Talk:Autofac

Fair use rationale for Image:Galaxy November 1955.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

External Link Generates Google Malware Warning
Clicking on the external link (www.philipkdickfans.com/pkdweb/autofac.htm) brings up a Google warning: "Reported Attack Site! This web site at www.philipkdickfans.com has been reported as an attack site and has been blocked based on your security preferences. Attack sites try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system."

I'm using Firefox on Linux (Ubuntu) with strict security features, so this might not show up on other OS/browser combinations.

I'm new to Wikipedia - I haven't yet found out the correct way to deal with this - for the time being, I'll flag the link with a warning.

Los Angeles 2019 (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There was a little bit of discussion of this at Wikipedia_talk:External_links which seemed to suggest that such links should be summarily removed; I have done so. Thanks for noticing this.  —Dominus (talk) 15:49, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

copyvio?
The text is sourced, from one of P.K. Dick's books that I do not have access to. If it is taken word for word, at a minimum it needs to be in quotes. --David Tornheim (talk) 09:50, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Is "pizzled" a "catch phrase"? Is it ever used outside of this story?
I wonder if there may be some misunderstanding about my edit earlier today in which I removed the unsourced paragraph about the word "pizzled". I am not disputing that the word appears in the text of the story, nor the context in which it appears. What I am questioning is the claim that it "is now taken to mean faulty...", which was not addressed by the citation subsequently added by Dave souza. The way I read that paragraph prior to today's edits, it was a sort of unlabeled "In popular culture" section saying that people in the real world now use and generally recognize the word "pizzled" as having that meaning. I believe that was the original intent of the paragraph in question, as evidenced by the fact that in a previous, slightly different version it was referred to as a "distinctive catch phrase". I still can find no evidence that the word "pizzled" is ever used in that sense except in this story (though in the course of trying I did learn that "pizzle" is an old-fashioned word for a bull's penis, which was fascinating I guess...). If that is the intended meaning of that statement, I still maintain that it is certainly not obvious or "common knowledge", the Koopman book that was cited does not address it, and it should be removed unless someone can cite a relevant, reliable source for it.

However, it eventually occurred to me that perhaps others read that paragraph differently, as merely stating that the Autofac character in the story interpreted "pizzled" as meaning faulty. In that case, I'm still not sure that's an accurate statement, and indeed the Koopman source seems to imply the opposite - that the Autofac thought "pizzled" might have meant something other than "defective". And I guess I would further question whether it really needs to be in the plot summary at all, as it's a pretty trivial detail. At the very least, it doesn't belong in a separate paragraph all by itself at the end of the plot summary.

Anyway, Dave souza, I guess I just want to make sure we're not talking / editing past each other here before we proceed any further. Cbhack (talk) 01:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
 * When alerted to this, it had been removed from the plot summary, and it's a central part of the plot. Since it was on my watchlist, I'd probably read it at some time in the past without noticing anything amiss. Don't think including it is too much of a spoiler, it's a memorable phrase for anyone who's read the short story, and a turning point in the plot. From a quick search, this usage appeared in a couple of online places including Urban Dictionary: pizzled .. Faulty, in some unspecified way. From the PK Dick short story Autofac, where the word 'pizzled' is used to confuse a robot who keeps delivering unwanted milk. Since there is nothing wrong with the milk, the robot will not stop delivering it, even though the humans don't want it. But when the humans say that it is 'pizzled', the robot is forced to fill in a compaint form which ultimately results in the downfall of the robot factory system. "This milk is pizzled" by Richard Graham October 03, 2006 No link because the formatting looks horrible for some reason. An ok summary up to a point, but misses the conclusion of the story. Anyway, that implies it might have some slang usage, at least among SF fans. Didn't know that pizzled has a meaning in heraldry, either Dick didn't know in 1955, or decided it wasn't relevant for his future protagonists. Think our wording works now in the summary context. . . . dave souza, talk 06:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Hmm, interestingly the Urban Dictionary entry is now the top result for me on DuckDuckGo (which it wasn't when I looked yesterday). Anyway, it seems to me this makes the statement I removed look worse, not better, since it is now quite clear from looking at the edit history that it originated as an extremely close paraphrase of that UD post, right down to misquoting "Autofac" as containing the UD example sentence ("This milk is pizzled") verbatim until another editor corrected it. There is overwhelming consensus that Urban Dictionary is clearly not a reliable source. I'll grant that it's possible the word could very well be used in the stated sense within some niche subculture of hardcore P. K. Dick fans or whatever, and even that there might be something like an obscure study of sci-fi fandom out there that could be used as a reliable source to that effect. But at this juncture, if the best source either of us can actually find is a post on Urban Dictionary, then it belongs to the innumerable array of possibly true but unverifiable statements that don't belong on Wikipedia. Thus, I will remove that one sentence ("Thus 'pizzled' is now taken to mean faulty, in some unspecified—and perhaps unspecifiable—way."), which I hope will not be controversial. As for including some mention of the word being used in the story, when I said it was trivial I guess I meant that it seems that way relative to the other details currently included. At the moment, the plot summary is otherwise just a very broad sketch of the story's general premise, and I see no reason to highlight that one detail of the plot over many others that are equally if not more pivotal, especially given that it apparently was originally included simply to make a dubious point about the story's influence on pop culture. But if you would prefer to leave it in there, perhaps as a starting point for a more detailed synopsis, I won't strongly object to that. I will, however, suggest merging it into the rest of the plot summary so that it's not just dangling there at the end all by its lonesome. Cbhack (talk) 02:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
 * There was lots wrong with the first paragraph, so redid it on basis of re-reading Dick's story. As Koopman notes, Dick's character O'Neil says "the product is thoroughly pizzled" is "a semantic garble", and the issue of communication and semantics is central to the story. Took care to stop the synopsis before giving away the end of the story, and kept it in one paragraph as you suggested. . dave souza, talk 18:42, 4 August 2020 (UTC)