Wikipedia talk:Requested articles/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Big white blob

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Tuesday, July 8th, 2003.

Something I caught moments of on the news last night but didn't see in full -- some sort of weird white blob thing on a beach in south america. what is it and do we need an article on it?

Google is your friend...

Sounds fun. But is there enough info for an article? --Menchi 09:08 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Let's keep an eye on the story. When they announce which species it is, we can add (or create) to the article for that species and mention "in ... 2003, a ... was found washed up ... etc" -- Tarquin 16:16 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

End moved discussion.

"Beached "blob" mystery solved

Reuters — July 11, 2003

SANTIAGO, Chile —Chilean scientists say their study of a huge blob of flesh found on a Pacific beach about three weeks ago has found it is the carcass of a sperm whale, ending speculation of a giant octopus." [1]

So, no article needed. -- till we *) 17:37, Aug 3, 2003 (UTC)

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Is The Weather Forcast (sp??) different from meteorology? If not why create it?

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I removed Linear representation (already covered under Group representation), Orbit (Group theory) (already covered under Orbit (mathematics)) , Quotient topology (already covered under Quotient space), Homotopy theory (already covered under Homotopy).

Good. We should probably have redirects, though, since the ones listed came from other already existing articles. -- Schnee 01:28, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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There are now 44 "List of..." requests. Are these really necessary? Kingturtle 03:50, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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I added a short article on Conestoga Parkway as requested. There don't appear to be any links to it. Does anyone know why it was requested? It's not a very interesting piece of road. DJ Clayworth 14:17, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Surrealist subjects to be moved under art or not?

Surrealism should not have been moved to under art. Surrealist techniques that can loosely be described as being artistic might be placed under art, but as surrealism in general is not an artistic movement, and has and will give[n] rise to requests that are not artistic in nature (for example, Dialectique de dialectique), it should be a separate category. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:19, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Surrealism is considered an artistic movement by the several mainstream sources I consulted in an effort to understand this point of yours. I checked two print encyclopedias and three general-interest books on surrealism that I was able to obtain at a local library. All of these consider surrealism to be an artistic movement, though there was some acknowlegement of surrealism in poetry.

Further, all these sources considered the surrealist movement to have ended in the late 1960s.

Your edits claiming that surrealism is (a) not an artistic movement and (b) something that continues to have comparable importance today to its importance in the post-WWII era are a novel POV not supported by the references I have checked. I realize that there is a community of modern-day surrealists that feels otherwise, but their wishes do not make it so. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 23:26, 3 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Given that my point concerned primary sources that have been either been misinterpreted, or (more probably, as the distortion has been so complete) misrepresented by secondary sources, your consultation merely of secondary sources is questionable here. Read Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism, for example, and tell me what any of it has to do with an artistic movement.

(re mainly an artistic movement) This is pretty hilarious, given that surrealism had its start in poetry and automatic writing and it was initially debated whether there could even be such a thing as surrealist painting.

(re ending in 1960s) No objective event has corresponded to the constantly-shifting and ridiculously contradictory and constantly-updated obituaries anti-surrealists keep pronouncing for the movement. In fact, the mid- and late-1960s saw a dramatic expansion of surrealism geographically and in terms of activity, with, among other things, the founding in 1966 of the Surrealist Movement in the United States. There is no break between the surrealism of the late 1960s and later and earlier surrealism; there is an uninterrupted historical continuity between the two (which are in fact one). But for a mainstream source refuting this: would you except The Dictionary of Art, published by Grove? Here is the beginning of the last paragraph of the article on surrealism says:

Breton's death in 1966 left no heir who could impose cohesion, although some activity continued in Brussels (with Marcel Mariën and the painters Jane Graverol and Felix Labisse), Prague (with the artists Jiri Kolar, Josef Istler, Eva Svankmajerova and the film maker Jan Svankmajer) and Chicago (coordinated by Franklin Rosemont).

So (although it drastically understates the true situation) there is acknowledgment in this mainstream source about surrealism continuing after the 1960s). --Daniel C. Boyer 20:20, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

(re comparable importance today vs post-WWII era) This cannot be objectively argued, but the fact that art historians and others whose careers are irrelevant to surrealism have decided to lose interest do not reflect on its importance, in my view. I would say that it is not a POV, and if it is, it was the POV of Breton and the early surrealists and of every surrealist right up until the present day.

(re wishes of modern day community of surrealists) And the wishes of anti-surrealists who wish to have done with surrealism, pronouncing its death in the abscence of any reason to say it whatsoever -- I would challenge you to provide one -- do not make it dead. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:27, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This explains some more of it. --Daniel C. Boyer 21:10, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You may wish to check out this source text, to which I am a signatory, which is on point: "Craven Destiny". --Daniel C. Boyer 17:39, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I am assembling "mainstream" sources that support what I have been maintaining. Though it is not completely accurate, you can find some support for my position on the webpage of the Detroit Institute of Arts exhibition Surrealist Vision and Technique: Drawings and Collages from the Pompidou Center and the Picasso Museum, Paris, on which it says, "It was less a distinct style than a set of attitudes and beliefs about art, personal life and society, conceptualized by a diverse set of artists and writers who associated with each other in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s." Though it is not true that only artists and writers were and are surrealists, you can see that it mentions writers, and you can see that the definition is broader than that of a mere art movement. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:18, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You may also want to read (if you can read French) Le Punching-Ball et la Vache à lait : La Critique universitaire nord-américaine face au Surréalisme. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:04, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm only a newbie here, but couldn't this information have been better used to create an article on Surrealism rather than arguing about whether it's art or not? Phil 15:38, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, but obviously this argument is going to have an impact on the development of the page. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:12, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So why not create the page, using the material above, and then have a discussion on the related talk page about how to develop it? Surely this would be better than arguing about whether to create it at all. Or have I missed something excrutiatingly obvious to older Wiki hands? Phil 10:21, Oct 27, 2003 (UTC)

