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Chapter 9. Historical Context

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The 1922 'seige' plot is set against the Bondelswarts affair, correct? I think it should be added....but I'm also just checking to make sure I'm not assuming too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.205.168 (talk) 12:19, 3 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kilroy

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Is Pynchon's origin for the Kilroy face in fact "novel"? Has anyone actually researched that? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:58, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

I'm open to rewording. I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else, including the various outside pages linked from the Kilroy was here page. In general it seems to conflict with the explanations others have provided. --Elijah 23:28, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

Hereros and Jews

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After "Pynchon clearly sees the German treatment of the Herero at that time as prefiguring the Holocaust of the Jews in the Nazi era" someone recently inserted, without citation or explanation "(a correspondence he would come to reject in Gravity's Rainbow)". I don't remember that being the case at all, but I read these books over 25 years ago. If someone can explain and/or cite, great. Otherwise I will revert. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The edit had no summary, and came from an IP with no other edits: not usually a good sign. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While there is an explicit connection made between the repression of the Hereros and the Holocaust in V. (p. 245), the historical depictions in Gravity's Rainbow resist such a facile correlation. For example, tribal suicide is mooted as one of the factors contributing to the Herero genocide in the later novel (pp. 317-18). 60.228.45.83 08:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The suicide rate was rather high among those who survived the Nazi camps. In any event, your remark on a talk page, pointing me to a page number without even saying what edition you are using doesn't answer my request in the article for a citation, which I see you have removed.-- Jmabel | Talk 05:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You asked for an explanation and citation on this page, so they were provided on this page. Pagination for Gravity's Rainbow is the same in all editions except for the 1974 Bantam paperback. Here is an excerpt from the relevant passage: "It was a simple choice for the Hereros, between two kinds of death: tribal death or Christian death. Tribal death made sense. Christian death made none at all." (p. 318) Nothing to do with suicide rates. See also the letter Pynchon wrote to Thomas F. Hirsch describing the research he undertook on the Hereros whilst writing Gravity's Rainbow (the letter is reprinted in David Seed's book The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon, London, MacMillan, 1988, pp. 240-3): "[...] When I wrote V. I was thinking of the 1904 campaign as a sort of dress rehearsal for what later happened to the Jews in the 30s and 40s. Which is hardly profound; it must occur to anybody who gets into it even as superficially as I did. But since reading McLuhan especially, and stuff here and there on comparative religion, I feel now the thing goes much deeper. [...] I feel that the number done on the Herero head by the Germans is the same number done on the American Indian head by our own colonists and what is now being done on the Buddhist head in Vietnam by the Christian minority in Saigon and their advisors: the imposition of a culture valuing analysis and differentiation on a culture that valued unity and integration." (p. 241) Abaca 07:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Now that is an excellent citation. And should be quoted in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 06:00, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry. In a quest to remove the 'H' word from Wikipedia, Ernham has decided to remove the Herero HOLOCAUST (sorry Ernham I had to say it) reference because he doesn't like it. It makes the later point about how the Pynchon changed his mind a bit silly without the original reference, but hey, we mustn't offend Ernham's sensibilities! Now, it may seem to some that he hasn't read the book and shouldn't be involved in things where he knows nothing, but then he's never been one to let a good fact get in the way of one of his holiness Ernhams's opinion. :) Greenman 19:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Publication of V.

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My edition of V., New York: Harper, 1990, has the original copyright date as 1961. The 1999 edition says that V. was first published in 1961 by J.B. Lippincott Company. Why do we list the publication date as 1963?

  • The short story 'Under the Rose' was published in 1961. The novel was published in 1963. Abaca 22:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have confirmed, with the copyright page of the original Lippincott hardcover edition, that both dates, 1961 and 1963 are listed.

What has happened in later Harper printings of V. [Harper absorbed Lippincott] is that ONLY the first copyright date was picked-up, either 1963 was overlooked or there was a mistaken belief that only the first date needed to be listed on the copyright page. MKohut (talk) 19:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clean up?

