Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki - User contributions [en]

User talk:Aziraphale

2026-02-23T00:04:38Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: welcome

Hi, Aziraphale! Welcome to the wiki. Glad to have you with us! [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:04, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

Talk:The Great Bazonko

2026-02-11T00:14:26Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Bozon! Hah!

I think proposed magical particle here should rather be called a ''Bozon''. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 16:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

A reference to the particle type that isn't fermions? --Confusion 05:25, 23 October 2011 (CEST)

Eighteen years later, and I see the reference to a Bozon. Holy crap, this physicist laughed. Amazing.[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:14, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Bergholt Stuttley Johnson

2025-11-29T01:12:55Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Roundworld Comparisons */ the NASA BSJ mistake was force, not length; and rm the reference to Irish metrification per AgProv's note on talk page.

{{Character Data
|title= "Bloody Stupid" Johnson
|photo=Blank.jpg|
|name= Bergholt Stuttley Johnson
|age=
|race= [[:Category:Human characters|Human]]
|occupation= Inventor
|appearance=
|residence= [[Ankh-Morpork]]
|death= unknown, probably 1960s UC
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=
|books=
|cameos= mentioned in many of the books, such as: {{MAA}}, {{IT}}, {{M!!!}}, {{H}}, {{CJ}}, {{GP}}, {{T!}}, {{UA}}, {{MB}}
}}
Real name '''Bergholt Stuttley Johnson'''. He probably didn't ask for his nickname, but it was so fitting that people of all classes and from all walks of life – [[wizard's magic|wizards]], [[Sto Plains|nobles]], [[Ankh-Morpork|ordinary city people]] – all through history called, and still call him, '''"Bloody Stupid" Johnson'''.

Johnson is an historical figure, which is a blessing because the damage would be considerable if he were still active. (There is evidence that he was alive during or just before the time of ''Light Fantastic'', given that he was commissioned by [[Galder Weatherwax|Archchancellor Weatherwax]]). Supposedly, Johnson claimed that a truly good inventor ought to be able to invent ''anything''. That, using a modern interpretation, may suggest that a truly infinite multiverse ought to contain all kinds of good things, bad things, and plain weird things. A more fair and analytical statement posited that Johnson's inventions might very well be ingenious, but would never turn out to do what they were supposed to do. If something he designed worked well, it was purely by accident. Somebody requiring a surface-to-air missile probably should ask Johnson to design a small fountain.

In addition to inventing machines of all sorts, Johnson also did architectural designs. Some of the things went ''wrong'' because of drawing the plan the wrong way around, being careless with unit measures (feet vs. inches) and numbers (1,000 vs. 0.001), and so on, but other strange effects must have taken considerable skills. The only thing(s) he developed that worked well, in the way that they were supposed to, without ever breaking down, were the organs (musical instruments), three of which are still in existence and in good working condition. Each of these great organs is a huge contraption with an amazing, possibly frightening, range of sound effects.

He became so notorious, that it became fashionable for rich people to have been "Johnsoned" (see ''[[Book:The Discworld Companion|The Discworld Companion]]''). [[Sybil Ramkin]] proudly states that her family's property escaped this fate, as her grandfather saw Johnson walking up the drive one day with a hopeful salesman's smile on his face; Grand-père Ramkin promptly shot him in the leg as a warning.

The date of his death is not available. He worked for Lord [[Snapcase]] but not after his term, so it was in the range of thirty years ago. His invention of the Sorting Engine at the Post Office is within living memory of [[Tolliver Groat]]. [[Sybil Ramkin]]'s grandfather shot him in the leg. This could have taken place far earlier while her grandparent was still young and vigorous enough to draw a bow, or it could have been when he was old but still keen-eyed enough to use a crossbow. Conflictingly, the {{AMPOH}} has a reference to his having done a memorably ''different'' job for the [[Post Office]] in the Common Year of 1815, over a century before the "present". This could be due to his having been very long lived; or else B.S. Johnson is a family name handed down, from father to son, in a dynasty of similarly inclined people; or it could be [[History Monks]] - again.

However, lost and forgotten examples of his prolific design come to the light of day all the time. As the railways expand and find new destinations, {{MB}} lists several Johnson designs which have found new purpose - completely unintended by their builder - around the Sto plains. These will be added to the lists below as they emerge.

All in all, his works include:

==Architecture large enough to be kept in a small cardboard box in a skinny old man's pocket==
*'''Colossus of Morpork.'''
*'''Commemorative arch for Battle of Crumhorn.'''
*'''Hanging Gardens of Ankh.'''

(The skinny old man in question is one Mr [[Scant]], Official Keeper of the Monuments, usually found asleep on a stool [presumably when he's not fallen off the stool] at a road junction somewhere near the [[Beggars' Guild]] most weekdays)

==Other notable building works==
*'''[[Quirm]] Memorial.'''
*'''Collapsed Tower of Quirm''', for which Johnson specified quicksand as a building material because they wanted it up fast.
*'''Ornamental cruet set''' for Lord Snapcase, Ankh-Morpork. The salt and pepper shakers are large enough to house four families and store grain. Another ornamental cruet set found its way, by accident, into the design of the [[Sto Lat]] maze.
*'''[[Empirical Crescent]]''', Ankh-Morpork. It looks like a normal set of houses, but the dimensions inside it are twisted, as well as of the gardens. Everybody throws out their junk, because it probably doesn't land in their own gardens. Someone might live at number 1, but his bedroom could be at number 3 and his kitchen in number 5. The painter [[Methodia Rascal]] lived in this street, which probably didn't do any good to his already unstable mental constitution.
*The '''[[Great Maze of Sto Lat]]''' - designed by Johnson and made more problematical when the blueprint got, er, interfered with.

==Devices==
*'''[[Johnson's Desktop Organiser]]'''; now used as a rather large and over-elaborate Tote board at the [[Shankydoodle]] race course.
*'''Great organ''', [[Don'tgonearthe Castle]], [[Überwald]]. Includes sound effects of thunder, young ladies screaming, wolf howls, floor creaks, and more. Operates on water power of an underground river.
*'''Organ''', the [[Opera House]], [[Ankh-Morpork]].
*'''Great organ''', the [[Unseen University]], Ankh-Morpork. Has three keyboards and a hundred knobs. Includes farmyard noises and the 128' Earthquake-pipe. Requires 8 students or one extremely enthusiastic Librarian to pump up the air reservoir.
*'''"Archchancellor Weatherwax's Bathroom"''', or, ''Patent 'Typhoon' Superior Indoor Ablutorium with Automatic Soap Dish'', Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork. Pipes are connected to the Unseen Great Organ (see above). [[Archchancellor]] [[Galder Weatherwax]] commissioned it, used it and boarded it up. Archchancellor [[Mustrum Ridcully]] re-opened it, tried it, loved it, met with an accident (fortunately not fatal) and boarded it up. One of the taps is named "Old Faithful", the name of a famous geyser in {{wp|Yellowstone Park|Yellowstone Park}}.

There are links here with Daedalus the inventor, who created Minos's bathroom. So far no one has been killed in Weatherwax's Bathroom (as far as we know).

*'''Mail-sorting engine''', the [[Post Office]], Ankh-Morpork. Originally designed as yet another organ (musical instrument). Acquired by Postmaster General Cowerby. In the centre of this machine is one wheel that Johnson, for the sake of tidiness, had designed to have a pi (circumference to diameter ratio) of exactly 3, not 3.14-mumble-mumble-and-a-bit. In order for pi to be exactly 3, the universe has been changed. The machine therefore taps through many layers of the space-time continuum. Mail came out of the sorting machine that wasn't put into it by the human hands of the postal workers. Mail from next week, mail from 50 years in the future, mail that could have been, mail from alternative universes, mail that people swore they posted but really hadn't, ''mountains'' of such mail. Finally, Chief Postal Inspector [[Rumbelow]] beat up the machine so that it stopped whirring. No longer sorting any mail, the machine still sports an annoying blue glow, and is capable of Considerably Dis-Organizing objects placed above its centre. This makes one of the rooms in the cellars, originally the mail-sorting room, a dangerous place to be. A banshee assassin exploded when he touched the core of the device.
*'''The Custard-Pie Machine''', designed for the Guild of Fools in order to put visitors in the appropriately mirthful frame of mind. Alas, Johnson under-estimated the effects of even quite thin runny custard when propelled at 300mph, and the device is now relegated to the museum of the Guild.
*'''The Great Daisy''': formerly the water-cannon, built in the shape of a giant daisy, that was to have been used to welcome visitors to the [[Fools' Guild]]. It is no longer in use and has been relegated to the Guild Museum following the unfortunate drowning incident.
*'''The Improved Manicure Device''': cited by Ridcully in {{H}} as to how not all of Bloody Stupid Johnson's inventions don't work: what about that thing in the kitchen, that they use for peeling potatoes? To which the [[Dean]] responds, "Ah, you mean the thing with the brass plate saying ''Improved Manicure Device'', Archchancellor?" Still, at least this blunder of Johnson's has been put to some good use. Explanation: industrial potato peelers, as used in large kitchens and high-volume catering outlets, take the form of a revolving steel drum inside a waterproof housing. The inside of the drum is serrated, like a large and evil cheesegrater, and is filled with up to a hundred large potatoes at a time. When the lid is closed and the drum set to rotate at high speed, the potatoes rumble around inside, their outer skins being shaved away by the serrations; water is passed through to flush the detritus out, and eventually a hundred slightly smaller and impeccably peeled spuds (or carrots, or parsnips, or turnips) are allowed to cascade out. While it ''could'' trim your fingernails, it is best not to attempt this as it might be regarded as overkill. In all probability you'd never need a manicure again.
*'''Clockwork spoon''': In {{UA}}, [[Nutt]] comments as to how the clockwork spoon, designed by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, would probably be one of the four contenders for his favorite spoon. (He was being interviewed by [[Bu-Bubble]] at the time). As the name indicates, it was a spoon, powered by clockwork. not much else. Apparently, though, it worked so well that if you put it into a cup of tea, the cup would fly helicopter-like to the ceiling. Nutt would have loved to be a fly on the wall to observe it in operation- although, not too close, obviously...
* The '''Pneumatic Transit Tube''' now used, in a ''safe'' form, by department stores such as [[Crumley's]] to enable counter-clerks to send cash received to a central accounting office and to receive till floats and change. By inference, Johnson invented this, in his own inimitable way. An early and evidently prototype version was installed in 1815 (according to the {{AMPOH}}) to ostensibly make life easier for counter-clerks at the Post Office. However. Johnson's version propelled heavy metal tubes full of money at such a velocity that they could have been employed as artillery. Several holes exist in the walls which have been patched up but are still visible over a century on from 1815, the stated date of installation, and shell-strikes may still be seen on buildings opposite. The then Patrician, after representations from the then [[Iodine Maccalariat|Maccalariats]] of the day, promptly outlawed the device until it could be made safe.

==Landscaping==
*'''Artificial hillock''', right in front of [[Quirm Manor]]. Made of 2,000 tons of earth, because "it would drive me nuts to have to look at a bunch of trees and a lake all day, how about you?".
*'''The Gardens''', [[Patrician's Palace]], [[Ankh-Morpork]], with the following features:
**'''Beehive'''. So large that it could accommodate bees 10 feet long. Currently serving as dovecot. There is a suggestion that it has in the past been used to accommodate [[Pointless albatross|homing albatrosses]], the messenger birds between [[Ankh-Morpork]] and the [[Agatean Empire]].
**'''Chiming sundial'''. Usually explodes around noon. May also fall over.
**'''Crazy paving'''. Has committed suicide.
**'''Fountain'''. Currently defunct. Groaned ominously, then fired a small stone cherub 1,000 feet into the air 5 minutes after it was first switched on.
**'''Garden furniture'''. Made of cast iron. Known to have melted on three occasions.
**'''The Hoho'''. A cunningly designed ditch like a [[wikipedia:Ha-Ha|Haha]], only the Hoho is 50 feet deep. Has claimed three Palace gardeners. Also once trapped [[Cruces|Dr. Cruces]], then head of the [[Assassins' Guild]].
**'''Maze'''. Too small. People get lost ''looking for it''.
**'''Ornamental trout lake'''. 150 yards long, 1 inch wide. Home to one trout, living comfortably provided that it doesn't try to turn around. In fact, the turning around bit involves [[Re-Director|having a man to do this job on behalf of the fish]].

==Cookery==
*'''Wedding cake''', the top tier of which was until recently used as a bandstand in the [[Apothecary Gardens]].
*'''[[Bloody Stupid Johnson's Individual Fruit Pie|The Great Fruit Pie]]'''.

==Roundworld Comparisons==

In the spoof rockumentary movie ''This is Spinal Tap'', mention must be made of the B.S. Johnson moment when the band's manager totally fails to communicate with the stage-prop designer. In a truly Discworld moment, the conventional symbols for inches (") and feet (') are confused, and a Stonehenge-sized trilithon meant to be 18' x 12' - isn't. It is, however, 18" x 12". This adds a new poignancy to the lyric ''See the little people dance'', as the expensively-hired dwarf dancers proceed to hide the mighty trilithon with their bodies, and eventually kick it a little way across the stage.

Similarly, American and European agencies completely failed to liaise concerning a joint Mars rocket project. Little things like a standard system of measurement passed them by and while Europe used metric units of newtons for force, the USA thought in terms of pounds. When the landing rockets fired, they fired with five times the necessary force (1 pound is about 5 newtons), and so the mistake was adequate to jointly engineer a very big, very expensive, firework. B.S. Johnson was alive and well and working for NASA. Or the ESA. Or both.

In 1998, it was reported that the US State of Alabama had passed legislation redefining the value of Pi from 3.14159 to 3, in order to bring it in line with Biblical precepts. This has been proven to be an April Fools gag.[http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.asp] That said, the {{wp|Indiana_Pi_Bill|Indiana Pi Bill}} really was nearly passed, and the details surrounding it are perhaps worthy of a Discworldian plot of their own.

Of his inventions:
*Colossus of Morpork = {{wp|Colossus_of_Rhodes|Colossus of Rhodes}} (a Wonder of the Ancient World)
*Hanging Gardens of Ankh = {{wp|Hanging_Gardens_of_Babylon|Hanging Gardens of Babylon}} (another Ancient Wonder) [technically in Semiramis, but hey...]
*Collapsed Tower of Quirm = {{wp|Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa|Leaning Tower of Pisa}}
*Organs: Extra sound effects mirror the strange, unrealistic sounds found on some electric keyboards. Only a few of Roundworld organs have a true 64' register from which the lowest notes produces sound at less than 20 Hz and therefore inaudible to the human ear. An 128' pipe would sound at approx. 8.2 Hz. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FXoyr_FyFw|The Sydney Town Hall organ with it's 64' Contra-Trombone in action]

Origin of name:
Three great gardeners are mentioned when Bloody Stupid Johnson was introduced in {{MAA}} as the landscaper responsible for the disastrous Patrician's Garden: Capability Brown, Sagacity Smith, and Intuition De Vere Slade-Gore. Of these,
{{wp|Capability_Brown|Capability Brown}} was a renowned landscaper. (As I'm sure Pterry remembered, the "Capability" part of Brown's name didn't refer to his own -- immense -- capability, but to his habit of applying the word to a garden when referring to what today we might instead call its "potential" for improvement.)

[[Category:Discworld characters|Johnson, Bergholt Stuttley]]
[[Category:Human characters|Johnson, Bergholt Stuttley]]
[[de:Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]]

Talk:Bergholt Stuttley Johnson

2025-11-29T01:02:38Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* First mention of BS Johnson */ think it's early in MAA

Whoa, I want to dissociate myself from the "Irish are stupid" remark added to my annotation - just a step too far, I think, it turns a general observation, about how people used to Imperial measures just cannot get their heads around the concept of metrification, into something hovering in the general area of racism. This line wasn't added by me, and I'd be sorry if anyone thought that. The general observation is valid and legitimate - that anti-Irish postscript isn't. --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 12:40, 29 May 2007 (CEST)

If anything, the British are even LESS capable of accepting metric units. Although I like the generally pragmatic Northern European (ie, anywhere on a seacoast that trades with Britain) concept of ''"le libre metrique",'' ie an acceptance that an Imperial pound is only just less than 500g.--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 12:41, 29 May 2007 (CEST)
:As a brit I agree, until very recently it was up to the vendor if they specified imperial or metric units. Now everything has to be sold in metric units, leaving oddities like sheets of plywood being sold as 2440x1220mm rather than the traditional 8'x4'. Groceries are just as bad, rather than resize things to a sensible metric amount like 500g or 1kg, you end up with 440g tins of food and 2.777l of milk. Couple that with a country that uses miles, yards and feet on it's road network, yet sells fuel by the litre and suddenly working out your fuel economy in MPG gets a whole new level of interesting. It gets even better in industries that deal with both the EU and the USA...... --[[User:Megahurts|Megahurts]] 09:51, 23 October 2010 (CEST)

B.S. Johnson created absurdities for Lord Snapcase. He was therefore alive up to about Vetinari's accession. One might suspect that he didn't last very long after Lord V. took charge. Leonard can be kept in the attic to produce useful devices, occasionally, but Johnson was simply dangerous.
--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 00:44, 26 March 2008 (CET)
:He was also alive during the reign of archchancellor [[Galder Weatherwax]], creating the bathroom mentioned in Hogfather. That places him around the time of {{TCOM}}. --[[User:Sanity|Sanity]] 18:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

==Roundworld Comparison==
The (round)world's largest pipe organ seems to be in the Sydney Opera House. This device sounds dangerously close to Johnson's last effort and should definitely not be associated with the Australian Post Office in any way. There seems to be no equivalent in Bugarup. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 14:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

:The organ at the Sydney operahouse and the organ at Boardwalk Hall Auditorium in N. Jersey are the two organs credited as having true 64' registers. [[User:Iron Hippo|Iron Hippo]] 02:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

They've both sensibly stopped at 64'/17.6 Hz. Great care would have to be taken with Johnson's 128' stop: some of the notes in the middle of that (subsonic) range could cause great consternation in the audience, not to mention the damage to the upholstery. (The New Jersey organ apparently hasn't worked for some years.) --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 16:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

:: Digital electronic organ-builders (you know what I mean) are experimenting with 128' register, often with humorous names like "Vox Balaena" (whale voice) or "Self Destruct". Also the Boardwalk Hall organ, mentioned above, has a 42²/3' stop which can be drawn with the 64-footer to yield a 128' "resultant bass". So Johnson doesn't quite manage to be larger than life. [[User:Captain Pedant|Captain Pedant]] 22:33, 4 October 2011 (CEST)

== First mention of BS Johnson ==

Does Bloddy Stupid appear for the first time in ''Men at arms'' as Vimes is getting married and the Librarian happily cranks the university Great organ into gear. The organ bears the initials BSJ which in reverse becomes JSB probably referring to Johann Sebastian Bach who was an actual genius when it came to organs. --[[User:Iron Hippo|Iron Hippo]] 23:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably. (Repeating yourself is a sign of senility.) --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 23:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

:Repeating yourself is a sign '''Error 500 internal server failure''' and "#### I got to type it in again" --[[User:Iron Hippo|Iron Hippo]] 10:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Not that it matters 16 years later... but I'm listening to MAA right now, and BS Johnson appears quite early in the book, I think when Carrot tries to show Angua the Colossus of Morpork. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:02, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Swires

2025-08-14T01:11:56Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: de-stub

An early attempt by TP to redefine fantasy staples, or a less cantankerous version of [[Buggy Swires|Buggy]], Swires was encountered by [[Rincewind]] and [[Twoflower]] during the events of {{TLF}}. Twoflower - obviously - thinks he can't be a [[Gnome|gnome]] as he's not wearing a red hat. He must be a pixie. And he's definitely ''not'' an [[Elf|elf]], whatever Twoflower's famously rose-tinted views of them.

