User:Hoary/Archive18

Why are you so bitter and jealous of Stephanie Adams?
Actually, I already read your nasty comments about this celebrity (or as you oddly put it, "sleb") in the past. You don't even know her, so why are you so upset by her? Did you date someone who looked like her in the past and got burnt? Seriously sweetie, bitterness and pent up repressions are no place for editing on wikipedia or anyone else if you're somewhat of a professional. Bu then again, that's probably why we are all here wasting time as unknown editiors, rather than writing for noteworthy publications in the real world. No offense, but I had to make a note of this. Good Luck. 71.167.227.11 (talk) 12:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I hope I didn't offend you, but your comments about someone you do not even know are really uncalled for. Only jealous little girls react that way, and I'm not sure how old you are, but you're probably a grown man. Dude, think about it. Seriously. It's totally weird and borderline "Jekyll & Hyde" fan. LOLOL! 71.167.227.11 (talk) 12:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * He's not bitter. He just needs to take his white sheet off and go to anger management. Anyone who is happy with himself would not be so angry with a famous person who doesn't want or care to know him. Get a girlfriend, and a job, perhaps in a metropolitan city so you won't hate so much on beautiful black women. 170.170.59.139 (talk) 14:55, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

First, a big thank you to special-purpose IP 71.167.227.11 for the agony-aunt advice. If I ever want psychotherapy, I'll be sure to consider asking you. (Just one point of counsel to the would-be counselor: It's hard to sound even slightly serious if you address your client as "sweetie".)

Secondly to 170.170.59.139: What's the "white sheet" reference, exactly? And is there some distinction between "hating [X]" and "hating on [X]"?

Now the title. Perhaps you'd like to prefix the question with another, asking me when I started beating my wife. Adams is of no interest to me (see below); attempts to use Wikipedia for promotion (e.g. of Adams) are of interest. Because I'm not interested in Adams, I'm certainly not jealous of her. Any bitterness is caused by the amount of my time and others' time that's wasted by those misusing Wikipedia to promote Adams.

Both of you seem extraordinarily keen to point out that Adams is famous and a celebrity. I wonder why this needs to be pointed out so energetically -- might her "celebrity" be so minor that without frequent reminders it risks being overlooked? Me, I'd never heard of Adams until something written on one of the noticeboards here alerted me to the way in which the article on her was being used for promotional purposes. I then went to the article and learned (i) that she was one of several hundred people who'd appeared in Playboy, and (ii) that she had put out obscure books on astrology; if this adds up to "celebrity", I wonder how many million "celebrities" there are. -- Hoary (talk) 04:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hoary, you're certainly not a "celebrity", nor are you "famous". It sounds like jealousy to me. She couldn't care less who you are either because you are no one. And she has a lot more to do than edit on a free editing resource where most amateurs do so to feel important. Get over it. 66.108.7.182 (talk) 16:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, according to the talk page of her article, Ms. Adams has clearly already edited on her own article in the past. Personal attacks will not help your case. Dayewalker (talk) 18:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed she has. User "GODDESSY" | has more edits to the Stephanie Adams page than anyone else.  Especially if you add in the various sockpuppets she's been shown to use (Swiksek, Ladysekhmet, Cle0patr4, 71.167.230.166, 71.167.230.171, 71.167.246.204, etc.).  All of which predominantly edit only the Stephanie Adams page and are extremely similar in the personal insults they hurl at anyone who attempts to make any edit that doesn't fawningly celebrate Ms Adams' celebrity. -- Sean Martin (talk) 20:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello again, series of IPs. You all write in a remarkably similar way, so I won't attempt to remember which of you is which.

you're certainly not a "celebrity", nor are you "famous" -- I'm surprised by your degree of interest in me.

She couldn't care less who you are either because you are no one. -- It had never occurred to me that Adams had any interest in me. But I'm mildly surprised in your certainty about her thought patterns. Unless of course you are Adams.

And she has a lot more to do than edit on a free editing resource where most amateurs do so to feel important. -- Funny, I thought it was the professionals rather than the amateurs who edited for self-aggrandizement. That matter aside, do you mean, she's busy writing more astrological tomes, or "spokesmodeling", or getting into disputes with cab drivers? Or something new? Whatever, if it's significant and reliably sourced, stick it into the article about her. Hoary (talk) 00:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

FAR beginner's error?
Hoary—although it's not disallowed by the rules, it is commonly understood that reasoning involving context is frowned upon during featured article reviews (and just about everywhere else). Nice try though! :-P Whiskeydog (talk) 06:41, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the word of appreciation. Robots have their places but I've no desire to act like one. You seem an open-minded chap yourself, I'm delighted to say: what's your take on Lindsay Robertson? (A name I too had never encountered till today, but see this etc.) -- Hoary (talk) 06:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to but in here as devils advocate; Hoary I nomed H.D. at FAR for nefarious reasons outlined in my 'statment' on the nom page. I'd appreciate if you could talk a look and offer any suggestions you think might improve the page. I ask as you seem like a good egg, and as Whiskey says above have a capacity for contextualisted (oh my; six syllabales!) reasoning quite unusual for FAR ;-) Ceoil  sláinte 22:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The reasons seem nefarious indeed, perhaps diabolically so; I can certainly go along with them, mwa ha ha. I'm not sure, however, that I can stomach the soap opera of the content: who was bedding who, and all that. Attempts by the kind of folk who make up the "MLA" to make such stuff seem significant strike me as distinctly Tired and Old Directions; I'm going to find it hard to work up an interest in this, I'm afraid. However, I do wonder why she stayed in London during the war. (Better than Dresden or Leningrad, it's true.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * And Paris was decidedly out at the time also. Anyway, understood Hoary; no harm in asking. Ceoil  sláinte 06:26, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok. I searched but found little. Ceoil  sláinte 10:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hoary I screwed up and made newman mistakes. Can we just let it at at that and say I wasn't dissapointed by your contribution and there was a damn good reason it contacted you at all in the first place. Ceoil  sláinte 16:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Distracting?
I just today noticed one of your edits from May '08. The edit summary explained a rather trivial change in the way an external link was presented in Marilyn Silverstone. At that time, you construed your contribution as resolving something which seemed distracting. Could I ask you to re-visit this stale subject in order to explain? The fact-of-the-matter is that I've applied a similar logical pattern/template in a range of circumstances; and I suppose it becomes plausible that I've caused an unwanted metastasis of distracting links? Is this another one of those lessons learned the hard way? --Tenmei (talk) 19:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * A context for this question might be the edits I made today to the stub about Maruki Riyō, e.g.,
 * In-line citation #2: Old Japan website: Portrait of Ito Hirobumi, Maruki Riyō studio
 * External links: Kaneko Kentaro: studio portrait by Maruki Riyō (ca. 1904)
 * For me, this has become a convenient default-format when a conventional academic citation seems awkward or potentially unhelpful. Maybe I need to tweak my approach? --Tenmei (talk) 20:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's agree not to worry here about the minutiae of what's called "style": whether to use commas, colons or periods and that kind of thing. What you seem to like is: I don't like this in two ways. First, it goes against the convention of going from the specific to the general. Though arbitrary, this convention is well established: lists of references, footnotes, etc. all put the title of a paper in front of the title of the journal or book in which the title appears. (Of course there's a complication in that the website owner may be thought to be the author of the page. However, while it may take collective responsibility for (and be the copyright holder of) the page, pretty obviously organizations don't actually write pages.) All in all, I'd prefer: However, I find it confusing to have additional links in each item of what's supposed to be a list of links. Take a look at the lists in David Gentleman: the list of external links is rather uninformative and confusing, but the lists of books written and illustrated by him are clean and clear. Thus for example what are now could instead easily be but I'm sure that it's good that they aren't: if Betjeman, for example, is very important to the article, then he can be linked elsewhere. (Incidentally, I note that "London:" is missing from the Betjeman book and that many of the ISBNs in the lists would benefit from following punctuation, but the "real world" will call me away from my computer much of today.) -- Hoary 00:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Website owner: "Title of page." Other info.
 * "Title of page." Website owner. Other info.
 * Betjeman, John. Illustrated poems of John Betjeman. John Murray, 1994. ISBN 0-7195-5248-6, 1997. ISBN 0-7195-5532-9
 * Blunden, Edmund. The midnight skaters. Ed. C. Day Lewis. London: Bodley Head, 1968.
 * Betjeman, John. Illustrated poems of John Betjeman. John Murray, 1994. ISBN 0-7195-5248-6, 1997. ISBN 0-7195-5532-9
 * Blunden, Edmund. The midnight skaters. Ed. C. Day Lewis. London: Bodley Head, 1968.

JR.net
Hi. Your summary of CR (et al)'s reasoning was helpful. Until I read your summary, I didn't even understand their reasoning of why JR.net should not be included. Do you believe JR.net that should be included? If you do, please bring some Administrators supporting your position to the discussion. Thank you. --Addmi (talk) 15:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that Arudou merits an article; but if he merits an article, it's for what he's done or written. I can't see much notability in what he's written, but perhaps that's my failing rather than his. I'd expect to see him at his most cogent in his one book written by him alone in his first language. As far as I know this has got two reviews. One's favorable and the other's unfavorable. The latter seems more informative about the book than the former. I don't think that anybody has alleged that the descriptions in the latter are factually wrong. It's hard for me not to think that policies intended to avoid the risk of libel are being misapplied, and that some editors aren't curiously keen to show this obscure book in the most favorable light possible.


 * Other people might well agree with much or all of what I say if I alerted them to it, but I don't intend to go around canvassing them. (If I were to contact anybody, it would probably be J Readings, who seems to have been curiously attentive to solemn suggestion to do some "self-introspection".)


 * Incidentally, I can't help but notice that your editing history shows a curious preoccupation with Arudou. There are many more entertaining subjects. I particularly appreciate the gutsy, common-sense Conservative response to that notorious liberal rag Newsweek: "This cover is a clear slap in the face of Sarah Palin ... Why? Because it's unretouched. It highlights every imperfection that every human being has. We're talking unwanted facial hair, pores, wrinkles." Yes, failure to photoshoplift is biased journalism. More truthiness, less facial hair. -- Hoary (talk) 16:37, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Arudou getting a big entry

(when, e.g., Gregory Clark --- a real scholar, formerly professor and Univ. president, who's been in Japan longer, with many best-sellers, much respected by the Japanese and non-Japanese living in Japan --- doesn't have an entry)

underlines the weirdness (and weakness) of Wikipedia.

I have hundreds of other, stronger interests, but the little time I spend editing Wikipedia is best served by dealing with the sick racist (who repeats the racial slur "Yellow Jap")  and related topics.
 * I don't have "a curious preoccupation with Arudou", the sick racist who repeats the racial slur "Yellow Jap".


