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ARCHIVE INDEX (EDIT)
2005 2006 2007 2008
2009 2010–11 2012

Nov '07 — Dec '07

Sylvanus G. Morley (archeologist)

cjllw, we need to talk!

Some brothers and cousins and I are, as far as we've been able to discover so far, the only remaining family of Sylvanus G. Morley. I'll keep our names out of it for the moment, but will say that Dr. Morley was my great-uncle: my maternal grandmother was Vay's sister. As so often happens, my interest is now sparked long after the deaths of the people who actually knew him. He died in Santa Fe a year after I was born in the East so I never knew him, but grew up hearing stories from my mother, who always refered to him as "Uncle Vay".

I'm aware of descendants of two other siblings who also will likely be interested. What I have not found (yet) is any of Morley's direct descendants. We know he had a daughter by his first wife and that he was close to her even after the divorce. (From a family genealogy compiled in 1949 by either my mother or possibly Vay's brother Henry, partially updated perhaps around 1970 by my mother): the daughter, Alice, married Edwin Brooks in 1931, and they had two children, Ann Eliz Brooks b. 8/23/1932 and Susan Morley Brooks b. 5/26/1935. Admittedly, our search for them only started a couple of weeks ago and not yet in earnest - we plan to proceed. If we can find them, I expect they'll be intensely interested. Or perhaps they know far more than we do.

My interest was sparked about two years ago, when my wife and I took a Spanish class (refresher for me, first exposure for her) in the local community college, to facilitate our trips to Mexico. Each student was asked to do a paper or presentation on any subject that somehow related to anything hispanic, intro en espanol. Naturally, I pulled out the books I had inherited by or about Vay and bought a couple more. I put together a "brief" outline of his life and works, and found the presentation was far too long! This man's life CANNOT be summed up in a 15 minute talk.


We returned last night from my first trip to the Yucatán, this having been planned as a nice relaxing beach vacation on Isla Mujeres. But my wife was happy to allow a couple of days at Chichén Itzá to enable me to find out more about Vay. Back in the 60's, my parents explored the area and found that "doors opened" when Mom introduced herself as Morley's niece. Following in her footsteps, we emailed the Mayaland Hotel where we stayed, about a week before the trip. I thought, even after all these years, that there might still be someone who could spare a few minutes with us. Well, the hotel's owner replied in only a day or two, to invite us to a dinner with a couple of noted archeologists, reporters, and possibly the Governor of the State of Yucatán! Unfortunately, the governor was unable to attend due to a meeting in Mexico City, but tried to get the hotel owner to change the date! So we now know that Vay was far more than merely respected in Yucatán, he was and is still revered.

The dinner was lovely and the people were charming, though our conversational Spanish is still lacking. We were surprised at the lack of resources these people have at their disposal - they need more books! Promises were made to stay in contact (and I will certainly follow through), and the owner is very excited to be planning a library in his beautiful hotel, dedicated to Sylvanus G. Morley. I think this is a wonderful idea and want to support him in any way I can.

I think we all need to be in contact. Please email me if you can share any info with us.

Jimjomac 19:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi there Jimjomac- thanks for you kind enquiry, and the information re your experiences makes for very interesting reading. Unfortunately I've not had much time today to do anything other than read it- I'll reply in some more detail when I get a chance, probably in a couple of days. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:15, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


Hi everybody. This article on Morley is very good. I have written biographical pieces on Morley before, and so I do know couple things about him! I live in Santa Fe, and know the woman who is the heir to the Morley Estate here. She's not related, but still has some Morley material. About the question of other children, apart from his daughter. There have been lots of rumors that he fathered at least one child with a native Yucatec Maya woman. These would have been staff at the Hacienda Chichen, and after 1940, the Hacienda Chenku, in Merida. On one of my research trips to Yucatan I hope to poke around and ask some questions. Let me know if anyone finds the grand daughters.