He is encountered in a toadstool house - just the kind of common fantasy cliche TP had set out to ridicule. Swires then leads them to a fairytale gingerbread house, complete with toffee and caramel beds, candyfloss doormat etc. Just the sort of thing that he is at pains in later books to ensure cannot be as they're just too stupid.

Whether Swires is the archetype for, an ancestor of, or even an early version of Buggy Swires is open to debate.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[de:Swires]]

Talk:Oswald (Moving Pictures)

2025-07-02T01:13:41Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* */ Speculation moved here!

This annotation made no sense to me, so I removed it - rather then deleting it completely though, i'll just put it in here for safe keeping.

And, of course, in passing to what the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band referred to as ''A wonderful performer and always here... J.Arthur Rank on Gong!"''

[[User:JaffaCakeLover|JaffaCakeLover]] 13:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Elucidation.

Apologies, I didn't fill in all the necessary blanks...
At the beginning and end of every film released by the British Rank Organisation's studios, the studio icon (like MGM's roaring lion or paramount's mountain and stars)was a giant, muscular, man in a loin-cloth artistically striking a large Chinese gong with a very big hammer. (parodied by Pratchett in the climactic scenes of {{MP}}, where the troll Detritus strikes the gong with the hammer to awaken "Oswald").

J.Arthur Rank was the mogul who founded and ran the studio, a Britsh answer to Goldwyn and Meyer.

The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band were a group of skilled musical parodists, led by Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall, who had a career mercilessly sending up musical styles and conventions. They worked with the Beatles in the film "Magical Mystery Tour", and Neil Innes was widely regarded as the seventh member of the Monty Python team - providing original music and occassional sketches.

One of their more subtly funny numbers was the "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcrUuCDFLOQ|The Intro and the Outro]", a merciless send-up of the musical convention that says the lead singer, at some point during the gig, has to namecheck and thank all the members of the band on stage with him. This is taken to absurdist levels - ''looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes'', and ''digging General de Gaulle on accordion''

The track ends on the line ''A wonderful performer and always here... J.Arthur Rank on Gong!"''

(apropos of nothing, "Rank" is also a word used to signify "outstandingly awful", as many Rank films were1, and in Cockney rhyming slang, a "J.Arthur (Rank)" is an act of self-abuse...)

hoping this helps!--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 23:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, I didn't fill in all the necessary blanks...

1 A pretty tough critic; check the {{wp|Rank Organisation#Select filmography|list}} --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:38, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

===The other Oswald===
It would appear that there is no page for the other character of this name, Miss Level's ghostly housekeeper from A Hat Full of Sky.
:Amazing (again)! Every so often one of these big obvious holes shows up after going unnoticed for years. Oswald isn't even listed in {{HFOS}} although he does show up in [[Ghosts]], incorrectly linked to here. I'll fix those two, for a start. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
:...but apparently I didn't (pause for flagellation). This is a right cock-up: the guardian of Holy Wood has no name, he was only said to resemble someone's Uncle Osbert or Oswald or Osric. Oswald is the name of the ondageist from {{HFOS}}, who still has no page, but then what should this article be titled? I'll try to work it out before another year. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:30, 14 March 2015 (UTC) 
:Disambiguation page, I guess. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 19:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

== ==
Is [[user:Sharlee|Sharlee]]'s fanfic in the final paragraph really useful? I have no particular argument, but it seems very speculative. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:26, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
:Agree. But I've moved the paragraph here so it's not lost to wikihistory. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:13, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

"Alternately, Oswald/Osric/etc may be an example of a Disc-bound god, either manifested spontaneously from the long-ago Academy Awards ceremonies of ancient Holy Wood, or purpose-built ''a la'' [[Mrs. Gogol]]'s techniques to guard the Cthinema against the Dungeon Things. In which case, the rituals of [[Deccan Ribobe]] and his predecessors constituted the necessary worship that kept him conscious, and Ribobe's passing caused him to revert to a normal statue, much as the Great God [[Om]] became a normal tortoise outside of [[Brutha]]'s proximity. He revived anew when [[Victor Tugelbend]] and [[Ginger]] demonstrated sufficient faith in his protection to return to the Cthinema and sound the gong."

Oswald (Moving Pictures)

2025-07-02T01:12:35Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: rm speculation to talk page per OD

In the [[Cthinema]] at [[Holy Wood]], a twelve-foot tall effigy of a golden man (also known as Osric and Osbert) lies atop a slab, clutching a sword before it that on its own is taller than an average man. He wears golden armour, and has a facial expression suggesting mildly uncomfortable constipation. Next to the slab is a huge gong and the hammer to ring it, that with the passage of time and damp has corroded onto its supports.

[[Victor Tugelbend]] at first gets it entirely backwards and comes to the conclusion that the purpose of [[Deccan Ribobe]] and the priests of Holy Wood was to keep this figure, or whatever it represented, imprisoned. With the help of the [[Librarian]], he realises he has been reading the [[Boke of the Filme|Book of Holy Wood]] back to front: the [[Cthinema]] is a natural gateway to the [[Dungeon Dimensions]] and the figure is in fact a Gatekeeper, charged with awakening if the dread denizens attempt to break through into our world, and holding them back.

Just about everyone who sees it thinks it looks like their Uncle Osbert. Or Oswald. Or Osric.

The suggestion is there, after the nature of the [[Umnian Golems]] is revealed in {{MM}}, that this is a [[Golem]] with a very special chem: ''Awaken at the sound of the Gongge, and do battle with Thinges which do not have human forme, till the Thynges be slain and the Portal be sealed''.

In the manner of Golems, what's the betting that Oswald (Or Osbert. Or Osric.) is still down there in the ruins of the Cthinema?

==Annotation==

Oswald is a clear reference to the ''Academy Award of Merit'' statuette handed out at the Academy Awards, commonly known as the [[wikipedia:Academy Awards|Oscars]] (another name beginning with 'Os'). The original "Oscar" was so-called because a secretary remarked that "it looked like her uncle Oscar".

The "Huge Gong with a hammer next to it" is a reference to the introduction to all [[wikipedia:Rank Organisation|J. Arthur Rank]] films: A muscular man striking a huge Gong with a hammer. At one time, this introduction was as famous as the ''M.G.M.'' Lion.

[[Category:Discworld concepts]]

Myria LeJean

2025-05-15T02:23:01Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: more trimming

{{Character Data
|title= Myria LeJean
|photo=Blank.jpg|
|name= Myria LeJean
|age= As old as time
|race= [[Auditors of Reality|Auditor]], though she becomes more and more human

|occupation= Auditor
|appearance=

|residence=

|death= By [[Chocolate]]
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=

|books= {{TOT}}
|cameos=
}}

An [[Auditors of Reality|Auditor]] embodied in a human, well, body. When the Auditors attempted to re-create the human body, they found that it would just lie there, decomposing, unless one of them entered the body and steered it around.

Myria's physical form is based on the famous [[Leonard of Quirm]] portrait of ''Woman Holding Ferret'', but with all the organic imperfections (such as asymmetry) removed. The result is a rather colourless copy of a beautiful woman.

She employed [[Time|Time's]] son, [[Jeremy Clockson]], to build the perfect clock, in order to stop time. She went insane, as she further experimented with the experience of being human (watching the opera, tasting food, etc...), and attempted surreptitiously to stop the clock from being completed.

Once time was stopped, she aided in Jeremy's escape, and also helped [[Susan Sto Helit|Susan]] and [[Lobsang Ludd|Lobsang]] in fighting the Auditors, who swarmed Discworld in corporeal form once time stopped.

Her name defines an important aspect of the Auditors: Myria stands for "myriad", a number once meaning "ten thousand" in Greek, but now means "very many"; LeJean is a pun for "legion", also meaning many, and can be connected to the demons exorcised by Jesus. The Auditors believed that the name of an object or a person ought to describe what it or he/she really is, and they believed that there is safety in numbers; an individual identity means death.

It was Myria who found out that [[chocolate#chocolate as weapon|chocolate]] could kill Auditors. She was renamed "Unity" by Susan (who nonetheless still thought she was more insane than a loft full of cuckoos). Unity killed herself by jumping into a huge vat of pure chocolate, her swan dive into the brown material witnessed by [[Kaos]] and [[Death]].

Smitten by the combination of beauty and a fascinating knowledge of the possibility of clocks, Jeremy falls in love with her. Ambushed by the physicality of her own body, she is attracted to him. She starts staying in human form all the time, going to art galleries, and even tasting food. She discovers poetry. She allows a cat to move into the place where she goes, and starts to paint. More and more wrapped in flesh, Myria begins to lie to herself, and to the monitoring Auditors. Even Igor begins to suspect that she is sabotaging the clock on her visits, in which he is correct. She wants more time.

Myria is caught trying to destroy the clock by the Auditors. She goes on the run with Jeremy, whom she may have carried, because he could barely walk. She hides in the attic of the Art Museum, barricaded behind paradoxical commands to confuse her still super-disciplined colleagues. She discovers how to kill them with chocolate. Lobasang and Susan find her there. She and Lu Tze distract the Auditors while Susan and Lobsang set off to destroy the clock. She is captured, saved by Lu Tze, and when the clock is destroyed, ends up with him 60,000 years away eyeball to eyeball with a mammoth.

It would all have ended on rather a tragic note, except that after she plunged into the vat of chocolate, she is astonished to find herself talking to Death again. "But... I died," she said. "Yes," said Death. "This is the next part." She had become human enough to find herself on the journey through the desert.

==Annotation==

''Death by Chocolate'' is a rather twee name (at least, it's witty the ''first'' time you come across it) for a very rich, glutinous and intense chocolate sponge cake, saturated in chocolate liquor, filled with chocolate icing and topped with - guess what? rich chocolate sauce and decorated with chocolate shavings. As well as describing the mode of Myria's death, it has also been sent up in {{M}}, where * [[Ysabell]]'s favourite dessert is named as ''Genocide by Chocolate''.

[[Category:Discworld characters|LeJean, Myria]]
[[Category:Supporting characters|LeJean, Myria]]
[[Category:Supernatural entities]]
[[de:Myria LeJean]]

Talk:Myria LeJean

2025-05-15T02:13:31Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Title */ Myria or Unity?

I never thought of, or heard anybody else connect {{wp|Death_by_Chocolate|Death by Chocolate}} before.
I did say before: "what a wonderful thing is a wiki".
--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 03:58, 17 September 2011 (CEST)

and anonymous, too, so the person responsible cannot be identified...--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 21:41, 17 September 2011 (CEST)
:um...according to the history, it was you. I'm also startled at how long that's been there. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 22:17, 17 September 2011 (CEST)

bloody hell, it was, too... I hought a turn of phrase or two were pretty much the sort of things I'd say, but I put it down to somebody called 208.108.138.130... I really have no memory of adding this, but it was years ago and it has been slightly rewritten since...--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 02:33, 18 September 2011 (CEST)
:yea, and you're not even as old as I am. It gets worse. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 03:46, 18 September 2011 (CEST)

== Title ==

Should it be Myria LeJean or Unity LeJean? Her final name was Unity but for most of the book her name was Myria. --Confusion 21:11, 26 November 2011 (CET)

: Now *that's* an interesting question (and a 14 year old one to boot). Looks like the MR pages are under the original names that we see for the majority of the book: Tonker, Lofty, etc. She's Myria until, well, until she's not, and she's way more Myria than Unity to the reader. "Myria" is how I imagine readers of this wiki would expect to see her listed, with Unity as a redirect (if I knew how those work). I'm uncomfortable deadnaming Unity, but Myria is the way I think we should list her in this sorta encyclopedia. Other thoughts?[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 02:13, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Myria LeJean

2025-05-15T02:07:59Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: rm some redundant plot summary, ce, tighten prose. There seems to be WAY too much plot summary here, but I'll work on more trimmage later.

{{Character Data
|title= Myria LeJean
|photo=Blank.jpg|
|name= Myria LeJean
|age= As old as time
|race= [[Auditors of Reality|Auditor]], though she becomes more and more human

|occupation= Auditor
|appearance=

|residence=

|death= By [[Chocolate]]
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=

|books= {{TOT}}
|cameos=
}}

An [[Auditors of Reality|Auditor]] embodied in a human, well, body. When the Auditors attempted to re-create the human body, they found that it would just lie there, decomposing, unless one of them entered the body and steered it around.

Myria's physical form is based on the famous [[Leonard of Quirm]] portrait of ''Woman Holding Ferret'', but with all the organic imperfections (such as asymmetry) removed. The result is a rather colourless copy of a beautiful woman.

She employed [[Time|Time's]] son, [[Jeremy Clockson]], to build the perfect clock, in order to stop time. She went insane, as she further experimented with the experience of being human (watching the opera, tasting food, etc...), and attempted surreptitiously to stop the clock from being completed.

Once time was stopped, she aided in Jeremy's escape, and also helped [[Susan Sto Helit|Susan]] and [[Lobsang Ludd|Lobsang]] in fighting the Auditors, who swarmed Discworld in corporeal form once time stopped.

Her name defines an important aspect of the Auditors: Myria stands for "myriad", a number once meaning "ten thousand" in Greek, but now means "very many"; LeJean is a pun for "legion", also meaning many, and can be connected to the demons exorcised by Jesus. The Auditors believed that the name of an object or a person ought to describe what it or he/she really is, and they believed that there is safety in numbers; an individual identity means death.

It was Myria who found out that [[chocolate#chocolate as weapon|chocolate]] could kill Auditors. She was renamed "Unity" by Susan (who nonetheless still thought she was more insane than a loft full of cuckoos). Unity killed herself by jumping into a huge vat of pure chocolate, her swan dive into the brown material witnessed by [[Kaos]] and [[Death]].

Smitten by the combination of beauty and a fascinating knowledge of the possibility of clocks, Jeremy falls in love with her. Ambushed by the physicality of her own body, she is attracted to him. She starts staying in human form all the time, going to art galleries, and even tasting food. She discovers poetry. She allows a cat to move into the place where she goes, and starts to paint. More and more wrapped in flesh, Myria begins to lie to herself, and to the monitoring Auditors. Even Igor begins to suspect that she is sabotaging the clock on her visits, in which he is correct. She wants more time.

Myria is caught trying to destroy the clock by the Auditors. She goes on the run with Jeremy, whom she may have carried, because he could barely walk. She hides in the attic of the Art Museum, barricaded behind paradoxical commands to confuse her still super-disciplined colleagues. She discovers how to kill them with chocolate. Lobasang and Susan find her there. She and Lu Tze distract the Auditors while Susan and Lobsang set off to destroy the clock. She is captured, saved by Lu Tze, and when the clock is destroyed, ends up with him 60,000 years away eyeball to eyeball with a mammoth.

Left with Susan, once time begins to flow again, she explains what will happen to the remaining Auditors when they succumb to sleep. “The first time it happened to me I found such horror that I cannot express it... For an intellect a billion years old, in a body which is an ape on the back of a rat that grew out of a lizard. Can you imagine what comes out of the dark places, uncontrolled. They will die in their dreams.”
There is a pool of visceral anger in Susan, which comes out against Auditors, but she has to admit that Unity raises the question of where humanity begins and ends, and almost feels sorry for Auditors in general.

Still not having acquired the social grace of duplicity, Unity asks the tooth-gritted Susan directly if she had romantic ideas about Lobsang. She said she herself had had strange feelings for his self that was the clockmaker i.e. Jeremy, who has now disappeared into Lobsang. She had wanted to help him, because he seemed to be closed in and sad.

Then she says she has a rather human ambition: she wishes to die. She has betrayed her own kind. She can exist only by being insane. There is nowhere where she will ever be able to feel at home, and staying would be agony. She goes to her death by chocolate in the presence of Death and Chaos.

It would all have ended on rather a tragic note, except that after she plunged into the vat of chocolate, she is astonished to find herself talking to Death again. "But... I died," she said. "Yes," said Death. "This is the next part." She had become human enough to find herself on the journey through the desert.

==Annotation==

''Death by Chocolate'' is a rather twee name (at least, it's witty the ''first'' time you come across it) for a very rich, glutinous and intense chocolate sponge cake, saturated in chocolate liquor, filled with chocolate icing and topped with - guess what? rich chocolate sauce and decorated with chocolate shavings. As well as describing the mode of Myria's death, it has also been sent up in {{M}}, where * [[Ysabell]]'s favourite dessert is named as ''Genocide by Chocolate''.

[[Category:Discworld characters|LeJean, Myria]]
[[Category:Supporting characters|LeJean, Myria]]
[[Category:Supernatural entities]]
[[de:Myria LeJean]]

Young Sam Vimes

2025-05-07T22:53:12Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Trivia */ rm trivia - seems irrelevant to this character...

Vimes Family Motto: ''PROTEGO ET SERVIO''

''[I] protect and serve''

'''The Honourable Samuel Vimes II'''
{{Character Data
|title=Young Sam Vimes
|photo= Young sam.png|Young Sam by Melvin Grant
|name=[[wikipedia:The Honourable#United Kingdom|The Hon.]] Samuel "''Young Sam''" Vimes II
|age= born in {{NW}}
1 Year old {{WMC?}}
14 Months in {{T!}}
6 Years old {{SN}}
7 or 8 Years old {{RS}}
|race=Human
|occupation=
|appearance=
|residence= [[Ramkin Residence]], [[Scoone Avenue]], [[Ankh (city)|Ankh]]
|death=
|parents= [[Samuel Vimes]] (Father) [[Sybil Ramkin|Sybil Vimes née Ramkin]] (Mother)
|relatives= Thomas Vimes (Paternal Grandfather) Mrs. Vimes (Paternal Grandmother) Grandma Clamp (Great Grandmother on Father's side) [["Stoneface" Vimes]] (Ancestor on Father's side) Lord Ramkin (Maternal Grandfather) Lady Ramkin (Maternal Grandmother) Lord Ramkin Sr. (Maternal great grandfather who once shot [[Bloody Stupid Johnson]] in the leg)
|children=
|marital status=
|books= {{NW}} {{T!}} {{WMC?}} {{SN}} {{RS}}
|cameos=
}}

The much-beloved son and only child of [[Samuel Vimes|Sir Samuel]] and [[Sybil Ramkin|Lady Sybil]] Vimes, the Duke and Duchess of Ankh.

Named "Sam", after his father, at the insistence of his mother, he was born during the climax of events at the end of {{NW}}. His birth proved in the end to be difficult, due to his mother's age, so his father brought in Dr. [[John Lawn]], the best doctor he knew about to help save both the mother and the baby. Already 14 months old by the time of the events of {{T!}}, Young Sam is able to lift his head, stand upright whilst holding onto the rails of his cot, distinguish the difference between his father and his mother, and can say "'''Da!'''"

