Miscellaneous Grab Bag, Articles too horrible to dedicate attention to individually Options

[Donny]

This could be a fun game -- click random articles and assess the results for citations, viewpoint, grammar and accuracy.

I got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Borges. It's a little boring. Can I play twice?
Second try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbira. Ooh. Nice article.
Third try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Little. Short but fairly informative.
Fourth try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umiastowski. Seems like a useful article.
Fifth try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_setting. Short but apparently useful.
Sixth try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Conal. Interesting article, I liked it. Again rather short.
Seventh try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattus_Norvegicus_%28album%29. I used to have that album. Article is rather short, again.
Eighth try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-down_planning. This is the first really lame article I've hit.
Ninth try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Angus_Association. Short but mildly interesting.
Last try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamimatsura...ict%2C_Nagasaki. Very short robot stub?

The only really good article I hit was the Mbira one, but none of the others except Top down planning were outstandingly bad. They all seemed to be a little short, and perhaps not very well researched.

[Blu Aardvark]

List_of_political_parties_in_East_Timor (T-H-L-K-D)

Citations: None

Point of View: Relatively nuetral, but that's not saying much, because this article is next to useless, with one sentence being the primary content of this article - not including the list, of course

Accuracy: With no sources, it cannot be confirmed whether or not the only statements made by this article are factual.

Theodor_Becker (T-H-L-K-D)

Citations: None.

Point of View & Accuracy: This article is so badly written, I cannot understand it, much less establish a point of view or accuracy issues.

Roary_the_Lion (T-H-L-K-D)

Substub. Bloody useless. Should be merged with the article on Middlesbrough_F.C. (T-H-L-K-D) and redirected. This will never be anything more than a stub.

[norsemoose]

What the shit?

World's_busiest_port

*That* page speaks for itself.

[Jonny Cache]

What the shit?

World's busiest port

*That* page speaks for itself.

I'm guessing either Manischewitz or Mogen David ...

Jonny

[Somey]

I thought Port 80 was the world's busiest port these days?

[Looch]

I thought Port 80 was the world's busiest port these days?

Hehehe, good one, Somey.

[Kathryn Cramer]

Gotta love those auto parts stubs!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_2S-G_engine

[JohnA]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Borges has been deleted

Bisexual Erasure. Its another reason why heterosexuals are bad people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_..._Western_Apache is yet another list article. I think lists are one of the key reasons why Wikipedia is so large.

Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office for everything you've ever needed to know about this important part of the American justice system - including the pay scales for Detention Deputies.

Vital information, as I'm sure you'll agree.

This post has been edited by JohnA: Thu 7th June 2007, 7:27pm

[Cobalt]

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but Jesus God.
Pietermaritzburg Airport

[dogbiscuit]

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but Jesus God.
Pietermaritzburg Airport

18 months of refinement lead to that? Better to leave it to the sockpuppets who can create a complete article on their first edits.

[Neil]

Yoink. Cleaned up and stubbed.

[Cobalt]

Yoink. Cleaned up and stubbed.

That's a major improvement.

[The Joy]

When I was a more active Wikipedian, I tried to clean up various military articles. At one point, I got stuck on a Indian military article. It was like someone had taken an article from a different language, translated it into English via AltaVista Babelfish, and dumped it on Wikipedia without cleaning it up. I would try to fix things, but I never really knew what the original writers meant so I would just have to leave the ambiguous stuff alone as I have no knowledge of the Indian military. The most annoying thing was that every paragraph kept saying something like "General Vista Ramalamadingdong is the head of the Indian military and he is truly glorious." By the time I vetted through that article, I had about enough of General Vista Ramalamadingdong. Maybe he is truly glorious, but that's an opinion and no third party references to back it.

Pretty much after that, I gave up on making big changes to Wikipedia and I pretty much stay away from it now.

[Firsfron of Ronchester]

When I was a more active Wikipedian, I tried to clean up various military articles. At one point, I got stuck on a Indian military article. It was like someone had taken an article from a different language, translated it into English via AltaVista Babelfish, and dumped it on Wikipedia without cleaning it up. I would try to fix things, but I never really knew what the original writers meant so I would just have to leave the ambiguous stuff alone as I have no knowledge of the Indian military.