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Well, the way the chapter outlines are formatted seem odd to me, but maybe others do not agree with the placing of a clean up message. --Godtvisken 19:11, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The chapter titles, and how they are laid out, is odd, but the oddness is Pynchon's. - Jmabel | Talk 06:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why are only the so called Stencil chapters included in the plot outline? That's only half the book. Tudwell 03:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only because when I put a couple of hours into this article two years ago, that was what I felt like working on, and no one has come back and done the rest. Feel free. - Jmabel | Talk 08:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kilroy, redux

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I have restored the Kilroy which another user removed as cruft. I don't see anything crufty about it, or at least no cruftier than anything else about the book. Pynchon, an engineer by background, proposed a novel explanation for the origin of Kilroy, accompanied by what I believe is the only illustration in the book. The passage about Kilroy is certainly memorable (while I didn't originally put it here myself, I read the book a good 30 years ago and that passage stuck in my mind). He specifically is dealing with British usage of Kilroy (the soldiers write on the wall, among other things, "Wot, no Yanks?"). - Jmabel | Talk 15:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • And again 5 months later, restoring anonymous unexplained deletion. - Jmabel | Talk 18:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's immediately next to the passage about it in the article text: "As always, Kilroy was here first, and Pynchon proposes a novel origin for the face: that Kilroy was originally part of a schematic for a band-pass filter." But if you really think it needs a caption to say what is in the adjacent text, so be it. - Jmabel | Talk 03:13, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Colonialism

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I removed the following from the plot summary and bring it here for discussion:

At the same time, this part of the novel is a haunting indictment of Western colonialism and racism; later, in Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon would emphasize this latter aspect, acknowledging the facile identification made between the Herero genocide and the Nazi Holocaust in his earlier novel as "superficial". In a letter to Thomas F. Hirsch, reprinted in David Seed's book The Fictional Labyrinths of Thomas Pynchon, London, MacMillan, 1988, pp. 240-3), Pynchon wrote, "…When I wrote V. I was thinking of the 1904 campaign as a sort of dress rehearsal for what later happened to the Jews in the 30s and 40s. Which is hardly profound; it must occur to anybody who gets into it even as superficially as I did. But since reading McLuhan especially, and stuff here and there on comparative religion, I feel now the thing goes much deeper. […] I feel that the number done on the Herero head by the Germans is the same number done on the American Indian head by our own colonists and what is now being done on the Buddhist head in Vietnam by the Christian minority in Saigon and their advisors: the imposition of a culture valuing analysis and differentiation on a culture that valued unity and integration."

Given that these are Pynchon's own words [[[citation needed]]], it is certainly notable and of value to the article. However, simply plopping it in the middle of the edit summary will not do. This needs to be in another section in which the import or philosophy, for lack of a better word, is discussed. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 04:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the article currently published in Wikipedia, the entry for Chapter Sixteen does not make sense. What 'face' is being referred to? Context is needed. Cloud 2 Clarity (talk) 12:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 7 April 2015

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The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 19:33, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