According to his father, Young Sam seems to have a "very accurate internal clock". His father reads {{WMC?}}, Young Sam's favourite book, to Young Sam, with all the noises, every night at 6:00 PM SHARP. When this book is being read to him, Young Sam likes to crow along with all the animal noises with his father as it's read to him. This bond between them has become a major preoccupation for Sam Sr. since Young Sam was born, and is, perhaps, Sam Sr.'s salvation in {{T!}}.

Young Sam loves the {{WMC?}} picture book so-much that it is described as having to be "''the most-cuddled book in the world''", and has been chewed-upon on many occasions by him over time; Young Sam is also in the habit of using his father's helmet as a substitute for a teddy bear from time-to-time. Young Sam's nursery is pink and blue and packed with a collection of woolly, fluffy stuffed toys. Many of Young Sam's cuddly toys have, apparently, been in the Ramkin family for generations, out of their habit of never throwing anything away that might be used again (their attics are packed with the things they don't throw out.)

Sam Sr. usually doesn't tolerate others in the nursery during his and Young Sam's time together at storytime; the sole exceptions seem to be Sybil, (of course) and [[Dribble]] the dragon, one of Sybil's older [[swamp dragon]]s, who always looks for somewhere warm to slump, has been observed to clamber up the stairs and takes point underneath Young Sam's cot every day and even sleeps under there time-to-time (no-one knows why exactly). The whistling noises that Dribble makes in his sleep do not seem to bother Young Sam while he's napping. Young Sam, like Dribble, also drools in his sleep.

It is also revealed that, one evening, after a trying day, Sam Sr. had ad-libbed his own version of ''Where's My Cow?'', called the "Vimes street version", to Young Sam, reasoning that, since they lived in a city, Young Sam would be unlikely to hear many, (if any) of these noises. Instead of searching for a lost cow, the person, (Young Sam) is looking for his Daddy. Once Young Sam, "with a child's unerring instinct for this sort of thing", tried to repeat one of the "sounds" ("[[Foul Ole Ron|Bugrit]]") made in the "Vimes street version", to the nursemaid. Sam Sr. has stuck rigidly to the "authorized version" since, (and Sybil, mercifully, has never brought it up).

Young Sam shares a very special bond with his father. When having gone up to [[Koom Valley]] on a [[Broomstick]]-upgraded coach, which Young Sam enjoyed riding in very much thanks to the Show of the Year (Detritus, Grag Bashfullsson etc. all joining in with the noises of ''Where's My Cow?'') in-order to pursue the [[Deep-Downers]] for their crimes, Sam Sr. was trapped underground. When, after having been unfailingly on-time for story-time for so long, Sam Sr. was kept from making it back on-time for their story time, Young Sam started crying when he saw that his father wasn't there to read to him.

Having been delayed from going back to read to Young Sam, Sam Sr. 'went spare', and ended-up attacking the Deep-Downer guards in a berserker rage. All the while, Sam Sr. was screaming out the lines to {{WMC?}} and, the bond between them being so strong, it managed to penetrate Young Sam's consciousness (and he seemed to be the only one to hear his father's voice) whilst they were staying all the way up on the surface, at the residence of an "old friend from [[Quirm College for Young Ladies|school]]" of Sybil's, and Young Sam stopped crying, and began crowing along to the noises, to the confusion of his mother.

In {{T!}}, Young Sam also has a nursemaid, called [[Purity]].

Young Sam is mentioned briefly in the events of {{ISWM}}, after the mess caused by the [[Pictsies|Nac Mac Feegle]] at the [[King's Legs|King's Head]] in [[Ankh-Morpork]]. [[Mrs Proust]], in order to draw Vimes's attention away from [[Tiffany Aching]], brings up Young Sam in their conversation. Commander Vimes then thanks her for her advice about giving Young Sam a fizzy drink and a good burp...

By the time of {{SN}}, Young Sam is six years old, and has graduated from listening to ''Where's My Cow?'' to reading the works of [[Felicity Beedle]] with his parents' occasional assistance. He is also described as having inherited a Vimes' analytical mind, with a Ramkins' penchant for experimentation. At this point, the 6-year-old Young Sam is also pre-occupied with the science of "Poo", and is amassing a collection of stool samples of different animals. He has an imaginary friend named "Mister Whistle" who is sometimes a dragon and has various other features; Sam sometimes has Mister Whistle help him with difficult things, like being scared for him when he accompanies his father into the dark goblin cave.

By the events of {{RS}}, Young Sam is seven/eight years old, and has been caught-up in the [[wikipedia:Zeitgeist|zeitgeist]] of the new Railway. According to his mother at the end of the book, Young Sam has already filled up his first Train Spotters notebook.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vimes, Young Sam}}
[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Human characters]]
[[de:Sam Mumm]]

Talk:Abrim

2025-04-26T00:31:38Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* ESL */ removed for now

Is this really a stub? --Confusion 01:56, 18 January 2012 (CET)

==ESL==
I wish I understood what the central sentence in the last paragraph was trying to say so I might fix it, but I'm stumped. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:05, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
: I don't understand either. I removed for now... [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:31, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Abrim

2025-04-26T00:28:55Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: per talk, huh? :-)

[[Image:Abrim.jpg|240px|thumb|right|Abrim, as drawn by Matt Smith]]
'''Abrim''' was the [[Grand Vizier]] of [[Creosote]] of [[Klatch]]. He got caught up in the events of {{S}}, took the [[Archchancellor's Hat]] from [[Rincewind]] and [[Conina]] and went mad as a result. Well, madder. He was already certifiably insane. It's in a Grand Vizier's job description, of course, along with being a manipulator and the true ''eminence grease'' behind the throne. He built a Tower of Magic in Klatch to fight those mages at [[Unseen University]], was distracted by [[The Luggage]] and was killed by an attack from [[Marmaric Carding]].
Not for nothing is it said, "Never trust a Grand Vizier."

Abrim explains to Rincewind that he has magical potential and applied to the university but was considered too mentally unbalanced. This suprised Rincewind, as he was more than aware of the mental stability of most wizards could be described on a scale with the labels: 'Insane' and 'Insane beyond belief'.

Abrim wears the [[Archchancellor's Hat]] and becomes its vessel as he has enough magical power for the hat to use him. Abrim is killed in his battle with the wizards but one feels that he went as he wanted - foiled in a dastardly plan that can only have been executed by the Grand Vizier type.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Supporting characters]]
[[Category:Human characters]]
[[de:Abrim]]

Talk:Book:Jingo/Annotations

2025-04-24T02:24:11Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* The Soundtrack:- */ The Holy Grail

...well, you were writing annotations in a template to call a page that didn't exist yet. Ain't gonna work. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 23:07, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Excuse my cack-handedness. So copying and pasting another template from lower down the list and over-writing with the code for the desired book doesn't do everything -something else needs to be activated?--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 00:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

First you have to have a page "Book:Title/Annotations" (plus square brackets at each end) to write annotations in. Then you can write a shorthand template or copy one like [[Template:SM-APF]] and change the title.--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 00:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

== God and Man==

Worth copying to here, methinks! A correction to the entry and thanks to the person who knew where I was heading and why my logic was wrong:-

(In Hebrew, while there technically is a difference of one letter between God (אל) and man (אש), this spelling of God is only used in the generic form and not God in the Jewish conception.)

== The Soundtrack:- ==

I remembered Santana did a track to a Latin American beat called '''''Jingo'''''. Sadly, a Google has turned up the information that the words are just nonsense syllables in Spanish or Portuguese, but there is an earlier version from West Africa (Nigeria) where the repeated chant ''jin-go-lo-ba'' means "''drums of passion''". Still a bit too tenuous for an annotation, though, unless somebody out there understands Latin-American music and its African origins better than I do...--[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 00:31, 9 January 2011 (CET)

Apparently ''Jin-go'' is also a Voodoo god of war, strife and retribution. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 21:20, 8 July 2012 (CEST)

== Arresting the high command on a battlefield ==
Not an actual annotation, rather just a thing that came to mind that others might find interesting. They're showing Monty Python and the Holy Grail next week at the movie theater with recliners and a full bar / menu with wait service at the seats. I just remembered how that movie ends - with the police arresting Sir Lancelot and King Arthur as they are about to lead a large force into battle. We know that TP referenced Monty Python on other occasions... (Yeah, I don't see this as a deliberate *annotation*, but it's either a cool coincidence or a sly reference. :-) )[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 02:23, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum

2025-04-10T01:01:19Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Speling */ changed it back!

==Vetinari. Vampire?==
I was just listening to [[user:Guybrush|Guybrush]] and friends on Pratchat's {{NW}} episode. They were discussing young Vetinari, and how Lord V always plays the long game politically. Or the longest game. And they discussed his relationship with his "Aunt," who (Pratchat suggested) may very well not be an actual Aunt. As well as the similarities between Lady Margolotta and Lady Meserole.

I remember the gut punch I felt the first time I read {{UA}} when Glenda says in her internal monologue, "they say he [Vetinari] is a vampire..."

It seemed a throwaway line, as she was musing (I think) about the upcoming dinner being thrown for the footballers by the Wizards, to which Vetinari was invited. But Pratchett doesn't throw away lines.

I've always thought of Vetinari as Ankh Morpork's version of Margolotta.

[Okay, time for class, more to come here. I have some textual evidence I'll bring forth. In the meantime... have we ever seen Vetinari out in the direct sunlight? He wears the signet ring that nearly burns Moist at one point... probably we have, but there's that line repeated multiple times about how he seems to be awake and working at all hours...][[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:54, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Now... some evidence-like substance.

We know that reformed B-word-less vampires transfer their craving, their *obsessiveness*, to something else. Coffee. Photography. Political manipulations in Uberwald. Vetinari is obsessed, too - with the city of Ankh-Morpork. He even says so, in a line that seems like it should be accompanied by a maniacal laugh, I think in Making Money: "It's about the city. It's always about the city."

I'm not sure where I stand on Vetinari's blood-relation (sorry, wrong word) to Meserole. I agree with Pratchat that they seem to say "Aunt" way too often. But... My own crazy thought is that Lady Meserole and Margolotta are *THE SAME PERSON*. And she could indeed by Vetinari's aunt. In NW, she swoops in from far away and insinuates herself into powerful political circles, creating change that works to her benefit in the long term. Who says she didn't swoop into Uberwald after the Dark War to do the same thing, the endgame of which we saw in T5E? She behaves differently while executing her machinations in Ankh Morpork, but she blends in culturally for her ends. I suspect she recognized that Nephew Havelock would be the right person at the right time in AM, so she installed him and now they rule two parts of the continent jointly.

Or not.

I have always felt that Pratchett himself had a long game in mind for these characters, but ran out of Time to tell the story. Vampires, though... live many human life spans. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:08, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
:This conspiracy theory mania is getting out of hand. Have you found any basement dungeons in pizza parlours that don't have basements lately? Sam Vimes doesn't miss much and if the Patrician were a Vampire he would be very annoyed and we would have heard about it. Never mind that Angua would smell him at fifty yards. On the other hand, I always doubted that Lady Roberta was a blood relation (although I wrote a fanfic on the idea that she was his mother's sister, just on the Pratchettian idea of "what if?"). She may just have noticed him as someone useful to the movement, or just interesting to a cougar (female "funny uncle"?). It's all speculation. I also suggest that she's an agent of Margolotta's intelligence network and the connection between M and V. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:34, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
:However improbable, the Vampire idea isn't original. See [[Talk:Havelock Vetinari#Age quibble]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:13, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
:True, Vetinari's devotion to the city hasn't been explained (to me). Why does the greatest mind of his generation apply his talents to the care and feeding of this big dirty, smelly, grotty accumulation of humanoids? Of course, it might be that it's the grandest vision of SimCity in the metaverse and the only game that challenges him. He seems to get nothing out of the office except the chance to play the game (and perhaps to improve the city, which would lead back to the original question). --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:31, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
::I played SimCity once, in something like 1994. That's a fascinating idea. I wonder, are there any direct references that could be to the video game? The only thing I can think of offhand is, if you didn't put in the correct code from the manual, then the game assumed it was being played with pirated software, and your city was attacked by a dragon within minutes. (I know your SimCity comparison is not necessarily literal; you've described the most likely Vetinari motivation I can think of. Yet I wonder... TP plays multidimensional chess, there could easily be subtle references that I'd miss.)

::You're right that Angua would sniff Vetinari out instantly if he were in fact a vampire. I can't think, though, of a scene with both Angua and Vetinari in. Look, you're probably right that I'm engaging in ''Koom Valley Codex''-level conspiracies here. But abf is defunct. If not on my talkpage, then where else? :-) [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 19:37, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

==Annotations==
I wish we had the old Biers discussion page for administrators, but no... You apparently allow editing of annotations, which hasn't been usual, annotations being regarded as personal opinions which couldn't be gainsaid. This seemed to make them very popular; I spent two years fighting with people about them, but I had no support for any controls. I applaud the recent edit of [[Rufus Drumknott]], but what is the policy? (You may also need an archive here soon; partly my fault, I suppose.)--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
:Huh. I wasn't active in the early years of this wiki, so I must have entirely missed that discussion. On one hand, I am absolutely respectful of a community consensus, and so won't remove others' annotations any more now that I know of how they've traditionally been regarded here; but a consensus from 2006 or so should likely be revisited. If you're asking my personal view, I suppose I'd suggest that annotations should at least be plausibly specific. That is, if someone's opinion is that a Pratchett scene is based on / related to something in history or literature, they should make their case, and other editors should default to leaving that case visible. However, if the link to Pratchett's scene is in no way specific, we should remove it. To take an absurd example - let's pretend that Gaspode had just appeared in Pratchett's works in, say, 2010. The annotation that I'd sigh and let stand would say something like "Gaspode the talking dog might be a reference to the talking dog in The Family Guy." The annotation I'd remove would be "Gaspode the dog might be a reference to the basketball playing dog in Air Bud." What's the difference? Plausible specificity. Gaspode's primary distinguishing trait is that he is a dog *who can talk* - as is the Family Guy dog. I don't see any specific relationship between the Air Bud dog and Gaspode, other than them just being talented dogs. Now, the annotation that would make my heart leap with joy would demonstrate external-to-the-novels evidence that TP was a Family Guy fan, and would show even another layer of specificity in the annotation - perhaps Gaspode had used several phrases directly from the TV show or something. That's the type of annotation that the APF is - was - full of, the kind I'd love to see more of. Yet I kinda think that on a wiki, we have to put up with some of the less-specific annotations in order to get the awesome ones, the same way panning for gold requires one's hands to get quite mucky before the good stuff filters out. Old Dickens, you're the, well, old hand at administrating here, so I'm just putting in my two pence where I've been asked. I'd love to hear what Guybrush or Jagra or (if they're around) AgProv think nowadays. Happy to move this conversation off my talk page if that'd be better. [Oh, and would you be able to point me to somewhere to learn how to archive? You're right that this talk page is getting long and ancient... :-)[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 21:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd love a new consensus on annotations with some kind of rein on the inanity; we can move to the Mended Drum. My point was always that if an annotation was useful and supportable it should be in the body of the article and editable like anything else. Annotation pages are also available. To archive, just create a page and copy the form from the [[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum/Archive 1]], correcting the specifics. Then cut and paste whatever chunk you want. I should do one myself. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 22:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC) 
I just came across a precursor to this discussion from 2011! See [[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:User talk:Old Dickens/Archive 1#Threshold of evidence]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

==Futbol==
oh. yeah. The women have been a power for a while. The men are slowly catching up, but there isn't much excuse for the national side or Toronto FC in a country chock-a-block with immigrants from football-mad countries around the world. (Alphonso Davies isn't a great penalty kicker, unfortunately.) --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:16, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

:Ah. A big problem with US Men's soccer has been exactly the "chock-a-block with immigrants" issue. Those immigrants were never represented on the national team, or in the US youth system. For all the money US soccer spent, they would have done better simply plucking the best teenager from every New York, Los Angeles, or Houston city park. I'm finally seeing some ethnic diversity on our team - and they're playing well. Go figure. <shrug> [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:39, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Well, that was quick. Guybrush wins our pool by a point, but Sanity/Leo were always more likely. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:01, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

==Blockage==
You got one! One point: we don't usually block forever, because that ip will be blocked for whomever inherits it. A week would probably do; I've generally made it six months. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:54, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
:Got it! Changing now... [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:09, 4 July 2024 (UTC) 
[[User:Osiris|Headquarters]] says we shouldn't block ip addresses for the time being. Unfortunately, selective unblocking doesn't seem to be available, despite the instruction. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 15:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC) - Ah, but it's easy with Change Block in the log. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
==Does anyone know where to find this quotation?==
Sometime well after ''The Truth'', William de Worde spouts off arrogantly on the pages of The Times. There follows a comment that the underlying message of every newspaper column is that the world would be a better place if only it were run by newspaper columnists. Can anyone help me with where I might find this comment? It's, um, rather timely in American politics right now.[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:41, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
:You'd think it would be {{MR}}, but I haven't found it. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

==The prodigal returneth==
Welcome back! I see the weather has been pretty depressing even down there; let's hope we all feel better in the spring. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC) 
Sorry, the significance of "November" escaped me there. More depressing than a hard winter, for sure. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 05:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
:Yes. I also understand the significance of even Quebecois flying Canadian flags as an FU to my effed up country. Maintaining sanity down here as best as we can! :-) Gawd, I wish TP were alive to satire current events. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 13:35, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

==Speling==
I use a mixture of American and British spellings according to what seems sensible, myself, but apart from the general rule against "correcting" spelling according to one's personal or regional preference, (see Help:Editing) I particularly object to the American style of eliminating double letters before "er", "ed", or "ing" endings. This often appears to change the pronunciation of the word. Do you pronounce "worshiping" with a long i in the middle? I don't encounter "shiping", for some reason. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:I had no idea I was changing a non-American spelling. Even Pratchett books are - usually - changed to American spellings, sometimes to American colloquialisms. (I read about how TP fought to keep "cacky" in Night Watch even though Americans have no earthly clue what that means.) I've changed it back. Thanks! [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:01, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Gamblers' Guild

2025-04-10T00:57:05Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: didn't realize I was changing a British spelling! Thanks, OD

[[Image:Excretus.jpg|250px|left]] Motto: EXCRETUS EX FORTUNA (''Shit out of luck'')

The Gamblers' Guild House is built on the [[Street of Alchemists]], opposite the Guild House of the [[Alchemists' Guild|Alchemists]]. Given that the Alchemists blow their building up periodically, visitors to the Gamblers sometimes ask why they choose to remain sited here when there is such a high chance of being blown up. They are politely asked if they read the sign on the way in.

The panels on the gamblers' coat of arms (a sabre, an octagon, a turtle, a crowned A, a sceptre, a chalice, a coin and an elephant) represent the eight suits of the classic [[Ankh-Morpork]] pack of cards.

Presidents are regularly chosen (how else?) by the draw of a card. One named president was [[Scrote Jones]]. In ''Feet of Clay'', the guild is represented in the [[Rats Chamber]] by [[Doc Pseudopolis]] (named on the basis that one should never play cards against a man named after a city).

