Timothy Perper

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Welcome

Welcome to my talk page. If you're looking for pages where we're revising the manga article, go to User:Timothy_Perper/SDBXIndex and click on the one you want. Thanks!

I am no longer working on the manga page except to make minor typographical changes and to prevent wholesale deletions. Timothy Perper 21:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I went back to the article, adding new material with the help of Peregrine Fisher. But once again, I am no longer working on the article now (January 2008). Timothy Perper (talk) 20:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Archive box

I added the archive box, if you don't like, you can go into the history and revert my changes. - Peregrine Fisher 05:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I've been wikifying the shonen section. More new stuff soon. Do you have any reactions so far? Timothy Perper 05:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks pretty good so far. Do you have any refs that mention Naruto? It's one of the most popular things on wikipedia, and we could head off the fanboys if we add something about it before they do. - Peregrine Fisher 06:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Hoo-hah, do I ever. That and Death Note. But they're coming. I'm doing the older ones first. Also Full Metal Alchemist and a couple of others. FMA is a good example of a "family" oriented action/adventure, because the two heroes are trying to resurrect their dead mother. It sounds ghoulish, but it isn't -- it's really quite sentimental. I won't saay that though. Talk to you tomorrow if you're going to be online. Timothy Perper 06:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Betty Dodson

You may wish to take a look at our policy in regard to legal threats. In any event, the section in question appears to be reliably sourced. Furthermore, it is very hard for me to see how noting that someone's got a degree from an institution that isn't accredited is libelous. JoshuaZ 18:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Following up, I'm reexamining the sourcing now and have temporarily removed the text. JoshuaZ 18:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't need to read Wikpedia's legal policy on making threats (although I have) because I am not making threats at all. I am trying to warn you about people I have no control over -- they're the ones I'm telling you about. And I want you to understand this loud and clear: I personally have zilch to do with this question. I got involved only because I know people on a listserve who have genuine concerns about the issue. Do NOT try to shift this off onto me. Wiki policies directed to me won't do the tiniest bit of good if one of these outsiders decides to sue Wikipedia. THAT is what I'm trying to forestall.

On the talk page, it says:

Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

That's a strongly worded statement, that bold-face must be removed immediately. And that is the policy I'm following. You also say that you don't think the statement is libelous. Well, good for you -- but you aren't the people who are reading this out there.

Can we get on the same wavelength about this? I am suggesting caution, real, genuine caution to protect everyone.

Timothy Perper 19:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

A small amount of advice: first, it doesn't help matters when one is dealing with this sort of thing to put anything in all caps like "LIBEL ALERT"; even when one is not the one threatening legal action, it looks almost the same and can in general have similar intimidating effects as making a legal threat oneself. Second, repeating that someone has considered something to be libel isn't very helpful, a short note, or a simple removal is fine. Third, in the future, it would be helpful if you explained to your colleagues that in general editing a Wikipedia article is much easier than a lawsuit. Fourth, speaking now as an admin with some minimal knowledge of legal matters, the comments wouldn't be libelous about Dodosn even if false, although the institute where she got the degree from might have a minimal case. Fifth, in general, the standard to succeed on a libel suit is very high, so in general, simple removal with an explanation on the talk page will generally suffice. In this case, a note that the page in question appeared to be a personal page that had been made to look mildly professional would have been helpful, especially since without that clarification it looked to a bystandder (i.e. me) that it was removal of well-sourced information- WP:BLP makes clear that reliably sourced information should in general not be so removed. In any event, thank you for dealing with this matter. JoshuaZ 02:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

And let me give you a piece of advice. You are offering legal advice and opinion. DO NOT DO THAT. DO NOT.

Second, guess what happened first. I deleted the problematic material, and an editor came along and without asking or investigating simply reverted it. That was you, JoshuaZ. The result was a nasty little exchange between us that could have been avoided if you had investigated **before** simply hitting the "undo" button. But you didn't do anything like that -- and now you expect me meekly to listen to you as a font of wisdom? I won't. In the future, investigate first -- ask questions and determine what the lay of the land is. Then and only then, take action.

Third, you ended up agreeing with me that there's a problem here. Well, I'm glad that my judgment was in the right ballpark. But instead of saying "Well, OK, he was right -- we took care of it," you have now decided to lecture me about how to behave. Read my User Page -- I suspect that I am a lot older and more experienced than you. Don't condescend.

Fourth, in the future pay very close attention to the difference between warnings and alerts on the one hand, and threats on the other. There's a big difference between someone sayng, "Hey, don't step on the ice on that lake. See the sign?" and someone who threatens to drown you. You don't know the difference, but maybe you do now.

Fifth, I will now go back to the Betty Dodson page and edit my original warning. I will keep that page on my watchlist for when the next overhasty editor decides to act without any investigation and revert the deletion. Because if you did that, someone else will also.

Timothy Perper 09:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I have made the changes on the Betty Dodson talk page, and noted as well that I had changed my comment. The originals, of course, are available on History, in case anyone is interested. But the question is now of historical interest only. Timothy Perper 09:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

OEL Manga References

By any chance, do you have any references pertaining to "OEL manga", "Amerimanga", or relation? Given your sources, I'm putting my bets that you do. KyuuA4 19:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Yup. I organized them for you, and put some comments way at the end.

TokyoPop: OEL and now Global Manga

Anime News Network. May 5, 2006. Tokyopop To Move Away from OEL and World Manga Labels. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-05-05/tokyopop-to-move-away-from-oel-and-world-manga-labels

[Seven Seas Entertainment claims to have invented the term 'World Manga'; see ANN

correction below. This ANN entry claims that TokyoPop is abandoning the term "Original English :Language" manga.]

Gravett, Paul. 2006. ORIGINAL MANGA: MANGA NOT 'MADE IN JAPAN'. http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/092_originalmanga/092_originalmanga.htm

(It says: "The original version of this article appeared in The Bookseller in October 2006.")

ICv2. September 7, 2007. Interview with Tokyopop's Mike Kiley,

Part 1: http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/11249.html

Part 2: http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/11250.html

Part 3: http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/11251.html

Reid, Calvin. March 28, 2006. HarperCollins, Tokyopop Ink Manga Deal. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6319467.html

(It says: "This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on March. 28, 2006.")

Robofish. (no date). Manga, American-style. http://www.tokyopop.com/Robofish/insidetp/688417.html

Seven Seas Entertainment: World Manga

Anime News Network. May 10, 2006. Correction: World Manga. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2006-05-10/correction-world-manga

[It says that Seven Seas Entertainment claims inventing the term "World Manga" in October :2004. Gives URLS.]

Forbes, Jake. (No date). What is World Manga? http://www.gomanga.com/news/features_gomanga_002.php

[Cited by preceding.]

Studio Ironcat: AmeriManga

Anime News Network. November 11, 2002. I.C. Entertainment (formerly Ironcat) to launch anthology of Manga by American artists. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2002-11-27/i.c-promotes-amerimanga

Note that date!

General Essay

Tai, Elizabeth. September 23, 2007. Manga outside Japan. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2007/9/23/lifebookshelf/18898783&sec=lifebookshelf

--- OK, some comments and opinions. One has to be extremely careful believing any of these claims. Nearly all of them come from US manga publishers, who have vested interests in claiming that THEY, not their competition, did it first and better. Thus, these claims are basically marketing strategies.

In fact, one can suspect that all so-called OEL manga, Global manga, Amerimanga, and whatnot manga are marketing ploys and nothing more. For example, NO ONE in the industry, least of all at TokyoPop, is going to say that Studio Ironcat did all this back in 2002 -- although they did, and I remember it. Well, Studio Ironcat is defunct, and no one has any reason to correct the record.

That would be hard to document, but Kiley makes it very clear that TokyoPop is in the business of selling comics. I do not know of any serious, scholarly comparisons between Japanese manga and these forms of manga-like comics ("International Neo-Manga" if you like), but to my eye most OEL manga look exactly like American cartooning. But to CALL them "manga" means, the marketeers hope, that will obtain so-called "catch sales" in comic book stores and elsewhere, simply because they will be shelved with Japanese manga.

This is a multi-million dollar business, and one should not be fooled into thinking that the publishers are anything but businessmen. They're after the dollar, and if calling it manga, even something as un-manga-esque as Giffen and Roman's I Luv Halloween, well, call it manga if that sells it. Call it anything -- including "Arthur." It's like labeling a bottle of wine "Contains NO trans fats!"

Is that a harsh and evil judgment? No, not really. In Francophone cartooning, the bande dessinée tradition, there is non-Japanese manga ("la nouvelle manga" of Frédéric Boilet), but that is based on artists, not marketeers, adopting and adapting Japanese originals. There's a long tradition of that in France, called "Japonisme". But I do not see American OEL manga artists following in Boilet's footsteps; I see young artists trying to sell their work to anyone who will buy it, as artists have always done. That is NOT a slam against American artists; it's a slam against the rotten financial condition young American artists find themselves in.

Well, OK, rant aside, what about reliability? I tried to give you some Wiki-reliable sources. ICv2 and Publisher's Weekly are impeccable; Anime News Network is about as good as Wikipedia (meaning extremely variable), and the publishers themselves are selling their products. Publisher-derived material should (in my opinion) be used only to support statements like "TokyoPop claims that XYZ."

Lastly, enter the fans and otaku. THEY will claim anything on their blogs that happens to make them feel good. Before manga hit the market, no one -- I mean NO ONE -- said that Frank Miller's work was influenced by Japanese cartooning. That would have been treason. But, now that manga is big, some otaku will say that Miller was *really* a mangaka. And other otaku will howl bloody murder. None of these opinions are worth the bandwidth they're wasting, at least in my rather curmudgeonly opinion. If you're going to try to document these claims, yes, you'll have to cite the blogs and whatnot (actually, I don't think I have references to any of them), and then cite someone else's opposite opinion from another blog.

You can get away with this on Wiki, with its No Blog policy, by using the blogs to prove the existence of certain opinions. Thus: "One class of fan claims XYZ (for example, refs 1 and 2), but amother class of fan claims the opposite (refs 3 and 4)." Then you're using the blog to prove that these opinions exist, and not using the blog to prove, contra NPOV, that the opinion is true. That is a proper use of citation.

So there you are. Let me know how it works out.

Timothy Perper 00:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks. I'll be making use of this info. to expand the OEL manga article. As for the rant, yes. Fandom can get a bit crazy. KyuuA4 20:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Lolicon

Ah, I see you're becoming acquainted with the madness that is Wikipedia. Other than fighting over the illustration, Lolicon is a pretty quiet little corner. I pulled up the article you mentioned on the talk page from Ebsco and did a search for the term lolicon and got zilch. It's not a subject I have any particular interest in--I have just been trying for some time to get the folks who are interested in it to work on improving the article. You appear to have insight into the weaknesses of the entry, and I think it would be great if you did some work on it. Thanks. -Jmh123 21:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. So tell me more about your ideas-- put 'em on my user talk page, If you want to find out more about my editing. look up "manga". I did the introduction, overview, and the history section after Word War II up to and includiing shojo, nothing else, Timothy Perper 02:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

And BTW look up my user page, Timothy Perper 02:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. So tell me more about your ideas-- put 'em on my user talk page, If you want to find out more about my editing. look up "manga". I did the introduction, overview, and the history section after Word War II up to and includiing shojo, nothing else, Timothy Perper 02:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

How about we start with history? You can see in the article there are two opposing views of the origins: one under "origins" which was translated by Wikipedia editor Kasuga (also a lolicon and manga artist) and one in the following section which I wrote, taken from Sharon Kinsella's article. Well, even before that, there's the issue that the article glosses over the larger lolicon phenomenon (you'll see I added a bit on that today) to focus on lolicon manga almost entirely. When it comes to manga, I think there are unanswered questions about the relationship between lolicon manga and manga in general: is the boundary clear, what are the commonalities/differences, and so forth? Some of the editors are very adamant that lolicon is not porn, or not specifically or necessarily pornographic, but haven't been able to explain that well. Another question I have is lolicon manga in the West: we have virtually nothing on this. What do western people watch or look at that could be called lolicon manga? Is it primarily an internet phenomenon or do they also purchase videos or books from Japan? Or westerners also draw lolicon manga?

