The Reading Room - 2017-02-08

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Rand al'Thor

00:03

0

A: Were all of Shakespeare's plays fully in iambic pentameter?

No. In fact, much of the content of Shakespeare's plays isn't even written in verse. There's plenty of prose in Shakespeare - indeed, at least one play (Merry Wives of Windsor) is written almost entirely in prose. But when he did use verse, it's usually iambic pentameter, with some exceptions. ...

Voom.

Time to go AFK for a bit now that that's done.

Riker

see ya

Zizouz212

Oh check it out. You're public.

And you have more questions than answers.

More questions than users.

2

That's... a feat.

Benjamin

01:03

@Randal'Thor What is a "popular question"?

HDE 226868

@Benjamin literature.stackexchange.com/help/badges/26/popular-question

Rand al'Thor

@Benjamin literature.stackexchange.com/help/badges/26/popular-question

Benjamin

@Randal'Thor Can I correct your meta answer?

Rand al'Thor

Darn ninjas.

@Benjamin What's wrong with it?

Oh right.

Sure.

Benjamin

@Randal'Thor I fixed it, but it said, "not a single popular question yet".

Rand al'Thor

01:05

As long as you don't keep on editing it again every time we get a new Popular Question :-P

3

Benjamin

01:53

@Randal'Thor Oh, I will.

8 hours later…

b_jonas

09:55

@Rand al'Thor Re literature.stackexchange.com/a/1437/139 "Were all of Shakespeare's plays fully in iambic pentameter?" This answer tells how most of Shakespeare's plays are in prose or blank verse, and how he decided when to use one or the other. But unless I misunderstood it, it tells very little about when he used iambic pentameter.

2 hours later…

Benjamin

12:02

Do we have a goodreads group for sharing the books we have read?

Bookworm

12:55

0

Q: About Ghazal Writing in English

Name some of the important writers of Ghazal in English please with name of their anthologies. Have such ghazals been sung. I write them and am eager to know. May be some ghazal writers may like to contact me?

Mithrandir

13:07

@Bookworm baad. Make it go away.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Also this, by what looks like the same user:

-2

A: What circumstances is the poet referring to in this poem?

Unfortunately the poem is very basic. I'm surprised what is the query-sender asking for? Poor query.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor already flagged as naa

Rand al'Thor

I tried to VTD, but then remembered I've lost those powers now that we're public.

Balarka Sen

I didn't know you're also active in this chat, @Randal'Thor. :)

Mithrandir

@BalarkaSen he is everywhere.

Rand al'Thor

13:12

@BalarkaSen Apparently, very:

Jan 20 at 11:20, by Stack Exchange

Rand al'Thor has been automatically appointed as owner of this room. (What does this mean?)

Balarka Sen

Heh.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Well, my top sites are your top sites, so you would think that ;-)

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor I reconsidered. You're not everywhere (transcript link soon)

yesterday, by Rand al'Thor

in Charcoal HQ, yesterday, by Rand al'Thor

Nah, I like to keep my accounts list tidy.

Got my fifth Deputy :D

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I have, however, had an average of 22 inbox notifications per day over the last year.

So I may not be everywhere, but in the places where I am, I'm really, really there.

@Mithrandir Congrats :-)

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor glad to know you're more corporeal than Emrak

Mick

13:21

@Randal'Thor It means you're 'it', i.e. lumbered.

Mithrandir

Jan 30 at 17:02, by Emrakul

You assume I have a physical form, mwahahaha!

Rand al'Thor

@b_jonas Well, if it's in prose, then it's not in iambic pentameter, and if it's in verse, then it usually is. So talking about prose vs verse is nearly the same as talking about IP vs not.

Mithrandir

@fi12 I put usage guidance in those tag wikis. That means that the edit is -good. You're supposed to put usage guidance in.

Rand al'Thor

13:37

Hmm, looks like someone is reading through all our 1984 posts.

Rand al'Thor

14:19

Woo, now I've actually seen the Moby Dick question on the HNQ list too.

And @MattThrower has got Lit's first Notable Question badge too.

Mithrandir

14:39

user image

^bug with the new top bar

Matt Thrower

15:01

@Randal'Thor that's awesome. I was hoping something would make the list soon after we went public. Your excellent answer on my Norrell question deserves to :)

Rand al'Thor

@MattThrower Well, thanks :-) Sadly Strange & Norrell probably isn't as popular as Moby Dick. It's good to see someone else who's read it!