The Guild's chief function is to regulate the use of marked cards, shaved dice, and other tried-and-true means of tilting the odds in a gambler's favor. Not ''banning'' them, mind, but ensuring that these cheating methods meet with Guild standards: if two Guild members play against one another, their respective tricks should cancel each other out, and victory defaults to the luckiest and most skilled. Non-Guild players are unfair game.

Gamblers revere but ''never'' call on [[The Lady]], as it is well-known that she deserts those who ask for it, but often unexpectedly aids those who don't look for it. A sub-sect of gamblers who ''really'' didn't get it set up a religious cult worshipping The Lady. They were all broke and/or dead within weeks.

==Named Gamblers:==
* [[Scrote Jones]]
* [[Doc Pseudopolis]]
* [[Mister Frank]]

Coat of Arms by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]]
[[Category:Guilds]]
[[de:Spielergilde]]

Gamblers' Guild

2025-03-31T01:59:46Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: edit to presidents paragraph based on OD comments on talk

[[Image:Excretus.jpg|250px|left]] Motto: EXCRETUS EX FORTUNA (''Shit out of luck'')

The Gamblers' Guild House is built on the [[Street of Alchemists]], opposite the Guild House of the [[Alchemists' Guild|Alchemists]]. Given that the Alchemists blow their building up periodically, visitors to the Gamblers sometimes ask why they choose to remain sited here when there is such a high chance of being blown up. They are politely asked if they read the sign on the way in.

The panels on the gamblers' coat of arms (a sabre, an octagon, a turtle, a crowned A, a sceptre, a chalice, a coin and an elephant) represent the eight suits of the classic [[Ankh-Morpork]] pack of cards.

Presidents are regularly chosen (how else?) by the draw of a card. One named president was [[Scrote Jones]]. In ''Feet of Clay'', the guild is represented in the [[Rats Chamber]] by [[Doc Pseudopolis]] (named on the basis that one should never play cards against a man named after a city).

The Guild's chief function is to regulate the use of marked cards, shaved dice, and other tried-and-true means of tilting the odds in a gambler's favor. Not ''banning'' them, mind, but ensuring that these cheating methods meet with Guild standards: if two Guild members play against one another, their respective tricks should cancel each other out, and victory defaults to the luckiest and most skilled. Non-Guild players are unfair game.

Gamblers revere but ''never'' call on [[The Lady]], as it is well-known that she deserts those who ask for it, but often unexpectedly aids those who don't look for it. A sub-sect of gamblers who ''really'' didn't get it set up a religious cult worshiping The Lady. They were all broke and/or dead within weeks.

==Named Gamblers:==
* [[Scrote Jones]]
* [[Doc Pseudopolis]]
* [[Mister Frank]]

Coat of Arms by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]]
[[Category:Guilds]]
[[de:Spielergilde]]

Talk:A.E. Pessimal

2025-03-10T13:38:40Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: weird observation for the pub

*Certainly* not an annotation, just a personal observation here in the pub of the talk pages... the description of Pessimal attacking Brick's knee, distracting Brick from the killing stroke to Vimes, seemed to channel the RotK scene where Merry attacks the Witch King's knee, distracting him from the killing stroke to Eowyn. The lurching foe who thought himself invincible, but is both confused and in pain; the attack at the knee; the flinging off of the hobbit/hobbit-sized inspector. I half expected Detritus to bellow "No Man Am I!" as he finished off Brick. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 13:38, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

A.E. Pessimal

2025-03-10T13:33:02Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: ce, rm redundancy

{{Character Data
|title= A.E. Pessimal
|photo=Blank.jpg|
|name= A.E. Pessimal
|age= indeterminate, possibly late-middle
|race= [[Humans|Human]]
|occupation= Government inspector, Special Constable, later Inspector
|appearance= Very neat small man, immaculate centre parting and clean shoes.
|residence= [[Ankh-Morpork]]
|death=
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=
|books= {{T!}}, {{SN}}
|cameos= [[Short Story:A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices|A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices]]
}}

'''A.E. Pessimal''' is one of the [[Havelock Vetinari|Patrician's]] inspectors sent to investigate the economics and management of the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch]] to judge how the Watch uses their funds (see {{T!}}). Pessimal does not seem to have a first name or at least does not understand the question when [[Samuel Vimes|Vimes]] asks him. This isn't his first such assignment: previously the Patrician has asked him to investigate, and report on, [[Unseen University]]'s admission procedures and examination system. (So evidently [[Mustrum Ridcully]] must also have done something to irritate the Patrician.) This is discussed at length in "[[Short Story:A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices|A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices]]".

When Commander Vimes first meets A.E. Pessimal in {{T!}} he sees “a man not much taller than Cheery Littlebottom, very neat, shining clean, with sparkling little boots, hair gleaming and plastered down severely, with a center parting. His head seemed slightly larger than his thin body. “He twinkled when he walked” and donned “a pair of spectacles dangling from a black ribbon.”

Later in ''Thud!'' he is sworn in as a [[Specials|Special Constable]] and attacks [[Brick]] bare-handed, to the surprise of everyone. After that he is offered a position as Adjutant with a rank of Lance-Constable which he accepts (with the promise of accelerated promotion to Sergeant) and probably will assume after he has finished his assignment to investigate the Watch. He later becomes the Watch's forensic accountant.

Vimes' motivation in employing Pessimal is partly practical: he recognises that a man who will attack a boozed-up troll with his teeth is "born to the badge", and he will always find a job for a born copper. More than that, he needs an adjutant, a man who can "hold a pencil without breaking it", who can make sense of paperwork and interpret the mysteries of statistics that he, Vimes, will always overlook; for while Truth is likely to be hidden in the mountain of paperwork that sits on his desk, quietly reproaching him for his deliberate non-awareness of it, Vimes has neither the time nor the inclination to go mining for it.

It is also possible that he is making some sort of obscure point to Vetinari by poaching one of his civilian clerks, quite possibly turning the poacher into a gamekeeper. (Or quite possibly vice-versa).

It is a tragedy that having earned the right to call Vimes "Mr Vimes" by having saved his life, a privilege open only to few, Pessimal is temperamentally unable to do so. However, it looks as if a new Watch department is in formation, perhaps loosely associated to the reformed [[Cable Street Particulars]], composed of Pessimal and the finally-useful [[Dis-organiser|Gooseberry]] device.

By the events of {{SN}}, A E has risen to the newly-minted rank of Inspector, (notionally one rank below Captain), in the City Watch, and his forensic accounting has become legendary and feared throughout Ankh-Morpork, as people fear what he may uncover in their financial records.

==Annotations==
'Pessimal' is to 'pessimism' what 'optimal' is to 'optimism'- it refers to things being maximally bad.

==Also See==
* [[wikipedia:Ankh-Morpork City Watch#Inspector A E Pessimal|A.E. Pessimal's Entry]] on [[wikipedia:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]

[[Category:Discworld characters|Pessimal, A.E.]]
[[de:A. E. Pessimal]]

User talk:Guybrush

2025-02-24T15:44:13Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Unseen Academicals pod */ was the audio BOOK

Damn! That's quite a résumé. You seem busier than our [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] and getting paid for it too; it's a shame you only visit every year or so. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:07, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
:I only just noticed this! Thanks for the compliment; I’m also trying to visit more regularly! [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 04:32, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

== Just listened to your podcast ==

I very much enjoyed the Wintersmith episode on my drive across Virginia and North Carolina today. Thank you! So, whenever I reread Wintersmith, I read the opening chapter twice - once at the beginning, and once again in its actual place in the narrative, before the last chapter. I've always thought that the events in that chapter certainly did happen! I need to reread again, of course. I've listened to Hadestown (the new-ish musical) enough that I probably have a new perspective on the Roland plot. Youall have given me lots to think about. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 05:30, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
:Sorry to butt in, but what a coincidence! Anaïs Mitchell is one of my favorite musicians (and with Jefferson Hamer, one of my favorite acts). I suppose you've heard ''Child Ballads''? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 06:02, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
::Well now I want to listen to ''Hadestown''! And thanks Moishe for the kind words; always good to hear from a listener. And yeah, that opening chapter clearly happens as far as I'm concerned; I think Garth and Liz got a bit hung up on Terry's closing remarks about it "not having happened yet". Please do send us a question for an upcoming episode; as I write this, the next one is {{NW}}! -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 00:53, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
:::Awesome. Night Watch is amazing. Sam Vimes and John Keel could tell American policepeople something about appropriate use of authority.

:::On the way home I listened to the Fifth Elephant episode. I love the Carrot B-plot - it develops not just Carrot's, but also Angua's, character substantially. To me, Gavin is the wolf version of Carrot. Angua is always caught between being a wolf and a human; now she's in a love triangle with a wolf and a human, while trying to fend off her Nazi brother. You're right that we never see inside Carrot's head, but through his actions (and through Gaspode's and Vimes's observations) we see the Machiavellian Carrot. There was a thread on the old alt.books.pratchett site entitled "Nasty Carrot?" that helped me see into how, likely, Carrot was cleverly plotting toward his endgame of being Angua's man.

:::Looks like youall have been going for a while! I won't run out of episodes anytime soon. I started Nation, and I'll finish that on an upcoming dog walk. Thanks!

:::(Oh, and Old Dickens, I'm gonna download Child Ballads. I've *not* heard it, but I will soon!) [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 02:05, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

== ==
You've been busy again! Nice to see something on the screen beside me and the trolls. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:08, 2 November 2024 (UTC)
:It’s amazing how much more free time you can muster when you’ve finished studying! Though teaching is still taking up a lot of my time. Thanks for all your troll-bashing! [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 04:09, 3 November 2024 (UTC)
You seem as busy as I was before the abuse filter. Are they getting around it already? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 05:38, 2 February 2025 (UTC)--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 05:38, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
:No, this is a batch from before it was active that hadn't been cleaned up, as far as I can tell. The only two that have cropped up afterwards have been blocked appropriately. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 05:54, 2 February 2025 (UTC)
:Also worth noting that the abuse filter is currently set up to trigger when a user makes their first edit; there are some spam accounts that seem to have created an account, but not made a user page (e.g. the batch of half a dozen or so from an hour before this conversation). They're usually easy to spot because of the usernames, but they're also probably going to come back to try an edit and get blocked later… -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 06:03, 2 February 2025 (UTC) 
Oh good. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 17:32, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

== Unseen Academicals pod ==
Guybrush, I listened to and enjoyed the Unseen Academicals podcast. You and Liz inspired me to listen to the new audiobook version, and I loved it. *Hearing* the accents did make the book hit differently. (My Fare, Lady?) Thanks! [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 23:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)
:Thanks for listening Moishe! Do you mean the Colin Morgan audiobook, or the audio drama with David Jason? I’ve listened to a bit of the latter; they take a lot more liberties than I’d have expected, and I’m not sure I like all of their choices, but it’s fun all the same! -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 23:14, 23 February 2025 (UTC)
::I listened to the new audio book, the Colin Morgan one. See, I'm American, for my sins, and thus I hear all of Pratchett's characters with American accents. I know that's without question NOT the intent of the author, but that's how my brain works. Love the new release audio books (listening to Thud! now) where the readers make acting choices about the voice for each character. Vimes sounds like the cops on English television cop shows. Of course he does! But he didn't when I *read* the books. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 15:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Deirdre Parsley

2025-02-23T03:50:01Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: ce

Her Grace, Lady Keepsake, Dowager Duchess of Keepsake, near [[The Chalk]], is another ferocious and overbearing harridan in the list of Pratchett characters that includes [[Daphne's Grandmother]] and the plebeian but hardly humble [[Iodine Maccalariat|Miss Maccalariat]]. She is snobbish, demanding, and arrogant, and browbeats everyone around her below the rank of King, including her daughter [[Letitia Keepsake|Letitia]]. Letitia is about to marry the young [[Roland|Baron]] of the Chalk, whom she also tries to browbeat, with less success than usual. Her attempts to subject [[Tiffany Aching]] to her will have strong echoes of [[Lady Felmet]] trying to break the witches of [[Lancre]], with much the same result.

There is a chink in her aristocratic armor, though; [[Eunice Proust|Mrs Proust]], the city witch, recalls her from the days when she was a music-hall dancer in [[Ankh-Morpork]], named '''Deirdre Parsley''', noted for high kicks and kicks in general. The Duchess's manner changes abruptly when Mrs Proust arrives as the prospect of being exposed as a not-at-all respectable showgirl improves her personality markedly. She has told everyone around the hubward plains that her family perished in a terrible fire long ago. This could have been the Great Fire started by [[Broadman]], but we don't really know what became of the Ankh-Morpork Parsleys. This also explains why all the books on heraldry, genealogy and Keepsake family history, that ''should'' by rights have been in the library at [[Keepsake Hall]], have disappeared, she claims, to her rooms, so she can study them more conveniently.

On the other hand, Letitia points out that the reason there are two hundred and fifty servants at Keepsake Hall is that most of them are old and retired, or looking after their elderly predecessors. However severe the Duchess's discipline may have been during their employment, no faithful servant has ever been cast off due to old age or disability. ''Noblesse oblige'' may be pronounced "nobless obligay" in Ankh-Morpork's entertainment district, but it's sometimes understood.

in {{SN}}, we learn she is known to Lady [[Sybil Ramkin]], who, on 'behalf' of the [[Sam Vimes|Duke of Ankh]] (without his knowledge), has accepted a dinner-and-ball invitation to Keepsake Hall at which the Duke will be expected to dress appropriately to his station and office. No doubt, Sybil knows the secret of ''Deirdre Parsely'', but can be expected to be discreetly charitable and behave appropriately to a fellow Duchess. Like Tiffany, the Duke may also be reliably counted on to make telling comments about the way she treats the hired help. Maybe as Commander of the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|AMCW]], with the collective memory of the Watch to draw on, he also knows the secret of Deirdre's origins.

[[Category:Discworld characters|Parsley,Deirdre]]
[[Category:Human characters|Parsley,Deirdre]]
[[Category:Tiffany Series characters|Parsley,Deirdre]]

Deirdre Parsley

2025-02-23T03:47:26Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Oxford Comma Preservation Society

Her Grace, Lady Keepsake, Dowager Duchess of Keepsake, near [[The Chalk]], is another ferocious and overbearing harridan in the list of Pratchett characters that includes [[Daphne's Grandmother]] and the plebeian but hardly humble [[Iodine Maccalariat|Miss Maccalariat]]. She is snobbish, demanding, and arrogant, and browbeats everyone around her below the rank of King, including her daughter [[Letitia Keepsake|Letitia]]. Letitia is about to marry the young [[Roland|Baron]] of the Chalk, whom she also tries to browbeat, with less success than usual. Her attempts to subject [[Tiffany Aching]] to her will have strong echoes of [[Lady Felmet]] trying to break the witches of [[Lancre]], with much the same result.

There is a chink in her aristocratic armor, though; [[Eunice Proust|Mrs Proust]], the city witch, recalls her from the days when she was a music-hall dancer in [[Ankh-Morpork]], named '''Deirdre Parsley''', noted for high kicks and kicks in general. The Duchess's manner changes abruptly when Mrs Proust arrives as the prospect of being exposed as a not-at-all respectable showgirl improves her personality markedly. She has told everyone around the hubward plains that her family perished in a terrible fire long ago. This could have been the Great Fire started by [[Broadman]], but we don't really know what became of the Ankh-Morpork Parsleys. This also explains why all the books on heraldry, genealogy and Keepsake family history, that ''should'' by rights have been in the library at [[Keepsake Hall]], have disappeared, she claims, to her rooms, so she can study them more conveniently.

On the other hand, Letitia points out that the reason there are two hundred and fifty servants at Keepsake Hall is that most of them are old and retired, or looking after their elderly predecessors. However severe the Duchess's discipline may have been during their employment, no faithful servant has ever been cast off due to old age or disability. ''Noblesse oblige'' may be pronounced "nobless obligay" in Ankh-Morpork's entertainment district, but it's sometimes understood.

in {{SN}}, we learn she is known to Lady [[Sybil Ramkin]], who, on 'behalf' of the [[Sam Vimes|Duke of Ankh]] (without his knowledge), has accepted a dinner-and-ball invitation to Keepsake Hall at which the Duke will be expected to dress appropriately to his station and office. No doubt, Sybil knows the secret of ''Deirdre Parsely'', but can be expected to be discreetly charitable and behave appropriately to a fellow Duchess. Like Tiffany, the Duke may also be reliably counted on to make telling comment about the way she treats the hired help. Maybe as Commander of the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|AMCW]], with the collective memory of the Watch to draw on, he also knows the secret of Deirdre's origins.

[[Category:Discworld characters|Parsley,Deirdre]]
[[Category:Human characters|Parsley,Deirdre]]
[[Category:Tiffany Series characters|Parsley,Deirdre]]

Talk:Sharn

2025-02-19T01:31:39Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Madam Sharn is a Queen

Assigning sexes to Dwarves, and Dwarf sexuality in general, has always been tricky. When we encounter a Dwarf/Human couple, both of whom are quite ambiguous, we have new problems. Pepe seems to be male: he refers to himself before his conversion to Dwarf as a "Lobbin Clout boy", and other indications point to a male homosexual. What do we make of "Madame" Sharn, then? "She" says that she is the King in her "mine" and she decrees that she is Queen. "Queen", of course, carries extra meanings. On the other hand, Pepe puts aside the camp persona when off-stage; is the orientation itself a pose? Why then does he mention being beaten up a lot in his youth?

On page 160 in my first reading I made a note asking if Sharn were male, then discounted the idea when no confirmation emerged. I now return to the hypothesis as the most reasonable of an eye-watering array of options. Can anyone assemble a better argument for another version? . [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 18:02, 1 Nov 2009

:This is interesting. I've always suspected that the "arrangement" between adult dwarves, when it comes to marriage, would in fact be a positive inducement for gay and lesbian Dwarfs to have long happy relationships. Who would know, for one thing, apart from the concerned Dwarfs themselves? And given that ninety per cent of a Dwarf courtship consists of trying to discreetly and subtly discover what gender the other Dwarf is under the chainmail and the beard... well, accidents must happen. And in a race even whose human member (Carrot) is notoriously prudish and hung-up on matters sexual, perhaps a lot of newly-married Dwarfs don't even realise they're in same-sex relationships and take it to be perfectly unremarkable that they each have the same set of genitals. They make the best of it, maybe? (As Tolkein said, ''the kind of the Dwarves grows only slowly''...)

:And on Roundworld, take a gay man, who for whatever reason cannot come out of the closet, who enters into a marriage of convenience with a woman as an attempt to present a heterosexual face to the world and divert attention (there are some, and they're not all Tory MP's). The face-saving, attention-diverting, wife or girlfriend of the closet gay is commonly nicknamed a '''''beard'''''... --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 20:34, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Pepe, though, is the anti-Carrot, somewhere beyond Giamo Casanunda in general deviance from classical Dwarfishness. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 21:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

::I read Pepe as a genuinely gay human male (although possibly short) who's escaped the Crab Bucket through drink and expressing his homosexuality so overtly that people ignore him - a bit like funny loony monks, beggars or even Death: he is granted immunity by being too obvious. I don't think he does drop the persona "off-stage", it's just that the ''outre'' campness is in abeyance when talking to those he trusts. Being gay is one thing - having no other life or ''raison d'etre'' than ''being'' gay must be terribly wearying. We all know people who, if they weren't gay, would have nothing else to be. Pepe is far more than this.