Here are some of my (redacted) comments from the talk page over time:

• I applied over at translation yesterday asking for a translation of the relevant sections of the Japanese lolicon entry to try to resolve the conflicting versions of the origins. I don't think what I've written implies that female mangaka object to lolicon; rather, it indicates that they originally drew a different kind of character. Would you say that the lolicon of the mangaka's you have linked portrays girls as victims & pets or as tough & clever? If they also draw victimized girls, and if most of those who buy their work are also female, then that would call Kinsella's thesis into question.

My impression is that true rorikon manga is rare in Japan. For one thing, it is very illegal. I have no data on the subject, and do not go near anything resembling rorikon hentai. I won't touch it with a ten-foort pole. More below.Timothy Perper 22:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

All I want to do is fix this article in hopes that with a better article people will quit fussing about the illustration. -Jmh123 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• One of my sources said by the 2000's half of Japanese animated pornography had become child pornography, which brings up a question--is lolicon just any drawn/animated child pornography that features little girls, and, if not, what distinguishes it? Another question--are the girls in lolicon of ambiguous age as in other anime? The "lolicon in the west" section is pretty short. What do people watch? How/where? Do Americans draw it? Europeans? These sites such as 4chan seem to be very influential, at least on some of the Wikipedia folks--what are they exactly, and what role do they play in the reception of lolicon in the west?

There is hardly any research on any of these questions. Over time, if you go to enough bars and strike up enough conversations with people, you'll hear all kinds of stories about Japan -- and that's all it is. Bar talk, gossip, rumor. No research. Timothy Perper 22:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

So when the article states that "Lolicon is a widespread phenomenon in Japan, where it is a frequent subject of scholarly articles and criticism," that is false? -Jmh123 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I doubt if it's accurate. The first problem is defining "lolicon." Yes, there has been immense concern over child sexual abuse in Japan, starting with the so-called "Miyazaki incident," and a great deal pro and con has been written about manga in Japan. The second problem is getting past the writer's biases. To an anti-lolicon writer, it's everywhere, a deadly scourge, etc, etc. To a lolicon-neutral writer, there's some of it around, mostly in fetish mags and websites. I don't know any easy way to find Wiki-verifiable material about this.

How about the second half of the sentence? Is it a frequent subject of scholarly articles and criticism? -Jmh123 01:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

• So what's the appeal of lolicon in the west? Why is it so popular? What is it exactly anyway? If the term "child pornography" is offensive to those who view it, and "NO child pornography" is the first rule, then why doesn't the entry state that? The article should be written so that people who don't know anything about lolicon can understand the genre better.

Yes, I agree that education is very important. But I also notice that this article is strong on moral opinion, and weak on definitions. Timothy Perper 22:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Where in the world am I supposed to get these definitions or get any information? That's why I'm asking for help. I can only include what I can find. -Jmh123 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

• The sites/forums seem to be very influential--what are they exactly, and what role do they play in the reception of lolicon in the west? I think you can describe the forums and name the most prominent ones, without linking or a citation. What about games? Are they popular in the west?

• And could someone please name some of the most popular or famous lolicon manga/mangaka?

I doubt if your fellow editors would tolerate such a thing -- "That makes it too easy to find!" some of them would say. In addition, any links to names or websites would be or should be suspected of being police sting operations. This stuff is very very illegal in the US, and the authorities try very hard to enforce those laws. Timothy Perper 22:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh for Pete's sake! Examples are actually quite easy to find online, but ew, no thanks. Descriptive, analytical information about it as a genre of anime/manga? Not so much. I'm not looking for links, and we wouldn't want to link to these sites anyway, but I see no reason to protect the names of particular manga or anime or forums. Which reminds me, another possible angle is moe. Is there anything published (including in Japanese) about the role of moe in the lolicon phenomenon? -Jmh123 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd still warn people that those sites may be monitored and/or run by the police. Moe should not be confused with lolicon. US fanboys define moe to mean what they like. I suspect that most of the literature on moe is in Japanese and is unreadable to most Americans.

I hope this is helpful in giving you a sense of my questions and what I see as issues in the article. If it becomes overly long we can easily break off the legal controversies into a separate entry linked to this one, which we have discussed doing in the past. There was a time when that was virtually the sole content of the entry. Here's a link to the June, 2007 version: [1]. -Jmh123 03:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

history

OK, now that I've vented my frustrations, let's get back to history and origins. Someone tagged the material Kasuga had translated today, which is under "origins"--can you help at all with the first questions I asked? I've bolded the questions that perhaps you can help with. ^^^ Thanks. -Jmh123 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I sympathize with your frustrations -- there is a serious lack of scholarly, reliable information about all these topics in English.

OK, I read Kasuga's material. It's unreferenced, which is a serious matter here because his conclusions sound like opinions to me. It would take an expert far wsier than I to disagree, but I can't agree either. It's one of those "So you say" paragraphs. Wiki abounds in this kind of fan-style tossing off of stuff, and no one can verify it.

It's a translation from the Japanese Wikipedia lolicon article, which isn't to say these aren't someone's opinions. -Jmh123 01:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Kinsella is pointing to a real phenomenon -- better known nowadays as YAOI -- but her connection between YAOI and lolicon seems farfetched to me. YAOI deals with idealized male-male erotic and emotional bonding, and is drawn and read primarily by women; the target audience for lolicon manga is, as Kinsella says, men. Back in the 1990s, when Kinsella was writing, not much manga had been translated into English, and concerns were very common among at least some women scholars that manga in general portrayed women as objects of intrusive and exploitative male gaze and that manga portrayed women in general as subject to male sexual violence (rape, torture, and the like). As manga became better known in the US, these Orientalist stereotypes fell apart, though some die-hard writers still accept them.

The only lolicon I've seen, from Kasuga's site, fit Kinsella's stereotype to a "T". That is, fearful, naked women and girls in ropes and chains. -Jmh123 01:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Contrary to what Kinsella wrote about manga a decade ago, portrayals of sexuality and of girls and women are extremely varied. You might be interested in an encyclopedia article Martha Cornog and I wrote -- you can find it at http://kinseyinstitute.org/ccies/jp.php#unconvent (you'll have to scroll down to Section 8.D to find our contribution). You can pick up some of the debate in the earlier subsections in section 8. We don't deal with lolicon, though.

Here's a quote from the current Wiki lolicon article. It illustrates some problems.

In the late 1980s (Kinsella) states that men began to follow these women's styles in writing amateur manga about girl characters: "Lolicom manga usually features a voluptuous girl heroine with large eyes and a pre-pubescent body, scantily clad in an outfit which approximates a cross between a 1970s bikini and a space-age suit of armour. She is liable to be cute, tough and clever." [8] As the genre created by and for men evolved, according to Kinsella, it moved from these cute, tough heroines towards depictions of girls as sexual victims: naked, helpless, fearful, sometimes bound or chained and was expanded into computer games and animated videos.

I do not know how a "voluptuous" heroine can have a "pre-pubescent" body, and would worry that someone wasn't thinking too clearly when they wrote this. Nor do I understand the logic of why depictions of one kind evolved into another kind. But very little was known about manga in the US in the 1980s, so comments like Kinsella's are probably best considered of historical interest only, and should not be treated as reliable sources of information about manga in the 1980s and 1990s.

Is that closer to what you want to know?

So basically the sum of what you are telling me there are no sources, no reliable information about lolicon that we can use. -Jmh123 01:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Timothy Perper 00:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'm saying about determining the truth or lack thereof for these theories. But you can certainly cite them as theories or proposals and use the material you have. "One group of writers suggests that --- ABC --- add refs. By contrast, another group of writers suggests --- DEF -- add refs." Just fill in whatever the ABC's and DEF's are, meaning the details of each set of ideas. That helps avoid the POV problem that has plagued this entry from the start. (You can say "The authors of the Japanese Wikipedia entry on lolicon argue that (or propose that) --- GHI ---add ref to Jp Wiki.")

You might use the same technique for describing definitions or characterizations of lolicon. This would help you deal with lolicon, child pornography, and sexual abuse of children, simply by saying that "certain critics believe --- JKL --- add refs." You could cover quite a lot that way without ever losing NPOV.

A great deal of material about sexuality, especially explosive issues like lolicon, leads to this kind of conflict among theories. And then we rely on words like argue, propose, and suggest to describe what these people are saying.

Timothy Perper 06:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You'll notice that's exactly how I have handled the controversies I'm asking about. I just removed "according to Japanese Wikipedia" from the "origins" section yesterday[2] because of the tag that was added with an edit comment stating that "Wikipedia is not a citable source." I haven't decided whether to remove that section (translated from Japanese Wikipedia and added by Kasuga), as it is without sourcing, or continue to try to find sourcing for it. I realize Wikipedia has a lot of problems, but it's also a good idea to pay a bit of attention to an individual's contributions before deciding that we're all equally uninformed. What I was looking for from you is some additional sources of information on this topic, some specific references that could address those questions that I have asked. If a student were consulting with me on a research project, this is how we would approach the process: the student would tell me about questions he or she might have, and I would provide direction by suggesting sources that would address those questions. I should have made it more clear that my intent in asking questions was to obtain information, and saved us both a lot of trouble. If I understand you correctly, you know of no sources of information on the topic of lolicon. I hope you will feel free to address any problems you see in the lolicon article by joining in the editing process yourself. Your contributions as an editor will be welcome. -Jmh123 12:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, you're right -- I don't know of any reliable, Wiki-verifiable sources about lolicon. There are -- as you know -- lots of other sources on the web, fan burbling, pictures-mostly websites, and other cynical, mostly pornographic sources. But I myself don't know of any work that has seriously examined lolicon and that would therefore provide answers to your questions. What I may be missing are passing references to lolicon in the course of other work, but. for sexuality, there really isn't all that much serious work to begin with. What I am not familiar with is work in various Japanese-American studies journals and societies; some of them might have had an article on something related. But I haven't found it. Do keep looking! Timothy Perper 15:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Publisher buying wikpedia

Hey Tim,

I see you haven't edted in a while, but maybe you'll get this. I was reading your user page comments, and have a response to Random House or whoever buying wikipedia. The thing about WP that is problematic for profit minded companies is that our text is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Basically the world owns WP'S text. If a publisher wanted to copy our entire web site and call it their own, they can do so without paying any money. The same for any individual. Answers.com and a bunch of other web sites already do it. They reason they don't become wikipedia is because our editors are used to editing here and not at some other web site, it's inertia. We're a non-profit with rules that I think preclude us from being bought, but even if that isn't correct and someone does buy wikipedia, if it annoys our editors enough to overcome that inertia, we could move elsewhere. Anyways, it's something interesting and you might mention it to your friend. Wikipedia is free to us, and is free to any company that thinks they can do a better job. Sometimes I wish Google would copy WP and create a Fork (software development), but it will take a change that really annoys the editors to do it. - Peregrine Fisher 03:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... the GNU license is only part of the attraction of buying up Wiki. It's the ad revenues that a buyer would really want, all the little signs "Ads by Google" that come up next to the main text. So far as the editors go, one of the first things a commercial purchaser would do is appoint a "Senior Editorial Board" with an Executive Editor, or some such title, whose #1 job is to get rid of 60% of the present editors. At least 60%. That person's #2 job would be to institute a sign-in page, where you enter your name, email address, and user name, just like signing on to amazon.com. At the top of the page it'd say something like "Why sign in?" Then:

Wikipedia no longer allows anonymous editing. That's to prevent vandals from destroying Wikipedia and to stop people from writing obscenities everywhere. Think of it as an ANTI-GRAFITTI effort.

But it's just speculation...

I've been doing various small editing jobs, like keeping an eye on several pages and reverting garbage. I've just finished writing a mid-length article about manga for a print journal. Wiki is an odd collection of blogs, opinions, some good work, and weird things. But I don't want to make a career of it, so I went back to writing for print outlets. They stick around longer in libraries...

Timothy Perper 04:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

It's complicated for sure. Like predicting what the next big thing on the internet is; if you can do it, you're a millionare. I know you like referenced articles, so you might think about adding Wikipedia:Good article nominations and Template:GA number to your watchlist. They are only a few thousand out of millions of articles, btu they might give you hope. It's also a nice outlet for demanding references and well written artilces. - Peregrine Fisher 05:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I enjoy talking to an academic about this, becuase this is what will make or break wikipedia. Either we will gain the respect of the academic community and thrive, or we'll be stuck being written by teenagers. Those links I provided in my previous comments are our attempt to impress and therefore recruit people who know what they're doing. WP has roughly 2 million artilces, but I don't think what's important is our percentage of well written articles, but how many well written articles we have. We have maybe 4 or 5 thousand well written articles, and my guessimate is that we need 10 or 20 thousand so that when people come here to research something, they "happen" upon a good article. That will take 3-4 years. - Peregrine Fisher 05:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to worry about our being stuck being written by teenagers. Most articles are written by teenagers and unemployed men. ;-) --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Now, that is wickedly funny! Timothy Perper (talk) 12:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The Rig Veda

I am sorry you withdrew your comment on the Talk page. Would you consider reinstating it? I think it might be of interest to other readers. Try not to get depressed - Wikipedia really is a fabulous resource in spite of its many, many faults. I know what it is like - I have been in some dreadful flaming wars myself - and they indeed hurt. Cheers and best wishes, John Hill 01:37, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks :-)

I'm never sure how people will react to that comment on my talkpage but it's nice to see when people agree with it. Serendi^podous 17:44, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Please don't

Please don't remove it! Look the talk page I think there is need for dicussion. Thanks --Beyond silence (talk) 21:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Your edit history

Here it is. Tracks the progress of manga pretty well. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Fixed Watanabe reference in manga article

Oy. Sorry 'bout that. Any information about Watanabe would be cool, but don't make it a high priority -- especially not higher than fixing Manga. —Quasirandom (talk) 18:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You should be able to email me the Watanabe material through the "E-mail this user" link on my profile. If that doesn't work, I can get you a more direct address. (I'm interested in seeing the Watanabe article too. We don't do a very good job on Wikipedia with the older shojo/josei mangaka, except the wildly popular ones like Ai Yazawa I meant Naoko Takeuchi, of course.) —Quasirandom (talk) 19:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yazawa's popular too... I'm not sure I can attach a file through the Wiki email thingie, but I'll try. But first I want to check the first 50 or so refs in the manga article. More soon. Timothy Perper (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

No rush -- we're not on a deadline, after all. Besides, it's a holiday. —Quasirandom (talk) 03:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipetan visits the Manga article again

I like her! Her place is in the article...:D But I don't know why people take her out! --Beyond silence 15:35, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

User page comments

"But then he said something that made me stop. I'll paraphrase -- "It's only a matter of time before one of the big publishers, like Random House or Google, buys Wikipedia." I objected that (to my knowledge, at least) Wikipedia isn't for sale, but he only smiled. "They have debts for all those computers," he replied. "And the debts get bigger the more popular Wikipedia gets." I mumbled something about Wikipedia having a "No Crystal Ball" policy about not predicting the future, but that policy doesn't operate out here in the real world. And I ended up wondering how long Wikipedia can last in its present incarnation. Any for-profit publisher who buys Wikipedia will make changes, and those too I wonder about... I had no answer to my friend's comment, and I still don't."

I don't really know what your friend is thinking. Debts? There are no debts for the computers and hosting. The ones that weren't donated by, say, Yahoo!, were paid for with cash on the barrelhead. Hosting is a constant expense, but the WMF gets special rates, and annual donations have always been enough to cover that million a year or so expense. And there is a limit to how much traffic will be directed Wikipedia's way, anyway, and we're more or less nearing it.

As for buying Wikipedia - how does one buy a charity? Why would one want to buy the Foundation in the first place? All the content of all the projects is already made available for totally free at WP:DUMP, right down to full and complete SQL dumps (not that a live feed, which the WMF sells to folks like Answer.com, is all that expensive). If one were to somehow acquire the WMF's assets, about all you'd get is some nice hardware, a few domain names, and some IP like the logos. --Gwern (contribs) 18:22 8 January 2008 (GMT)

I can't really say what he was thinking beyond what I was paraphrasing. Bob (his real name, BTW, and I'm not making this up or disguising my own views under a pseudonym) has a background in print publication, and with publishers who are quite capable of offering a 5 digit advances to authors. A million dollars a year is very small compared to some of these companies.

From what I see -- and this is my opinion -- I can easily see Wikipedia Foundation accepting a partnership with a corporate publisher if the price is right. An outfit like Random House, Microsoft or Google could easily make such an offer. Not that I'm predicting that they will -- far from it. What I am saying is that there is no guarantee that Wiki will survive once Google gets into the on-line encyclopedia business and competition starts building. Even a consortium of universities could start an online encyclopedia that would offer Wikipedia a serious run for its money. The prize, it seems to me, is fame. Wiki is way up there on the list of top sites visited, partly because there's little else (and a lot of other encyclopedias merely mirror Wiki articles). But with fame comes potential advertising revenue -- and then the competition starts.

The reason I mentioned this in my user page comments is that despite Wiki's No Crystal Ball policy, we can and maybe should think of what the future of online encyclopedias will be. Google Knol is only the first shot over the bow, and there will no doubt be more. The Wikipedia model -- anyone can edit it, anyone can join in, no one signs the articles -- is not necessarily the best business model for running an online encyclopedia. Wiki would be **quite** vulnerable to an entrepreneurial encyclopedia that said its articles were written by genuine experts and not by anonymous high school students with screen names like Kwodbog6. Unfair? Yes. Would it work? Quite possibly. So it's food for thought, how long the Wiki model can last.

Timothy Perper (talk) 21:26, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not worried. Any such partnership will be very closely scrutinized by the community, and if there's any bad influence, things will happen. The Spanish Wikipedia forked just because of discussion of running advertising, after all.

As for competition - the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed. Wikipedia has been in competition for ages and ages. From when Encyclopedia Britannica was free, to the 1911 EB, to Nupedia, to Everything2, it was born into competition. And that competition is often better. MathWorld, MacTutor, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Wikia encyclopedias like Memory Alpha or Wookieepedia, Citizendium, Digital Universe, Answers.com etc. etc. Knol is just another player in a crowded pool, and only interesting because it's Google. It doesn't worry me - if Wikipedia has problems, Knol will have them in spades. --Gwern (contribs) 18:01 9 January 2008 (GMT)

You may be right! Let's hope so. In the meantime, there's a discussion on the manga talk page about what art to use -- your input would be valuable. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: Manga article

Thanks, I really appreciate your compliments, you've done a great job as well. It's still a bit far from WP:GAC but we'll get there. I'm not certain what to do with the publication section, as I have but only limited knowledge of manga history. I do collect manga. If, however, you ever have any manga/anime-related questions, please feel free to ask. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I left some comments at the bottom here. Maybe you can help answer them? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 04:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Good day ol' chap! Can you comment here? Seems there's work to do. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I kind of have a concern: you say you fixed the references, why didn't you finish up with the others? Not trying to get offensive or anything, I just don't want to see the article fail WP:GAC again and we have limited time. You may respond on your talk page or Talk:Manga if you prefer. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand that you don't even want to touch the article (yes, some people can really be a pain) but I really, really need your editing done to references numbers: 10, 13, 17, 18, 21, 22, 25, 57, and 62 (I'm pretty sure it's just this). Just do what you did the last time; format the references "Timothy Perper-style!" I'm asking as a fellow Wikipedian and friend, may you finish what was once started? I won't bother you with this anymore once the task is complete. Oh, you don't have to leave any comments back at Talk:Manga, I insist. I can tell where you're coming from because I've been in similar situations. Cheers, Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Amazing! I hoped you would help and you did. Thanks a bunch. BTW, did you intentionally leave the dates on ref numbers 10, 21, 24 and 61 or was that accidental? You may reply on Talk:Manga, as I am watching the discussion there. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 16:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I left a comment on Talk:Manga my friend. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't mention it ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Manga GAC

I'd noticed you were rather vehemently refusing to do anything on the talk page. Sorry it's turned you off so much. Hopefully my comments will get through someone's head, although it's not the sort of article I'd be likely to edit - I don't read manga and frankly know little about it. Happy editing elsewhere, anyway! Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

IBM Roadrunner

Did some dumbing down of some crucial points but I got slapped with a {{Citations missing}} and a {{cleanup-section}} for that. What should I do now? -- Henriok (talk) 22:08, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Unreferenced image

This image in the Manga article is un-referenced and has no support in the text. Should I remove it? -- Henriok (talk) 22:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

OEL manga

Hi there. As one of the only people who has sort-of-recently left comments on Original English-language manga, I invite you to take place in a current sparsely-populated discussion over renaming the article and corresponding category. No new arguments really, just need to come to some conclusion as we have German-language articles that need categorization. Thanks! :) --hamu♥hamu (TALK) 01:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you very much for saying what I should call you by, Tim! It's a bit of a relief, because I'm kind of .. suddenly conscious? that I'm working on this with real experts. I'm afraid you're both going to have to be patient with me when I don't get things! Hopefully I'm at least amusing and helpful. -Malkinann (talk) 12:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ditto

I'll stop calling you "Timothy," Tim. (^^) Matt Thorn (talk) 15:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

manga

Thanks for your comment. I believe that the correct approach to new unsourced edit, especially when the content is likely to be accurate, is to add . As I stated, all of my edit come from manga article in Japanese wikipedia, which contain number of solid source such as this . Moreover, my reference to Giga, kokkeibon are already well established fact as can be seen from related wikipedia article. If you feel that my edit is an original research, please feel free to add and I will try to rectify it later, but I appreciate if you do not disrupt my edit for a while. As I have stated, the current English manga article contain large amount of inaccuracies. I also notice that quite few edit, before I started to alter it, are unsourced as well. Vapour (talk)

Please see my comments on the Manga talk page. That is the proper place for this discussion, not here on my talk page. Timothy Perper (talk) 21:55, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Dates

When a date includes a day and month, user formatting preferences ("my preferences" "Date and time") will be invoked by linking it, e.g. [[10 April]] can show as either April 10 or 10 April, and hence should almost always be linked. Any associated year should also be linked viz: 10 April 1962 because the software can display this as 1962-04-10 for those who have their date preferences set to ISO. In due course a feature may be added to MediaWiki allow a different syntax from linking to do this. Rich Farmbrough, 16:40 14 August 2008 (GMT).

Kobold

Please have a look here for my reply to your greatly appreciated comment on certain editors - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Sailor Moon

Striking while the iron's hot, I've recently added a blurb from a paper by you and Martha to Sailor Moon's "Reception"... If you could please give it a look-over so I don't feel like I'm taking your name in vain, I'd greatly appreciate it! Also, if you happen to be aware of any readily-available references that we really ought to be using in the Sailor Moon article, or if we've got something completely and utterly wrong, I'd appreciate knowing about that too. (Just be gentle, ok?) -Malkinann (talk) 11:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear, I hope you're not put out by finding your paper scanned online... I found it via AMWESS. -Malkinann (talk) 01:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not at all upset. I know -- meaning I've emailed -- the person who runs the service, Mikhail Koulikov. He's a librarian, like Martha, and very knowledgeable about the literature. People like that are worth their weight in gold... Thanks for letting me know! Timothy Perper (talk) 04:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Date audit script

By all means, Timothy. The script now allows the delinking of irritating links to the names of everyday countries and demonyms as well. It's updated (by User:Lightmouse) regularly, and since you'll trasclude, the updates occur automatically for you.

Please let me know if you have any problems in installing or using the script. Tony (talk) 12:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Installation and usage of date-autoformatting removal script

Instructions for installation

• EITHER: If you have a monobook already, go to it, click "edit this page", and paste in this string underneath your existing script:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');

• OR: If you don't have a monobook.js page, create one using this title:

[[User:[your username]/monobook.js]]

Then click on "edit this page" and paste in at the top the "importScript" string you see three lines above here.

• Hit "Save page".
• Refresh your cache (instructions at top of monobook).
• You're ready to start.

Applying the script—it's very simple

• Go to an article and determine whether US or international format is used. (For this purpose, it's best to have selected "no preferences" for dates in your user preferences, which will display the raw date formats that our readers see. Otherwise, you'll need to check in edit mode.) Occasionally, you'll see that the wrong format is used (check MOSNUM's guidance on this carefully).
• Click on "edit this page". You'll see the list of script commands under "what links here". Click on either "delink all dates to mdy" (US format) or "delink all dates to mdy" (international format).
• The diff will automatically appear. Check through the changes you're making before saving them. If there are problems, fix them manually before saving, or cancel.
• Leave a note at the article talk page if editors need to negotiate which format to use, or need to be alerted to any other date-related issues.
• Click on "Save page": it's done.

Afterwards

• Respond politely and promptly to any critical comments on your talk page. If someone wants to resist or revert, it's better to back down and move on to improve other articles where WPians appreciate your efforts. NEVER edit-war over date autoformatting; raise the issue at WT:MOSNUM.

Notes

• [1] Treats only square-bracketed dates. The script removes square brackets only, which mostly involves the main text and footnotes; it's acceptable for citation-generated dates to be of a different format, particularly ISO (which must not be used in the main text).
• [2] Piped year-links ([[1989 in baseball|1989]]). On purpose, the script will not touch these.
• [3] Date-sorting templates in tables. As of August 23, a minor tweak must be made to the script (which will update automatically), to deal with the column-sorting template in tables. Please be aware of this in relation to Featured Lists and the like (i.e., hold off there until it's fixed). The "dts" and "dts2" templates are at issue, and can be identified in display mode by a small clickable item at the top of a column. This should be fixed soon.
• [4] Antiquity-related articles. Articles on topics such as ancient Rome should be treated with caution, since the script removes year-links as well, and some editors may argue that there's a case for retaining the simple year and century links from ancient times (e.g., 212). It's better to ask first in these cases. In any case, such articles contain few if any full dates.

Your monobook

You added all of Tony's text to your monobook and that won't work. You only need one line:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');

Regards Lightmouse (talk) 12:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Help requested

Hi: I am working on cleaning up biographical articles in Wikipedia from all time periods. If you would be so kind as to look at two examples, I would like to get a more definitive answer as to when or if I should be linking dates at all in bio articles and if so, is it ok to link the birth and death dates of a person at the beginning of an article; as well as regnal or political appointment dates in infoboxes. I have looked at the MOS, but it isn't clear...

Examples:

• Adolf Hitler
• George IV of the United Kingdom

thank you in advance for any guidance. FeanorStar7 (talk) 14:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking from a table

I have replied at Wikipedia:Help desk#Wikilinking from a table. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

yaoi being used as a source without attribution?

Dear Tim, when looking for sources for the yaoi article, I've come across something disquieting - I found an article that I think has used the wikipedia article as a source without citing wikipedia - reading their article, it seems to me that some of the phrases are eerily familiar (especially when comparing to versions of our page just prior to the rewrite of "Critical attention"). Do you think that it's just that it covers the same subject matter in a similarly brief space, or is it more than that? I'd like to get yours and Matt's opinons on it before I start looking into contacting them about the content. Thank you. -Malkinann (talk) 22:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for saying you'll check it out - I'd really like to check that it's not just me "seeing things". Thus far, all I've been able to find on other sites violating WP's copyrights is WP:FORK, which covers a slightly different situation. -Malkinann (talk) 22:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It'll be in a day or so, not immediately -- I have a doctor's appt tmw and a bunch of other chores. But I won't forget. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I mainly study geology - I tried a bit of genetics early on, but I kept on accidentally squishing the fruit flies. :( Have you read any of the series on Wikipedian fauna, such as the dread WikiKraken? Maybe if you write a funny essay about the WikiKobolds it could be added to the bestiary. Because we re-wrote the Critical attention section in yaoi since the "similarity", it may be hard for the editors of the magazine to tell, although I can use the article history to support my claims. I'm also kind of torn as to whether to write to the author of the article first or to write directly to the editors of the magazine, which affects the "voice" I'm aiming for. I can't quite get the "pleasantly affiliative" voice down pat just now. Maybe I'll try again later. -Malkinann (talk) 23:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

?

I have not removed anything from the article. Please do not accuse me for something that I've never done. I only put "nihongo template. Besides, the removal of the text is not discussed before. It seems I feel getting hard working with you. (I thought you will focus on the term referring to girl, shojo).--Caspian blue (talk) 15:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams plea

Hi Tim! Could you please flick through your copy of Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams for material which could be usable for yaoi and fujoshi? I've been trying to read the partial copy on Google Books, but I'm afraid that my eyes just glaze over whenever Tamaki Saitō starts talking about phalluses - not for *those* reasons, either. ;P He's just a bit dense in his words for my liking. This essay seems kind of like your thing, so I'm hoping that you can explain the relevant bits enough so that we can incorporate them into the articles. Thank you! -Malkinann (talk) 14:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Many chuckles and laughter... I don't understand 80% of what he's saying either. But I'll give it a try. Ha-ha... Or maybe it's because I disagree with it so much. Anyway, here goes.

Basically, Tamaki Saitō is a Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalyist (see Jacques Lacan, though that might not help much either). Saitō's basic argument comes from Freud and Lacan's ideas about women, specifically, that they lack the phallus and are therefore "incomplete" (the translator's word, not mine!). The result, in this theory, is that women become either sexually passive wives and mothers (the healthy and desirable outcome in this theory) or become neurotic individuals suffering from penis envy (don't trust that entry either). In consequence, certain women imagine that they in fact possess the phallus, not in a libidinal or sexual sense but in an imaginary world of their own. In this view, "normal" females of whatever age are "castrated" males who have accepted their role and place in life and society as passive. However, other women are in denial and think they have penises -- these are the so-called "phallic women" of Freudian and Lacanian thought, whom Tamaki Saitō calls "Object A".

He next proposes that the male otaku, who is, in his opinion, at the best quite immature, suffers from castration anxiety and fears the loss of or damage to his own penis. In the theory, in order to ward off his anxieties about castration, such males also recognize that girls and women have been castrated. So when he encounters Object A -- the phallic woman above -- he admires her, and wants to be like her. Since he cannot genuinely incorporate her (or her imaginary phallus) into himself, he creates substitutes in art, drawings, anime, manga, and dojinshi (no, I am not making this up). Those images are of powerful, more-than-humanly endowed masculine figures like giant robots or powerful, more-than-humanly endowed female figures (like Cutey Honey by Go Nagai). These female figures Tamaki Saitō calls sento bishōjo, which literally means something like "pretty girl warrior" but is translated in the essay as "armored cutie," of whom the best known example is of course Sailor Moon. Then these young men, being neurotic themselves, withdraw from the world and hide in their rooms or creep around at night not looking at real girls but buying Motoko Kusanagi dolls, that is, they become stereotypical otaku.

If you're going to quote any of this rubbish -- ah, sorry, I meant "material" -- you'll have to wade through the essay and quote it exactly because, as I think you can see, it's quite unbelievable otherwise. Martha and I have a full-length paper in press, for the International Journal of Comic Art, criticizing such theories and specifically criticizing this theory of the sento bishōjo, whom, however, we call bishōjo senshi (I'd prefer to hope that we made mince-meat of the theory). Tamaki Saitō's theorizing comes from an ahistorical, universalizing application of Western theory (Freud and Lacan) about individual psychology that was applied at the level of society and culture to reach conclusions that I believe are not only inadequate, but false. So, yes, I have a distinct POV about this material, but it has not, I think, infected my description of theory itself. We offer an alternative view of the bishōjo senshi in our paper, deriving her imagery from Japanese folklore and changes in women's status and roles in the modern world, Japan included.

There are some additional oddities, IMO, to the theory. One is that the "phalllic woman" does not become more female by virtue of having large breasts; instead, her breasts are considered themselves to be "phallic". To be honest, that is not what I see when I look at Motoko Kusanagi, let alone Cutey Honey. So I also think the theory is misguided as art criticism or aesthetics.

Martha points out that otaku may indeed envy and admire women like Cutey Honey and Motoko because these women have overcome social barriers to become strong, powerful people. Furthermore, such women are very beautiful. In addition, she pointed out, such women don't need to be protected by shy and not-very-competent otaku men -- women like Cutey Honey, Motoko Kusanagi and Sailor Moon do not hide behind the thews of mighty heroes like Conan the Barbarian.

I'd send you a copy of our paper, but it's in the 4-5 megabyte range. It'll be published soon in IJOCA, though I don't have a specific date.

Hope it helps!

Timothy Perper (talk) 15:25, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

What Tim said. Saitō is a fruitcake, but the media love such fruitcakes, so people actually listen to what he says. <sigh> Maybe he's got a complex about having a name generally considered feminine. Matt Thorn (talk) 17:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's almost understandable! Thanks for having such a good stab at explaining it to me, even though you're not keen on the theory! I feel like I should update my knowledge of "the theory" from The Female Eunuch, but it's not a priority atm. Our Germaine's theory was hard enough to understand for me! (mind you, I was ten when I first read it...) So, for strategy when using the chapter - keep an eye out for true facts in the chapter, but keep in mind undue weight about his theories? (Are his theories considered mainstream?) My uni doesn't subscribe to IJOCA. :( -Malkinann (talk) 23:33, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that depends on what you want to do with it. If you want a readable summary, try

Gardner, William O. 2003. “Attack of the Phallic Girls: Review of Saitō Tamaki. Bishōjo senshi no seishin bunseki (Fighting Beauties: A Psychoanalysis). Tokyo: Ôta Shuppan, 2000.” <http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/gardner88.htm> accessed October 7, 2007.

It's a review of Saitō's book, reasonable and quite balanced. But if you really want or need details, then wade through the chapter in Bolton's book. Undue weight -- well, yes, but the whole chapter is about his own theories. I wouldn't say mainstream, except to Freudians, Lacanians, and their relatives. I doubt if too many sociologists take him very seriously. His work is part of the broader stream of worrying about otaku and how anti-social they are. He takes himself very seriously. I share Gardner's doubt that an analysis of the bishojo senshi that omits female readers is on very weak ground.

If you've got specific questions, ask and I'll see what I can do to help. Timothy Perper (talk) 03:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. :) I'd need details if I was going to try and use some of his work in Sailor Senshi (that is, if he even covered them in his "Fighting Beauties"). When I was speaking of undue weight, I was speaking in the context of the WP article - so we might have Saitou, but then we might find someone who says the opposite of Saitou as well. I'm glad that you're feeling a bit better about the shoujou now - if you wish to further discuss the issues associated with it, it'd be a good idea to look over WP:SYN. One tends to get taken a bit more seriously if one quotes WP policy in content disputes. I'm going to be in the field for a whole week as of tomorrow (excitement!! :D) so I'll be AFK for a while. -Malkinann (talk) 20:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Shōjō

On 21 September, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Shōjō, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 13:36, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

World domination in the future

Here is my reply to your message on the talk page:

A big problem is that the information is a direct copy from a section of World domination that was considered not to be notable enough to be included on that article. While I believe that with some work that this information may be relevant enough to deserve its own article, it needs to be expanded and better sourced. Also I disagree with you somewhat about the true purpose of the WP:NOTCRYSTAL policy. One of the examples they used about what would be a bad article under the policy was Weapons to be used in World War III. On its face such an article doesn't seem to be a "crackpot" idea to me. Also there is a logic problem to address. Lets assume 2045 (the latest date on the article) rolls around and none of the predictions come true. Most of what is on the article would have to be deleted because it would no longer be the future.

Personally I'd rather not leave it alone because I want people (including the person who copied and pasted this article from the original) to put more work into it.Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 14:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Um...ok. First I'd like to address this question of yours: "Or are you perhaps engaged in a turf war with its author and you want your own futurological ideas to be the only ones acceptable on Wiki?" Don't make assumptions like this, they could be construed as personal attacks. If you actually look at the article you can see that there has been no nomination for deletion by myself or others. I simply gave an opinion of the article that it would not hold up to Wikipedia policy. Also a look at my user page and contributions page will show you that "futurological ideas" is not a topic I visit often. If you read my original comment on your talk page more carefully you would have realized that this article was created directly out of info deleted from World domination because users there thought it wasn't encyclopedic. Again if you read my message better you would again realize that I do think the article can be made notable, but currently its not. Finally for someone who has "no vested interest in it or in the subject" you sure seem willing to argue it on someone's talk page, especially someone who has not made any attempt to delete the article.

