The Reading Room

1:03 PM

@Benjamin it'll vanish eventually when it realizes that it was you

@Benjamin fix your tag wiki edit for Lewis Carroll you made a mistake

I was thinking. What about episode identification questions? I.e. "In which story about Sherlock Holmes does he shoot the VR initials on the wall?"

I think that that would be fine

But not episepisode

story-identification shoshould wowork

Another 26 rep...

1:29 PM

Here comes my another generic comic book question literature.stackexchange.com/questions/771/…

Lets see how it got received

@AnkitSharma I'll try to answer, but don't expect miraculous revelations

@Gallifreyan lol

Very good question though.

Q: How to help a postgraduate student to write a book?

For now I have some generic questions only

@Gallifreyan thanks

-6

What is the best way to help a weak student who has already completed her post-graduation but has also secured a result much worse than her expected one during the completion of graduation, to write a good quality book which shall be recommended to higher secondary level students after its public...

authors books science careers education

^ Is it not a duplicate or already closed question ?

@AnkitSharma Exactly. I think it may be a troll

1:48 PM

literature.stackexchange.com/questions/259/… - you posted this before here. It got deleted. — Mithrandir 3 hours ago

Rand, Riker, and I deleted the first one.

yawn

@Gallifreyan Did I ninja you?

@Himarm YAWN

@Mithrandir you did, but I was writing some different stuff anyway :)

@Mithrandir nice answer, will wait for bit longer before accept

@Mithrandir ohhh

Ha, 1234 rep!

@AnkitSharma thanks.

Q: Off-topic for lack of research?

1:56 PM

@Mithrandir will not last long

Bookworm

0

Why cannot questions on the main site be flagged as off-topic due to lack of research? The option is not there.

discussion flagging

@Bookworm Answered. Downvoting for lack of research :P

@Mithrandir lol

2:12 PM

morning

'Allo

in The Screening Room, 27 secs ago, by Ankit Sharma

~~evening~~ morning

Yes, it's getting dark now.

That remind me I should leave office and leave my pending work again

@AnkitSharma Where'd my +15 go? Why hasn't it arrived yet? :P

2:18 PM

25 mins ago, by Ankit Sharma

@Mithrandir nice answer, will wait for bit longer before accept

Yep. 25 minutes ago... :P

bit longer can last for days or weeks or maybe months :P

Ahhhhh

Nooo :P

so, it seems that chat survived the weekend more or less in tact

Nope. Nobody here has any tact.

2:24 PM

lol

A: Why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decide to kill off this character?

Agh I need one more rep

22

He simply got tired of writing about Holmes. I'm going to quote from a book called 'The Best of Sherlock Holmes', by Wordsworth Classics: However, even before the ink was dry on the manuscript of 'The Copper Beeches' its author had wearied of Sherlock Holmes. In fact, by the end of 1891 he h...

@Mithrandir Ouch! That hurts. :(

@Mick Why?

@Mithrandir It doesn't, really. :)

...Oh... Okay, then.

@Mithrandir Trying to get a Good Answer badge...

Thanks, whoever...

Huh?? Why can't I suggest a the-lord-of-the-rings synonym? I have a score of 12...

2:45 PM

@Randal'Thor what do you call the big island of the UK?

you live in the UK, but I don't and have no clue

@Mithrandir 1250 rep

@Riker Great Britain.

wait you have that

hm

@doppelgreener so that doens't include scotland?

er, ireland

mispoke

but cool thanks

Correct, Ireland is not in Great Britain

(this is weird and unnecessarily confusing to me as well)

2:48 PM

yup

I think somebody should just chop of wales and put it over near iceland

small countries unite

The partitioning of Ireland created a lot of problems, and this is one of them.

@Mick That's a good summary and understatement.

@doppelgreener so you're in the uk?

or no you just know a lot about it

@Riker I am presently living in London, and I am from Australia and with British heritage.

2:51 PM

oh cool

HDE 226868

3:05 PM

@Randal'Thor I've pushed back the date of the first Moriarty encounter roughly three years via another estimate, to maybe 1886, at least. It's becoming more and more hard to believe, given that it paints Moriarty as Holmes' greatest enemy - plausible, as per The Final Problem, but implausible given that there were apparently only the two main encounters between the two (when Watson was involved, at least).

