User talk:Coyotepuppy

Welcome
Welcome to Wikipedia! Please don't take it personally when folks change what you've written. (They can be persnickety, and their rules/conventions can seem confusing.) You made a great start at a new section. It might even deserve to be a standalone article. Trasel (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Trasel, no offense taken at all!!!! you did a great job of editing and linking my first attempt at adding to a wiki. in fact, you're edits taught me a bunch. thank you very much for the help here and for all the work you've done on this subject.

if i may add an additional comment regarding the category of ZOMBIES. i have read your comments on this:

"I am dismayed to see references to "Zombie Apocalypse" repeatedly creeping in to this article. Survivalism is rooted in rational thought. To mix something that could never happen (reanimation of dead people and animals) into a discussion of real world threats does survivalism a huge dis-service and discredits the entire movement. The "Zombie" crowd is fixated on a piece of fiction. While it surely deserves its own wiki page, it is NOT survivalism!"

while at first glance it may not have a place in describing true survivalist, i think the term has entered the actual survivalist lexicon and is now viable to not olny mention it in this wiki, but to acknowledge it.

here's why-

to my way of thinking, in the survivalist subculture itself, the phrase "zombies" can be used in numerous ways.

one is the fun survivalists get from watching/reading/playing-videogames and thinking about how they might deal with those scenarios. contained in these fictional hypothetical scenarios of the standard Zombie Apocalypse are elements of several kinds of disaster: biological contaminants, invading forces, etc.

another is as a self-deprecating spoof on what survivalists do. for example, when someone outside the culture asks why a survivalist does these things, they might offhandedly reply, 'To prepare for the zombies!', thereby making fun of themselves and taking the discussion onto a lighter plane so that an honest discussion can take place about the real value of their preparations.

another use is as a tongue-in-cheek catch phrase among the survivalist themselves to cover the entire range of possible survival scenarios - the ultimate worse-case situation one might have to deal with.

and between survivalist, calling themselves "zombie killers (or fighters)" has recently become a much-used friendly indicator of a loose membership in their preparedness belief, but not at all indicating that they're expecting the return of the Living Dead (basis for modern usage of the term "Zombie" is the 1968 film by George Romero "Night of the Living Dead" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/).

that is why i believe an explanation of Zombies should be included in the wiki to help with the understanding of Survivalism.

i leave it to you to decide. thank you for listening - Coyotepuppy (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I can see your point, but I stand by assertion that including zombie stuff, even in passing discredits the entire preparedness movement.  Why give detractors any ammunition to call us "nut cases"?

On another note, I just finished added references to the new "Scenarios" section". There are now 20+ references, which should keep the "no original research" crowd from zapping the section.  BTW, These folks make me wonder:  If people of their predisposition were in charge of editing the first edition of the Encyclopedia Brittianica, how would it have ever been written?Trasel (talk) 19:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * PS: To sign anything in Wiki-land, just type a string of four Tildes, and the software will automatically sign and date stamp your message.  Trasel (talk) 19:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

thnx again trasel-  Coyotepuppy (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)