User talk:Colin McLarty

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Blow the Man Down
Hi, I appreciate your addition of the Riesenberg reference to the article. Please do remember, however, that the style of Wikipedia should be concise and "encyclopedic". All the minute details of the reference, in perspective, are not relevant/ appropriate. In fact, there are many references to this song; this reference does not warrant its won section as "Another Version" -- that's undue weight. Chanties are not really found in "versions" per se. There are many lyrics that float around, while others were improvised, etc. In that light, knowing the full lyrics as printed in this source is too much info. Rather, let us work to make the lyrics in the article (not given by me, BTW) represent a sample of sources, such as Riesenberg. A couple other notes: 1) It is not a man of war ship. Chanties were rarely a part of that. 2) Meaning of "blow the man down" is your interpretation alone. It is not in the text (i.e. there is no evidence), and it is not relevant in this section. Let us incorporate the essential and most significant parts of Riesenberg into an appropriate section, and in perspective as compared to other sources that also provide equally valid info. I think it can be done in one sentence, 2 at most.DrBaldhead (talk) 01:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Certainly the ship in Riesenberg's story is not a man of war (nor is it off Madagascar). But the captain in the story laughingly calls the men a "man o'war crew" for singing the song. What is your sense of why he does that? Colin McLarty (talk) 16:10, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * He is saying that they have crew used to being in a man of war, and because of that, they are not pulling hard enough. Warships had large crews, and this was one reason they didn't "require" chanties. All the men could just easily pull, and coordination wasn't so important. Merchant ships, however, had very small crews, who needed to do the work hard (their purpose for being their -- not fighting) and with proper coordination. My earlier point was simply that, while they are interesting, those details are not relevant enough for the "encyclopedia entry" on this song. I started to reshape the Lyrics section. The lyrics there were/are not any authentic version; they are just the folk song Pete Seeger type version. It would be better to just collect authentic lyrics from various notable historical sources. I have many of these, but I am too busy right now to add them all. I edit lots of articles, so I just add little bits, piece by piece. The lyrics that are there might be OK, but I/someone will need to fill in citations for them. Anyway, I was thinking we could add the Riesenberg lyrics to that section, too.DrBaldhead (talk) 00:31, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Reverting edits
Hello,

I noticed you left me a message saying that I reverted one of your edits. I looked at your talk page, but I did not see any message like that. I also looked through my contributions and I could not find any edits from your account that have been reverted. I am unsure of why you would have received that message from me. If you did get that message, it was likely a mistake and I apologize for any confusion. Thank you.--GreenGoldfish17 (talk) 18:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, yes it was not on my talk page but directed to me when I opened a Wikipedia page, and I expect it was some system generated mistake. Just so I know there is no real problem. 129.22.124.195 (talk) 23:31, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Re: Martian canal article
Hi Colin. I am just clarifying what I wrote at Talk:Martian canal. This sounds like good research on your part and if this article is missing it, then it appears you are the one to add it. There is only one concern: The important Wikipedia guideline WP:RS states that reliable sources should be secondary, not primary as Schiaparelli's book would be, a guideline set up to prevent us from doing original research (here is the section where this is stated: WP:WPNOTRS). To clarify and use myself as an example, I do "research" on the subjects of my articles, meaning I locate and read other research that scholars have published about it. I do not join the scholars and do their kind of research on primary sources, instead I research their research. The scholars read primary sources and publish into secondary sources, I read secondary sources and "publish" into a tertiary source (Wikipedia). In your case, it sounds like what you've got your hands on is a primary source and what you are doing some may call original research. However, the good news is that I don't happen to think so in this case. It would be wrong to read Schiaparelli's book and reach a conclusion no one has reached before, but you are just reading what it says and reporting what it says. Therefore, as long as you use caution to avoid OR while reporting what Schiaparelli says, you should do this. Let me know if I can help. Prhartcom (talk) 16:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

By the way, you've been here awhile, so perhaps when you have time you may want to click the red link on your signature and create your user page. Cheers. Prhartcom (talk) 16:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)