::I do find his final act odd though - although deeply satisfying to the reader. Someone so at ease with themselves is unlikely to be so desperately angry still at his past experience. In my experience, people either wear their previously-borne slings and arrows with pride or gratitude that it's made them who they are.--[[User:Knmatt|Knmatt]] 09:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
You meet a kinder, gentler class of people than I do, in fact or fiction. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 00:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
There would be also a class who would try to improve the prospect for others and discourage the abusers, even while espousing the sentiments above. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:26, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Thirteen years later, no conclusion on the initial question. Was that The Author's intention? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:30, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
:Pratchett is on record describing Pepe, at least, as "as gay as a tree full of monkeys", so I think that makes his intent pretty clear? See [https://youtu.be/SG8xh9q1jBc?t=973 this recorded public interview from 2014] (I've linked to the start of the question where he says this). -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 06:43, 29 January 2023 (UTC)
As mentioned initially, Pepe is pretty obviously male; the question was about Sharn. I suspect that The Author was playing silly buggers again and we're not supposed to know. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:03, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
::I came here after listening to Guybrush's podcast on UA, plus having listened to the new audio version. I was going to write, essentially, what Old Dickens wrote at the top of this page. He said it much more eloquently than I could, and in 2009, even. I likewise come to the quote about her being King and declaring herself "Queen", dressing up in female clothing. I read this as a male dwarf choosing to use a female persona. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Stinky

2025-02-18T01:55:50Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: I *think* it's not a stub, but now I've read this talk page...

I'm curious: how come a paragraph of informatory material has been completely replaced by another? What was actually wrong with the original? Is there a house rule here that has been violated by the original? Just curious, in case I feel the need to contribute more comprehensively. --[[User:Prime.mover|that's wot I '''sed''' ...]] ([[User talk:Prime.mover|talk]]) 08:48, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
:That's pretty much what I was wondering. I haven't worked up to replacing the deletions yet; feel free yourself, of course. What's left of the article may be improved, but useful bits have just been trashed. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:30, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
::How's that? --[[User:Prime.mover|that's wot I '''sed''' ...]] ([[User talk:Prime.mover|talk]]) 06:08, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
:Fine by me. It seems to need the ''Stub'' until someone can come up with a coherent explanation for his supernatural quality. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:08, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
::Ah. Just saw this talk page comment. I agree there's supernatural thingies involved here; I don't see explanations in the canon. I guess I'd still call this a reasonable article for a minor character, at least reasonable enough not to call it a stub. But I will not argue, complain, or even send a meaningful Glance in the direction of anyone who puts the stub tag back in! :-) [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Stinky

2025-02-18T01:48:39Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Not a stub! Pretty thorough for a minor character.

{{Character Data
|photo=Blank.jpg|
|name=Stinky
|race=[[Goblin]]
|age= unknown
|occupation=Watchman, Clacks Operator, Petty Thief
|appearance= Small and slightly hobbled from a badly set broken leg
|residence=
|death=
|parents=
|relatives=
|children=
|marital status=
|books=[[Snuff]]
|cameos=
}}

'''Stinky''' is one of the [[Goblins]] in the City Watch novel {{SN}}. He is first seen on the property of Constable [[Feeney Upshot]] after the arrest of [[Sam Vimes]] in connection with the suspected murder of [[Jethro Jefferson]]. Stinky was the first to ask the watchmen for "JUST-ICE!"

There are definite hints that there's more to Stinky than meets the eye; he knows things he couldn't possibly know, and alludes to being a protector of sorts for the Goblin race in general. He shows extreme resilience to physical damage, surviving what should have been a fatal injury at the hands (well, feet) of the infamous [[Stratford]], by whom he was crushed underfoot and supposedly killed.

He is also at one point made a probationary special constable of the Shire Watch, and is the first Goblin watchman on the Disc and then becomes an operator of the newly erected [[clacks]] tower. While he does not know how to read, he is quick to learn the letters by their shapes. His ability to communicate with animals gives him the skills of a horse whisperer. When Sam Vimes — with reluctance bordering on fear — needs to mount a fast horse to chase after the murderer, Stinky calms the horse and gets it to kneel for Vimes to straddle it with ease.

===His name===

His name comes from his absolute stink. Sam Vimes noted that it wasn't so much a smell as a sensation of your dental enamel evaporating. 

He is one of very few known Goblins to accept a soubriquet; most goblins consider their full names a sign of honour, with short names suggesting a goblin who has been dishonoured in some manner. The short name would be useful while interacting with Humans (as in an emergency situation as a Watchman) but, uniquely, he doesn't have (as far as we know) the more elaborate poetic name typical of Goblins.

[[Category:Discworld characters]]
[[Category:Goblins]]
[[de:Stinky]]

User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum

2025-02-17T13:35:08Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* The prodigal returneth */ yup, November

User talk:Old Dickens

2025-02-17T01:37:52Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Haven't seen so much SEO for years! */

'''For discussion from the previous era, see''' [[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:User talk:Old Dickens/Archive 1]]

==(Here begins a new administration)==
You should be able to delete users now by going to the users page and selecting the Delete tab from the dropdown in the upper right. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 18:24, 5 November 2012 (PST)
:Kowabunga! --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:29, 5 November 2012 (PST)...but I can't: I don't see the dropdown either in the '''User''''s page or in the '''User list'''. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:48, 5 November 2012 (PST)
::Try Again. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 19:05, 5 November 2012 (PST)
:::Aha. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 14:40, 6 November 2012 (PST)

== Interesting event ==

WikiShaper334 - I can't fathom this one out either.... on the face of it a legitimate entry, which is why the user remains, for now, unmerged. But the entry itself is fairly banal and unoriginal; the sort of thing that can be quickly deduced from a skimming of the rest of the article. The thought has occured to me that this could be a new tactic from somebody behind the spambots, to establish a legitimate presence here that will enable them to launch new spam attacks through the opening. Or am I being paranoid? I did a bit of Googling and a''traffic shaper'' is apparently a person, or automated software, seeking to order traffic onto a website so as to manipulate data - one use is to bump preferred links up a search engine. "Link-shaping" or "link-blogging" specifically targets blogs and Wikis so as to insert links that push favoured sites up a search engine listing. And adding a number after the name.... could be coincidence. But how can we prove or rule this out for certain? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 20:01, 3 February 2013 (GMT)
:Of course we can't, just now. It's hard to believe an SEO parasite keen enough to go through that, but also hard to believe the username. Either we'll delete him when he gets down to business or he'll fade away. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 20:31, 3 February 2013 (GMT)

00:14 GMT. Is it me, or have we had no spammers since 17:21 - nearly nine hours ago. I don't like it, sergeant. It's far too quiet. They're up to something out there...[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 00:16, 4 February 2013 (GMT)
:They will come in bunches, but then Osiris could be tinkering... --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:21, 4 February 2013 (GMT)
::(The next one arrived two hours later. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:07, 4 February 2013 (GMT))
:::I'm tinkering.... I put in a blacklist of words and phrases. For example, try to make an edit using that Justin guy's last name and you'll see it's not allowed. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 05:16, 4 February 2013 (GMT)
::::Is there a way to make it so that known users can use the blacklisted words/know what they are?--[[User:Zdm|Zdm]] ([[User talk:Zdm|talk]]) 06:01, 4 February 2013 (GMT)
:::::when you hit one it tells you what it was. It's based upon this example though. [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgSpamRegex $wgSpamRegex]

==Re: Johnny Maxwell==
Oh, sorry. Should I get rid of it? [[User:Drakon467|Drakon467]] ([[User talk:Drakon467|talk]]) 16:57, 13 May 2013 (GMT)
:I did already. Twice, actually. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:33, 13 May 2013 (GMT)
I've replaced it with a less guesswork-dependant one. Is it okay this time? [[User:Drakon467|Drakon467]] ([[User talk:Drakon467|talk]]) 18:39, 2 July 2013 (GMT)

Thanks. Rest assured, Yo-less definitely did say it. Of course, this being a Terry Pratchett book, it lost under accusations of Satanism and how Yo-less's mother wouldn't approve. [[User:Drakon467|Drakon467]] ([[User talk:Drakon467|talk]]) 05:37, 3 July 2013 (GMT)

==Junk page==

Apologies if there is a better place for this, but this seems a bit out of place. [[Girls Dont Abide By The Rules]]. I did try blanking it, but alas I can't make it disappear. [[User:Aldibibable|Aldibibable]] ([[User talk:Aldibibable|talk]]) 22:53, 31 May 2013 (GMT)

== Create page permissions ==
There seems to be an issue with permissions regarding creating pages as I don't seem to have that option today. Yesterday I had the option but not today. Is there an issue with permissions? Is it just me being a newbie here or are there times when things work only when they feel like it? It seems quite sporadic and most peculiar. --{{User:CelticWanderer/autosig}} 22:48, 8 June 2013 (GMT)
:I've also had trouble with permissions for the last few days, as I mentioned in the [[Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum#I'm locked out!|Mended Drum]]. Have you tried going back and trying again? I've found that the error messages aren't necessarily final. Otherwise you'd have to ask the [[User talk:Osiris|man behind the curtain]]. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:28, 8 June 2013 (GMT)
::I noticed your comment the other day. Yes, I have tried several times but with no luck. When trying to create an additional user subpage I get the generic response: <pre>There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page.</pre>
::Yesterday, it didn't say this. When trying to create a page in the main namespace there's no create page tab and I get the generic search response when there are no results: <pre>There were no results matching the query.</pre>
::A curious case that I hope is resolved soon. Out of curiosity what roles do the different admins serve on this site just so I know for future reference? --{{User:CelticWanderer/autosig}} 23:44, 8 June 2013 (GMT)
:[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] is the owner/operator, I'm the ''Editor Quia Nemo Vult'' (housekeeper?) and [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] has been the major content provider for many years. (Also, your sig really fills up the edit box!) --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:56, 9 June 2013 (GMT)
::Ok, thanks. I was curious as you are shown as the creator in the active user list. Regarding the signature, methinks that is a hint to change it. I actually still need to create another sig page for transclusion that should fix this but I still can't create new pages. If it doesn't work when the permissions are fixed I will change the signature if you prefer. --{{User:CelticWanderer/autosig}} 08:34, 9 June 2013 (GMT)
:::[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] changed the permissions for me so now everything seems to be working at the moment. Also, I have changed my signature, takes up less much space in the editor and made it less distracting. --{{User:CelticWanderer/sig}} 21:58, 9 June 2013 (GMT)

==Mass Deletions - a double-edged sword==
There's got to be a better way... I'm ashamed to say while I've deleted a thousand spam accounts, two legitimate users have been deleted in error too, in the last week. And in the last month three thousand spam accounts have been created and are yet to be dealt with. That error rate is just too high (I've left fulsome apologies where I hope they'll be seen. Wish I had their email addresses so I could apologise in person. are these stored anywhere?) While I've cleared out all the spam accounts beginning with "A" and a good few of the "B"'s - as well as routine demolition of new ones as they pop up - I'm now hideously aware that mistakes will inevitably happen and I do not want to make any more. So tonight I've just identified a few known legitimate users who still have to make an entry on their user pages and left temporary messages there, so they show up blue in the user list and are less likely to be deleted in error. but there has to be a better way around this. Otherwise I'd keep on zapping through the B's...
:It ain't that bad, really. [[User:Sharlee|Sharlee]] figured it out immediately; if [[User:Aldibibable|Aldibibable]] is also on Wikipedia he(?) is probably capable too. Generally, though, I'd rather prod [[User:Osiris|Osiris]] (after a decent interval to recover from his shock) to execute his script to remove all the dormant accounts at computer speed. A problem with your valiant efforts at doing it manually is that the rest of us (especially me) can't see what else has happened in "Recent changes", even at 500 lines. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:37, 22 June 2013 (GMT)

== List of Characters ==

Not done, just for the day. Can change back if need be, have saved original on my computer. [[User:Rictus|Rictus]]

==Finally...==
Enjoy! I'll try not to post too many jaw-dropping spoilers.[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 23:10, 14 November 2013 (GMT)

== User: Netterku, possible spammer ==

Please check out User:Netterku, as I suspect he may be a spammer who has got through the net. Inept, as it's in Indonesian, which I speak as fluently as Vimes speaks Dwarfish (in fact, Vimes is native fluent compared to me). But interesting, in that the spamming sems to be arranged differently and not to the old well-known pattern. If you agree, and the user has not responded to my yellow card warning, shall we block? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 08:26, 25 November 2013 (GMT)
:No need for discussion: I did. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 22:41, 25 November 2013 (GMT)

== User:AgustinSnider‎; ==

[[User:AgustinSnider]]‎;Spambot? Noted this user made an account on 31st August but has only "introduced themself" now. The wording of the introduction is also horribly familiar, although the declared location checks out. But no actual spam, as yet? Shall I delete, or will you? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 10:11, 6 December 2013 (GMT)
:Yes, I seemed to remember the "Agustin" and the mismatched name and poor spelling are depressingly familiar, but I don't see actual grounds for merging. Inquire, if you like, but it can wait for an actual offence. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 14:42, 6 December 2013 (GMT)
::offense committed. Goodbye! --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:00, 9 December 2013 (GMT)
:::Good shot,sir! --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:39, 10 December 2013 (GMT)

== Mine's a Boy ==

Congratulations to you and your family. Mine's a boy and he's coming today! Don't expect to see me much for a while. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 12:14, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
:Good on ya, mate (or more so the wife)! No, you'll be busy for a few years as I recall. I hope we can raise you in an emergency. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 13:53, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

== BS, regarding your userpage post... ==
Old Dickens, thanks for the Independence Day wishes from this American. I'm hoping that recent developments in GB remind American rationalists not to take anything for granted re the man with Orange Hair.

On that note, a few days ago Rhianna Pratchett retweeted someone's suggestion to her that henceforth, in honor of Terry, Boris Johnson shall be known as "Bloody Stupid" Johnson. -- [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 22:54, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
:Hee Hee. I should have thought of that one myself. Good luck in November; we're at least as interested as the Mexicans here in the Great White North. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 00:43, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

== Reply from new user Wonderful Fanny ==
Thank you, Old Dickens. I will learn to avoid becoming historical. I do not see how to remove a page, but Ramkin House may be deleted. Before adding the page, I did look for Ramkin House under the Locations page listed in the Navigation bar to the left, but I didn't see it there. I now know that this is not the same page as your footer category link Locations, where Ramkin Residence is clearly listed, and which I found much easier to use. The two different locations pages are confusing. Anyway, I have added a few points to Ramkin Residence, as you suggested. I also edited the {{SN}} section on ACCOoDD, to clarify.

== Article on The Keep? ==
Hey, Old Dickens... hope you and Canada are doing well. I just reread (okay, re-listened-to) Monstrous Regiment, and I don’t see an article on The Keep in here. I’m ready to write something up, but first I want to be sure I’m not missing the article under a different title; and also to ask your opinion on what the title of that article should be. “The Keep”? “The Borogravian Keep”? “Keep”? Thanks! [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 13:24, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
:I see no article or even link to the Keep. An officer refers to it at one point as "Kneck Keep", which sounds useful although a redirect or two would be wanted in any case. A problem with audio books is bookmarking or searching or generally finding anything in particular. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:30, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

== Hello! ==

Hello. I'm here for anti-vandalism work. Do you have the ability to make me an admin here? I'm pretty sure that you have bureaucrat privelleges. My main goal around here is to ensure that this wiki is what it should be, a user-made encyclopedia, and not a playground for vandals. --'''[[User:DCool1|DCool1]]''' ([[User talk:DCool1|Talk to me!]]) 15:18, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

== Novelpedia ==
Hello, Old Dickens! I am starting a new wiki project called Novelpedia. Novelpedia will become the largest encyclopedia in the world because there are more books in the world than of all Wikipedia articles. There are actually over 129,864,880 books, that means 129,864,880 articles. http://editthis.info/novelpedia. There will also be [[Terry Pratchett]] novels too. --'''[[User:Yoshi|Yoshi]]''' ([[User talk:Yoshi|Talk to me!]]) 10:39, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
:Very ambitious, but still irrelevant here. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:01, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

== Help! ==

I want to die. I have had too much for 20 years and I have had enough. It is my time to go. --'''[[User:Yoshi|Yoshi]]''' ([[User talk:Yoshi|Talk to me!]]) 14:31, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

== Morporxit? ==

Terry would have Something to Say about current events, no doubt. But in his putative novel, one could rest assured that the Patrician would be hiding somewhere, and the reader knew he’d make BS Johnson look stupid while he calmly took power back. I don’t see Vetinari or anyone rescuing Britain. Or America, for that matter. :-( [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 21:59, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
:No, I don't see any Vetinari there either. Stephen Fry, of course, should be in charge, but he's not even trying1, it seems. Probably they'll have to rely on their older skill: muddling through. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:24, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
:1 ''Well, he can be very trying; another problem in politics.'' --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:22, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

:The situation also calls for comment from our UK correspondent [[User:AgProv|AgProv]], but he hasn't been heard from for seven months: not dead, I see, but {{Death|gone}}

== Category pages to delete ==

Thanks for cleaning up those two categories. You may also want to delete the (currently 5) ones on [[Special:UnusedCategories]]. [[User:JesseW|JesseW]] ([[User talk:JesseW|talk]]) 03:28, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

== Willing to help ==
Hi, Old Dickens... got your email. So, I'm happy to help out any way I can. You need another administrator, I'm willing to step up if you need me. I do look at recent changes most days; thing is, I'd need some help figuring out the details of the janitorial end of a wiki. I do edit wikipedia sporadically, but I'm not at all familiar with how blocking, moving pages, dealing with vandalism, etc. works. Willing to learn. Let me know what you think![[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello Old Dickens, thank you very much for your offer. If you are still looking for people to help I would be glad to and willing to learn how to further edit the wiki environment. Looking forward to your reply. ([[User:Jagra|Jagra]] ([[User talk:Jagra|talk]]) 16:05, 22 January 2022 (UTC))

== Haven't seen so much SEO for years! ==

Guess it's time for an upgrade :( --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 03:28, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
: Well the wiki is updated... wonder what's going on. I'm working on it --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 15:29, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
:: Switched Captcha for the moment. --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 16:29, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
::: I am a normal user attempting to edit.... --[[User:Osiris-normal|Osiris-normal]] ([[User talk:Osiris-normal|talk]]) 16:33, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Let's hope. My gods, the last legitimate account created was in Dec '23! --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC) 
What if these SEO spammers start using AI? ? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:35, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi, Old Dickens! I've been looking in a bunch recently, and you've nabbed the spammers pretty quickly. Looks like they're always in about 4-6pm my time. My question for you: The last few days there've been more accounts registered than you blocked. Makes sense - it doesn't look like the unblocked ones created anything. But then, I don't see the creation of the spam pages, either. I can only see them if I look at the deletion log. I just want to verify that I'll see the userpage spam in recent changes if it happens while you're away... or do I have to go somewhere else to see the spam? Thanks for being on top of these folks. And while I'm not nearly as fast as you, I'm on it if you take a few days off. :-) [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 15:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
:They appear as any other page until someone deletes them. Times vary, but usually from the East Asian time zone. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:21, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I've been away... but glad to be back, and glad to see you've been manning the barricades against the orks. Must have been a herculean task keeping the place from being overrun. Thank you![[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

User talk:Guybrush

2025-02-16T23:07:57Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* */ UA pod thanks

Discworld & Pratchett Wiki:Mended Drum

2025-02-16T23:02:31Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Spambot update */ Thank you, Guybrush, and all...

