User talk:Almost-instinct/Archive 1

On Being New
Experienced Wikipedians please comment here on anything on my user page. Almost-instinct (talk) 14:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * So welcome. That's a nice way to introduce yourself to Wiki. I certainly don't consider myself an experienced editor but, as you'll have seen from my User page (cough), I have been involved in editing for some time and have had experience of what the community has established as the Featured Article criteria - i.e. the very best work we can showcase. It aint always fun and people can get waaaay too serious on here but it's also pretty satisfying adding little bits of your own content and knowledge for posterity. Humour does hide out on here in some places BTW. Granted the signature articles around history, politics and science will be pretty grey and neutral however the much larger (and active) fan-driven pages for popular culture items are much lighter - er, Fighting Talk excepted ;) - such as episode precis for The Simpsons, or character profiles for Family Guy etc. As for learning Wiki etiquette, I think it's pretty much a case of blundering around until someone points you to a policy - it seems there's one for everything on here. My advice would be: don't get defensive if someone tells you you're doing the wrong thing, just go and read the policy they're talking about and, if you don't agree with what it says, discuss changing it at that policy's Talk page. It should be a dynamic project after all, with "rules" established by consensus. You're registered now which is a much better way of making yourself heard. Once again, welcome and happy editing. Cheers Dick G (talk) 23:34, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

English Art Song
Good, yes, thanks for the input. Those of us who have used the recmusic web site know how valuable it is, but not everyone is that familiar with it. I'll improve the description for it where I have it linked. Mugregg (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)Mugregg