Now I will address your other comments. So you created three hypothetical articles that may come under the policy WP:NOCRYSTAL. Your right that #1 will not hold up under the policy. Next you describe the Rand Corporation and future weapons to be build by the military, possibly like the USS America (LHA-6), and a book by an author describing warfare in the next century. Now by themselves all of these these sources may warrant their own article (except for maybe the one on Rand, some might argue that deserves to be with that article) but all together they may violate said policy especially if the writer writes said hypothetical article in the way that HE is using said sources to make a prediction. Does World domination in the future make such a prediction? No, but it comes dangerously close. As for the third one obviosly there will always be such articles that will be notable (see Category:Futurology), however again if the sources are used in the wrong way.

If we look at the sources used in World domination in the future we can see that many are books that cannot be easily accessed or fact checked by those who use Wikipedia. Most would probably make more sense to be listed in a "Further reading" section than as cites themselves. Also the cites for China just suggest that China's economy and military is growing, but do not suggest that they will dominate the world. This can be considered original research and has already caused concern from others who edited this info when it was originally on World domination: "There are no other nations listed in the "future" section. In the "past and present" sections, every entry is about domination through military force. The China section, however, is nothing but a list of economic growth indicators, without even the slightest suggestion that these might be converted into political domination. This section is therefore completely out of place on this page."

It appears to me that maybe I should nominate this for deletion so that we and anyone else who cares can argue over the notability over the argument. However since we seem to both agree that the article has merit but needs work done, I'm not sure why we are arguing this on each others talk pages. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 18:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I too apologize if I came off sounding harsh in my reply, but you too must realize that when someone is just trying to help there is no reason to patronize them or accuse them of editing in bad faith. I will also wait and watch the article, but if there is no notable changes made that I will look into a nomination for deletion and then we will leave it up to everyone to decide if the article should stay or not. Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 00:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

CZ

Calm? Helpful? Moi? XD I am deeply uncomfortable explaining further about the circumstances which lead me to use a pseudonym on the web, especially so to a group of people I'm unfamiliar with, even if it is in a private email. I just feel like... "No." - having to go through that again just to edit CZ safely freaks me out, you know? I'm also concerned that CZ may not deem my situation to be 'enough' for a pseudonym - even if I feel like I could be helpful to CZ (which isn't a foregone conclusion). I feel like my place is here despite the regular dramas. I would encourage you to use CZ as a retreat, (where *surely* editors are mature enough not to come to fisticuffs over details... on the field trip, our lecturers nearly did...) but to pop back into Wikipedia regularly. -Malkinann (talk) 07:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for understanding. *smiles weakly* Go well and safely, Tim. -Malkinann (talk) 10:12, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

CZ yaoi

Looking good - I love the mug! I'd be inclined to link to Aestheticism.com's definitions list when you say 'fans make complex distinctions' as a further reading exercise. The book actually says 1980 specifically, not the late 70s - the late 70s date is from Toku Masami who refers to Akiko Hatsu as Rinko Hatsu. Might want to ask Matt about the date. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. I would dispute that Kaze is the first shounen-ai title, although it seems to be widely considered as such - a while back in TCJ's blog they tried to determine a prior male-male kiss. [3] I'm not sure how to deal with this. I read Brenner's book a while ago, but it's out of the library - I don't suppose I could trouble you to look up the page number for the 75% of yaoi readers are female bit? It's somewhere in chapter 3. It was a reasonable introduction to yaoi, as I recall, so it's good that you're citing it. I find it a bit weird thinking of yaoi as being a subgenre of slash - I mean, technically I suppose it could be (especially western fanfics) but I tend to see them as sister phenomena. Maybe that's just my personal preference for thinking about it, but there is some mixing of 'source materials' via scanlations, movie dubs, etc. I find it a bit frustrating because it's so short, but I guess that CZ wouldn't exactly welcome a full article on yaoi. Are you still interested in weeding through the references in User:Matt Thorn/Sandbox 4? -Malkinann (talk) 15:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! A single website source for the fan distinctions would help. Let me check the 75% reference. I'll go through Sandbox 4 too. We could write a longer (separate) article about YAOI if we wanted to, but I didn't want to make this section much longer than it is. I'm not sure there's much real difference in saying that YAOI is a subgenre of slash or that they're sister phenomena -- I can fuzz it out by saying that slash is a "related subgenre" but what does "related" mean? I'll check the 1980 date too; I seem to remember I was citing Toku Masami (and we don't have room for detailed debates whether it was 1978 or 1980, and who said which or why). So you've given me some food for thought, and thanks! Timothy Perper (talk) 15:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Are we looking at the same article on CZ? The finished one -- meaning it has been put into the manga entry -- is at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Manga and the YAOI section doesn't have anything about 75%. Actually, I was citing Kotani Mari for the 1970s date, not Toku. But I'll check that further. I added the aestheticism.com citation -- and thanks. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Found and corrected the date error. It now says "around 1980", which is a direct quote from

Kotani, Mari. 2007. "Introduction" to "Otaku Sexuality" by Tamaki Saitō. pp. 222-224. See p. 223. In Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., and Takayuki Tatsumi, editors. Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4974-X.

Thanks for catching that! Timothy Perper (talk) 16:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

No worries. :) In the WP article, some time ago, I used Brenner's book to cite the 75% female fandom (in the fandom demographics section) but I neglected to write down the page number, and the book has gone back to the library. Could you please have a flick through the book to find the page for me - if your copy also hasn't gone back to the library? It might also be an idea if you hyperlinked back to all the WP pages you used in the "About this article" section. Before thinking about writing a new yaoi article for CZ, you might want to ask first, because they're family-friendly. You'd also have to demonstrate how you could substantially revise it from the material already on yaoi. I've added a few further readings to the yaoi#Further reading section that aren't in the sandbox. -Malkinann (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The only 75% figure I can find in Brenner is on p. 137 where she says that aboout one quarter of the respondents of a survey she did of YAOI fans were male. That doesn't mean that 3/4 of YAOI readers are women; it only means that 3/4 of people responding to her survey were women. On CZ, "family-friendly" means that we can't put up openly pornographic material or images; it doesn't mean that we can't write about sexuality. Homosexuality is not a prohibited topic on CZ. Just as on WP itself, there are issues in citing WP on CZ -- it is not considered a reliable source. The "About this Article" page mentions the WP articles partly for legal purposes. I understand that credit is required by the various licenses used by WP and by CZ when a WP article is rewritten as the History of manga article was. Anyone who is seriously interested in tracking down the WP articles can do so easily enough merely by searching for them on the WP website. Timothy Perper (talk) 21:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh -- I forgot to mention this. The four different warning templates on the WP Yaoi article don't help convey a sense of reliability and trustworthiness to that article, not to an outsider. Furthermore, no WP article is ever stable -- in two weeks it could be completely different. That's one of several major reasons why WP is unusable and uncitable for scholarly purposes. WP articles can be useful sources of references and for a general overview of a topic if one knows nothing about it, but beyond that, no. Timothy Perper (talk) 21:46, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Does Brenner say the readership includes bisexual males on that page too? There's a difference between citing Wikipedia and using the text on it as a source. For example, I translated much of the text of Maria-sama ga Miteru from the Spanish page. We have had to source a lot of the statements asserted by the Spanish page independently of them, even though we share a lot of sources. I believe that the GFDL requires a link back, but I am unsure as to the conventions as to how that link should be provided - perhaps ask for help over on CZ? I agree that the warning templates do not give a good impression, but I want to be able to remove them fairly - not just because I want to remove them. You could perhaps use the "permanent link" option available in the toolbox to the left of your screen to link to a specific "clean" version of any Wikipedia article - the version that you used. -Malkinann (talk) 23:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

No, nothing about bisexual males... As far as I can tell, CZ doesn't require a link, merely the statement that Wikipedia articles X and Y were substantally revised in the generation of the new CZ article (as in the present case). Since I didn't rewrite the YAOI article in my revision, merely used some of its references but didn't rewrite its text, in fact I don't have to mention it at all according to CZ protocol. But the manga and History of manga article were sources of the text I rewrote for CZ, and those do need to be mentioned according to CZ protocols. So I'll check further, but I may end up removing the YAOI cross reference to WP, since it wasn't a source of any text. BTW, "source" here means not that I read the article on WP, but that I used it as a starting point for my own version, that is, that I rewrote it for CZ. And that I didn't do. I wanted to mention it as a collegial gesture, but I didn't rewrite any of it for the text of the CZ YAOI section.

On another note, I can understand that you'd like the WP YAOI article to get some publicity and stuff, but I'm not sure that it's a good move to want me to link the CZ manga article to the WP YAOI article, not with its four different warning templates. I'll put in the link (but only on the "About this Article" page) if you really really want, but it doesn't look good for the WP article... those templates are not something to boast about. I hope you can get then fixed up, because they don't look good. WP does not have a good reputation for scholarly accuracy or reliability, and those templates make it look like the WP YAOI article is pretty bad even by WP standards, which, alas, aren't any too high to begin with.

This kind of unpleasant realization grew only slowly on me over the year+ that I edited on WP. There are all kinds of reasons for this failure of WP -- I talk about some of them on my WP user page -- but finally I realized that it's not going to get any better and it's likely to get a lot worse. So I'm writing articles on CZ instead, which -- to give only one index -- has a 0% vandalism rate. That's zero, zilch, nada, nothing. Timothy Perper (talk) 00:46, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I just found another reference for bisexual males enjoying yaoi. Thanks for checking. I'd like to remove the cleanup templates, but only honestly - yaoi still requires an expert's eye, for one thing (has many gaps about Japanese publishing and pre-parody doujinshi). The Seme and Uke section - well, Matt said he was "stunned by how wrong" it was back in July, and that it made the genre sound "formulaic and shallow". I really don't know how to fix it. The "expand" on the shonen ai section.. well, the genre lasted for about 20 years or so, surely there must be more to say about it... The one I'm not really sure on is the one in the further reading section - the article is reasonably well footnoted now, but the further reading section is still really too long... The preferred method would be to reduce it by using the further reading as references, but the books there are books I can't get hold of, and the web links.. I'm not sure how to use them. As it is, most of the yaoi fans would also think the article is bunk because it uses the word homosexual to describe the yaoi guys, when the commonly accepted wisdom is that the guys in yaoi aren't meant to represent real homosexual men. -Malkinann (talk) 01:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I think your list of additional references and links is very valuable. In fact, I'm going to copy it and the bibliography before they get removed! I didn't like the seme/uke section either. Not only formulaic and shallow, but unsutble -- like a rock in the head. In fact, YAOI can be much subtler than it seems.

It's not just -- or maybe even primarily -- that the history is lacking. So is a certain crticial insight, a keen eye reading the material and discussing YAOI so that it's more than merely formulas and bishie boys kissing and bonking. For example, there's no discussion of the kind of narrative that works best in YAOI stories, as measured, for example, by looking at the most famous and/or most popular. No, that's not OR -- it's simply a matter of indicating what the popular stories have in common (and popularity can be measured from rankings on Anime News Network). Likewise, for the distinctions among the subgenres -- someone needs to explain why these subgenres multiplied so rapidly. Different audiences? The same audience growing older? Or what?

It also may be a matter of too many cooks spoil the broth. Articles like this cannot be built simply by tossing bricks and boards in a heap and hoping that they magically coalesce into an essay. They don't -- all you get is a collection of miscellaneous facts or sort-of-facts without any over-arching theme or point. That's what the "expert" does -- imposes a single but sensible structure on the whole thing, a structure that remains balanced and neutral (i.e., doesn't take sides in various debates, and is therefore NPOV). Another way of putting it is to say that the article has to cohere: the reader has to feel that Y follows rhetorically after X, that it makes sense to talk about P,Q, and R before mentioning T, U, and V. But, when lots of people with different viewpoints can contribute to the article, each tosses in what she or he thinks is interesting and important without making any connections to what other people think. As I said, too many cooks...

