03:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

B..b...but it's in color! Well, my point is the same, even if the particular doesn't fit in your case. There are loads of fine authors I've met on Wikipedia, authors who pay no attention to those assessments. They didn't know that there was going to be a consequence to that rapid assessment. As for the boxers, I suppose I have some sympathy. Most of them have read only textbooks that have more box space than text. Every high school (and college now, thank you) textbook you see is riven with "Pop Up Video" (even that's an antique reference now) style "bites" and "bytes" and insets. I remember textbooks that were just words running from margin to margin, and we had to write our own damned summaries and spot the interesting facts our own damn selves. Geogre 03:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Geogre, you make some very good points, the best being that this has arisen because those who write the articles and those who used to talk about assessment schemes, fell out of the loop (for whatever reason). Can I encourage you, and other authors on these topics, to spend a little bit of time helping to get the concept of assessment back on track. The input of those who write the articles is needed. Wikipedia:Assessment overhaul is not that good at the moment, but the idea that an overhaul is needed is the right one. I love the idea of an average grade! Carcharoth 12:05, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Adult Mockingbird

Mockingbird on a suet feeder.

Mockingbird doing a ground-based assault on a suet feeder.

(more) Peace.Lsi john 00:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Question

Do you think this or this are any good? I'm not familiar enough with brands and such to really know. But I am interested in getting a high power zoom or tele. Peace.Lsi john 13:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the first brand at all. That might be my ignorance. The second one has pluses and minuses -- known to be inconsistent, with sometimes being really good and sometimes not. Once you're into lenses with that kind of power, you have all manner of technical consideration that escapes my tiny brain. The first step would be to go to Adorama or B&H (i.e. adorama.com and bandh.com, I think) to see what the retail is for these really new, plus their notes on the lenses. The second thing would be to go to Google Groups and search by those particular lens names. Remember, with the latter, that people who are unhappy are far, far more motivated to post comments than people who are happy. (When was the last time you bought something, was so happy that you felt you simply had to go tell everyone? Now, when was the last time you had a rotten experience and felt like warning people?) Given those two, I'd go with the second lens, but I know from bumpkiss on eBay. Geogre 15:42, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I called the store and asked them 'straight up' is this a piece of shit or will it take nice photos.. he said.. well its not a high end lens and it wont be crisp. ;) you get what you pay for. So i'll keep looking. Peace.Lsi john 16:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The store? Is that a local store, or one of the big houses, like Adorama and B&H? I ask because those two stores are enormous and prestigious. I have never met a person who has had a bad experience going into and talking with, or shopping with, either. Their prices are not always the lowest, but they're generally the best, and their people generally know what they're doing. Anyway, at $240, a so-so zoom of that power is still probably worth having (if you've got the cash). Generally, it will have a sweet spot and won't be mushy all the way through, so it can still give you a lot of power. However, if you want to get it right first time out, you can look for a Tamron or Sigma lens. You can get a Minolta lens, but I think that's nuts, as Minolta overprices all its stuff. (If I had it to do over, I'd get a Nikon or Canon setup. I hate being trapped with Minolta.) Geogre 19:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I meant my remark to be a compliment to the store and the salesman's integrity. It was one of the New York stores. He pretty much said I wouldn't be happy with the detail if I was trying to get a bird shot. I've spent a lot of the day researching and those are the two names I came up with as well (Tamron/Sigma), as well as Tokina AT and the Rokkor/Minolta. Given that its mostly resale/used market now, the Minolta stuff isn't really over priced anymore. I'm torn between a 100-500 and a straght 500mm. Peace.Lsi john 19:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a Tokina AT-X 80-200mm f/2.8 lens for Minolta MD mount is going to go for around $200. Peace.Lsi john 19:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I currently have a 70-210 /4-32 Peace.Lsi john 19:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently I have an Olympus U-miniD - a 2-year-old digital camera that is obviously nothing like the high-powered stuff you two are talking about. But I did find some birds in some of the pics I took! Only pigeons, I think, in Image:Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre (Paris).jpg, but I did get a more exotic winged species here, and had fun deciphering the battle names at Place du Châtelet. I dread to think what would happen if I tried to take close-up shots of birds with it. I think the birds would laugh at me. Carcharoth 23:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Digitals are at resolutions enough now to make them absolutely worthwhile, but I'm frustrated with none of the ones I can afford taking lenses. Oh, I have drooled in my sleep at the idea of getting a Nikon D70... well, I think it was a camera I was dreaming of. Anyway, I've shot at birds plenty, but I ultimately went for flowers, instead. They move around less. Geogre 02:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't have anything high powered. Oh, Geogre: this might sell me on not getting it.. hahaha. then again, maybe I will. Peace.Lsi john 23:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Or spend $700 and get a rokkor 100-500 Peace.Lsi john 02:33, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