V. → V. (novel) – more precise 76.120.162.73 (talk) 20:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Surely that is "support" per WP:CONCISE, WP:SMALLDETAILS, unless "." is now not a small detail? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:03, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what the anon is saying, but the "." is indeed a small detail, and therefore suffices to dab. Choor monster (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From grammar schooling (ie. when we first learn English), you learn that when you abbreviate something, you place a "." a the end, thereby any abbreviation rendered as "V" should grammatically speaking, have a "." after it, making it "V.". Thus all things that are abbreviated as "V" should properly be "V.", so this disambiguation fails to identify this topic, as all abbreviations "V" are also "V.". So this is not disambiguatory. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 03:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Totally irrelevant to WP. See MOS:ABBR. As it is, we are one big descriptivist project, not prescriptivist. I would say you, like most people, learned grammar from people who did not really understand grammar, which in the last thirty years has become a rather scientific enterprise, and your assertions are flat-out nonsense. The 100% correct abbreviation for Vanadium is "V", not "V.". The 100% correct abbreviation for Volt is "V", not "V.". These abbreviations are set by international standards committees, not by someone stuck in third grade. And modern scientific grammars do take note of this.
The question regarding dab is not decided by someone's ideas about grammar (even were they correct) but by MOS:DAB. Is the text string "V." actually used for multiple items with none of them standing out, or is it primarily used for one item? The answer here is "one item". You can wag your finger and tut-tut until you're blue in the face regarding people using "V" without a period as an abbreviation, but actual usage is what we consider.
Personally, I first learned English at home and on the streets, not at grammar school. Choor monster (talk) 14:23, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, "V." is a valid alternate name for all things abbreviated as "V", of which several topics are listed on the dab page. Therefore it is indistinct, so is insufficient for disambiguation purposes. We don't just treat the current article title as the only name. Clearly topics can have many different ways of spelling them and many alternate names (which is why redirects exist). If we are not prescriptivist then why are we not disambiguating? We are clearly being prescriptivist if we think that Wikipedia's current article titles are the only names that topics can have. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 08:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're being completely pointless. It wouldn't matter even if "V." were a "valid alternate name" for various things. We don't dab based on possible usages, we dab based on actual usages. And since in actual usage the Pynchon novel is called capital-V-dot far more than anything else that someone might think to look up under capital-V-dot, it gets the standalone article title, with a hatnote.
As for your bizarro beliefs about "English grammar" that you learned in grade school and which are somehow supposed to trump MOS:DAB, please re-educate yourself. I recommend the Oxford English Grammar, a modern classic for 20 years or so now. Choor monster (talk) 14:22, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We dab for all uses with topics on Wikipedia this includes alternate names for topics with articles using different titles. It'd be stupid if we didn't since we'd never find anything.
We don't use British English on Wikipedia, we use English. Just because British English has become lax in the last quarter century in the use of the fullstop does not mean that English has. Indeed, look at usage from before The War (since you're so hung up on British English), where abbreviations to letters required a fullstop and a space after it. Wikipedia is not restricted to using currently-in-use-British-English as the only proper terms to disambiguate by. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 08:26, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Periods have also disappeared from American English, including uniquely US topics here on WP which are expected to be written in American English. The OEG is a modern scientific reference guide to English grammar, not British English grammar. Your comments about laxity are rather offensive actually, the words of someone hellbent on ramming his grade school prescriptions on everyone else. I'll repeat since you seem to be seriously stuck on WP:IDHT: the correct international abbreviation for Volt is "V", for Vanadium is "V". No periods. Meanwhile, "V." has not been identified as a name or an alternate name for anything beyond the novel and the poem. As it says in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, we are concerned about what readers will actually use in searching for a topic, and as it says in the display box at the top of this section, we are bound to discuss things per WP's dab policies. Not what an incompetent error-filled grammarian is concerned that some 90-year-old regressing to his childhood is going to enter as a search term. Choor monster (talk) 11:49, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Red Slash. If a disambiguator is chosen, however, "(novel)" or "(Pynchon novel)" is sufficient. No need for the full "(Thomas Pynchon novel)". Dohn joe (talk) 15:52, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. There's nothing really to disambiguate here. In particular, there is essentially nothing that gets called "V." that somebody wants to look up except this novel. Volt, Vanadium, etc, get abbreviated without a period. If a dab is introduced, (novel) suffices and thus it should be used, per WP:NATDAB. Choor monster (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please see V (disambiguation), has anyone actually looked at Amazon: V. is the Tony Harrison book, V (with no dot) is the Thomas Pynchon book..... In ictu oculi (talk) 05:06, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You have