[WikiEN-l] Twitterpedia will win

[Carcharoth]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 7:10 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Carcharoth wrote:
>> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:48 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 2009/5/5 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> 2009/5/5 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> know in 140 characters or less. You should read the Twitterpedia
>>>>> version of the Peloponnesian War. Soon, that's all we'll be able to
>>>>> comprehend, 140 characters or less.
>>>>>
>>>> Effectively thats what the opening sentences of wikipedia articles
>>>> should already be (with the opening paras being the summery
>>>> wikipedia).
>>>>
>>> "The Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431-404BC, was an Ancient
>>> Greek military war, fought by Athens and its empire against the
>>> Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta."
>>>
>> Flabby wording with lots of redundancy.
>>
>>> That's 167 characters. Think we could get a 140 character requirement
>>> added to [[Wikipedia:Lead section]]?
>>>
>> "The Peloponnesian War (431-404BC): Athens and its empire fought the
>> Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta."
>>
>> The phrasing "Ancient Greek military war" is horrible in so many ways.
>>
>> Better still, have poetic summaries of Wikipedia articles:
>>
>> "In days of yore,
>> in Ancient Greece
>> on the wine-dark sea
>> and over the olive-clad hills
>> Athenian hoplites did battle
>> with Spartan warriors
>> over the islands of the Peloponnese"
>>
>> After Wikipedia Art, we have Wikipedia Poetry?
>> Using Wikipedia articles as the inspiration for poems?
>>
>>
> This brings us full circle to pre-literate times when the great epics
> were passed on by rote.  Putting them in verse facilitated
> memorization.

Ah. Oral tradition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition

Indeed full circle, as you say.

> It also facilitated official misunderstandings of
> Biblical proportions. Twitter and the short attention span of those who
> favour it turn historical insight into inanity.  Linking the "wine-dark
> sea" to the later Peloponnesian Wars already separates us from its
> association with the death of Patroclus in the Iliad.

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