Not an easy mix to resolve into a coherent recipe or essay.

Timothy Perper (talk) 11:57, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I think most of the further reading section can still be attributed to Sharon Lees. My thought is that much of the literature on yaoi is focussed on "Why?" rather than "How?", so it's difficult to come to a broad understanding of themes in yaoi. There's a couple of bits and bobs about the likelihood of female characters in yaoi to get offed (when they also, as in slash, provide a counselling role and often give the leads A Clue). There's a bit on how schoolboy stories and yazuka are common themes... and there's probably thematic stuff in Seme and Uke that could be spun out into its own section. I think that wikis are based on the philosophy "many hands make light work" - some of my best collaborations have been where everyone pitches in where they can. The yaoi article here is still very much "under construction" - I look forward to reading your CZ article. :) The graph looks great. Are you planning to add in any other people's g-hit data? -Malkinann (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

If I can find it! I think the data I have gives a general sense of both the timing and the fact of a large increase in interest in YAOI. But if you've got other refs, let me know. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

There's a little g-hit data at the bottom of "fandom demographics" - Mark McLelland's "almost 5 million" in January 2007 would change the shape of your curve somewhat. -Malkinann (talk) 22:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't do anything with his "almost". We need numbers, not someone's impression of "almost." I got 5,950,000 pages on 5/5/06 -- which is good replication. Google data varies by about 10-20% in the same general period (which this is in). There are lots of reasons. The major reason is that Google is not inaccurate -- it is too accurate. People put up a webpage on Tuesday, and Google records it. Then their computer is off the next time Google searches, and Google records one fewer webpage on Wednesday. Multiply this by tens of hundreds of thousands of people who are constantly and continuously putting up webpages and taking them down, renaming them, shifting them around, and so on far into the international night, you'll get an idea of the problem. Yes, half a million webpages can come and go -- after all, they did. So I don't know what to do with McLelland's data point. Not that I actually care too much; the shifts were seeing just aren't sensitive to these small changes. And if you say that half-a-million isn't "small," well, for webpages about something as popular as YAOI it's certainly not large! In two years, the number had gone up to 14.8 million on 10/4/08 and I just got 11.7 million on Google a few minutes ago (10/21/08). That's what is crucial -- a 2-3 fold increase in two years, into the 12-15 million range. Then, about five minutes later, I searched using Yahoo and got 16.6 million webpages for YAOI -- and that's the other big issue with searches like these. The different search engines use different strategies for finding hits. So what engine did McLelland use? Who knows? Ideally -- we don't have any data like these! -- we'd have data from several search engines spaced a week or month apart starting in 2002. We don't have anything like that. So, in the meantime, we say that we have some three times as many hits in October 2008 -- and about 5-6 million two years ago, and 1 million four years ago, and 100,000 six years ago -- the numbers I have.

The next problem isn't about science or about numbers. It's about rhetoric. What happens next is that someone -- e.g., on Wikipedia who knows only how to argue -- says "Those numbers aren't reliable!" Well, he doesn't know what he's talking about. The numbers are completely reliable, given the techniques that produced them. Different techniques produce different results. That's just how it is in the sciences -- we don't promise or obtain The Truth, but approximations shaped by our methods and techniques.

So I've given up on Wikipedia and on Citizendium. Neither is anywhere close to dealing with the complexities of what is out there either in numbers like these or in concepts like what YAOI means. Oh well...

Timothy Perper (talk) 12:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: All those A's

Hi Tim Perper, after my premature breakthrough with the problem of the dropdown menu discussed at the Village Pump last month[4], it didn't last. I don't know how you got on but the sequel was Safari continued to crash which meant rebuilding the software from scratch and updating everything (it's a laptop G4 Mac OS X, v 10.4.) Safari still doesn't hold so now using Firefox 3. Just saying in case it helps. Cheers, Julia Rossi (talk) 00:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I hadn't been following the discussion, and I admit that I sort of gave up on it. I sometimes use Firefox, sometimes Safari. So far, so good -- no crashes. These programs aren't all they're cracked up to be. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your shonen manga sandbox

I started articles on both Kentaro Takekuma and Koji Aihara, so if you want, please update your sandbox. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Consensus Discussion over Jim Steranko photo

Hi. Could you offer your opinion on the consensus discussion here? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 05:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Torikaebaya

I made this article last month, and I thought you might enjoy it: Torikaebaya Monogatari. It's an old story about a brother and sister who show the manners of the opposite sex, so as they grow up, they swap places. Because the girl is known as a man amongst men, and the boy has a reputation as a particularly sensitive woman, they are presented at court as their assumed sex... --Malkinann (talk) 21:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Ubel Blatt

Lol, whatever happened to "it looks cool!"? You shouldn't need reliable sources for plausible redirects, and Japanese Ls and Rs should qualify for that easily. It reminds me of the discussion on the Inspector Rex page about the translation of wurstsemmeln - a meat like devon, but translated for an Australia-wide audience as 'ham'. As a Rex tragic, I can tell you that this is of the Utmost Importance. ;) (I don't know why devon has so many different names - it's not even very nice unless you're eight years old and you smother it with tomato sauce.) --Malkinann (talk) 11:24, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Making a redirect is really easy when you know the proper code (as is most other things on wikis, lol). When you go to a redlink, like Über Blatt, you use the redirect button (#R on top of the editing box), which creates on the page #REDIRECT [[Insert page name here]]. You then replace 'insert page name here' with 'Übel Blatt', save the page, and Bob's your uncle. :) Would you like to have a go at it? I've already made one for Uber Blatt myself.--Malkinann (talk) 01:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Crayola

I decided to mention this here, then in the article.

I am geniunly interested.

Mr. Perper, you have to do the initial leg work on finding sources, because I am not very interested in this subject, and you seem to be for some reason. What is facinating, is I am not sure why you are so passionate about this subject. I know I am delving a bit into motives, but that is what is so facinating with this conversation, why is this such a hot topic for you Mr. Perper? I see real frustration behind your words. I could understand if this was a hot topic issue, like politics, or religion, or child slave labor.

Granted, there have been some really heated arguments about some interesting things in the past, one of the most famous, which got media coverage, is that Lincoln had the same birthday as Darwin (if I remember right).

Could Wikipedia:No_angry_mastodons#Edit_when_you.27re_at_your_best be part of it, I know I use wikipedia as an escape a lot, and my mood comes out in my interaction with other editors.

Anyway, no need to answer, I just had to get that out there. You can delete this section if you like, no hard feelings. Please see this as it is intended, just a curious inquiry. I am just so struck by your passion about this on the article talk page. Ikip (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea if this will reach you though I'll leave a note on your talk page. The best explanation I know of is summarized in my edit summary: "why bother"? The answer is that we are all -- to my way of thinking -- responsible for what appears on Wiki. Some of the people who commented on the crayola list were obviously fans and enthusiasts about crayolas -- which is fine. But being a fan, and having a fan's knowledge, is NOT enough to do a half-way complete encyclopedia entry (or any other kind of writing or research). It's well known that Wikipedia does not have a great reputation among teachers and critics, judging from the number of people who have told me that their college instructors simply won't let them use Wikipedia as a reference for a term paper. And with good reason: take the first table in the color article -- there are lots of numbers and hex codes and color swatches and whatnot, and NO REFERENCES. So it may be the work of fannish enthusiasm and love, but it's worthless as a contribution to any kind of knowledge. People on blogs and such can do that -- one reason why we can't cite them as sources for Wikipedia! -- but we're not allowed to do that when we write a Wikipedia entry. Then we have to back up our information with explanations of who said so and where. I am not a color expert, and I stumbled on this article quite by accident. It caught my eye (it's pretty and colorful) but when I started to look at the references, it became clear that all those color swatches and codes are coming from sources that are not referenced. It looks like somebody at Crayola Company put in a bunch of corporate data as part of an ad campaign -- and that's no good. Wikipedia is not an advertisement. Can I prove that? Of course not. Do I think it happened? Probably yes.

So, why bother?

The answer is that we're all responsible for what appears on Wikipedia. Mistakes -- or agendas, if that is what this is -- take away from the hard work we do in other articles trying to provide reliable sources and objective information. It cheapens the whole endeavor, and I don't like that. I can't explain further than that, because I personally feel that we all need to do our homework and cite sources when we write on Wikipedia. Otherwise, it's one more giant blog, a mass of opinions and pretty colors and nice pictures. That's not why I'm here.

Does that help explain a little bit better?

Timothy Perper (talk) 01:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

thanks for taking the time to respond in depth. have a great weekend. Ikip (talk) 05:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

How dare you hint that I may be working for the Crayola company? I have never worked for Crayola, its parent company, or its subsidiaries, and I do not know anyone who has ever worked for Crayola, its parent company, or its subsidiaries. I'm not on anyone's payroll. I'm not part of an advertising agency. I suppose it adds strength to your argument for deletion when you imply that this article has been hijacked by Crayola's minions. The only "agenda" I ever had was making an inaccurate article (see pre-March versions of the page) accurate. Show me where my point-of-view is not neutral! I stick to the facts! I am genuinely astonished that anyone would nominate this article for deletion. I usually check this article every few days, but as luck would have it, I hadn't checked in over two weeks. It's very unfortunate that I was not able to give input on the debate page.

According to your argument, in order to convince you that this article is not a crayola commercial, and therefore for this article to be valid, I also have to write about toxicity and the history of dye? And other crayon companies? On Wikipedia, I thought that every knowledgeable person was encouraged to contribute based on his/her expertise. If articles like this cannot exist on Wikipedia, then I don't see the point of even having Wikipedia. The hex triplets references are clearly cited for the standard colors. For the specialty crayons, hex values are merely used to make the boxes pretty. I had already made a suggestion on the discussion page to omit/modify the RGB/Hex values. So if this is your primary complaint about the article, it might have done you much more good to pipe in on that discussion, rather than just saying "let's just delete the whole thing." Of course, you were under the impression that Crayola and I were conspiring to make Wikipedia part of our latest ad blitz. Also, please enlighten me on how any company can claim a copyright on hex values, like you seem to suggest on the discussion page.

If you really want to be consistent, you should immediately start nominating this page for deletion, or state that it needs "a lot of work:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_games

Perhaps you should complain about the lack of other video game consoles (PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii games) listed on the page, not to mention the fact that it's one big ad campaign for Xbox and Microsoft.

The article DOES NOT need a "lot of work" as you've said on the discussion page. Crayola crayons are non-toxic. End of story. You do seem to be obsessed with toxicity. You should have looked no farther than the first paragraph on the main Crayola page to find out that ALL Crayola products are non-toxic. Of course, that reference comes directly from Crayola, so it's obviously another Crayola ad in your eyes and can't be verified, just like the hex triplets that reveal themselves upon a mouseover in this link: http://www.crayolastore.com/creator.asp That link has been up on the site since the summer, and perhaps before, but you seem to act like there was absolutely no mention of it at all.

I just read the comments made by users who voted to keep this article. There are already great points like "every time Crayola changes a color in the 64 box, it makes news." It's true. The impact of Crayola crayons in millions' of children's lives cannot be ignored. The article is definitely not a Crayola company "catalog." Very few companies sell items that they no longer sell. An overwhelming majority of the specialty crayons listed are no longer sold by Crayola.

Is the threshold for verifiability the same for both a major historical event and a list of crayon colors manufactured by the most notable crayon manufacturer on the planet? I think it's like comparing apples to oranges. I doubt a majority of teachers, professors, or even TAs will ever allow Wikipedia as a credible source. Wikipedia's very nature of openness (allowing anyone to edit any article) is the reason it's frowned upon. Deleting, criticizing, or marginalizing the List of Crayola crayon colors article will never alter that. However, Wikipedia makes a spectacular casual reference. It's the best! It's tops. With that said, I would never have cited it in a college paper.