WP:Bio
Hi. Am pretty sure it goes against the policies relating to bios of living people. I don't think it's strong enough to be regarded as libelous but it's plainly a dumb edit by a schoolkid. I wouldn't to bother citing policy in the revert as it looks like a one-off. Cheers Dick G (talk) 22:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio
Hey again! You should check out this page Copyright problems. Think it's best to point you to the policy page so you can have a look round yourself - not least since some of these 'rules' are pretty arbitrary and warrant a bit of individual thought. I tend to be a bit more relaxed about some of the things on here as a lot (er, most) of it is written from a US perspective and hence tends to be a bit paranoid about litigation. Truth is, some of the 'violated' authors of more obscure content are more likely to be grateful for the exposure than get worked up and sue Wiki! Cheers Dick G (talk) 10:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Image
I have not been through Radford recently when I had my camera with me, but I still plan to get a more pictures of Radford park - there is one on the "Radford, Coventry" page. I did not know about the former residence of PL at that time, but I will look to see if there is a plaque on a house near there. Are you happy about putting in more work to make separate pages on his works? I do not known much about PL at the present time and I can not add much myself. I guess that Red might be able to concentrate on the PL page more, after a FAC (for Featured Article status) that he and others have been working on is over. Snowman (talk) 14:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm quite content putting in all the spadework: I'm not involved in any other pages in a serious way. The information is all to hand, so it won't be much trouble. I've created the List of poems by Philip Larkin page. I think I've got the wrong banner up, so feel free to put up something more suitable. Could you please create the table you mention on the Larkin talk page, if that doesn't take long? Tomorrow evening I'll be able to sit down with the books and put in all the info.  Almost - instinct 15:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I have made a framework for the table, which can be further adapted to suite the information. Reference 3 refers to his garden being left to the people of Coventry in his Will, but can you confirm this from another source too. Was his house in Holland Road or Poultney Road? Snowman (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This webpage reports that he lived at 72 Coten End, Warwick, Warwickshire in the 1940s. Can you confirm this? Snowman (talk) 20:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * My memory is that his parents moved to Coton End after he had moved out of Coventry, but I'll get an exact reference to this. I had always got the impression that he had no employment between leaving Oxford University and going to Wellington, but I'll look that up too just to be certain. The material in Ref 3 was totally news to me, so I'll dig up what I can. Could you pls advise what is the correct way of expressing the dates in the table you set up? For as good as all of his poems we have an exact date of completion so I figure its worth giving that. I haven't yet got to grips with the ways of inputting dates on WP. Or can this table only cope with years, not months and days?  Almost - instinct  22:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * PS I've found a format that will arrange it correctly when you click on the date button, but is there a way of inputting the info which will then bring up the info as eg "01 May 1955" style- or are we stuck with the rather brutal - if precise - "1955-05-01" style?  Almost - instinct  23:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * year-month-day will sort correctly when expressed as numbers. But as words the months are not spelled in alphabetical sequence, so they will not sort. Perhaps year-month-day can be at the heading of the column. Will each book need a separate table making the third column unnecessary, and if so, can something else go in the third col? I could probably get the Coton End photo. There is a preserved garden near Radford Common, and so it must be the one he gave to Cov City Council.  It has some tall trees and a lawn. I think his house overlooked it, and at the present time I do not know which one it is, and I can only guess. It could be Holland Road or Poultney Road. I think that the garden is mostly alongside Poultney Road (hence ref 3), but the house may be on Holland Road. I think he had a few lines in a poem about this garden.  He also wrote about a hospital in Hull, and I do not know much about Hull. Snowman (talk) 23:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The poem The Building from High Windows is about Hull Royal Infirmary, which is about 8 or 9 storeys high and one of the most striking buildings in the Hull skyline. The poem starts "Higher than the handsomest hotel" and is definitely notable in his output, being part of the handful of death-themed long poems he wrote towards the end of his career. A picture would be apt. I'll put an explantion of the date format into the table. I think the choice of columns is right: people will want to be able to locate poems, so a complete alphabetical list with the original source is will be useful, I feel. I'll do what I can to find out about Radford: will report back tomorrow evening  Almost - instinct 23:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The wiki page on "Hull Royal Infirmary" has a photograph, but local knowledge is needed to say if it is the right building or a replacement. It is where he died? I understand that there are two hospitals in Hull. Snowman (talk) 17:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes there are two hospitals. He died in the other hospital, the private Nuffield.
 * His home until age 5 was 2 Poultney Road, Radford, a council house.
 * His parents moved from Manor Road to Coten End, Warwick in June 1941, after he had started at university. So he spent the summer vacations at the end of each of his three years of being student there.
 * The job he had in the Fuel Office was just for a month, in the summer vacation of 1942, as a kind of work experience/national service
 * IMO this short episode isn't really notable, though no doubt the people of Warwick are proud that PL was miserable in their city as well. A photo the public library in Wellington, on the other hand...  Almost - instinct 18:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that ones first gainful work is significant. I think that it would be useful to mention that with a short section on Coten End, and hopefully a photograph. Snowman (talk) 21:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * PS That picture of the Hull Royal Infirmary is the one that Larkin wrote "The Building" about, all right. He was treated there in 1972.  Almost - instinct 18:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Two (not so little) answers
1. Well, there's no harm done if you do raise questions about specific articles on a Project's Talk page, but I think that I'd only do that if I'd previously tried the article's Talk page and not had an answer within a week or so. As you'll perhaps notice, the Project pages are mostly used either for Project matters (tagging articles, Composer/Singer of the month, assessment, format of articles) or to draw attention to articles for one reason or another (proposed deletions, FA pushes, articles required but not present, articles created that might benefit from a second pair of eyes). I can only speak for the Opera Project and WP:YORKS.

As for watchlists, I have no idea what other people do, but I add pages to my watchlist if I have a particular interest in them or if I created them or (more often than not) edited them. So I currently have 1,448 pages on my watchlist and, guess what, one of them is Josephine Barstow whom I've seen lots of times on stage, latterly at Opera North - I added quite a bit to the article if you look at the history, including the link to Scott Smith's site. Some years ago, I supplied Scott with all of her roles that I knew about. He used to live in Newcastle and came down to Leeds to see a dress rehearsal of Cherubini's Médée with me - he was very impressed by Barstow's dramatic qualities (as I've always been), though the voice was in decline then, and started the page on his site. More information than you need to know!

2. Feel free to do whatever you like to the article - a lot of singer articles are much more detailed than this one (see Joyce DiDonato, for instance). As it's on my watchlist, I can see what you're doing. Something more structured sounds like a good idea - I just bolted my bits onto what was already there, but a fresh eye is (almost) always a good thing - WP:BOLD! Do you have a particular interest in Barstow (as well as in the Sage of Hull with his "carefully-nurtured sense of failure")? Best. --GuillaumeTell 10:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * A couple of replies to your reply. I have the Karajan/Barstow Ballo on CD and she's rather disappointing - her rather scrawny sound isn't what I require and her "Consentimi o Signore" in the Ulrica scene is disappointing.  Maybe I should seek out the DVD.  I entirely agree about the Kostelnicka - she was mesmerising.  In those performances, the Grandmother was Pauline Tinsley, who was a mesmerising Kostelnicka herself with WNO when Barstow was the Jenufa.  I gather that the other must-see Barstow DVD is a Glyndebourne Macbeth with the late Kostas Paskalis.  It's quite old and may even be in B&W, but it always gets good reports.  Also the recentish TV film of Gloriana, although, alas, it's not the complete opera.