 * Do you believe that JR.net should be included?  --Addmi (talk) 17:26, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is stiff with ludicrous imbalances, for example the reverent way in which individual "Pokemon" are written up, versus the perfunctory treatment given to any aspect of Japan (let alone Lithuania or Belize) that's unrelated to recent "popular culture" or any of a few other obsessions. You're very welcome to improve the article on Gregory Clark. Meanwhile, please stop referring to people who haven't been hospitalized or sequestered as "sick"; and if you want to write any more about Arudou, please do so somewhere other than my talk page. -- Hoary (talk) 23:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your edit regarding: obnoxiously titled comment
Hi. Regarding this edit, I'm a bit confused. On the one hand, the editor is being a pain. On the other (if you ignore the heading and the lack of signature), he has asked a reasonable question. In such circumstances, how does one balance "assuming good faith" that this is a reasonable question vs the appearance that this editor is asking a rhetorical question in order to make a point? I'm not out to burn you at the stake, (or revert your edits, either), but I'm not 100% sure that your quoted reason (viz: removing unsigned and obnoxiously titled comment) is sufficient justification for removing what, if you AGF, is a reasonable question. (On the other hand, I'm not 100% sure that this editor deserves "AGF".) Your thoughts? Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If the editor can't ask a question without putting a personal attack in the title, there's little pith to paying it much heed. Gwen Gale (talk) 13:03, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I am a bit hyper at the moment, seeing as how I've been reading for over 8 hours straight. For my "bad behavior", I do not think I have to apologize, since I have not violated logic.  I have every right to accost those who are outright lying when they claim that the pedophilia allegations are unsourced.  Saying that is unsourced is a ridiculous and dishonest claim.  It is instead those who are removing the "controversial" material who are not logically justified.


 * Also, I was not given the benefit of the doubt initially, as would be required by AGF. Instead, I was assumed to be in the wrong due to my style, but the style in which I addressed Kintetsubuffalo was not unjustified, as he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is both ridiculous and dishonest. TPaineTX (talk) 13:24, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Even if you think somebody is a jackass, you don't address him as "jackass". It's that simple. -- Hoary (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Kintetsubuffalo has shown himself to be dishonest about a rather serious issue, and is therefore, in my opinion, open to ridicule -- certainly mild ridicule, at any rate. TPaineTX (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps. But as Hoary says: "Even if you think somebody is a jackass, you don't address him as "jackass". It's that simple." Pdfpdf (talk) 13:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I will grant you that I was perhaps demonstrably in error when I selected the term in lieu of a more erudite description of his character, such as "deplorable, fraudulent sack of trash", but, mind you, I was not anticipating that my comment would spark a lengthy debate. Furthermore, my comments were on a discussion page, not an actual wikipedia article, and while colorful adjectives are generally frowned upon for encyclical work, discussion pages, in my opinion, should be more colloquial.  Personally, I'm quite fond of Thomas Paine, Norman Finkelstein, and Bill Hicks, so perhaps I'm a bit biased on that matter. :) TPaineTX (talk) 14:04, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you are either missing or avoiding the point; no matter how many and which polite adjectives you use, independent of their colour, it is the obnoxious nouns you are using that are the problem. I agree that discussion pages do use more colloquial language. However, "colloquial" is in no way a synonym for "obnoxious". Pdfpdf (talk) 05:43, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Mmmm. I sympathise, and possibly agree, but your reply doesn't address the question(s) I asked. Pdfpdf (talk) 13:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * What Gwen said. But OK, I'll take a look. If there's a reasonable question, it's ably answered in WP:BLP. Here we have a charge of repugnant and illegal behavior, as sourced to the transcript of a TV show. I know nothing about laws of libel in South Africa: perhaps they're much laxer than in the US and certainly I'm surprised to read this stuff there. Perhaps they aren't lax and the TV station is being very daring in what it chooses to publish, or perhaps on the contrary its website has been hacked. Anyway, nobody seems to have claimed that this person has been charged with any crimes, let alone convicted of it. Meanwhile, the article has been locked down via OTRS or whatever it's called. -- Hoary (talk) 13:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If Graham Fitch or any of his defenders had any significant evidence that the allegations were completely unfounded (i.e. statements refuting the claims that he was under investigation by the named organizations), then they would no doubt be more than happy to post them. If they do not have any refutations of the allegations, then they are with at least some merit and worthy of mention. TPaineTX (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Look, I can argue against your logic here, but I'm not going to bother. Read this. Digest it. Do not discuss mere allegations of criminal behavior. If you continue to do so, you'll be blocked. -- Hoary (talk) 15:41, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Apparently I'm not being clear enough in my question(s). My apologies. Normally I would attempt to clarify, but it appears to me that you are somewhat tied up in "the heat of the moment", and now is not a convenient time for you to be distracted by tangential philosophical musings. I'll come back at a later time when the current issue is resolved or dormant. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 13:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I've reread your question and I see what you mean. However, I am indeed not in the mood right now to reply properly to philosophical musings. Please wait a little. -- Hoary (talk) 13:36, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I assure you that I am in no hurry, and I'm happy to wait weeks. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 13:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm through for the day. If you still have time and philosophizing energy, take a look here. (And then at the video page of 236.com.) -- Hoary (talk) 13:47, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * For the record, I have no connection to the subject of the article, it came to my attention as a link of another I watch; nor do I know the sockpuppet who claims to be new to Wikipedia (though by its language and its immediate choice of editing within two edits of being here, that is clearly not true). But I do know the difference between "alleged" and "convicted", and being from the States I am familiar with sensationalist television. I have been on TV here in Japan, I'm not even certain they got my name right... So thanks to those who assumed good faith about me. Those who didn't are not on my worry list anyway. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 22:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Right. If there's something to this, then let the legal system take its course. Till then, such material is potentially libelous. -- Hoary (talk) 05:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Just FYI, I blocked the editor for 72 hours for personal attacks. Risker (talk) 05:29, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I noticed. My own finger was starting to twitch near the "block" key. -- Hoary (talk) 05:44, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Graham Fitch
Now this information is on the Talk:Graham Fitch talkpage, and the above user is back (making uneducated guesses as to who I am and why I stick to BLP), what are the BLP rules with talkpages? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 23:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * They're pretty simple. This user does seem to have learning difficulties, doesn't he? -- Hoary (talk) 00:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * He's done it again. Is your finger twitching? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 01:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Silly edits from my ip
Hi Hoary, just to apologise for the nonsense. About half a dozen people use this connection though, so no idea who it was. Sorry again. 86.153.204.169 (talk) 13:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the apology, but do please consider getting and using a username; you then won't have to read irritated remarks addressed to others. -- Hoary (talk) 13:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Patrick Rial review
http://www.seekjapan.jp/article-1/488/Arudou:+Angelic+Activist+or+Devilish+Demonstrator?

Hi Hoary, I've been busy in real life so I haven't been editing much anywhere on Wikipedia over the past few days. I logged on and noticed my name mentioned here. Unless you were being sarcastic about wanting to know (and I suspect you might have been), I'm taking a little break from that talk page for a while.

In any case, I think you wanted to read Japanzine reviewer Patrick Rial's take on Arudou's book. See the link above. It's short, but to the point: he essentially agrees with the Honjo review about the book's disorganized structure, purpose and goals. The only difference is that Rial sums it up in less space. J Readings (talk) 14:08, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * No sarcasm, J.R. Incidentally, I emailed you but the message was bounced as undeliverable with one failure message or another (offhand I forget which, as the message is on a different computer from the one I'm using right now).


 * That's an odd review. It starts Hokkaido's Arudou Debito is probably the most visible civil rights activist in Japan. Really? -- Hoary (talk) 15:48, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The Japanzine piece is divided into 2 sections. The first section is a general article about Arudou and the second section is the book review. The book review begins with "Japanese Only, the debut book of Arudou Debito...."


 * Yeah, I was wondering about that first sentence, too. It seemed like a strange way to start an article. Had an academic started like that I would have cringed, especially when there was no elaboration forthcoming in the article. But that's just my personal opinion, and counts for little.


 * I'll send you an e-mail. Hopefully it doesn't bounce when you reply. Thanks, J Readings (talk) 20:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I expressed myself poorly above. Yes, I did see the review. As for the article that precedes it, its first sentence seems perfectly fine, in terms of journalistic style. And because this is journalism, it would of course be unreasonable to expect evidence. I'm just surprised by the claim itself.


 * Uh-oh, looks like I'm to blame for miscommunication, or at least that's what your mail service thinks. I'm told: Messages from [my IP] temporarily deferred due to user complaints. How embarrassing. -- Hoary (talk) 02:08, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, how strange. I certainly haven't complained to anyone about your user IP. J Readings (talk) 04:58, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe some closely related IP has been recruited as some spammer's zombie. (As this particular computer is GNU/Linux, it's probably innocent.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism in Tokyo
I was wondering if you are using Internet Explorer for browsing in general, because if you don't you may find WP:TW really handy to fight vandalism as you just did in Tokyo. Just my two yen opinion ... Miguel.mateo (talk) 10:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I never use Internet Explorer, though one of the computers I use does still have it installed. I'll investigate "Twinkle"; thanks for the nudge. -- Hoary (talk) 11:11, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Twinkle works on Firefox. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:13, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, and as it works on Safari, perhaps it works on Konq as well. But I do have Firefox on every computer I use.


 * Actually I do use MSIE occasionally, in order to see how badly it screws up the clean, standards-compliant (WP-irrelevant) pages that I create from time to time. MSIE7+ isn't awful, though I don't know why people bother with it rather than use a better free alternative. -- Hoary (talk) 11:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * "though I don't know why people bother with it" - A number of reasons: habit; habit bred from the fact that, at work, they write stuff to work on M$IE; it does the job (mostly); laziness (i.e. too lazy to find a free alternative); etc.
 * i.e. not particularly good reasons, but it's less bother to use IE than use something else.
 * (I don't think that was worth 2¢ - my 1¢ worth.) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I miss the old versions (5 and below?) of Opera that let you use just one or two keystrokes to toggle graphics on and off. I'm lazy myself and thus for two of my computers haven't downloaded any new version of Firefox for ages (indeed, on this particular computer it's version 0.9.2); I'll have to see whether the newer versions make it easier to toggle graphics and Flash stuff. That aside, I like the way Firefox lets you right-click an image and say that you don't want graphics from that site, ever.


 * Incidentally, when I needed a OS X browser with good "kiosk mode" (for Dave Raggett's "Slidy") about 14 months ago, the best I found was Shiira. A year later, it was still the best. By comparison, Firefox, Opera, and Safari each have some cosmetic irritation (I now forget what). -- Hoary (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Going back to the original point, if you use Firefox then installing Twinle is easy and believe me: it will help you a lot on fighting vandalism. You can easily remove the vandalism (even good faith), warn vandals, and even submit them for administration checks if needed.  IE has one feature called WP:rollback but you need to be authorized first and I do not know the criteria; also rollback is easy for just removing vandalism but not for other tasks that WP:TWINKLE and WP:FRIENDLY offer as an extra value. I hope you enjoy it ... Miguel.mateo (talk) 01:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually I do have rollback rights; but again, thank you for the nudges.