Also, I am trying to learn what Masonic lodge initiated Morley. It does not seem to be Montezuma #1, here in Santa Fe. I am guessing that he may have been initiated back east, maybe in Cambridge, when he was a student. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kvillela (talk • contribs) 19:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Kvillela, thanks for your kind words. At the time I wrote it I didn't have access to sources detailing his personal life, so if you know of some then there may be some interesting info that could be added to the article. Unfortunately I have not heard back from Jimjomac, so don't know whether or not he had any more success in tracking down the family tree. I should probably try and email him again.
I'm curious (but you don't have to answer if you don't wish to, anonymity around here is quite OK): you wouldn't happen to be Khristaan Villela of the CSF, by any chance? If so, your paper "Morley Hires Tatiana Proskouriakoff" published in the PARI Journal was one of the sources I relied upon in writing the article, and I found it most useful. Do you have other biog pieces on Morley published somewhere that might be readily obtainable? One of these days I should revisit the article and beef up the citations and references. Anyways, regards and cheers (also posted at your talkpg) --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


Hello again. After a long pause. Jimjomac emailed me today to see if he could speak with the Morley estate heir. This might be possible. She's not in terrific health. Trouble is, she is not related to Morley. She was a friend and tenant of Dorothy Rhoads. Inherited the estate in the early 1980s, when Dorothy died. Dorothy was sister to Frances Rhoads Morley.

I have a whole tape of outtakes from a newsreel that Morley did in 1931 at Chichen. Maybe I can get permission (from the U of North Carolina library) to put a clip with your article?? As everyone recalled, he really did have a squeaky voice. And a very proper upper class accent. Sounds like Margaret Dumont. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kvillela (talk • contribs) 01:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi there Kvillela, hope you didn't mind that I pointed Jim in your direction. Thanks for the info.
The newsreel footage sounds v. interesting. It can be tricky, but not unreasonably so, to get an actual clip stored in the article itself. As I understand it, wikipedia's free licensing conditions mean that proprietary video formats (mp3, mpeg, mov, etc) can't be stored here, so to appear as a media file embedded in an article it'd have to be converted to the Ogg Theora video format. There are some apps that do the conversion, tho' I've not done it myself. Likewise, for audio-only the media would need to be converted into Ogg Vorbis format.
However, we could easily provide a link to an external site if the video was hosted somewhere. Stills captured from it could also be uploaded to the article (presuming they're agreeable).
So might be troublesome to upload to the article, as nice as it would be to have something like that here. Anyways, appreciate the info.
BTW- any idea of which part of next year that Gale Encyclopaedia is due to come out? Best, --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Patent nonsense

Webbygail Vanderquack, which you just speedied, was clearly NOT patent nonsense. Please understand what patent nonsense is. "Patent nonsense and gibberish, an unsalvageably incoherent page with no meaningful content. This does not include: poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, badly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes of any sort" In this case we were dealing with fictional material. Punkmorten 11:50, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Well, it did genuinely and reasonably appear as unsalvageable incoherence devoid of meaningful content ("If you saw a duck similar to Hewey, Dewey and Louie which wears a pink ribbon and a shirt, you actually saw her on Disneyland shuttle buses. She is the real niece of Daisy Duck and cameo for Hewey, Dewey and Louie(similar to April, May and June. But she was alone with Daisy Duck." etc). There were no articles linking to it, the creator had been pinged a couple of times already for creating questionable material, and so it's really a bit of a stretch to divine from that bizarre entry its oblique reference to some actual, albeit very minor, fictional character.
My deleting it was perhaps not within the most narrow and literal interpretation of that particular rule, but I would argue reasonably within the spirit and to the intended purpose of it. Other criteria, such as A7, could just as easily been applied. Like most actions around here it came down to a judgement call and a common-sense assessment of what's useful and beneficial to the project, and what's not; you're welcome of course to challenge that judgement.
However, it seems that you were not able to find anything remotely salvageable in that article either, since after you restored it you immediately turned it into a redirect to the previously existing Webby Vanderquack article without merging any of the content; so whether deleted or redirected the nett outcome was the same- silliness of no informative value removed, and no harm done. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Dattorro