 * The Larkin article looks good. I've been a fan since the 60s.  A friend lived near him in Pearson Park;  when he was introduced to PL in the Hull SCR and revealed this, he was asked "which floor are you on?"  My friend: "Ground floor".  Larkin: "Mould will grow on your shoes."  BTW, the sense of failure quote was from A Alvarez, possibly an intro to a discussion of 60s poets, if you want to use it and can find it. --GuillaumeTell 21:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Welcome
--Harkey (talk) 18:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

London Meet
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it's not worth the 12,000 mile trip and the airfare I don't think (am currently in Oz)! Do please let me know if anything comes out of the get-together. Cheers. P.S. You seem well and truly wiki-converted... :) Dick G (talk) 04:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Totally agree with your sentiments. I put a great deal of energy in getting Wormshill to FAC and that was out of local pride and a love for the area I grew up in. I spent some time fleshing out stubs for surrounding villages and other local places of interest too but since then I really haven't been able to recapture my enthusiasm for other subjects and my edit count has fallen to keeping an eye on my watchlist. I'd love to devote more time to James Cook but it's a huge undertaking.Dick G (talk) 23:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for stopping by James Cook. Considering the breadth of his and his crews' experiences on three voyages it really seems low in detail and citations. Ideally each voyage would have its own article. But that's by-the-by. Thanks again and I hope I countinue to see you around the place. Cheers Dick G (talk) 10:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Alvarez
No sign of a copy of AA's The New Poetry I'm afraid - activate Plan B and then we can rejoice when the little book inevitably surfaces again. Bob aka Linuxlad (talk) 07:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Just tagging along here under an appropriate heading - I was in Leeds yesterday and looked in the Brotherton Library for The New Poetry, which was allegedly not on loan but was also not where it should have been on the shelf. Will try the U of York's library next week.


 * In response to your recent message, I don't have much by way of critical stuff about Larkin - only "Larkin at Sixty" (not all that critical!), which, BTW, includes a photocopy that I made of a sort of review of it from (I think) the TLS, written by Russell Davies in the manner of Winthrop Mackworth Praed:


 * The launching of Larkin at Sixty! It must have been grand to be there.
 * Did they set out the spread in a bicycle-shed? Or a train, or a graveyard, or where? ...


 * Moving a bit off-topic, I have a whole book (yes!) about Gloriana. It includes a chapter on its critical reception, so I'll see what I can usefully add to the article.  The revision for Janet Baker was indeed of the Walton, I'm afraid.  --GuillaumeTell 21:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC) (Off to see Britten's The Little Sweep and Weill's Down in the Valley tomorrow.)


 * (Six weeks later...) I did find a copy of The New Poetry (rev ed), and there's no sign there of the "carefully nurtured sense of failure", I'm afraid. If I haven't misremembered it, it must be somewhere else among AA's writings (possibly in somewhere like Encounter (magazine)?).  I'll get round to doing the L at 60 article soonish, and can use Barry Bloomfield's piece there to flesh out the L as librarian para in the main article.  I did briefly meet him in that capacity on a couple of occasions. Best.--GuillaumeTell 20:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi!
How 'r' doin. ' Chubb ' enna  itor  18:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Poem
Hi Almost. No need to apologise for contributing to my poem; I'm actually pleased you thought it worth editing. And as you say, there's always the revert button.