 * In the past, I haven't liked these automated systems as they didn't clearly identify the bum edit within the warning on the perp's talk page. Perhaps they've moved on since then. -- Hoary (talk) 01:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Joe the plumber
I see what you mean. Well, which website you normally dowload fonts from? something reliable.. In fact, want to install at home myself.  Docku: “what up?”  14:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's see now . . . Sourceforge and the like, I suppose.


 * One thing I'm always on the lookout for is a face that is well done, legible, isn't gimmicky, includes a fair bunch of characters with diacritics (though I can live without characters that only seem to be used for Vietnamese), and also has an accompanying small caps font. I'll even consider paying actual money, if it's a shareware sort of price rather than what's charged by and to professionals. -- Hoary (talk) 14:30, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Talk about a real mouthful...
In case you're looking for something different, check out this deletion review at Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache. I can't believe this is a real name. It's seems almost like a hoax. J Readings (talk) 08:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's interesting. I never heard of the subject (obviously my fault, not his), but given the comments during the deletion review I'm inclined to look him up in the public library now. I notice a couple more sources were added over the past day. I suppose that's a good place to start. J Readings (talk) 23:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

As Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache is a little on the long side, and, dare I say it, not quite as rugged and manly as it might be, I fed it to the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator; here's what I got. Hoary (talk) 00:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar
Ooh, thank you very much!

Can we agree to skip the dachshunds and other minor four-legged diversions? It's Kizu's main interest (wobble wobble) that gets the description in the article. The matter of sourcing aside, it's clear that the author was (authors were) trying, and good for him (or them, or most improbably her). But graphic illustration is called for, and this raised the possibility of an extended hottie defence. Graphic illustration would clearly relevant, helpful and "Fair Use". I wouldn't be averse to multiple, high-rez illustrations, for that matter. However, if the article is to be believed, Kizu would likely disagree. So bang goes the hottie defence: Kizu is hoisted on his own, er, monopod.

"Boobpedia", gosh. . . . Hoary (talk) 01:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note, Hoary. Your barmystar is well-deserved, as one of the very few generally pro-deletion people whose motives/interest/knowledge (not to mention humor) I've never doubted. About Kizu-san himself, I feel that, since he's a real, verifiable, public person, sure he should have an article. I realize now though, that this is not the Wiki-way, so I won't fight it (though I will start an article on him over at Boobpedia).
 * About my retirement: it was a long time coming, and eventually came about when I realized that my view of what Wikipedia should/could be, and what the community has decided it will be are two different things. I got lured in here by the "Sum of human knowledge" idea, and, as someone who has always loved to research the most arcane and obscure of subjects, I thought Wikipedia would be the place to share my findings, research & writings... When I become interested in a subject, I like to dig deep into it and find out as much about it as I can. Wikipedia, however, has decided to be something of an Encyclopedia Britannica lite, with a huge addendum volume dedicated to current U.S. pop-culture, mainly that geared towards young adults. I think this is a change in Wiki-direction too. At one point I was going to dig into Jimbo's quotes, which I've seen, from a few years ago when he stated basically, any public, sourceable subject could have an article, and then compare it with his more recent statements-- where he says that he doesn't think each Simpsons episode needs an article. I hold these Simpsons articles up for ridicule as much as the next guy, but I really have no problem with them. It's when the more obscure subjects are then deleted that I complain. When Jimbo takes a stance like this, we all know that Simpsons are safe, but what subjects get targeted for deletion? Non-U.S., non-mainstream, non-current... anything that Wiki's editing community has never heard of.
 * The more I edited here, the more I found myself thinking not, "I can start an article on this." but, "If someone started article on this it would certainly be deleted..." I've never had an article deleted, it's seeing articles started by other people put up on the block all the time that bothered me. I spent time monitoring the AfDs, and constantly saw articles there that had no business there... Articles on award-winning non-U.S. films or TV series, silent films from the 'teens that were major hits in their day, etc.-- in other words, clearly "notable" subjects that were being nominated for deletion, just because the predominantly U.S. teens & tweens who edit here have never heard of them, and sourcing these non-mainstream U.S. subjects takes a bit of knowledge and work... And, unless someone steps forward to do that work, these nominations are successful. Wikipedia has a natural bias towards the Anglosphere, and to the current, just because that's what its editors know. This is a passive form of bias which is understandable, and I have no problem with it. It is up to those of us interested in the more obscure subjects to fix that bias by starting articles. But when we then have to waste time fighting to save these few non-Anglo/modern articles from deletion, bias is actively built into the system. That bothers me...
 * Boobpedia is no phantom of my warped imagination, but an actual Wiki, though a small one with recurring server issues. I come over here once a week or so to pick through the Wiki deletion boneyard for articles to save over there. And I do find this activity satisfying in a way that may even help me to get over my deletion-complex-- though there are many, many articles on subjects unfit for Boobpedia which I wish could be saved somewhere... I guess I'll just have to learn not to worry about those. I'm currently doing all my Wiki-work at BP, digging into the endlessly-fascinating Japanese busty scene as deeply as I dare. Once my thirst for knowledge in the subject of Asian Boobology has been quenched, I'll think about coming back here as an active editor. Although my love of this particular subject has not waned in four decades, so don't count on my wrapping up work on the subject any time soon ;-) I know work waits here that I could sink my teeth into. La Tani for one, is certainly as notable and immune from deletion as anyone, and she certainly deserves a GA at the very least. And, as someone who's admired this still breath-taking actress since the days she was the star of the pinku screen, I'd certainly be happy to be the editor to get that work done.
 * Anyway, thanks for the triple esspresso-cino latte modus operandi grande (or whatever they're calling coffee these days), although a good single malt would tempt me more. :-) Cheers! Dekkappai (talk) 22:56, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be right about Kizu. He is indeed a real person who's done a lot. (I was about to talk of his accomplishments being, if not qualitative, then undoubtably quantitative; but in this context everything risks slipping into double entendre, which may be amusing the first couple of times but then quickly becomes tiresome.) If there's a modicum of documentation for this, he should retain an article here. A quick look at his work suggests utter mediocrity, not just by (art/documentary) photographic standards (standards that would be absurdly inappropriate) but even by Japanese cheesecake/soft-porn photographic standards (as one sees in photo books of gradles such as Megumi and noodles such as Aoi Sora). Now, mediocrity needn't damn his encyclopedia-worthiness, but it does nothing to impel me to put any effort into rescuing his article. I'd rather put the same time into the irritatingly if understandably prodded crappy stubs on Motoichi Kumagai and Aizō Morikawa. (Incidentally, the single reproduction that's all I've seen of Morikawa's work interests me even less than what I've seen of Kizu's, but I happen to have reference material on Morikawa just a few centimetres from my right knee.) I thought I'd give Kizu's proponents a few months to give some credibility to that article, and then, enough.

We're pretty close on the Simpsons stuff, you and I. Where it irritates me is in the lengthy "references in popular culture" sections of articles, sections that imaginably could be good, if people had any sense of proportion. I mean, it's obvious that somebody like Dick Cheney will be mentioned all over the place, so there's no point in having an arbitrary collection of mentions; however, a rock lyric that explores Cheney with originality or wit or unusual vigor deserves a mention, and a Simpsons episode that does the same can have its article linked to. But as it is, many of these articles are lopsided and have an emphasis on uninteresting trivia that I somehow find depressing.

As for the picture of Wikipedia with a huge addendum volume dedicated to current U.S. pop-culture, mainly that geared towards young adults, yes indeed, with the twist that a considerable percentage of this pop culture is Japanese. Manga, anime and video games don't interest me in the slightest, but I don't resent their plentiful coverage here. What does irritate me is the suggestion some articles make that Japanese culture is traditional/classical/militaristic and/or manga/anime/video, period. This ignores a vast amount that merely doesn't happen to appeal to more than one in a thousand north American teenagers.

I used to spend a lot of time at AfD myself. As you've noted, I've voted (or as I believe it's called "!voted") to delete a lot more often than I've voted to keep, but I have voted to keep a fair amount of stuff that was and is of no particular interest to me but that seemed worthy. (Michael Rother and Kent Derricott come to mind; apologies for my feebleness over Gotō Shōko.) I spent less and less time there, as the fruits of north American teen obsessions and shameless self-promotion were, cumulatively, too depressing. Still, when you talk of Articles on award-winning non-U.S. films or TV series, silent films from the 'teens that were major hits in their day, etc. and of the Wiki deletion boneyard [I like that!] as having many, many articles on subjects unfit for Boobpedia which I wish could be saved somewhere, you've got my interest. I'll take a look now and again at your list of contributions, seeing if there've been any to AfDs.

I took a look at Boobpedia. It's certainly impressive, in large part because of your contributions. The gradle 和暮まどか Madoka Wagure and the noodle 遠野奈津子 Tōno Natsuko deserve articles at some time. (Sorry I can't help; I know nothing about them, just their names and, um, faces.) Hoary (talk) 01:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

PS: If maths can meet Page Three of The Sun at AfD: Wotta stunna of a comment! -- Hoary (talk) 01:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes! When I first started working the AfDs in my own chosen Wiki-subject matter, I was making similar statements. "Huh? You people can't read Japanese? You've never heard of Kimiko Matsuzaka?? What makes you qualified to say this article should be deleted?" All this ever got me, of course, were "AGF" and "Civility" tut-tuttings... But I think there is something to be questioned here. It seems to me that unqualified, anonymous editors contributing to an article and unqualified, anonymous editors voting to delete an article are two very different things. We require verifiable sources from published experts for contributions. But we allow delete votes (excuse me-- !votes) because these unqalified, anonymous (and, with regards to my own subject, sometimes hostile) editors have never heard of it, and couldn't find it in a Google search. Two very different things, I think. (Oh, and thanks for the pointers.) Dekkappai (talk) 02:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Civility is much overrated; I don't see why I should go out of my way to be pleasant to the boneheaded. I only partly agree with you on the above: I think the onus is on somebody who creates an article to show that the subject is noteworthy and noted. Further, that somebody who knows nothing of Japanese porn or the Japanese language is qualified to "!vote" against an article on a Japanese porn starlet. However, I'd quickly qualify this: the "!vote" should be reasoned, and clearly the inability to find anything substantial via Google on a romanized form of a Japanese name shows rather little, while any insistence that lack of [romanized] ghits shows lack of notice itself demonstrates boneheadedness, ethnocentricity, stupidity, and/or a few other concepts that I really ought not to throw around during an AfD.