I decided to work on List of Crayola crayon colors because I was tired of reading the incredible misinformation about Crayola crayons that was rampant on the internet, and even in news articles. Making this list my own personal fan page is not my goal. My own meager collection is sorted much differently than the one on the Wikipedia page. The article has been fixed significantly, and the article is incredibly organized. If it reads like an ad to you, then that's unfortunate, but you seen to know very little about Crayola, their crayons, or the media hoopla that has often surrounded their crayon colors. I don't play video games, so I know I have no business sticking my nose into the Xbox article (that I mentioned above) and recommending an overhaul. I would not be qualified at all to steer that Xbox article in one direction or another.

I will consider refraining from editing, researching, or offering advice on the article, as you have established me as a fan-boy, Wikipeida newbie, etc. with a biased viewpoint causing me to glorify Crayola through its list of crayon colors page.

As the previous poster suggested, mountains out of anthills here.

Crayonsman (talk) 08:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I've answered on Crayonsman's talk page, but include it here as well.

"Relax, Crayonsman. All Wikipedia articles, including this one, operate under a set of constraints -- and one of them arises when we deal with commercial products. Yes, it is then incumbent on you to disavow employment by the manufacturer of a product of which you appear to be a devoted and uncritical fan. It is also incumbent on you to document your assertions -- e.g., about toxicity. Don't waste your time yelling at me: devote that time to revising the article, adding references, fixing the tables, and so on. And the article I asked about deleting was the list of colors, not the main article. The main article has problems that need help. Work on them, and don't let the Wikistress get you. [Signed: TP]"

I just checked the link Crayonsman gave above for the hex codes. The link (http://www.crayolastore.com/creator.asp) leads to a page with color swatches that in turn can be clicked on to gve a subpage. For example, clicking one of the orangey-yellow colors leads to <http://www.crayolastore.com/creator.asp?T1=CRA+42%2D0905C&Name=Macaroni%20and%20Cheese&Code=FFBD88>, which is a subpage that gives a swatch labeled "Macaroni and Cheese" and whose address -- as you can see -- contains the statement "code=FFBD88". That might in fact be the hex code for this color; it might not. It doesn't say what it is, just that it's a code. But it certainly doesn't meet the criterion for a "reliable" source, since we are not sure what it means or refers to. "Maybe, maybe not" isn't a good source.

The rest of Crayonsman's opinions are just that -- his opinions. I have different opinions, but that's OK. I assume he's making good faith observations, and I will agree to disagree with him. Beyond that, there's no necessity for any further discussion.

Timothy Perper (talk) 09:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Timothy Perper. You have new messages at JamesBWatson's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I have made one final comment on Talk:Zopherus jourdani, which you may or may not like to read. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:01, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I agree with what you said about sexual orientation ("This article is an absolute MESS. It's confused, references are missing, it contradicts itself, and it's badly written"). Please don't give up and walk away from trying to fix the article. I think the problem with it is that really only one source supports the position on the nature-nurture issue in the article, which has it that sexual orientation is based on genetics and the early uterine environment (the British Royal College of Psychiatists). The American Psychological Association takes a diferent view in its position statement; but that isn't properly reflected in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirp (talk • contribs) 06:40, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Toshiki Yui

It looks fantastic compared to what was before, it explains his hallmarks and has much more information about his works. I wouldn't recommend using the TV Tropes entry, but otherwise it looks brilliant! :) I only found Kirara because it had been accidentally prodded without checking for French and German reviews, but it sounds like it might have the same "feel" as Ranma? At the moment there's a bit of a Hentai cleanup/improvement drive going on. I'm finding that silently adding reviews to pages and removing notability tags where I can is helping. --Malkinann (talk) 05:30, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't thank me, thank KrebMarkt - he added that information to the Kagome Kagome (manga) article when it was up for deletion, and found a number of reviews which saved that article. Try not to worry about the argument too much - what you added to the article was still a massive improvement on what was there before, which is what wiki's all about. ;) --Malkinann (talk) 22:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah well, that's a shame. I've found that there may be snippets of information in The Anime Encyclopedia and Manga: The Complete Guide on Yui and asked AmnaFinotera for her help, so hopefully that will yield fruit. I'm not familiar with Battle Vixens, I'm sorry. If "Gyokuji" is only a one-volume character, she may not be included in character lists here. --Malkinann (talk) 23:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, looks like that site is really helpful for searching for French editions. If we can find any more reliable reviews for It (possibly from another of the sources listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anime_and_manga/Online_reliable_sources would be easiest), then we may be permitted to keep an article on It. It's kind of inconsistent as to whether sources are liked for bibliographies or not - when Shio Satō passed, KrebMarkt leapt into action and sourced her bibliography, and did the same for when I created Fumiyo Kōno. So I don't know why they're saying it doesn't need referencing. No point in stressing about it, though. --Malkinann (talk) 00:49, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa

Being licensed in a number of European countries can sometimes help, as it's assumed there could be reviews to be found in those languages. (as it was when Kagome Kagome (manga) went to AFD). Do you know if it is licensed in any European countries? I think the best possible & possibly likely (if that makes sense) scenario would be that it would be merged to Toshiki Yui with its history intact, so that if reviews can be found they can be added and the article restored at a later date. --Malkinann (talk) 04:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page.Timothy Perper (talk) 04:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I think I see. Sometimes the merge that's voted for on deletion discussions is more like a redirect, with history. A while ago, Hate to Love You was AFDed, with the end result that it was redirected with history to Makoto Tateno. I scraped together some reviews at WP:ANIME/REQUEST and undid the redirect, adding in the reviews. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the article that you see can be countered by saying that it's badly sourced, and therefore not as useful. I've listed Yui's Hot Tails at WP:ANIME/REQUEST to see if it can be given the go-ahead. I'd like to read the article you wrote - is it available online? --Malkinann (talk) 04:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

You're right, it'd probably only feed the flames. The response would be that you should go and improve the futanari article and cut your losses on the Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa article. Other responses that it would elicit are that a title's popularity in scanlations does not count for anything unless that scanlation has been mentioned by reliable sources, being sold does not count for notability, and that articles about Boku in particular are needed for it to remain as a standalone article. Ah well. --Malkinann (talk) 22:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

And the other thing is that the online reliable sources library does not have many general Japanese review sites, so there's this bizarre systemic bias against Japanese-language sources (as the simplest to find, publication details, does not count towards notability). --Malkinann (talk) 09:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I've written a cute little article on a seashell and all the cute things it's used for. ;) Who does the online rs list leave out? We need to discuss each person to be added or else they are quickly removed. The more sources we can put on the list, the stronger the articles can get. --Malkinann (talk) 11:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find that we use or have used some of the people you're thinking of anyway, we just haven't placed them on the online RS page. Knowing who they are or what websites they publish on would help fix the problem, hint. ;) I've used Gilles Poitras' Anime Essentials on the Sailor Moon page, for example, and it *is* listed as a RS on the books page... but Poitras' website has not been listed, perhaps because it's not review-oriented. I'm glad you enjoyed the article on the Sydney cockle. :) --Malkinann (talk) 12:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Permit me to make comments unrelated to Boku no Futatsu no Tsubasa.

• First, i was one of the editors who salvaged Kagome Kagome from deletion.
• Second in the case of Hate to Love You AfD, it should be put back into context with the publisher marketing team thinking that it would be a great move to put their whole catalog into Wikipedia including copy-paste of theirs back cover blurb into the articles.
• Third Hot Tails suffers from two things it's old back to 2000 for French release and it's hentai we know that Anime News Network doesn't review hentai. All that said i will give it a rather narrow pass it WP:BK #1 with 2 reviews from 2 different Reliable Sources thought those reviews seem slim in length.
• Fourth my hypothesis for lack of Japanese reviews is that on one side the concept of review & criticism isn't the same in the Western than in Japan even if things are evolving thanks to Internet on the other side the total lack of archiving from potential source of coverage.
• Fifth having more websites and persons with the RS stamp in Manga/Anime field the better. What's tricky is to contextualize why XYZ person opinion is worth mention in a given Anime/Manga article. Not everyone is aware that someone named Bill Randall wrote the "Lost in Translation" column dedicated to manga in The Comics Journal for over 8 years.

--KrebMarkt 17:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I too want to see good articles about manga and anime on Wikipedia. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Righto, I can see why you don't want to suggest names. --Malkinann (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

For as long the Animanga project existed we never managed to find a Japanese RS website for manga or anime reviews not that we haven't tried i swear. From that point there are 3 possibles reasons for that failure: Animanga project participants are not skilled enough to dig such sources, Such sources are not available online or of limited availability and Western style review isn't a common practice in Japan. Personally i'm leaning for the second & third reason.

The most efficient way for expert to interact with Wikipedia is to use their recognized website/blog as a launching platform. Remember that there are people fearing editors impersonating experts and persons they are not. So better for real experts to use an unquestionable platform to send inputs into Wikipedia. As it is now people within Wikipedian simply don't know how to handle experts properly and we have our shares of discussion on that subject. Experts should take the initiative forcing Wikipedia to catch up with them. Yea i know it's a paradox for a Wikipedia editor to advise experts to not use Wikipedia to interact with it. --KrebMarkt 20:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Arabic manga

Another solution could be to expand Manga_outside_Japan#Manga_influences, until the section is ridiculously large. Then it could be merged with OEL manga, and the new article could be renamed something like international manga, world manga, global manga, manga-influenced comics, etc. --Malkinann (talk) 07:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Please do not do this again

Pulling a stunt like this is not acceptable. Please do not do so again. That editor has had enough issues with stalking and what not, and they certainly don't need you poking your nose in and causing more problems when you don't understand the issues involved. Thank you for your cooperation. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 02:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Can't say I know why you're so upset about my comments on User:AnmaFinotera's talk page. Why are my comments any specific concern of yours? You were being helpful in deleting her previous user page as per request -- a good thing. But the issues of changing records is everyone's concern, a point being made by a number of people on User:AnmaFinotera's talk page. So just calm down and let the dust settle. NO ONE is driving out AnmaFinotera; if this user leaves, it's at their own volition. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:15, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say anyone was driving her out. However, you've done it here again and I've modified your comment to prevent it from continuing. I am the 'crat assisting her in her RTV request, and your comments are not helping things. Her actions are not even close to violating any policy or guideline here, but yours are bordering on outing with your constant usage of defunct usernames. Her recent edits are fully supported by policies already pointed out to you and others. The issue here isn't why she's leaving; it's why you and others are hassling her about how she is leaving. Just let it drop and let the process continue. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 05:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I get no feeling that anyone is hassling AnmaFinotera about leaving. The hassle, if that's the word, is about changing records, especially supposedly unchangeable archives, without any discussion or explanation. If anything, my sense is that everyone, myself included, are very sympathetic to her being stalked. A MUCH more effective strategy would have been to say on her webpage "I'm being stalked by people who have found me under another name I use for editing, which allows various search engines to find me. I am going to change that name, under WP:CHU, and want everyone to know why." Sure, by all means, everyone would say. But it was done with a maximum of noise and fuss, all of which amounts to saying "Yoo Hoo! Here I am!" Which is distinctly counterproductive if you're trying to avoid calling attention to yourself. Please believe me, I do not personally oppose her desire to remove her old identity -- in fact, I'm quite sympathetic to AnmaFinotera. But it was done in a problematic fashion. Nor is there any question of outing here. I did not post -- and will not -- any kind of personal information or knowledge I have about User:AnmaFinotera. I don't have any information about her at all. I did employ an old Wikipedia user name -- which I won't do again, since it's problematic for her. But using that name by itself is not personal information about anyone -- not in the least -- if only because that the userpage is gone. Timothy Perper (talk) 06:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

All the fuss has been caused by people question her policy-supported actions. Archives are generally not changed, yes, but there are cases where they can (and should) be changed. I change archives all the time. The problem comes when someone makes a change in an archive which materially modifies the discussion. Changing a username does not do that as long as it is changed everywhere for continuity and consistency. Posting something such as you suggest would only be opening her to even more harassment than she's already received. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 06:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

You say "all the fuss has been caused by people question her policy-supported actions." That is NOT how I was reading all this: the fuss was caused when several people, myself included, checked into what was labeled as a "minor" ("m") edit with the summary "bad link fixes and other minor clean ups" and found that an old, familiar, and respected username had been changed systematically seemingly over many dozens of articles and other places. I noticed it when such a change occurred on a page I had recently edited, because otherwise I'd never have seen it -- or cared very much. "What is THIS? It sure isn't a minor change!" I said to myself. I hesitated for some time before visiting AnmaFinotera's user page and found an on-going discussion of precisely these changes. So I added a comment of my own, expressing both sympathy about stalking and concern for changing records. All this publicity, if I can use the word, could have been avoided if she and/or you had explained the situation at the outset. If the tone -- general tone, I mean -- of the comments made by several people sounded unsympathetic, it was because no explanation had been offered. I intend nothing personal in the following comment, Nihonjoe -- but you are partly responsible because you didn't explain the name change at the start nor make the name changes yourself. But I'm glad the whole discussion is now blanked. Timothy Perper (talk) 07:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I explained it was part of a right to vanish. I don't need to give any further reason for it. Her giving a more detailed explanation would have defeated the point of trying to quietly change the links to point to the correct userpage due to the previous name change. At this point, I'm going to have to ask you to stop raising a fuss about it and allow this editor to vanish as quickly and quietly as possible. The issue has been explained multiple times to you now, and I know you understand it because you are a smart person. There's no valid reason to continue discussing it when it serves no valid purpose. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:25, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

This is not vanishing. That policy is pretty clear for a very good reason. I'm all for bending rules when in need, but you have to admit that rules are being bent and be willing to understand which rules are more important than others. RTV is one of the more important ones. Protonk (talk) 07:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

RTV is not always as instantaneous as you seem to believe. It's a process. In this case, it appears the process has finally completed. I don't see a huge difference in allowing a few days to complete the process. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 15:18, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Brazilian manga

Sure, I'll see what I can do. :) --Malkinann (talk) 21:59, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the LGBT Studies WikiProject!

