@Gerda Arendt: do you ever listen to popular music? I've been listening toDaniela Andrade off and on for the last several weeks. There's something about her singing that touches me. It's not complex, it's very simple, but she's got this authentic approach that I like, as if she's singing her very last song each and every time. Hard to explain.Viriditas (talk)21:17, 20 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, that's a highly produced song, she has several others where her raw vocals shine through and you get a glimpse of her wider range as a singer. But yes, "Tamale" is fun, and I especially like the video, as it speaks to certain period in my life when I used to buy tamales from street vendors who were always older women.Viriditas (talk)22:53, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, absolutelyfantastic image of Podleś in the infobox. And it even dates back to 2010! You got lucky with that one. The use of "older women" in my comment was a playful contrast with Andrade's video, which shows younger women making the tamales. In the US, there is generally a culture of grandmothers, or as they are known here, theabuela, who sell these tamales on the city streets. There's also the play on the term "like my grandmother used to make" when it comes to food.Viriditas (talk)23:24, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing sound quality from 2014! Quite remarkable. I'm playing it here in my room and it sounds like I'm right there! I think the trick is the live mix, it's perfect. It sounds like I'm sitting in the orchestra. I love her coloratura contralto, and I hope this isn't a bad thing, but it's so low you can't tell it is a woman singing! Did she ever play male parts, as I understand that kind of thing was common at one point? Right now I'm getting really into ballet. I see that the opera-ballet has fallen out of fashion, with only four rarely performed.Viriditas (talk)23:42, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Funny question: the story mentions 2 women and 2 men, and in the first version (2024), there was one more woman and one more man. Had she been up for DYK none of that would have been "interesting" but what she did at age four ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk)23:47, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there is definitely a problem with hook style, but we've discussed this so many times, there's nothing more to say. I recently wrote two hooks that I thought were perfect, only to have the reviewer tell me they were too long and to rewrite a hook that others now think is not interesting because it is just sitting there, abandoned to the elements. Anyway, enjoy Spain and get off the internet!Viriditas (talk)23:51, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I did that without being asked - but in the meantime,your hook made it to prep, pictured. Today we have Bach, Mozart and Verdi on the Main page, but I enjoyed Spain, - actually trying to tackle Roque Niquiomo was a beyond what I can do easily, and I missed the top. Still enjoyed hike and views. --Gerda Arendt (talk)21:52, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You picked both: how generous, thank you!! Verdi: Image size is very easy to change, I was tempted to shrink it on the talk page but then thought that the discussion would outgrow it, which your post alone already did (at least on my display). We should not forget how different display is for different users. Some mobile users see first the first para of the prose, then the infobox below it, then the rest of the article. You will not get a happy photo of Verdi in mid-career because photography was at its beginning ;) - Little progress in the matter: N. didn't revert while Verdi was on the main page. Previous reverts came much faster. The belief of those who don't want an infobox is that it should go by the author(s)'s preference. My story today is aboutJerome Kohl whosetalk page is inspiring, in case you didn't visit yet. He reverted many infoboxes for composers because of the 2010 RfC of project composers, but later he wrotethings like this. - Verdi is a GA by Smerus, who wrote FAsWagner andChopin, among many others. --Gerda Arendt (talk)22:42, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I think I might have found an error in the Nun ruhen alle Wälder article. You say the eighth stanza became used as an evening prayer for children, but that stanza is unclear and may be numbered differently in other versions. Please check to make sure. The eighth stanza in the article you wrote in the subsection "Text" may be different than the prayer that is used.Viriditas (talk)22:50, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, that Marie Engle! - See music today, for people remembered, and the wedding anniversary of relatives who went on their honeymoon to Tenerife which I can see from La Palma on a clear day (not today). See places - I uploaded until 21 Jan. - Nun ruhen alle Wälder is also in music, and it was that recently that I noticed that it is part of the hymnal, because it took centuries for it to be accepted, and 13 more years to actually being sung (where I watch) ;) - I guess the majority of the songs in the book don't get sung at all or very rarely. - What I want to know about "a song" is who wrote it? when? how does it sound? what is it about? - and the one thing I don't care about at all is which important person didn't like it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk)23:46, 30 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I agree that the