AfDs are bizarre. I've often been under the impression that I'm expected to be unquestioningly for or against, as well as unbendingly earnest. This has seldom been as obvious as in the just-ended AfD/Steve Azzara. It's clear that I believed at the start that the article was misplaced in WP, and I remain unswayed. I also remain willing to see myself proved wrong, and to remove any hurdle (other than a time constraint) to anybody's attempt to improve the article. But my split personality allegedly shown in this has led to an extraordinary outburst [Let me know if you're not an admin.]. -- Hoary (talk) 02:57, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I do agree with you about the onus. I'm all for sourcing and verifiability, and always try to get my sources and citations up to snuff before even starting an article here... but here's the frustrating thing: As someone who has followed Japanese entertainment for several decades, I know for a fact that the subjects of many of these articles (I mean those started by other editors that get put on the AfD chopping-block) are very well-covered in the press, make TV, radio, mainstream magazine appearances, etc. In fact I'd say that most of these "adult" "actresses" are more "notable" within Japanese pop culture than their easily-sourced American counterparts... But how do I prove that? Short of taking a trip to Japan, and visiting a library of Shukan Gendai and the like, I can't. They're not online, and they're, basically, unobtainable outside of Japan. (At one point I considered subscribing to one of the weeklies... until I saw the $1,000 per annum overseas subscription rate.) I've recently come across two Japanese Wikis that catalog magazine appearances beginning in the 1960s. But, of course, this is inadmissable as evidence in an article or an AfD, and doesn't provide any more information than an appearance anyway... Until recently, Mainichi Shimbun ran a "Wai wai" column that was mostly pure tabloid crap, but occasionally had a good article or interview with a retired pinku or AV actress. The column was shut down and all archives removed due to an organized complaint campaign from Japanese concerned about their national image... So I'm left with the option of hopping up and down, red in the face, yelling, "She's notable, I know she is! I just can't find the damn sources!"
 * No, I'm not an admin, and I think I've spread a trail of extremist inclusionist rantings and ravings throughout WP sufficient to ensure I'll never be one.... And if I were ever nominated (not likely), I'd be the first to cast an oppose !vote And it wouldn't be very civil either :-) But I am always happy to see a good outburst. God knows I've provided plenty myself throughout my Wiki-career. If you can't post it here, feel free to email it. Dekkappai (talk) 03:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, that's odd, I really thought I had once voted for you as something or other. (An "arbitrator", perhaps?) Mean, evil deletionist that I seem to be (and perhaps am), I've also at least once given a warm support vote to somebody, I forget the name, who's at least as inclusionist as you. Anyway, quick interim solution: After a little hesitation (because I don't want to challenge anybody to a fight, or to seem to do so), I reposted the little dispute to WP talk:AfD/Steve Azzara.

As for the problems of Japanese sourcing, I think it's worse than you say, in that so very little of anything substantial remains on the web. Asahi.com puts up a lot -- but then quickly removes it. So if I wanted to look up news coverage of a "straight" actress I'd have to go to a library with CD-ROMs and look through those.

I remember the voluptuous Matsuzaki. Yes she was all over the place, yes even somebody repelled by porn would (if informed about her) probably have to concede that she's notable, no I wouldn't have a clue about how to look her up anywhere other than blogs and other more or less dodgy websites. One interesting thing I recall about her was that late in, or just after, her better known career, she appeared in straight advertising: I mean, she was fully clothed, advertising nylons or some fizzy drink or whatever, in a poster on a platform I use twice a day. This surprised me as I'd assumed that women who'd so much as exposed their nipples would thereby have been ritually "defiled" and thus fail utterly on the indices of virginity/wholesomeness that I'd presumed were used by the advertising people. Come to think of it, though, porn starlets may switch to the clothed world all the time: as I wouldn't recognize the faces of more than two or three of them and don't watch teevee, I wouldn't know.

I'd assumed that you were in Japan. If you're in the US, get out and do something on Tuesday! -- Hoary (talk) 06:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it's really good to hear that from someone else! Whenever I've brought up this problem, I get eye-rolling, and insinuations that I'm trying to dazzle "consensus" with bullshit. Yes, I've seen Asahi, as well as other Japanese news outlets do this. The English-language Mainichi incident was really discouraging. Actually, it's been my impression, and I've seen it confirmed by other people, such as in this article, that erotic entertainment is much more mainstream in Japan than it is in the U.S., and it has been so for centuries. The U.S. has its erotic entertainment, but-- as befits our Puritannical background-- keeps it shut away out of general sight. In Japan it's not just entertainment, it is used to make artistic and political statements. Koji Wakamatsu is a famous example. But also someone like Tetsuji Takechi-- actually a right-winger-- made pink films as a way of criticizing the government. Other instances of mainstream notability abound-- Junko Miyashita was nominated for best actress at the Japanese Academy Awards, Tatsumi Kumashiro won several mainsteram awards for, basically, sex films, etc... Yet, if I'd tried to write about any of these subjects 10 years ago, I'd have probably been unable to find anything at all with which to source them. Now, after having been around for 50 years, Pink films are finally getting some attention in the West. This book coming out in a few days, really has me excited-- sourcing galore, I hope! Now I suppose I have to wait just another couple decades until someone takes up the fascinating world of the AV as a legitimate research topic... Tuesday? Yep, I intend to do that! :) Dekkappai (talk) 14:43, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The book's blurb is rather unnervingly gung-ho, but it's certainly priced right; you can't go disastrously wrong.

Apropos of books on pinku activities I saw today in a used bookstore a stupendous book (list price close to a hundred thou) all about Sumiya. I don't usually consider myself much interested in interior design (other than by Soane), but this is fascinating. I'd never even heard of Sumiya till today (and was mentally mispronouncing the title as "Kadoya"). After a whopping discount from the original price it's still a whopping price. But then, swaddled in its multiple layers of cardboard, it's a whopping artifact. I'll have to think a bit more. It's quite extraordinary how many huge books have been produced in and for this overpopulated and cramped nation.

I haven't seen any of these famous porn films and can't work up much of an appetite for doing so. One problem is (if I'm to judge from the stills) that tying people up seems to be a major ingredient: if people get their jollies from having that done to themselves, doing it to consenting adults, or watching it, that's perfectly fine with me; but to me it's repulsive or ridiculous or both. Another is that I'm very wary of avowedly political films of that period: I once saw Ōshima's Gishiki (complete with English subs, so I suppose I understood it adequately): acted as hammily as are routine TV dorama and dripping with Meaningful Symbols and Significance, it was very possibly the biggest load of bollocks I've ever sat through. More or less political Japanese photography (e.g. by Tōmatsu) of that period, yes; movies, no thanks. I'll watch Coffy instead. -- Hoary (talk) 15:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Ooooh... that sounds like quite a book you've got your eye on... Right, I always loved the book-culture over there. I visited Japan only a few times, but lived in Korea for a few years. Same situation there: Books, books everywhere. I was in heaven :) The pink book blurb? Well, I've never read a blurb that starts, "This mediocre, overlong waste of paper by an unknown, two-bit hack will fail to inspire the least amount of interest in even the most desparately hard-up reader..." Actually, Jasper Sharp is known as probably the leading Anglo-authority on the pink film... Although I remember listening to a DVD commentary by one of these "authorities" and being appalled by it... don't think it was Sharp though.
 * Right-- the bondage and S&M in pink can be off-putting to me as well... But I endure it because of my enthusiasm for the Japanese actresses, not to mention that the films are often just so damned interesting and well-done for what they are. If you're ever curious about them (the Nikkatsu Roman porno variety, at least) Wife to Be Sacrificed is a good one to start with. It features Naomi Tani at her most awe-inspiring. Nobody could wear a rope like that woman! :-) If it's any consolation: U.S. sexploitation went the same way during the softcore '60s. What got our sex films away from this was the move to hardcore in the early '70s... and I don't think that was an improvement at all. I still prefer the more psychological, experimental, adventurous Japanese films. Once the U.S. went hardcore, we lost that element of film subculture. Donald Richie (among others) claims that it is the Japanese ban on "all the way" that forces their writer/director/stars to come up with interesting ways to get around it... I'm curious about the relation between the U.S. "nudie-cuties" and "roughies" of the late '50s and early '60s, and Japanese pink... I know Russ Meyer's The Immoral Mr. Teas was shown in Japan at a time when the raciest things to be seen on the local screen were taiyozoku and Michiko Maeda ama movies. And U.S. "roughies" like David F. Friedman's The Defilers (1965) anticipate by a decade the turn that Japanese pink/Roman Porno took in the '70s... And also, some of the very early Japanese pink films were shown abroad, and even circulated, dubbed in the U.S. by that great schlock-meister Harry Novak... So how the influence went between the sexploitation industries between the two countries is subject for some interesting reading, I would think...
 * Self-consciously artsy-fartsy or political doesn't appeal to me either, and I've never cared much for Ōshima-- give me Imamura instead. He doesn't let the "message" get in the way of the film. I've never seen Gishiki, though I'm surprised it has no article here yet. (You wouldn't be trying to tempt me back, would you?) The only Ōshima film that really made an impression, of course, was In the Realm of the Senses. But then I was barely out of high school when I saw it, and easily impressed by such things... Ouch! But how much of the impression was due to the subject matter and how much to Ōshima's skill as a filmmaker, I don't know. I haven't seen it, but I've read that some critics consider Noboru Tanaka's more straight-forward pink-version, A Woman Called Sada Abe to be superior.
 * Pam Grier? Oh, man, did I have a high school crush on her. The Japanese equivalent to her work would be Meiko Kaji and the wild and wacky Toei pinky violence. I had one of her films on the other night, I'm laughing away like mad, the wife pokes her head out of the bedroom to see what all the ruckus is, sees Kaji running frantically through a downtown Tokyo crowd with a policeman's severed arm handcuffed to her wrist and flopping around behind her... My wife mutters, "Aiiiguuuu byeontae ya!" ("Jeez! What a perv!") and goes back to bed. She meant it in the best way, and affectionately, of course... At least I hope... Dekkappai (talk) 19:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

You're way ahead of me. I have heard of Russ Meyer (and of course taiyōzoku and ama), but none of the other names or titles. If there's a Japanese equivalent of Pam Grier movies, I certainly want to sample it: I'll look out for Kaji Meiko, and thank you for the tip.

Coffy is the best of the bunch of DVDs I have of films directed by Jack Hill. But all are good, not least for the informative and spirited running commentaries by Hill, among the best commentaries I've ever heard.

