The Reading Room

3:01 PM

Ooh, a bounty. Thanks, @HDE!

@b_jonas @Benjamin I knew that there were nonfictional con langs. What do you think about the tagging, though? I think @BESW is right, and we should look at usage.

Right now, the two tags are used in exactly the same way, which is to tag fictional languages, so the two questions under constructed-language should be retagged fictional-languages, IMO

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, I don't think we need a special tag for constructed languages at this point. If we get questions about Esperanto literature, we can use an esperanto-literature tag at that point.

Also, this question currently tagged language should be tagged fictional-languages instead.

And I'm not sure if we need foreign-language or native-language tags either.

Shokhet

We made the edit on the Tolkien question at the same time, @Randal'Thor, and it appears that my edit is still pending review, even though the tag was already changed. That's odd.

Riker

too late I've reviewed it

but I rejected and edited tho

@Shokhet what's with the weird quotes?

Rand al'Thor

@Riker And you just ninja'd me on editing the Dune question :-)

Riker

3:15 PM

yep

I get that they were originally there, but they make no sense

fwiw the "edit" part that I made was a minor grammar fix

Shokhet

And looks like it got rejected

@Riker I changed nothing in the body, just the tags

Riker

you did

oh

you were using an earlier revision

that still had the quotes

so your edit came across as reverting that, and the tags had already been fixed, so it did nothing else

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, I fixed the quotes as well as the tags, while I was in there anyway.

Riker

yeah, I rejected and edited a typo

it's okay now

Shokhet

@Riker Oh, that's interesting. @Randal'Thor and I edited at the same time, but his took effect while mine was pending

Riker

3:16 PM

yeah

I actually think his was a little before but yeah

Rand al'Thor

@Riker It wasn't a typo.

Tradition can be a mass noun as well as a count noun.

Shokhet

@Riker I saw mine pending before his happened, but I should probably blame caching

Riker

@Randal'Thor damn pedantry

whatever, I still think it looks better now tho

annd the rollback

oh well lol

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet That's possible. If we both had the edit window open at the same time, then my edit would have gone through even after yours was already pending.

@Riker "reject" -> "no improvement whatsoever".

While we're at it, this question would be fine with just the translation tag. It doesn't need tags for native-language and foreign-language too.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor I'd go ahead and fix it, but I'd only cause time paradoxes with the edit history :P

Riker

3:20 PM

@Randal'Thor the ironic part about that dune ninja edit: I intentionally waited a minute or so to see if you were going to edit it

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet It's fine as long as you don't go back along your own time stream :-P

Riker

don't cross the streams!

Shokhet

:)

Rand al'Thor

@Riker I had the edit window open to do it, but due to multi-tasking I didn't get back to it for a minute or so.

Riker

yeah I figured after the fact

Rand al'Thor

3:21 PM

@Riker Just don't use balefire, full stop.

Riker

lol

@Randal'Thor have you at least watched star trek if you haven't wathced star wars?

Shokhet

@b_jonas It seems to work on MY. I haven't really seen it in other contexts (barring an occasional "Great first answer!" here and other places)

Rand al'Thor

@Riker Some.

Riker

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet On SFF they were decided to be useless and even flaggable.

Shokhet

3:25 PM

@Randal'Thor Different strokes for different folks

They're probably flaggable on most sites

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Horses for courses.

Rhyme is sublime.

Shokhet

....IMHO, whether or not things like that are acceptable on a given SE site should develop naturally from the preferences of the site's users. I thought that they were a positive, friendly, and welcoming thing, and was slightly surprise to see a CM shut them down from the start

Anyway, I have to go now. *insert Schwarzenegger voice* I'll be back

Riker

see ya!

Rand al'Thor

Seeya :-)

b_jonas

@Shokhet Dunno. Presumably you'd have a tag for questions asking about the use of fictional languages in universe in fiction; and language tags for each language there is literature written in. The two are separate.

@Shokhet There's an instructive case when new user greetings have gone wrong on Wikimedia. Let me tell you.