emphasis on the King of Prussia isn't as unusual or interesting as it should be, but AGAIN, DYK does have that bias, such that it encourages the sensational, the surprising, and most importantly, the negative, which we know you don't like. The solution (or antidote) to this reoccurring theme (and the best way to avoid it since you don't like it) is to instead use a contrast between two or more different thingsin place of what can be interpreted as negative. This is interesting, because it has the same impact as negativity bias in terms ofsalience. You can put this to the test in your own life. For example, people who wear bright colored clothing or unusual hairstyles will be noticed more than others. That's a simple example. So what makesyour hook stand out? That's the question you want to ask. As a singer, what you find interesting will not be the same as non-singers, but you can find a place where non-singers and singers can agree. That's what you want to focus on in your hook. Negative hooks attract attention, but so does humor, wonder, and many other things.Viriditas (talk)00:17, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
On my way going out: I'll think about a reply, rather than rushing. What I came to say is that I'm fascinated byRichie Beirach, who needs a few more refs (so had no time to expand the article about the lovely peaceful enduring song). Dont miss my story today, a 2013 DYK ;) - wrong day, but close: it was written for tomorrow's occasion. --Gerda Arendt (talk)12:02, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I love comments like this! I am putting together a Beirach playlist right now so I can have more to say to you later after I spend several hours listening to his music.Viriditas (talk)19:18, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that's great, especially since I don't have those hours, - I don't listen to music while hiking. Today was especially great, almond flowers and being above the clouds. - Look forWind of Change in music. --Gerda Arendt (talk)23:47, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Some years back, I signed up for theBonhams auction ofCasablanca memorabilia. There were only two items even remotely within my financial reach: gambling chips and Sakall's waiter's jacket. Who wants generic chips? (Turns out a lot of people apparently; the pre-auction estimate was a couple of hundred dollars, but I think they went for a couple of thousand.) Anyway, it seems there were two of us vying for the jacket (it was online and in-person bidding, maybe phone bidding as well, so I'm not absolutely certain). My last bid was $3200 US, as I recall. That was the pre-auction high-end estimate, and didn't include the buyer's premium, shipping, etc. I bailed at that point, and the next bid of $3300 ($100 increments) took it. I've regretted my decision ever since.Clarityfiend (talk)10:23, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Clarityfiend: I would have gone for the waiter's jacket! I used to do thrift store hauls back in the 1980s. The things you used to be able to find were amazing, and so cheap. One of my fave finds of all time was a Playboy-stylesmoking jacket that looked straight out ofAustin Powers. It was really beautiful. I gifted it to a friend who admired it some time later, which is generally how I handle things I like. I tend to pass things on rather than to possess anything of value. Over time, I've given away almost everything I've ever owned.Viriditas (talk)00:19, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, following up on your offerat the Humanities Reference Desk to take a look at some of the claims inDraft:Desegregation of Atlanta schools, especially the first two "context" sentences in the article, which seem false to me:Georgia state law, passed in 1870, required racial segregation in schools with equal funding for black and white schools. Atlanta City Council failed to provide school buildings compliant with racial separation laws, so the American Missionary Association received state support for educating black students. If you do end up having a chance to take a look, thanks!Suriname0 (talk)18:25, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Suriname0: can you summarize why this was moved into draft space in the first place? Just want to make sure I understand the page history before I start getting into the spot checking.Viriditas (talk)21:07, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm starting with the original version.[1] Based on that version (let's start there), why was it moved to draft? It looks pretty good aside from some general formatting and grammar issues that are routine. There's a good chance I'm missing what you are seeing, so please be patient in your reply so we can both get to the same place.Viriditas (talk)21:21, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Viriditas, I moved it to draft for a few reasons: (a) undergrad student draft from a WikiEd course that had released a few other low-quality drafts, (b) heavy reliance on an undergrad thesis, (c) some copy that read like potential sloppy LLM use to me, and (d) I quickly checked two sentences and noticed that the cited source didn't verify the claim in the sentence (which also made me suspect sloppy LLM use). I kept it in draft because, as I mentioned above about the start of the History#Segregation section, the first two sentences appeared to me to be (1) false (or at least misleading) and (2) unsupported by the cited source. There was a brief discussion about the draft atUser_talk:Wikivoyager22.
