Talk:Meme/Archive 4

message: Is this word really pronounced to rhyme with "gem" in the US? I've never heard the word before, so I wouldn't know.--Tea and crumpets 00:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never heard it pronounced like that.  Looks like it was added as a hoax on 08:26, 3 April 2007 by someone with the IP address 68.60.42.209.  That same IP added the same alternative pronunciation to Wiktionary on 08:02, 3 April 2007.   When the "gem" line was removed from the Wikipedia page on 08:39, 13 April 2007, that same IP address replaced it, citing what would appear to be their own edit of the Wiktionary entry!  So, until we can get an independent cite, it doesn't belong there.Tyrrell McAllister 22:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes.  I pronounce it to rhyme with "gem".  It's been a long time.  I don't know where I first heard it.
It's pronounced mee-mee. Ernestrome 13:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Pronunciation 

message: Why is this in the article?  This is listed as a meme phrase, but an internet search shows no hits.65.79.30.55 18:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repin Norview to the end 

message: The entire criticism section looks as if someone just tossed it of the top of their head. It consists of straw men and other misconceptions, as well as some criticisms that are downright incoherent! ('It just doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy' should not count as a valid criticism to be addressed!)
In any case I know too little about the current opinion of Memetics to create a valid criticism section from scratch, although the facts that a) at best it is a proto-science, and b) it has attracted flak from some of the vocal religious would be the logical starting point. As it is a proto-science, criticism from other scientific disciplines can be regarded as 'not-invented-here' until such time as it *does* become a science or is entirely discredited.
Memetics is not a protoscience.  It is a hybrid field of sociology and cybernetics.--Scorpion451 17:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section 

message: There is much well founded criticism of Memes out there.  Notably:
Darwinizing Culture : The Status of Memetics as a Science
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0192632442/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_2/103-1056305-1539030?%5Fencoding=UTF8
and
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465084672/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/103-1056305-1539030?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155
I have amazon extracts from the relevant chapters and am attempting to put some sort of critique together.  I rather suspect that this may be somewhat controversial, does anyone suggest a correct way forward? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ChurchOfTheOtherGods  (talk • contribs) 10:47, 25 April 2006  (UTC2)
Thanks to ChurchOfTheOtherGods for above references - v good:
From Adam Kuper - Dawkins using terms loosely
If memes are the answer, what is the question? The question that memes are designed to address evidently concerns culture, but culture is itself a notoriously question-begging notion. And culture is supposed to provide the answers to another very big question, which is in what way human beings may be unique. "Most of what is unusual about man can be summed up in one word: culture", Dawkins wrote, continuing, with a perhaps disingenuous insouciance, "I use the word not in its snobbish sense, but as a scientist uses it" (Dawkins 1989: 189). Unfortunately, he does not specify how a scientist uses the word, and little wonder. In truth, there is no single, unsnobbish, scientific conception of culture.
and using dodgy references
Dawkins even suggests that memes drive suicide epidemics, arguing that "a suicidal meme can spread, as when a dramatic and well-publicised martydom inspires others to die for a deeply loved cause" (Dawkins 1982: 111). In support, he cites Gore Vidal, 1955. This turns out to be an early novel by the American writer, about a messianic cult. Dawkins would surely be apoplectic if a social scientist were to cite Hitchcock's film The Birds to make a point about ornithology.
134.115.68.21 10:57, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of Meme Theory 

message: This section is also flawed and should probably be deleted:
:"Memetics, by contrast, has no such model for the storage and transmission of memes." - Storage is in the brain and transmission is by language.
:"Memeticists typically assume that memetic 'phenotypes' equate with memetic 'genotypes'" - This is not true. The equivalent of 'genotype' (as with genes) is where the information is stored, i.e. in the brain. The equivalent of 'phenotype' (as with genes) is how this information interacts with its environment, i.e. the behaviour this meme causes.
:"This assumption seems like a serious — and to critics, fatal — weakness in memetics relative to its genetic model." - It would be if such an assumption existed. Kernow 19:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alleged lack of rigor 

message: I moved it out.  Too cluttered, not the place for ongoing discussion.  What follows was unsigned discussion.Kaisershatner 15:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debate moved from "to do" box 

message: I've been thinking about how the discussion has come to the problem of the two different connotations for the word meme, and I think it can best be solved by agreeing that the difference is that so-called 'internet memes' are replicated and (Blackmore's) 'memes' self-replicate. So to say they replicate themselves is POV, while saying that 'internet memes' are spread all over internet communities is not. So, to disavow my initial thought that all memetic terminology violates the NPoV, I think we could balance the POV by making certain everyone knows the difference between the two concepts and how it's not proven that memes self-replicate, just that some people think they do. --Maprovonsha172 14:22, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  self-replicating system 

message: I think it would be interesting to have a section for political memes named "Politics" that would be situated near the "Religion" section.  I oftentimes run into Democratic activists who claim that the Republican Party has been using memes over the past generation or so to manipulate the American people.  Whether that's true or not, I think this could be a good seed for a new section on this topic.  Any thoughts? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work</span> 19:36, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
:It's like what the logical positivists say about metaphysical claims. We can't say one way or the other. Here's what Bertrand Russell said (forgive me if it isn't word for word) about sin: "When I say 'sinner' I don't mean one that commits sins in the Christian sense, because depending on what you believe either everyone or no one does." That's exactly why we can't talk about memes this way, Stevie. Either no ideas are memes or most all ideas are memes, depending on your beliefs. Many of you believe in memes; in which case both the Democratic and Republican parties are constantly bombarding us with their memes.Maprovonsha172 23:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political memes 

message: I have removed the following text by 211.30.190.44 because, in addition to being unwikied, it has no context or source, and is therefore not a comprehensible part of the article:
[0] Non Newtonian phenomena, may spontaneously create or modify memes. All that follows are subject to [0] in so far as these phenomena occur.
[1] A meme is subject to the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of mass.
[2] A possessor is any thing that can support a meme.
[3] A meme hosted by a possessor changes the net energy(j) of that possessor.
[4] A meme that confers greater net energy(j) to any possessor(s) without destroying itself will be capable of destroying any lesser net energy conferring meme in any possessor.
[5] A net benefit energy calculation must include, acquisition, retention and transmission energy costs of the meme.
[6] Destruction of meme renders it unrecognisable.
[T Edwards]. Note possessors do not have to be human or even "alive" in the common usage of the term.
Bovlb:01:04 (UTC)
Well I put it back. You have to apply your mid a bit, like the really comming to grips with the laws of thermodynamics. These rules will build a structure that allows memes to be understood and verified. You will have to think about what the implications are.
For example one implication is that a personalilty, is nothing more than a collection of memes that confer sustained energy and mass on the body of the person, That is you are but a compistion of memes that inabit/ reflect the structure(t) of your brain. Interestingly because this "law" meme was not able to compete with your own memes you rejected it. I humbly sugest that you think hard about the implications of these laws /this particular meme.It deos, I think offer for the fisrt time away to quaitfy the whole meme area, w.r.t to almost all of the do they exist what is it.
It does have a source, T Edwards, [Me] derived the laws after sufficent contemplation and study.
:Wikipedia:No original research. --cesarb 6 July:22 (UTC)
The disitinctions made in this policy are meaningless. Esspecially in the area of memes, thus the rule is without juristiction on this topic and a Nulity [Look it up an understand why your "privitive clause" attempt is void ab initio.
::This stuff does not belong in the article, or in its own article. Encyclopedia articles should not ask the reader to "apply their mind" -- they need to explain fully and clearly. --albamuth 7 July:15 (UTC)
:"spontaneously" ??? "[3]" -- what of latent memes (non-expressing), differentiation between potential and kinetic energy?  Need to consider elasticity and memeplexes too (in whether a greater energy conferring meme is always capable of destroying a lower energy conferring meme), and potential increase in the energy conferring ability of a meme in a possessor over time (thus the entire system may be subject to conservation laws, but the individual memes and individual possessors are not -- even this is slightly inaccurate as the number of possessors in a system can grow). -- Nice to see a non-genetic take on memetics. 24.22.227.53 18:38, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Universal Laws of Memeomics 

message: http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6268155-1.html?tag=txt
What is the process for updating the list of cited articles and such? Anyone want to do it as I have no idea what's involved?--Lord Shitzu 20:05, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
:Uh, the CNET article links back to the Wikipedia article, but is not about memes per se, just "internet fads". IMHO it's not source material, and thus not worthy of linking to. --albamuth 18:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article cited at CNet 