not offered a contradiction to my statement, you just say see the dab page as if I'm gullible or something. There's nothing to support your view except what you just put there yourself. Meanwhile, V., capital V-dot, is the Thomas Pynchon novel, something I have known since I became a complete Pynchon-head 30-35 years ago. Amazon lists the title as capital-V-dot, if you'd actually looked, and if you "looked inside" you'd see the V-dot in a very large font on the title page. Why the cover art gets the title wrong on this particular edition, I have no idea, I would certainly never buy it. It's wrong. The Tony Harrison poem is identified by Amazon as "v.", small-v-dot, a common abbreviation for "versus", one of the themes of the poem. Most sources (and WP) seem to give it as "V", capital-V-no-dot. Choor monster (talk) 15:00, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Selected Poems of Harrison in its TOC, uses "v.", small-v-dot, see [1] and "look inside". Choor monster (talk) 15:28, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Struck as blocked sock of c-banned user In ictu oculi (talk) 17:18, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Time to close. It has been 7 days, and the consensus is clearly in favor of keeping things as they are. The only thing in competition for the name V-dot is the Harrison poem, and this is clearly of much lower interest than the Pynchon novel. The poem is rated Low-Importance on its main project, the novel as High-Importance on its main project. Page views that I've just checked show V. has been viewed 20100 times in the last 90 days versus V_(poem) has been viewed 1563 times in the last 90 days (these are live links, so your mileage may vary slightly).
  • As a reminder, "consensus" does not mean unanimity, but weight of applicable WP-based arguments.
  • There are two loose ends. The V. hatnote probably should refer first to the Harrison small-v-dot poem, then to V (disambiguation). It also seems the poem article should be moved to v. (poem), as that is the title by which it is currently known as. Note that the link is piped to V. (poem) with a capital-V-dot. It is a limitation of the software that WP articles cannot begin with a lowercase letter. It is only a display-trick that is used to render the first letter as lowercase, like eBay which is really EBay. So it is impossible to create a v. article as a "natural" dab for the poem. As you can see, I've typed it in with wikilinks here, and indeed it's a blue-link, but if you click on it, it will take to you the novel's page. Choor monster (talk) 00:28, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a move to any of the proposed disambiguators, I don't mind which. "V." is a common shorthand for any abbreviation beginning with V. This book is certainly not the primary topic for that, and it should redirect to V (disambiguation).  — Amakuru (talk) 14:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Please restrict yourself to making arguments based on WP policy. Disambiguation in titles is meant to help navigate through existing WP articles and how readers are most likely going to try and find them. We do not have articles on "V-dot, that fascinating abbreviation for "velocity", or "V-dot, that incorrect abbreviation for Vanadium", and so on, and we never will. And people do not look for information regarding "Volt" based on the erroneous abbreviation "V-dot", and we're don't dab based on imaginary people. There are exactly two things known as "V-dot" that are article-worthy, the novel and the poem, and that's it. Choor monster (talk) 15:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How does someone distinguish V. by Pynchon from V. by Harrison? or any other V.? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:52, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
(For visual clarity, I am writing V-dot instead of V.) The novel gets V-dot undabbed and the poem gets V (poem) (as it is now) or V-dot (poem), either way, an explicit dab. As per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. That's the point of the numbers I listed above. What "other V-dot" searches do we expect to be made out there for existing WP articles? Choor monster (talk) 22:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Amakuru - I do see what you are saying, but go to the disambiguation page and do a ctrl-f search for "v." You'll see that Choor monster is correct - there are only two articles with a subject sometimes known as "v." - none of the others show "v." as an abbreviation. Dohn joe (talk) 21:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, trailing punctuation is OK, but if foo and foo. do not lead to the same article then there is a problem. It is a problem here.
"V." will be misquoted as "V" when used mid-sentence, and "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V." will be changed to "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V". The title V. is not conducive to readable sentences. Terminal punctuation is not OK as WP:SMALLDETAILS. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As for quoting "V." mid-sentence and end-sentence, that will always be a problem when writing about the novel, anywhere, and has nothing to do with Wikipedia article titles, whatever they happen to be. I don't see your point in mentioning it.
Stripping terminal periods and making a redirect is one approach to the URL-copy problem. So is what is done with + and ?, eg, [2]. So is ignoring it, as with Airplane!. I would see what technical says about this, the foo redirects to foo. was a cheap and easy fix for the 100 or so articles listed in the Jimbo page. Meanwhile, "V." really is the primary topic for this novel, just like Airplane! is the primary topic for the movie. As you know discussed last September. Change the guideline itself, change the policy regarding terminal punctuation and dabbing. Trying to implement non-policy one article at a time as if it were policy is not cricket. Choor monster (talk) 13:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
V. is not a PrimaryTopic, or even a COMMONNAME, as judged by the references. Looking at the four references, the introductions are:
  • 1 Thomas Pynchon's V.
  • 2 As a subtitle to "Books: A Myth of Alligators", it is given as "V. (492 pp.) Thomas Pynchon—Lippincott"