That's my experience as well. However, I don't think most of those articles are actual Altavista translations, as Babelfish at least gets the punctuation spaced correctly.

[maggot3]

I've seen similar articles that I've tried to fix before and had similar problems. There's often really no way to fix them other than stubbing them, they're so awful. Indian places are the worst for this; they're regularly created with lots of advertising style writing (stuff like "It is recently known for lots of very good Information Technology specialists") and attempts to fix are met with WHY U CHANGE MY ARTICLE.

[Milton Roe]

This could be a fun game -- click random articles and assess the results for citations, viewpoint, grammar and accuracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLA-B49 Short, but a lot of interesting info on an HLA allele I knew nothing about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carvers%2C_Nevada Stub about a town, but has grid coords, at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Elmaleh_de_Buenos Minor French impressionist painter I'd never heard of. Obvious translation. Info but no refs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra_Hultgren Stub on Miss Sweden, 1995, with some acting gigs. No photo, damnit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_MultiCom Swiss computer network company. Clearly a cropped stub from the company website, just so they have a WP presense. COI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_...hess_of_Suffolk Stub on a younger sister of Edward IV of England, obviously by a ROYAL worshipper. Late 15th century. You remember the York who started the War of the Roses and kept waffling on and off the throne. No? Just as well. Anyway, he had this sister...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern_%28disambiguation%29 A dab page on Ferns. I love dab pages. Did you know a Fern Bar is an upscale yuppie bar? Most people ferns I've met are varieties of human potted plants who decorate the living spaces of the rich and famous. A slang use not reported here. Ah, well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fun_of_Watching_Fireworks. An album by the American Analog Set. Not much info but a track listing. Apparently not a terribly important band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_14_of_t...ted_States_Code Not much info, but does give links. Title 14 is THE title in US Code for the legal authorization for the Coast Guard. Who knew?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorma A river in Norway (name means "warm"). Stubby article but long river.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Lucas Texas bankrobber who went to Alcatraz in 1935, stabbed Al Capone non-fatally there in a laundry room in 1936, tried to escape in 1938 (resulting in a death) and was sentenced to life, serving 25 more years till he died there in 1963. This guy's life sucked (I've visited Alcatraz). Decent references and a pretty good article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilston_West_railway_station Stub on a Brit railway station closed in 1962 and used after that only by Hoggwarts students.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenham_Clumps Article on a bunch of small hills in Oxfordshire. Thrilling poetry included. References substandard. But the English live up to their rep, with this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Palace Very nice article on a pretty piece of London architecture, with nice photos and good references. And a good place to stop, as the English have here redeemed themselves for the Wittenham Clumps.

This post has been edited by Milton Roe: Fri 8th August 2008, 9:06pm

[Crestatus]

Man, I hope none of mine get listed on here.

[Rootology]

I used to do this ages ago...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_A40_Devon Decent article on a classic car.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myricaceae Typical plant stub.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alizarine_ink A form of ink from the 1800s. Interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Coles English footballer. Next (I never read these).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orting%2C_WA_...h_Flood_of_2006 I remember this flood, when it happened here. I boggled before I read the article that it said to merge to "Pineapple Express", thinking it was vandalism--merge a flood article to a stoner movie? What?! But turns out a Pineapple Express is not what I thought it was.

[KamrynMatika]

The "Related Works" list in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World is quite entertaining:

Related works

* The Scientific Outlook by philosopher Bertrand Russell. When Brave New World was released, Russell thought that Huxley's book was based on his book The Scientific Outlook that had been released the previous year. Russell contacted his own publisher and asked whether or not he should do something about this apparent plagiarism. His publisher advised him not to, and Russell followed this advice.[22]
* The 1921 novel Men Like Gods by H.G. Wells. A utopian novel that was a source of inspiration for Huxley's dystopian Brave New World.
* In Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga, an isolated planet practicing genetic eugenics to form a perfect society is called 'Huxleys Haven'
* The 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman alludes to how television is goading modern Western culture to be like what we see in Brave New World, where people are not so much denied human rights like free speech, but are rather conditioned not to care.
* Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952) he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."[23]
* The Iron Maiden song by the same name on their album Brave New World whose cover art depicts a futuristic London described by Huxley.
* "Slave New World," a song by Brazilian band Sepultura from their album Chaos A.D.
* Brazilian rock singer Pitty's debut album, released in 2003, is called Admirável Chip Novo (Brave New Chip).
* Brave New World is the title song on the third album by the Steve Miller Band.
* The Motörhead album Hammered includes a song named Brave New World.
* Richard Ashcroft's first solo album Alone with Everybody includes a song named Brave New World.
* Demolition Man, a film starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock, is set in a not-too-distant future utopian society based on a Brave New World. Sandra Bullock's character is even named Lenina Huxley, referencing the author and character from the book. (1997)
* Reagan Youth had a song named "Brave New World".
* The Proletariat had an LP entitled "Soma Holiday."
* Scottish techno record label Soma Quality Recordings was named after the drug Soma featured in a Brave New World
* On their album Here, Here, and Here, Meg & Dia have a track titled "Hug Me", a song written by Dia inspired by "Brave New World."
* The song "Soma Holiday" by Gods of Luxury is based on the novel and includes several quotes from the novel in its lyrics.
* The lyrics for Marilyn Manson's song "Ka-boom Ka-boom" from The Golden Age of Grotesque play on the title and idea of this book; in them, Manson suggests that society is a "depraved new world."
* Sam Endicott of The Bravery based the song I Have Seen The Future off of Brave New World, as he said in an interview.

[Herschelkrustofsky]

The "Related Works" list in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World is quite entertaining:

Related works

* The Scientific Outlook by philosopher Bertrand Russell. When Brave New World was released, Russell thought that Huxley's book was based on his book The Scientific Outlook that had been released the previous year. Russell contacted his own publisher and asked whether or not he should do something about this apparent plagiarism. His publisher advised him not to, and Russell followed this advice.[22]
* The 1921 novel Men Like Gods by H.G. Wells. A utopian novel that was a source of inspiration for Huxley's dystopian Brave New World.
* In Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga, an isolated planet practicing genetic eugenics to form a perfect society is called 'Huxleys Haven'
* The 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman alludes to how television is goading modern Western culture to be like what we see in Brave New World, where people are not so much denied human rights like free speech, but are rather conditioned not to care.
* Kurt Vonnegut said that in writing Player Piano (1952) he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."[23]
* The Iron Maiden song by the same name on their album Brave New World whose cover art depicts a futuristic London described by Huxley.
* "Slave New World," a song by Brazilian band Sepultura from their album Chaos A.D.
* Brazilian rock singer Pitty's debut album, released in 2003, is called Admirável Chip Novo (Brave New Chip).
* Brave New World is the title song on the third album by the Steve Miller Band.
* The Motörhead album Hammered includes a song named Brave New World.
* Richard Ashcroft's first solo album Alone with Everybody includes a song named Brave New World.
* Demolition Man, a film starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock, is set in a not-too-distant future utopian society based on a Brave New World. Sandra Bullock's character is even named Lenina Huxley, referencing the author and character from the book. (1997)
* Reagan Youth had a song named "Brave New World".
* The Proletariat had an LP entitled "Soma Holiday."
* Scottish techno record label Soma Quality Recordings was named after the drug Soma featured in a Brave New World
* On their album Here, Here, and Here, Meg & Dia have a track titled "Hug Me", a song written by Dia inspired by "Brave New World."
* The song "Soma Holiday" by Gods of Luxury is based on the novel and includes several quotes from the novel in its lyrics.
* The lyrics for Marilyn Manson's song "Ka-boom Ka-boom" from The Golden Age of Grotesque play on the title and idea of this book; in them, Manson suggests that society is a "depraved new world."
* Sam Endicott of The Bravery based the song I Have Seen The Future off of Brave New World, as he said in an interview.

To my mind, an oddly homogeneous listing. The big omission, of course, is Shakespeare's The Tempest, which originated the phrase:

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!