The Reading Room

12:35 AM

We now have as many questions for the Tagore challenge as we had for the Guy de Maupassant challenge.

Thank you for the link, but for some reason I'm not able to load that page. Please can you edit your answer to quote the relevant parts of that document here? As it stands, I literally can't get any information from your post: the answer is tantalising close, there but not there :-( — Rand al'Thor ♦ 15 hours ago

@Randal'Thor Does the link actually not work, or does the link "not work" ;)?

@Tsundoku Cool!

@Tsundoku You know what the problem with that is though? No new questions with new books or new authors, which means no new tags :(

Bookworm

12:52 AM

0

Q: Why does Tagore not consistently use ‘thou’ when addressing the supreme being in Gitanjali?

The large majority of poems in the English version of Tagore's Gitanjali address a supreme being. Tagore uses the pronouns "thou", "thee" and "thy" in almost all of these 103 poems. However, a few use "you", for example 49: You came down from your throne and stood at my cottage door. Some of the ...

b_jonas

1:40 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr literature.stackexchange.com/q/16402/139 is a new author

Prince North Læraðr

Well someone else already wrote the wiki tag for that

b_jonas

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Oh, you just want them for writing tag wikis? I see

Prince North Læraðr

@b_jonas Duh

There is a new tag but I swear I already wrote the excerpt for that

This isn't the first time I've seen Chokher Bali- I know this because I distinctly remember accidentally misspelling it as Choker Bali

bobble

2:38 AM

I have two questions that I just haven't had time to write, and one of them would require a new book tag. (perhaps series - haven't figured out the exact framing I'll use)

Bookworm

4:59 AM

0

Q: What did Avi Doshi try to convey towards the very end of "The Girl in White Cotton" / "Burnt Sugar"?

Towards the very end of her novel, Avni portrays a scene where the protagonist Antara is together with all the characters introduced in the novel (except Kali Mata). They are having a family get together. Towards the very end, her mother again starts behaving erratically. At the same time, Avni p...

symbolism

0

Q: In "The story of Doctor Dolittle", why does the cat's meat man get sick every Christmas-time?

In "The story of Doctor Dolittle", the author writes, But the Cat’s-meat-Man[5] wasn’t very rich and he only got sick once a year—at Christmas-time, when he used to give the Doctor sixpence for a bottle of medicine. Is the implication that the man gets drunk every Christmas and is given treatme...

meaning

Rand al'Thor

5:48 AM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr No, I actually can't load the page. No reason to lie; if I could see it, I'd probably copy info from there and edit it into the answer myself.

@Tsundoku And bengali-literature now has more questions than Polish and Latin literature, and almost as many as Chinese literature.

There are two currently ongoing topic challenges: one on Rabindranath Tagore (one week remaining to take part!) and one on Ko Un. Also starting soon is a topic challenge on literary theory.

verbose

Have there been any questions about Ko Un? I've been wondering ....

Rand al'Thor

Not yet.

Often we don't get any questions in the first half of a topic challenge period.

Maybe people need time to find/read the stuff, or (as in my case) prefer to focus on the "last chance" challenge and wait with the one that still has more time remaining.

Mithical

6:22 AM

@Bookworm reads more the opposite - he's not getting treatment for being hung over, he's buying alcohol then

Eddie Kal

6:42 AM

@verbose I feel bad about having not posted any despite the suggestion coming from me. I have a Ko Un poetry selection in Korean. I am trying to read him in Korean, which is crazy difficult for someone with only basic Korean knowledge

verbose

6:58 AM

@EddieKal ah

@Randal'Thor ah

Mithical

@verbose Personally, I've been a little pressed for time, what with basic training and all.

verbose

@Mithical oh have you run away to join the Marines, then, lad? I'd no idea. Good luck!

Mithical

Thanks. Mandatory IDF draft, though :D

verbose

ah

I've seen a few interesting movies about the IDF

b_jonas

8:11 AM

@Randal'Thor Did you get a copy yet? I can download the PDF from that link and can send it to you if you want. Try web.archive.org/web/20200712060001/http://… first though.

@Randal'Thor It's this article scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=8824112138239644425 , maybe one of the other links work for you

Bookworm

9:05 AM

1

Q: What are the originals of the poems Tagore has translated from English into Bengali?

