Personal statement

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

...Chandler wrote a long, embittered letter to a friend in which he trashed Carr for saying, in a New Yorker profile about him, I believe, that he *hated* the writing of his books but *loved* doing the research. Chandler was astonished by this: how could a person who called himself a writer hate the actual writing? I can't believe that Chandler ever did much research for any of his own books, other than once cramming up sparingly on a so-called "Brasher Doubloon" coin, and I doubt if he enjoyed it much. On this, my own sentiments are with Chandler -- I kinda like the writing, but I hate the research. Geez, research is work! I used to tell people (jokingly but also pretty accurately) that I did my research for my first novel, ''Napoleon Disentimed'', by glancing at the 1940 E.B. article on Nappie and drinking a bottle of Napoleon brandy....

Isaac Asimov once said "I hate to write. I love to have written." By and large, I enjoy the writing itself, although, in contexts such as taking a book to production, some traditional processes can be painful.

At one point, I was doing the final review of the galley proofs of a book, and had the chapters in separate piles on my dining room table. My late and greatly missed feline editorial assistant, Clifford, jumped up, sniffed them judiciously, and, being poorly equipped to use standard proofreaders' marks, deposited some slightly used fur on two chapters. I called my editor and inquired if she truly wanted me to return every page of the galleys, explaining the situation, and that if I did return the cover pages of two chapters, they would be in biohazard bags.

So, writing in a Wiki is a little less threatened by critical cats, although Mr. Clark and Rhonda will occasionally comment by walking on the keyboard.

Seriously, as a recent refugee from The Other Place and arrival here, I wish there were more interaction, which seems to be a function of number of people and articles. I have set myself a certain informal quota of getting rid of redlinks, such as filling in basic descriptions for various military aircraft and the like.

Customs here, I suspect, are still evolving. I look forward to the ability to exchange ideas about approaching a topic, with other experts and interested people, outside the context of an individual article talk page. Hopefully, the forums will eventually fill that role, but don't seem to have reached critical mass. In one case, in dealing with the central of article of what I see a set of articles, the talk page discussion is more confrontational than I would have liked: if there's a structural problem, I see this is a place to discuss it, not to replace large amounts of text with a vague comment such as "unencyclopedic."  That's one specific but significant article; there have been other short, pleasant exchanges that improved articles -- and sometimes personal talk page exchanges have been informative.

May your articles be free of HTML hairballs.

[Hayford Peirce]

There just aren't enough people here for much, or, in some cases, any interaction -- that's also my own main gripe.

People come and go, although I dunno if they're talking of Michaelangelo. There seem to be some very active, very knowledgeable, very credentialled people for a while, writing articles, discussing, being in the Forums, generally being very useful and very valuable -- then, poof!, they're gone without a word.  Although I suppose they may be giving private words to Larry, say, about why they're leaving, or why they've lost interest, but to the rest of us Is a Puzzlement....

Hopefully all this will change.  In the meantime, I guess all we can do is to soldier on and try not to become too aggrieved by some of the more tiresome elements....

[Denis Cavanagh]

The problem chiefly is Howard, there isn't enough of us. I mean, I've noticed your activity and all the good work you've been doing lately but our interests simply don't collide; and thats probably unfortunate! The issue of interaction will be solved in the future, but 'chillaxing' in the forum might be a good start 

[Hayford Peirce]

The problem chiefly is Howard, there isn't enough of us.

As the "expert dialectian and grammarian" maven around here, I strongly urge that Denis put a comma in this line before the word "Howard", otherwise the meaning may be very unintended!

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

The problem chiefly is Howard, there isn't enough of us.

As the "expert dialectian and grammarian" maven around here, I strongly urge that Denis put a comma in this line before the word "Howard", otherwise the meaning may be very unintended!

Yes, that sort of error can be dangerous. One never knows whether to summon a grammarian or gastroenterologist for colon problems.

There is a tale, hopefully apocryphal, of a child who was his Teacher's Burden, and it was "show and tell" time. He went to the board and wrote out his topic:

<code>....   ....</code>

"And just what do you have to tell us about nothing bot dots?"

"Oh, they aren't dots. They are period, and my parents were very upset when my sister missed several."

[Denis Cavanagh]

The problem chiefly is Howard, there isn't enough of us.

