User talk:Richard Pinch

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What is there to discuss? Welcome, Richard. Charles Matthews 19:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 G Harrises 2 Chaplin Society 3 Unabomber & Low-resolution terminology 4 New AfD on LoPbN 5 WikiProject Bristol

[edit] G Harrises

_ _ Let me add my welcome, and this further discussion: i noticed you via List of people by name: Harr#Harris, A-J, and i'm pleased to have someone especially well informed working on clarifying this pitfall.
_ _ My angle on it is pretty much standardization of the LoPbN-tree entries; i'm probably the one who substituted the generic "archaeologist" for "Egyptologist" and came up w/ "fl. c. 2000" for "your" GH. I'm hoping you can help me feel my way thru that task in the case of these two bios. Let me start by addressing both of those parts of the entries, in light of the underlying nature of the list: it is a navigational tool, designed to get users with a rough idea of a figure's name (or of its spelling) to the article with their bio, where info on them lies; conversely, it is not intended as a place for directly looking up info on those same people, and we make no effort to accommodate those trying to use it for that. (But we create an expectation on what to include, by using very seldom more than this very tolerable level of detail: time, nationality, and main cause of notability -- even where they are redundant: "WS (1564-1616), British playwright" is massive overkill, far beyond what is needed to distinguish him from all the other Shakespeares!)

1. If at all possible, we want some kind of year within the subject's life. Of course the gold standard is birth and death (tho only the articles distinguish month or day with a year), but when neither is available, we need some kind of date, for which we tend to bend the traditional usage of "floruit", avoiding the impedimenta of a range of years (or of decades or centuries) than help make the distinction. In the case of the "fl. 2000" you removed, it is better than nothing by eliminating confusion with similarly named Egyptologists of say 1940 or 1810. (Looking at her biblio, tho, i find "fl. late 20th century" more accurate -- and more helpful for distinguishing her from the "fl. c. 2000" one.)
2. Almost without exception we identify the main cause of notability, but keep it "low resolution": Physician, not pediatrician; politician, not usually their specific office(s); hockey player (notable athletes are too numerous not to have some indication of their respective sport), not field hockey backfielder. (Perhaps ignoring distinctions a bit cavalierly, i treat Egyptologist as simply the Egypt-focused species of archaeologist, and worry not whether the relative wealth of texts separates them from the dirt-sifters.)
   

_ _ I'm not satisfied that Gerry Harris is sufficiently notable for a bio (sometimes we talk about "the average professor" being "n-n", i.e., non-notable), but that's not your fault, nor would it mean your submitting it was wasted: IMO, your GH's bio will need a section listing works likely to be misattributed to her, if we sack the others bio.
_ _ So i guess i'm hoping for you to let me know

• if our disagreement about "archaeologist" is simply abt your unfamiliarity with my "lo-res trmnlgy", and
• if you'd agree that "fl. late 20th century" is better than nothing. (I'm not trying to wring a DoB out of you, especially since what we use is supposed to be verifiable, and it hardly makes sense to go about making it so.)

And you may well have questions for me.
_ _Thanks, and again welcome; don't worry that you need to establish yourself as a Wikipedian in order to accomplish your personal goals in cleaning up our GH mess, but it looks like you have the instincts of, well, care that make for good editing, and it looks like your subject expertises will be welcome. Those of us who are noticing you will be rooting for your sticking around.
--Jerzy•t 23:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chaplin Society

FYI, this article has been nominated for deletion discussion Bwithh 22:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unabomber & Low-resolution terminology

Thanks for the Underwood brothers. As to the Unabomber, no one coming to List of people by name: Un is going to be helped reach his article by knowing his personal name, and that info is quite adequately accessible in the bio -- as is his death and injury toll, a more nuanced discussion (i assume) than LoPbN could conceivably accommodate of why he's described as a terrorist, the fact and nature of his doctorate, his current and prospective status, his fateful misjudgment that did him in, and, well, a full encyclopedic bio. Plz keep up the good work!
--Jerzy•t 01:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New AfD on LoPbN

Your continued good work on the LoPbN tree suggests you'd support its retention. At this moment, vote is 10 Del to 8 Keep on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people by name (2nd nomination). I would appreciate it, if you care to weigh in. Thanks in any case, and happy holidays.
--Jerzy•t 16:50, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Bristol

—Gasheadsteve 11:45, 18 February 2007 (UTC)