@HDE226868 interesting

I haven't read the books, but I thought, given other media forms, that there was more between the two

HDE 226868

@DForck42 There's a play with Moriarty that Doyle co-wrote, but that has some conflicts with the stories.

It gives his first name as "Robert", not "James" - although "James" had not been introduced as his first name yet.

@HDE226868 ahh

HDE 226868

I haven't read the play, though, so I'm probably not very qualified to judge it.

Sherlock Holmes (play)

Sherlock Holmes is a four-act play written by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based on Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes, first acted on stage in 1899. == Background == Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had always had an interest in writing for the stage but his efforts had yet to show any success. Recognizing the success of his character Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle decided to pen a play based on him. American theatrical producer Charles Frohman approached Conan Doyle and requested the rights to Holmes. While nothing came of their association at that time, it did inspire Conan Doyle to...

cool

4:19 PM

@Gallifreyan i see we've already degenerated into posting xkcd :P

@Riker lol

My Deep Impact/Little Prince crossover fanfic has been poorly received by the community.

relavent to this site

at least it's not flooding the room like the first couple of days

4:52 PM

@Mithrandir You need a certain score (5?) in answers in that tag, as well as a certain rep level.

he has both afair

maybe you need answers not Qs

I have a score of 13

And the required rep

Maybe because I added the tag?

@Randal'Thor ^

@Mithrandir ... do you?

I can't see LotR on your tag list at all.

Yeah, it's not showing for some reason

Ah, it's a caching issue after Robert changed the tags.

4:57 PM

12

A: How to read é, ä, û?

For vowels the letters i, e, a, o, u are used, and (in Sindarin only) y. As far as can be determined the sounds represented by these letters (other than y) were of normal kind, though doubtless many local varieties escape detection. That is, the sounds were approximately those represented by i...

How many time I have to see this question in this chatroom O.o

@AnkitSharma lol

j-r-r-tolkien constructed-language

6 hours ago, by Gallifreyan

11

Q: How to read é, ä, û?

If I want to read Tolkien's text aloud, or appreciate the rhythm and rhyme in his poems, I find it distracting not to know how names including these characters (and similar ones) were meant to be pronounced. Unfortunately I only have the main books in e-book format; if this is answered in some ba...

Jan 20 at 10:43, by Mithrandir

0

A: How to read é, ä, û?

For vowels the letters i, e, a, o, u are used, and (in Sindarin only) y. As far as can be determined the sounds represented by these letters (other than y) were of normal kind, though doubtless many local varieties escape detection. That is, the sounds were approximately those represented by i...

in The Salon, Jan 20 at 10:13, by Stack Exchange

0

Q: How to read é, ä, û?

If I want to read Tolkien's text aloud, or appreciate the rhythm and rhyme in his poems, I find it distracting not to know how names including these characters (and similar ones) were meant to be pronounced. Unfortunately I only have the main books in e-book format; if this is answered in some ba...

j-r-r-tolkien constructed-language

3 mins ago, by Mithrandir

12

A: How to read é, ä, û?

For vowels the letters i, e, a, o, u are used, and (in Sindarin only) y. As far as can be determined the sounds represented by these letters (other than y) were of normal kind, though doubtless many local varieties escape detection. That is, the sounds were approximately those represented by i...

@Riker ... he said and posted another xkcd :D

There, now you've filled up the entire chat with that question and answer.

5:01 PM

@Gallifreyan exactly

@Randal'Thor Why I suffer alone

@Mithrandir You know the usual refrain in these circumstances.

@AnkitSharma Um, there are plenty of other people in this chatroom. I can't see how you were alone in seeing that post here.

@AnkitSharma Yep, I flagged it for deletion.

@Randal'Thor he/she will ask it again. After how many question deletion he user get auto question ban?

@Randal'Thor maybe

@AnkitSharma Ah, but it's not about the English language.

@AnkitSharma They posted it using a different account this time.

6 hours ago, by Ankit Sharma

@Gallifreyan @Benjamin I though you guys were talking about pronunciation of normal words

5:05 PM

The comments on those questions are quite ... weird too.

@Randal'Thor ohhh, can't see deleted post

@Randal'Thor that I can surely agree with

I remember few of them

@Gallifreyan Nice avatar ;-)

@Randal'Thor Is that the how do I write a book question?

5:08 PM

Much better than the last one.

@doppelgreener yup

@doppelgreener Yes, those comments are from the previous, deleted version.

@Randal'Thor thanks!

I decided to cycle my avatars

Using different images that you can find when searching for "doctor puppet"

@Gallifreyan So you'll have to wait until the next regeneration to change again?

@Randal'Thor nah, I'll just switch randomly

5:17 PM

Good question about comics and graphic novels - I've often wondered that too.

Did you people see that?

I need one more vote for it Good Answer badge, but I hit the recap...

lol

@Mithrandir Eh, don't worry so much about rep and badges. It's private beta! Let's focus on content and setting examples for the future :-)

@Randal'Thor NOT WORRY ABOUT REP AND BADGES? Are you crazy?

:P

Worrying about rep and badges is how I'm the second user on the site for rep...

5:27 PM

...

@Mithrandir I care less about your position in the rep leagues than the quality of your posts.

@Randal'Thor even if you don't believe it, so do I...

Q: What was Dr. Seuss's intended message in "Horton Hears a Who"?

This is my first question, any help with tags, format, etc would be appreciated :-)

0

I've seen themes and elements from Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who applied to a variety of things, such as the abortion debate, dwarfism awareness, and space aliens. While I can see how they could apply to these topics, none of them seem likely to be was Dr. Seuss was intending to talk about. But ...

dr-seuss

@Mithrandir I believe Riker just beat you...

?

... Yep.

5:33 PM

for what

We're struggling for who bears who in the rep leagues ;)

*beats

@Mithrandir I'm more concerned about how the site's being run and how we're moving forward. rep's the last thing on my mind

Well, at least I'm not much competition :-P

I had been above you, but you pulled ahead

albeit we DO need people with good rep to get access to the mod tools, they ALSO need to be invested with how the site runs in general

5:34 PM

@DForck42 everyone takes me too seriously.

@Mithrandir I wasn't trying to take you too seriously, but I am concerned with the level of "playing the game" that I've seen in chat since the site started

@Mithrandir ah

@DForck42 To be fair, I think most of that has been eagerness to get access to mod tools, rather than rep for rep's sake.

@Mithrandir yeah I missed about 300 rep bc I wasn't home 2 days ago, otherwise I think I would be ahead of you and rand

I like complaining and asking for votes, but I'm not always serious.

5:36 PM

also woah it's been 6 days of lit already

@Mithrandir yeah, same

@Riker still not one story-ID question

ye

bc everybody here hates them or dislikes them or knows their books

also on this: (i have an answer beware)

I was considering asking one

Q: How do you pronounce Houyhnhnm?

0

In Gulliver's Travels by Johnathon Swift, Gulliver travels to a land of Houyhnhnms. When I read, I like to hear the names in my head because it helps me to get into the story. However, I do not know how to pronounce Houyhnhnm. Do we have any guidance from Swift, the word's origins, or other sourc...

gullivers-travels jonathan-swift

I've got one on my to-ask list.

5:37 PM

is that on-topic?

@Randal'Thor as long as that's the case, ok

"how do you pronounce a made-up word in a book"

Q: Did Jonathan Swift ever sail?

yeah, I don't think this question is on-topic

2

In Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Swift describes Gulliver, a ship's doctor sailing and getting ship wrecked in various locations by various means. However, he does not go into as much detail in the actual description of sailing as he does other actions. Had Swift ever sailed before? If ...

authors gullivers-travels jonathan-swift

I think it is

I think it is too

5:38 PM

@Mithrandir If you do, please either make it a very good one or wait until later.

it's specifically about the author's experience with no connection made in the question to the literature

I'm on the line about the other linked one

@DForck42 it is

it might be editable in a way to make it work, but as it stands it's off-topic imho

> In Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Swift describes Gulliver, a ship's doctor sailing and getting ship wrecked in various locations by various means. However, he does not go into as much detail in the actual description of sailing as he does other actions.

