User talk:Hayford Peirce

Hayford Peirce

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2012

I wrote this article quickly, probably could use an experienced writer such as yourself (if interested) to spruce it up. Big traffic driver.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I would go *insane* if I had to work on a article like this! I take it there's both a movie, a cult, and what else, books, about this nonsense? If so, then you should mention all of them at least in passing. Good luck, and don't let your mind rot.... Hayford Peirce 17:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Too late. Mind already rotted. But wanted to ask: is there any truth to rumors that your book The Burr in the Garden of Eden was responsible for launching the 2012 hysteria? Please comment.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It was probably the group sex scenes in which they are channeling Reichian orgones that caused all the problems.... Hayford Peirce 18:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Hayford I would like your permission to upload a picture of the cover of your book The Burr in the Garden of Eden for an article.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:53, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

File:Burr in the Garden of Eden.jpg

The German cover of The Burr in the Garden of Eden

I suspect that Hayford cannot give that permission. You almost certainly have to go to the publisher. Chris Day 19:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that Chris is right, unless we want to try using the "Fair Use" doctrine, applying small scans of book covers. WP first did it this way, then deleted them all, then restored some of them, along with *long* justifications. I dunno why we couldn't do it here, but, I think, people have argued about this for years. In any case, I know the publisher, so I'll email him and ask him to grant permission. Hayford Peirce 19:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanx.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

In the world of science, if i write a review and want to include my own photo, one published in another journal, then I have to get permission from the publisher of the primary journal. We never own the material that we publish. It may be different in literature, but I doubt it, unless the books are self published, which is becoming more common. Chris Day 19:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It's the same in lit. as in sci. It's just that the "fair use" doctrine has been batted back and forth ever since I joined CZ 3 years ago. If we can justify it under "fair use", then it doesn't matter who owns it In any case, I have just emailed the publisher. Hayford Peirce 19:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly I'm not clear on fair use. To me, if we're not profiting from it and only using it to promote the book, its hard to imagine how anyone could challenge it as not being "fair use". But our worry is not a common sense interpretation but the legal definition. Of that I am ignorant. Possibly your publisher could clarify what they mean and accept as 'fair use'? Chris Day 19:35, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

A little qualifier to Chris' above comment on copyright in science: This never has long been true but a growing number of scientific journals practice Gold Open Access, i.e. their content is now CC-licensed. --Daniel Mietchen 19:57, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the publishers have a clear idea either. I know that Stephen Ewen and I used email Time magazine and such like and explain that we were a non-profit, etc. etc. They would reply, "Yes, we understand, so we'll only charge $1000 per use of our covers." So screw 'em -- I myself think that "fair use" would let us use these covers. Especially if we throw in enough boilerplate explanation, as WP people are now doing. See, for instance, this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interlop11.jpg with all the boilerplate. I dunno why we couldn't do exactly the same thing. What's the absolute *worst* that could happened if we did? Well, I suppose that Larry could be thrown into prison for 300 years. Well, maybe not.... So, I myself, would unleash the unrestricted "fair use" doctrine all over CZ.... Hayford Peirce 20:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Those orgones

The Burr in the Garden of Eden (book) -- is this a good title for the article. I knew those orgones were responsible.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 20:19, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

No need to put book after it, since there's absolutely no confusion about it. Hayford Peirce 20:24, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Is the German cover "family friendly", or can I use it to illustrate Pornography (soft-core, of course)...giggling at said policy. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

It's *my* sort of family friendly, but I dunno what Charlie Manson would say about it.... As far as *I'm* concerned you can use it anywhere, including an article about Orgone.... Hayford Peirce 21:40, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Sibling revelry, perhaps. Hmmm...my mother's library did have some of Reich's orgone books, but I don't know if I even still have them in storage.

I am, incidentally, a bit surprised there has been zero comment about pornography. Yes, I think it's objectively written, but what does it take to do a controversial article around here if you aren't a homeopath? My Israel-Palestine work hasn't gotten any outrage.

This is reminding me, all too much, of the comment that even the people who write viruses don't support the Macintosh. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

No pix, I suppose, so no one cares. Or they're all busy over at the WP article, vandalizing, rewriting, and arguing. Hayford Peirce 22:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

One of the reasons I wrote it was to test Daniel's theory that an approvable article had to be illustrated, and, further, as a first sensitive topic to test the "ff" policy. As you point out, does anyone care? Should I try a serious article about erotic pain and the different philosophies of "safe, sane and consensual" vs. "risk aware consensual kink"? Howard C. Berkowitz 22:23, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Only if you want to put me, and probably everyone else, *really* to sleep. Although I suppose that the next time I wake up at 3 in the morning, as today, and have trouble getting back to sleep, I could come out and look at it for an effective somnifère... Hayford Peirce 22:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

PS, you might add to the Victoriana section of the porn article that there is truly nothing in the world *duller* than Prince Albert's porn.... Hayford Peirce 22:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

You refer, I assume, to his writing, as opposed to the eponymous body modification?

