Talk:James Nicoll

message: What is a cribhouse? Ewlyahoocom 04:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Oxford English Dictionary says "d. slang (chiefly U.S.). A saloon, ‘low dive’, or brothel."  121a0012 02:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cribhouse?

message: Let's list them! All I know is that he had a car accident once...
=== Injury stories===
Oh, you wouldn't want that. Well, maybe you would, but I've been collecting Nicoll stories for the past several years; I've got something over 4000 lines (at 72 chars a line) of them. Admittedly, the last half or so is mostly about cats, because his cats (did I mention he's allergic to cats, and has nine of them, almost all rescued ferals?) keep doing odd things, but once he's told his past injury stories, they kind of slow down to a few a year. Anyway, there are a lot of injury stories, all told in a dry, understated, tone.
Here's one of them:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.policy/msg/0119c50b5ba0819d?dmode=source
Note the casual mention near the end of how "when I was a kid I was always excessively cautious, especially after the dog mauling and the fatal car crash."
I've considered putting my collection up on the web, but if I were to do it I'd want to do it right, with cross-referencing and indices and all, and a) I'm HTML incompetant, and b) I'm lazy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.17.22.215 (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death-defying situations 

message: Oh, you wouldn't want that. Well, maybe you would, but I've been collecting Nicoll stories for the past several years; I've got something over 4000 lines (at 72 chars a line) of them. Admittedly, the last half or so is mostly about cats, because his cats (did I mention he's allergic to cats, and has nine of them, almost all rescued ferals?) keep doing odd things, but once he's told his past injury stories, they kind of slow down to a few a year. Anyway, there are a lot of injury stories, all told in a dry, understated, tone.
Here's one of them:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.policy/msg/0119c50b5ba0819d?dmode=source
Note the casual mention near the end of how "when I was a kid I was always excessively cautious, especially after the dog mauling and the fatal car crash."
I've considered putting my collection up on the web, but if I were to do it I'd want to do it right, with cross-referencing and indices and all, and a) I'm HTML incompetant, and b) I'm lazy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.17.22.215 (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Injury stories

message: Isn't Nicoll responsible for the existence of Lawrence Watt-Evans's most recent Ethshar novels? By saying that he would pay good money for LWE to write new Ethshar novels, this led so many other people to agree with him that LWE offered to write The Spriggan Mirror according to the Street Performer Protocol... and this worked so well that LWE has now written a second novel this way, and is preparing a third one. DS 22:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: if there are WP:RS reliable sources taht can confirm this, it would be a good addition to the article to help support claims of Nicoll's notabilty in the SF genre.207.69.137.27 15:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: James Nicoll here: I mentioned the above assertion in a review, as well as the fact I do not recall playing such a role. Watt-Evans popped in to say "It wasn't James Nicoll who said he'd pay good money for another Ethshar book. Unfortunately, I don't remember for sure who it actually was -- Dan Goodman, maybe? Someone active in rec.arts.sf.written on Usenet at the time." 104.193.58.214 (talk) 20:03, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Influence on SF writer Lawrence Watt-Evans

message: Claims of vandalism on my edits are truly unfounded. Every edit has been clearly justified. Citations must accurately reflect what the source material say. Weasel words must be accounted for by proper attributions.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.7 (talk) 01:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  No vandalism 

message: Now really, how many of you would actually consider turning in a college research paper (or even a high school paper) claiming postings from Google Groups as a source????? And if you did, what kind of grade do you think you would get?4.158.222.216 01:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, it is pretty sad.  It's very borderline when it's used to identify the subject's own words; but it's completely inappropriate when it's used to try to indicate its notability.  I've removed the more blatantly inappropriate cases. Xihr 01:47, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I grant the second case absolutely, but it's not at all borderline in the first case:  if Usenet is where he said the words in question then Google Groups is the best source possible.  It's a primary source so shouldn't form the basis for an entire article, but there are plenty of occasions when primary sources are perfectly appropriate for citing individual claims within an article - or a college research paper. --Zeborah 10:26, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Using Google Groups in this context is exactly parallel to using the New York Times archive to back up statements about material published in that newspaper. Vicki Rosenzweig 15:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure 'what context' you are talking about, but the NYT is considered a reliable source because it has an editorial board while individual posters on the Google Group archive do not go through editorial board or peer review. I agree with Zeborah that a Nicoll statement drawn from the archive is a valid primary source FOR THAT NICOLL QUOTE, but wikipedia also requires reliable secondary sources, and Google Groups archives are not.207.69.137.10 16:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable Sources 

message: Please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a fan page. Wikipedia is a collection of notable material that is drawn from reliable verifiable sources. The material within a wikipedia article must be accuarately sourced and NPOV.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.27 (talk) 16:11, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a fan page 

message: Nicoll Events
Over the years Nicoll has had without additional citations showing the authenticity of each event, the proper wording supported by the source would be Nicoll relates   
a number of life-and-or-limb-threatening accidents happen to him, which he has told and retold on various science fiction fandom related newsgroups. He gained such a reputation for these accidents that regular posters in rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom term any serious accident in which the poster lives to tell the tale a "Nicoll Event"; <that claim requires some type of evidence to support it or it is merely WP:OR 
and the terminology has spilled over to other portions of the Internet. <That claim is even more in need of a source 
Over the years these events have also been collected into a canonical <beware use of WP:Peacock words list called Cally Soukup's List of Nicoll events.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.11 (talk) 05:08, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have never edited the page for anything but content and watching for BLP issues...because I can tell you that many, MANY of the events are true. I've known James since I was 13 (ever been to a game store, and there's one kid who hangs out in the place ALL THE TIME? That was me, in James' store, but fortunately, he liked me, I wasn't *too* snotnosed, and we're still friends now, 23 years later). What I'm wondering is whether my own blog entries telling some of the stories I or my friends were involved in from our points of view might be corroborative. I am *very* wary of hitting a COI or possible OR, so I've never posted them here, but I could dig them up and provide links for people to decide if they are usable. (Last year at Arisia, after a panel turned into 'Thespian tells people about the times cars have hit her without causing damage' (though they often make me late for work), someone's hand fired into the air and out of nowhere (we're 1000 miles from where I grew up and saw James daily), she said, "Have you ever heard of James Nicoll?") The issue is the verifiability, which is harder to pinpoint, as James is basically a tale-beside-the-pickle-barrel-in-the-general-store sort of storyteller. --Thespian 05:44, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your offer, however, I do not really see any need to cite the veracity of each and every accident when a simple rephrasing to: "Nicoll recounts stories of ..." would be verified by the current source. My edit to do just that, however was reverted as 'vandalism'.SavingJDNfromthefilk 07:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments 

message: Having reviewed every Earthink Anon edit to the article since 10/21/2007 I proudly claim that I have made each one. Over 90% have relevant information about the change in the edit history and each and every one is a valid application of Wikipedia Guidelines and Policies.
So now you have an account to block the next time I request a citation from a reliable source for an unsupported claim. - oops that may be violating WP:Good faith. You gonna report me for that?SavingJDNfromthefilk 06:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not reviewed the edit history of this page and cannot claim all edits to this pageSavingJDNfromthefilk 06:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: <smug> feeling rather vindicated</smug> Thank you for reviewing the charges of vandalism, JForget. SavingJDNfromthefilk 16:02, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I now have an account for you to claim is 'vandalising' the article and to block from editing 

message: Usenet is the medium, soc.history.what-if is the channel, Google Groups is only an archive.  If Gareth Wilson had used Google to post the item in question, the phrase "a post on Google Groups" would be defensible, but he evidently used the news server at ext.canterbury.ac.nz.  I'd be pleased if someone would not change "soc.history.what-if" back to "Google Groups"  ... again.  I'd be even more pleased if Xihr had said which of my language changes constituted "problematic English" rather than simply reverting them all; my purpose was in part to improve language that I found "problematic", and I'd like to know where I went wrong. —Tamfang 08:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Phrasinig "The term has also been applied to Orson Scott Card." is weasel word problematic, as has been stated and corrected numerous times within the edit history. WHO is making the accusation??  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SavingJDNfromthefilk (talk • contribs) 12:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Applied by Mr. Nicoll, among others. I'll dig out citations later--I have paid work to get to. Vicki Rosenzweig 12:18, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your pledge to provide sources that accurately reflect the content of the article. Revert wars could have been prevented if such action had been taken in the first place.SavingJDNfromthefilk 12:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "a post on Google Groups" 

message: Claims of 'brain eaters' appear to violate WP:BLP when applied to living persons. I have removed the reference to Card since the claim was not made by Nicoll and does not appear to be verifiable and as such is questionable material for this article.SavingJDNfromthefilk 12:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  brain eaters and living persons 

message: this cite: M., Omega (2007-06-05). "Brain eater": A phrase I hate. Hatrack River Forum. Retrieved on 2007-10-30. , while outside of Usenet, is not actually a 'use' of the term outside of Usenet, but simply a criticism of the use of the term IN Usenet207.69.137.29 05:20, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: brain eater related comment

message: "While the particular concept of the Nicoll-Dyson Laser is new,[citation needed]"  How does one cite the newness of an idea? Mindstalk (talk) 06:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A WP editor does not cite the newness of an idea. A WP editor finds a reliable secondary source that has made the claim, and the article quotes the source.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you in fact asserting that a published non-Wikipedia idea can't be called "new" until and unless someone off-Wikipedia explicitly uses that terminology? Vicki Rosenzweig (talk) 13:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not necessarily, but I can't think of any examples where it would be appropriate for a WP editor to declare an idea 'new' without having a reliable source to back it up. Do you have a specific example to dicsuss?207.69.137.35 (talk) 17:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  laser 

message: I'm with Martin on this; I didn't have time to really look at the edit until today (it's been a busy week) and as mentioned, I watch this page, but try not to participate too much because of the decades of knowing him, but we're not talking about 'hey, some chick wrote a poem about him', but instead that an award-winning SF author thought the Nicoll Events (which we've had problems keeping established as a known event) were worth writing about (even in a poem). The ESU was what caught my attention; we're not inserting the poem, but we're saying 'it's a term of note in the sf community', followed by a citation and 'here's proof that well-known people have thought it significant'. It should stay. --Thespian (talk) 17:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree that simply because 'a notable person wrote a poem' makes it somehow a reliable or notable source. If the poem itself is one that appears reliably in collections of SF poetry or if in any con or SF bookstore you start quoting the poem and people join in because they know the poem, THEN you have some basis for including it. Otherwise its basis for inclusion seems really flimsy.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.10 (talk) 19:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not my point, though. We're trying to prove that Nicoll Events are noted in the SF writing community. They were noted enough that a famous genre writer wrote about them. One doesn't need a greek chorus to confirm that not only did she write it, but it's famous, since the notability of the poem isn't the issue, it's that the notable author felt compelled to do it. Spontaneous outbreaks of poetry at cons and in SF bookstores are rather unciteable, anyways, since very few people would write third-party coverage of it, even if it was regularly happening. But if you *want* to accept random cites of people discussing Nicoll Events at cons, here's an amusing story from my own journal last January, after Arisia: http://thespian.livejournal.com/1003441.html --Thespian (talk) 19:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So according to that logic, ANYTHING that has had ANY poem written about it is inherrently 'notable' simply because some writer wrote a poem about it. I don't buy it.207.69.137.8 (talk) 04:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  The fact that someone wrote a poem about it is one piece of evidence that, combined with other pieces of evidence, demonstrates its notability.  It doesn't work by itself, but no single piece of evidence works by itself, because notability requires multiple sources.  It needs to be allowed to remain in order to combine. --Zeborah (talk) 10:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The poem 

message: The following text has been reverted by other editors:
A fictional depiction of a Nicoll-Dyson Laser can be found here 
on the Orion's Arm website.
on the grounds of it not being a notable or verifiable reliable source.  How are those relevant, here?  It's a fictional concept and a fictional depiction.  What's to "verify"?  What's to be notable about an external link?  The concept is in the Wikipage, and the OA page illustrates the concept.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mindstalk (talk • contribs) 02:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: An illustration of Nicoll's concept adds nothing?  And how is the source 'non-reliable'?  What do you doubt? -- Mindstalk (talk) 00:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Please read about Wikipedia and original research. The material you are attempting to add is using a primary source - to show what? - that a gamer/fiction writer has used a SF concept? Sorry, but so what. If you have a reliable source / secondary source talking about how this N-D laser concept is used in many games and SF literature, then we can add that secondary source to the article. Wikipedia is different from writing term papers for school. For term papers you are encouraged to take primary source evidence and draw conclusions. That is not how wikipedia works. For Wikipedia, all conclusions/arguments must be made by published sources, not wikipedia article writers - we merely gather what others have already written and analysed.-- The Red Pen of Doom 05:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Red Pen.  Seeking an illustration from a reliable, third party source is all well and good, but this just looks like something someone drew and posted on a site.  The site is obviously a collaborative attempt to set up a science fictional setting, and there's no evidence at all that it's in an of itself appropriate as an external link, particularly one for images.  It's a primary source, and someone's drawn something that someone else has written about.  It's hard to see how that meets muster for what Wikipedia's policies and guidelines require; it doesn't establish that it's a useful, notable, reliable source publishing this primary-sourced image.  It's just some guy who drew something on the collaborative equivalent of a sort of blog, which is not appropriate.  Xihr  08:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Verifiable"

message: Hm, there are 48 incoming links but two are disambiguation, two are redirects, two are article talk pages, three are Wikipedia talk, four are User pages, twelve are User talk, and 21 are WP: — leaving two: Usenet celebrity and When Heaven Fell. Is that enough? —Tamfang (talk) 03:47, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: By my understanding of the purpose of the "orphan" tag, yes. --Orange Mike  |  Talk 14:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  orphan 

message: The linguist quotation has been mentioned and explained, with proper attribution, in the independent Chinese newspaper Ming Pao. The quotation was in Dr. John Larrysson's ESL language column on 15/8/2012.
http://english.mingpao.com/cfm/database3b.cfm?File=20120815/livenlearn/c28.txt
- a newbie  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.103.185.203 (talk) 04:45, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Chinese Newspaper

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on James Nicoll. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060912111116/http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mikeliu/Morphology%20for%20section%207%20new.ppt to http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mikeliu/Morphology%20for%20section%207%20new.ppt
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 10:06, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 6 external links on James Nicoll. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://thebookblogger.com/sfbc/2006/11/sfbcs_top_50_books_list_goes_w.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/info05.html
*Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mikeliu/Morphology%20for%20section%207%20new.ppt
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070928081922/http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=37&cmd=sample&sample=79 to http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=37&cmd=sample&sample=79
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070928081847/http://jamesphogan.com/bb/bulletin.php?id=78 to http://jamesphogan.com/bb/bulletin.php?id=78
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070708112253/http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/ to http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:10, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on James Nicoll. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070208041937/http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/title.php to http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/title.php
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060910135252/http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mikeliu/vitae.htm to http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mikeliu/vitae.htm
*Added archive https://archive.is/20121130013923/http://papersky.livejournal.com/326232.html to http://papersky.livejournal.com/326232.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:38, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on James Nicoll. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051101201123/http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/infocont.html to http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/infocont.html
*Added  tag to http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/1/3/222493.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070521060049/http://media.www.suujournal.com/media/storage/paper951/news/2004/10/13/OpinionopenAccessColumns/Words.Words.Words.Depurify-2024007.shtml to http://media.www.suujournal.com/media/storage/paper951/news/2004/10/13/OpinionopenAccessColumns/Words.Words.Words.Depurify-2024007.shtml
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071109090636/http://sadlyno.com/archives/4424.html to http://sadlyno.com/archives/4424.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 09:54, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018)