You probably don't want to settle at 200mm. I have 300 mm with my Tamron with a macro setting, and I don't love it. I like it. I like it plenty. I don't love it. Once you're up into actual power lenses, you want to go ahead. Rokkor is Minolta, by the way. Tokina is a good brand, too. You know, if it's a choice, I'd tell you to go with a straight 500 mm telephoto. You're already swapping lenses for your long shots, and trying to make a single lens capture the baseball game and the sweat on the pitcher's nose is too much to ask for, if you ask me. The 800 mm would kick butt, but you'd really want to be sure of the internal elements, because there is some magic line where Mr. Newton's rules say that magic has to be performed inside the barrel for the things to work. Something like that. I've wanted, were there world enough and time and money, to get a true birding scope with a camera adaptor. That's yet another way to go. There are some sweet spotting scopes from Nikon and Leica that can fit out to an SLR, but the money is extreme. Geogre 02:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

With the camera bodies as cheap as they are, I don't swap lenses much. I carry two x-700's and may get a third. I like the Minolta 70-210 f/4 so far, but as you say, I don't love it. I'm also keeping my eye out for a 'good' 2x or 3x. As for fixed or zoom, I'm torn. I like the zoom because it lets me frame the shot, but I also tend to run it full out because its not long enough. A straight 500 might be good, though a 100-500 would be nice. I'm told that I'm a conflicted individual. Though I'm not sure that I'm ready to part with $700 for a lens. heh. Peace.Lsi john 03:19, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me for kibitzing, but I'm puzzled by the remark that Minolta overprices all its stuff: Konica Minolta, as it's now called, doesn't overprice or indeed underprice anything remotely relevant: it has chickened out of the camera market, selling out to the rather hapless Sony. ¶ As somebody who likes manual-focus, film cameras for his own pictures of very different subjects, I'd recommend use of an autofocus digital camera, because you're likely to blow a high percentage of your shots and with film this will end up being expensive. And I'd stay well away from these monster lenses because they're monsters (as well perhaps as for other reasons): If I had a team of Sherpas at my disposal, I might reconsider. If I really did want to learn of a sensible (or anyway less crazy) MD-mount solution, I'd ask here (making it very clear that no, this was not for an autofocus body). And I'd probably buy it here: note that there's seldom anything more than cosmetically wrong with "BGN", and "UG" is very likely to do the job just as well. ¶ Your other digital options include the Kowa TD1; I imagine that the popular obsession with "resolution" (number of pixels) would be dragging down its "street" price by now. -- Hoary 04:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm out of date, then. I'm glad that they did sell out, because at a time when I was last lens shopping branded Nikor 500 range telephotos were going for $500 and Rokkor were going for $1,000, and it was that way up and down the line. My Minolta a/f won't accept any legacy glass lenses. Even with adaptors, the body spits up and doesn't want to process. I had spent much money and more time getting the perfect glass (that 200 mm telephoto still makes me cry), and then to have to accept plastic or nothing (the 200 mm was still and glass, weighed about 3 lbs., and was sharp as a razor from edge to edge and didn't sacrifice much light). That's another reason for my bad mouthing my Minolta and wishing I'd gone Nikon. They handled the conversion to a/f better.

