User talk:Classicfilmbuff/Archive 2

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Hey
I'm sorry. I haven't been deliberately ignoring you. Or at least not you personally. I've been in an increasingly pissy and lethargic mood for a month or so, and between the two have, among other things, avoided starting anything likely to require more than five minutes committed effort. But you've been great to work with, and I finally figured out it wasn't fair to take my moodiness out on you. Believe me, once I snap out of it back to normal, I'm glad to help with any requests you might have.

I reverted the edit you made to the GG talk page. It looks like you just copied a very long section to the bottom of the page with the intent of archiving it. I then tried to set it up so the page was periodically archived automatically by one of the bot programs designed for that. The bot only runs once a day, so it may be a couple of days before we know if I screwed up a setting, but I'll try to keep an eye on it.

My school-attending friends remind me the year is almost over; any summer travel plans (visiting Lobo in London would be nice)? Or are you teaching summer classes too?

L8r. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 21:46, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Garbo relationships
Hey there. Long time, no speak. Hope the semester is proceeding smoothly for you.

I saw the recent discussion on the Garbo talk page. Overall, I think the issue is handled pretty well in your existing version. But (there's always a "but", isn't there)...

Maybe I've become hypersensitive after spending too much time following a discussion at the Tom Cruise talk page; I wonder if two uses of "allegedly" is the best possible phrasing. While allege is, I suppose, technically the same as maintain, in common usage it frequently carries a negative connotation; you're more likely to see something like "Smith was alleged to have killed three people while robbing the store" then "Jones was alleged to have contributed $3 million to AIDS research", and for this reason, seeing repetitions of "she allegedly had a lesbian relationship..." makes me want to look for the usual stand-up comedian's follow-up of "—not that there's anything wrong with that". Couldn't the "allegedly" be replaced, either by another descriptor or by an attribution ("Paris and Vieira say ...;" "de Acosta wrote ...")? And for that matter, can "speculate" be replaced by something like "consider it [highly] likely"? Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 21:29, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not going to be all that easy making these changes. Will require time which I don't have right now. Especially annoying since the initial complaint seems to have come from someone who doesn't want to accept that GG was bisexual or gay. (Do you remember I once told you the section would be disputed by both hets and gays no matter what I wrote? I thought I handled it perfectly because i don't have a problem with allege if the allegation is backed up with legitimate evidence, even without proof.) So I'm not particularly motivated to do the work but I certainly can't accept a peevish reader coming along and wiping out a carefully crafted, accurate, and important paragraph. I was talking to a gay friend about this and he said that gay history is very hard to write since virtually all gay people in history were in the closet. Certainly true in GG's case. I talked to Mercedes de Acosta's biographer at an academic conference and he said he had tracked down a friend of hers in his 90s (in London) who said the two definitely had a sexual relationship. Don't know why the biographer didn't cite this in the book in which he writes extensively about their relationship. Anyway, I'll have to read the bio again. So, I'll get to it in the beginning of October when I'm finished a production I'm directing. On another note, I never felt you were ignoring me. Things just have been very quiet on the p. and there has been no need for talk. But I am sorry that you go through these spells. I go through them in my own way. Hang in there.--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 21:07, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we knew that section was going to be a problem, largely for the exact reason your gay friend pinpointed. And it remains a sensitive subject, even on Wikipedia, which has special guidelines for categorization or biographical claims about sexuality as well as religion and (I think) race. Though the rules are a bit less stringent for biographies of people who are already dead than those of living people. But even those are subject to heavy dispute: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies. I suppose if it wasn't so sensitive, I would be less sensitive about the use of alleged. For instance, I can't say I'd object as quickly to the statement "Monroe and Gable allegedly had an affair during the filming of The Misfits", if that statement had sourcing equivalent to your Garbo text.


 * I would think the de Acosta biographer may have omitted his conversation either because the friend had indicated s/he would not confirm it publicly or maybe just because 50 year old hearsay like that doesn't seem overly scholarly when published. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 22:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, I did it. Quicker than I thought. What do you think, F&H?? Really just rhetorical differences that, unfortunately, make the paragraph longer and so suggest that this is more important than it is (her sexuality that is). I mean, it's important on many levels (not the least of which is that it's part of the writing/rewriting of gay and lesbian history which interests me very much) but the problem is that her work and legacy are more important so it shouldn't take up so much goddamn space--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 21:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * So you made the entire change while I was still typing my reply, above, to your first comment here... Great. Anyway, I'll take a look and get back.