message: For now, I'm moving the content that has been commented out to the talk page -- it clutters the main article's edit box. General comments remain intact. -- jiy 19:13, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
===(Lead section)===
I've commented out the following paragraph because it doesn't seem to fit here.  Is there a better place?  It also seems to assume a particular definition of a meme, which seems perhaps like a bad idea.  --wpegden
Some memes, such as many on the Internet, tend to proliferate for periods of time then quietly die off: many start as obscure running jokes within net cliques, which gradually lose their original meaning or become otherwise detached. Some people consider absurdist humor as a good source of memes. Generally, the better the communication medium, the faster memes can come into and out of vogue.
===Basic introduction===
I'm commenting out this next block because, apart from being blatantly one sided on its view of memetics (nearly all of these claims would be contested by many scientists), this stuff is surely better suited for the article on memetics.
The conception and study of memes, known as memetics, has led to new insights in:
#general mind operation
#cultural evolution
Memetics and the introduction of the meme as a concept build on several previous fundamental scientific discoveries:
*Evolutionary theory (by Darwin)
*Recognition of DNA as an information sequence
*Recognition of the fact that the primary objects of evolution are information sequences in genes
Memeticists may regard meme evolution as a new level of biological evolution, whereby new ideas evolve in seconds rather than over generations (as in biological evolution); this may explain the rapid progress of Homo sapiens.
Memetics may lead to a new level of understanding of meta-science and common thinking practices, such as scientific approach, skepticism and conservatism.
Memetics provides another level of understanding of mental parasites, such as chain letters, urban myths and ideologies.
Memetics can serve as a bridge between artificial intelligence and biology (See also expert systems, knowledge-based systems).</code>
:"meme evolution as a new level of biological evolution ... this may explain the rapid progress of Homo sapiens." Is this refering to the physical species, or things created by the species?  If anything, ideas have merely enabled humans to propagate larger and intermix with other humans, and somewhat modify ourselves -- this is not a new level of biological evolution, this is merely atypical means of biological evolution/intermixing. (I recognize the difference in qualitative world-view understanding between my statement and the one I'm commenting on). 24.22.227.53 18:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving commented out material 

message: I'm commenting out this next block because, apart from being blatantly one sided on its view of memetics (nearly all of these claims would be contested by many scientists), this stuff is surely better suited for the article on memetics.
The conception and study of memes, known as memetics, has led to new insights in:
#general mind operation
#cultural evolution
Memetics and the introduction of the meme as a concept build on several previous fundamental scientific discoveries:
*Evolutionary theory (by Darwin)
*Recognition of DNA as an information sequence
*Recognition of the fact that the primary objects of evolution are information sequences in genes
Memeticists may regard meme evolution as a new level of biological evolution, whereby new ideas evolve in seconds rather than over generations (as in biological evolution); this may explain the rapid progress of Homo sapiens.
Memetics may lead to a new level of understanding of meta-science and common thinking practices, such as scientific approach, skepticism and conservatism.
Memetics provides another level of understanding of mental parasites, such as chain letters, urban myths and ideologies.
Memetics can serve as a bridge between artificial intelligence and biology (See also expert systems, knowledge-based systems).</code>
:"meme evolution as a new level of biological evolution ... this may explain the rapid progress of Homo sapiens." Is this refering to the physical species, or things created by the species?  If anything, ideas have merely enabled humans to propagate larger and intermix with other humans, and somewhat modify ourselves -- this is not a new level of biological evolution, this is merely atypical means of biological evolution/intermixing. (I recognize the difference in qualitative world-view understanding between my statement and the one I'm commenting on). 24.22.227.53 18:06, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Basic introduction

message: This article (and seemingly the study of memetics itself) references back to culture at the cost of a more coherent and complete understanding.
You could reference back to individual desires (which do alter over time).  You could reference back to other things.
=== Additional: Memetic evolution ===
Meme structures may not have an underlying "genotype", but they do have underlying organizations.  And these memeplexes do have some structural elasticity (ie. rebuilding emotional memories based on the non-emotional things about a situation you remember).
Hold on, meme structures do have underlying "genotypes":
This is also wrong in that it is comparing apples and oranges.  If a mouse gets it's tail cut off, everything is fine with the genotype, but if a mouse is exposed to a mutagen, everything isn't.  If a memeplex loses part of itself, but the possesor still retains the memes the memeplex was built from, everything if fine with the genotype.
If an already built memeplex loses (some of) the memes it is built from (but not built of), it will still retain itself(1), just as the exposed mouse will still retain it's characteristics.  In both of these situations, the memeplex and the mouse will have great difficulty (if not impossibility if the mouse's germline has been compromised, and the necessary requisites for building an understanding of the memeplex in another carrier are no longer available) in passing themselves "down a generation".  Freaks and sports still have a possibility of being created by the mutated memeplex or the mutated mouse.
If the memeplex needs continual "protein transcription" from the destroyed memes it will die, analogous to the physical body of the mouse.
This is not lamarckian, this is darwinian/mendelevian (and seems more analogous to bacterial plasmids than standard sexual reproduction -- hmm... a possible new interpretation/addition along the biological mold).
(1) - The same way I can forget how to add, but can still multiply (having originally learned multiplication via the "3 * 4 = 4 + 4 + 4" manner) 24.22.227.53 22:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too much culture 

message: Meme structures may not have an underlying "genotype", but they do have underlying organizations.  And these memeplexes do have some structural elasticity (ie. rebuilding emotional memories based on the non-emotional things about a situation you remember).
Hold on, meme structures do have underlying "genotypes":
This is also wrong in that it is comparing apples and oranges.  If a mouse gets it's tail cut off, everything is fine with the genotype, but if a mouse is exposed to a mutagen, everything isn't.  If a memeplex loses part of itself, but the possesor still retains the memes the memeplex was built from, everything if fine with the genotype.
If an already built memeplex loses (some of) the memes it is built from (but not built of), it will still retain itself(1), just as the exposed mouse will still retain it's characteristics.  In both of these situations, the memeplex and the mouse will have great difficulty (if not impossibility if the mouse's germline has been compromised, and the necessary requisites for building an understanding of the memeplex in another carrier are no longer available) in passing themselves "down a generation".  Freaks and sports still have a possibility of being created by the mutated memeplex or the mutated mouse.
If the memeplex needs continual "protein transcription" from the destroyed memes it will die, analogous to the physical body of the mouse.
This is not lamarckian, this is darwinian/mendelevian (and seems more analogous to bacterial plasmids than standard sexual reproduction -- hmm... a possible new interpretation/addition along the biological mold).
(1) - The same way I can forget how to add, but can still multiply (having originally learned multiplication via the "3 * 4 = 4 + 4 + 4" manner) 24.22.227.53 22:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional: Memetic evolution 

message: this paragraph seems to be a veiled biased criticism of religious use of memes:
Fear: If a meme constitutes a threat then people may become frightened into believing it. The memes "if you do not do this you will burn in hell..." and "...do this and you will go to heaven" provide common examples
it is not supported whether or not these examples are in fact "common". it is also up for debate whether these examples are a fair characterization of the teachings of any religious organization.
(as an aside, i personally think that those are very prevalent examples of, for example, the catholic church's historical abuse of power, but my opinion doesn't belong in this article)
The Meme Resistance subsection uses NPOV negative langague directed towards science and technology.
A general NPOV question: do most people consider memes to be an established explanation of cultural phenomena or a doubtful theory? This article seems in places (such as the "Forms taken by memes" section) to assume that the meme concept is largely correct. Perhaps a few more "According to memetic theory" phrases or such like would be appropriate... Trevor 20:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: Is there a need for the internal link to good?  It only serves as a useless link to a disambiguation page in my opinion, but I'll leave it up to other editors to judge its merit.  The Hooded Man 00:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it! Stripping articles of thoughtless links irrelevant to the subject is always to the good. --Wetman 23:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to disambiguation 

message: A recent change by [[User:129.71.207.114|129.71.207.114] says that memes, unlike genes, can be horizontally transmitted.  Wouldn't retroviruses constitute horizontal transmission of genes? Alienus 22:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, many bacteria can also exchange genes. But in general genes cannot be horizontally transmitted. --Maru  (talk) Contribs 02:40, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly can't argue with it in general.  I'm just wondering if there might be some way to adjust the words to make it clearer that vertical transmission of genes is the norm but not the only way. I'll look and see if I can think of something. Alienus 04:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have modified: "Unlike genes, (which are typically transmitted vertically)... memes can (also be) transmit(ted)" 202.163.215.11 05:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horizontal transmission 

message: On, 24.248.65.198 removed the "in need of expert attention" notice on this page. I can't see any sign that there was any consensus for its removal, so I've put it back again. Perhaps the notice should go, but surely not without discussion. Gareth McCaughan 21:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  In need of expert attention? 

message: I archived about half the page, sections dead since May 2005.  I removed some bullets from the long To Do, specifically those about memetics rather than meme.  The current article is quite long and points rather nicely to the sub/main article about memetics, which can address the bullets I removed.  I'll post them on the talk page there.  Finally, I moved the discussion out of the to do box and onto Talk at the top.  Kaisershatner 15:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving, trimming 

message: The "Intro" doesn't. The first two paragraphs under Introduction and definitions do. Sugges the content above Introduction and definitions be moved to a more logical place in the article, and the Introduction and definitions be moved to top. KillerChihuahua?!? 18:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion 

message: Is anyone aware of any work done to establish that the meme theory of religion is correct - I'm thinking of some sort of scientific test, or predictive ability about religions mutating ?  Springald 20:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What meme theory of religion? Religions are memes like any other ideas. As for religions mutating, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all clearly distantly related mutants.Kernow 02:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kernow is correct - if you want a quick read on the subject, Virus of the Mind by Brodie covers it nicely. There is no "test" which we could include in the article, except a logical conclusion drawn by scientists and philosophers. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific Theory 

message: "Some consider religion itself a meme" - Whether or not you agree with memetic theory, religion is a meme by definition.Kernow 16:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, please fix that. :) KillerChihuahua?!? 17:48, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily. The phrase "by definition" glosses over a huge argument as to whether religious belief in some form is a trait humans are born with or whether it is acquired socially. In any case, we all know that 'religion' has many different definitions, not all of which directly imply the memetic theory of religion.  Hibbleton 19:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion 

message: Paragraph II in the article: "Memes in themselves appear morally neutral; not necessarily good nor bad. However the application of memes can have moral implications, such as altering the thinking of others which may manifest catastrophic events." (reworded from a more drastic wording)
I have removed "such as altering the thinking of others which may manifest catastrophic events." Given that memes altering thinking is something to phrase carefully to begin with, as a case can easily be made that all thinking is using memes as the building blocks of our thought processes, this statement has the additional problems of 1) highlighting moral implications (which I have left pending this discussion), and 2) highlighting not only the negative, but in an hysterical, panic-inducing manner. Not only do they "alter your thinking" but the results can be "catastrophic"! Well, incorporating new memes is an alteration of the thoughts you have to think with, and the results can range from "catastropic" to "sublime" and everything in between and off in different directions. Why fear-monger that memes have "moral" implications which can lead to "catastrophe"? Is there a point to this? Is it informing our readers accurately, in a non-biased manner? I fail to see that this sentence adds anything of value whatsover, whereas I do see that it feeds and inflames misunderstanding of memetics. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Alter your thinking" still sounds a little too mind-control for me. I would prefer to omit that entirely until and unless we can arrive at verbiage which does not carry mind control or brainwashing connotations. I understand your desire to have this in the intro; it is covered well further in the article so hopefully we can work to arrive at an agreeable phrasing which does not carry the weight of unduly negative implications. KillerChihuahua?!? 01:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

text: thanks. :) KillerChihuahua?!? 00:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutral memes 

message: The section which is currently at the end of the article, "Common misconceptions", is pretty confusing.  It brings in Freud's concept of the Ego, Superego and the Id and proceeds to talk about hard to understand concepts in a hard to follow way.  Basically, IMHO, the section is currently unreadable.  Maybe it should be removed or completely rewritten.  And do we really need to go into Freud?
PragmaticallyWyrd 00:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Common misconceptions" section -- quite confusing 

message: While Darwin lacked proof for a biologically-heritable element, he had postulated one and seemed quite comfortable with the concept of biologically-inherited social traits. (A modern biologist might characterize the latter concept as "Social Darwinism".) Given the early events and tragedies of the century following Darwin's death one can readily understand that modern scientists and intellectuals approach the meme concept with healthy skepticism and caution.
This sounds suspiciously normative. "Modern scientists and intellectuals" is far too vague and "healthy skepticism and caution" is unsupported and biased. I've taken the liberty of removing it. If you're going to restore you ought to clarify who the "modern scientists and intellectuals" are and how ubiquitous they really are, as well as what this community's skeptical criticisms are. davesgonechina 03:18, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ...unless there are to many scientists and intellectuals to be cited, yes, I agree with you but like so many weasellings, when an article is going to be outnumbered by citations, that might not do anyone any good. It certainly sounds as though we might have a number of individuals on our hand here. Well, I hope not, but yes, citations are most important. Dieter Simon 17:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: an exhaustive list isn't necessary. I suggest an approach like that at the beginning where it lays out three different approaches to memes. One could lay out two or three main rebuttals and name one scholar that exemplifies each. I'm renaming "Historical usage of the meme concept&;quot; as "Historical antecendents of the meme concept", since none of the thinkers mentioned in this section actually address memes, but rather ideas that are related to varying degrees from different fields of study. Finally, Darwin's The_Descent_of_Man_and_Selection_in_Relation_to_Sex wrestled with the impact of natural selection on society, but did not discuss a genetic approach to the development of ideas. The distinction is not made very clearly, and Darwin ought to be removed from this section and placed on its own. Memes are not biologically-inherited traits or social darwinist, and that confusion is what I think led to the comment about "healthy skepticism", since social darwinism is held in ill repute.davesgonechina 23:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Please go ahead, sounds a good idea. Your expertise is appreciated here.  Thank you in advance. Dieter Simon 22:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weasel Wording 

message: Please help build policy at: Wikipedia:Notability (memes).  Thank you, --Urthogie 15:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  policy proposal 

message: The page is still hopelessly POV (at least in the introductory section), as it presents memes are established fact, rather than the theoretical concept that they are. Because they are an abstract concept, they aren't really based on physical evidence (as the theory of evolution), or statistical evidence. As an idea, I find them interesting, and even plausible, but it is disinformation to claim that their existence is cut and dried. It reeks a bit of post-modernism, and may as such find itself out in the cold when po-mo ceases to be fashionable.  --MacRusgail 18:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur. At least there are some references in the earlier sections. I added a request for references to the the Biological analogies section -- it is especially rambling, self-contradictive, and confusing. Since nothing is referenced, there's no way to tell how much theory-generation is occuring within the article itself, and how much has been brought in from other sources. I think clarity is especially important here, as there is nothing cohesive about the current state of memetics. This article needn't try to enforce some sort of artifical framework on the disparate schools of thought, but I'd like to see which memetic theorists are making what claims. Then we can trim out the faddish garbage. We don't need a Wikipedian theory of memetics, but a survey of the field. Maybe memetics is already dead. Maybe not. I'm looking for information in a Wikipedia article, not proselytism. --Vault 18:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO, a Cleanup tag would be more appropriate, as it would cover the sourcing, the organization, and the bias. Thoughts? KillerChihuahua?!? 19:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cleanup - I agree! I'm not waging war on memes, I'm just very slightly sceptical. --MacRusgail 18:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meme as theory 

message: It is pretty obvious that a lot of the difference of opinion about memes derives from their remorselessly reductive explicative nature, something that people like Dennett like. So it is equally obvious that all of the arguments about the mind/brain distinction have a parallel here, and the arguments of Charles Taylor (philosopher) about the reductiveness or otherwise of teleological explanation of mental states are totally applicable. As Taylor says - if you can account for all of the teleological workings by a reductive mechanism, then freewill falls apart. But if you can't, then hypothesising the putatively-reduceable features because of a nifty explicative paradigm is not even a close second to explaining the mind away. This is not to deny the power of cognitive science or neurology, or to argue for a Mind/Body distinction, just to say that as an explicative paradigm it is insufficient in and of itself. The force of Taylor's argument is to move the burden of proof away from the people who hold with mental states, and onto the shoulders of the reductivists.
In a similar way, cultural forms (the kind the Semon, as well as Dilthey, Riegl, Cassirer, Aby Warburg and the other Kulturwissenschaft thinkers were interested in) must be shown to be reductively explicable in a way that accounts for the apparently teleological nature of cultural inheritance and transference.
So I propose the notion of a Seme (named both after Semon for the idea that he orginally had and for the idea of the seme that Charles Peirce had - the unit of semantic meaning) to contrast with the notion of the Meme. It stands in relation to the Meme as the Mind does to the Brain.
Thus the central question of the Meme controversy becomes one of showing that the Meme can always provide a reductive explanation for the Seme in every case: not that it might be possible, or that it could one day provide the basis for one, but that it right now provides a complete explicative paradigm in and of itself. And as with Taylor's argument, the burden of proof shifts from the culture-scientist justifying that the Seme is not reductive, to the Memeticist proving that the Meme can acount for it.202.72.136.39 07:56, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semes vs. Memes 

message: I have removed this section, which read like an OR essay and had no sources whatsoever. If there are sources, and this section 1) Can be salvaged and 2) Is viewed as necessary or helpful to this article, please make your case and post your sources here. Thanks - KillerChihuahua?!? 16:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-natural selection 

message: could someone add how u pronounce meme? --Anon.
:That's already in the article. --maru   (talk)  contribs 19:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In The Selfish Gene, where Dawkins coined the term, he says it is prounced to rhyme with "cream". --Oldak Quill 21:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronouciation of "meme"? 

message: "even though their differences lack a definitive racial basis"...what is a definative racial basis? Kernow 00:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question: I'm guessing what was meant was that although of differing groups, the Hutus and Tutsis are both negroid. I have refactored the section to omit the confusing terminology. KillerChihuahua?!? 01:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The "memetic explanations of racism" got me to think of this explanation as a kind of memetic virus in itself. Not dissimilar to the ideas of the inquisition that there where some dangerous and frightening ideas that could spread throughout society by people secretly possessed by them. That we need to protect ourselves from being influenced by those who might not be true believers, people or groups that might be possessed by such fiendish ideas. And what will happen if this memetic virus infects all of society? A new inquisition? Persecution of people suspected of harbouring their clandestine and diabolical viciousness in all secrecy? Spells and incantations to protect ourselves against those that might be carriers of such ideas? Public hysteria to find the witches and disclose the true diabolical ideas that they hide in their evil hearts? Cultural relativist priest performing social exorcism on people believed to be possessed by the spirit of the devil? That the ends justifies the means when interrogating and intimidating suspects? In short: Political correctness? ;-)--85.165.91.124 08:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Except that racial tolerance could also be explained as being memetic. Memetic != bad. OTOH, that there "needs" to be an explanation of racism (and there does, IMO), possibly suggests something similar to what you're saying. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 19:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Although the Rwandan case is definitely not a new thing, I'm not sure that one can say that "white supremacy" is the original paradigm of memetic racism. It might be true, but that seems like an awfully difficult thing to prove. Perhaps the reason for the Rwandan case is that it has certain features that make it more amenable to memetic analysis. One such reason might be the fact that it might not be as old and widespread as other forms of racism. (I know precious little about the history of Rwanda, so this might not be true.) Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 19:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Memetic explanation of racism 

message: The "Memetic accounts of religion" section is full of weasel words, unsourced and therefore unverifiable claims and original research. I've tagged some examples and removed the worst bits outright. However unless proper sources are provided for many of the claims made, I will go through and remove a lot more of it. I suspect that there are similar problems throughout the article. Gwernol 12:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the specified material. Gwernol 10:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Memetic accounts of religion section 

message: Hi, as someone who has been much quoted in the early days of memetics (google "meme lee borkman"), I'm saddened to see the state of this page.  Why all this long-winded discussion about "meme", which is not a diffcult thing to explain for an encyclopedia, and which, in itself, is not particularly controversial?  The only thing controversial about "meme" is the amount of seriousness with which we take it.  The Meme page really needs nothing more than a simple definition of meme, which is after all, little more than a suggestive new word for "idea".  Move discussion of the science versus pseudo-science debate to the memetics page where it belongs.  At present, this page looks like an ill-disciplined undergrad web forum.
I would suggest something like this for the Meme page:  "Meme" is a word coined by Richard Dawkins meaning almost exactly the same as the existing words "idea" and "concept".  The word was coined in order to suggest a correspondence between biological evolution and the evolution of ideas (ie, "meme" corresponds to "gene").  In particular, the use of the word "meme" implies that ideas evolve by Natural Selection, ie due to replication, variation, and competition.  Consideration of the "meme" and its implications has given rise to a controversial new field of study known as "memetics".  Leeborkman 02:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't agree with you more. There is a lot of waffling, why don't you go for it and rationalise the article. People will become more convoluted as time goes on, just to see themselves in print. So please do make what you quite rightly think is a much better article. Dieter Simon 23:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree too. Kernow 21:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A proposed radical simplification of this page 

message: Can someone please explain how the ref tags are meant to work?  In the "Lack Of Philosophical Appeal" section, for example, although I can see that there are references, clicking on the reference links has no effect.  Thanks heaps. Leeborkman 00:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you insert references using the ... tags you also need to add a  tag somewhere in the article to mark the place where the references should appear. I have added a new section "Footnotes" to the article for the references you added. Eventually, the "References" sections and the "Footnotes" section that I added should probably be merged once consensus is reached wrt. the preferred references mechanism. — Tobias Bergemann 08:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References not working? 

message: If you poll most people they will have never heard of the word meme in their life. This on its own is not enough to constitute a complaint against the word's heavy use on Wikipedia, but accompanied by the fact that it is often interjected in articles where another word would have been more descriptive or the word meme could have been left out while still leaving the article with the same meaning, the word is definitely seeing over use and meme theory in general is being abused because of it.
Because of meme's general lack of use by experts and scientists*, and its prominent use to describe internet fads, I am betting that in a few years we will see the generally understood meaning of the word by most people to mean fad or trend, with a few people here and there trying to educate everyone on its "real" meaning to no avail, whatever that meaning is. Thus, the new theory of information and cultural transferable units which I think many want memes to become will never be realized or crtiqued unless we stop the general use of meme as a replacement for otherwise descriptive words which pertain to the subjects being discussed. We owe it to the not so tech savvy Wikipedians and potential new users not to abuse the word meme by its interjection where other more descriptive words would help the reader understand the subject more completely and with less chance of confusion.
* I'v never run into any experts using the word, myself, although I'v obviously seen the references to works about memes in this article and elsewhere. And I'm betting nearly all experts in nearly all fields have never even heard of the word although I'd be interested in knowing the real statistics... what kind of chance does that give Wikipedia's non-technical users?Serialized 21:35, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Over use on wikipedia. 

message: OK. While reading Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, I came across a section on "Popular Fads of great Cities" (I hope I'm quoting it right). While it originated prior to the concept of the Meme, it does have some similar ideas, i.e. phrases originating from a known or unknown source, rapidly spreading and then dying out. Does this deserve being referenced in the article? 65.12.114.98 02:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Memes and EPD&MOC 

message: I noticed the following in the beginning of the Historical anecdotes of the meme concept section relating to Snow Crash:
:As Neal Stephenson notes in his Snow Crash, the ancient Sumerians believed in the propagation of information in compartmentalized memetic form, and developed several mythological accounts to explain how this operated. Sumerian mythology depicts its the gods as holding onto sacred laws called me. These laws, never given a physical description, represented the sum total of knowledge in a certain field (such as farming or sex), and the gods parceled them out in order to keep mankind under control. Without a me a person could not fathom a particular concept or make use of certain tools. Only when these me, stolen from the gods, become distributed freely among humankind, self-propagating like memes, can human civilization finally flourish.
I've read the book, and really like the concept, but how verifiable is this theory? Are there actual Sumerian mythology experts who have subscribed to this idea? It works great for his plot, but I'm not so sure that it's as set in stone as this section suggests. // Montag 18:58, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Snow Crash Verifiability 

message: The "Memes as discrete units" section starts off by indicating that there is confusion over the definition of "meme", and the last part of the "Origins and concepts" section somewhat implies that as well.  However, I don't see any actual confusion over the definition.  Basically, any concept you can think of is a meme, right?  Seems pretty clear to me.  The last part of the "Origins and concepts" section is more about how to approach memes, not define them.  I'm not sure I see any "controversy" there, as the same paragraph admits the approaches are not mutually exclusive.  So if there is something unclear or controversial about the definition then someone needs to explain what the confusion is and who the sides are in the debate, or if there is no confusion, someone need to remove the parts saying that there is a problem with the definition.  Am I missing anything?  -- HiEv 19:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I modified the sentence. The confusion is not over the definition of memes, but how to proceed in the study of memetics compared to genetics. It may be harder to isolate a meme than a gene. Oicumayberight 22:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What Confusion? 

message: # in Memetic engineering 
# In Meme removed 
;xpost:in talk:Memetic Engineering...
:Since there is no discussion since September, the consensus to not merge with Memetic engineering seems loud and clear. // <B>Fra</B>nkB 18:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notice: removing {{Tlx|Merge}} tagging 

message: The section Meme#Memetic account of personality ends with:
: We conventionally refer to these meme-generated patterns of behavior as a person's personality.
In the spirit of WP:NPOV and WP:Avoid Weasel Words,  I mildly object to the use of "We". (Many schools of psychology would not define personality that way.) I'm considering changing "We conventionally" to simply "Memeticists" or something synonymous. Any objections? -- JEBrown87544 22:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV in Memetic account of personality 

message: * Add some images to the page
: Images?  For meme?  I'd be very interested to hear how any image could make the subject of meme clearer. Leeborkman 07:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, don't be so pessimist :-), a quick google-image search with keywords 'meme dawkis' returned me a good one on http://www.str.com.br/Scientia/tmm.jpg . I'm not sure how to add it though.Mlonguin 17:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from to-do list 

message: "One cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can detect genes" should be "One cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can sequence genes". Otherwise it is implied that genes can be observed through a microscope (too small if you are wondering) or that macromolecular imaging techniques such as x-ray crystallography or NMR are employed to obtain the sequence of the base pairs of a gene. Instead chemical sequencing is used.
A better analogy for a meme than a virus is a mostly asexually reproducing organism (mutation and gene reshuffling are still active) with occasional sexual reproduction (resulting in new memes with heritage from more than one parent meme). It is still only an analogy though and not a precise description.
84.238.13.209 00:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  genes in microscopes 

message: Comment on my recent edit: The article notes that the transmission of nursery rhymes helps to keep "otherwise obsolete" words alive, giving as examples "tuffet" and "chamber". It used to include "pail" as well. It seemed odd to me that "pail" would be considered obsolete. I checked a number of online dictionaries, but I could find no evidence, other than the article, that anyone considers "pail" to be an obsolete word. Therefore, I removed it from the list in the article. --Tugbug 01:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good edit.  "Pail" remains the pretty-much-standard British English term for what Americans label a "bucket", unless usage has changed radically in the last generation. I'm not even sure "chamber" is a good example; people don't frequently use it to mean "room" any longer, but it still is frequently used in other context (combustion chamber, rifle chamber, etc.) There are probably better examples, but I don't remember enough nursery rhymes to offer one off the top of my head.  "Tuffet" is a great one, though. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm 22 (and English) and I've only heard "Pail" used in "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water", seems to me that it is on its way to obselesence even if it hasn't quite got there yet. (I always call it a bucket). The word "Chamber" is far more used than "Pail" in England even if it not used very often these days. Tomgreeny 16:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Pail" removed from otherwise-obsolete-word list 

message: Memetics needs to merge into this article.  The subjects are quite indistinct, and Memetic redirects here already anyway; this split is confusing to the reader, and the combined material may well lead to a Good Article, on up. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 17:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  The current article is 80 kb long, and the memetics artike is 23 kb long.  Indeed, the memetics article is a fork off of this one, to keep the article from growing to long.  I think that memetic might be better off directing to memetics but I think that merging the forked memetics content into this page will make it too long and unwieldy.  It will also give undue weight to that part of the story of memes, rather than keeping this page as a clear overview of the concept and area.  Edhubbard 17:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with merge. There is really no delineation between the articles, no cogent way do discuss one without discussing the other, and the sources for both articles are necessarily the same. This article has a lengthy section, with subsections, on memetics, although it points to Memetics as the main article. Merging would require harmonizing the two articles and eliminating duplication. If well done and coupled with careful editing, the resulting Meme article would not necessarily be longer than the present one, and would give the reader a full introduction to the subject. On the other hand, if the articles are not merged, then all but a 1-paragraph summary should be cut from the memetics section of this article and worked into Memetics (to the extent that it is not already there). Finell (Talk) 08:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: I think that perhaps I would agree more with Finell's option number 2, to begin to reduce the article length some.  Reading the memetics article, it seems as if this one is in much better shape, so it would require some work there.  In the end, the most important question is, as SMcCandlish has noted, what would best help to get this article to GA status?  A very selective merge of memetics into this article, which might not necessarily increase the size, or a better merge out, which might decrease the size of this article slightly? My vote is for a more summary style, where we merge more out, based on the feeling that it would best help the article to get to GA status.  Edhubbard 10:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

text: We do have separate articles on gene and genetics, and the analogy is fairly clear here. I also think an 80kb article is getting a bit long. Richard001 09:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is the very substantial duplication of the same material in the two articles. An alternative is to eliminate the duplication in a non-arbitrary way. Finell (Talk) 15:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: The pro- and anti- global warming camps together with their respective activities, including gross misrepresentations, viscious personal and scientific attacks, covert merchanising, overt cencorship, legal and personal threats and attacks, and all the debates and media coverage that are resulting are the most brilliant example of rapid Meme propogration I have ever witnessed.  I beleive it would make a good example for addition to the Meme section.
203.206.137.129 08:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless you can provide reliable sources, that would be original research. Reinistalk 08:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global Warming Meme 

message: The reversed quotes (»impression«) are annoying. --Diz 15:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely. Actually, in many places they don't even to be used for quotes but for emphasis. Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 15:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Somebody please correct all the quotes to normal English form 

message: This comment deserves some attention.
Wikipedia readers should not have to read an entire book to verify a statement.--Pixelface 09:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, you seem to grossly misunderstand the statement. The editor is complaining about citing to a 200+ page book without specifying a page number. This is clear because the editor says "If you have a particular page number you'd like to cite..." Honestly, if you cannot identify pages that support the proposition, there's no good way to verify the information. See WP:CITE. Cool Hand Luke 16:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Indeed, you need to cite specific pages, and it sometimes helps to add a quote too. Reinistalk 20:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

text: I have never seen a mention of specific page numbers before, I may have missed this as no one has ever called it to my attention and requested specific pages numbers. Also, I cannot find it in his statements where he requested specific page numbers.  My primary issue is that he has repeatedly deleted cited material and made no effort to gain any sort of concensus. Am I upset at him? Yes, as he is personally attacking me because I added a cite to a sentance he deleted. It is one sentance, and I cited it as the original user requested. I will try to find a specific page number now that someone has calmly stated that this is also requested in this instance. It would be one thing if I added an uncited paragraph stating that memes are forms of alien mind control, but it is an entirely different thing to delete a cited fact, repeatedly, with not a single word of simple, calm, explanation. This is what has me so upset at him.--Scorpion451 rant 21:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books as a valid source 

message: The Game Tree Project has been set up to monitor the memetic transmission of The Game, an interesting meme than only exists because of its inherent memetic properties.
My addition of this link to this article keeps getting removed, does anyone else feel this link will be of interest to people reading about memes?
IMHO, it seems at best to be a See also. Is it even unique? Have any conclusions been drawn? What is the design of the experiment, if an experiment it is? DCDuring 14:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Game Tree Project 

message: I am only a college freshman and I am new to wikipedia. So, sorry in advance if this is a worthless contribution...
I was reading "The Gay Science" and came across a certain passage where it seems to me that Nietzsche was basically talking about memes. Check out Book III, Aphorism 110, "Origin of Knowledge".
See: http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/diefrohl7d.htm if you don't own a copy of the book. This also works, but I prefer Kaufmann's translation: http://www.publicappeal.org/library/nietzsche/Nietzsche_the_gay_science/the_gay_science.htm
I was thinking that this could be used in the section regarding "Historical usage of the meme concept"...anyways, hope this helps and good luck with the article...
===Nietzsche, Foucault, Kuhn===
I agree that Nietzsche seemed to think in a similarly reductive way, as did Foucault... who was influenced by Nietzsche. Foucault created the idea of the episteme which is remarkably similar in my opinion. I hope some parallels can be drawn in this article
Please forgive my introduction of the subheading above out of time sequence.  Nietzsche's concept, Foucault's episteme, and Kuhn's paradigm seem to operate at a higher level than meme.  One important novelty of the meme concept is that it draws our attention to smaller units of analysis than seem customary in much of the social "sciences". It is hard enough to keep this article focused without having extended discussions of weakly connected predecessor concepts. DCDuring 15:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nietzsche 

message: I agree that Nietzsche seemed to think in a similarly reductive way, as did Foucault... who was influenced by Nietzsche. Foucault created the idea of the episteme which is remarkably similar in my opinion. I hope some parallels can be drawn in this article
Please forgive my introduction of the subheading above out of time sequence.  Nietzsche's concept, Foucault's episteme, and Kuhn's paradigm seem to operate at a higher level than meme.  One important novelty of the meme concept is that it draws our attention to smaller units of analysis than seem customary in much of the social "sciences". It is hard enough to keep this article focused without having extended discussions of weakly connected predecessor concepts. DCDuring 15:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nietzsche, Foucault, Kuhn

message: Why are there so many "citation needed" "who says this" "blah blah sources" etc. all over the article, almost every three words? There's even multiple tags stacked together! Either you tag the whole article, or you delete all that lacks sources (according to the tags, almost the entire article).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zim (talk • contribs) 00:24, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's one for you: "A tendency exists in memetics to disparage religious memes[citation needed], beginning at least as early as Dawkins's openly-expressed atheism..." is a paraphrasing from Aaron Lynch's book "Thought Contagion". My copy has been lent out so someone else will have to track down the page 68.77.113.94 17:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Assuming that I'm the one for whom the above was offered, I don't own "Thought Contagion".  Using Amazon, I could find no reference to atheism in the book and could not find anything with a sense connected to the paraphrase in the vicinity of "Dawkins".  If you have other ideas about what to search for, you could try Amazon or Google Scholar more effectively than I since you seem motivated and know what you are looking for. DCDuring 19:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tags 

message: Is meme theory a scientific theory? Is meme theory more closely connected to "critical theory"? Is it a theory? Could someone state a testable proposition in the theory or rather provide an example of a proposition in the theory that survived some kind of valid test? I'd like this to be a better article. DCDuring 19:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meme Theory? 

message: So... is this merge still being considered? The tag is pretty annoying. --Antonio.sierra 01:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge Memetics into Meme? 

message: Is this idea overtly related to the idea of a "meme" on Livejournal? I know that's how I found this entry; looking for a definition of meme as LJ uses it. If not, should there be a note? Sort of a "pop culture" section?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.14.183.201 (talk) 19:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The popular usage of the term "meme" in various blogs (not just LJ) is only loosely related to the basic concept described in the article.  If some decent sources could be found, a "memes in popular culture" section would be useful.  --George100 14:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  As Applicable to Livejournal Culture 

message: What's the difference between a meme and mores?
63.103.4.4 15:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Social mores are a subset of all memes.  --George100 14:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Are you suggesting that mores are less? ;) Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 14:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL! I figure all mores are memes, but not all memes are mores.99.229.239.0 19:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meme=Mores? 

message: In the subset on Transmission:
"In the absence of telepathy, memes generally do not spread directly from one mind to another, but via the behaviors which they generate in their hosts. For example, the fashion-value that "less is more" spreads through the behavior of people dressing down in understated clothes and acting superior; this behavior then has the effect of showing others a real-life example of this fashion-value, thereby conveying to them the fashion statement that "less is more". Verbal transmission can supplement or replace this imitative method." - This seems like furtile ground for a semiotic analysis.. does anyone know whether this has been done? (Since it seems to me it would be a great approach, and might be worth mentioning if this work has been done and if it has picked up steam)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.103.122 (talk) 03:27, March 11, 2007
:I think what needs to be done in reference to this term is to put it in contrast with what semiologists and linguists (or sociologists, from their perspective) have studied and contemplated in regard to the propagation and change of ideas and other symbolic or relational mannerisms, which is a lot, since it's a critical aspect of language and communication. After all, Dawkins has not really done too much, just made an analogy between conceptual/behavioral units and genetic modification. This idea may be useful for those familiar with the theory of evolution yet unfamiliar with semiotics and linguistics, but otherwise it's ironically a "fill in" concept that itself to a large degree ended up as a cultural "meme" in usage (at least, it's used repeatedly all over the Internet as if it were a particularly substantial concept, but mostly carries a heavy dose of prejudgment).
:~ Who is like God? (talk) 10:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semiotics? 

message: hey i don't have the time to go through this section and clean up its citation problems, but three sources for this idea are:
"Viruses of the Mind" by Richard Dawkins; in Dennett and His Critics ed. by B. Dahlbohm
available here: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html
Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie
Thought Contagion by Aaron Lynch
hope that helps...
Yonderboy 01:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Media Virus" by Douglas Rushkoff is one of my favs.99.229.239.0 20:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: After Dawkins and Douglas Hofstadter I wrote some of the earliest articles on memes. List here:  Keith Henson 20:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  memetic viruses 

message: "The Religious Right in the United States of America has a unified message built around religious dogma. By attaching conservative political views to Christian religious evangelism (meme piggybacking), they have associated a particular set of political ideas/memeplexes with a separate set of religious ideas/memeplexes that have "replicated" very effectively for many centuries. Thus Christianity has won converts for centuries; now in many cases a religious conversion also becomes a political conversion. Compare cultural hegemony."
If the Wikipedia is meant to be a serious attempt at approximating an encyclopedia, should this political viewpoint really be included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.22 (talk) 08:32, 21 March 2006
This is an example about the way memes work from a particular point of view (probably Dawkin's) that doesn't add to the definition. Politics and religion be damned but get rid of stuff that's surplus to needs.
Tohobbes (talk) 11:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion section 

message: The summary of memetics in this article seems too long to me. It is clearly longer than the whole memetics article. A summary should surely be significantly shorter (at most not much more than half as long) as what it is summarizing. I'm not sure how the content of the two differ, having not read the memetics article yet, but something surely needs to be done about this if the article memetics is to have an independent existence, as it seems the consensus favours. If that is to be so, some of the 'load' here has to be shifted to that article. Richard001 (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The trouble you are going to have is finding anyone who understands the subject enough to edit it.  I do, but having been published on the topic if I tried it would only result in my edits being attacked.  Keith Henson (talk) 02:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary of memetics 

message: I believe Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and MGS2: Substance should be mentioned because they are both games with a theme of how meme effects people in life. This is along with Kojima-san's other themes of Gene and Scene, what your parents do and how it affects you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by GamerSam (talk • contribs) 15:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  MGS2 

message: Tohobbes (talk) 11:05, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, that wasn't an article within the journal, but the subheading of the journal. JoM-EMIT has been moved to a new address. I will revert and update the link Poderi (talk) 11:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Links 

message: I just removed the following text from the article:
;Memetic on origin of civilazations
ORIGINAL MEME. Each civilization has its meme that injects its desire to surge.
It has often been proposed that western societies driving force is the original sin. You are born and automatically cast out from a harmonious union with god.
This little cultural string, or meme would put the human in a desequilibrium which forces him to search for a new center.
This situation is different from the aboriginal cultures which "only" pretends to be in harmony with nature.
EQUILIBRIUM MEME. An original meme also needs an equilibrium meme which allows the system to stabilize. Otherwize would the driving force of the original meme never find an equilibrium and permit it to cristalize.
In western humanistisc society would this equilibrium meme be LOVE.
This equilibrium meme or LOVE gives the system the ability to have tolerance and cooperate.
...
UNEQUILIBRED MEMEPLEX. The inca empire is an example of an unequilibred memeplex.
As an original meme was the fact that the new inca, or leader, would just inherit the title and military leadership. The lands conquered by the previous inca, or leader would still be under the administration of the old incas court. This ment that the only alternative for the new inca was to conquer. This resulted in an explosive expansion.
Westerns think that the Spaniards conquered the incas but the fact was that they showed up in a moment when the empire was in unequilibrium. The fact is that the empire couldn’t keep conquering. To the north there were strong central American cultures, to the west the sea, to the east the jungle and to the south the Chilean aborigines to the day still unconquered.
So the last inca, Atahualpa, tried to get hand on the old incas wealth which was well guarded by it’s old courts. In this moment of internal intrigues came Francisco Pizarro whom ruthlessly used the situation and conquered it all in a single move, the Battle of Cajamarca.
(Prof Fernando Flores would be an acceptable interlocutor)
:The entirety of these two new sections appear to be original research. If anyone thinks they should be included in any form, please provide sources and rewrite for a more encyclopedic tone. Thank you. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 17:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Scratch that - it is a copyright violation from a blog. Reliable sources may be cited and summarized, but self-published sources should be avoided, and even where the license is compatible it is preferable to avoid directly copy/pasting. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 21:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  OR from article 

message: This article has been cited as a source by the Los Angeles Times. Can someone who knows how, update the cite box above?
Rickrolling is an example of an Internet “meme” (defined by Wikipedia as “any unit of cultural information ... that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another").
Web Scout exclusive! Rick Astley, king of the 'Rickroll,' talks about his song's second coming
—IncidentFlux [ TalkBack | Contributions ] 11:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, done. —IncidentFlux [ TalkBack | Contributions ] 20:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article cited as a source by the Los Angeles Times 

message: Maybe noteworthy in the section "Meme-like concepts pre-Dawkins":  William Jones (philologist) developed in 1786 a meme-like theory on languages to establish relations between languages. -- 89.247.108.127 (talk) 17:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  William Jones 

message: Herbert Spencer used a meme-like inheritance concept in his model of social evolution (cf. Social Statics, 1851, refined in Progress: Its Law and Cause, 1857, First Principles of a New System of Philosophy, 1862). -- 89.247.108.127 (talk) 17:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herbert Spencer 

message: Since there's a "citation needed" on the pronuntiation of "meme", I'd like to add that on the Selfish Gene it is specified that it should be pronounced to rhyme with "cream".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.25.165 (talk) 23:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronuntiation 

message: The article slangs God, chastity and Catholicism. Real sciences are not so
specific.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.249.171 (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: I'm hesitant to edit such a large entry, but perhaps the fact that the word isn't in the Official Scrabble Dictionary (as of 2001) should be mentioned.  You could lose a turn!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by B0blee (talk • contribs) 22:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't use in Scrabble 

message: To me there seems to be some disarray over what belongs in the Meme entry and what belongs in Memetics. Has anyone else noted this? Do the 'Meme-like concepts before Dawkins', 'Well-known memeticists' and 'Doubts about memetics' sections belong in Meme or Memetics?
On another note: Is the 30 long list 'Examples of memes' a bit overkill? Aren't 5-10 good examples enough to illustrate that every human idea is a meme?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Memespace (talk • contribs) 04:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got it down to eleven. tehgrisp (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Also, 'Meme-like concepts...' belongs in Meme. The other two you mentioned belong in Memetics. tehgrisp (talk) 18:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meme or Memetics? 

message: Here's my plan.  Sections 5-6 and sections 10-22 should be in memetics. Section 9 should be increased in size here for an overview of memetics, which should be much larger after the moves. And we'll need lots of subsections there with sections like "Memetic explanations" and "Memetic concepts". I'd really rather not do this myself.
Opinions?
tehgrisp (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renovations. 

message: This section discusses how memetics may be philosophically inadequate because it allegedly resurrects the idea of mind body dualism. But proponents of memetics have not argued in favor of dualism. Nor is there anything implicit in memetics requiring dualism. Nor do most opponents of memetics focus on this criticism. The discussion seems tangential.
1snailbyte (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete section 12.1 on Lack of philosophical appeal 

message: Why is everything in this article so feverishly transcribed into American English, as happened in the recent edits? Must it all be in American English, bearing in mind that I'm sure Dawkins wrote "The Selfish Gene" in British English. Is there a convention of which we are not aware? Dieter Simon (talk) 23:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did Richard Dawkins write in British English or American English? 

message: Why would racism be a meme? Is there any study or validation to support that racism is a meme?
Racism might just as well be described as an empiric behavior. We can only guess how it's activated or spreads.
If there is agreement on the uncertainty on whether racism is a meme I would suggest to review the relevant section. Maybe it may just be a matter of adding sources.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.54.27 (talk) 20:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In my view, racism can be either empiric or memetic in its activation. For example, if your father was a slave owner and, when you were young, told you how "those gaddam niggers" (in his words) don't deserve freedom, then that's memetic, especially if you live in an area where racism is common and, in effect, taught. However, if you have had a traumatic experience with a member of some ethnicity, or your youth was filled with members of that ethnicity acting poorly, then that would be empiric, though it's bad empiricism. tehgrisp (talk) 21:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racism as a meme 

message: It is most likely that "meme" or "memetics" is not mature enough concept to be a scientific consensus. It should be noted on the opening paragraph.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.50.9.167 (talk) 07:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversial subject 

message: Memetics as a subject, while of Philosophical, Socialogical and Evolutionary Biological interest, may be too technical, specific and theoretical to be used as a widespread replacement for the more readily understood word "trend".  Indeed, most pages that at one time used the word "trend", "fad", and "phenomenon" have been redirected to ones that use the word trend in its place.  I would suggest that this reflects a Systemic Bias on the part of Wikipedia Editors, who tend to have scientific backgrounds and have a favorable opinion of Richard Dawkins and his various works.  Most casual readers that are concerned with recent trends that have emerged on the internet and elsewhere are mainly concerned about the trends themselves, and may not wish to be sidelined into a philosophical discussion about modern genetic evolutionary theory.  To illustrate this bias using a different subject, how appropriate would it be to redirect references of the words money and currency to pages that used the word monetarism in its place?  Certainly monetarism is concerned with money and currency and involves a great deal of theory with a loyal set of adherents.  But casual readers, while likely to be concerned about fundamental facts about money and its methods of exchange, may not be interested to read a lengthy thesis on the subject of macroeconomics as it relates to currency, and any links to monetarism in lieu of currency or money would be immediately recognized as systemic bias.
Remedies of the over-usage of memetics involve 1) reverting to usage of the word "trend" or "fad" in topics of a non-scientific nature, and providing a link to memetics in the "See Also" section of the pages, and 2) Re-evaluating this article from points of view other than the materialist one (which the predominantly materialist authors of this article will hopefully acknowledge). 161.149.63.107 (talk) 21:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prominence of Memetic Theory demonstrates Systemic Bias 

message: Are languages[1] carried by memes?  They are passed from person to person, but not genetically.  The article mentions literature, poems etc - but how about the building blocks those are constructed from?
[1] I mean like French and German, not Fortran and C++.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.72.119.190 (talk) 11:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Languages 

message: I know Dan Dennett suggested words could be considered memes.  This certainly seems true of slang, the way new words quickly spread within certain groups.  And if it is true of some words, why not all?  So I guess using this logic, each language would count as a memeplex  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.75.113.106 (talk) 16:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Words as memes 

message: Accepting the idea of memes certainly does not create a dualism.  The type of problematic dualism which is alluded to in the article is of a different type from that which is propped up for examination.  The problematic dualism is one in which the individual is truly and completely separate from the rest of reality as in the famous "cogito ergo sum".  The thinker sees his "virtual head space" as immaterial in the normal sense and so separate from all that is "outside" it including the body and the rest of reality.
The "duality" created by the acceptance of the idea of memes is a different thing - probably a semantic error.  To prove the point, I am a body, part of the universe, and memes run as personality software on my brain.  There is no implied duality  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.85.2.68 (talk) 03:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Memes do not imply any Duality 

message: The image :Image:The Selfish Gene3.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
:* That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
:* That this article is linked to from the image description page.
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --08:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image copyright problem with Image:The Selfish Gene3.jpg 

message: Just wanted to share this information with you: McGrath has written a good book about Richard Dawkins' worldview. He also discusses the concept of memes and why they lack scientific credibility. Please do yourself a favor and read it. The meme dies a painful death by self-reference.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.16.103.22 (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refutation of the meme by Alister McGrath 

message: Bluntly, the article in it's current state is a mess.  Repetitive, incoherent, full of trivial miscellanea, way too long, unfocused, just a mess. Editors have been too tempted to play around in it, I think. But the topic warrants much more serious editorship, weeding out the junk, sticking to an outline, etc. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the science of memetics is a separate article, I propose that the sections exploring subdisciplines in memetics, memetic engineering, et al, be deleted. It's too esoteric to warrant discussion here.Professor marginalia (talk) 00:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The closer I look, the worse it looks and there's surprisingly little content worth keeping in the article. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:43, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean up 

message: Meme: something that can be learned. Is this a good definition?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.74.126.23 (talk) 21:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: The article is literally carpeted with policy violation templates-more than in any other article I've seen yet at wikipedia. There are easily an additional hundred inline tags alerting to violations in terms of reliable sources and original research, and now I'm finding serious problems in dozens of sources that were given, especially problems with synthesized claims.  It is completely unallowed to incorporate content into the article, whether it be claims, arguments, examples, allusions, associations, conclusions, etc, unless that claim, allusion, etc, has already been published in a reliable source. So I'm posting this general reminder that editors must aquaint themselves with WPs core content policies, particularly verifiability and original research. Blogs, self published websites or uploads are almost never allowed to source claims at WP, and for this topic we need to focus especially on the key scholarly publications for sourcing.Professor marginalia (talk) 23:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article rife with original research 

message: There is no such thing as a meme.
Pass it on.
Karpinski (talk) 17:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meme denialist claim 

message: The idea of a meme is fascinating because it appeals to an analogy from biological evolution. However, this alone doesn't justify its use in cultural evolution. Analogy is usually the first try to explain different things when the scientists have no clue what the phenomenon really is. This is best described with light and wave motion. "Light functions as a wave, therefore we need a medium through which it can travel". This analogy gave birth to ether, which is now widely believed to be false. Why should we invent an analogy from biology (just for the sake of it) if there's already scholarship on the evolution of cultures? First the "meme theoreticists" should criticize current ways of studying the progress and change in cultures and provide a better theory. In my opinion memetics just won't do it.
The whole concept of meme seems superfluous, because it "explains everything". Any idea can be explained through the filter of memetics. Additionally, the problem of self-reference is troubling me. The ideas that "there are memes" or "there are no memes" are both explained with the theory of memetics, which means it is inconsistent. 94.101.5.97 (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The problem of self-reference 

message: That's what a meme is? I thought it was going to be something clever.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.208.242.8 (talk) 15:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Seriously? 

message: It would be interesting if the René Girard's notion of mimetic desire could be included in the article, which would explain how similar or how different it is to Richard Dawkins' theory. The ironic aspect of this is that Dawkins' theory almost looks like a meme of Girard's theory. Also, Girard believes that memes are very much compatible with the anthropological and sacrifical foundations of Christianity, while Dawkins takes the exact opposite view and sees it as evidence for atheistic evolutionism. ADM (talk) 16:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mimetic desire 

message: Right now this is the opening paragraph:
:A meme (pronounced /miːm/) comprises a unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices; such units or elements transmit from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for mimic.[1] Memes act as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures.[2]
This is most confusing since it fails to assert beyond any doubt what a meme is understood to be. I would like to know what a meme is asserted to be so that one can base one on such description to identify memes. A better alternative might be this:
:A meme (pronounced /miːm/) is understood to comprises a unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices that IS transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena and that acts as A cultural analogue to A gene in that it self-replicates and responds to selective pressures.[2] The etymology of the term relates to the Greek word mimema for mimic.[1]
I'm not contending this description is at all correct, but if it would be correct it would leave no mistake as to what a meme is and it would allow one to test whether or not anything in particular is a meme or not. The existing opening reads too casual, and asserts less powerfully than is possible what a meme is understood to be.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.54.119 (talk)  01:19, 15 January 2009 
#   Why are there no references to Susan Blackmore book,  The Meme Machine" here? (page 43) "The new Oxford Dictionary; meme An element of culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation"   She mention that imitation is a kind of replication or copying.  Memes are replicators.  She also devotes a chapter to the fact that not everything is a meme just also clarifies what are.
#  Dawkins  "We need a new name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a UNIT OF CULTURAL TRANSMISSION, OR UNIT OF IMITATION."  :I am using caps where I think the definition above varies.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.194.159 (talk) 03:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The opening does speak of it as a "unit" of culture that replicates by imitation.  The definition probably sounds hedgy trying to be NPOV but it can stand improvement.  The trick is that science of memes is considered pseudoscience, and many dispute they exist at all.  Professor marginalia (talk) 13:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing opening paragraph 

message: For some reason, this image was removed from the main page. Does anyone have any opinions on how to better integrate it into the article? Redwoodneo (talk) 23:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how this image would help the article. Further, it's rather unencyclopedic to have a picture with overwritten text, particularly somewhat in-your-face text. Is there a reason for the text? Did Dawkins say that? Johnuniq (talk) 02:28, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's VERY meaningful. It's a self-referential statement, presenting the concept of a meme as a meme itself. If you understand the the picture you have understood the concept of a meme.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.152.169.80 (talk) 14:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this image should be included.  It's not very encyclopedic for the reasons as Johnuniq pointed out.  I don't think it's an actual quote from Dawkins as the image might imply, and if it is, chances are it's not in a tone he would of used (I would think).  Moreover, I wouldn't classify this image as bing “VERY meaningful” as its more like a humorous anecdote better suited for icanhascheezburger or failblog.  Since I don't see how it adds anything to the understanding of the article and I'm not alone in this I have removed it. LeGrosW (talk) 20:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I recently noticed that the original image (without made-up text) is used here with caption "Dawkins lecturing on his book The God Delusion, June 24, 2006." The made-up text appears in :File:Dawkins-Memes.jpg which is also used at Internet meme. I think that Wikipedia should not take Flickr pictures and overlay text as if spoken by the subject of the picture. It could be argued that as a parody there is no problem, but whereas many web sites feature stuff like this, it seems rather non-encyclopedic and out of place on WP. Johnuniq (talk) 02:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevent image? 

message: Dawkins invented the word "meme" and wrote "It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'." That seems an excellent reason to keep the word "cream" in the lead. There have been a number of edits to the "rhyming with" word recently. Most have been without edit summaries so it is not clear what the motivation for proposed changes is. Would anyone care to comment on what word should be used in the lead? Meanwhile I think changes with no stated reason should be reverted. Johnuniq (talk) 01:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no difference between "cream", "steam", "team", "beam", "stream", "deem", or "scream"--they all rhyme, they all do they job.  It's not a big deal, it's not worth edit warring about. Professor marginalia (talk) 03:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right of course, however I was hoping that if some consensus could be reached here, then a week of reverting to the consensus would stop the excitement. In the last two weeks we have had edits inserting: beam, cream, dream, scream, seamy, seem, team. There are three other  suggestions in your message above. What do you suggest? Should we accept any new word that is reasonably correct? Maybe it would have settled down if I hadn't got involved, but it looked as if we were going to have at least one edit per day just to change that one word. Johnuniq (talk) 04:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think most are drive-by test edits, harmless enough.  There's no reason to play with it like they have been, but then again building a consensus here is unlikely to discourage these edits.  I doubt drive-by IPs pay much attention to talk page consensus. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As you say, drive-by editors won't notice or care what is written here. My point was that I have seen cases where a couple of days of reverting to consensus was enough to bore joke editors who then moved elsewhere. Another approach would be to wait a couple of weeks for the jokes to subside – I'm happy either way. Johnuniq (talk) 00:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: One way to make edits less likely is to simply include the direct quote from Dawkins.  Then, when drive-by editors change it, it can simply be reverted on the grounds that the section is Dawkins' own words, and direct quotes should not be edited, unless they are incorrectly copied from the source.  This might help to deal with this.  As such, it might even be considered vandalism and the three revert rule wouldn't apply. Edhubbard (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, the pronunciation immediately follows the first use of the term meme, and that's an awkward and overly-wordy place for the quote (which would need an inline cite link right there as well).  I think it's fine to leave any alternative in place so long as it's correct.  This article was blanketed with tags and non-compliance warnings for such an extended period of time, and some of it still remains to be cleaned up.  So I'm inclined at this point not to sweat over the small stuff.  Professor marginalia (talk) 20:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

text: It's crystal clear from reading TSG that Dawkins believed that he invented the word "meme": see note 1 in the article and read the book. Of course, many new concepts are separately re-invented by different people over an extended period, so it is quite possible (and I think Dawkins acknowledges this somewhere) that others have also invented the same or similar concepts (and see the article). If the TSG had not been written, it is unlikely that this article would exist because the topic would not be notable. I'm not particularly worried about this point, and if it makes people feel better to think that Dawkins merely "used" the word I can live with that for a while (although if someone comes up with an independent reliable source, it should be used). Dawkins also makes it crystal clear that his meme discussion is speculation and is not a field in which he has worked. Indeed, the 30th anniversary edition of TSG has a note confirming that the intention was merely to illustrate the general concept of a replicator – something that is copied with a good fidelity but with a randomly-varying component, and which is subject to natural selection. The only known example of such a replicator is the gene, and Dawkins invented the "meme" concept to speculate about what may be a second instance of such a replicator. Johnuniq (talk) 10:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, cite book, page, publisher, etc., or else it's irrelevant information that is pure speculation from the reader.  When you cite a book, cite it right.  I'm not going to do the work for you by reading an entire book.  YOU read it, YOU cite the source.--Mattbrown04 (talk) 18:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: As I mentioned, note 1 (used as a reference for rhyming with "cream" and elsewhere) shows that Dawkins thought he was inventing "meme". I have just updated that note with a link and some minor tweaks. Note 4 is used as a ref on the para we are discussing, and I see that note 4 needs some fixes: the ISBN and page number seem to be wrong. I hope to fix that in due course, and I might see if I can find an independent source confirming that the word "meme" was invented by Dawkins. Some reference should go on the actual sentence saying that Dawkins invented the word, rather than the vague [4] at the end of the para. Johnuniq (talk) 00:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rhyming with