For a few years now, Wikimedia has multiple wikis with connected user accounts and unified logins, sort of like SE has now. The difference is, when you visit a mediawiki website you've never visited, and you've logged into the central auth, then it automatically creates a local user there (SE doesn't do that, it asks for a confirmation).

Bookworm

3:38 PM

0

Q: Are 'The Forty Rules of Love' real?

One of the best-selling 21st-century novels, The Forty Rules of Love, shows historical fiction employing the love of Shams of Tabraiz and Mevlana Rumi. Were those 40 rules by Shams or were they made by Elif too?

b_jonas

Wikimedia wikis has the option that it can send you an email for notifications you get on the wiki. (SE has such an option too, hidden in user preferences.) On some of the wikis, this option defaults to set for new users.

And on some wikis, people thought it a good idea to write newly registered users greeting messages as soon as they register, even before they edit anything. Presumably so that they don't get a bad experience when they find out that nobody likes their first edits, instead they read up about rules first.

You can guess what the combination of these three decisions results in: if you just visit a wiki you've never visited by clicking on a link anywhere, you can get an email in some foreign language you don't understand about how you are welcome to some wiki you didn't even want to participate in.

The big question is, which of the three decisions was messed up: (1) creating user accounts automatically, (2) enabling email notifications by default, (3) welcoming users as soon as they register.

Each of them sort of make sense individually, until you combine them.

Mithrandir

I'd like to say thank you to everyone for asking good questions and providing good answers. I've learned a lot here. The questions are intriguing. Thanks for the awesome content, guys! :D

b_jonas

(They may have changed this since.)

Bookworm

0

Q: Should I read the English translation of "Khasākkinte Ithihāsam" first, or the original?

O. V. Vijayan translated his Malayalam novel ഖസാക്കിന്റെ ഇതിഹാസം (Khasākkinte Ithihāsam) to English about three decades after it was originally published, with the title The Legends of Khasak. The Wikipedia article, citing P. P. Ravindran as a source, says: Khasakkinte Itihasam has been trans...

reading-order translation o-v-vijayan malayalam-literature

Mithrandir

4:45 PM

Ha, Robert took care of the flags. My count went from 47 to 65.

Riker

lol

Mithrandir

*66 now

Rand al'Thor

And I got Deputy :-D

Well, it's showing up on my profile, but not on the badges page.

prods cache

Mithrandir

And all of the comments on that post are not obsolete...

2

Q: How did Ibsen's writing in "A Doll's House" influence the James Joyce character Molly Bloom?

How did Ibsen's writing in "A Doll's House" influence the James Joyce character Molly Bloom? In particular, what other authoritative commentators, besides Richard Ellmann, provide illuminating insights into said influence and related themes?

inspiration history-of-literature james-joyce henrik-ibsen

Rand al'Thor

There we go.

Mithrandir

4:55 PM

@Randal'Thor got yer frog?

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir ?

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Harry Potter ref. Got yer Deputy?

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Yep.

Mithrandir

5:15 PM

Heh, now I have 4 sites with a k in my rep on the side...

Rand al'Thor

Pfft, Area 51 doesn't count :-P

Mithrandir

If course it does, I can edit there now! :P

Riker

lol

Rand al'Thor

Wish I could.

Area 51 meta doesn't allow suggested edits.

Riker

and then there's hamlet

with like 17k on A51

Mithrandir

5:19 PM

@Randal'Thor but I can't edit on discussions, only main :/

@Randal'Thor give me a couple of answer upvotes and meta.se will count too :P

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Wut? Why not?

Oh, because of caching and your rep hasn't copied over yet?

@Mithrandir Main meta also doesn't count :-)

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor no. It's the same rep levels as a regular site for discussion :(

Rand al'Thor

Oh. That's strange.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor then give me...

Shokhet

@b_jonas That makes sense, I suppose. However, there is no way for someone to send you a message on SE unless you post or enter a chat room (or you're a mod or CM, I guess)

Mithrandir

5:24 PM

18 answer upvotes on AND?