 * Have you considered participating in some of the more organized collaborative efforts here, like WP:WikiProject Film or, based on your comment above, WP:WikiProject LGBT studies? Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 22:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. OK, I see your point. I think the first change is fine; replacing "speculate". I hadn't anticipated (or visualized the effect of) the need to use full names of four biographers, but I guess since they're not mentioned earlier they need to be properly identified if we attribute.


 * Am I remembering incorrectly, or didn't de Acosta also claim in writing somewhere that she and Garbo had a relationship? Or am I confusing her with Brooks?
 * Acosta wrote a memoir that alludes to a lesbian affair but you have to read between the lines. (Then it's obvious, which is why the book was widely read by the gay underground in the 60s before Stonewall--when the male gay rights movement began). The problem is that she made many factual errors in the book which means it's not reliable evidence.


 * Did you actually go back and review the bios in the last couple of days so you remember pretty much exactly what they say? I ask because I'm wondering if all four affirmed the respective relationships strongly enough to include them as statements of fact without either the "alleged" qualifier or the specific attribution. Or, if e.g. both books say something like "there is strong evidence that" she had a relationship with Tashman – or just present such evidence – could we just say that the evidence supports this, without detailing it, which would trim the paragraph back a bit. Similar for de Acosta, of course, if I'm wrong and she never gave us a usable claim herself. Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 22:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No need to change citations. All the same because all I did was change the language. Per relationship with Tashman, you say, "could we just say that the evidence supports this, without detailing it? Unclear what you mean but "Strong evidence" is a good descriptor. (Thanks for the suggestion, and as you can see, I made the change) Two biographers (the ones I cite) discuss the affair as fact but the 3d (swenson) doesn't even mention it. Can you think of other ways to shorten the paragraph? I can't unless we we reintroduce "speculate" and "alleged."
 * Can't state any thing as fact because none of it can be proven without a shadow of a doubt. New evidence in Schanke's MdA bio gets there but is a hair short I think. I just ordered this bio to reread to recheck his evidence. Maybe he shows it as fact. Interestingly, none of the relationships with men can be proven as fact either except hers with Gilbert which lasted short of 2 years. Remarque discusses an extremely brief "affair" in his memoir. Many of Beaton's friends said he lied about his claim of an affair with her. In any case, unless GG was a lesbian, she was basically celibate for 16 years betw the ages of 27 or something and 1947. i say this only bedause its's interesting.--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 00:31, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Garbo
The Garbo section is better — Preceding unsigned comment added by Princetoniac (talk • contribs) 21:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Garbo formatting
Entering should work all right, giving:

as the final answer. If the title in print was different, you could use that, although more Wikipedia users will probably see the online version. I've seen both "Cite news" and "Cite journal" used for major magazines; the output is pretty much the same either way. Deleting the ISSN for a well-known pub probably wouldn't hurt. but being complete doesn't hurt either. Similarly, I can only guess at the volume and issue numbers, but if you have that information, you could add  (e.g.) in the template – pretty much anywhere. but next to "pages=" probably makes the most sense).

(You're really much quicker than you constantly describe yourself.) Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 23:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi again F&H,




 * OK, This is reference, above, I'm going going to cite that is from the same article cited in the G reference list # 48 (but will replace with diff page number). When I copy it and paste into my sandbox i get that red warning sign. Now I've pasted it, above, into this p. and I get the reference number you see. It looks ok now. Am I correct? Do these convoluted sentences make sense?--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 00:53, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, just self-deprecating humor. But it is true that I know where my talents lie.--Classicfilmbuff (talk) 00:57, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm not sure why the error message does not show on this page also, unless I'm missing something obvious ot they've suppressed that warning on Talk pages or something like that. It happens because there's a tag on the page but no Reflist template anywhere. It should be fine on the article page.


 * Personally, I'd probably move the full citation info on the Thalberg book down to the "Bibliography and further reading" section right behind the other Vieira book and just use Sfn templates in all three places it's needed. More consistent with how other multi-cited sources are done.


 * (BTW, just for when you think of it, the space that someone recently inserted between the comma and reference #15 doesn't really belong there.) Fat&#38;Happy (talk) 02:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

My edit on Garbo
I placed an en dash in one of the section titles, replacing a hyphen. Just following MOS:ENDASH. &mdash; Gyaro – Maguus &mdash; 00:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

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