The convergence of pornography and being "up" at night, I suspect, is best left to Eric Massa.

I could also write in the Alex Comfort style, or a harder but not necessarily inflammatory style, or go to the deliberately dense Masters & Johnson approach. Nevertheless, this will need to be examined by the new EC. 22:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair Use

Just received this from the publisher of Wildside Press:

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:56:08 -0400

Message-ID: <9221c331003151356y5de3571eid35fceef4d9bba30@mail.gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Attention: John Betancourt -- cover permission requested

From: John Betancourt <wildsidepress@gmail.com>

To: tahiti@post.harvard.edu

Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=00163646c9d848887a0481dd1c73

Of course -- you don't need permission, though. I view it as fair use.

Which reminds me -- I've been meaning to drop you a note. I have found a new printer that doesn't charge the $12/book/year fee. If you want me to reissue any of your old Wildside books in print form, let me know. Happy to do so. (And I'll replace Alan's covers with something nice.)

-- John

On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 3:27 PM, <tahiti@post.harvard.edu> wrote: Hi, John,

Do you know the Citizendium project started by Larry Sanger, one of the co-founders of Wikipedia (although Jimmie Wales doesn't like to be reminded of that)? It's supposed to be a *better* Wikipedia. I don't know if it is going to succeed, but I am one of the Main Men there. There's an article about me there (as well as at Wikipedia):

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Hayford_Peirce

Someone wants to write an article about my novel "The Burr in the Garden of Eden" and would like to upload a scan of the Wildside cover to illustrate the article. I told him that I'd ask your permission. Full credit and copyright info, of course, will be given to Wildside.

If you simply email me about this, I will insert your email into the permissions page of the image at some point.

Many thanks, and I'm glad to see that Wildside is apparently doing well these days!

Best,

Hayford Peirce _________________________________________________________________________

So, as you can see, at least *one* publisher views it as "fair use". Hayford Peirce 21:19, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Blockquote vs Quotequote

Didn't know the preferred format was blockquote, will try to use from now on.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 16:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I really like the colored-quote formats like (I think I saw in Biology perhaps? You're right the Life article -- looks great. but won't use).--Thomas Wright Sulcer 16:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC) --Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think that 99.9% of the quotes in CZ are Blockquotes -- you could ask Howard about it.... Hayford Peirce 17:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Tony Sebastian used a lot of colour for quotes in the Life article. I seem to remember that was controversial at the time and there was a long debate about it on the forum. The main reasoning for using blockquote was that all quotes will look the same and are controlled by the stylesheet rather than by various templates and/or personalised wikimarkup. The idea is that changes to the style in the future will be consistent and easily implemented across the board. Chris Day 17:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. Yes, I've just taken a look at the Life article. What to do, what to do? I wish that there were more Constables, or more Editors, or even just ONE functioning Editor-in-Chief. Or just a plain old Decider. It's too early to go mix a martini, but I feel like it. Why do people have to *complicate* things!? Hayford Peirce 17:42, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Be.cau.se we are not cl.on.es we are not pro.gram.ed to obey. Ve are not ro.bot.s or Da.leks Ve are pe.op.le. Ve have fau.lts and flaws. Ve have a cho.ice....Ve have a cho.ice....Ve have no cho.ice....Ex.ter.min.ate....Ex.ter.min.ate....Ex.ter.min.ate.... Chris Day 17:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is the old forum discussion. Chris Day 17:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Good grief, I had completely forgotten all that! Well, the hell with it.... Hayford Peirce 18:24, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Without looking at the Forum thread, it's a general Web best practice to be careful with eye candy, lest one get into browser dependencies, color vision, and the like. With an international audience, one also cannot assume broadband connections. Howard C. Berkowitz