Rabindranath Tagore's 1886 collection of verse কড়ি ও কোমল / ka.Di o komal, "Sharps and Flats*, includes a set of 15 or so poems under the general heading বিদেশী ফূলের গুচ্ছ / videshii phuuler guchchha, "A Bouquet of Foreign Flowers". The poems lack titles. Instead, each is preceded by the name o...

poetry translation bengali-literature rabindranath-tagore

Rand al'Thor

9:49 AM

@b_jonas Oh, thanks! At least one of those does work for me.

Bookworm

10:44 AM

0

Q: I need help please

1- Why does Defoe not use phrases like “ social distancing”, and “flattening the curve”? The Spanish flu of 1918 reshaped the world, leading to the loss of 50 million people, on the heels of 10 million dead from World War One. Ironically, the dramatic global impact of the flu was overshadowed by ...

historical-context

Bookworm

11:10 AM

0

Q: How does a sentence emphasize the narrator's growing sense of nervousness?

( a question in an ACT English exam) It is impossible to talk—or protest—over the engines’ roar and the noise of the wind that blasts through the open doorways on either side of the narrow fuselage.____But your instructor smiles confidently.She gives you the thumbs-up sign. Why filling "This is...

meaning

Bookworm

12:48 PM

0

Q: Is there a complete anthology of all the poems and prose in the fenian cycle

Is there a book that contains a transalated version of all the prose and poetry in the fenian cycle?

myths

0

Q: Is there any ambiguity about the supernatural in Sarah Water's The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger is a gothic-style novel by Sarah Waters in which a fading aristocratic family appears to be haunted by a presence in their crumbling estate. Minor spoilers for the book follow. The initial signs of presence are easily interpreted with rational explanations. As the plot goes on...

sarah-waters the-little-stranger

Tsundoku

4:45 PM

@GarethRees Should we start looking into removing questions from the HNQ list? CC @verbose @Randal'Thor

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Here's a new one for you: the-little-stranger.

Prince North Læraðr

5:08 PM

@EddieKal I know Korean! Well, a bit rusty, but I know Korean!

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku I would say no. That's a powerful mod tool to be used only under special circumstances, maybe when some inappropriate/troll or politically inflammatory post has somehow gone HNQ - not just for cases where we feel that a Q&A isn't subjectively "good enough" to merit all those upvotes.

In some cases the asker or answerer might get (somewhat understandably) annoyed at moderators taking away their HNQ opportunity for reputation, views, etc.

Tsundoku

@Randal'Thor Why should it only be used for "special cases"?

Rand al'Thor

Also, every HNQ is helping to draw eyeballs to the site! Even if that Q&A isn't the longest or most interesting, it might make people aware that there is a Literature site, or attract people who then go on to browse other questions and become active users.

Tsundoku

HNQ doesn't actually draw attention to the best questions and answers on our site. Some of the HNQ questions happened to be easy to answer.

Rand al'Thor

@Tsundoku From the post you linked on main meta: "In general, we recommend that you exclude questions that attract negative attention to your sites, that is, questions that are controversial, start large amounts of debate or arguments or even edit wars. [...] This tool is a big gun and should be used sparingly. Don't reach for it if you think the question can be fixed."

Tsundoku

5:13 PM

I'm not suggesting that mods do it without the OP's consent.

Gareth Rees

@Tsundoku Can you describe the problem that we would be solving by removing questions from the HNQ list?

Tsundoku

For example, this question (to take an older example) was not one I though worthy of HNQ.

@GarethRees To prevent drawing outside attention to questions that are just "curious" instead of good qualtiy.

Gareth Rees

Can you describe the problem caused by drawing attention to curious questions? Is it making a lot of work for the moderators?

Rand al'Thor

I don't think that making judgements on quality should be part of the mods' job. As users we can upvote posts we think are good, downvote posts we think are bad, and refrain from voting if we don't feel strongly either way. But by removing posts from HNQ, we'd be sort of making that decision on behalf of the whole site.

Prince North Læraðr

^I'd have to agree with Rand

Tsundoku

5:24 PM

And what if the OP didn't want a question to go HNQ, like the example I gave?

Prince North Læraðr

Well, in that case....

Rand al'Thor

The OP and all the answerers? Because all of them would somehow "lose out" from the question leaving HNQ.