As for the links you added: the possession one is perfect! I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it before. The other one is also pretty appropriate, perhaps even more so than I realised when I first read it: between people who'd agree with the 'eye of heaven' part and those who'd agree with 'Sometime too hot', you've probably covered the attitude of a fair majority of Wikipedians. I won't be reaching for revert for either of them, I think. Olaf Davis | Talk 15:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Jon Christos
DId I followup on this? Maybe not. . . Sorry to be forgetful. On the Opera Project we have precedents (lots of them) but no guidelines as such, however the criteria are clear - a notable singer is one who has sung a major role in a professional production in an opera house. It's usually easy to determine this. Christos doesn't qualify, however the crossover singers can be notable for other reasons not connected with opera and this is probably the case here. It's difficult however because the Christos biography has rather obviously been hyped up to the point where it is misleading (e.g. Aix). Does that help? -- Klein zach  22:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry to take so long to get back to. I suppose one good example of a singer is Éva Gauthier though the content is very different. Also Plácido Domingo. Good luck. -- Klein zach  10:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help, it has been invaluable, we all have to learn as we go along and people like yourself point inexperienced users like myself in the right direction. Finding sources of information as to which to include or leave out is very difficult, to include everything could result in a long and dull page, if something is left out no doubt someone would ask why. Websites, like books can all carry differing information on a subject, sifting out the most appropriate can be a work of art in itself. With your tips I have tried to make it more Wikified than looking like a fan page and the references I have shown are notable IMO. Having said that I may now have gone overboard with the citations after being scared by the 'needs citation's messages from the administration. Going back to the students question, I think their notable achievements should be included as they may have worked hard to achieve them ,thus such deserve recognition on Wikipedia. They may also be the stars of tomorrow so I think their early achievements should be recorded. Just one thought on classical crossover artists, many (like Jon Christos) sing operatic arias accompanied by some of the world's leading orchestras and conductors, so IMO they are notable in the operatic sense. I notice Alfie Boe went back on to the opera stage recently, so I wonder how he is now classified ? Wikipedia can be quite daunting and I know from my experience it can become quite obsessive, I don't envy the creator of the Elvis Presley page. I think I have done enough now with the page and will give it a rest for a while. Sorry to be so long winded,I guess it's in my nature lol. Regards, Alfshire 18:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

SOURCE COMMENT I feel to suggest the website you refer to and their reporter as not reliable sources or credible is going to far. The website reports on various subjects and happenings in the Manchester area, and is in my opinion extremely credible. An independent reporter interviews and writes down what is said to them, that's their job. Editors have to be extremely careful about what they put out in the public domain and obviously the facts given in the statement you dispute to were taken as correct. On those grounds I feel the citation stands. Alfshire 20:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I feel you are now questioning the integrity of the artist, the reporter and the website concerned, this is totally unacceptable. Obviously the RNCM won't make every cast list of every production ever made on the internet, so you have no reason to assume facts shown are incorrect. Do you really expect an artists every single performance throughout their life to be given a citation, surely not ? I am therefore leaving the source as it is, anyone is perfectly entitled to edit the page, let's see if they do. Alfshire 11:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Crocodile oil
I hear what you're saying, but the article as written isn't obvious spam. I have no problem with your listing it at AFD for deletion. NawlinWiki (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Look at the instructions here -- because there has been a previous AFD listing, use rather than  .  NawlinWiki (talk) 12:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I only deleted the account's userpage (an obvious attempt at advertising). The account is not blocked and can receive messages on its usertalk page without problem. &mdash; Scientizzle 13:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Issues with TinucherianBot in Project Banner Tagging for WP:FOOD
Thank you for expressing your concerns on the recent issues with TinucherianBot in Project Banner Tagging for WP:FOOD. I have made some comments and explainations at Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval and I am leaving this note just for your information -- <em style="font-family:Kristen ITC;color:#ff0000"> TinuCherian  (Wanna Talk?) - 09:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Cut and paste content
Thanks again for your observations, however I may be missing your point on cutting and pasting from a website, if I were to use an article from a book I would not necessarily want to use the whole article (it might run to several pages), just the bits that seem relevant. I also feel I could still a enter reference to it, even though another website or book offered similar or conflicting content. I am sure many users on Wikipedia copy a potted biography from websites or books, they have to get their facts from somewhere and copying extracts word for word is to my mind the most factual way of doing it. It's just research IMO. If I have got the wrong end of the stick please let me know. Regards. Alfshire 09:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi!
How 'r' u doin. Chubb enna  itor  20:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Great! I've now started to have a crack at adopting. Chubb enna  itor  17:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Philip Larkin as librarian
I'm afraid my only knowledge of Larkin comes from what I've read of his work. I looked at the Wikipedia article after reading the recollections and interviews assembled in Required Writing, several of which do treat his library career. Also, Google turns up a bibliography listing an article specifically about Larkin as a librarian, formerly hosted by the Philip Larkin Society and still online at the Internet Archive. I don't know whether he would have qualified for an article here if he'd never written a line of poetry, by he obviously considered librarianship an important part of his life.

I think your user name is great, by the way. EALacey (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2008 (UTC)