'''This is a location to discuss non-content matters (what do we do with content disputes, vandalism, etc, what do we want to do with this wiki, and so on).'''

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==AI content and fan project promotion==
So we have a new contributor (hello [[User:DugBride|DugBride]] if you’re reading this) who is adding AI-generated images to pages without images, and attributing them to their fan project, [https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3162903/oath-stories-discworld/page/1 a Discworld “re-skin” of the board game ''Oath'']. Which means the time has come for us to have a policy about AI-generated content. As a writer, actor, teacher, podcaster and more, every facet of my life is currently being made worse or at best more complicated by diffusion model images and large language model text, so I’m not a fan. But I recognise that’s not necessarily a majority opinion. So: what do we think? I don’t think we want AI text here at all, and at a bare minimum I want art to be clearly attributed to the model that created it. I would prefer hand-drawn fan art for character and item art, and I confess I am not a fan of some of the images uploaded so far, but again I recognise that’s a preference. But I am also not in favour of the wiki being filled up with images that promote a fan project, even if it is one I’m interested in. (This is why I have limited mention of my own podcast here, and started my own wiki for the detail I wanted to share.) What do you folks think? -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 22:48, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'm not a fan either, of course, and I would certainly ban AI-generated text, except how would you recognise it? Images are more difficult. What if the image were created in an old-fashioned (two years ago?) drawing program? What about photographs? I expect you know a lot more about the process than I; what if the AI is just used to smooth out an original drawing or color it, or...? Enforcement seems to be the hardest part. Other ideas, anyone? [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:37, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
I’m not proposing we get too draconian about it, but having an official policy (or as close to official as we get) is enough to get us started. If folks want to ignore the rules and do it anyway, we can address that if necessary. I would just like us to be clear about whether we want images created by a diffusion model - which is to say, a generative AI like MidJourney or Dall-E which takes a text prompt and then creates an image based on analysis of training images (many used without permission) and associated descriptions. If someone makes art themselves and includes some kind of computer assistance in their process, I am not that fussed, just as I don’t mind if someone has a chat with ChatGPT to get inspiration for the fanfic they then go on to write. But the kind of thing created just by prompting an algorithm seems rather against the fandom spirit of L-Space, to me; fandom involves community, and that means if you need art for a project, you talk to other fans and find fan artists who are willing to help. An example policy might be something like: “This wiki does not permit the use of content created wholly or primarily by generative AI systems, including large language and diffusion models for text or art. All text added should be the work of the contributor; any art uploaded should be done so only with permission, and attributed to the creator.” -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 08:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

::Hi there thanks for the welcome and open discussion I was aware both issues you have raised were contentious which is why I messaged [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] direct before touching a page to get the go ahead to open this can of worms. I don't know how the back end of these things work so had to feel my way and have learned a fair bit in the past couple of days. Including where you talk about these things. Here is where I am at...I would say if you don't like AI content then don't allow any AI content, if it is uploaded but then attributed to the model then I think you would be promoting it and will get a lot more. It has been surprisingly easy for me as a first time user to access and upload images seemingly without any gatekeeping, I am sure you already have safeguards against this but you may want to relook at those if you are hoping people will act in good faith. As for the project promotion, I agree it's a bit too much and if it's OK I will remove all references just leave the link in in my profile. Following the example set by [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]]. I will of course not add any more pics but, it might be best if the current images stay while you make your decision, a picture tells a 1000 words even if those words are “we don't want these pictures” if then they are removed you may have to do it because although I can remove the page code, I have no idea how to delete uploaded files. Ironically I have been using both this reference and [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]]’s podcast regularly without knowing they are connected for the last few months to get up to speed on Discworld, it took me all my life to read most of the books and so I have had to take shortcuts to work on the project references. I have a lot of respect for both sources and wouldn't want to cause any trouble. If the images are unwelcome then I doubt I will have much to add as a contributor, there are a few unanswered questions when doing my research that I might be able to offer something on; Holy horns gesture? Guild Weathervanes? But you seem to have a lot covered and I have my own shed to be working in, maybe further down the road if you need some help administrating incoming imagery then I can help, although my field is Digital Imagery I am no artist and no expert in spotting deep fakes either. Finally I am thrilled you have both looked at my work in progress even if your not fans, I appreciate discerning feedback but happy to keep in my shed for now where I can choose how long Carrot has grown his hair. [[User:DugBride|DugBride]] 11:44, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
Hey DugBride - I might not be a fan of the art, or even ''Oath'', but your project is pretty amazing! And we do have a [[Fandom]] page where you could list it, at the very least. I want to thank you for engaging in this discussion in generous good faith, too. I’m not interested in having to police images really, but I think if we have a policy and find the right place to get it in front of users then that should be enough - I’m not expecting a torrent of diffusion model generated Discworld characters any time soon! — [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 20:10, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
:I'd go along with Guybrush's policy statement, above, now, where does it go? I wouldn't like a big banner of "don'ts" on the front page, but if it's in "About", or Help:Editing nobody will read it. Help:Editing is already noted at the top of every editing page, so I guess we could say ignorance of the law is no excuse. I have to defer to Guybrush on interpretation of what's too much AI; I don't suppose it's possible to credit the source in an AI image when there might be dozens. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
::I think on image upload I had to tick a box marked "this is my own work" If it had said this is my own work and not AI generated I would have halted at that point. Apologies for the multi edits; still learning. --[[User:DugBride|DugBride]] ([[User talk:DugBride|talk]]) 12:33, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
This is a pretty good idea. What if we create a policies page (it could also include guidelines on annotations etc) and then link to that from the upload page? We can probably change the language on the upload page itself, too. And to be honest ownership is part of the problem; at the moment the ownership of generated images is murky at best, and it’s certainly unclear who owns copyright. So that does seem like the right place to put it. — [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 20:10, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
On the subject of “how much AI is too much AI” I don’t think that’s a big problem; right now the thing we don’t want are wholly generated images - things created by diffusion models and similar tools, stuff like MidJourney or Dall-E, which create an image for you based on a text prompt. We don’t need to worry about folks using “AI” tools when making digital fan art (anything vaguely automated is being misleadingly lLabelled “AI” At the moment, even when many of those technologies already existed under other more sensible names). Perhaps we just need a clarifying clause on the “your own artwork” covering that it has to be yours, used with permission, allowed by copyright law and attributable to a person. I think it will also help to include in our art policy that as a fan project we want to showcase fan artists; you are welcome to use whatever you like to make art for yourself or or your own projects, but here we want to showcase human-drawn (etc) fan art. And as a longer term solution, perhaps I can do some call-outs in other fan spaces asking if folks have character and location fan art they’d be happy for us to use on the wiki for articles which lack images? — [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 20:24, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
:I second all that, except that the '''Upload file''' page is for images and doesn't relate to annotations; also it's a "special page" and Osiris would have to modify it. '''Help:editing''' is already linked from editing pages. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:19, 14 December 2023 (UTC) 
:[[User:DugBride|DugBride]] has removed his contributions. I'm of two minds on this; I have despised computer-generated pop music for many years now and I would prefer hand-made art or clever photographs, ''but'' we've begged for illustration for years and some of what we have isn't very good. I wish we could have more as useful as PetuliaGristle.jpg for example. Are these opposite and irreconcilable viewpoints? [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:17, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
:: Missed one, just removed Detritus from the page this morning, like I said I can't do much about the images I uploaded as it won't let me delete the copy on the server. I sympathise with your issue, there are significant characters and locations without graphical representation. The AI works for me as I have to produce 250 images for a very small audience on zero budget, and I am more keen on design and mechanics than artistry. I don't think its as vital a part of your offering. Its possible that in the new year I will take [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]]'s advise and reach out to some of the fan-artists to see if they want to help my project but only when I have something significant to demonstrate. I'll be happy to mention the gaps here that need filling, but it sounds like you have already been down that road. --[[User:DugBride|DugBride]] ([[User talk:DugBride|talk]]) 12:00, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
:::Hi, all, sorry I'm late to the discussion... boarding school at Hogswatch is a time sink. Anyway, y'all have said pretty much everything I would have, so all I'll do here is lend one more voice in support of Guybrush's suggestion, ''This wiki does not permit the use of content created wholly or primarily by generative AI systems, including large language and diffusion models for text or art. All text added should be the work of the contributor; any art uploaded should be done so only with permission, and attributed to the creator.'' I don't think we need to do much more in terms of advertising or enforcement, as long as we have something like this clearly stated somewhere. People don't necessarily read rules before editing. If we find someone using ChatGPT to make articles, we politely ask them to stop, and can point them to the statement if they wonder whether the polite ask has community consensus behind it. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:01, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
:Have you watched ''The Holdovers''? [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:30, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
::I haven't, but I just read about the movie... boarding schools are (for the most part) very, very different places in 2023 than they were in 1970. Yet, the popular perception of class privilege and influence lives on in the zeitgeist. My school doesn't allow students to remain on campus over Christmas break. The ones for whom getting home would be prohibitive - usually just a few folks from overseas - generally stay with friends. We have a faculty member who helps coordinate such stays if students need help. My family hosted several of my son's friends, who were from China and Vietnam, on occasion.

::Okay, in spring 2020 most of our international students remained on campus, and I was one of many faculty who volunteered to chaperone / entertain them. That's a very different story, with very different cultural context, to what I read about The Holdovers. <smile>

==Atom==
Clicking '''Atom''' in the sidebar bar produces the message: "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.", followed by pages of XML gibberish. Not widely useful. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:34, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
:The Atom link is only visible in Recent Changes, your Watchlist or the history of a specific page, and generates an RSS feed (in [[wikipedia:Atom (web standard)|Atom format]]) from entries in that list using XML which is (hypothetically) useful for other apps or websites to read. The main use case I’ve seen for that recently is a Discord bot which posts recent changes to a specific text channel, but generally speaking RSS has fallen from favour for most uses except podcasting. The Atom feed option is built in to MediaWiki so we can’t remove it by [[mediawiki:Sidebar|editing the sidebar menu]], but probably there’s an option to disable it in the config file if we really want to. (FYI I don’t get the error you mentioned, though I did get a different one trying to view the feed for my Watchlist that suggests we might have an out of date extension somewhere?) — [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 12:29, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

==Spamagain==
Suddenly, the SEOs are back! [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:Might be time to turn on new account approval? I run a plugin for that on my wiki, works pretty well. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 09:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
::May I ask the name of the plugin you use? I wanted to switch to Turnstyle captcha but that isn't in the stable release of Mediawiki yet --[[User:Osiris|Osiris]] ([[User talk:Osiris|talk]]) 04:02, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
:I use [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmAccount Confirm User Accounts]. I get a little spam (I just checked and there were three junk requests) but they doesn’t slow down the wiki or result in any vandalism. It has a “Spam” response which doesn’t send an email to the requester. The main downsides are that you have to respond to each request individually, and it does throw a couple of error messages, though nothing serious. (I’m currently running MediaWiki 1.40.1 and Confirm User Accounts 224079f.) It might not be the best available! -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 07:44, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Twenty-five at once is getting back to the bad old days! [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:01, 1 August 2024 (UTC) 
Forty-three so far today, almost all from the same source. I wonder what the "human not bot" filter does. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 16:25, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It's getting to be a bit much, and for extra annoyance, when I'm logged in I can't see any but the most recent deletions. If I log out, I can see that the spammers I've just deleted still show, but I can't do anything with them. Fortunately, they don't seem to be active but they still show in Recent changes. Can AI-assisted bots now defeat any captcha? , [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:27, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The Chicago insurance agent is getting really tiresome. It can do fifteen at once all day and night, apparently automated. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

:Any word on user account approval, [[User:Osiris|Osiris]]? -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 05:37, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

The log in procedure seems to have changed and there's a pause in vandalism. Will it last? [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 05:41, 14 November 2024 (UTC)...no, they're back. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 05:23, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

== Independent Wiki Federation? ==
I think we'd be a prime candidate for membership in the [https://indiewikifederation.org/ Independent Wiki Federation], which might be a nice way to attract some additional contributors and mods. They also have a very friendly Discord full of very knowledgeable folk who specialise in MediaWiki and might be able to help us solve our spam woes. What do we reckon? Doesn't cost us anything, and it would link us to a bigger community. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 07:29, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:I don't see why not, but I suppose [[User:Osiris|Osiris]] would have to apply. (I wouldn't even know where to find the org-application channel.) [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 18:24, 24 November 2024 (UTC)
:: I’m happy to do the paperwork, as it were, but only if we have consensus here that we want to do it. In any case I’m on the Discord and I’ll ask for some advice about dealing with spam account creation. It’s really gotten out of hand. — [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 21:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
:Indeed. (No opinion from [[User:Osiris|headquarters]].) [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:41, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

==More trolls==
Well, today must be the worst ever. Over a hundred.surely. (The counter doesn't even try to keep track.) [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:40, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
:The CAPTCHA isn’t doing anything to slow them down; I’ve finally got around to asking for suggestions from the IWF (as mentioned above; it got away from me.) I’ll report when I hear anything! -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 05:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

== New art process? ==
I’ve been keeping an eye out on Reddit and other social media for Discworld fan art to help provide pictures of various characters. I recently asked one if they’d like to join - and they did! Welcome [[User:HeiryProblems|HeiryProblems]]. They don’t have wiki experience so I’ve been helping them get started, but so far the art they’ve done is for characters who have existing art. Should we update the art? Add a gallery section for characters to showcase more than one bit of fan art? Not sure what the best step there is. (I’ve helped [[User:HeiryProblems|HeiryProblems]] with a gallery of works on their user page, so you can see some there.) -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 05:49, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

:I don't see any upgrades in illustrations there (too cartoonish}, Add a gallery section of illustrations maybe, or a fan art section? [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 05:59, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

== Suggestions for stopping the SEO spambots ==
I asked at the IWF, and was recommended a few different MediaWiki extensions: [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit ConfirmEdit] (which we do have installed), [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:HoneyPot HoneyPot] (which we don't) and [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:QuestyCaptcha QuestyCaptcha] (now part of ComfirmEdit), which adds questions users have to answer when submitting an edit - something I think we have or had on this Wiki, for new users at least? One of the admins and founders of IWF specifically recommended AbuseFilter (which we do have installed) and supplied the list of keywords he uses which he says works very well to stop nearly all spam on his wikis. I see I have permission to add new filters to AbuseFilter, so I'm going to give this a try. The same person also recommended that as a last ditch option we could try deactivating open account creation completely for a week or so. The bots will find themselves unable to do their thing, and eventually take us off their lists of places to try. We don't get a lot of legit new users so this ought to be okay, and if anyone asks during that period we admins should be able to manually make them an account. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 23:42, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
:Oh, almost forgot - they also recommended the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:UserMerge UserMerge] extension as a way to delete multiple users at once, basically by merging a bunch of spambot accounts into one, then deleting the one that's left. We already have this one installed, too, so worth a look? -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 23:56, 28 January 2025 (UTC)
::Yes, we used Questy for a while and we had Merge for a while, which I enjoyed. I've thought before that we could handle manual approval of new users but I don't know how difficult it might be to set up. I've been wondering if any captcha can defeat AI-enhanced bots. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 02:27, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
:::CAPTCHA, no - but the new filter in AbuseFilter seems to be working, it's already caught and auto-blocked one spambot from the tail end of the burst we got around the time I added the rule. The real test will be the next big influx, but I feel optimistic that it'll catch and block those accounts while also preventing them from creating those pages. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 04:59, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

== Spambot update ==
Things are mostly looking good on this front!
* The new AbuseFilter rule is working, [[Special:AbuseLog|and only seems to be blocking spambots]]. So hopefully our spambot problem is solved!
* We still have a large number of spambot accounts that flew under our radar before this. They’re pretty easy to identify via the [[Special:ActiveUsers|list of active users]], though - they’re only in the list because the account was recently created, and they either have zero edits or just a user page. Worth looking for an extension that automatically deletes unused accounts after a period of time?
:: Update on this - there’s a maintenance script for this purpose: [[mw:Manual:RemoveUnusedAccounts.php|RemoveUnusedAccounts.php]]. Might be worth running, [[User:Osiris|Osiris]]? -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 22:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
* The AbuseFilter has a block time of 3 days which is much better than my manual block time - I naively used 3 months or <strike>1 year</strike> indefinite! This has caused a problem in that some fan artists I’ve been encouraging to share their work here have been unable to create an account because their IP is blocked.
For now, I’m going to find and unblock the IPs which haven’t seen activity for a while; new spam accounts will be blocked by AbuseFilter. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 22:24, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
:Hallelujah! Most of them seem to have stopped trying, even. Only three in the last four days. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:16, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
::Yeah, once the first attempt is blocked you don’t get thirty more the same day! So we should see only small numbers when they do crop up. You’ll see some activity from today in the block log - that’s me going through and reducing the time for a bunch of old blocks I’d put in place, so they’ll expire soon (it was a bit quicker and easier to do that than manually unblock them). Hopefully that will help with new user signups which were being blocked. The rest ought to expire in the next few months, so hopefully as they disappear we’ll see those new user registration problems stop as well. Now we just need to start cleaning up all those bot user accounts... -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 00:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
:Now that you mention it, I used indefinite blocking (not knowing any better) back in the last major attack, before The Move, and it didn't seem to cause a problem. Another piece I don't understand; I'd have thought there were more IP addresses than that. [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:50, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
::Well, there are a huge number of possible IP addresses, but owning a unique one with direct Internet access isn’t free. Regular Internet users get allocated an IP from a pool available to their ISP, and people running SEO spam might get their Internet access through the same companies. Long block times make this more likely - an IP address once used by bots has probably since been freed up and used by a legit service. -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 03:54, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
:::I've been shamefully absent from this wiki for a bit, owing to a new daily morning show I've been doing and to a bit of depression since November. I'll try to get back to putzing around, but THANK YOU to all keeping the spam away. I'm not good at technical things, so I appreciate those who are.[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 23:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Lucy Warbeck

2024-09-15T00:08:00Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: not a stub; pretty good and thorough summary of a minor character

Lucy Warbeck is one of the background characters in the [[Tiffany Aching]] series of books. She is one of the coven that Tiffany encounters first in {{HFOS}}, along with [[Annagramma Hawkin]], [[Petulia Gristle]] ''et al''. By the third book ({{W}}), she has become a recognised [[Witches|witch]], and is in training to become a [[Witchfinder]] like [[Perspicacia Tick|Miss Perspicacia Tick]].