Just leave it be folks, at let's think about a more important thing: our prospective counterpart for SFF's movie nights!

5:39 PM

@DForck42 it's about the author's experience and how that was put into the book

@Gallifreyan :O WE NEED THIS TO BE A THING

@Riker I'd say yes. Knowing how to pronounce the made-up words in a book can increase one's appreciation of the book.

hm

it's in every major dictionary though

I for one find it infuriating to read a book when I don't know how to pronounce one of the names in it.

I keep vacillating back and forth between one pronunciation and another.

I mean, that's easier to google than literally anything else on this site I think

Or assume a wrong pronunciation, and then have to re-learn it later.

@Riker Googlability isn't a reason to VTC.

5:40 PM

@Riker it's not though. it's "this character does this thing but it's not described well. did the author ever do the thing?"

you put the single word in and click the video called "how to prounce <x>"

@DForck42 it's "this character does this thing, but the narrator skips over it. was this because the author had limited experience with this thing?"

@DForck42 We have a question on SFF about whether Tolkien had a driving licence. It was ... controversial.

@Randal'Thor eh, then downvote

@Randal'Thor ... why?

Feel free.

whatever

5:41 PM

Please be careful as you examine applying SF&F policies and behaviour and lessons to this site. SF&F has a lot of areas of dysfunction, and we'd need to be judicious about examining what's appropriate to carry from it to here or not.

ye

Q: Should we embrace non-Googlers?

8

Common Stack Network policy is to embrace non-Googlers. The Stack Exchange wants to be a place Google sends folks, not a place that sends folks to Google. Unfortunately, many sites and some of our users feel the downvote reason "does not show any research effort" is synonymous with "did not try ...

discussion down-votes

A new site has a lot it can potentially learn from other sites, but some of that includes consideration about what we shouldn't do.

2

@Riker it's also asking when and where to, which again aren't inherently important to the literature

@doppelgreener I'm not suggesting applying any SFF policies here. Just bringing some experience to the table, with the unspoken caveat that it's from a different site with different policies.

5:42 PM

that was actually my edit

@doppelgreener like what?

@Randal'Thor Thanks.

@Riker yeah. oh well, we'll see if it stays open

I edited it, better?

16 hours ago, by Rand al'Thor

On a related note, it's great how Literature is drawing expertise from so many other SE sites! We have people from SFF, RPG, M&TV, ... all sharing our experiences from different sites and putting them together to form something wholly new.

5:43 PM

@Randal'Thor I agree strongly with what you said there. :)

@Riker better

Q: Tag name conventions: to the or not to the?

cool

Bookworm

0

We had a question earlier about the tags lord-of-the-rings and the-lord-of-the-rings. While that issue has now been resolved by Robert Cartaino, I thought it'd be worth trying to establish a consensus for some more general conventions on tag naming. When the name of a work begins with an article...

discussion tags

@Bookworm 25 minute lag

@Riker I edited out the-red-wheelbarrow before, because it seemed like such a short work it wasn't worth its own tag, and instead added a tag for the whole collection of poems. But shrug

b_jonas

6:01 PM

Oh come on. literature.stackexchange.com/q/255/139 got retitled from "Why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decide to kill Holmes?" to "Why did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle decide to kill off this character?"?

@b_jonas yeah, that one is a stretch, if you ask me

@b_jonas Meta says "No Spoilers in Titles".

Q: Is prediction of the author's intent okay?

Just as well I didn't use "Did Ratty have a mistress?"

Bookworm

0

Example questions: (not comprehensive) What did the author mean by {thing}? (when the author himself hasn't commented on this or mentioned this) When the author used {word}, did he mean {thing1}, or was it {thing2}? (when the book doesn't mention it or make it clear)

discussion

@b_jonas Yeah... I don't really care either way.

6:17 PM

And while I'm on the Horton theme, I've always wondered, why does he have to find the Whos in the field of clover? They're safely away from Jane Kangaroo and waterfalls and what have you, and it's not like Horton can rebuild the town!