  • 3 "'V.' by Thomas Pynchon"
  • 4 "The Two V.s of Thomas Pynchon"
Note the third in particular, which uses quotes around the title. Because the title is ambiguous.
V is ambiguous with V.
The title is unreasonably short. It always requires disambiguation, the short form is always awkward.
V (disambiguation) contains so many other entries that could be mis-recognised with an undisambiguated V.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:54, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We decide what is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC or a WP:COMMONNAME by the standards mentioned in those articles. I showed the numbers above for V..
Your attempt at "proof" using your own homegrown standard is bizarre, ridiculous, and flatout incompetent. You offer, for example, your own opinion about why the NYT used 'V.' in the title of their book review without bothering to actually read the link. If you had, you would have noticed the obvious. The NYT style is to quote-mark titles. The first paragraph is rife with quote-marked titles. And as a further odd little style point, they use single quotes in their article titles, but double quotes in the main body. Their prerogative. See [3] for more examples.
Please name one entry from V (disambiguation) that gets searched for using "V.", other than the novel and the poem. You pretty much can't. That's what WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is about. And what, for crying out loud, is so much more awkward about typing "V." to get to the novel instead of typing "V. (novel)"?
If unusually short titles always require disambiguation, cite policy or guidelines to that effect. Otherwise you are not actually contributing. in fact, there is no such policy, no such guideline, and WP has done quite well with the main article at Pi instead of Pi (mathematical constant). For that matter, the individual letters of the alphabet are all listed at the letter, not at a dabbed version. The main article letter-V article is at V, not V (letter). Choor monster (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No one can search for V. because the . is ignored.
I search for V. by typing "V." in the search box. It works. The way WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says it should work. And you want to break this for, well, I haven't yet figured what your reasons are, they flat out don't make sense. Go ahead, don't duck the question, answer it. What other topics on WP do people expect to find by typing in "V." in the search box? You have stated it is not a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and haven't bothered to identify a competitor of the "V." name, and when asked to do so, play WP:IDHT. Choor monster (talk) 11:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do you normally berate every opinion you don't like, or is it just for this article? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:30, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do you normally respond to clearcut refutations of your utter nonsense with personal attacks? For example, your #3 link above was not engaged in "extra" marking because the title was too short, as you claimed. I explained what it was doing, and the only proper response on your point is to strike out that argument. Instead, you pretend, based on ten seconds of reading Wikipedia (or misreading, actually) that it's not WP:COMMONNAME? That's not an argument in any shape or form. Choor monster (talk) 11:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe:, @Choor monster: I think Choor monster you've fallen into one of those situations that arise sometimes on WP (and I've been there too), where you get incredibly emotionally invested in what on the face of it is probably a quite trivial issue. Can any of us honestly say it matters that much whether this article is at V. or V. (novel) or whatever? I voted in support of the move, but I won't be terribly upset if it doesn't happen. Sometimes a deep breath is in order, accept that you've stated your opinion, continue to engage in fruitful conversation where that's productive, but not try to beat down every single other person who has an opposite opinion. Not that I'm shutting you up, you're welcome to talk if you want to talk, it's just a vague notion I have. Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 10:25, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Speak for yourself, your remote diagnosis is patronizing and a borderline PA. I'm pointing out major illogical and off-policy and anti-policy comments which some supporters keep making. The number-one bit of nonsense is that we ought to dab because of theoretical, potential confusion, however far-fetched. That's not policy. Policy is we do not dab if we have an identifiable WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. We instead use the bare undabbed title as a help for the users who have a proven track record of looking for that particular topic far more than anything else that gets looked for by the same name. If you disagree with that claim, identify specific competitors for the "V." name on WP. User:In ictu oculi identified one, the Harrison poem. It was so good and logical a response that I acted positively on it: I researched the poem, including finding a copy on microfilm of the original publication, found out that in fact it belongs under the "V." name and not "V" as it had been, and then looked up article usage numbers and provided links above for that purpose and found "V." the novel beats "V." (actually "v.") the poem by an order of magnitude. So I moved V (poem) to V. (poem) and fixed the half-dozen or so links and so on. Identify a third plausible candidate "V.", something that we have every reason to expect a significant number of users will type in "V." in order to get to, and I'll probably respond in the same way.
If you want to identify someone as "emotionally invested", try looking for someone who considers his "vague notion" a valid argument, and sticks to it no matter what. Choor monster (talk) 11:55, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think you have a poor reading of both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC & WP:COMMONNAME. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From WP:PRIMARYTOPIC:

There is no single criterion for defining a primary topic. However, there are two major aspects that are commonly discussed in connection with primary topics:
A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
A topic is primary for a term, with respect to long-term significance, if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term.

Exactly two topics, the novel and poem, have been identified as terms sought for under "V.". The numbers I identified on 90-day WP usage statistics showed the novel easily beat the poem. Based on volume of Thomas Pynchon criticism versus volume of Tony Harrison criticism, sales, newspaper coverage and so on, along with the state of the two articles V. and V. (poem), it seems the novel also meets the second criterion. In both cases, no third topic has been identified as something searched for on WP under "V.". Requests are repeatedly met with WP:IDHT.

Regarding WP:COMMONNAME:

Names are often used as article titles – such as the name of the person, place or thing that is the subject of the article. However, some topics have multiple names, and this can cause disputes as to which name should be used in the article's title.

So. What other name is the novel V. known by? Seriously. The only other name used for it happens to be "V", no period. If it were more commonly referred to without the period–and that variant name was free for the taking on WP–it would be something to talk about. But it is not more commonly referred to without the period. I speak with more than 10 seconds experience on the subject: the book is mostly only referred to by Pynchonites, both scholarly and amateur, and they almost overwhelmingly include the period, even when it messes up sentence punctuation. Your best attempt was the feeble reference to Wikipedia not referring to the novel as V., and even that you mangled. A previous editor made a 10-second look at Amazon and insulted some of us saying he found out the "true" title is "V".

But this is all pointless, because "COMMONNAME" is completely irrelevant to this discussion. It was brought up by mistake, and it is being dragged around as if it's some kind of trump card. Whatever the COMMONNAME happens to be, the article gets titled either "COMMONNAME" (if no dab is necessary) or "COMMONNAME (dab term)" (if a dab is necessary). If you really believed "V" and not "V." was the appropriate COMMONNAME, you'd be supporting a move to "V (novel)".

