Talk:The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry

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How do I handle 'personal communication' as a citation? The 2 quotes from Jim Waters were in an email to me. Some science journals now want dates and details of the communication and documentary proof that the communicator has given permission to use what he said, but this seems like overkill. The original email is, or was, trapped in my GMail account by a garbled password, so I can't retrieve it. (Google says all I have to do is change my password. Catch 22: I can't change the password unless the old one works, which it doesn't. This has cured me of cloud computing!). Please advise!Ferren (talk) 13:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

As long as I am here, another question. Is it possible/relevant/appropriate to reproduce both tunes on this page? I have never come across the traditional one, and Jim Waters was unable to locate one in the Library of Congress in 1954, so it isn't exactly common knowledge. Jim's tune is myxolydian, rather than pentatonic: the comparison should be of interest to musicologists.Ferren (talk) 13:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

This is tricky. To quote WP:RS:
 * "Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. While they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Material based purely on primary sources should be avoided."
 * and
 * "The accuracy of quoted material is paramount and the accuracy of quotations from living persons is especially sensitive. To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted. If this is not possible, then the text may be taken from a reliable secondary source (ideally one that includes a citation to the original). No matter where you take the quoted text from, it is important to make clear the actual source of the text, as it appears in the article."

I think you should quote the source of the information as best you can and accept that unless corroborated by a secondary source it is open to question.

Re "reproduce both tunes " if you mean adding audio files I can't see any reason why not. Ben  Mac  Dui  17:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Who was Jim Waters?
Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.

Learned from this article that "The best known tune today is non-traditional, having been written by Jim Waters in 1954." However authentic, it is a lovely modal tune, and I wondered what else he might have composed. Couldn't find much - any suggestions?

Also didn't learn much about the man himself. From Web references to MIT and Columbia, plus the time-frame, I wonder if this might be the James Logan Waters who founded Waters Associates? I have writtent to Millipore (with which WA merged), but have not received a reply.

And in either case, I wonder how many other world-renowned scientists and engineers have thus contibuted to the folk-music repertoire? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cteno (talk • contribs) 12:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know much about this topic but here it refers to "Dr. James Waters of Columbia University in the 1950s". Ben   Mac  Dui  14:05, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The Gunner
I have removed the "explanation" that the gunner operated the harpoon gun on a whaling ship, because I can't see any reference supporting it, or much of a reason to believe it. The ballad was first collected in the 1850s, when whaling was carried out from boats (as in Moby Dick), the point of the harpoon gun being that it gave a greater range. Sealing was apparently not confined to culling on land; there were such things as seal guns and harpoons (however the only mention I could find in a quick search through the British Newspaper Archive was in a brief item of page 3 of the Newcastle Journal of 7 November 1846). A description of both the whale and seal fisheries of Dundee was given to the 1867 meeting there of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, a summary can be found on p3 of the Dundee Courier of 10 September 1867 But the ballad gives no indication of what projectile the gunner fired, and (certainly up to the 1860's) the man firing it seems to have been refered to as a "harpooner" (as in an article on "Harpooning" p2 of the Dundee, Perth, and Cupar Advertiser of 2 February 1864 recommending that harpooners regularly practise with the harpoon gun to improve their accuracy)

There is also a problem of timing. As far as I can see, although a harpoon gun was invented in 1731, it was not until the 1770s that there were harpoon guns which weren't more of a hazard to the user than to the target, and it was not until the 1820s that they began to be widely used. The ballad must surely date from earlier times? Rjccumbria (talk) 17:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)