If you're into _____ploitation flicks (fill in the blank), I can give a tepid recommendation to something called Drive-In Cult Classics: 8 Movie Collection: eight movies on four discs for something like $6. The Teacher and The Stepmother are worth your time; the others only if you're rather desperate. Worst among them is Cindy and Donna, whose first twenty minutes (all I could put up with) is merely pornographic and a big yawn. As far as I know, none is even the most minor of cult films, let alone a cult classic. Each seems to have at least one scene in a hideous restaurant; there's a book waiting to be published (Taschen? Te Neues?) showing nightmare restaurants of the movies. -- Hoary (talk) 00:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey-- thanks for that "Drive-in Cult Classics" tepid recommendation. I've had my eye on it for a while, and wasn't sure if it was worth the $4.99 (Amazon) or $5.99 plus 20% discount coming up in November at DeepDiscount. (I plan my DVD-purchases around this semi-yearly sale). The Sasori / Scorpion series is a good place to start with Meiko Kaji-- there's a DVD box with three of those films here. Also, if you're interested in taking a look at some Korean cinema of this ilk, take a look at the Kim Ki-young article. I was able to bump it up to GA grade without yet having been able to see one of his films yet, but he's number one on my to-see list... Last I heard they were planning to put out a DVD box in Korea, but I'll have to search around for it. If you're in Japan, you might be able to hop a flight to Seoul, spend a day in the DVD marts asking, "Kim Ki-young yeonghwa isseoyo?" and then go out to a nice makkeolli-jip for dinner and drinks. Cheers! Dekkappai (talk) 14:43, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I should add that The Teacher is ridiculous, but good-fun ridiculous; and that The Stepmother is pretty crummy, but struck me as surprisingly Shakespearean in certain (extremely limited) ways. Or I think it was The Stepmother: the potted summaries on the back of the DVD box are so dependent on the original unscrupulous marketing that they only tenuously reflect the content of the actual films and so it's hard to be sure which is which. I'll order the Kaji trash collection the next time I order anything from 'Zon; but I'm going easy on purchases because while I've so far resisted the monster book about Sumiya, another used bookstore nearby had a similarly huge, lavish and wonderful production about the art of Kōya-san at 95% off the 28-year-old six-figure [!] price; this is consumerism gone bonkers as books are already piled on the floors here. -- Hoary (talk) 01:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Well-- good-fun ridiculousness & crumminess is the joy in this kind of cinema... Some critic I read equated these ultra-low-budget indie ~ploitation films with folk art. Not sure how far the analogy works, but it's something to think about... a little... Anyway, about the big sale I mentioned above (DeepDiscount)-- at the risk of getting banned for spamming (can they ban "retired" editors?), the sale is ON! and it's 25% this time. (Just enter "DVDTALK" in the code box at check-out time.) I just gave it a test run and see I can get all three volumes of the Drive-In Cult Classics (24 ridiculous/crummy movies) for a whopping $15.26. That's tempting even for a devout tightwad like myself :) I'll have to plan & calculate & bundle the purchase together with some romantic stuff for the wife, and some old cartoons (only the good stuff-- Woody Woodpecker, Tom & Jerry Popeye & the like) for the son. Wiki-wise-- I had another "upset" at a recent AfD, patched together two articles, saving them from Wiki-Purgatory... and now the blissfully AfD-free BP-server is back up and running, so I'll be hard at work on the Kimiko Matsuzaka-related research for a while. Tough work, but someone has to do it. :) Dekkappai (talk) 23:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The earliest "Popeye" shorts are superb. I have a DVD titled Popeye original classics that's worth a trip to "Thunderbean Animation".


 * What with all the money you're saving on sleaze DVDs and so on, can you run to a book or three that are unrelated to your main interest? Here's the first US-market book by a photographer whose article here I've put quite some work into. Get it if it looks interesting, skip it if it doesn't, but if it looks as if it might be interesting skip it and anyway don't make the mistake of instead ordering Heavy Light, most of which is devoted to the work of photographers who deserve their obscurity. Shows/books such as this are particularly frustrating as the fine work of somebody such as Nagano Shigeichi, still productive though well into his eighties, remains unknown in an inscrutable Occident that has seemingly concentrated virtually all its interest in either (a) one (admittedly important and often worthwhile) stream in photographic history here, deifying four or so people and giving demiurge status to half a dozen more, and (b) prettiness/gimmickry. (The (b) strain is in the spirit of the Kimura Ihei Award, many of whose recent recipients epitomize what's shallow and boring in Japanese photography -- a big change from earlier winners such as Kurata Seiji or of course Kimura Ihei himself.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, you stumped me there. I've got a bookworm's dream job (it involves "shush"ing people :), so feel free to recommend books. I'm usually able to get my hands on them with no harm to my bank account. Couldn't find anything right away on the people you mention above though... In the heat of the search, I found the information on Ken Domon‎ to be interesting, and noticed our article seemed to be pretty skimpy on sourcing, so I did a little work on it. Right, the early, Fleischer Popeye's are good stuff. I actually had my eye on the Mackinac DVD as well... Unfortunately, back in the early days of DVD, I got a public domain disk with most of the same stuff (except the extras) on that one... Though I do like Mackinac since they did that terrific "Fatty" Arbuckle collection a few years ago. I see it's out of print now, going for $170 used! But Popeye-wise, the one I was thinking about for my son is the "official" release... I'm still looking at their Cubby Bear set though... probably better get it before it goes out of print too... Dekkappai (talk) 20:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * It will be easy for me to spend your institution's money. For starters: Anne Wilkes Tucker, et al., The History of Japanese Photography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003; ISBN 0-300-09925-8); The Light with Its Harmony: Shinzo Fukuhara / Roso Fukuhara: Photographs 1913–1941 (Tokyo: Watari-um, 1992; ISBN 4-900398-17-9); Osamu Hiraki and Keiichi Takeuchi, Japan, a Self-Portrait: Photographs 1945–1964 (Paris: Flammarion, 2004; ISBN 2-08-030463-1); Kensuke Kazama, Kensuke Kazama Photographic Collection: Yubari (Sapporo: Jyuryousya, 2005; ISBN 4-902269-14-70); Deborah Klochko, ed., Modern Photography in Japan 1915–1940 (San Francisco: The Friends of Photography, 2001; ISBN 0-933286-74-0). All with English as well as Japanese. (Kazama's book, though excellent in all other respects, is poorly bound and will soon start to fall to bits, if this is an issue.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:27, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

A hip-hop barnstar? Now that's one I'd never in my wildest dreams think I'd get. Russian opera barnstar? Maybe. Blues barnstar? Slim possibility. Hip hop? Never. Thanks! About the book recommendations above-- I meant I've got access to them. We've got most of the books you name, so that would seem to be an indication that we're fairly on the ball with regards to Japanese photography. I noticed one called Setting Sun, intro by Anne Wilkes Tucker, writings by Ken Domon, Shomei Tomatsu, Shomei Tomatsu, Daido Moriyama, Seiji Kurata, Shoji Ueda, Ihei Kimura, and a host of others. Anyway, feel free to drop me a line if there's something you need looked up. On a side-note, and to get back to my AfD-phobia... I know absolutely nothing about photography, Japanese or otherwise, but I've got sourcing here. I always feel like, for these public people, there is bound to be sourcing out there somewhere, it just takes some effort to dig it up... And when we're deleting articles-- especially on non-U.S./English, or non-currently-popular subjects-- just because a small group of Wiki-editors haven't heard of it, and a quick Google search doesn't turn up anything obvious... Well, it just seems very wrong to me. Anyway, thanks again for the hip-hop-star! I'll wear it with pride! Dekkappai (talk) 04:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Dekkappai: And when we're deleting articles-- especially on non-U.S./English, or non-currently-popular subjects-- just because a small group of Wiki-editors haven't heard of it, and a quick Google search doesn't turn up anything obvious... Ain't that the truth. I've noticed every once in a while, I'll come across an AfD where rejection of "notability" seems to be based entirely on a feeble google search by (apparently) teenagers operating out of their mothers' living rooms who never heard of the words library, LexisNexis, Worldcat or JSTOR. Perhaps these are concepts that only librarians and academics understand. I don't know. In any case, I recently managed to rescue a few articles in which I had no interest whatsoever -- obscure movies, BLPs, books, etc. Since no one else was willing to re-write these articles, the challenge became stepping up to the plate and churning out NPOV material based on reliable sources I disagreed with. But hey, I do it because it's a relaxing hobby...don't we all? :-) J Readings (talk) 04:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, J Readings. Right-- that's what I was doing for a while, working on & saving articles in which I really had no interest, just because I hated to see them tossed out. Seemed too much like book-burning to me, I guess. So I wound up making a choice between either working in my areas of interest and closing my eyes to the needless deletions... Or else working on articles in which I'm not really interested, and neglecting my areas of interest-- the reason I came here in the first place. And then those saved articles would sometimes come up for deletion again... And then we come to the subject of images... We've got bots mis-tagging images constantly, just because they're not labeled correctly. Or maybe they're labeled correctly, but not in a format that the bot understands. And the bot can't do the simple job of fixing the description... so the image gets deleted. Without much effort, I'm sure I could track down half a dozen wrongly deleted images (public domain, or fair fair use-- e.g., film posters). For a while I was replacing those images, and then my images started getting tagged because the image description didn't conform to some bot's requirements... Makes one suspect that some old Greek myth-maker had a vision of Wiki-work... Dekkappai (talk) 04:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * With regards to images: A few quickies. Ray Harryhausen film (poster, I assume). 1915 Chaplin film (acceptable as fair use, but this is even Public Domain). Ditto 1921 Buster Keaton film. Godzilla movie poster... etc. Very discouraging... Dekkappai (talk) 05:05, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sigh. I see a new project in the works: putting back all the film posters deleted by a silly ImageRemovalBot. I've uploaded several film poster images and none so far (knock on wood) has ever been deleted. I suppose the reason is because I carefully filled out all the proper paper work. I just reverted this morning one example from a different bot on a Japanese politics page for reasons that made no sense to me even though I didn't upload the images myself. Bots can be strange beasts. J Readings (talk) 06:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, actually I think ImageRemovalBot is just the last step in this little Wiki-quadrille. I think the step are:
 * Unsuspecting, kind-hearted Wiki-rube uploads an image, doing his/her best to fit its description in with the Wiki-syntax of the day.
 * After an amount of time passes, and Wiki-syntax changes, a bot comes by, does not recognize the archaic language (i.e. English) in which "Fair use" or "Public Domain" are described at the image, and tags it as a bad image
 * Original Wiki-rube has given up on Wikipedia, and no one else is watching the image, so it gets deleted
 * ImageRemovalBot removes the deleted image from the article
 * New, unsuspecting, kind-hearted Wiki-rube notices article has no image, and uploads a new one (not realizing, at first, that s/he is duplicating someone else's now-deleted work)
 * Proceed back to Step 2, ad infinitum Dekkappai (talk) 19:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Your comments remind me a little bit about what Seth Finkelstein had to say in The Guardian about contributing to Wikipedia: "...the deepest lesson is what this tells us about the social dynamics driving participation in Wikipedia. Rhetoric about "peer production" often conjures up some alchemical process where collective action mystically transforms garbage into gold....The reality is much more mundane. Frequently, what is naively viewed as spontaneous generation is in fact the product of a relatively small number of people who have been induced to provide a huge amount of unpaid labour. The lifeblood of Wikipedia is selling heavy contributors a dream that their donated effort will give them the prestige of an academic. This is very clear in the Wikipedian's credo of 'writing an encyclopedia'. But all that'll happen is they will work for free, while elsewhere the Wikia investors will reap the rewards. But it's a powerful dream." Finkelstein makes a legitimate point, I think, but then again, I have no delusions about editing Wikipedia. I contribute to it because it's a relaxing hobby. The moment it stops being either relaxing or a hobby and starts turning into the kind of work my day-job entails, I'll find another hobby. I suspect that many of us will. It's inevitable.J Readings (talk) 00:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