Prince North Læraðr

But that's a "special case" like Rand said

Also ^ that too

Did I think the "tiger smoking pot" was worthy of an HNQ? I thought the question was good but didn't particularly like the answers. But that was also the highest voted question from the Korean folklore challenge

Gareth Rees

Is the problem that appearing on HNQ is embarrassing for the asker? (When their question isn't all that great.)

Prince North Læraðr

I think it's more of "the HNQ reflects poorly on the site's content"

Which I can understand

The good questions asked don't seem to get HNQ'd, but the "fast answers" that attract a lot of views (but not necessarily good) get put on HNQ. And a lot of people might look at a question from Lit because it was only featured on HNQ

It might also encourage some users to ask only about a certain topic, I think, like LoTR, because that gets HNQ'd really frequently

Rand al'Thor

5:32 PM

Many SE sites struggle with similar issues, the questions and answers that the HNQ algorithm promotes being not necessarily the "best" ones. But removing questions from HNQ is kind of a nuclear option: it can only be done by mods, and it's irreversible since a removed question remains ineligible for HNQ forever. I think we should have something more objective and urgent than a quality judgement to use it.

Gareth Rees

Is it a problem that HNQ fails to reflect the site's best content?

Prince North Læraðr

I think that might be Tsundoku's complaint, though I can't speak completely for him

Rand al'Thor

I think some of the recent changes to the HNQ algorithm (mentioned in the main meta post Tsundoku linked) are helpful towards this problem. For example, a question can't go HNQ until it's at least 8 hours old. That means every post has at least 8 hours with only "local" voters before visitors start to skew the stats. If a post is actually bad (as opposed to "not all that good"), it won't go HNQ because we'll have downvoted it before then.

Gareth Rees

But what is the problem exactly? (Sorry to keep on at this, but it is important to understand the problem first before trying to figure out a solution to it!)

Rand al'Thor

I'm sometimes slow to upvote mediocre/OK answers for this reason, even if I do eventually decide they're good enough to be worth an upvote.

Prince North Læraðr

5:35 PM

@Randal'Thor Ah. That's actually a good thing to consider

@GarethRees Because it reflets poorly on the site? We have a lot of great questions here, but someone who only looks at the HNQ might think we're a knock-off Scifi&Fantasy bc of all the LoTR questions featured there

Rand al'Thor

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Now you're raising an issue of diversity rather than quality. Those are quite orthogonal issues.

Prince North Læraðr

Okay, fair

Gareth Rees

So is the problem that people are being put off joining/visiting the site because there are a lot of Tolkien questions in the HNQ?

bobble

8:02 PM

Hey, I thought my HNQ'd question was good :D

Eddie Kal

@Randal'Thor WRT this, I was asked to send you this: "Maybe just tell him to stop mentioning me bc I am no longer on the site and can't respond etc." He indicated he was very inconsistent back then. Just passing it on. Don't shoot the messenger.

b_jonas

@PrinceNorthLæraðr You can always send almost all the Harry Potter and Tolkien questions back to us on Sci Fi if you don't want them here.

@PrinceNorthLæraðr Hmm. Is the Twitter account of Lit still used?

twitter.com/StackLiterature

it is

Prince North Læraðr

8:26 PM

@b_jonas I don’t have a problem with the Tolkien questions, I guess I just would like to see other questions HNQd is all

Like tsundoku has wrote some fantastic responses before but they get like 4 upvotes maybe

Prince North Læraðr

8:54 PM

Looks like someone heard me complaining about lacking new tag wikis- 5 new ones in a single day!

That's a new record :)

Gareth Rees

10:30 PM

@Bookworm "What is an English sonnet? Down with Theory—Facts, facts, facts must decide."

Prince North Læraðr

What is an English sonnet? :P

Napoleon Wilson

@EddieKal I realize as merely the messenger of this you might not be equipped with the information to answer this. But just in case, did he specify if the time period where he is "no longer on the site" includes the period after his account deletion when he still used to be on the site using throwaway accounts up until rather recently?

verbose

11:37 PM

@Bookworm that's a veddy, vewy interesting question @Tsundoku.

@EddieKal If he's not on the site how does he know that we're discussing him? In any case, I don't think we can have an omertà in place for people who leave: "let us never speak of this again"—particularly not when, as in this this case the contributions made have been substantive and valuable.

verbose

11:53 PM

@PrinceNorthLæraðr And should we start referring to it as an Anglophone sonnet instead?

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