Hi there Fred. I believe that a couple of weeks back you were involved in cleaning up after the edits of Dattorro (talk · contribs), who had been warned and blocked for harrassing another user and inappropriately posting information/links to external sites revealing personal details of that user. It seems evident that Dattorro has resumed this behaviour, this time using the anon ip addresses 70.109.217.17 (talk · contribs) and 68.9.194.183 (talk · contribs) to post links on various user talkpages to a page on his website containing the same or similar personal details about that other user.

When you unblocked Dattorro last time, it was with the comment that he "Understands not to post other user's name"; I dunno whether as a result of any direct dialogue or extracted commitment, or whether on the basis that he should understand given the adequate warnings against it. In any case I've reblocked Dattorro (and the ip) after this latest spree.

I gather the last time you used your oversight capability to erase the personal info details posted about the other user from the records. Would you therefore kindly take a look at those anon edits and erase the edit summaries, which show the link to his site and the personal details therein? Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser shows no connection between Dattorro and the cited ips. I'll take a look at the edits with respect to oversight. Fred Bauder 10:45, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
For reference, the site linked to in the vandalism edits is owned and operated by Dattorro. If he didn't actually make the anon edits, then he was at least complicit in them. Oli Filth(talk) 18:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Somehow, I suspected that checkuser would not reveal any direct connection. However, I note that the only other edits made by both of those ip addresses are clearly related to Dattorro and/or pages edited by Dattorro, such as this one which back in Oct added a link to that same website of Dattorro's (different page tho) to an article. Both ip's were also engaged in some silly image vandalising of User:Mikkalai's page, who was also at the time involved in discussing the edits and behaviour of Dattorro. So, on balance the least that can be said is that the 'coincidence' is highly suspicious, and if not actually the same individual behind all three then it would be reasonable to assume some collusion and commonality of purpose, if not actual foreknowledge. --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
There has now been a third round of this, this time from 72.209.54.65 (talk · contribs), in as many days. Do you have any ideas on how to curtail this activity? Is this something I should raise on WP:AN/I, for instance, or list the site at WP:BLACKLIST? Regards, Oli Filth(talk) 09:41, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, well maybe both those courses of action might be appropriate, if they keep persisting from some unpredictable series of addresses. At the moment can only whack it once it happens. It all seems a bit pointless on behalf of the perpetrator(s)- most of the users being spammed look to be only drive-by contributors in any event, who made a couple of edits, were warned for being unconstructive, then presumably gave it away - so would be highly unlikely they'll ever be logging back in again to 'see' the link. And those who are still around, are probably more bemused/annoyed than interested (to follow up on the link). I don't think it will have quite the effect the perpetrator seems to imagine it has. --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

CFD for Category:Landing places of Captain James Cook

Hi, This poor, forlorn CFD seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. Every other CFD from that day has already been closed, but this one has been left open. I'm contacting you because you happen to have been the closing admin for an adjacent CFD -- and besides, it just seems right, you being there in Australia (perhaps even near Botany Bay, for all I know!). :) Cgingold 19:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Cgingold. Happy to close that one out, and have now done so. These days, the Botany Bay landing site is more known for the whacking great oil refinery that looms nearby...you could say it's more of a picaresque than picturesque spot, if you get my meaning... :) Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 05:16, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Ancient Chalcatzingo

CJLL:

Thanks for the tip on Ancient Chalcatzingo. I downloaded it this morning. It's a wonderful resource to have.

By the way, check the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan article -- just added another 2 photos from Flickr. The article would now benefit from a review of the 1983 Taube article (but that journal is waaaaay obscure) and from either of the two 2006 Ancient Mesoamerica articles if you would have any access.