We've got most of the books you name -- that's some institution you've got there. Right then, limiting myself to books that have ISBNs and enough English, here's a disparate bunch: Kimura Ihei in Paris: Photographs 1954–1955 (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun-sha, 2006; ISBN 4-02-250209-6); Masaru Tatsuki, Decotora (Tokyo: Little More, 2007 978-4-89815-218-8) [about decorated trucks; no text]; Nakaji Yasui: Photographer 1903–1942 (Tokyo: Kyodo News, 2004; ISBN 4-7641-0542-X); Yutaka Yamashita, Gunkan Apartments (Tokyo: Tosei-sha, 2008; ISBN 978-4-88773-082-3) [about a single residential building, very little text]; Hiroshi Watanabe, I See Angels Every Day (Tokyo: Mado-sha, 2007; ISBN 978-4-89625-085-5). You know your institution needs them more than it needs, um, the works of Tim LaHaye. &para; Information, well: I have perhaps half a dozen books of Domon's work scattered around the place and could look up more about him, but almost all of it is in Japanese and I'm too busy/lazy to do the job. -- Hoary (talk) 05:38, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't you know it-- I brag a little, and then strike out when you throw out a few titles. Nope, we don't have any of those. The only lead I see is one from Hiroshi Watatanabe called Amazing architecture from Japan (I assume this is your Hiroshi Watanabe-- there is/are (an)other/s(?) who write(s) on food and/or cancer.) Sorry I couldn't have been more help. Hope this doesn't mean my hip-hop-star gets revoked... Oh, if this is any compensation, we seem to have Tim LaHaye's complete oeuvre. :) Dekkappai (talk) 06:01, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That book by Watanabe doesn't ring a bell, and he's not known for architectural work -- though he is a professional, and I suppose would do what would pay. &para; No, I don't need access to any of these books -- and when I do, I'll pick my copies off my shelf. &para; Now, book-burning isn't my thing, but couldn't you put the complete oeuvre pauvre of LaHayvre into some, er, underground "storage facility"? I do think that my ideas on how to spend your institution's money are hugely superior to somebody's, though probably not yours. Get the books and you'll suddenly appreciate photos that don't depict what most interest you. Though there's not an absolute separation: I think it's this respectable photographer that has put out photo books that have, among much that's unrelated, candid snaps of pneumatic noodles. -- Hoary (talk) 06:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * My wife was curious about Christianity at first-- as some exotic religion-- but now, when spiritual matters arise, our house leans happily back to her native Buddhism... except for Easter bunnies, Halloween pumpkins, Christmas trees and all those other Biblical symbols of the religion of peace :-). Anyway, yes, our institution is a major one, but it's also a public one, so we provide our clientele with what it craves. No LaHaye bonfires here. On the other hand, if I were about to start a fine galbi barbecue at home, needed some kindling and I had a spare LaHaye or two lying around... who's to say what sort of "accidental" conflagration might arise... And our institution doesn't even offer any Taniguchi Miyabi books in way of compensation... Which reminds me, another editor asked me about a certain Japanese photographer here. I pointed him in your direction here, but he seems bashful. Ever hear of this "Momo"? (I know several models with that name, but have never heard of a photographer going by that moniker... though I tend to focus on the photographer's subject rather than the photographer's craft... Wiki-rube that I am.) Dekkappai (talk) 20:04, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I haven't a clue, sorry. If they regularly meet, perhaps Morbidthoughts could simply ask him for his URL the next time they meet. -- Hoary (talk) 09:05, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles
Hi - I posted the section with the same name on my talk page. Could you take part in discussion ?

User: Shotwell suggested (on my talk page) "I would endorse a WP:EXPERTADVICE page that outlined the wikipedia policies and goals for researchers in a way that enticed them to edit here in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps a well-maintained list of expert editors with institutional affiliation would facilitate this sort of highly informal review process. I don't think anyone would object to a well-maintained list of highly-qualified researchers with institutional affiliation (but then again, everyone seems to object to something)."

We could start with that if you would agree ... - could you help to push his idea through Wikipedia bureaucracy ? Apovolot (talk) 16:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

In my view people nominated as "expert reviewers" should be willing not to hide under the veil of anonymity. They should be able to demonstrate some level of the verifiable accomplishment / recognition in the domain of professional science. BTW, I do not see any reason why the anonymity of editors on Wikipedia is considered to be a "good thing". Above is my general opinion, so please don't take my statement personally. There is obviously a choice given for everyone in Wikipedia either to act "in open" or to hide behind meaningless assumed pseudonym and I accept this situation. BTW, I do understand current Wikipedia concept that in order to produce good Wikipedia science article, one does not need to be a professional scientist ... - that is fine with me ... But I propose to have (at least optionally) ability to review/qualify such article by the professional scientist. Cheers, Apovolot (talk) 15:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for telling me about this; let me think about it for a little and then I'll get back to you. -- Hoary (talk) 01:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Source for Get Your War On
Contact dr@mnftiu.cc and he'll tell you exactly what he told me, but if he won't post the names on his about page for me when I ask, then what chance do you have? --TIB (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Then the information is unusable. I have certain knowledge of a variety of facts that I don't put into the relevant WP articles because I don't have what en:WP calls reliable sources for them. -- Hoary (talk) 04:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Request move
The article Kabushiki kaisha should be moved to Kabushiki gaisha. There is no Kabushiki kaish entry on online ja dictionaries, 大辞泉 and 大辞林. Both dictionaries have a Kabushiki gaisha entry. . and. I tried to be bold and moved related two articles to gōdō gaisha and Yūgen gaisha, but couldn't move Kabushiki kaisha. If you agree with me, please move the article. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 15:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * An excellent suggestion and I'm glad to have been of help. -- Hoary (talk) 01:11, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much.(Smile) Oda Mari (talk) 05:18, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way...
Your "Step out of your rut" challenge at the Japan Project from eons ago finally bears fruit, in this appropriate month: November Steps‎. Dekkappai (talk) 18:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Yes, I've got crate-loads of vinyl-- Takemitsu among it-- in my garage too... Speaking of crates, a large shipment of some very seedy, ridiculous, but entertaining, I hope, sleaze-cinema arrived on the doorstep yesterday. Maybe I'll prop the portable DVD player on the dashboard and hook a couple of speakers on the windows to get the full drive-in effect. :) Dekkappai (talk) 14:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

More IP vandals to keep an eye on
Any chance of you keeping an eye on the Gary Stretch article? A couple of IPs are insistent up putting in unverified personal info on the living subject. It seems they are taking exception to his officially published DoB and therefore his current age. I've reverted several times now over the last week or so but they do seem stubborn so it's about time an admin was involved. Cheers. -- Web H amster  12:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Would appreciate your guidance
Hi

As a new wikipedian,I was keen to create two articles on a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Both are highly respected societies but I am trepidated to note that there has been some debate as to whether their members merit sufficient notability!!!To my way of thinking they do but I would welcome your advice as an adminsitrator (specially so from Chennai).

Regards

(RNaidu (talk) 07:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC))


 * I notice that you seem particularly interested in the work of Ashoka Jahnavi Prasad, and have commented on this at some length on your own talk page. -- Hoary (talk) 13:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I did look up the evidence on schizpophrenia but the person that I had in mind was Ashok Vijh,a very eminent scientists and a member of the Royal Society of Canada    who also headed section 3 and Roddam Narasimha a Chennai based scientist who is a member of the American Aacdemy of Arts and Sciences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RNaidu (talk • contribs) 07:22, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If these people are, say, chemists, then you may wish to ask people here who have specialist knowledge of chemistry. And likewise if they're geophysicists, etc etc. -- Hoary (talk) 14:00, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I note that this edit of yours to Hashimoto's thyroiditis also points to Prasad.


 * You may wish to reference the unreferenced article about Roddam Narasimha that already exists. -- Hoary (talk) 15:47, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Native Americans.
Dear Hoary,Regarding the Blood Quantam article. I believe you stated that an artist was deleted for not being a genetist? Fine, but at what level does one become a genetist? Advertising (if thats what it was) is wrong but a genuine attempt to solve a trick Biology problem is something else.Ron Broxted (talk) 16:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC).


 * I think you are referring to this.


 * One becomes a geneticist worth quoting when one has a tenured post in genetics at a real university -- one accredited by the expected authorities, and excluding "faith based" and other schools hawking pseudoscience and antiscience -- and has published a number of papers on genetics in peer-reviewed journals (again, excluding journals of pseudoscientific and other claptrap).


 * Anybody's welcome to solve problems in biology. It's imaginable that a non-biologist will solve some. If this happens, biologists will acknowledge it. -- Hoary (talk) 14:28, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Chris Bennett (photographer)

 * 'Thanks for your comment, I'll note the point about Amazon etc. I've added a couple of links on being 'official photographer' but my research has pointed to the fact that this article is in fact a direct copyvio of and so should be speedy deleted, what do you think? Regards Paste Talk 08:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, and thanks for the note.


 * I'm afraid that you've got it the wrong way around. Bookrags.com/wiki is just one of a number of commercial scrapes of Wikipedia (as is permitted via GFDL). It's rather out of date, which is why it differs. If you wonder about this, just find any far-fetched Wikipedia article (one that you'd never have thought would exist) that has been around some time, and look it up at bookrags.com/wiki: you'll find it. -- Hoary (talk) 12:22, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, so I understand, another contributor pointed out my lack of observation as it clearly states the point about Wikipedia at the bottom of the article. Sorry to have bothered you. Paste Talk 12:50, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Please don't apologize; I'm pretty sure that once, years ago, I made just the same misunderstanding; and if I didn't, then many other people have.

What's creepy is when you find that your user page has been mirrored by some company. Although mirroring it is legal, it's pointless; and a disproportionate number of companies that don't give a shit about anything aside from affixing their ad to as many pages as possible are of course spammers. So the last time I looked, my user page, like everybody else's, was being used by a "Canadian" (Northern Cypriot?) company to hawk "drugs" (neatly packaged crushed chalk?) to flabby, sick and of course flaccid US-Americans. Ugh! Luckily Google seems to delete links to these outfits when they come to its notice. -- Hoary (talk) 13:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Brad Cohen
Close enough? As you can see in the edit history, a redlink wrote the article, and although I had already given the book away, I had read it and knew it all to be accurate (also have met Brad at conferences) so have cleaned it up and cited the best I could. If it needs more, I can try to re-buy the book tomorrow, but local B&N doesn't stock it. Anything else glaring? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 01:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * add inline, kinda hard to cite an article over edit conflicts. You're right. Sorry about that. Over and out for quite some time; the article is all yours.