Rand al'Thor

No.

Mithrandir

Except that I only have 11 answers, so that's hard...

@Randal'Thor I do hope that you understand that I'm not being serious?

Rand al'Thor

Sure.

Mithrandir

Now I am going to go - pizza time! :D

Rand al'Thor

Bon appetit! :-)

Shokhet

5:32 PM

בתאבון!

Rand al'Thor

literature.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/1086 is copied directly from literaryfestivals.co.uk/authors/elif_shafak.html Just an FYI for anyone else reviewing it.

b_jonas

@Shokhet Yes, though technically can enter an SE chatroom (rather than some other site) by clicking on some random link too.

Riker

@Randal'Thor rejected, thanks for the heads up

Great thanks @Rand al'Thor. I will now endeavour to revert to pluterperfect imperturbability, as I wait for answers to raise themselves like Finnegan's hod. — MikeRoger 2 hours ago

wot

Shokhet

@b_jonas But that's all besides the point. No one cares about welcoming users to chat, and fewer care about the signal/noise ratio in chat

b_jonas

@Shokhet Yes, hopefully people won't start greeting random people entering chat.

Rand al'Thor

5:46 PM

@Riker That @Rand shows up with pink highlighting for me, but I didn't get a ping from it here.

b_jonas

Wow, george-orwell is now the tag with the third highest number of posts.

Shokhet

symbolism has the most, which makes a lot of sense

Riker

@Randal'Thor huh

Mithrandir

6:12 PM

Recap >.<

Benjamin

8:25 PM

@Shokhet What is second?

Rand al'Thor

@Benjamin literature.stackexchange.com/tags

Benjamin

@Randal'Thor Well, I need to come up with 30 George Orwell questions.

Mithrandir

Wow. I overtook @Randal'Thor in votes on the mod nomination post. O_o

Rand al'Thor

8:37 PM

@Mithrandir Well, you have contributed a lot to this site too.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Yeah, but that was just... unexpected.

Rand al'Thor

Even if you do go on about rep and badges too much ;-)

Mithrandir

:P

Woah. More autoflags from Smokey now!

Rand al'Thor

@Benjamin Here's one.

Benjamin

@Shokhet For now, I agree with BESW, that we should merge, but NOT synonymise

Rand al'Thor

8:41 PM

@Benjamin They're already essentially merged (by a manual retagging operation).

Benjamin

@Randal'Thor Actually, I like this solution better, but we still shouldn't synonymise.

@Randal'Thor For questions about an author's it makes sense.

@Randal'Thor Oh, good.

@Randal'Thor Oh good question, I have to go and look for a question.

I mean an answer.

Bookworm

2

Q: Why did George Orwell name himself after the River Orwell?

Eric Arthur Blair, author of such famous books as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm among many others, used the name George Orwell for his books. It's known that he chose this name after the River Orwell in Suffolk, England, but why did he decide to name himself after that river?

george-orwell pseudonym

Rand al'Thor

Phew, finally got round to posting my proposal about poetry and short-stories.

Riker

9:23 PM

RAND HAS BEEN OUT PEDANTED

@Randal'Thor To match the pedant, would that not be "too broad" as reading order is specifically on-topic? — Skooba 1 min ago

sorta

Librarian

9:48 PM

0

Q: A proposal for [poetry] and [short-stories]

We've had a couple of discussions about these tags already: Is [poetry] too broad / how should we use the tag? How should we use [short-stories]? Consensus in both cases was to keep the tags, but much of the reason boiled down to "it's not bad enough to get rid of", and nobody really addresse...

discussion tags

Rand al'Thor

10:06 PM

@Riker I'm not sure what point @Skooba is making there, tbh. "Too broad" as opposed to "off-topic"?

Unfortunately, "off-topic" is the only one that allows you to enter a custom reason.