Thanks, and keep those alerts coming, Madman 13:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, nice image-hunting. I think I have Taube's 1983 paper, or at least downloaded it from someplace. Lemme check to see if I can find it. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
That would be very wonderful if you had a copy of his paper. It's difficult to write a complete piece on the Spider Woman of Youknowwhere without it. By the way, I will be at the Field Museum this weekend, if there's anything you might want me to snap. Madman 05:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi Madman- sorry for the slight delay, have been away past couple of days. Alas, it looks like I was confusing that particular paper by Taube with another of his I have, on Teotihuacano writing- so I seem not to have the one on the Great Goddess afer all. Oh well, maybe an accessible copy will turn up somewhere.
As for your visit to the Fields (probably over by the time I'm writing this)- would be happy for you to take a snap of just about anything. Although, probably not the souvenir shop, I recall looking at one museum's article a while ago (MUNA in Mexico?) that was adorned with pictures of the shop and services, not the exhibits..! Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of David H. Kelley

An article that you have been involved in editing, David H. Kelley, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David H. Kelley. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks BHG, I appreciate your notifying me of this. I've begun to remediate that article so its notability claims are clearer, and have commented on the discussion. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 03:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Adminship

Hello, CJ. I wanted to thank you for helping me out with the Intel page. And I wanted to ask you, as an admin, if you think that I would be able to become an admin. I think I'm interested in doing so. I was just wondering if based on my talk page and edit history, as indicators of the sort of Wikipedian I am, if you think I would have a shot at making it. Many thanks. Carl.bunderson (talk) 06:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi there Carl, you're most welcome.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that if you filed a nomination at this time you'd be in with at least some chance, but that there are some areas others would likely pick up on that would more likely prevent the "pass mark" being met- at least the first time around. Looking through your contribs one can see you've been around long enough (though with some gaps), have clearly been pleasant, civil and attentive to others, have done a bit of vandal warning and fighting, etc, all good things. However, often those who !vote at RfAs are looking for a 'wider spread' of consistent contributions, to demonstrate a grounding in policies and procedures. For example, you currently have few edits to the Wikipedia: and Wikipedia talk: namespaces, which some folks rely on when assessing whether a candidate has sufficient experience in policy determinations. There are some other minor points like consistent use of edit summaries that also sometimes get picked on. It's nothing personal of course, but I've seen RfAs not succeed on matters like these (while others sometimes do go through- go figure!)
My suggestion would be, if you are interested, is to watch a few of the RfAs in progress, and note the types of comments for and against that accumulate- trends in RfA !voting do vary from time to time, and it's been a while since I looked at how things were going. You could also start participating in various XfD discussions, or helping out on copyvios, or participating in general guideline and policy discussions. You could also consider something like Admin coaching; all are ways to demonstrate a handle on stuff things people think admins ought to be familiar with. With a bit more of these under your belt your chances would be improved.
All that said, a lot of it comes down to the way the nomination is presented, your stated reasons for becoming an admin, the way you can address the questions, how familiar or otherwise folks are with your contribs beforehand, and multiple other factors. So there's no harm in giving it a go if you wish to- personally I wouldn't have much of an issue supporting, and there's a wide range of criteria that different people use- almost impossible to please everybody. The worst that could happen is that your candidacy falls short the first nomination, with declining comments along the lines of "looks ok, but not enough X edits, would support next time"- that kind of thing. As long as there are no serious black marks in your background, a subsequent nomination in a couple of months would probably pass.
That's all only my opinion, and I could easily be quite wrong in my assessment of the probabilities- like I said it has been a while since I've looked at how RfAs progress these days. Whether you decide to give it a go now, or to wait a little while, don't take any RfA comments too personally- the decision process can based on some quite arbitrary factors at times. Anyways, my 2c. Cheers,--cjllw ʘ TALK 09:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful reply, CJ. I will start getting more involved with the WP and WP Talk pages, and take a look at RfAs. Perhaps I'll apply after a few months. Thank you again, and happy Thanksgiving (not that the Aussies are celebrating it). :) Carl.bunderson (talk) 23:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Hey, no worries. Enjoy your holiday season, look forward to supporting your candidacy when you reckon you're ready. Cheers,