Ultimately, I had sufficient suspicion about the verifiability and accuracy of the draft and couldn't immediately verify the content, so I figured that was a perfect opportunity for incubation in draft space. Does that provide useful context? It also looks likeUser:Rich Farmbrough is looking at the draft now as well, as I see some recent edits and some work on the talk page.
Again, I'd like to emphasize that this is primarily a skill issue on my part; if you are familiar with the history of desegregation and the content seems accurate, you're more than welcome to BOLDly move it back to mainspace. I just didn't want to keep it in mainspace when I couldn't verify if the content was accurate (and had a few "circumstantial" reasons to think it wasn't). If I had the time, the first thing I would do is readCourage to Dissent so I have more context about the subject matter. Thanks again for taking a look at this! Cheers,Suriname0 (talk)03:37, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The book is available chapter by chapter on TWL if you are interested, but for some reason the full book download appears to be disabled, which is odd, because it usually lets me download the full pdf from that site. It could be my browser as this kind of thing happened before a few months ago. Anyway, I haven’t yet spot checked the sources, but nothing about the text looked like LLM to me, quite the opposite in fact. The poor writing style looks human to me, which was the tell that a LLM was not used. When a LLM is used to write an article, the tell is that it relies on a limited set of phrases and vocab that most people don’t use in a repetitive manner. And it is within that set of repetition that LLM makes itself evident. Knowing nothing about the class or the student, this looks like someone who is planning to go to law school or is already in law school, as they write like an attorney. The headings were wrong from a MOS approach, which is easily fixed. Like I said, I have only glanced at the original draft, and nothing stood out to me as unusual.Viriditas (talk)05:01, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I was able to download the full PDF from an alternate source, happy to send it to you! Again, if you have time to take a look and/or move it to mainspace, that would be great.Suriname0 (talk)20:08, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I have a copy. Just concerned that there's something wrong with TWL, as I've had many problems with it. Seems to have something to do with Firefox.Viriditas (talk)20:26, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This is a complex and very interesting area. Specifically the desire of various black factions to slow play desegregation is something that is not often covered, although it is in the sources. One of the issues with the article is that it seems to be too focussed on a bachelor's thesis which is about the 'resegregation' of Atlanta schools - a real phenomenon, but tangential to the main subject according to the name of the draft. I am unlikely to spend much more time on the draft. All the best:RichFarmbrough16:57, 26 January 2026 (UTC).[reply]
the desire of various black factions to slow play desegregation is something that is not often covered Seems pretty much covered in civil rights literature. MLK faced great opposition from the Black community, and much later the NAACP. Part of the struggle the early civil rights movement had was trying to convince their own people to change the status quo. Inertia is the greatest enemy to change. This is nothing new. American white, conservative women helped defeat theEqual Rights Amendment. You may ask, why would women argue against their own right to freedom and opportunity? Within every movement you have reactionaries, people who benefit from the status quo and operate on thecrab mentality to keep their own people oppressed. Happens in every ethnic group, religion, and social class. We saw it happen among poor whites who voted not once, not twice, butthree times for Trump, sincerely believing that the money was going to trickle down to them any day now. One of the most popular photos on Reddit is an image of a dirt poor white family that lives in a ramshackle cabin that looks like it is about to fall down with massive "TRUMP" signs all over its exterior walls. These are the same poor whites who are literally dying for Trump by the thousands as he cuts their social programs and entitlements. These are the same poor white veterans who voted for Trump by the tens of thousands, a president who avoided the draft and has spent decades denigrating the military and its service members. This is no different. SSDD.Viriditas (talk)23:17, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Continuing from January, after a full day out: Beirach needs more refs, especially for the recordings. It seems like he has a complete list on the official website, but I can't access it. Can you, perhaps? The two facts marked - influence and his compositions jazz standards - also need refs or have to go. - For today's story, I picked a hymn distantly related to today's feast day (last year it wasBach's chorale cantata for the occasion). The hymn was pictured DYK on this day in 2019, and I got a bit nostalgic when readingTemplate:Did you know nominations/Im Frieden dein, o Herre mein. --Gerda Arendt (talk)09:39, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I would move the unsourced bits to talk page intact, so others can look at them. I will return to that page later this week to try and help find sources. Yesterday, I listened to his 2017 albumLive at Birdland New York, which was recorded when he was 70 years old. I think it's remarkable that he could still play like that at his age. Also, his technique and approach to Jazz is somewhat unique, so it would take me some time to figure out how to describe it accurately and faithfully. One thing I did notice that stood out, is he gave a lot of freedom and opportunity to the musicians who played with him, more so than others, so he comes off as very democratic and open to collaboration. The other thing that stuck with me is that I didn't hear him improvise as much as I thought he would. He is very controlled and intentional, and draws from a bag of chops like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.Viriditas (talk)20:33, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Returned from another great day. I didn't want to nominate Beirach until Buchholz is off the main page, but now have to because it's seven days after his death was known. I'll nominate with only the referenced things, - plenty of detail. I know how to find refs for recordings, but would not easily find "influences" and "standards". "democratic and open to collaboration" sounds wonderful (quite generally so!), but would also need a ref if to be mentioned for him. --Gerda Arendt (talk)21:04, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that has me curious: did he work out at the gym and lift weights? Playing piano with that kind of hand strength at 70 years of age is unheard of to me. If you find any information about his exercise routine (if any), please add it to the article. I find the topic of maintaining strength and agility in older musicians interesting.Viriditas (talk)21:16, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I saw no indication, and think that to keep playing alone trains. I nominated. Commented out the standards, will look for influence. Chick Corea - don't even know if it fits ... - I had no time yet to understand who wrote the article. Enjoying where I am too much ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk)22:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Congrats to the double hook below! What do you think about an infobox for the company? - What aboutthe Wotan-hook? - Beirach made it to the main page (after I spent an hour - aftera pinnacle day on vacation - finding references for the albums that have an article ... for the formality of having everything sourced, - some are still commented out because I got too tired ...), so the time to reach readers with more information for him is now ;) - I'll make him my story today, now, and don't know yet which music too take for a sample. What would be your choice? ForJubilant Sykes, Ioffered two. - For Verdi: there was a question left for you, about stewardship, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk)08:24, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, same at my end, took upa philosopher, don't understand a line of some obits ... - Could you please take a quick look at the Wotan hook, perhaps suggest some compromise? "giant of a man but expressing tender emotions" (short for the reviewers proposal) is just too little - belittling that is - for his singular performance, especially as Wozzeck. --Gerda Arendt (talk)10:32, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
On17 February 2026,Did you know was updated with a fact from the articleWestern Motel, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was... that a motel room insidean Edward Hopper painting was reconstructed in 3D, allowing guests to sleep there? The nomination discussion and review may be seen atTemplate:Did you know nominations/Western Motel. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page(here's how,Western Motel), and the hook may be added tothe statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free tonominate it.
You did a great job with the article. :-) You didn't have to credit me as well since you did all the work, but that was very thoughtful.APKhi :-) (talk)14:16, 17 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You are very modest, but without those high quality images you provided, the article isn’t even worth visiting. You deserve the credit more than I do. Writing was the easy part, in this case.Viriditas (talk)18:51, 17 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hello there! So I wanted to address a concern to you about a DYK nomination fromWing Sun Fong's article. I was, for some reason, unable to comment on the DYK nomination itself so I had to make a seperate topic, here:Talk:Wing Sun Fong#Did you know info fix and suggestion. I made a note there about how the information in the DYK is seen by historians ofTitanic as being a made-up story and that the nomination should be changed to something more appropriate and one based on actual research - I also edited the article to fix that bit of misinformation on which the DYK was based on.
No, I think I understand now. I see now that the issue was indeed noted. As I mentioned before, DYK isn't something I've ever gotten involved in so I wasn't entirely sure if my suggestion was heeded.