Yes, that's what I gathered was the gist of the Forum discussion. Anthony had put a *lot* of effort into making his stuff look pretty. But I think it all depends on which browser one uses, plus other settings, etc. etc. Remember the character who was sticking in all the Congressmen and using all the extra equal signs? This is just another example of that, actually. Hayford Peirce 20:51, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll use blockquotes; wouldn't want to be attacked by aliens or orgones or dareks or have weird sea creatures be attracted by eye candy. When I come across my old {{quote|}} I'll switch them around.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Meg, for one, use the quote template. I'd say not to worry too much at this point. Chris Day 22:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Check out Metaphor and Allostasis and allostatic load for the current method I use for blockquotes. Try different browsers and text sizes for viewing. I would redo the blockquotes I put in Life. Anthony.Sebastian 04:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Anthony, life is too short for all of that. I think that your efforts in Life look fine -- my only concern, here as in a couple of other issues that we Citizens argue about it, is simply establishing *consistency* throughout the spectrum of articles. For two reasons: aesthetics in general, and also, I gather from the tech people, that if we don't have *consistency*, a lot of the tech operations simply don't work. I myself am certainly not going to ask you to redo the Life quotes -- someday when we have a thousand WP retentive-types to do this, then we can address these individual cases.... Hayford Peirce 04:26, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Hayford, you always make sense and force one to think further. I applaud operationally necessary consistency, though not consistency for the sake of consistency or at the expense communicative efficacy and creative innovation. I hear the little voice shouting from the back pew of my mind, something about about the hobgoblin of small minds. CZ, no place for small minds, you surely agree. Anthony.Sebastian 03:04, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I certainly hear you loud and clear about the hobgoblins, a phrase I've used many times in my lifetime. What I remember, however, is the case, what, six months ago, about the guy who was bringing in *hundreds* of articles he had created at WP about Maryland congressmen over the centuries (he'd been banned from WP). They were, more or less, *excellent* articles, and we *welcomed* here. But he then decided that for the section headings he wanted to use two, three, four, or more = (equal signs) SO THAT IT WOULD LOOK BETTER. Well, maybe it DID look better on HIS monitor, but not necessarily everyone else's. But the IMPORTANT part of this, which, I myself, as the dumb cop, had absolutely no knowledge of but had to trust the judgment of our more technically oriented people, was that by using these extra = signs, he was screwing up, in major ways, basic operations of our entire "search" system or whatnot. We tried for a *long* time to explain to him, and to reason with him, but it was useless. Finally he ended up being banned as a vandal -- I'm sure that you remember the case. The point here that I'm trying to make, is that *sometimes* consistency, beyond just being a question of aesthetics and personal taste, is an important matter of practicality. For the latter point, I just have to trust the judgment of people more knowledgeable than I.... Cheers! Hayford Peirce 04:01, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I take your point. Avoid explosives. I'm getting close, though, to a blockquote format I like. Will try it out on Life/Draft. Anthony.Sebastian 03:26, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I look forward to seeing it, and, I'm sure, many others do also. I'm certainly not 100% satisfied with our present formatting, so if we could evolve a *better* one, that could then be *consistently* applied, that would be great! Hayford Peirce 04:18, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

To hyphen or not to hyphen

Hayford, what do you think is correct: "multiplayer" or "multi-player"? Both? Is it a question of AE or BE? --Peter Schmitt 14:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hyphen, as per Ro. Hayford Peirce 15:45, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

When in doubt, I hyphenate. A hyphen rarely hurts, except in the case of hyphenated line-endings. Anthony.Sebastian 03:21, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

My forum account has been deleted?

Have you any idea why my forum account has been deleted? [1] I would ask on the forums, but don't want to re-register until I know. --Chris Key 23:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, looking on the forums I probably got caught up in the 525 bogus members you deleted in 5 minutes[2]. I have re-registered under the same name, just awaiting approval... --Chris Key 00:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that you had been registered a long time ago.... I'll approve you immediately. Hayford Peirce 00:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Thicket strategy

Hi Hayford just letting you know what I'm up to. My thinking at present is that a way to boost CZ's web presence is by creating what HB and others call a thicket of articles -- not just one long one here or there, or a hot topic article -- rather the idea is to create a few good long articles which are comprehensive and interesting and well-written, and then write lots of little articles on supporting terms. Sometimes these are so-called lemma articles but I prefer just a very short article explaining a term, but loaded with wikilinks to the bigger articles and others. For example, my article Aeneid is a main one relating to another biggie dactylic hexameter but surrounded by lots of little articles on related subjects. I'm asking please don't delete the little articles since they serve (hopefully) the function of driving traffic to the bigger ones.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:28, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand my function -- I only delete obvious vandalism and dead-end accounts that are *clearly, clearly, clearly* against CZ policy as explained in various guidelines. I certainly would never delete *short* articles just because they're short. Basically, Constables only delete what *other* people ask them to, and even then it's almost *always* because of mistakes in Titles, etc. If I just went around deleting articles because I felt like it, I would be removed as a Constable. Hayford Peirce 16:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand your function, but I wanted to explain to you what I was trying to do, so that in the event that requests came up to delete small articles, that you'd understand the purpose behind my creating lots of little articles. I came across other instances in which articles may have been deleted in the past, possibly because they were small or didn't look significant (I'm not sure why there were deleted) but I wanted to explain that the idea behind creating a slew of smaller articles was to possibly build interest in the bigger ones like Aeneid or dactylic hexameter and such. It's a niche strategy -- find specific areas where we can compete with WP, and do a better job, possibly attracting other contributors and editors here. Again, I don't know if this will succeed or not, but I"m trying.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:26, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