Email message

Hi CJLL, I've just sent you an email message asking for your assistance on a non-Wiki matter. Hope to hear back from you ASAP, if you're there right now. Thanks! Cgingold (talk) 23:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Cgingold. Received, and have replied with a couple of suggestions. Best, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Noah's Ark

Just a quick heads up - User:HisTruthsetsfree seems to be a total newbie, and he's chosen Noah's Ark to start with. Be nice to him - he's flailing a bit with structure and encyclopædic tone, but seems earnest, so a little gentle guidance wouldn't be amiss. His short description of the story of Noah's Ark is actually pretty good, but badly out of place where it was. Might be workable for the lead? Well, you're more regular on that article than me. Adam Cuerden talk 05:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Adam. Yes, I gathered that editor was feeling their way, and although well-intentioned it does seem that politely informing them that content ought to be more neutral, factual and referenced, rather than taking any particular POV. I see that you and others have by now made attempts in that direction; I'm not actually a 'regular' at that article, but may keep an eye out and assist in making wikipedia policies clearer, if required. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 00:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Date warrior

I noticed that you recently reverted some date warring. Kudos. I took a look at some of those edits myself and saw that a number of articles had inconsistent style use which returned after your reverts. Since each article should be internally consistent, and the vast majority were BCE/CE style, I went ahead and made them consistent in that style. I'm just a little concerned that this will create a pattern of edits that will make me look like a date warrior myself. Any advice? Should you wish to reply, please use my talk page as it gets less traffic and will be easier for me to watch. --Steven J. Anderson 12:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Steven, replied at ur talkpg. --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi from Germany

I´ve seen you have written Tzompantli. Maybe this article is interesting for you. I would like to translate it in English by myself, but unfortunately my knowledge of the English language isn´t good enough.

[[1]]

This is my German article. de:Der Tross des Pánfilo de Narváez

Yours sincerely --Dellex 16:10, 5. Dez. 2007 (CET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dellexxx (talk • contribs) 15:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dellexxx. Thanks, looks to be some interesting material there, though IMO those newspaper articles oversensationalise the finding a tad. Your de.wiki article also looks to be a profitable source for some future expansion of our Panfilo de Narvaez article here on en.wiki, which is a bit light at the moment. Should I get a chance, will bear that in mind for a future expansion... tschuss! --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Editor652 vandalism?

So what's the deal with Editor652, who goes around changing numbers in articles (Honduras, Hondurans, to name but a few) and has them promptly reverted by others such as you and I because they seem to be utterly random? This person does seem to do some minor good posting, so reporting them as a vandal account is rejected. Any suggestions? I've asked them to stop on their talk page today. Rsheptak (talk) 03:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Russ. Yeah, it's pretty odd behaviour- they seem intent on insisting Garifuna in Honduras number over 900,000, when the most generous citable estimate I've been able to locate is c.200,000; 2001 census data puts it more like under 50,000. Funnily enough their changes to the %ages don't add up if they really intended +900k- maybe they're unintentionally adding a zero(?)
It also occurred to me that they may not be proficient or confident in english (and hence their silence to date in engaging in any commentary or defense of their contribs). I dunno, maybe leaving them a message in spanish might work. I suppose at this stage we can consider them duly cautioned anyway, and if they persist in it then may have to implement a short block and see if that brings them to the table. Will keep an eye out. Cheers (also posted at ur talkpg) --cjllw ʘ TALK 04:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Working Man's Barnstar

The Working Man's Barnstar
For your long long efforts on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mesoamerica, for your polite though firm handling of issues, and for your constant encouragement, I take great pleasure in awarding you the Working Man's Barnstar. Madman (talk) 17:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey Madman, much appreciated! All the best for the New Year - saludos, --cjllw ʘ TALK 22:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

END OF TALK ARCHIVE PAGE
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