Talk:Vampire/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Picture 2 Summers link 3 Request for references 4 4th century 5 Featured article? 6 Separate articles 7 Redundant sections 8 References for some of my recent edits 9 Where is the featured article discussion? 10 Merging 11 This article needs serious work 12 "Nosferatu vampiro"??!!! 13 Removed sentences on "real" as opposed to "mythical" attributes 13.1 Gabrielsimon's edits

Picture

The main picture is kind of relevant, but is more like political satire on landowners than vampires as they are thought of. Could we get a more representative picture up front? Mark Richards 22:00, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Edit: I put one up of Count Orlock...can't get much more iconic than that...Hope this helps.Gnrlotto

Summers link

The link to Montague Summers's book is broken. PedanticallySpeaking 18:31, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. Further reading is not the same thing as proper references. Further reading could list works about the topic that were not ever consulted by the page authors. If some of the works listed in the further reading section were used to add or check material in the article, please list them in a references section instead. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 18:42, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

4th century

The article said:

"Some Slavic peoples believed in vampires as early as the 4th century."

---Since the 4th century is 301AD--400AD, a time from which no Slavic writings exist, and a time from which, as far as I know, we have no Roman or Greek descriptions of Slavic customs, etc., that statement is not very verifiable. I'm erasing the statement. There may be some archaeological evidence of which I am unaware of, but I doubt it. Till someone surprises us with a solid reference, don't restore the deletion. Sure, I expect that Slavs in the 4th century AD most likely had a version of the vampire belief, but in Wikipedia we need to cite verifiable info. Decius 19:21, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Featured article?

I'm not a big-fan of criticism nor am I a critic, but this article is close to awful and I honestly can't believe that it is a featured article. Decius 14:31, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Separate articles

Not going to remove any huge chunks of the article without majority consent, but we should consider removing some of these aspects discussed into separate articles. For example, a new article Vampirism can be started which deals with mortal human beings who drink blood; which deals with blood-drinking in human cultures, etc. This article deals with a lot of stuff as it is right now. It should focus more exclusively on vampires in mythology/folkore on the one hand, and on vampires in fiction/art on the other. Decius 15:05, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also think we should remove the long discussions of Chupacabra and Vampire watermelon. Those only need to be mentioned in passing, since those articles exist for further reading. Decius 15:40, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redundant sections

I see no sense behind these two sections, which deal with the same topic if you read them: "Vampires in history and culture" and "Vampire species". It will be better for it to be organized into one section. Decius 16:27, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

References for some of my recent edits

Reference for the recent edit I made to the "Vampire species" section, where I erased the prior statement and went into more details about who was believed likely to become a vampire, etc. It was based on general reading and personal knowledge, but the immediate source was World Mythology, Roy Willis General Editor, Director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, 1996, Henry Holt & Company Inc., ISBN 0-8050-4913-4. On page 213, you'll find the source, which I'll quote later, because I still have more to incorporate from this source. Decius 20:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Where is the featured article discussion?

How come that the discussion leading to the featured article status of Vampire is not archived anywhere? It is nowhere to be found on the featured article candidates index or on the sub pages of the featured articles log, and those go back as far as "October 2003 and before". Salleman 06:19, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also posted this question on Talk:Featured articles. Filiocht | Blarneyman gave the following explanation:

"This is something of a misrepresentation. In the very early days, there was no voting, but the candidacy procedure now known as WP:FAC did, in fact start during the Brilliant prose days. In late 2003, early 2004, Muriel Victoria had the idea of running all the older BP articles through a voting process, the results of which can be seen at Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose - History and religion, Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose - Science, Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose - People and culture and Wikipedia:Refreshing brilliant prose - Others. The BP candidate discussion of Vampire can be found here and reflects the much smaller community that existed on wikipedia 19 months ago.

While it has become increasingly the done thing to sneer at BP on these pages, it must be acknowledged that it was a genuine attempt to drive higher standards on Wikipedia and that it led directly to the creation of our much-beloved FA process."

--Salleman 15:39, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merging

The lifestyle section seems horribly long for something that has an article of its own. We should trim it significantly, merging any information that is not already in the other article. Keep in mind, though, that things in there are generally cited, and do not bring the picture over now because we are debating over that. Falcon 16:04, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This article needs serious work

I suspect this article has had many, many changes since it was called "brilliant prose". :-) It seems a mess. Needs organization. If I have time I'll attempt a suggested outline. Also needs sources; many details about vampires are presented as though factual. With so many authors (and lately, games) featuring vampires, all with potentially different attributes and abilities, it might be overly long and pointless to try to detail them all. Maybe only the more commonly known features of vampires should be discussed. As for merging, it seems reasonable to me that Vampire would talk about folklore, while modern people who believe that vampires are real are already described in Vampire lifestyle. If people really want to describe different types of fictional vampires in detail, it could go in articles about the respective books or games, like Vampire: The Masquerade Friday 5 July 2005 02:24 (UTC)

I've just made a (much-needed anyway) article on vampires in the World of Darkness setting (to be linked from Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages etc.). It needs some fleshing out but at least it clearly states what a vampire (in WoD) is and does. --Pablo D. Flores 5 July 2005 11:29 (UTC)

"Nosferatu vampiro"??!!!