Matt Thrower

@Randal'Thor It's a great book. Such a pleasure to read such weighty fantasy.

Rand al'Thor

@MattThrower Did you watch the BBC adaptation too?

Matt Thrower

One of the people who commented on Moby-Dick did make a good point abut much of literature - especially older literature - being supposition. This is something we may have to grapple with going forward as it doesn't chime well with much of SE

@Randal'Thor I did. I thought they did a great job given the detail and depth of the source they were working off.

Rand al'Thor

Agreed. I really enjoyed that TV series; it did a good job of doing justice to the original material, even though some parts of the ending were changed.

Now I feel like both rereading the book and rewatching the TV series. And I know which of those would take more time :-P

Matt Thrower

15:07

Haha. I don't re-read enough. I'm always torn as to whether to go back to a favourite book again or start something new. New usually wins.

Rand al'Thor

I'm getting to the point where most new stuff isn't very appealing any more. There's a lot of junk out there, and by now I'm jaded enough that even a decent fantasy novel has to have some big USPs for me not to go "meh, just another of these, same old, same old".

Matt Thrower

Read something other than fantasy :D

Rand al'Thor

@MattThrower Have you read the Bartimaeus series? If you liked Strange and Norrell, you might enjoy that too. It's set in more modern times, but it's a similar "magical alternate history" thing, featuring e.g. William Gladstone as a powerful historical magician.

Matt Thrower

I've actually discovered some really interesting fantasy novels of late that seemed to have escaped a lot of mainstream attention. Lud-in-the-Mist for one and Little, Big for another. I also believe Jack Vance has a lot more merit than he gets credit for, although I may just be overthinking it

@Randal'Thor I have not - will put it on my reading list. Sounds interesting.

Rand al'Thor

Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy is certainly quite an achievement in worldbuilding, with a strong cast of characters and a fairly intricate plot. But after reading it a few times, all the rape in it began to turn me off a bit.

(By that time I'd already read, and been turned off, A Song of Ice and Fire.)

Matt Thrower

15:18

@Randal'Thor It's not Lyonesse that gets me (I agree with you), it's the Dying Earth. I find the stream of consciousness creativity in it an extraordinary, joyful thing. It's just imagination straight to page, with little concern for world-building in the vein of Tolkien. Very hard to write like that, and in some ways it seems the purest form of fantasy of all

@Randal'Thor not a GRRM fan. He's a skillful writer of thriller material - one of the best - but that's all his books are. Extended, bloated thrillers.

Rand al'Thor

@MattThrower Haven't read that one, though I think I may have a copy of it somewhere.

It's another massive tome, right?

Mithrandir

If it's a good book, I actually prefer large books. It lasts longer :P

Matt Thrower

@Randal'Thor Doesn't have to be. He wrote four books in the series, two short story collections and two short novels, one of which follows from the other although they can be enjoyed alone

Rand al'Thor

Oh, it's a series? I thought The Dying Earth was a single novel.

I may be getting mixed up with something else.

Matt Thrower

@Randal'Thor the text of one of my favourite of the short stories is actually online, although it probably shouldn't be e-reading.club/chapter.php/73022/4/Vance_-_The_Dying_Earth.html

Mithrandir

15:25

Unrelated: Robert deleted that answer.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I know - I saw the +1 when it vanished :-)

Ooh, he's approved all my other flags too.

Mithrandir

Mine too, except for the serial voting one

Rand al'Thor

@MattThrower Interesting. Normally I can recognise Vance's writing style at a glance, but not in that piece.

Matt Thrower

@Randal'Thor quite. All his Dying Earth material is written in the same style, and I know of little else like it. Hence my admiration :)

Mithrandir

@MattThrower: Just BTW, do you know that to reply to a message there is a button on the post, which will link your message as a reply to that one?

And adds the ping.

Matt Thrower

15:32

@Mithrandir Ah, no! I thought that was just a notification :) I don't use chat much

Mithrandir

@MattThrower well now you know ;)

Matt Thrower

@Mithrandir thanks for the information

Mithrandir

You're welcome

Librarian

16:07

1

Q: Should we retag story ID questions with the story name?

If there is an ID question that has an established tag, should we edit and retag with the name of the story?

discussion editing

Mithrandir

@Librarian no.