I agree with you about digitals that take solid lenses. That's the trip, though. As for what I'd get, I do like the D70. Resolution panic is silly, but it takes 6 to get to the resolution of 35 mm negatives, 8 if you're looking for serious expansion, and that's really where the "it's just as good as scanning your film" line is. Anyone obsessing about beating 6 MP is either looking to photograph through a microscope or wants to be Google Earth, IMO, but I do understand not wanting to switch over (instead of having an auxilary) below that. Geogre 13:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're a pro, the price of your lenses is likely to be a rather insignificant business expense. And if you aren't, why pay the premium for new stuff? ¶ On those rare occasions when I want something narrow and not too dim I plug a Hexanon 200/3.5 (like new, $50) on my Konica T3 (I think it's called; excellent condition $120 including 50/1.4). (I do also have a longish Canon FD zoom for my F-1, but the view through the former is terribly dim.) ¶ I don't know much about autofocus SLRs (I don't have one, whether film or digital), and I have little use for any lens longer than what's 100mm for 24×36mm; but it's my hazy understanding that although 28–200mm and similar lenses were a joke till fairly recently, those in the digital era (and thus 20–150 or so) are surprisingly good, and they're respectably fast to boot. Those from Tamron, Sigma and Tokina are cheap and the best of them (I forget which) is said to be excellent. One problem with Konica/Minolta/Sony (and Pentax) is that Tamron, Sigma and Tokina aren't keen to make lenses in those mounts, instead lazily (beancountingly) contenting themselves with Canon and Nikon. ¶ Now, if you want dirt-cheap manual glass (or anyway 80mm equivalent or longer) on a DSLR, there are some surprising options available (also here). -- Hoary 01:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I just went looking, and I wish I hadn't. I now have a new whine. The review (look, Lsi John) specifically praised the D40 [for wildlife] photography. I still fail to understand the world of conversions. I have 8th grade physics, and that should be enough for a 1905 invention. I guess not. Anyway, if the day comes (next summer) that I get another overload and get money, I'm going to get a solid Nikon body and then start hunting for manual lenses like crazy (used, of course). Geogre 02:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a D40 with the 18-200 mm lens and yes, the lens costs more than the camera, and yes, it is a very nice combination. You probably won't get much discount on a used one. If you want to convert from film to digital, the sensor on the digital is smaller, meaning the effective focal length is 50%. For eg, the 18-200 on a digital camera is the equivalent of a 27-300 on a film camera. Some lenses can only be used on digital cameras, because they don't cover the whole of the film on a conventional camera. Regards, Ben Aveling 14:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Your note on Antandrus' talk page

Whatever are you talking about. We're curious. Best, Mak (talk) 04:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I was hallucinating, it appears. Charles Jennens has an article. On the other hand, Moses Mendes is red, and he had plays with music by Samuel Boyce (1749 in literature is where I picked up the red). Sorry for the hopeful note. We do have some big librettists red still, esp. if we go hunting down the folks who worked with Arne, Lampe, and J. C. Smith., but I confused Boyce with Handel (yeah, I know!) and Jennens with Mendes. Geogre 12:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

At least slightly informative

[9] Bishonen | talk 09:39, 17 July 2007 (UTC).

Yes, well, I have, I suppose, a greater vulnerability with so many articles, and you're completely right. My saints are "start" or "stub." My musicians and painters are "start." If it's not an FA, it's "start." Yesterday, someone tried to help Charlotte Charke get to the coveted B by inserting an infobox. Oh, sure, there was a nice painting there, but paintings aren't going to help an assessment drive. The same day, Charlotte Lennox got rated "start class." Oh, I don't like that article much, because the Rescuing Our (M)others project came along and messed it up, but all it's actually missing now is someone who has read every single one of those "not-Female-Quixote" works. In the absence of that, there is nothing but Thraliana, perhaps, to add color.