As the "expert dialectian and grammarian" maven around here, I strongly urge that Denis put a comma in this line before the word "Howard", otherwise the meaning may be very unintended!

Good grief! THanks for catching that 

[Aleta Curry]

Thanks, boys--I needed something new for my CZ humour list!   

[Hayford Peirce]

Why can guys be called "Boys" but it's wrong these days to call Ladies and Grandes Dames etc. "Girls?"  Not a question that actually keeps me awake very long at night, however....

[Aleta Curry]

It's a Commonwealth but specifically an Australian thing--seriously.

Australians still use "boys" and "girls" in informal and semi-formal speech. 


Edited to add: it's really a cultural thing.  All sorts of words can be used in context or by certain classes of persons but not by others.  Remember when George Steinbrenner called his accountant a "boy"?

Britishers and Africans (and to a lesser extent Americans) still say e.g. ''all right, boys!" even when speaking to adults because 'boys' was never used to belittle grown men in the same way as 'girls' demeaned grown women.

[Larry Sanger]

This is why most of my CZ work has recently focused on recruitment (the Workgroup Weeks stuff, which I'll be returning to with gusto soon), and why we are offering money (but, oddly, no takers yet) to coders who will create a system that will send reminders of our progress monthly to everyone who "opts in" to a mailing.

Nick I can definately appreciate your position--it does not feel great to have the feeling that you're working in a vacuum or that your efforts go into a black hole, but one thing that might help is that the work you're doing will have a lasting impact on generations (we all hope) and certainly at some point someone else may stumble upon your work and improve on it.

Definitely our efforts won't go into a black hole.  This summer we're in a bit of a lull, but we are still plugging away (and besides, I recall similar summer lulls in 2000 Nupedia, 2001 Wikipedia, and 2007 CZ--it's par for the course).  I think that for a variety of reasons, by this fall we're going to be roaring back and more vigorous than ever.  Part of the reason for this is simply that we're getting bigger and bigger.  The more content, the more people visit us--the more people visit us, the probability of our long-term success increases.  But with Workgroup Weeks, with reminder e-mails to people who have signed up with accounts, and with (I hope!) a high-profile launch of WatchKnow, I think CZ is going to experience a lot of growth this fall.

There just aren't enough people here for much, or, in some cases, any interaction -- that's also my own main gripe.

People come and go, although I dunno if they're talking of Michaelangelo. There seem to be some very active, very knowledgeable, very credentialled people for a while, writing articles, discussing, being in the Forums, generally being very useful and very valuable -- then, poof!, they're gone without a word.  Although I suppose they may be giving private words to Larry, say, about why they're leaving, or why they've lost interest, but to the rest of us Is a Puzzlement....

Hopefully all this will change.  In the meantime, I guess all we can do is to soldier on and try not to become too aggrieved by some of the more tiresome elements....

Nobody ever explains why they're leaving--well, maybe that's happened two or three times, but I have to rack my brains.  Nope, I think these people want to stay involved (and often, they come back), but they find they have higher priorities in their lives.  I have never not known there to be quite a bit of turnover in all of my projects, although there are also the stalwarts!

I don't worry too much about all this--not because I'm complacent, but because I'm doing something about it, and I have good reason to think that the things I'm doing will work.  You could help greatly by doing the same--by getting involved in Workgroup Weeks, for instance.  Or, if you just want to do something more unstructured, then just get the word out to mailing lists!

[Robert_W_King]

Nobody ever explains why they're leaving--well, maybe that's happened two or three times, but I have to rack my brains.  Nope, I think these people want to stay involved (and often, they come back), but they find they have higher priorities in their lives.  I have never not known there to be quite a bit of turnover in all of my projects, although there are also the stalwarts!

For what it's worth, I haven't really left, but I always like to undertake big, good projects and I feel like there hasn't been any that I feel I can lend my efforts to.

[Larry Sanger]

Nobody ever explains why they're leaving--well, maybe that's happened two or three times, but I have to rack my brains.  Nope, I think these people want to stay involved (and often, they come back), but they find they have higher priorities in their lives.  I have never not known there to be quite a bit of turnover in all of my projects, although there are also the stalwarts!

For what it's worth, I haven't really left, but I always like to undertake big, good projects and I feel like there hasn't been any that I feel I can lend my efforts to.

Aha, well, the big project du jour (d'ete, actually) is to get Workgroup Weeks started, Robert!