On a related subject -- I'm exploring whether to do some kind of experiment regarding subpages and PageRank. I left a message here at DM's talk page. Wondering whether some kind of permission is needed. It would involve creating two competing article thickets on nonsense topics, to see which one did better in PageRank terms.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:28, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a clue as to what you mean -- Daniel and the other are the people to address. If they think that it would gum up the works, then don't do it. Hayford Peirce 16:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I didn't explain it well. I'm working with Daniel about it. Basically the experiment is harder than I thought, and DM thinks it would require article titles which were real, not nonsense ones; I'm putting this on the back burner for the moment. The idea was to have two competing "article thickets" -- one with subpages; one without -- and see which were easier to find using Google searches after a month being on CZ. I have a hunch that the subpages confuse the crawlers, but am not sure (HB isn't sure). But I was looking for some way to possibly show this, and if so, it would then have to come up with the editorial committee in charge.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 20:43, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, as long as you're experimenting, and others (not me, because I don't understand it) are aware of what you're doing, and you're not creating articles that would being CZ into obvious disrepute, then go ahead. I think that many of us have created test articles, or test something or others over the years. Eventually they just get deleted -- and forgotten. In some cases, Matt and I have been leery about Daniel and others creating and running Bots until they knew *exactly* how they would work.... Hayford Peirce 20:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Wiped out again

...in an edit conflict. (& then I went & put this on your user page!) Perhaps that's an argument for not keeping conversations confined to one page. After all, these days it's easy to keep two windows open. Anyway, yes, I find it hard to imagine how anyone could convincingly argue against your K-Trio examples. Did some jolly impartialist come along and quote statistics, as just happened to me: '19-5 isn't exactly conclusive'? And that in response, I notice, to someone else's figure of 9-1. Still only 1000-0 will do, it seems. Any idiots out there, their views must be respected. Ro Thorpe 20:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, worse than I thought. Have you ever thought about devoting yer time to a place called Citizendium? It's quite different, I hear! Cheers! Hayford Peirce 20:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

But, you say, common sense prevailed chez K-Trio! And my ancient ticker is still only 59 - until tomorrow. Ro Thorpe 21:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, [3] is the place if you can bear to have a look. I still have hopes of getting the co-ordinator chappie on my side. Yours dreamily, Ro Thorpe 23:41, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Good flippin' Geezus! ZZZZZZZz, that noise you hear is me snoring after trying to wade my way through about a quarter of it! Catch up on your Z's, you're gonna need all yer strength to deal with that! Hayford Peirce 23:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Is it worth getting worked up about? Normally this article on Wikipedia gets only a sliver of attention -- 6 users per day perhaps. My suggestion is if you're going to joust on wikipedia, prepare to battle. That's what it's all about. If you want quality, spend more time here on CZ.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Just fired another sally. I have plenty of time and patience. I used to teach Arabs and Koreans English. (Granted, that was much easier...) Ro Thorpe 01:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Meg has supplied the quotation, so I was able to give CZ a plug. The WPjuns will need all their reserves of bloody-mindedness... Ro Thorpe 18:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I have the NYT Manual of Style, but it's only 230 pages long and not absolutely complete. I've looked through it and it doesn't seem to address the question at hand but, pragmatically, we can find a thousand examples in the paper itself to back up our position. Fowler's Second Edition probably has something relevant, but trying to find anything in that book is a nightmare. Hayford Peirce 18:12, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Star Wars and Philosophy

Hayford, as science fiction writer and thoughtful person, you might find the essays in this multi-authored book interesting.

Book Title: Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine. Contributors: Kevin S. Decker - editor, Jason T. Eberl - editor. Publisher: Open Court. Place of Publication: Chicago. Publication Year: 2005.

If you have a Questia account, you can read the full-text: http://www.questia.com/read/116211835 Anthony.Sebastian 03:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll check this out! Hayford Peirce 03:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Conventional coal-fired power plant is due for final Approval tomorrow

Hi, Hayford: Just want to alert you that the Conventional coal-fired power plant is due for Approval tomorrow. Regards, Milton Beychok 16:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Thanks for the welcome message, Peirce. I'm trying to figure out how things work and made some small contributions. Of course it is very similar to working on Wikipedia, but I find Citizendium very appealing. Regards, (and watch out for these lobsters!) Jules Grandgagnage 15:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

deletion requests

Hayford, you should look at the remaining deletion requests, too. I have completed the templates. --Peter Schmitt 08:05, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I figured that if I left them long enough someone would get tried of them! Hayford Peirce 14:23, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Minor minor

So you decided for the "crazy" AE system of dates ;-)

As for the endash without spaces: I know that American typography uses emdashes without spaces—like this—though I regard this as ugly. But are you sure that "May 1, 2000–June 2, 2010" is correct typographical praxis? It looks very irritating! (Because it groups "2000–June" together.)

--Peter Schmitt 00:16, 27 April 2010 (UTC)