Hi, Timothy Perper, welcome to WikiProject LGBT Studies! We are a growing community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to identifying, categorizing, and improving articles regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and intersex people. LGBT Studies covers people, culture, history, and related subjects concerning sexual identity and gender identity - this covers a lot of ground and your help is appreciated! Some points that may be helpful: Our main aim is to help improve articles, so if someone seeks help, please try to assist if you are able. Likewise feel free to ask for help, advice or clarification. Many important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page; it is highly recommended that you watchlist it. If you have another language besides English, please consider adding yourself to our translation section, to help us improve our foreign LGBT topics. The project has several ongoing and developing activities, such as article quality assessment, peer review and a project-wide article collaboration, all of which you are welcome to take part in. We also have a unique program to improve our lower quality articles, Jumpaclass, so please consider signing up there. If you're going to stay awhile, please create a square in our project quilt! You can put anything you want in it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the talk page, and we will be happy to help you. And once again - Welcome!

-- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 06:16, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

End of year awards

	The Anime and Manga BarnSakura Award
	I award you this BarnSakura in recondition of your contributions to anime and manga articles during 2010 and because everyone deserves a little recondition every once in a while. ;) —Farix (t | c) 19:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I know you may be surprised to reive this from me giving our history, but I'm handing these out to all editors in WP:ANIME who have been actively editing anime and manga articles. —Farix (t | c) 19:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

That's nice. Thanks. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Lolicon

Thanks for finding the additional sources - newer references could shed light on the post-boom form of lolicon, and possibly even look at moe and lolicon. (The moe article suggests briefly moe has its roots in lolicon, but moe is only mentioned in lolicon as an unreferenced see also). I doubt that this would have been written about at any length. The 2010 paper is partially available on google books, (as was the Shigematsu chapter) and I've added a couple of cites to it, but it seems to largely treat Lolita fashion as being a feministy-reworking of the concept. Part of the problem is that quite often in the literature, the 'lolicon' terminology is not used - for example, the new law prohibits glorifications or exaggerations of sexual or pseudo-sexual acts that would be illegal in real life. Which would, of course, cover most lolicon, but it doesn't use the term. Given that you now know that there is a lack of literature on the subject, does the article as it is now give a decent overview of lolicon? If not, what would make for a decent overview? (Not a perfect understanding of, but a primer on the topic.) --Malkinann (talk) 23:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Excellent question. Probably there is not much more anyone can add, but the article itself can be cleaned up. If had my choice, I'd remove the Diamond and Uchiyama reference; it never mentions lolicon and is only marginally about sexually explicit child pornography -- which, to my mind, is irrelevant. Some material on the psychology of the "lolita complex" itself might help. A good clear distinction between child pornography and "lolicon" manga and anime would certainly help -- I mean clearer than what is there now. I think you're right that the article needs only to be a primer, not an exhaustive treatise. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Something else occurred to me also. The article is still seriously out-of-date about the new Tokyo ordinance ("Bill 156"). IMO, that really does need to be fixed before trying to bring this up again as a GA candidate. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

No, you've not offended me. I just had an attack of RL, and I think I've got a different idea of where the article is than you do. On the plus side, I'm now refreshed on my CPR. --Malkinann (talk) 23:41, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: Primary and Secondary Sources

It's not so much about whether the pop culture reference if verifiable or not, but whether the reference has any importance to the subject of the article. You are correct in that a primary source and verify a culture reference, but you still need a secondary source to demonstrate that the culture reference is important or even notable. Without a secondary source, the culture reference is just random trivia. —Farix (t | c) 21:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Normally, I remove such sections as they all tend to be just random trivia. However, I decided to tag this section because how hit is treated in media did appear important and the section was better written then most. But it still needed secondary sources to show why the portrayals are important. But I did remove the reference to Merry Nightmare from Yumekui Merry, which lead me to the article in the first place, as the character is not a Baku in any form nor does she actually eat dreams. She gained the nickname "Dream Eater" because she destroys other nightmares who have taken over or attempted to take over humans. Whoever added it was attempting to make the connection that Baku == Dream Eater == Merry Nightmare. These are the types of references that frequently or almost entirely populate Pop culture sections. —Farix (t | c) 22:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess you're over here. OK, fine with me. I replaced the section and you can look at it. I agree that Merry Nightmare is totally irrelevant, and it's out. So is some other stuff, accrued over the years, and which lacked references. A few I left since they help make the point, and they all have references. Let me know, if you would, what you think. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The only outstanding issue is that the specific examples still need to be backed up by secondary sources. Otherwise, we are drawing connections that haven't been published elsewhere first. This is why I believe a section like this should never be based on primary sources. —Farix (t | c) 22:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by saying "we are drawing connections that haven't been published elsewhere first." The article doesn't draw any connections. None at all. It just states facts.

If the article said that the older chimeric baku evolved into the modern tapir baku, then yes, that would certainly need a reference. But it does not say anything of the sort. In actuality, I do not know where the tapir comes from. But it's with us, and in a number of places: nowadays baku are frequently depicted as tapirs. The article can't go further than that without more external references, but it's a fact of history -- Hokusai and the old tales described baku one way, and now they're described as something else.

That's all an article of this length can say, and we are not allowed to omit that fact. If you want, by all means go looking for published explanations, but they are not needed to establish the facts. Timothy Perper (talk) 23:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Two more

From the self-description on your userpage, you might also like to have WP:SEX and WP:PSY on your watchlists. Unlike WP:MED, they are not especially active WikiProjects, and they could always use a few more knowledgeable people keeping an eye out for questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Yaoi in the Erotic Anime Movie Guide?

Hi Tim,

Noticed you cited the Erotic Anime Movie Guide in lolicon, and was wondering if you still had it on hand and would be willing to use it for yaoi articles? The book's been languishing in the further readings sections of yaoi and Zetsuai 1989 for some time now. Anything for the genre of yaoi would pretty much just be icing on the cake, but for Zetsuai or for other series in particular (Fish in the Trap?), it could really be helpful, as there's little information published in English about yaoi OVAs. --Malkinann (talk) 23:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

A whole chapter about yaoi anime?? That's fantastic! --Malkinann (talk) 20:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Mechademia table of contents / annotated bibliography

Have started up a table of contents / annotated bibliography for Mechademia volumes here, to help people to locate Mechademia articles that are relevant to use as citations. The emphasis would be on matching Mechademia articles to Wikipedia articles they could be useful in, particularly the more-obscurely titled ones. Any insight you could provide on just about anything (page numbers, annotations, anything you'd find useful as a researcher) would be very helpful.  ;) --Malkinann (talk) 01:28, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

IP talk pages

Re. Lyudmila Pavlichenko (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

IP users frequently do not have an existing talk page, but you can create one. For example, the last edit to that article was 72.160.233.101 (talk · contribs) - the 'Talk' is a redlink, but you can click on it, start the page, and leave the user a message.  Chzz  ►  16:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikilinks in discussions

Just as a tip; instead of putting e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%22In_popular_culture%22_content in a discussion, you can just put [[Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content]] like so; Wikipedia:"In popular culture" content. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  15:03, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I know that. I like seeing the actual reference. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Your accusation of my edit-warring

On Talk:Lyudmila Pavlichenko, you just wrote, "This feels like edit-warring with a editor (Chzz)"

As I have only ever made one single edit to the article - and that was to add a "disputed" tag - I see no possible way that you can accuse me of edit-warring.

Therefore, I would appreciate it if you'd consider crossing out that part of your comment.

If you don't want to, that's fine too; I do appreciate you said it felt like that, not that it was that. I just don't like the implication.

I also advise (take it or leave it) - that you relax a bit; maybe step away from the issue, and come back to it tomorrow, or something; or edit something else. Let's give others a chance to comment. Best,  Chzz  ►  16:45, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

You're quick to give advice, Chzz. Sorry to be blunt about this, but this exchange between us has not produced useful changes in the Pavlichenko article -- but you have made it perfectly clear that you disagree with me. Why don't you try to revise the article -- find better sources and so on -- rather than telling me what to do? Timothy Perper (talk) 17:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

This isn't worth the effort or the systematic unpleasantness. So I'm going to let the Pavlichenko article find its own pathway through the world. Timothy Perper (talk) 17:53, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

[page end]

Minutes ago, I found out about this death when clicking on Timothy Perper's username after looking into the edit history of the Proceptive phase article. I'm not sure if I ever interacted with him on Wikipedia, but I thank him for his contributions to this site. It seems we not only shared an interest in editing sexual topics, but an interest in reading manga and possibly shared an interest in watching anime. For example, judging by our user pages, we both seem to like Death Note. I think Timothy Perper and I would have bonded well on Wikipedia. Judging by this, it may be that James Cantor knew him. Thank you, James, for letting us know of Timothy Perper's status. Flyer22 (talk) 14:40, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, although I knew him only briefly. I had known of his work since I was a student, but started communicating only after we ran into each other here on WP. I feel privileged to have had the chance to interact with him before he left us.— James Cantor (talk) 14:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Peace out, Rest in peace mate. I offer sincere condolences to his family members. —Soham 15:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to this discussion with Knowledgekid87, I'm reminded that I did interact with Timothy Perper before; in the Kinds of lolicon discussion, he, I and James Cantor all weighed in. We interacted well, and I appreciate that. Flyer22 (talk) 01:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't really know this person but always sad to see someone go, I wish the family all the best. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:42, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

We're on Twitter!

WikiLGBT is on Twitter!

Hello Timothy Perper! Follow the Wikimedia LGBT user group on Twitter at @wikilgbt for news, photos, and other topics of interest to LGBT Wikipedans and allies. Use #wikiLGBT to share any Wiki Loves Pride stuff that you would like to share (whether this month or any day of the year) or to alert folks to things that the LGBT Wikipedan community should know. RachelWex (talk) For more information about Wiki Loves Pride, → click here ←.

RachelWex 18:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Queering Wikipedia 2021 User Group Working Days: May 14–16

The Wikimedia LGBTQ+ User Group is holding online working days in May. As a member of WikiProject LGBT studies, editing on LGBTQ+ issues or if you identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community, come help us set goals, develop our organisation and structures, consider how to respond to issues faced by Queer editors, and plan for the next 12 months.

We will be meeting online for 3 half-days, 14–16 May at 1400–1730 UTC. While our working language is English, we are looking to accommodate users who would prefer to participate in other languages, including translation facilities.

More information, and registration details, at QW2021.--Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group 02:59, 27 April 2021 (UTC)