User talk:Benjamin canaan

Welcome![edit]

Hello Benjamin canaan, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you enjoy the encyclopedia and want to stay. As a first step, you may wish to read the Introduction.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me at my talk page — I'm happy to help. Or, you can ask your question at the New contributors' help page.

Here are some more resources to help you as you explore and contribute to the world's largest encyclopedia...

Finding your way around:

Table of Contents

Department directory

Need help?

Questions — a guide on where to ask questions.
Cheatsheet — quick reference on Wikipedia's mark-up codes.

Wikipedia's 5 pillars — an overview of Wikipedia's foundations
The Simplified Ruleset — a summary of Wikipedia's most important rules.

How you can help:

Contributing to Wikipedia — a guide on how you can help.

Community Portal — Wikipedia's hub of activity.

Additional tips...

Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.

If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills the Sandbox is for you.

Good luck, and have fun. John Bahrain (talk) 14:07, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge thoughts?[edit]

Do you have any thoughts on my merge proposal here?

Talk:Azure_(journal)

I ask since I suspect you are probably Noah Pollak, although you don't have to confirm that if you don't want to. But either way, do you have any thoughts on merging Azure into the main Shalem Center article? I think the contents of the Azure article is mostly a duplicate of what is in the Shalem Center article and both articles are sort of short. Also the Azure journal is very much the house organ of the Shalem Center, it doesn't act as true independent run publication as Commentary Magazine operated while under the the umbrella of the AJC. I am not saying this to detract from the Azure publication but rather just to justify the merging of the two articles. A few strong articles are better than a lot of weak articles with significant duplication. Too many articles just diffuses the limited community effort there is on Wikipedia. --John Bahrain (talk) 14:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not and I don't.--Benjamin canaan (talk) 14:31, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that you do not support the merge? Sorry, I don't understand. --14:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Bahrain (talk • contribs)

I'm not Noah Pollak and I don't support the merge.--Benjamin canaan (talk) 15:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kubrick edits[edit]

Ben, Most of your edits to the Kubrick article are really good. A few strike me as overzealous, and you removed stuff that could have been shortened. One is downright awkward. You changed "the sentient onboard computer malfunctions and resists disconnection" to "has to be disconnected, murdering most of the crew in the process". Ahh, but that 'process' is the process of resisting disconnection, not the process of having to BE disconnected. I have altered this to "but resists disconnection, murdering most of the crew before he is finally shut down." which I think combines the best elements of the old and new version.
I also think that in the prior paragraph it is good to mention that HAL has much more noteworthy dialogue than the rest. That paragraph was a little too verbose. I have restored this in a hopefully cleaner form.
I'm also going to massage Strangelove a bit.

Regards, --WickerGuy (talk) 15:43, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sellers role in Lolita may be small but it is both pivotal and highly memorable. I would not have changed "played Clare Quilty" to "a small part". Also, I think it important that the character of Strangelove is introduced much later and to explain why.

--WickerGuy (talk) 16:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My own general rule is that relatively late plot developments that are of thematic importance ought to be included in even the short plot synopses that are in the Kubrick article. Hence with 2001, Clockwork Orange, Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket (the only one listed here to which I contributed nothing), and Eyes Wide Shut, relatively late plot developments are included. I don't think they are particularly necessary for Barry Lyndon or Spartacus, and I'm 50/50 on Lolita, but have left the brevity alone. Ergo, my unhappiness with your edits on the Strangelove synopsis, though in putting them back I've tried to incorporate a more general trim.

--WickerGuy (talk) 16:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Kubrick's politics, while it may seem POVish to say that Kubrick's earlier films seem more liberal than his later films, to remove this and leave the reader with the bald statement that Kubrick's films are generally pessimistic is POV simply by virtue of the absence of the qualifying statement. IMO, like Charles Dickens (though with a less drastic shift) Kubrick goes through an earlier slightly more liberal phase and a later more pessimistic phase, though the contrast is much more obvious in Dickens. Note that a lot more of Kubrick's earlier films are adapted from novels by liberal-leaning authors or collaborations with left-leaning screenwriters. In restoring this discussion, I regret using the weasel words 'can be seen', but I'm not sure what else to do.
As I note in my explanation in the Kubrick history page for my edits, I think your cut of the overlong tangential digressions on Robert Audrey and Clockwork Orange are highly laudable, but the fact that Kubrick's views seem to be not static but probably went through an arc really needs to go back in. Also as I note there, this is my first restoral of stuff I didn't write myself.

Hopefully, in my re-edit of Strangelove, my shorter explanation of fail-safe is more appropriate and subsequent edits in the next couple of sentences explain why it's relevant to the plot, which I really didn't make clear the first time I put it in.

I think the Sellers as Quilty stuff belongs here because of the Strangelove connection. I could be wrong. I restored it in shortened form.

--WickerGuy (talk) 04:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kubrick Edits Redux[edit]

Dear Benjamin,

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stanley_Kubrick#Clockwork_Orange_plot-_Care_when_correcting

--WickerGuy (talk) 00:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with upload of Image:Azure34cover.pdf[edit]

Thanks for uploading Image:Azure34cover.pdf. You don't seem to have said where the image came from, who created it, or what the copyright status is. We require this information to verify that the image is legally usable on Wikipedia, and because most image licenses require giving credit to the image's creator.

To add this information, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the information to the image's description. If you need help, post your question on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 11:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

February 2009[edit]

Please do not add spam links, as you did to John Nagl. If you continue to do so, you will be blocked from editing. Please see WP:SPAM and WP:ELNO; you appear to be pushing publications from a single web site en masse which will result in your being blocked and the web site being blacklisted. If you have more to contribute to an article than shilling for a web site, please consider adding actual content. Thanks Quaeler (talk) 10:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]