Even at this young age, the new generation of witches are developing the sort of amusing eccentricities and character quirks which can only get more marked as they grow older. For whatever reason - eccentricity, forgetfulness or perhaps just [[Boffo (Concept)|boffo]] - young Lucy meticulously makes up her hair every morning whilst incorporating a knife and fork into her coiffure. And don't you just know, in seventy years' time, Old Mistress Warbeck will be seen as weird by a new generation of witches, and the knife and fork won't even be noticed any more by her peers...

[[Category:Discworld characters|Warbeck, Lucy]]
[[Category:human characters|Warbeck, Lucy]]
[[Category:Tiffany Series characters|Warbeck,Lucy]]
[[Category:Witches|Warbeck, Lucy]]

User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum

2024-08-08T00:41:25Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Blockage */ $#@*&@#@% newspaper columnists

Talk:Multiple exclamation marks

2024-08-08T00:36:52Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* On a scale from zero to mad as a moonbat... */ dried frog pills

The reason it's attracted so many views is because of an internet meme, viz. the idea that anyone who use a lot of exclamation marks in their talking on the web is regarded as a troll. [[User:MyOwnBadSelf|MyOwnBadSelf]] ([[User talk:MyOwnBadSelf|talk]]) 00:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
:To elaborate further: [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-law-of-exclamation]. Adding a mistyped '1' on the end intensifies it further. [[User:MyOwnBadSelf|MyOwnBadSelf]] ([[User talk:MyOwnBadSelf|talk]]) 03:24, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
::And that link links back here!!! --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 04:29, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
:::Indeed it does. [[User:MyOwnBadSelf|MyOwnBadSelf]] ([[User talk:MyOwnBadSelf|talk]]) 01:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

== On a scale from zero to mad as a moonbat... ==

Fun fact: some slides for a (scientific) presentation I was watching earlier today had, at one point, 17 exclamation marks in a row. Just a little while later, there was a slide titled "Mental break" - intended to recapitulate what had been discussed so far, but in light of the 17 exclamation marks all I could think was that it might well have been a very different kind of mental break... [[User:Dragonrider|Dragonrider]] ([[User talk:Dragonrider|talk]]) 13:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
:Hee hee. Presenter was huffing dried frog pills during their "break", count on it. :-) [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 00:36, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Myk Streja

2024-07-24T17:52:47Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Welcome back! */ woo-hoo!

== Cracking open the talk page ==
Just putting a top topic - just ignore it. [[User:Myk_Streja| — Myk Streja]] [[User_talk:Myk_Streja|(''beep'')]] 01:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

== Welcome back! ==
Welcome back! -- [[User:Guybrush|Guybrush]] ([[User talk:Guybrush|talk]]) 00:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

: Thanks. The pandemic took me away for a time, then the blahs, then I tried coming back and got spoofed and banned! [[User:Myk_Streja| — Myk Streja]] [[User_talk:Myk_Streja|(''beep'')]] 01:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Woo-hoo! Sometimes this place sounds of crickets. Glad to have more than just four of us around writing. :-) [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 17:52, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum

2024-07-04T00:09:20Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Blockage */ got it

User talk:Old Dickens

2024-06-29T15:47:05Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Haven't seen so much SEO for years! */ Thanks for un-spamming

Nap Hill

2024-05-12T03:19:55Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: don't think it's a stub

'''Nap Hill''' is an area of [[Ankh-Morpork]]. It is the hubward end of [[Ankh (city)|Ankh]], bounded by the [[Ankh (river)|river]], [[The Tump]], [[Water Street]], and the hubward wall. [[Wizards' Pleasaunce]] is separated from it only by ownership, and just across the river, via the [[Wood Bridge]], is the [[Unreal Estate]].

In {{FOC}}, it is revealed that Nap Hill is the centre of Ankh-Morpork's fabric, textile, clothing and weaving industry.

* In {{H}}, [[Banjo Lilywhite]] is aka the Nap Hill Lurker.

* In {{TT}}, we learn that the [[Jolly Good Pals]] have a chapter in Nap Hill.

[[Category:Streets of Ankh-Morpork]]
[[de:Schlummerhügel]]

Talk:Sticken Place

2024-05-09T21:08:24Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: <cue music> Take a Break...

To which Lady Macbeth suggested screwing one's courage? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:51, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
:Yes! Good catch! Of course, I only know that line because of annotations to ''Hamilton''. <shrug>[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 21:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Trolls

2024-05-07T03:13:51Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Thud! not Thud

[[Image:Troll headz 2.jpg|240px|right|thumb|Troll heads, as drawn by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]], with a deep nod to Mr Kidby]]

They are essentially sentient rocks (though don't ever use the "r" word): enormous, mobile, of humanoid shape, with intelligence and personality. And of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary varieties.

Trolls have interesting seams of valuable minerals as their blood vessels and nervous system. This phenomenon has at least two repercussions. One: a troll's brain, silicon-based, will overheat and slow down in Ankh-Morpork, and the troll will become sadly stupid; the brain will also overheat in strong sun, causing trolls to stop moving in daylight. Two: when a troll has stopped moving while their brain has overheated in daylight, this troll will look just like a lump of rock, with interesting seams of valuable minerals, and may be (and have been) attacked by mining dwarfs. This is very likely the initial cause of the animosity between trolls and dwarfs, even though, after hundreds of years, the feud goes on because it is a cultural tradition for both species. It being a cultural tradition does not mean it is nice; trolls and dwarfs have repeated the Battle of Koom Valley several times. Historic casualties are high. The hostility lives on and is found in any place with a significant number of both species, for example, Ankh-Morpork; serious riots have occurred in ''[[Book:Men at Arms|Men at Arms]]'' and ''[[Book:Thud!|Thud!]]''.

Neither have Trolls gotten on well with humans, through most of history. Not being able to digest carbon-based life forms didn't stop them from eating them, and a belt of human skulls used to be a popular fashion statement among male Trolls. Naturally, this sort of thing led to [[The Troll's Head|retaliation]] and a lot of derogatory bedtime stories. Nowadays, relations are much more peaceful all around, and the game of [[Aargrooha]] has nearly disappeared. Trolls retain a fear and loathing of billy-goats, however. It's something like elephants and mice.

Trolls are large and powerful, but have never been a political force to be reckoned with in their home mountains (where it is nice and cold and trolls are clever), except for warring against the dwarfs. Trolls generally come from the [[Ramtops]] or Überwald. In the Ramtops, trolls are considered a nuisance; in Überwald, trolls are either enemies of dwarfs or treated as semi-sentient slaves (see ''[[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]''). In [[Bonk]], [[Überwald]], trolls are considered properties and need to carry a passport signed by their ''owners''. Only in Ankh-Morpork have trolls been able to influence some policies by being a large immigrant group. They have a rather inefficient crime syndicate called the [[Breccia]], led by the troll [[Chrysoprase]], who is the fastest in assimilating into the city human society. Trolls have also organized the [[Silicon Anti-Defamation League]] to improve the image of trolls in the cities.

Trolls have teeth of diamond. A troll dentist might also be a rich diamond merchant. A troll [[Chrysoprase|gangster]] might wear the teeth of their former enemies as jewelry. While most trolls are capable of growing diamond teeth (and possibly regenerating fresh diamond, just as rodents' teeth continually grow from underneath to replace what is ground away on the top?) this is as far as it goes for most trolls. But just once in a while, trollish genetics throws up a [[Mr. Shine|Diamond Troll]] made entirely of diamond. Such a being is naturally super-intelligent as they can regulate their own bodily temperature - evidenced by the thin layer of frost on the outside that also serves as protection against the glare for onlookers.

Diamond Trolls, by custom and precedent, generally gravitate to the position of High King or equivalent over the whole of Trolldom. However, the current incumbent didn't want the kingship if it meant a resumption of large-scale warfare between trolls and dwarfs, but reserved a right to step into his inheritance when circumstances improved. Until pivotal developments in [[Koom Valley]] made peace feasible, Mr. Shine was content to remain incognito in [[Ankh-Morpork]], teaching [[Thud]] and working for greater understanding between Trolls and [[Dwarfs]]. Now, with the troll clans united under his leadership, trolls' interests have found their champion in international politics, as exemplified by [[Vetinari]]'s cooperation in efforts to eradicate the Crystal Slam trade worldwide.

==Female Trolls==

Female Trolls can generally be identified in that they have a tendency to look like sculptures of stone-age goddesses of fertility. Nonetheless, like male trolls, they usually wear little more than a loincloth. Since trolls minimise on clothing to try to stay cool, reverse logic dictates that the more a troll wears, the more erotic it is. [[Nanny Ogg]] mentioned that females wearing clothes excites males, and that there is a club in Ankh-Morpork where the troll dancers ''end up'' wearing seven layers of heavy sheets.

It used to be that troll courtship consisted of a male troll asking a father's permission to hit the female on the head with a nice rock, then, after the female had recovered from her mild concussion, and approved the rock, they would enjoy a nice candle-lit human for two (although that's not done anymore, at least if there's any chance of getting caught), and then for the rest of her life, the female troll will be home subduing whatever prey that the male brings home for dinner. But after coming to Ankh-Morpork and witnessing human and dwarfish courtship rituals, some are taking a more feminist approach and choosing their own rocks to hit their own males over the head, without needing to ask their father's permission. (''[[Book:Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'').

Female trolls use distinctly female names (names of precious or semi-precious stones). In some regions, male trolls expect female trolls to ''polish'', and it's not encouraged for them to grow lichen (a la a woman shaving), since "bald is modest" (''[[Book:Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]''). In cosmopolitan Ankh-Morpork, on the other hand, Mr [[Stronginthearm]]'s troll beauty products includes a spray guaranteed to ''grow'' lichen for that "almost clothed" look.

==Troll Afterlife==
While trolls almost certainly have souls, it is unknown what happens to them when they die. While [[Death]] has come for many humans, dwarves, dogs and even a golem in the course of the discworld books, he has never yet been seen to collect the soul of a troll. Then again, most of them don´t actually die, as explained upon below.

For the trolls themselves they apparently believe they are moving backwards through time as they refer to the 'sunset of time' rather than the 'dawn of time' (they can see the past, so it must be "ahead of," not behind, them). While a troll can die from injuries, they do not die of old age. A really old troll will generally find a nice quite place in the mountains and sit and think. This will go on for years, and as their thoughts get deeper their synaptic processes get gradually slower. Eventually they stop altogether (perhaps because they have reached the conclusion) and the troll is no more than rock. One troll this almost happened to was [[Old Grandad]], but he was rudely woken by some short-lived thugs who had lit a fire in his mouth.

Trolls becoming dormant like this has also been another source of tension between the dwarf and troll races. Dwarfs like to mine rocks with interesting minerals in them, and a dormant troll is basically a large rock made of interesting minerals. This has led to '[[Koom Valley| unpleasantness]]' when some dwarf miner is attacked by a troll he's just put his pick into, or a troll discovering that the stone slabs of that fireplace have been made out of their granny.

==Language==
[[Image:mica.JPG|thumb|left|200px|'''I ain't afraid of no goats!''' (drawing by Matt Smith)]]
Most Trolls can speak the language of humans, but they have their own language and written script as well. They also have an older language known as 'Old Troll' spoken several hundred years ago but still understood by trolls alive today such as [[Detritus]] & [[Mr. Shine]].

Troll Graffiti is a common sight in Ankh-Morpork, rather than paint on the walls, the troll just pushes their finger into the plaster and makes the words in the side of the building. You can tell how important the message is by how deep it has gone in.

For a complete list of [[Trollish phrases|trollish phrases click here]]

==Troll Drink and Drugs==
Trolls are as prone to intoxication as any other sentient species. The intoxicants and their delivery systems are unique to a silicon-based life-form. Such things as troll cigarettes have been referenced. These have a lot in common with fireworks. Trolls have been known to get addicted to fireworks. Troll drinks range from molten sulphur, delivered in a suitably ceramic drinking vessel, to the [[Electrick Floorbanger]] or [[luglarr]]. [[Sam Vimes]] has learnt to use this to his advantage in a riot-control situation. Hard drugs - and troll drugs are the hardest on the Disc - are a different problem. [[Slab]] and [[Slide]] are a persistent problem among the young, and [[Crystal Slam]] is outright lethal, although any suggestion that [[Chrysoprase]] is involved will be very firmly denied by the [[Silicon Anti-Defamation League]]. Many things can be social drugs to trolls. In {{UA}}, we meet [[Concrete]], a troll who has hit on the opiate uses of iron filings.

[[Category:Troll characters]]
[[Category:Discworld humanoid species]]
[[de:Trolle]]

Trolls

2024-05-07T03:12:30Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: more ce

[[Image:Troll headz 2.jpg|240px|right|thumb|Troll heads, as drawn by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]], with a deep nod to Mr Kidby]]

They are essentially sentient rocks (though don't ever use the "r" word): enormous, mobile, of humanoid shape, with intelligence and personality. And of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary varieties.

Trolls have interesting seams of valuable minerals as their blood vessels and nervous system. This phenomenon has at least two repercussions. One: a troll's brain, silicon-based, will overheat and slow down in Ankh-Morpork, and the troll will become sadly stupid; the brain will also overheat in strong sun, causing trolls to stop moving in daylight. Two: when a troll has stopped moving while their brain has overheated in daylight, this troll will look just like a lump of rock, with interesting seams of valuable minerals, and may be (and have been) attacked by mining dwarfs. This is very likely the initial cause of the animosity between trolls and dwarfs, even though, after hundreds of years, the feud goes on because it is a cultural tradition for both species. It being a cultural tradition does not mean it is nice; trolls and dwarfs have repeated the Battle of Koom Valley several times. Historic casualties are high. The hostility lives on and is found in any place with a significant number of both species, for example, Ankh-Morpork; serious riots have occurred in ''[[Book:Men at Arms|Men at Arms]]'' and ''[[Book:Thud|Thud]]''.

Neither have Trolls gotten on well with humans, through most of history. Not being able to digest carbon-based life forms didn't stop them from eating them, and a belt of human skulls used to be a popular fashion statement among male Trolls. Naturally, this sort of thing led to [[The Troll's Head|retaliation]] and a lot of derogatory bedtime stories. Nowadays, relations are much more peaceful all around, and the game of [[Aargrooha]] has nearly disappeared. Trolls retain a fear and loathing of billy-goats, however. It's something like elephants and mice.

Trolls are large and powerful, but have never been a political force to be reckoned with in their home mountains (where it is nice and cold and trolls are clever), except for warring against the dwarfs. Trolls generally come from the [[Ramtops]] or Überwald. In the Ramtops, trolls are considered a nuisance; in Überwald, trolls are either enemies of dwarfs or treated as semi-sentient slaves (see ''[[Book:The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]''). In [[Bonk]], [[Überwald]], trolls are considered properties and need to carry a passport signed by their ''owners''. Only in Ankh-Morpork have trolls been able to influence some policies by being a large immigrant group. They have a rather inefficient crime syndicate called the [[Breccia]], led by the troll [[Chrysoprase]], who is the fastest in assimilating into the city human society. Trolls have also organized the [[Silicon Anti-Defamation League]] to improve the image of trolls in the cities.

Trolls have teeth of diamond. A troll dentist might also be a rich diamond merchant. A troll [[Chrysoprase|gangster]] might wear the teeth of their former enemies as jewelry. While most trolls are capable of growing diamond teeth (and possibly regenerating fresh diamond, just as rodents' teeth continually grow from underneath to replace what is ground away on the top?) this is as far as it goes for most trolls. But just once in a while, trollish genetics throws up a [[Mr. Shine|Diamond Troll]] made entirely of diamond. Such a being is naturally super-intelligent as they can regulate their own bodily temperature - evidenced by the thin layer of frost on the outside that also serves as protection against the glare for onlookers.

Diamond Trolls, by custom and precedent, generally gravitate to the position of High King or equivalent over the whole of Trolldom. However, the current incumbent didn't want the kingship if it meant a resumption of large-scale warfare between trolls and dwarfs, but reserved a right to step into his inheritance when circumstances improved. Until pivotal developments in [[Koom Valley]] made peace feasible, Mr. Shine was content to remain incognito in [[Ankh-Morpork]], teaching [[Thud]] and working for greater understanding between Trolls and [[Dwarfs]]. Now, with the troll clans united under his leadership, trolls' interests have found their champion in international politics, as exemplified by [[Vetinari]]'s cooperation in efforts to eradicate the Crystal Slam trade worldwide.

==Female Trolls==

Female Trolls can generally be identified in that they have a tendency to look like sculptures of stone-age goddesses of fertility. Nonetheless, like male trolls, they usually wear little more than a loincloth. Since trolls minimise on clothing to try to stay cool, reverse logic dictates that the more a troll wears, the more erotic it is. [[Nanny Ogg]] mentioned that females wearing clothes excites males, and that there is a club in Ankh-Morpork where the troll dancers ''end up'' wearing seven layers of heavy sheets.

It used to be that troll courtship consisted of a male troll asking a father's permission to hit the female on the head with a nice rock, then, after the female had recovered from her mild concussion, and approved the rock, they would enjoy a nice candle-lit human for two (although that's not done anymore, at least if there's any chance of getting caught), and then for the rest of her life, the female troll will be home subduing whatever prey that the male brings home for dinner. But after coming to Ankh-Morpork and witnessing human and dwarfish courtship rituals, some are taking a more feminist approach and choosing their own rocks to hit their own males over the head, without needing to ask their father's permission. (''[[Book:Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'').

Female trolls use distinctly female names (names of precious or semi-precious stones). In some regions, male trolls expect female trolls to ''polish'', and it's not encouraged for them to grow lichen (a la a woman shaving), since "bald is modest" (''[[Book:Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]''). In cosmopolitan Ankh-Morpork, on the other hand, Mr [[Stronginthearm]]'s troll beauty products includes a spray guaranteed to ''grow'' lichen for that "almost clothed" look.

==Troll Afterlife==
While trolls almost certainly have souls, it is unknown what happens to them when they die. While [[Death]] has come for many humans, dwarves, dogs and even a golem in the course of the discworld books, he has never yet been seen to collect the soul of a troll. Then again, most of them don´t actually die, as explained upon below.

For the trolls themselves they apparently believe they are moving backwards through time as they refer to the 'sunset of time' rather than the 'dawn of time' (they can see the past, so it must be "ahead of," not behind, them). While a troll can die from injuries, they do not die of old age. A really old troll will generally find a nice quite place in the mountains and sit and think. This will go on for years, and as their thoughts get deeper their synaptic processes get gradually slower. Eventually they stop altogether (perhaps because they have reached the conclusion) and the troll is no more than rock. One troll this almost happened to was [[Old Grandad]], but he was rudely woken by some short-lived thugs who had lit a fire in his mouth.

Trolls becoming dormant like this has also been another source of tension between the dwarf and troll races. Dwarfs like to mine rocks with interesting minerals in them, and a dormant troll is basically a large rock made of interesting minerals. This has led to '[[Koom Valley| unpleasantness]]' when some dwarf miner is attacked by a troll he's just put his pick into, or a troll discovering that the stone slabs of that fireplace have been made out of their granny.

==Language==
[[Image:mica.JPG|thumb|left|200px|'''I ain't afraid of no goats!''' (drawing by Matt Smith)]]
Most Trolls can speak the language of humans, but they have their own language and written script as well. They also have an older language known as 'Old Troll' spoken several hundred years ago but still understood by trolls alive today such as [[Detritus]] & [[Mr. Shine]].

