User talk:Merelinden

Welcome!

Hello, Merelinden, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome!
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * Tutorial
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
 * Manual of Style

Struve
Every Struve there had a wife (and some brothers and sisters) who did not belong to the family and was not particularly notable to describe in a separate article. We don't add them to the template:Struve because it would become way too complex. Why do you add Julia? Materialscientist (talk) 04:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Struve
Thank you for your explanation. I added Julia because I am a woman and of course I get tired of only the men being important. Of course, I don't know what my great grandmother Julia did as she was a bit nutty and Gleb remarried and had 2 more children. That, however, was more than I could figure on how to put in there. My grandmother is Marina and I wanted to show the Struve line to present day. Yes, I am working on my own genealogy but I figured while it was up there, and there are other Peter Struves around, I would finish it. I understand your not wanting a complex family tree on Wiki. Merelinden (talk) 16:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith
 * I have though about that when creating that tree. There was enough data about most brothers, sisters and wives of the "famous" Struve members, but there are so many of them that I couldn't figure out how to map them. In other words, I have no problem with a wider tree, just can't figure out how to make it readable. There were a few branches in the family (like astronomers and humanitarians), and maybe it would be easier to have separate subtrees. Materialscientist (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I appreciate that you did this tree as I thought it was Richard Pipes who did it. After Gleb, I must say the rest of us are somewhat ordinary (though my mother may disagree). Perhaps it was egotistical of me to think of bringing us into it. They are the most famous of the bunch. I don't see how to increase the number without it going especially wide. Even the online trees I am working with have to be scrolled to the side. It is not practical. I don't even have birth and death info on Andrew and Daniel (Gleb's first sons). Anyway, I suppose we should leave it be. Thank you for communicating with me. Merelinden (talk) 23:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith
 * Ah, I forgot my reasoning: I was expanding astronomers articles and simply needed a map to relate them. In other words, the idea was to link wikipedia articles and copy the template in those articles - not to create a complete list. If you have referenced and notable (notability threshold is hard to define here though) information on the family, it might be worth including it as plain text into the individual articles, e.g. information on Gleb's wife, children and grandchildren, might be not notable enough for separate articles but well suited in the Gleb's article. Materialscientist (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Notable...well,since I have descended from the female side, notability is very dubious in the paternal scheme of things. Even us women find poets, astronomers, exiled politicians, and professors notable. My grandmother (Marina) was an artist but mostly a mother who finally lived out her free spirit after her children were grown. She was part of an arranged marriage to a notable family (Stahovich) that ended after her husband (my grandfather) left her for her best friend and went to Buenos Aires when my mother was 8. My mother is a prominent neuropsychologist, one of 3 in the U.S. certified in her field. She doesn't practice anymore, retired, but had a stroke last year. Heart issues run in both sides of her family. Russians. :) I have 3 siblings. I am an educator, poet, writer, sculptor. Take after much of the Struve side but not the political. My dad's side also has educators. Anyway, there you have it. Not much to write around town about. I find the Russian side fascinating and I have been reading Dr. Zhivago which takes place in the same time as Peter. I don't know much about Russian history so I've been checking it out.
 * anyway, nothing about my other family members is referenced except by my mother and me so I guess that's out. You seem to be interested in many things. Did you just do the family tree on this page? Or did you do the other info as well using Richard's books?Merelinden (talk) 01:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith

I once stumbled upon that wikipedia didn't properly cover any exact scientist (astronomy, chemistry, etc.) from the Struve family, and thus (re)wrote those articles - this is when the family tree was built. Materialscientist (talk) 02:05, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * are you a member of the Struve family or what is your interest in that? How did you get involved in them in particular?Merelinden (talk) 04:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)meredith
 * I have no relation with the family and can't recall exactly why did I expand this article series. One scenario could be like this: while running around wikipedia I click some article on a notable historical person (especially scientist) without a proper portrait, find and tidy a portrait, notice glaring problems like missing birth/death dates, and while looking for them find a proper literature source and expand the article. I have some respect to past achievements which tend to be forgotten - we've got so many articles on wikipedia on young individuals only because they were mentioned in some recent news, not because they contributed anything useful. I also have long-standing interests with Russia and read the language that helps a lot with the sources. Materialscientist (talk) 05:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That is very interesting. Are you part of the original Wiki crew? I would imagine reading the language would help uncover the details. My mother learned Russian as an adult. Since my family was in exile from early in the century, they spoke other languages as well. My mother was born in London and when Gleb came to work at Berkeley, my grandmother *by then a single mother with 3 children* came, too (well a bit later but not much). Anyway, I am sure you are not interested in my rambling about my family. How do you find the time to tidy, as you say, pieces of Wiki? It seems like very demanding, yet satisfying, work. Thank you. PS. is this in Russian or English? Geir Flikke. "Democracy or Theocracy: Frank, Struve, Berdjaev, Bulgakov, and the 1905 Russian Revolution Merelinden (talk) 18:46, 13 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith
 * Should be in English. Time is always a problem because wikipedia is so vast that it can easily consume any amount of free time available. You reminded me about the Struve family and I've updated a few images (Karl Hermann mostly). While doing that, I realized that we don't have any photo of Gleb and his family, and his article Gleb Struve is in a poor state. It would be great if you could help there, with adding content (I think information about his wife and family will suit there fine, no matter the notability, but it should be referenced) and photos. I have usual wikipedia problems that the photos I can find in books and internet are not mine and I can use only those which are some 100 years old and thus are out of copyright. (For this reason, I still can't find any suitable photo of Otto Struve, except as a little child with his father.) However, you might have family photos which you can upload for wikipedia articles, and I would be glad to help with technical issues of the upload. Sorry, don't mean to push you to become a wikipedian :-), just thought that you might be one of the most suited people to write about this topic. Materialscientist (talk) 06:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

indeed I should be the most suitable given the circumstances. I found that Stanford U. has Gleb's papers in hundreds of boxes, no doubt donated by his second wife Mary. I've contacted my aunt for info on both of them as she seemed to keep contact with them into the 1980s. I'm not sure if Mary is still alive (don't think so but she was younger than Gleb). Julia died in 1992 and I'll have to talk to my mom about her, that's always interesting. At any rate, I intend to go to Stanford (I am in Sacramento) and pore through some boxes. There were some labeled family tree and family correspondence. I'll have to see if some are photos also. My aunts may also have some. I have some photos of Gleb with family and I know my mother has some. I have a couple from the 1930s and one exists of him in the 1980s with his daughter Marina before she died of breast cancer in 1984. He died soon after. I have one of his youngest (from Julia) with Babushka (Julia) in 1987. After I really looked at Peter's photo, I realized my older brother truly looks like him more so than like Sasha Stahovich. How am I supposed to get this info referenced? Why is it not enough that it comes from family? I'm sure not everything was written down by Gleb himself, or even Julia.Merelinden (talk) 18:37, 14 October 2011 (UTC)meredith
 * Here comes a problem that wikipedia is designed to reflect what is published by "reliable sources" (and sometimes this information is incorrect). Thus writing is usually accompanied by a review of published literature, which is used to reference the added information. The sources don't have to be online, but they usually need to be "published" by some "authority". For example, some curriculum details can only be found in some archived university yearbooks, and this is accepted here. Lots of information can be sourced to printed newspapers, which might still be in libraries, but not online. One has to be prepared to sacrifice some details, and the validity of "marginal" sources for wikipedia is often hard to judge before they come out. Materialscientist (talk) 00:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * So are you saying I can use any information I find at Stanford? Merelinden (talk) 00:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith
 * Sorry, I missed this post in my watchlist. No. It should be published by some "authority" (university, publisher, etc.). For example, unpublished correspondence won't do. Materialscientist (talk) 09:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I forgot I had asked you that and could not find this discussion again. Thank you. I have 2 pictures of Gleb with some family, one from 1934 and the other 1943. I am now in touch with his 2 children from the second marriage. One has photos as well but they will probably be after 1950 unless he has older pictures Gleb gave him. Do you want me to upload the two I have or maybe I should wait to see what else there is at STanford. I'm sure you don't want lots of pictures on there so it's best to decide on one or 2, right? Would you have me mention both wives and children of them? If people are alive should I have their permission to do that? Thank you. Merelinden (talk) 16:02, 21 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith
 * By default we try to collect as many (encyclopedical) images as possible, at Wikimedia Commons (picture depository). One reason is some photos contain hidden details which may be needed by some editor. However, people donating the images should be prepared that they will be immediately copied across the internet. When the images are too many, we normally add a link in the article to the "category" (folder) at Commons which contains the relevant images. Materialscientist (talk) 01:29, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I just looked at Otto's page and there is so much more on him. Also, Gleb's daughter Kyra said Gleb and Nabokov ended up the worst of friends, enemies really. Merelinden (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Meredith

Hello, I was very successful at finding things at Stanford. I have many pictures of Gleb as well as a letter he wrote describing his childhood some. I had it translated from Russian. 98.255.78.204 (talk) 18:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)