Ok, but here's the fun part. Notice what got reviewed yesterday: Charlotte Charke and Charlotte Lennox. The drive is running down the alphabet. Geogre 13:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Yamara is one of the most ... I'm trying to find a polite word ... convinced reviewers. I have no doubt that any response you get from him will tell you that you are wrong, he is right, and you have to add a biobox, meatdata (or some such), and go place the article on Peer Review to achieve a B. Until then, you're a vandal trying to sneak one past. If you see the other thread I had with him, or about him, you'll see that he's an expert on how to get things done. He works with computers. Geogre 13:03, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

More

[10] Bishonen | talk 11:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC).

I never even took on board just how bad an article was supposed to be to be Start class. Above where you posted, they were calmly puzzled that anyone would take a "stub" or "start" class assessment amiss. The ability to write without the ability to read is a malady more and more common on the web. Geogre 13:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

This is precisely what I have been finding so infuriating about this "drive" (or "drive-by", as I am more and more thinking of it). The best "grade" these "assessors" have been giving anything I've ever written is "B", which means, in part, "Articles for which cleanup is needed will typically have this designation to start with." And that's only a tiny part of the time: 95% of the assessments hurled through my windows have been "stub" or "start", i.e. "This article usually isn't developed enough for a cleanup tag: it still needs to be built." I know I'm repeating myself, but damn I'm just pissed off about this useless and disruptive drive, which I still think is an outrageous display of aggressive ignorance. There are actually people who think it's better if articles are assessed by people who don't know anything about the topic. Antandrazilla 15:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I take a different view of the assessment process in general - it's objective is not to 'grade' articles to reward authors or even to give pointers for improvement (although this is sometimes done) - primarily it serves to lump all of the architecture articles (say) into specific categories which can then be used to improve the articles - so, editors might have a look in Category:B-Class Architecture articles and decide to pick one and improve it to GA/FA standard. A-class is mostly reserved for either demoted FA-class articles or imminent FAC candidates which have been peer reviewed - so it's not just one editor making the assessment, it can have some community involvement. For this reason most articles are graded by WP:ARCHA as being just stub, start or B-class. --Joopercoopers 16:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Joopers, you know that I hold you in esteem, and so I don't want you to read what I'm going to say as dismissive. It's just that what you say seems to me to argue for refinement of category tags. A category tag that says, "18th century literary biography 1" (meaning, "it's actually a stub"), "18th century political biography 2" ("it's adequate, but an expert could help"), "18th century visual arts biography 3" ("it's good now and doesn't need anything, but it could be rewarding to work with"), and "18th century religious biography 4" ("it's close to FA class or is FA class and so might be a good pattern for other articles to follow") would be only a meaningless annoyance that signified to the project. What's there now is so far from this, though, that it's just disruptive and meaningless. The applications of tags are way, way, way, way wrong -- so how can the projects benefit from incorrect tags -- and each one slaps the author.

If people want to have an in-house, Project-benefitting tag, then they can do that with categories, and categories that do not have value judgments, and assessments that don't refer to "should be deleted" for 85% of the articles, and assessments that are signed, and assessments that get double checked. Less than that is not useful to the project, and other than that is disruptive to the continuing expansion of our content. Geogre 19:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Ooh ooh ooh, hating on rating tags! Can I join in?! I once tried to just delete one of those "start" ratings from a perfectly good article.[11]

I was reverted in less than 20 minutes[12] and told, correctly I should say, that if I wanted to remove these tags from Wikipedia I had "quite a task" before me. I then pointed out that the "start" assessment which the other editor had restored didn't make any sense. Unfazed, he replied that I could post a request for reassessment down at some Wikiproject page.[13]