Troll Graffiti is a common sight in Ankh-Morpork, rather than paint on the walls, the troll just pushes their finger into the plaster and makes the words in the side of the building. You can tell how important the message is by how deep it has gone in.

For a complete list of [[Trollish phrases|trollish phrases click here]]

==Troll Drink and Drugs==
Trolls are as prone to intoxication as any other sentient species. The intoxicants and their delivery systems are unique to a silicon-based life-form. Such things as troll cigarettes have been referenced. These have a lot in common with fireworks. Trolls have been known to get addicted to fireworks. Troll drinks range from molten sulphur, delivered in a suitably ceramic drinking vessel, to the [[Electrick Floorbanger]] or [[luglarr]]. [[Sam Vimes]] has learnt to use this to his advantage in a riot-control situation. Hard drugs - and troll drugs are the hardest on the Disc - are a different problem. [[Slab]] and [[Slide]] are a persistent problem among the young, and [[Crystal Slam]] is outright lethal, although any suggestion that [[Chrysoprase]] is involved will be very firmly denied by the [[Silicon Anti-Defamation League]]. Many things can be social drugs to trolls. In {{UA}}, we meet [[Concrete]], a troll who has hit on the opiate uses of iron filings.

[[Category:Troll characters]]
[[Category:Discworld humanoid species]]
[[de:Trolle]]

Talk:Trolls

2024-05-07T03:05:28Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* Troll computation */ answering AgProv ten years hence

Since Trolls have diamond teeth, is there then a reason to think that diamonds are not considered ''the'' precious stone on the Disc? For instance, why didn't Brick have a couple of teeth removed to pay for his habbits? --[[User:Megahurts|Megahurts]] 08:24, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
[http://www.example.com link title]
==Sea Trolls==
What about the Sea Trolls? I only have seen them mentioned in the TCOM.

[[User:Fhh98|Fhh98]] 00:30, 22 September 2006 (CEST)

Tethis is presumably unique -- he fell off another world and thawed out near Discworld. I doubt there's another sea troll anywhere on the Disc (unless the inhabitants of Bathys have a habit of falling off their homeworld and getting caught in the Disc's orbit). Of course, that raises the question: if there's only one of him, why bother with a species designation! [[User:Kellyterryjones|Kellyterryjones]] 21:25, 27 January 2008 (CET)

If he doesn't get a species, what is he. He needs a species because he doesn't have one. --[[User:Confusion|Confusion]] ([[User talk:Confusion|talk]]) 05:09, 19 December 2013 (GMT)

== Make this a category? ==

Should this be a category so that we can automatically get a list of known trolls by editing their pages? [[User:Kellyterryjones|Kellyterryjones]] 23:49, 26 January 2008 (CET)

:You mean a Troll category containing the Troll article and [[:Category:Troll characters]]? We don't do that for anybody else, do we? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 01:38, 27 January 2008 (CET)...actually, we do for Wizards and Witches but not Dwarves or Humans. Consistency is nice, but I wonder what problems will turn up as a result? The Trolls article, e.g., could be pasted to the top of Category:Troll characters and then turned into a redirect. Would changing the category to match "Witches" require fixing all the individual links, or can a category be redirected? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 16:55, 27 January 2008 (CET)

OK, it can. So how is this any better at finding Trolls than the current [[:Category:Troll characters]]? --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 16:55, 27 January 2008 (CET)

Didn't know that category existed. I've added a link to it from this page so people can find it easier. That's good enough for me! [[User:Kellyterryjones|Kellyterryjones]] 21:23, 27 January 2008 (CET)

==Matt Smith vs. Mr. Kidby==

Some of the text underneath the image of the troll heads:
"Troll heads, as drawn by Matt Smith, with a deep nod to the far more talented Mr Kidby"
I cannot imagine a more biased sentence. Can I have a second opinion on this? (unsigned comment by [[User:Xylozex|Xylozex]], 13 April 2011)
:Sure. You're a troll and Knmatt can be biased toward Paul Kidby if he likes. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 03:52, 14 April 2011 (CEST)

== Troll computation ==
I was about to add a section on how trolls count, but it might need input from a mathematician. 
Does ''One, two, many, LOTS!'' count as Base Three or as Base Four? [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] ([[User talk:AgProv|talk]]) 20:12, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
:And a decade later... It's Base Four. The next number in the sequence would be lots-and-one, lots-and-two, etc. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 03:05, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

==Diet==
There's some confusion here around the Troll diet. Conflict with Humans has been mentioned, including playing a form of foot-the-ball with Human heads (Aargrooha) but it is also stated that Trolls are made of minerals (rocks) and therefore eat minerals and drink or otherwise ingest various violently inorganic compounds (several menu items, beverages and drugs have been mentioned). They don't eat people or other organic foodstuffs. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 03:07, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Goat and Bush

2024-04-26T12:05:08Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Reverted edits by Toweb (talk) to last revision by Tag

The Goat and Bush is the [[Pubs|pub]] in [[Lancre Town]] frequented by the [[Lancre Morris Men]], [[Nanny Ogg]] and most of the loafers (eg. men) of [[Lancre]].

It was also the scene of the intended romancing of Nanny by [[Casanunda|Count Giamo Casanunda]], which was rudely interrupted when [[elves]] came through and wrecked the place.

The Bull and Bush is a public house in north London. It was made famous by the music hall song "Down at the Old Bull and Bush", being sung at the end of the BBC television programme 'The Good Old Days' (which ran from 1953 to 1983).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Bull_and_Bush The Bull and Bush]

{{stub}}

[[Category:Locations]]
[[de:Ziege und Busch]]

Park Lane

2024-04-26T12:04:51Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Reverted edits by Toweb (talk) to last revision by Osiris

Mentioned in {{H}}, [[Jeffrey Bibbleton]] (aka "Trouble in Trousers" and "Foureyes") lives on this street (at [[Scrote Manor]]). [[Banjo Lilywhite]] is known as the Park Lane Prowler. Park Lane is the boundary between [[Hide Park]] and the homes of the wealthy hubward on the hill of [[Ankh (city)|Ankh]].

It is also the location of the Klatchian embassy in {{J}}.

In many cities, like New York ({{wp|Park Avenue|"Park Avenue"}}), or London ({{wp|Park Lane|"Park Lane"}}) this denotes an upscale address with a view of the park. Given that Jeffrey lives in a manor house, Ankh-Morpork appears to follow this trend.

==Annotation==

Parallels the Park Drive/Belgravia area of London, which is all upmarket hotels and super-expensive housing? (and which also overlooks Hyde Park). Park Place, or Park Lane in the London version, is also the second most expensive location on the [[Exclusive Possession|Monopoly]] board.

[[Category: Streets of Ankh-Morpork]]
[[de:Parkweg]]
{{stub}}

Talk:Ponder Stibbons

2024-04-03T13:27:47Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: Ponder/Lucy?

Should we add ponder's more important inventions like hex and roundworld?

:Hex is already mentioned and linked. A brief explanation on how Hex evolved making Ponder the "''bemused'' attendant" might be appropriate. Addition of Roundworld would be good, it's just that some of us can't do it, having no copies of the Science books. An interesting mention would be Ponder's ideas about evolutionary relationships between species, classifying banana with a kind of fish (found in Hogfather), and octopussies with spiders, I think details of this are in ''The Last Continent''.--[[User:Vsl|Vsl]] 17:02, 29 January 2006 (CET)

== He is the creator (instigator? bemused attendant?) of the University's super-computer Hex ==

According to ''Soul Music'', Hex was built by one of the students working with Ponder; fellow goes by the name of ''Skazz''. It's page 237 in my book, so a little more than halfway through....

Ponder also apparently invented the telescope and microscope early in his UU career. Don't recall which book, but Ridcully remarked that anything with as much life in it as the Ankh-water Ponder showed him ''had'' to be healthy.
:Sure? We ''know'' the telescope was an ancient artefact in Klatch, and Ponder, bright as he is, probably doesn't have the optical knowledge to grind lenses to reverse the effect. I imagine that he's just the first Wizard to care enough to look, rather than the originator. --[[User:Knmatt|Knmatt]] 21:50, 25 November 2010 (CET)

== Praelector ==

I remmebr when Ponder became Reader in Invisble Writings and when he became Head of Inadvisibly Applied Magic (or rather whne it was first mentioned that he had these positions) but in which book was it first mentioned that he was Praelector? I think it was one of the first two Science of Discwolrd but I'm not sure. –[[User:Jeltz|Jeltz]] 21:27, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

1 I think. It was mentioned after the 7 buckets of coal that he had 3 jobs and I think that one was Praelector. --Confusion 21:38, 25 November 2011 (CET)

==Picture==
I'm pretty sure that the picture is taken from {{TLH}}, isn't that illegal because of copyright laws?--[[User:Zdm|Zdm]] 20:31, 21 June 2011 (CEST)
:It's not as simple as that, I don't think. There's ''fair use'' and a need to demonstrate harm; lawyers could go on forever if someone paid them. In our case, if Mr. Kidby complained we'd just remove it, but there's no sign that he minds. There are several other examples as well. As usual, there's a quote from TP to cover it, referring to fan-fiction. "Everything works if people are sensible". --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 23:41, 21 June 2011 (CEST)
Make that if the estate of Mr Kirby complained. Mr Kirby complaining anytime soon would be some trick...
:While that would be indeed be some trick, I doubt the estate of Mr Kirby has no need to complain about the use of a picture done by Mr Kidby...--[[User:LilMaibe|LilMaibe]] 13:59, 23 June 2011 (CEST)

==Pictures==
The coincident appearance of Ponder Stibbons as drawn by Paul Kidby and Daniel Radcliffe as H**** P***** has been noted but not explained. I believe the focus has been on the National Health spectacles; otherwise the similarity isn't that strong. Now, Mr. Kidby isn't very old (from my point of view), but he may recall the stereotype as all the designers of H**** P***** graphics seem to have done. The trope that geeks wear glasses goes back to the dawn of cinema and if various British writers, artists and designers think of round black rims it sounds like another case of [[Fishing from the same stream]]. (It just struck me that someone should write an article on that popular subject). [[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] 04:11, 27 May 2012 (CEST)

==Star-crossed, the next generation==
There is that bit of canon, though, second-to-last page: cryptic as The Author will, but suggestive. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 23:19, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

== A way-out but horribly plausible idea that came to me on the Big Bang Theory Wiki... ==

[[File:Seaparated_at_birth.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Separated at birth?']]

Just a passing thought. Ponder did not know his own mother and was "raised by aunts". In "The Big Bang Theory", Leonard's cold and distant mother Beverly might have been utterly appalled if told she was having twins. What if the elves obliged, for instance, and did a sort of "changeling" job across space and time, for their own amusement....Beverly Hofstadter might be in on this and is monitoring a unique experiment in twin sibling development...

==Lucy romance?==
Maybe I'm dense, but I don't remember where the Ponder/Lucy Tockley connection came from. What book? How was it intimated? I know about Ridcully and Granny, of course, which is hinted at from a great height with a quite heavy hint. Can someone help?[[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 13:27, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Mr Hong

2024-03-29T21:56:29Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: ce

This Agetean gentleman has grown to become the Ankh-Morpork equivalent of a "cautionary urban legend", with several mentions throughout the various books ({{MAA}}, {{J}}, {{TT}}) admonishing people to "remember what happened to '''Mr. Hong'''". You see, it wasn't Mr. Hong's luckiest day when he decided that the night of the winter solstice in combination with a full moon and a lunar eclipse would be the ideal point in time and the site of a former fish-god temple in [[Dagon Street]] the ideal point in space to open his [[Three Jolly Luck|Three Jolly Luck Take-Away Fish Bar]] - see there for further details.

It is unknown if he had a blood relationship to the noble Hong clan of {{IT}}.

:
[[Category:Discworld characters|Hong,Mr]]
[[de:Herr Hong]]

Rutherford

2024-02-09T01:12:03Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: ce

The Rutherfords are a middle-aged couple with social pretentions who are caught up in the [[Glorious Revolution]] in {{NW}}. [[Samuel Vimes]] recognises that Mr Sidney Rutherford is one of those put-upon husbands and genuinely has no wish to heap further misfortune on his head, considering that marriage to Mrs Rutherford is misfortune enough.

A key to understanding them is that they would look upon the idea of divorce with utter horror, yet Mr Rutherford is the sort of man who would, in Vimes' professional opinion, contemplate womanslaughter on a daily basis. They totally fail to communicate with [[Reg Shoe]], are socially insulted to be thought of as proletarian, and absolutely ''insist'' on their true social standing as members of the bourgeoisie, which they take as a compliment, much to Reg's bemusement. Alas, their commitment to the revolution lets them contribute some of their furniture for the construction of a barricade. This includes an armchair with Mrs. Rutherfords' father in it; he is very attached to it, and it's even going to be an heirloom!

:
[[Category:Discworld characters|Rutherford]]
[[Category:Human characters|Rutherford]]

User talk:Tag

2024-01-15T01:33:53Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: whoops again. It's there!

Hello

While I enjoy adding some annotations (usually after checking the lspace website), my experience of the Discworld is through audio-books and therefore I don't have any page numbers. I hope this is not too inconvenient.

And while I have your attention - Has anyone considered adding 'Annotations' to the main menu? They are difficult to find if you don't know that they are there.

:Hello, Tag! The annotations, especially to later books that aren't covered in the APF, are one of the more useful features of this wiki. I think it'd be fine to add a link from the main page. The organization of the annotations does need work - sometimes they're in a separate page, sometimes they're on the main book page. (And some annotations are, well, more likely than others. But that's a separate issue. :-) ) I suspect you'd get support from contributors if you carefully reorganized and linked these... Thanks! And good to e-meet you. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 19:39, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
::There's already an Annotations portal on the Main Page. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 22:34, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
:::And so there is. Whoops. :-) Left hand column. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:33, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Annotations

2024-01-15T01:32:30Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: /* External links */ not a stub

'''Annotations''' are notes by readers about the works of [[Terry Pratchett]], and clarifications produced by Terry himself. They are concerned with the background of the books, references to mythology, popular culture, etc.

:'''If you post annotations in this section you agree that your annotations may appear on the APF which doesn't use the CC license.'''

==Annotated books==
There are annotations for the following books:

* {{TCOM-APF}}
* {{TLF-APF}}
* {{ER-APF}}
* {{M-APF}}
* {{WS-APF}}
* {{P-APF}}
* {{G!G!-APF}}
* {{MP-APF}}
* {{RM-APF}}
* {{WA-APF}}
* {{SG-APF}}
* {{LL-APF}}
* {{MAA-APF}}
* {{SM-APF}}
* [[Book:Interesting Times/Annotations|''Interesting Times'' Annotations]]
* [[Book:Maskerade/Annotations|''Maskerade'' Annotations]]
* [[Book:Feet Of Clay/Annotations|''Feet Of Clay'' Annotations]]
* [[Book:Hogfather/Annotations|''Hogfather'' Annotations]]
* {{J-APF}}
* {{TLC-APF}}
* {{CJ-APF}}
* {{T5E-APF}}
* {{TT-APF}}
* {{TOT-APF}}
* {{TLH-APF}}
* {{NW-APF}}
* {{WFM-APF}}
* {{MR-APF}}
* {{GP-APF}}
* {{T!-APF}}
* [[Book:Wintersmith/Annotations|''Wintersmith'' Annotations]]''.
* {{MM-APF}}
* {{UA-APF}}
* {{ISWM-APF}}
* [[Book:Snuff/Annotations|''Snuff'' Annotations]]''.
* [[Book:Raising Steam/Annotations|''Raising Steam'' Annotations]]''
* [[Book:The Shepherd's Crown/Annotations|''The Shepherd's Crown'' Annotations]]''

==Reverse annotations==
Apart from annotations for Pratchett's books, there are also [[Reverse Annotations]]. These are (potential) references ''to'' works of Pratchett.

==Adding annotations to the wiki==
For annotations, there already is an excellent source: the {{ls|books/apf/|Annotated Pratchett File}}. Please submit your annotations to the maintainers. But as updates to the APF can be few and far between, you're welcome to share them here as well. There are a few notes, though:

* Don't copy/paste the APF here unless you have been given permission by the maintainers.
* Annotations do not fall under the CC-license of the wiki for the APF-maintainers, to prevent licensing issues for the APF. By posting your annotation here you agree that it may be used in the APF.
* For book annotations, follow the naming convention Book:Title/Annotations (which can be shortened to the template <nowiki>{{ST-APF}}</nowiki>, where "ST" is the shortened title (ie COM, TLF, SG, T!) of the book.
* If an annotation fits well in an article about a character, location or whatever, you can add a heading and place it under there. Do link to it from the appropriate book annotation page so it can easily be found (a "more here" link will suffice, no need to place it in full in both articles).
* Feel free to link to external sources

==External links==
*{{ls|books/apf/|The Annotated Pratchett File}}

[[Category:Annotations]]

Talk:Book:Going Postal

2024-01-15T01:31:28Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: link fixed

Yet another case of TP being ahead of his time: BS Johnson and Reacher Gilt in the REAL Royal Post Office. [https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post I hope the assassin's guild is sent after these administrators]
:Unfortunately the very long link doesn't work and it's too many characters for me to guess the problem. --[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 22:45, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
::Grrr. Sorry, folks. Thanks for letting me know, Old Dickens. I've edited the link above, and checked it - it seems to work. Please let me know! TL:DR - the post office bought some financial management software in the late 90s, it was known to be unreliable and wrong, yet administrators convinced themselves the software had exposed all sorts of fraud by local postmasters. Who were then put in jail or ruined financially, despite having done nothing wrong except anger an algorithm. And administrators pushed on for decades, regardless of The Truth, though that's a different book. [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 01:31, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Catbury

2024-01-13T19:43:09Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: rm nine-beans-row mention per OD on talk page

He is, or was, a professor at [[Unseen University]] who made the professional error of trying to introduce the study of [[Genetics|genetics]] to Discworld science. He began with the observation that even given the same soil, the same watering, the same fertiliser and the same exposure to sunlight, some plants of the same species grew taller and faster than their brethren seedlings in the same plot.

However, the standard prosaic [[Ankh-Morpork]]ian attitude to observed facts came into play here, and the general response to Catbury's discovery was "Yeah, well, so what, they do, don't they?" It is clear Gregor Mendel would have been doomed had he lived on the Disc: his Abbot is likely to have told him to stop wasting time and get down to some serious prayer and contemplation ''right now''.

Catbury experimented with such well-known fast-breeders as fruitflies and beanplants. But as he was still working it all out, the only tangible result of his experiment was to breed a green thing with wings that buzzed sadly until it was eaten by a passing vegetarian spider.

==Annotation==
Catbury's vegetarian spider, the only almost-exclusively vegetarian arachnid kniwn to Roundworld science, may be found [http://www.science20.com/news_articles/bagheera_kiplingi_vegetarian_spider_world here].

[[Category:Discworld characters|Catbury]]
[[Category:Wizards|Catbury]]

User talk:Tag

2024-01-13T19:39:34Z

Moishe Rosenbaum: hi Tag!