 * Glaring, no; the article previously had an odor of mild hagiography about it but now doesn't. -- Hoary (talk) 02:01, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Re, motivational speakers, yes, "my" culture manages to pathologicize and label everything and has a need for speakers on motivation ... I remember moving back to the U.S. and first hearing the term "eating disorder" and thinking it terribly American at the time :-) I couldn't imagine such a thing existed or that my compatriots had named it. That was then, and then is now :-) But I have to say that my husband and I looked at each other in amazement when we first heard that term here, and we even laughed. Do you think it's OK now?  I tried to clean it up long ago (look at what the redlink left), but without the book, it wasn't easy.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 02:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)


 * If I were to give my true opinion on that earlier version it might "out" me as a believer in the notion that WP is the encyclopedia that great swathes of people should not edit, and also as a would be writer of WP:TIMID, so I'd better not give my true opinion.


 * As for real-world issue, get yourself a copy of this, pronto (prices via abebooks.com start at one measly buck); read it and weep and laugh. If you like it, then later try this, whose miscategorization in en:WP as "New Age texts" is as blackly hilarious as the book itself; NB although the book starts off funny it becomes very black indeed, and (to its credit) not funny at all. Early this year there was also some other well-reviewed, rather-well-seller on the subject of the moronicization of the American mind; I forget the author's name (woman, starts with J?) and title, but the hardback has a red dust cover -- it's underinformed and rather awful; don't waste your time or money on it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC) ..... PS I was and am thinking of Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason. Hoary (talk) 07:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

In its top page, Cohen's publisher describes its wares: VanderWyk & Burnham publishes books that celebrate those small and large triumphs that evolve from the power in each of us to transcend life's rough spots and to shine in some way. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll return to my copy of Freedman, Pisani and Purves, Statistics, 1st ed. (as recommended in McCloskey and Ziliak, The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives: food for the brain. -- Hoary (talk) 15:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

...dreaming of a pinku Christmas...
Hi Hoary. In light of our previous discussion, I thought you might be interested in looking at an interview with the author of the pinku eiga book. It was due to be released by now, but has been postponed... The table of contents is both encouraging and tantalizing. Encouraging because it appears to verify the mini-pinku history I've been piecing together from odd bits and scraps here over the years. Tantalizing because of the bits I know nothing about yet-- "Koji Seki's legendary female Tarzan films?" I know the name of the director and some of his films, but can't wait to get some info on those female Tarzans! "Chapter 11: Eros International" is also very intriguing, and I hope it touches on how these films were part of an international b-film movement in the early days. I know many of these films were circulated in the U.S. in the '60s and '70s, but damned if I can find any evidence of it, other than a few ancient newspaper clippings, and a few passing mentions in histories of sleaze-cinema... Dekkappai (talk) 00:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Mm, maybe I'll try to see a copy. Perhaps the author's enthusiasm will be infectious. Though I really should see at least one of these erotic and arguably artistic films first. I had a three-pack in my amazon shopping cart, but when the latter got too expensively weighed down with books, I kept the former for later. Then again perhaps I'd enjoy the book more without any reference to the films: certainly I've enjoyed reading a couple of books about schlocksploitation films while not wanting to see the films and even being rather glad not to have seen them. -- Hoary (talk) 08:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Right-- I'm not pushing the book-- I haven't even seen it myself-- but, certainly, reading about this kind of thing can be as entertaining, if not more, as seeing the actual films. I was lucky to grow up in an area with lots of Japanese pop-culture outlets, and got to see some of the Roman porno and pinku stuff on first run. Without having much of an idea of what I was seeing, I was struck by the eccentric artistry put into many of these films (though, obviously, the majority were just cheapo quickies). So it will be very satisfying to finally get to read (in English) about this very large sub-strata of Japanese cinema. (I'm puzzled by the mention in the interview that pinku has already been covered "exhaustively"-- I have the Weisser book, which, though containing many errors, is a valuable film-guide-style first-coverage to the genre, but know of no other large work in English...) I never had more than a "so-bad-it's-good"/Plan 9 from Outer Space appreciation of the U.S. exploitation scene until I was in Korea for a year with nothing to read in English except for the local English-language news and a copy of Incredibly Strange Films. The enthusiasm of the writers inspired later viewings of the films with some background knowledge and understanding that I would not have otherwise had. Dekkappai (talk) 22:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, there's even an article on that book. For some reason, I have a copy of both it and its British version. Yes, I had it in mind when I was writing earlier. I presume it's one of Doris Wishman's opuscules that fuels a character's wrist in a memorable scene within Serial Mom (a movie stuffed with memorable scenes and highly recommended), but if so then that's quite enough of the pendulous "Chesty Morgan" for me: I greatly enjoy reading about Wishman's work without wanting to waste my time watching more than a few seconds of any. I don't have a copy of the book to hand right now, but I think that it talks favorably of Black Caesar or some similarly titled blaxploitation pic and that this was what impelled me to buy the DVD, which lived up to my hopes. (I have quite a stack of blaxploitation but unfortunately they either bore or repel the missus.) &para; Oi, 'Ppai, what's all this: this very large sub-strata of Japanese cinema? My inner prescriptivist notes that it's not just your man's enthusiasm that's infectious, it's his dodgy morphology too. If there's only one, it's a sub-stratum, please! -- Hoary (talk) 00:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry, Hoary. "Sub-strata?" Man, is my face pinku, or what? I just wonder what Mme Morgan's career would have been like had she been in the firm and competent hands of, say, Masaru Konuma, or Teruo Ishii... Fellini directed her once, you know. Now there's a guy who wouldn't screw up his Latin plurals. I too have yet to sufficiently brace myself for a plunge into Wishman's oeuvre, though I've read quite a bit about it... Dekkappai (talk) 00:32, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Request move again
Hi, Hoary! Please move Oda Sakunosuke to Sakunosuke Oda per Mos ja. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 04:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have dutifully put Oda's name the wrong way around, just as I have put lots of photographers' names the wrong way around, in order to follow MoS-ja's stern and stupid instruction to follow the conventions of the middle-brow anglophone press. &para; I really like Oda's work, and I think the least an encyclopedia worth the name can do is to get his name right. ja:WP is rather awful in many ways, but note that it has ウラジーミル・ナボコフ, not "ナボコフ・ウラジーミル". -- Hoary (talk) 14:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. MoS-ja might be stupid, but it's comfortable in a way that I do not have to think what to do. You know this? I added Meoto Zenzai to the article. Chesty Morgan! Ha! Men! Oda Mari (talk) 15:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Men! Yes indeed: think fish and bicycles. &para; Even less to think about if all Japanese names were in Japanese order. I've started to deal with a great number of photographers, year of birth unknown, who were active during 明治; shall I leave their names as they are, or invert them? Yale UP (for one) would leave them all in the Japanese order; is this really too shocking for en:WP's deeply conservative readers? -- Hoary (talk) 16:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

As for the name order, いいかげんな日本人としては、どっちでもいい. Maybe because of the accent, but it's difficult to say Japanese names in Japanese order in English conversation. I think the most suitable word for C.M. in Japanese might be エロ、グロ、ナンセンス. Oda Mari (talk) 19:04, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * If I may butt in, Mari Oda... Chesty Morgan? It was Hoary who brough her name up, not moi! I would never dream of debasing this forum with anything so vulgar. Although there is a Kimiko Matsuzaka translation question I've been dying to ask a native speaker for years... . Respectfully, Ppai Dekka (talk) 19:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It's always been easy for me to say Japanese names in Japanese order in English conversation. As for C.M., I know little about her (really, I saw her for a few seconds on a TV screen within another movie); but yes, in Japanese グロ、ナンセンス seems apt. (エロ, not.) -- Hoary (talk) 15:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you want to know, Dekkappai? Oda Mari (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for offering, Oda Mari :)... I've always been afraid this question would be so blisteringly offensive I'd be forever Wiki-banned from any Japan-related areas... And it seems that no matter how fluent the non-native speaker is, they don't have the answer... Anyway. The lovely Ms. Matsuzaka's video debut was an opus entitled でっか～いの、めっけ! The "Dekka~i no," I get, of course. But Mekke?... Dekkappai (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha ha! There's nothing offensive in the word. It means 'I found it!'. It's a kind of children's colloquial language. Example: when you are 'it' at playing hide-and-seek, you cry 'mekke!' when you locate a player. But it is not necessarily used in the game, though. 'Mikke' is a similar word too. The word comes from 'mitsuketa'. There's a noun 'mekke mono' and it means serendipity. See these dic. pages. and. 'Dekka~i no' in this case sounds like a childish way of speaking. When a native speaker see the title, s/he would think of a child saying the title with a sing-like intonation. Ask me anything, when you have any question. Happy editing! But where is the owner of this page? Oda Mari (talk) 05:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The sound changes this way: mitsuketa→miiiiitsuketa→miiiiiketa→mikke→mekke. Oda Mari (talk) 06:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah! That also explains why Ms. Matsuzaka was seen holding her lower eyelid down and sticking her tongue out in some of the advertising. Oda Mari, you've just answered a question that has been puzzling me for nearly 20 years! Thank you very much! Maybe you can help with another problem-- You mention エロ、グロ、ナンセンス above, and the Ero Guro article is in quite bad shape. I'd like to work on it, but have no sourcing... Do you know of any good online sources? If you read the conversation at Talk:Ero_guro, you'll see I have a couple English sources. The Ian Buruma chapter turned out to be a big disappointment-- he uses the term as the chapter title, but it only describes the social atmosphere of Japan in the 1920s, not the Ero guro movement. It's actually a very interesting chapter, but no help for the article... I'm still holding out hopes for this book, which I should have in a couple weeks. Dekkappai (talk) 06:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Was ero guro nansensu a "movement"? I hadn't thought so. I could be entirely wrong, but I'd thought of it as a congeries of tendencies that might somehow result from and express disillusionment, etc but that would hardly be used for anything. I remember noting the appearance of this book about it, but various things about a review I read alarmed me. As I look at the Amazon page, I note in particular the claim that the book makes innovative use of the principle of montage to generate informative historical readings of Japan's myriad mass cultural phenomena. This alarms me: I don't know what "historical readings" of phenomena would be, and the phrase sounds to me like an attempt to back off from actual explanation or description and to aggrandize the result. I also find it hard to see how "the principle of montage" can generate description or explanation worth reading: I'd prefer evidence and argument. I used to think that the university presses of major universities could be relied upon for solid books, but I've encountered some horrors. I hope I'm far too pessimistic about this book. -- Hoary (talk) 15:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Was it a "movement"? I'm not sure. I've known the expression for a long time-- in connection with Ishii Teruo, Edogawa Rampo, Abe Sada and a few other odd mentions-- but I'm not really sure what all it is either, other than one of those many mysterious, intriguing subjects about Korea and/or Japan which have been a life-long fascination for me. :) ... University press horrors? Yes, I've encountered a few. Alrms go off here too when I read the above. But as long as the book has some hard facts, no matter how they're slopped together, it will be useful as a source... Let's hope it does have hard facts... One university press horror I checked is being used to "source" a contentious issue at the Misora Hibari page. I checked it, and the author just makes a bold claim, backing it up with absolutely nothing but his personal statement... But there it is, enshrined in a university press publication, so now it's a "source", I guess. Dekkappai (talk) 17:02, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me now... It wouldn't surprise me if Tanizaki were associated in some way with ero guro. I'll look into books on him later for mention of it. Dekkappai (talk) 01:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've just looked at the MH article and seen references to several university press publications that include one that has the sort of title that's often given to mixtures of namedropping, obscurantism and fantasy. Now that the Freudian edifice is utterly discredited as pseudoscience and therapeutically worthless, universities continue to propagate this tosh (as "hermeneutics" or whatever) with reference to pop culture and so forth if not the psyches of people who actually need therapy. Academic "cultural studies" can be good on occasion but in general are dismally bad (Michael Schudson has written a fine, enjoyable paper [PDF] demolishing a "classic" in the field). And then you have "queer studies" and the rest. And university presses have trees destroyed so that this stuff can gather dust on shelves or, worse, be read. Sometimes the titles are giveaways. What we need is a scoring set that does for ostensibly academic publications what Spamassassin does to incoming mail: I'd start by affixing black marks to anything whose title or series title has arch parentheses ("(en)gendering") or slashes, any mention of "transgressive" or (in the homosexual sense) "queer" (of course, transgressing and homosexuality themselves are fine; my beef is with subnormal thinking), or announces itself as a "postmodern" anything, particularly a "postmodern intervention". And of course any paper or book whose leitmotif is the impossibility of saying anything coherent on the subject; the author is either (a) a liar or (b) sincere and in need of a career change to hamburger flipping, chicken sexing or whatever. -- Hoary (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