Riker

yeah

what he means is it's "too broad" and there are too many possible ways to interpret them/choose an order

(yes I know there are 3! ways but don't be a pedant pls)

Rand al'Thor

I suppose I could've VTCed as too broad and left a comment which wasn't part of the VTC, but I was doing it from the review queue.

Riker

shrug

Rand al'Thor

@Riker It's not so much that there are too many possible ways (as you say, only 3!) as that there's not much to say one way is better than another. Which sounds like "primarily opinion-based" rather than "too broad".

Riker

the factorial there makes you seem oddly gleeful in your pedantry

well, not oddly, but my point still stands

Rand al'Thor

10:13 PM

Not putting an exclamation mark after a number unless I mean factorial is one of my pet pedantries.

2

Except if the number is 1 or 2.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor You're welcome. I'd been meaning to bounty a question for quote some time.

Rand al'Thor

@HDE226868 Also, nice answer on the Orwell question.

I didn't know Down and Out was his first novel. It totally makes sense that he'd want to use a pseudonym for that one.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Have you read it? I'm not very fluent in Orwell.

Rand al'Thor

10:29 PM

@HDE226868 Yes. It's a recounting - largely true, as I understand it - of time spent living in poverty in Paris and London, among kitchen workers and tramps. I believe it was inspired by Jack London's similar book People of the Abyss.

HDE 226868

@Randal'Thor Yes, from what I know of it, I got the same impression.

Rand al'Thor

Come to think of it, might be able to get a decent question out of the connection between those two books.

Catija

As it relates to this question - See: huffingtonpost.com/entry/…

5

HDE 226868

10:45 PM

@Catija That article encapsulates what I've always disliked about those sorts of tests.

Rand al'Thor

in Mos Eisley, Feb 5 at 1:38, by Rand al'Thor

When I was doing Eng Lit GCSE, the model answers written by the examiners always used the word "backdrop". In every single essay, the story had to be set against a something-or-other (usually "forbidding") backdrop.

And Eng Lit was way better than Eng Lang (which, despite the name, was also about commenting on existing pieces of writing, with some sections where you had to write an essays yourself - nothing about grammar or etymology or anything).

BESW

11:05 PM

@Catija Yes, please, all of this.

I think a lot of us are used to having access to creators like JK "Oh Dear Maths" Rowling and Russell The Davies who say a great deal of things about their work which sound authoritative and well-considered, and assigning those statements the highest possible authority ("Word of God") in the name of "canon."

But even if/when authors know what they're talking about, literary analysis gets to choose if it cares.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW "Russell The Davies" ... if that's a joke, I don't get it.

BESW

It's a Fish Doctor joke.

Basically playing with Davies' swollen ego about how only he could have revived Doctor Who.

Rand al'Thor

Davies had a swollen ego too?

> If I ever develop an ego, you've got the job.

BESW

I think he's got it more under control lately, but there was a period when he was rather puffed up.

It was around that time that he said the reason the revival got such a large female audience was they liked seeing Rose's domestic life with her mum and boyfriend.

But re: that article on standardised testing, it's a great example of why we need to focus on high-quality GS/BS and Back It Up! implementation.

Rand al'Thor

11:26 PM

GS/BS?

BESW

Also, hah! "the same sadistic behemoth, Pearson."

Rand al'Thor

I think we've been doing pretty well so far in producing well supported answers.

BESW

@Randal'Thor Good Subjective, Bad Subjective.

Catija

@Randal'Thor Girl scouts/Boy scouts? :P

BESW

You know, a benchmark tool for evaluating subjective posts on the Stack network.

Rand al'Thor

11:29 PM

Right, yes. I discovered that blog post shortly before Lit started (having heard the buzzwords "Good Subjective, Bad Subjective" around for quite a while), and put it to good use in my arguments for allowing reading-order questions here.

BESW

(Frankly, I think the whole thing is silly: all those six points should be applied to all our questions and answers. It's just easier for ostensibly non-subjective content to hit the Stack sweet spot so there's less pressing need to think about GS/BS when evaluating it.)

Rand al'Thor

The way I read the GS/BS post is that Good Subjective essentially means "subjective with objective support".