2

We should not.

Ah, I see that @Randal'Thor already answered that :P

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir But there's no need to downvote the question just because the answer to it is "no". It could still be a discussion worth raising.

(I don't know if it was you who downvoted it, but anyway.)

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor it's a meta downvote. It's not the question; it's the suggestion.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir The question isn't saying "let's do this". It's saying "should we do this?"

For all we know, the OP might agree with you and me that we shouldn't.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor I know...

Also @Randal'Thor since I'm here and so are you and don't feel like going to SFF meta:

134

Q: New phenomenon: Rage Unaccepting

Now that accept rate is no longer displayed users can silently unaccept answers without anyone noticing. I happened to notice by chance that this user (who is a long time member without any other activity for a long time) has just unaccepted all answers just like that. No single comment. Three r...

discussion accept-rate behavior unaccepted-answer

Rand al'Thor

16:18

@Mithrandir Different context and (apparent) motivation.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor Yeah, but I recall something about not being against the rules technically.

In Tim Post's answer

> However, the user didn't do anything technically wrong

1 hour later…

Gallifreyan

17:52

user image

My chat is broken :(

Oh wait, no it's ok

Weird

Librarian

18:30

1

Q: How do I add links into comments?

I was trying to direct a person to the tour when I realized that I did not know how to put links in comments. How do I do it.

Mithrandir

18:42

@Librarian @Randal'Thor was ninja'd ;)

Riker

yep

DForck42

hello

Mithrandir

I'll provide a screenshot of the help link when I am on my computer.

@DForck42 'allo

DForck42

@Mithrandir how goes it?

Mithrandir

2 days ago, by Mithrandir

Feb 1 at 14:11, by Mithrandir

It is a giant immobile brain

Riker

18:47

2 days ago, by Mithrandir

We've had this conversation before :P

:P

Mithrandir

@Riker exactly

Riker

:P

DForck42

@Riker yup

Mithrandir

You should go read it...

Riker

yes go read it now @DFo

it's a great book

DForck42

18:50

@Riker can't, my brain hurts

Riker

lol

Mithrandir

Why? Is the planet swiftly tilting?

@DForck42 a good remedy: drink many waters.

*waits for someone to get the jokes*

Hey @MatrimCauthon!

Riker

@Mithrandir they don't deserve to be gotten

please go sit in the corner and think about your life

also, lol at that HNQ bringing 2 bad answers/LQP

Mithrandir

Blood and ashes, how insulting! :P

Riker

have you even read those books :P

the WoT ones

Mithrandir

18:58

@Riker that's what hnq does. The hot Security question got stuff that Smokey picked up.

Riker

ah

Mithrandir

@Riker the first

I read The Eye of the World.

Riker

ah

you should continue

HDE 226868

@Riker We definitely need to downvote poor answers like those. A lot. We need to give the rest of SE a good impression.

Riker

yeah

I've VTDed them both

they're both at -2 and -4 iirc

Mithrandir

19:02

There's a slight problem. A strange lifeforms called... 'parents'?

Riker

lol

my parents are chill with me reading books, idk about yours :P

I got the full set for my birthday also

because my mom noticed me reading them

Mithrandir

Reading isn't the problem. Getting the books is.

Riker

and they take so long the library was getting upset with late fees

@Mithrandir :/ not at the local library?

Mithrandir

I have more English books than my local library.

Riker

uh

they don't make israeli/arabic WoT translation?

*hebrew

Mithrandir

19:05

I don't know. My Hebrew isn't perfect, and I prefer to read in English. And I don't speak Arabic ;)

Could appeal to my Grandma...

Riker

ah

@Mithrandir wot.wikia.com/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time_translations

they do exist fwiw

but yeah that's sad :(

Mithrandir

Jan 19 at 9:30, by Mithrandir

user image

Riker

rip mith's bookshelf lol

Mithrandir

@Riker how? Via review? Because you aren't at 4k...

Riker

yeah

I frogot I don't have those privs anymore :(

Mithrandir

19:15

If you answer this...

3

A: Are there any books in the classic Hardy Boys series where the boys don't get kidnapped?

Yes, there are books where they do not get kidnapped in chapter 19. I have a bunch of them, but not all. If anyone adds another answer with ones I missed, that would be awesome. The Secret Panel (25) In this book, they are kidnapped, but not in chapter 19. They are rescued in chapter 19. The ...