And while I'm here, let me quote WP:SMALLDETAILS:

Titles of distinct articles may differ only in small details. Many such differences involve capitalization, punctuation, accentuation, or pluralization: MAVEN and Maven; Airplane and Airplane!; Sea-Monkeys and SeaMonkey; The World Is Yours and The Wörld Is Yours. While each name in such a pair may already be precise and apt, a reader who enters one term might in fact be looking for the other, so appropriate hatnotes with links to the other article(s) and disambiguation pages are strongly advised.

Which is what we're doing already. Nothing is broken, nothing needs to be fixed. In the list above, none of the odd-ball variants are dabbed. V. is a small detail difference from V of exactly the sort mentioned in the above guidelines, and suffices to dab. Policy is absolutely clear. Choor monster (talk) 13:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • V is ambiguous with V. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:SMALLDETAILS trumps WP:IDHT every time. Meanwhile, you might want to compare Ö with O, Å with A, Ç with C. Choor monster (talk) 12:58, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      Choor monster tone it down, please. If you're now countering arguments against your position with links to Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, things have gone too far. You've stated your opinion, it's down on the record above, and I respect that, but other people have different opinions. Just because they disagree with you doesn't make them disruptive. The reasoning behind those supporting the move is clear - "V." is simply a short-hand for any word beginning with V, or indeed the letter itself. Unlike "Airplane!", the majority of people who say or write "V." will likely not be referring to the novel. You may not agree with that position, but it is a valid position to hold nonetheless, just as yours is.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      That argument is quite clear, and totally irrelevant. The issue is what do people type in the search box, not what most instances of "V." out in the real world happen to be. I agree that "V." is used as an abbreviation for a middle name far more often than the novel is referred to. But WP readers don't type in "V." to find out information about all or some or even one of the many notable people in the world with a middle initial "V.", so we don't consider that. The only instance of someone's initial used to refer to that someone that is notable enough to be considered in competition for Wikipedia article space seems to be W., and Mansfield Smith-Cumming, notably known as "C", no period. Come up with a "V." like those, and you'd have a WP-relevant point, as opposed to a WP-irrelevant fact. See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC excerpt above.
      I've asked repeatedly for an actual third example of something that is actually searched for under "V." here on Wikipedia, something that would indeed be relevant to those claiming the novel is not the PRIMARYTOPIC. Repeated responses that consist of nothing but vague something or other and point-blank ignorance of existing policy and guidelines should be treated as disruptive editing. Choor monster (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Choor monster, I have read everything you have written, although it becomes increasingly repetitive. Nearly everything you say is undermined by my observation that "V is ambiguous with V." The claim to PrimaryTopic especially. Quoting V. creates difficult text. The references don't use just V. Links to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. will get confused with links to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. depending on browser or program used, and the standard terminal period url problem can't be fixed because this is not the PrimaryTopic for V. You say other things that could be disputed, but I find this one thing to be sufficient reason for the move. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:04, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's no excuse for getting simple matters of fact this badly wrong. The three references from the article that do refer to the title explicitly all contain "V." I pointed out how bogus your claim was before, and here you are, just brazenly repeating the same falsehood. (Not that it matters, COMMONNAME is based on all the RS out there, not just the pitiful three that are in this article. See, for example, A Companion to V., which has hundreds of[over a hundred] entries in its bibliography, and frankly, is a great read to boot.) The fact that quoting the title creates difficult text is completely irrelevant, because that issue is not mentioned in PRIMARYTOPIC, COMMONNAME, SMALLDETAILS, which is what we are limited to making our decisions on. Those are actual WP policy and guidelines, not this issue which you think is fascinating.