The article identifies the vampire "species" as "nosferatu vampiro" by contrast with humanity "homo sapiens." This seems like some pretty ridiculous pseudo-latin that someone invented on a lark--certainly, I can find the term in none of my resources, nor can I find it referenced elsewhere on the web via Google. I seriously doubt that the term "nosferatu vampiro" represents the genus and species name of a full Linnean descriptor of the vampire. Are there other species in the "nosferatu" genus? Even if one obscure source, somewhere, has this term, it is obviously not in general use, and is totally inappropriate for the first paragraph of a general encyclopedia article. I propose to remove this doggerel straightaway barring a sensible explanation of the error of my ways.

I concur. Presenting an alleged scientific name for vampires is amusing, but inappropriate. Friday 22:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay, okay, I did, I fess up, I did it. Heehee. Whoever edited the article before me identified vampires as a species so I decided to mess with them. Nosferatu was coined by Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula to identify vampires which simply means the Undead. Since there are technically many folkloric forms of the undead; e.g., zombies, ghosts, ghouls, mummies, etc.; it would only be appropriate for nosferatu to be the genus whereas vampiro would line up neatly with the traditional Latin scientific naming convention for species. Come on guys, it may be immature, but it isn't that though a code to crack. evmore, 20 July 2005

Removed sentences on "real" as opposed to "mythical" attributes

Removed the following sentences:

"Vampires, though presumed to, do not and cannot evolve into any other shape or form than that of their vampirish body. Yet another myth tells that vampires have extended canines, like fangs, but they do not. Their teeth and nails are twenty times harder than a humans, so they use their fingernails to cut open a vein briefly to take what they need from their human victim. No vampire is thick enough to use their teeth, for it makes a noticable mess and the marks are easier to identify, resembling teeth."

Someone seems to be pushing their own particular take on the vampire myth as the "true" version. This material was entirely inappropriate where it was placed, in the main article, and there was no indication as to a better place to locate it. So I have deleted the material. (anon)

since its easy to find references, itsclear the anon wasnt really trryiong, so i reinserted the data. Gabrielsimon 21:00, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

--Okay-shoot. I'm happy to be proved wrong. But I have trryioed, and it does not seem to me common or consensus information that vampires do not "really" have long canines, or the ability to shift their form, or decline to use their teeth to open veins. See, for instance, _Dracula_, _Interview with the Vampire_, and just about everything in between. Please provide some of the references you mention. If this is your own take on the vampire myth, or one from a particular folk tradition or modern work of fiction, that is fine--but it should be identified as such, and not written up like this in the main text of the article as a statement of the "truth" about vampires. So I ask again: please cite where you're coming from on this.

Gabrielsimon's edits

To the above user: Don't bother. Gabrielsimon has a long history of editing pages to reflect his own ideas about what's mythical and what's real (check his contributions). He has been harassing other users (including administrators) because they revert his changes; he has been blocked several times for reverting those reverts repeatedly (see WP:3RR, WP:AN/3RR). I've reverted his changes again, as well as the "nosferatu vampiro" classification. You don't need a source to "prove" that vampires are not real but mythical. The rest is as you said, otherwise it falls under the policies of WP:NPOV or WP:NOR.

This page is already a mess as it stands; it would be a pity if it had to be protected. --Pablo D. Flores 22:24, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

you should be nicer, pablo, i have no "long history" of such, i have a history of trying to undo deletionist edits. Gabrielsimon 22:24, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I beg to differ. I've attempted compromise wording in an effort to avoid ongoing edit wars. Gabrielsimon, please understand that your own research and experiences with real vampires is not admissible to Wikipedia. Please see WP:NOR and WP:NOT. Friday 22:34, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

your comprimises werent comprimises at all. you are freuqntly the one reverting my edits and not explaining. Gabrielsimon 22:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

--Okay, I admit to being a pretty new user here. Maybe I need somebody's help. Are you saying that removal of inaccurate or unsourced or blatantly POV material is "detetionism" and therefore can not be accepted? No one, as far as I can determine, has ever used the pseudo-classification "Nosferatu vampiro" to refer to vampires in the classic Linnean taxonomy. It is certainly not common practice, and therefore has no place in the first paragraph of a general survey of vampires. The other paragraph of text in question similarly makes bald assertions about the "truth" of vampires that simply do not gibe with the majority of sources--it is, by definition, POV material--but it makes no reference to _whose_ POV it is...so where _should_ it be located? Not in the main text of the article, unless with a disclaimer ("According to