@Bookworm 2 minute lag

But I figured asking that question on the site would probably just promote navel-pondering; that is, I'm not sure it's definatively answerable

Q: How did I get this bit of reputation after I hit the repcap?

It just happened again

22

I hit the repcap on Science Fiction & Fantasy on the 20th, so I should only have earned 165 rep. (Does that not make sense? I had an accepted answer, so that's an extra 15 that doesn't count. And I started a bounty for 50, so that's 165.) Here it says I got 167: And here you can see a random ...

bug reputation daily-reputation-limit

I got extra rep today that doesn't register on the /reputation page.

b_jonas

literature.stackexchange.com/q/128/139 "Why didn't Hermione or Dumbledore use the Time-Turner to defeat Voldemort?" -- let's censor the title of this one as well, since it's a huge spoiler for the ending of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Heh. Wish I could get enough rep for that to even be an issue!

Any opinions on the question of Horton and clovers? Whether it's in the scope of the site or not?

6:35 PM

@Randal'Thor eh, it's not that big of a deal and completeness is good

in other news, it's rained 8 inches in the past 48 hours

I live in southern california

we are officially in a drought according to the government

I guess you don't need to water your lawn

@Riker On a serious note, what do you do when there's a drought?

nothing really

my family doesn't use much water anyway so it doesn't really affect us

and where we are (near LA) it's not that bad of a drought

but in the middle of CA it's really bad and is only just now getting better

@Randal'Thor @Mithrandir mind reviewing tag wiki edits?

TrojanByAccident

I used to live in socal

we had no water problem

@BESW Inspired by our conversation about Narnia yesterday: literature.stackexchange.com/q/791/17

@Riker Done.

6:50 PM

thanks

they still need 1 more review though

and that little orange thing is really irrtating when their your edits so you can't review them

Meanwhile, Legenda Aurea released their 3rd album exactly a year ago, after 7 years of hiatus.

A I only learned about it now

@Riker @CHEESE Why VTC?

I'm voting to leave open because the question of why some people, and Neil Easterbrook in particular, criticised the change in title is objectively answerable by reading what Neil Easterbrook and others have actually written on this issue. — Rand al'Thor 54 secs ago

(Disclaimer: I may be biased since I answered this question.)

Rejected the Japan tag wiki edit, see my custom reason.

oh I misread it >.< I thought he was asking what frame of mind

@Mithrandir not my edit

but yeah that makes sense

there are 5 more o_O

Nuuu formatting doesn't work in the excerpt

6:56 PM

ye

@Mithrandir I rejected for a different reason: literature.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/526

For the same reason, I think I'm going to make a suggested edit emptying the religion wiki.

Wait, that was the wiki not the excerpt. Good thing I approved :p

oh mine? lol

I personally approved it because I thought it was better than nothing, but I'm fine with the rejection

Damn, apparently it's impossible to suggest an edit which empties the excerpt :-/

@Randal'Thor if it had defined a usage well, then I would have approved.

7:00 PM

@Mithrandir Why? I think this comes under the same principle as the pinned messages from @Helmar.

...Because if it describes how it's actually being used and the usage makes sense, then why not?

With the religion tag, say, one user has decided how it's supposed to be used. Suddenly we have usage guidance for that tag, without any community consensus beyond two users clicking "Approve" (and one "Reject").

seriously people check back and accept answers

I don't think we should be rushing to impose usage rules so quickly in private beta.

But then this is my first-ever private beta, so I'm no authority.

it's been 5 days

7:02 PM

@Riker Patience, my young padawan.

5 days isn't much.

eh

Maybe people have some good answers already, but want to wait and see if any more come along.

I'm leaving some of my questions here without accepted answers for a while for that very reason.

I was writing lots and lots of tag wikis for AI, during private beta. Most are still around, iirc.

I was prescribing usage all by myself, based on how the tags were being used.

@Benjamin your profile description has jonathan swift's name mispelled

> Johnathon Swift

@Rand did you mix up Narnia and LotR lines?

7:05 PM

@Mithrandir ?

@Riker So was the tag, until I fixed it.