Sorry that's my incomplete answer

Whatever

HDE 226868

On a similar note, is there any etiquette about accepting self-answers?

Mithrandir

So if you add an answer with the other books not mentioned at the bottom of the answer...

@HDE226868 if nobody else does a better one, go ahead.

HDE 226868

@Mithrandir I'll probably do that. It's been a week.

Mithrandir

Unrelated: The last time I was in Private Beta, the mods were announced a month and ten days after the nomination post went up.

HDE 226868

@Mithrandir That happened with me on HSM. The post went up on Halloween, and we only found out in mid-December.

Still, at this stage, mods aren't as necessary as they may be later on.

Mithrandir

19:25

Yep. So we can expect mods in March.

Riker

prolly

Mithrandir

Yes, probably.

Woohoo. Just nudged a mod into making my proposal policy ;)

Riker

which one?

Mithrandir

1

Q: How should non-fact-based answers be handled?

Since this site is more subjective than some, we occasionally get answers that are solely based on personal opinion or make claims with no justification/references. Even subjective questions should invite facts (instead of opinions), so such answers are less than ideal. What should we do with th...

discussion answers

Riker

ah nice

Mithrandir

19:29

@Riker literature.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/908

Riker

approved

Mithrandir

Thanks!

Mithrandir

20:10

This is interesting. Nichelle Nichols's autobiography.

Bookworm

20:44

0

Q: How did having a full pot of tea betray the doctor's lowly origins?

"Memoires of gedenkschriften van minister Pieter Bas" ("The memoirs of Minister Pieter Bas") is a satirical biography of a fictional Minister of Education. The book is mostly about the man's youth in the second half of the 19th century. The book was first published in 1937. Early in the book, th...

godfriend-bomans memoirs-of-pieter-bas

Mithrandir

21:00

@Bookworm that is... Puzzling.

b_jonas

@Randal'Thor Ah, I see! I was confused by the term "blank verse", I assumed for some stupid reason it meant free verse, not verse without rhyme.

Mithrandir

21:25

@b_jonas do you think that you could explain what doesn't work with links with a closing parenthesis?

1 hour later…

Rand al'Thor

22:55

@b_jonas I also find it hard to remember what "blank verse" means. But I made sure to include a link to Wikipedia the very first time I used that phrase in my answer.

Librarian

23:21

-1

Q: Why are we accepting "asked and answered" posts?

One of the things driving me away from this forum are the obvious "forced" posts. Typical is this, a question accompanied by an immediate answer. garnering 62 (and counting) rep points (spread across post and answer) for the poster. Is this where we are going?

Rand al'Thor

23:37

@Librarian Wow, what the heck.

Riker

23:50

^

Rand al'Thor

@Randal'Thor Actually, I have been kicked off from asking self-answered questions like this on other forums here, such as Movies.SE. Rudely. By moderators. So if my tone of voice seems immoderate, it is learned behaviour--in spite of what might be on the Lit.SE help page. I thought this was going to be a serious site.... — Cascabel 3 mins ago

@Napoleon ^ Any idea what this guy is on about?

steelersquirrel

@Randal'Thor He's too busy out partying ;)

Riker

o_O napoleon knows how to party?

I thought he was just a grump /s

steelersquirrel

Sure he does! We had loads of fun on our vacation!

Rand al'Thor

@steelersquirrel Sounds like more fun than dealing with this anti-self-answer ranter.

Riker

23:54

@steelersquirrel you already went? I thought it was scheduled only

Rand al'Thor

@Riker They met in Las Vegas quite a while back.

Riker

ah okay

steelersquirrel

@Riker We went to Vegas in July and he came home to Oregon with me for a few days. Yes, we did!

Riker

ninja'ed

steelersquirrel

@Riker Didn't you hear me talking about how he talks in German in his sleep? Hehehe!

Riker

23:56

nope

lol tho

steelersquirrel

I was like....WUT is happening right now??? :P

Rand al'Thor

Awwww. I just got an email from @steelersquirrel. You're awesome, Steeler :-)

Riker

about what?

steelersquirrel

@Randal'Thor Thanks, buddy :)

@Riker Well...I would have said it in here if I wanted everyone to know about it ;)

Riker

true

steelersquirrel

23:59

Hehehe!

Also...Napoleon always encourages self answers...so, I don't know what that guy is talking about.

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