The word has been puzzling you for nearly 20 years! OK. I try to find online sources on エロ、グロ. But it looks difficult. I've got to go now. Please wait for a while. Oda Mari (talk) 07:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks again-- no rush, Oda Mari, take your time. I'm not as active here as I used to be, so it'll take forever for me to get to work on the article anyway. Right-- 20 years!-- I'm a first-generation Matsuzaka fan, and that video was released in Februrary 1989. Dekkappai (talk) 14:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

As expected, it was very difficult. All I could find was fragmentary information. Hoary is right. Ero gro nonsense is not a movement. The Japanese pages I saw used the word 世相/sesō/signs of the times. And It was a buzz word of 1930. See and. Yumeno Kyūsaku is one of 'ero gro nonsense' authors. I think Tanizaki is not one of them. He is categorized as 耽美派/aestheticism. This book might be helpful. Oda Mari (talk) 18:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, Oda Mari. I'll look through those sources and use what I can in the article. (Be prepared for some translation questions :-) Actually, as I suspected, Tanizaki's early writings are considered by some to have anticipated the ero guro style. And apparently he was an influence on Edogawa Rampo. This paper by a Japanese author on Tanizaki as a cultural critic, for example has headings such as "TANIZAKI and ero guro nansensu" and "The Origins of ero guro nansensu". By the time the style was in full bloom though, Tanizaki had moved to Kyoto and changed his own style. So he might deserve passing mention in the article. Yes, I'm also finding that ero guro is more a style/zeitgeist than a real Movement. World Cat lists several books in Japanese on the subject and one book in Korean. The latter intrigues me very much, as I'd like to know how the style worked with Korean literature/humor/aesthetics during the period of occupation, and whether there was any influence back and forth between the countries with regards to this style. I suspect it would make very interesting reading. Anyway, now that I've just about wrapped up work for now on the kamikaze porn actor article, I'll have time to look into ero guro. Thanks again! Dekkappai (talk) 18:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

In reply to your bilious expulsion above (or whatever you termed it-- "dodgy morphology" is my middle name), I came across these two gems on Peter Greenaway: Peter Greenaway's postmodern/poststructuralist cinema, and Peter Greenaway's post-cinematic art-world : toward a postmodern ecological critical theory. The movement I'm waiting for is Post-pseudo-intellectual-head-up-one's-ass-ism... Dekkappai (talk) 21:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * To think that trees die and the planet heats in order that such tosh can be produced and then gather dust on library shelves. Oh well, few copies are printed: a mere molehill of dead trees beside the mountain that go on, say, examinations of the purchases and pregnancies of the slebs. -- Hoary (talk) 23:49, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hiroshima 1958
Hi Hoary! I guess you might be interested in the news about Emmanuelle Riva and her photographs. , and. Oda Mari (talk) 16:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads-up, Mari! Decades ago, I saw and was sporadically fascinated by H m a, which led to a period of great interest in the works of Duras, which ended when I realized that they were all pretty much the same and also rather trite under their portentious surfaces. In general I take a dim view of photograph collections by celebs, but I do know that some celebs (notably the wonderfully named Gina Lollobrigida) have done excellent work. Unfortunately your tip arrives just after a massive photo-book-buying spree; I do still have some money left over, but I don't have any space. Still, I'll pop into Aoyama Book Center sometime soon and take a look. &para; The stars among my recent purchases are Crash Burn Love: Demolition Derby: Photographs and Essays by Bill Lowenburg (Back Street Books, 2005, ISBN 0-9766535-1-6 or ISBN 0-9766535-0-8), and 長野重一、『遠い視線 玄冬』(蒼穹舎, 2008, no ISBN). As you may guess, they have little in common with each other. Judging from hints on the relevant amazon.com page, the former may be going out of print soon; the latter seems to be a small edition. If you're adventurous, get one or the other or both; I can assure you that both are way more rewarding than this or that fashionable form of prettiness that annually wins 木村伊兵衛賞. &para; As for 1950s photos of provincial Japanese cities, I like the work of the Nagoya-based 臼井薫; he gets polite mentions in the expected anthologies but never seems to be much celebrated, which in turn means that used copies of his books can be picked up very cheaply at Yahoo auction. -- Hoary (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: Donations (on Jimbo's talk page)
Please assume good faith.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  11:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Or maybe I assume too much sometimes, or I'm just really tired right now. Self-reverted.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  11:16, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Ero-guro-nansensu
Hi, Hoary (and Oda Mari, if you're watching :) I got the Ero Guro book, and browsed through it for about half an hour last night... It's very interesting, has a lot of interesting information and insights on Japanese society and culture in the period before and after 1930... but as to what IS ero guro nansensu? I still don't really know... The author goes into some detail in how the erotic was fashionable in those years, and how the grotesque was fashionable, and then how the nonsensical was fashionable... All very interesting topics... And there are a few interesting photos of the period illustrating all three styles in the popular media and in society at large... Some very interesting information on a Moga and Mobo social-satire comic of the time I knew nothing about-- I was familiar with the Moga through Tanizaki's Chjin no ai... But is that what ero guro is? Three separate strains of interest in Japanese popular culture of that period? A sort of decadent anti-political zeitgeist that was taken over by the nationalism/militarism of the war years? I'm scratching my head over how all this can be used in the article... except as a "Further reading" source just to show that the topic is the subject of a reliable secondary source, in order to fend off deletion :( Dekkappai (talk) 21:25, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If you've already got into the book, you already know far more than I do about the subject; but for what little it's worth, my impression is that one would have to qualify even as simple a claim as that the nonsensical was fashionable. I think that this wasn't nonsense in the sense of Lear, Carroll or Sokal, but rather a gleeful and at the time shocking (though in hindsight tame) rejection of cultural norms. But don't take my word for it. -- Hoary (talk) 10:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, yes... a general sort of anti-political, anti-status quo, rebellious feeling seems to be the unifying thread between all three components... But the nonsense did include a fad for Hollywood slapstick-- this was the era when "roido" glasses, from Harold Lloyd, became so fashionable in Japan. I haven't read it, but this might have included Lear and/or Carroll-type nonsense (though I'm not sure how well those particular authors translate, culturally and linguistically)... Dekkappai (talk) 16:22, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * (E.C.)Hi! I'm watching. Of course you see the article Modern girl, don't you? It seems to me that the period in Japan somewhat like that of Germany. It reminds me Cabaret (film). I'm wondering who started to use the word. Oda Mari (talk) 16:30, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, exactly-- In his chapter on the era, Ian Buruma makes the comparison to the culture and spirit of the Weimar Republic. Dekkappai (talk) 19:33, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Steerage, etc.
You're so right - "trivia" is a bad header. Thanks for changing this. Also, since I'm still relatively new I need your advice about how to upload copies of some of Stieglitz's photos. There are many of his photos of O'Keeffe and other Equivalents I would like to add but which are not in the public domain. The 'fair use' tag seems vague, but I see it applied in circumstances that seem similar. Please take a look at the photo I uploaded under Equivalents and see if what I've done there is acceptable. Lexaxis7 (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm far from being the expert you're looking for as I'm an image ignoramus -- even in order to post little pictures of beer mugs I must copy an existing example and change the text -- and have never posted anything to "Commons". However, I inexpertly think that you've screwed up here, I'm sorry to say. Commons is for stuff that's either public domain or GFDL. This image is neither, and thus will rightly be deleted from there. It's unlikely that you'll catch any flak from this, but if you want to play paranoid you could always post a comment there with a word of apology for getting it wrong. (Although, as I know so little about Commons, it may be me who's got everything wrong. I'll continue on the dodgy assumption that I have some understanding of this.) Right then, what's the minimum amount of illustration that will suffice for the Illustrations article? A strict interpretation (which is what you often find) of the "fair use" loophole says that this amount is all that it should get. Upload the jpegs to en:Wikipedia (not to Commons) at no greater size than what will appear in the article itself (max dimension 200 pixels?) and with the fair use [I was going to write "FU", but hmmm] stuff that you used before, and all should be OK. -- Hoary (talk) 03:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, now I see the light (so to speak)! This is the clarification I could never find in any of the help files. Thanks. I'll undo my error and reload to en:Wikipedia. Lexaxis7 (talk) 22:39, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Howdy
Thanks for your editing suggestions, but how 'bout this intriguing assertion by an experienced editor : It is not a good idea to try to advance science through the use of reason and rational argumentation. Found here. Pinkville (talk) 02:42, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd like to think that the "not" was merely a typo. As you'll have seen, I made the mistake of wading in. (For minor bizarreness, how about this?) -- Hoary (talk) 07:06, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

If I left a message, if you left a message, blah blah blah
Can you AfD this? Isn't that what I used to accuse you of, being the AfD King? If not, and you remember who I slaundered with that accusation, feel free to pass this post on. The references are all blogs. They can put it back up when they get some real references, or you can do what I accuse every one of: using AfD to find references! And blame it on me--after all, no one will take the word of an admin over a real editor.

Surprise surprise, one of the blogs has a user name in common with User:Coaster420, who's currently doing original research on pictures of his favorite mary-jane. I would post a picture of my favorite Mary Jane, but there is not a single one in black patent leather. Good golly.

I hate editors who use Wikipedia to advertise. Everyone else who isn't rich has to pay to advertise on the web! --KP Botany (talk) 09:27, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Mary jane schmary jane: I've just done something involving less ruth than AfD. -- Hoary (talk) 00:43, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --KP Botany (talk) 02:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Anything else for destruction? -- Hoary (talk) 04:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)