I commented on your question

@Randal'Thor ah okay

I've edited "Jonathon" into "Jonathan" a couple times I think

Oh, just saw your comments.

No, I was thinking of Narnia and not LotR.

the dwarves in narnia are similar

Though that thing about dwarves in LotR is interesting too.

7:06 PM

@Himarm The authors were friends

@Himarm Similar to what?

to lotr

they mostly do their own thing

and dont usually get directly involved, and play both sides when they do get involved

typical dwarf steriotypes

google.co.il/amp/s/newnarnians.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/…

... I disagree with some points there.

@Mithrandir you're in israel?

also that url is a redirect

@Himarm I never thought of them as similar at all.

7:09 PM

@Riker yes

cool

Religious Jew

@Himarm That's the dwarfs in Narnia, not so much LotR. Tolkien's dwarves were firmly on the side of ~~the Light~~ the western alliance.

the dwarves were anti orc,

Blood and ashes, you're mixing up your universes!

7:10 PM

but they did not join up with the good side all the time

they were to preoccupied with their own riches

@Himarm Maybe not in the history of Middle-Earth as a whole. In the main story of LotR they did.

certain groups of them were more freindly then others as well

which is the narnia dwarfs too

@Himarm Same with the elves. Look at Mirkwood in the Hobbit.

their was the red dwafts and black dwarfs if i remember right

or some split

Yes

7:11 PM

and the black dwarfs went bad alot

Red and black

i believe it was black dwarves at the last battle?

Yes, Trumpkin was red, whatshisname was black.

@Mithrandir Nikabrik.

havnt read those books in 17 years

7:12 PM

A lot of the black dwarves were thieves: always nicking bricks.

To nick a brick was something a red dwarf would never consider.

if the dwarves are jews in lotr though its pretty racist

greedy money hungry

I got really lost really fast

all I know is himarm is talking about somebody being racist and jewish

I got lost after your drought explanation

@Himarm Nah, the dwarves are good guys.

It'd be more racist (or rather religionist) if dwarfs were Jews in Narnia.

But then we already know the Narnia books are pretty religionist.

they dont seem to fit the racial steriotypes in narnia, they do far more in lotr though

7:20 PM

which book has red and black dwarfs

narnia but thats hair color

BESW

Questions like this will probably benefit from understanding racial ventriloquism and fantasy's othering fetish.

(also available as three blog posts here‌, here‌, and here‌)

just a note, @Randal'Thor's answer here got mostly overlooked

it's a nice answer and it deserves some more votes

@Randal'Thor @Mithrandir three more tag wiki edits, all just the exercept, but review when you have time

7:47 PM

hey I hit exactly 200 rep gained today

BESW

@Randal'Thor Just 'cause the dwarves are usually the good guys doesn't mean their depiction doesn't walk the footsteps of a role people of a particular race/ethnicity are constantly put into. And may I remind you that they have a tendency to go literally insane with greed.

And, you know, Tolkien said it himself.

> “I didn’t intend it, but when you’ve got these people on your hands, you’ve got to make them different, haven’t you?” said Tolkien during the 1971 interview. “The dwarves of course are quite obviously, wouldn’t you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic, obviously, constructed to be Semitic. The hobbits are just rustic English people,” he said.

BESW

8:11 PM

@Randal'Thor Here's a truncated master's thesis on the race of dwarfs in Narnia. I haven't read it.

8:23 PM

...WHat happens when you flag a mod?

proabbly suspended but suspensions don't affect them

> Can mods suspend an other mod?
Yes.

If a mod is suspended, (but not de-modded), can he use his mod powers?
Yes. Including un-suspending themselves.

If a mod is suspended, can he use the normal, reputation-bound privileges of the ordinary users?
Yes. They are still a moderator, after all.

Well, did any 10kers get a flag notification now?

I mean a chatflag.

i saw a flag but didnt read it quick enough

Napoleon Wilson

@Mithrandir To their messages? The same as to yours. To them? Nothing.

8:57 PM

I didn't write that answer well at all... Nowhere near what I had been planning... But I got distracted and oh well. I can edit it at least.