But it's not even the wrong ratings that irritate me the most, it's when there are multiple project tags with ??? ??? ratings cluttering the page. Article ratings actually could be marginally useful but there's no need to duplicate the ratings (let alone the lack of them) across multiple templates. Nor do I think talk pages are well served with all those project banners. Haukur 17:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, please do join in. The more the grumpier. Essentially, authors are not very clubby. Most of us don't "meet" each other. We just write, and then a Project comes along and throws something on our work. We, all alone, protest, and we are told that The Project "has found" the article to be X or Y, and we may see the man at the Department of Appeals for further information. The thing is, no article is assessed by a project. It is assessed by some dude. That dude may know a great deal or nothing, but it's just a single editor, and that editor has no more right to have an untouchable edit than you do. The authors, though, are always single, and they are always faced with the apparent monolith of a Project.

I find that disgusting. It's cowardly, and it's destructive. I joked ruefully about starting an anti-assessment project. I wouldn't do that, but the point was that no one with a complaint gets to know that he or she is not alone, that the assessments do not have an impassive and impressive face behind them, that they do not have inherent value.

The multiple evaluations are disasterous, and it's even worse when they start demanding that their little superproject boxes go on the main article. Some people are composers and politicians, and yet they're going to have the Polish template, the Composer box, the Successor politician box, the Politician box, and the Biography box (and possibly the Religion box, if it's Liszt).

Also, I have gone through speedy delete and seen that...oops, it has a talk page, too...and of course that page has no words, just a template. It's zero content. If they want to create CATEGORIES, then so be it. A category doesn't announce to all and sundry, "This has been found to be contemptible by someone who cannot read." Geogre 17:51, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Re

This is disturbing along many different axes. First, "prove me wrong" in response to Ghirla is pretty much the wrong foot. That looks and sounds like intentionally combative statements designed to provoke a "proof" of whether or not another user is X, Y, and Z value and emotional judgments. I'm sure no one can prove to you, or to anyone, that another user is not arguing. I agree with Ghirla's point: we do not block for NPOV or NOR violations. We block for edit warring. Further, we do not open the bid with 72 hours. As for Piotrus, I'm not sure what it is that your diff was supposed to show. What it actually shows is an edit saying that your stress level went up. Ok. Is that allowable at Wikipedia? You bet. In fact, statements of opinion -- even that a group of editors are operating out of "Nazi" (more precisely they seem to mean "neo-Nazi" or "fascist") motives. In many European nations neo-Nazism is a substantial presence and a distorted presence on the web. It's not out of bounds if a person honestly believes that a group of editors represent a real life group that is pursuing such an agenda. It may be incorrect, but it's not, by itself, blockable. Finally, what really seems to be going on here is a block for "civility." That is never something the offended individual should decide, and the comments here really make it seem as though you feel personally involved, personally offended, personally besieged. I hope that I am wrong. Geogre 12:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi George. I am not feeling personally involved, personally offended or personally besieged. I've got the stick which i use when it is needed. I told folks more than 6 times that i am w/ ending this mess. There are other admins who agree and are still ready to do that. I can't block all offenders by myself, it is time consuming and all what i did is apply common sense and start blocking on the spot. As for blocking because of POV, i haven't. Petri for uncivility and he apologized which means that the block got its aim. RJ CG for tendentious editing and edit warring introducing original research a few times. Luna Santin has explained to him that it was an appropriate block and declined the unblock request. As for Digwuren, he was blocked for the same reasons, tendentious editing trying to make a point (recreating a deleted article). So all in all. I stand w/ my decisions and until now no single admin has objected and i am feeling fine. Let me assure you George that i have no single hard feeling for their conflicts. I am doing my job as an admin. If someone is not happy (and there is always some who is) than s/he has the right to appeal. Please tell me what have i done wrong for once. I can't be responding to both sides because they didn't like it. I therefore ask for proofs and that's why i've asked the same question to all parties involved. So why are you singling out Ghirla? Thank you George. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:54, 17 July 2007 (UTC)