Talk:Telescope Nut

Origins
"TN" (telescope nut} appears in Amateur Telescope Making Book One page 352 in a cartoon by R. W. Porter "Here lies a T. N. who died of old age....", Caption says the the author (Albert Graham Ingalls) suggested the cartoon. The preface gives the compilation date for the book material as before Nov 1932. There is a chance the material comes from an earlier Scientific American article. Pre 1932 has Cox coining this term (if he did it) in his early teens or even younger. Looks more like it came from Ingalls or Porter/Springfield. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:06, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This reference states Ingalls used the term, not that he coined it. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Dictionary definition
I restored the dicdef because WP:DICTIONARY problems are not solved by "references" or "factual accuracy". The lead "Telescope Nut (T. N.) is a nickname for an amateur telescope maker" and Cox def of "automatically attained whenever a person completes his or her first telescope mirror" pretty much nails the coffin shut on this since it defines a usage of a slang term for an amateur telescope maker re:Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a slang, jargon or usage guide. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Not a dictionary definition
Telescope Nut does not differ in any substantial way from: Why are there WP pages about these things? In part, because there is no consistent policy on the treatment of articles about words. But also because (as the previously-cited page states) "If someone does create a decent sized, nicely formatted, well written and well sourced word article, though, we hate to turn such a thing down; it does indeed get kept." I think that Telescope Nut clearly falls into that category. And in spite of what Fountains of Bryn Mawr implies, "Telescope Nut" is not simply a nickname for "amateur telescope maker". Rather, it means "someone who has made his/her own mirror" - which, nowadays, includes only a small fraction of ATMs. Mpa.mpg.de (talk) 00:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Newbie, Shock site, Beta reader, or any of the other 190+ Wikipedia articles on Internet slang, many of which are simply nicknames for already-existing terms or expressions;
 * Pop-culture neologisms like shout-out ("a greeting or acknowledgement") or earworm ("a haunting melody");
 * Idiot plot, bling-bling, sniglet, ..., and many, many other examples of "slang or jargon" that have WP pages.
 * Just because other stuff exists is not normally the way to judge articles. Something being "small fraction of ATMs" means you would normally point to that parent article. Since we have several editors pointing to this article being a dic def, AFD would be the next normal step. I'm just tagging it, may take it there my self if it doesn't expand. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 17:08, 28 November 2009 (UTC)