The page already exists, and I would argue that it is pretty much accurate. The argument here was over the heading Surrealism on the Requested articles page, and things about surrealism not having to do with art being under it. --Daniel C. Boyer 16:47, 29 Oct 2003 (UTC)

OK, sorry, my misunderstanding. I'll get my coat :-) Phil 08:02, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

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This metapage is getting huge. I think we need to break it up into sub-metapages. Kingturtle 00:23, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Either that or tidy it up. I think there's a lot on there that would likely end up deleted if someone did create it as being a dictionary definition or otherwise unsuitable for an article. Angela 00:39, Oct 7, 2003 (UTC)

But can we delete 20 kilobytes worth without stepping on toes? We certainly want to respect the requests of users. My approach to Requested articles has been to allow any requests. After all, who am I to decide what constitutes a legitimate request? Maybe we (those who frequent the maintenance of this page) could come to an agreement as to what can be removed. Kingturtle 01:21, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

How about dividing it up according to the Major Themes on the Main Page? Or maybe as in Wikipedia arranged by topic Phil 17:04, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

I removed some of the List requests. Some were outlandish. Some were already articles, just phrased differently. Kingturtle 10:54, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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We already have articles on Athens, Heraklion and Thessaloniki (note correct spellings). Why do we need additional articles on their "greater areas"?

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List of craters on Io - that must be a joke, since there are *no* impact craters on Io, because the lava from the surface quickly erase them.

<<

Io and Europa are both geologically very active. Therefore, and impacts are quickly erased. Io's surface is also fluid-like enough that craters seldom form. This is similar to the effects of throwing pebbles into a pond, evidence of the impact disappears quickly.

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from http://einstein.stcloudstate.edu/nook/study/Foundations/ch24/ch24.html Bogdan 08:48, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

re: *not* separating new entries

this metapage maintains many categories for various requests. the point is to make it easier for people with specific interests and expertizes to find requests they can work on. i'd rather not have listings that are not under specific categories. it'll get messy and confusing, IMHO. Kingturtle 23:10, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

orphan pages

I redirected two pages to an already existing page and removed the links from this page. Now when I checked what links to these two requested articles I found that there were no links. So they are now orphans! Is this true for every requested page? Should one create a link deliberately from somewhere? KRS 09:03, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Order of Promotion to Recent Changes Page

Is there any systematic way that requested pages are presented on the Recent Changes page. What it seems like now (or at least, what I have been doing) is taking pages that I think are important and listing them there when a space becomes available. That reflects my whims and my whims only. I based my decisions (e.g. Wallace Stegner, Louis Botha, Havelock Ellis, Middle Passage) on topics that I personally think are important, though people will disagree with me. I glanced percursorily at the Requests for Music page and ignored the Requests for Math and Sports pages, which may have been wrong.

Ideally, some kind of ranking would ensure that various other topics get a chance to be covered as well. Also, time spent on the Requested Article page should also be a factor in promotion, as should significance of the topic and likelihood that an article will be written about it in a relatively short time? Or maybe I am just making things more complicated ... Curious to hear what others think. Danny 22:24, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Whenever I change them, I just pick random things on the Requested Articles page that I think would be interesting. It's completely subjective :) Adam Bishop 22:27, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Geography section

The geography section basically links to a list of dozens of requested political boundaraies (cites, towns and other governmental dictricts). So a requested article on landforms, water features, sea forms or general topograph issues would get lost. Is there any way to fix this, or is it a Catch 22? Davodd 20:24, Dec 13, 2003 (UTC)

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One of the requested sex/uro/gyno articles in on "queening". Having never seen the term before, I looked it up:

Queening: When a woman sits astride a person's face and forces her cunt into their mouth and nose. Could be simply for cunnilingus or practised as a form of breath control. [2]

Is this worthy of an article, or should we just strip it from the list? --Raul654 08:13, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It would be in an encyclopedia of sex, wouldn't it? Then it is worthy of an article here provided sufficient encyclopedic could be said (which it probably could, given the right author). --Morven 10:53, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Professor Sir Roy Meadow

Where should an article on this man go: Crime/Forensics', Medicine &c, People? Phil 16:13, Dec 22, 2003 (UTC)

Sex/Urno/Gyno articles

I'm making a conscious effort to clear out this catagory (well over a dozen written so far), but there are so many. --Raul654 06:27, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Articles from other wikipedias

Some other lanaguage wikipedias have already some articles that are much more detailed than our English articles.

We should have a page to list these languages and where wikipedians can see which articles can be translated in English.

for example:

French

• fr:Tramway -> Tram
• fr:Wallon -> Walloon
• fr:Picard -> Picard
• etc

German

• etc

It could be named Wikipedia:Requested article translations or Wikipedia:Articles in other languages or something like this. Bogdan 09:28, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Just remember - the french have the Picard dialect, and the english speakers have Jean Luc. I think we got the better end of the deal :) --Raul654 09:46, 27 Dec 2003 (UTC)