Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:16, 22 November 2010

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Hello, SightWatcher, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --IllaZilla (talk) 14:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Alien

Hi there. Regarding your recent edits to articles about the Alien franchise, I thought I should explain why I've reverted some of your edits. "Alien" is always capitalized when referring to the franchise creatures, because it that sense it is a proper noun: it doesn't refer to any generic aliens, but to the titular Aliens of the franchise. I know that may sound confusing...the creature is credited as "The Alien" in the film's credits, and it is the official, licensed name for it, which makes it a proper noun. It is just like the Predators of the Predator franchise; since that is the official name of the creatures, it is a proper noun and is always capitalized. Also, we do not refer to the Aliens as "xenomorphs" in the articles because that is not what they are called; the credits of each film list them as "The Alien", and the only time the word "xenomorph" is used in the films is in passing in Aliens, and it is not a proper noun; it is a term of classifaction, like arachnid or ichthyoid. Finally, the small, raised (but not superscript) "3" in Alien 3 is a stylization, and we do not use stylizations in running text per Misplaced Pages's Manual of Style, as it leads to reader confusion (the title is pronounced "Alien Three", not "Alien Cubed").

I realize some of this may seem odd to you, but these specific issues have been discussed and dealt with numerous times and consensus was formed long ago about how we would deal with them. Feel free to ask questions on the articles' talk pages, and peruse the talk pages & archives of the various Alien articles to see some of the prior discussions on these topics. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have, as well. You can either drop me a note on my talk page, or respond here (I'll keep this page on my watchlist for a while). --IllaZilla (talk) 14:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Yeah, reading your reply I can understand why you capitalize Alien all the time...But why do they have to be refereed to as "Alien" or "Aliens" over and over again? Shouldn't there be some pronouns or varying diction? What bothered me more than the term "alien" always being capitalized is simply the repetition of the term over-and-over-and-over again and again. It just seemed dull, and when reading the articles it came across, at least for me, as being incredibly boring. That is all -SightWatcher (talk) 13:53, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It may seem repetitive, but there simply aren't any other official pronoun names for the creatures. It's not like they're "Bob", "Chuck", and "Larry", they're just Aliens. It's like if you were writing about Smurfs, you'd have to say "Smurfs" a lot. There aren't any other pronouns for them. --IllaZilla (talk) 19:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

That is true, but wouldn't by that logic it be necessary to capitalize "shark" every time you describe the antagonist of Jaws in that article? All scripts and production notes refer to it as shark so by your logic we should always capitalize Shark when talking about the antagonist of Jaws.

It still makes little sense to me why this has to be capitalized because alien could refer to any foreign being or thing. How is it proper to capitalize the term alien? I'm sure there are many science-fiction movies that cite their creatures simply with "alien." Never is it written as "Alien Society" or anything formal. They used the term alien simply because they didn't know what else to call the thing! There is nothing formal about the term alien.

To play along with your cartoon example, Smurfs are a specific group with a culture. But what if they never had a name and writers only referred to them as "Blue People." Well, then you could mean a great many things. Instead of Smurfs you could wind up with the Na'Vi from Avatar.

My point is, would you capitalize "blue people" if both these franchises used blue characters without names? I feel the same is true for "alien." It is a broad term, and even if you have trouble coming up with pronouns I see no reason to capitalize the term over and over again.

I get that in this case you're referring to the aliens from the Alien franchise, but it seems like that should only be capitalized if you're linking the creature to an article on the franchise's alien. And why not call them xenomorphs on occasion just to mix up the diction? It means just about the same thing as alien.

I'm just having a great deal of trouble understand why it is that this article requires it to be capitalized. If a script writer puts in "The main character sees a strange lizard thing" (he wasn't feeling very creative that day) would it then be necessary for an article on the story's wildlife with "Where the protagonist sees a Strange Lizard Thing"? Sorry if I'm misreading the concept you're trying to present, but that's the way it seems from my point of view. -SightWatcher (talk) 20:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we're on the same page here. I'm talking about 2 different nouns: "alien" (common noun, referring to any generic extraterrestrial) and "The Alien" (proper noun, referring to a specific franchise creature). It's kind of like the Halloween franchise: Michael Myers is always credited as "The Shape". Not "a shape", "The Shape". Proper noun. Another comparison would be The Tick; he's not a tick, he's The Tick. Likewise, the creatures of the Alien franchise aren't just generic aliens, they're Aliens, the specific titular creatures of the franchise. Again, it's just like the Predator. --IllaZilla (talk) 22:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

That brings me right back to Jaws. In the script they used the shark not a shark or whatever, yet on Misplaced Pages's article for the movie Jaws shark is never capitalized. All notes relating to Jaws refer to it as the shark (excluding the crew pet name given to the mechanical shark- Bruce)

This seems like very questionable logic to me if it is not applied to every article. How is shark different from alien? By your above statement, isn't the shark referring to The Shark from Jaws and not any other shark? Is this simply because sharks are real and the aliens from the Alien franchise are not? I am not grasping how it is this rule can be applied to one fictional creature and not another. -SightWatcher (talk) 23:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The difference is that the shark in Jaws is not credited as anything (since it's a prop, not an actor in a suit). It's not a unique creature with a proper name, it's just a large great white shark. It's like the tyrannosaur in Jurassic Park. The Alien, on the other hand, is listed in the credits as "The Alien". The franchise is named after it. It's the official name for the creatures, used throughout the entire franchise. It's a proper noun. Just like the Predators of the Predator franchise. "The Predator" and "The Alien" are proper nouns in this context, not common nouns ("alien" / "predator"). --IllaZilla (talk) 07:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

New edits on Race and intelligence

Welcome aboard. I'll discuss the edits further on article talk. (Thanks for opening up discussion there.) I reverted your last two edits, because one of the sources is quite good--it addresses an issue related to the article whether or not it addresses Lynn specifically--and the incorrect form of reference to a Misplaced Pages section is curable just by changing it to a wikilink. See you on the article. P.S. You may want to check the source list for additional sources to use in updating the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:17, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement

Hello, an arbitration enforcement request about an issue you've been involved in has recently been posted here: Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#WeijiBaikeBianji -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

We should discuss what the sources say, exactly, about the use of "race" in medical practice.

Hi, SightWatcher, I see you are turning from your declared interest in film back to articles related to human racial classification. Let's discuss what the sources say on the talk pages of the articles you edit. The edit you just made restores most of an edit (by another editor who has also visited this talk page of yours, and who is now banned from the topic by the Arbitration Committee) that plainly misrepresented its source (which I still have at hand), and it would be good to discuss together what other current, reliable sources are available on those issues. See you on the article talk pages. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 23:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, SightWatcher, I'm wondering if you have found any new sources in the last three weeks. Continuing my weekly visits to the state research university libraries, today I expect to pick up some more current sources about several of the topics we are both interested in. I will be updating my source lists this weekend, and I invite you to share your suggestions on the suggestions page for each source list. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 14:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

RFC/U

Did you sign your application of the RFC/U? I can't find your name on the page.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Will you notify various talkpages?VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:38, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:AE

FYI: Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Captain Occam Mathsci (talk) 07:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC)