2009/5/5 David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> "The Peloponnesian War (431-404BC), was an Ancient Greek war between Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta."? :) Michel

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:16 AM, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: No images either... Talking of images: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alliances_in_the_Pelopennesian_War,_431_B… There is a typo in the image text for that one: "strategies" (in the actual image itself). Who could correct that? Carcharoth

As a funny aside, Gmail has parsed this conversation and is prompting me to add the following to my calendar: *Add to calendar* Peloponnesian War Sun Apr 25, 2010 4:31pm That time works for me if it works for everyone else I suppose... Might want to inform Greece though. --Falcorian

"Carcharoth" <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote in message news:206791b10905050402n3ffef0f1gb166aa499f6106be@mail.gmail.com... I could chaynj it to "stratejeez" if I could find a meat puppet. _______ Puppetability; Marionettay: How easily a proctologist could make you talk.

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:14 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: The english Wikipedia system is predicated on a high-multimedia potential, for our purposes unlimited length format, where ability to source detailed information and have long arguments about prominence of key ideas in the article is a good thing. Having only 140 characters to work with (or even 1600ish, as my example) is a limit which would require entirely different approaches. Writing smaller is harder - people able to wordsmith will move to the prominence somewhat. Identifying the 5ish key facts (who, what, when, where, why, etc) for any topic is probably easier than figuring out how to write a NPOV 10,000 word article on a contentious issue. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

"George Herbert" <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:38a7bf7c0905051122p21b2e13bn6d44e860fee4f127@mail.gmail.com... It is a matter of organization that is hard. Lead sentences and paragraphs are important, though, because you are supposed to repeat them at the end of an essay, with other words, perhaps. In an article like [[prion]] or anything else that challenjez precepts, repeating the lead would be as contentious as trying to rewrite the lead. IOW, summaries and nutshells are rare in wikipedia, outside of what is explicitly an essay. _______ I hav not tried one mix that I recommended, once: Sambuca and Root Beer.

-----Original Message----- From: FT2 <ft2.wiki(a)gmail.com> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Tue, 5 May 2009 12:35 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Twitterpedia will win Redundant text - "the X war was a war" duh :) Try this: "The Peloponnesian War (Ancient Greece, 431-404BC), took place between Athens and its empire, against the Eponymous League led by Sparta. Rock on!">> --------------------- Why do you have to state "Ancient Greece" ? And remove "The" Also "was" is much shorter than "took place" "Peloponnesian War (431-404BC), Athens and its empire, against the Spartan-led Eponymous League." Much shorter! What do I win!

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:25 AM, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote: "Eponymous" could be confusing. Repeating the word Peloponnesian is less confusing. Carcharoth

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:13 AM, <wjhonson(a)aol.com> wrote: Eventually, the shortening ends up in the telegraphese beloved of newspaper headline writers and infobox entries. Here is the infobox data from the article (minus the map): Peloponnesian War Date: c. 431–April 25, 404 BC Location: Mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily Result: Peloponnesian League victory Territorial changes: Dissolution of the Delian League Belligerents: Delian League (led by Athens) ; Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) Commanders (Delian League): Pericles, Cleon, Nicias, Alcibiades, Demosthenes Commander (Peloponnesian League): Archidamus II, Brasidas, Lysander, Alcibiades None of the summaries so far have mentioned the result of the war, nor the name of the Delian League, nor the location of the war. The names of the commanders should be omitted. And sometimes it is the *last* sentence of a well-written lede section that gets to the heart of the matter: "Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities -- the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth-century-B.C. golden age of Greece." That told me more than the dry facts of the first sentence (which is also needed). The initial sentence of the middle paragraph is important as well: "The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world." And I still think the Wikipedia-articles-as-poetry option could be interesting! :-) Carcharoth

-----Original Message----- From: Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Mon, 4 May 2009 5:11 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Twitterpedia will win "The Peloponnesian War (431-404BC): Athens and its empire fought the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta.">> --------------------------- "The" is superfluous. "Spartan-led" cuts two more spaces ;) W.J.

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:10 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Ah. Oral tradition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition Indeed full circle, as you say. Predictably, there is a book with this title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wine-Dark_Sea Thankfully we have an article on epithets in Homer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epithets_in_Homer Which has fascinating linguistic details. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling Discusses the "the wine-dark sea" as a standard phrase used in oral story-telling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry "Epithet: Heavy use of repetition or stock phrases: e.g., Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" and "wine-dark sea."" But looking at the other search results gives a flavour for how poetic phrases and epithets can be used in a language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Wine_Dark_Sea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aickman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Sciascia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Scott_(historian) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatos_Tarifa Those are five examples of stories and books using the phrase in their title. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Alec_Rose "Wine-Dark Sea" for solo viola (1988), 3 minutes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wettest_Stories_Ever_Told Some obscure Simpsons reference: "The Whine-Bar Sea". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy) References include another book with this phrase in the title. I saved the best (or worse) until last: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion Buried deep in a footnote is this flight of poetic prose: "...there has almost certainly never been even one p-d electron-catalyzed fusion (eCF) in all the vast wine-dark seas covering about three-quarters of the face of the Earth during all the long eons that water has existed here..." Sadly, that isn't quoted, so it probably not suitable for an encyclopedia. Or it is quoted and should be cited. Carcharoth

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: <snip> Thanks for those two links. Very interesting. Half (all?) the fun is reading up about them and learning what the context was and is now. Carcharoth