So when it's objective to begin with, most of it doesn't need saying.

BESW

Mmm. The same things which make 'objective' questions good makes all questions good, but there's a higher failure rate for failing to follow those guidelines the more subjective the topic gets.

We see plenty of objective questions that inspire short answers which explain neither how nor why, and they'd be a LOT better if they followed the GS/BS guidelines.

It seems to me like presenting Good Subjective guidelines as "for subjective questions" misses a lot of opportunity for improving the network's objective content quality, because it draws an unnecessary line that implies objective questions wouldn't benefit from the same guidelines.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW By the way, I wonder if you'd be able to put together a good answer to this?

BESW

"a brief summery of the various scholarly views on this matter" ahahaahahah.

no

Rand al'Thor

11:43 PM

Ah, now I see you led the charge on VTCing it as "too broad" the first time round :-)

BESW

If you get three literary scholars together, you'll have five conflicting answers and a shade-throwing session about whose degree is least prestigious.

And that's before we get into notions like authorless works (cf the camp cheer conversation).

@Randal'Thor I also upvoted it, because it's a good question.

Rand al'Thor

Is there any question about literary analysis as a whole which can be sensibly answered with something that most literary scholars will actually agree on?

Or are we going to end up like SFF, with nearly all of our questions exclusively about one or two particular works or authors?

user15026

@Randal'Thor I think this is unlikely

Rand al'Thor

@Ash I hope so. On SFF I'm one of the biggest proponents of non-work-specific questions, on the grounds that they can be well answered by (even if only by) an expert in the genre.

BESW

Questions about particular kinds of analysis, origin/implementation, pros/cons, sure. But I don't think we're at the level of expertise to meaningfully consider literary analysis as a whole.

Toni Morrison could answer that question about authorship intent in her sleep.

I can't. I'm not a professional in literature, analysis, or criticism. Most of my exposure is through criticism of and responses to the fields, rather than the fields themselves.

So I know about authorial intent through the intentional fallacy, and debates about the pros and cons of using prior art as a legal defense for indigenous works, and such.

Catija

11:54 PM

Is it really literary analysis if we ask the author what they actually intend? Isn't the entire point that you're interpreting the meaning based solely on the content (and possibly some historical knowns).

BESW

@Catija If we ask 'em and take their word for it... no, not really.

But if the author's statements are part of the body of text we're studying... yes, absolutely.

eg, if we take Poe's Philosophy of Composition at face value and accept that he's telling the gospel truth about how and why he wrote The Raven, we're not very good scholars.

Catija

Well, if an author isn't in the habit of writing a foreward or aftwerward, there's not anything to use.

Rand al'Thor

@Catija An author's statements can be treated as part of the body of text even if they weren't literally published together with it.

BESW

Mmm. "Text" is literary jargon.

Might be important to know for this site.

Rand al'Thor

We can analyse J.K.Rowling's tweets, and discuss how reliable they are as a source of information, in almost the same way as we could if they were part of a foreword or afterword.

BESW

11:57 PM

If we compare Philosophy to The Raven and say "these things match what he said, those don't," contrast The Raven with his other works and with the works he's accused of plagiarising for it, we can come to conclusions which are informed by his intent--and those conclusions may include "Poe's blowing smoke."

Catija

Yeah, well... we have centuries of literature before twitter...

Rand al'Thor

@BESW Tell me more ...

@Catija Of course, but the JKR tweets are just one example. The same goes for, say, the Philosophy of Composition that BESW is talking about.

BESW

Text (literary theory)

In literary theory, a text is any object that can be "read," whether this object is a work of literature, a street sign, an arrangement of buildings on a city block, or styles of clothing. It is a coherent set of signs that transmits some kind of informative message. This set of symbols is considered in terms of the informative message's content, rather than in terms of its physical form or the medium in which it is represented. Within the field of literary criticism, "text" also refers to the original information content of a particular piece of writing; that is, the "text" of a work is that primal...

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