    • More subtly, you are engaged in the same fallacy as Amakuru, making decisions based on reading things outside a narrowly defined Wikipedia context. He claimed that we're supposed to be concerned with all possible things called "V.", when no, we're explicitly not supposed to, just those that have Wikipedia articles as an aid to reader navigation. We are not concerned with dabbing the entire corpus of World information. Here, you think that the period that does double duty as an abbreviation ender and a sentence ender, being ambiguous—maybe it's just a sentence ender?—counts as "ambiguity" for Wikipedia navigation. It does not. Ambiguity is when two or more text-strings compete for the same name in likely search strings by our readers. Nothing more, nothing less. And SMALLDETAILS states point-blank a single punctuation mark dabs. Otherwise, a sentence like 'John shouted "Airplane!"' would be grounds for nixing Airplane!. It isn't.
    • As an example of the deliberate WP-narrow focus, I recently created the article Roger Huston. I ran into some issues at first, the article had been previously created and deleted several years ago and there were warnings. I figured out that that had been some other Roger Huston, a failed candidate for minor political office. You know what? I did not dab the article I created! It's Roger Huston, not Roger Huston (race caller), because we restrict dabbing to actual WP article navigation. Doubtless there are going to be people looking for the other guy, and who knows, there might be hundreds of Roger Hustons out there. I have no idea, and don't need to have any idea. Same here. To claim PRIMARYTOPIC does not apply to the novel, you have to show there is some third article here on Wikipedia that is likely searched for—thousands of times per month!—with the string "V." Yet you, like Amakuru, refuse to identify it.
    • As for browser/URL issues, that's absolutely not for us to decide. See WP:FAST for a similar phenomenon, and similar advice. In particular, there's more than one potential fix (convert terminal periods to raw HTML, append an explicit underscore, etc.) or it may be deemed less important than reader navigation convenience. Take it up at WP:PUMP. As a little experiment, I found in Gmail that links to "V." and "V._" worked fine. In contrast, the WP provided URL for "Airplane!" failed: Gmail refused to include the ! in the URL. The WP provided URL for Who Knows? succeeded because the URL encoded the question mark. It fails badly if you don't use encoding. I repeat, these sort of details are absolutely not for us to decide here. And since it's outside policy and guidelines for discussions regarding page naming, it's just noise. Choor monster (talk) 18:42, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • They contain V., but not simply V. The article's title should contain V., but not be simply V.--SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:23, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have no idea what you mean by "They" here. Pronouns are often ambiguous. Does this mean we should move They to They (pronoun)? No. Should we get rid of Them!? No. Should Etc. be changed to be the same as Etc? No. Choor monster (talk) 12:18, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • "They" were the "The three references" of your first substantive point of your preceding post. Can we just agree that we are not going to convince each other? I am pretty sure I understand your points. Is there anything I have written that you would like me to clarify? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes. What does your point have to do with anything? "The Letter V Song" contains "V", but is not simply "V", therefore, we should make sure the WP article on the letter "V" contains V, but not be simply "V"? No. Over in the Emily Dickinson article, there are scads of references with titles like "Emily Dickinson Face to Face", "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson", "Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson", "Thirst and Starvation in Emily Dickinson's Poetry" and so on, therefore the article needs to be renamed to not be "simply" Emily Dickinson? No.
            • Looking at more article views, Latest 90 for V_(disambiguation) is 6118, for the novel almost triple 17857, and for the poem is 1650=1449+201 old name and new name combined. So even those who claim that "V." stands for scads of things that are begin with the letter "V" (though they have repeatedly refused to identify a third WP topic), even if every last reader of V (disambiguation) in the last 90 days got there in two steps by typing V. first instead of V first, they would still amount to an underwhelming minority of WP readers. The novel is definitely the PRIMARYTOPIC for all things "V." on WP. (For comparison with the letter V itself the count is 49863. I'll speculate, not so wildly, that none of them tried searching for just the letter by first "abbreviating" it.) Choor monster (talk) 12:28, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

What would it take for V. to reach Good Article Status?

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And, for that matter, Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49 as well?

It's strange that as widely respected and obsessively beloved as Pynchon is that none of his major works are at Good Article status. ANDROMITUS (talk) 17:30, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Letters with a period should always be disambiguated

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Please share your thoughts at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Letters with a period should always be disambiguated. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 190. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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