Talk:Spoo/Archive

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Archive 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

Major Edit

Ahoy. I recently re-wrote the entry on spoo, and put a similar version over on the Great Machine B5 wiki and the B5 page at wikicities.

Of note, I have removed the entire text of JMS's spoo post, but included many, many links. The reason I did this is because it seems unencyclopedic to just copy and paste a resource, and though JMS indeed said his post can be copied anywhere online, it is still in violation of the copyright rules here, as well as the spirit of the wikipedia itself as an encyclopedia rather than a regurgitator of resources. In addition to the many, many links, it can be found in the history. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson 09:27, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, leading up to the peer review I've added a bunch of stuff, tweaked everything else, and changed my hideous inline links to inline footnotes (inline references). I've also created and added a wikisource source page of JMS's original spoo post. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> - 00:56, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
How can something that's been released into the public domain by the author be in violation of the copyright rules here? I am just curious - public domain is public domain, right? I was going to suggest Wikisource for the original spoo post, just so this page doesn't have to rely on the current link staying up. --Dmitri Bichko 21:47, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
JMS's posts are not in the public domain, not by a long shot - they may be reprinted only on the internet or USENET by anyone other than SFX Magazine provided credit is given, and he retains full copyright. Not public domain, and more importantly, not GFDL. Additionally, it is unencyclopedic to just regurgitate the source. Finally, I've already put it on wikisource, three days ago - check the bottom right hand of the page. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> - 05:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

First of April

Do I get it right? --Stone 11:58, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Get what right? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:08, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
First of April! Everybody will think this is for the april fool, but if its not than its also OK. The whole article does not look like featured, a little bit short for me, but its in and this is good.--Stone 12:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Hilarious! Spoo makes the front page! This has always been a great article -- such excellent work on such a silly topic. JMS would be proud. Congrats to all. Jsnell 04:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Many thanks. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 17:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm one of the ones who thought it was an April Fools joke .. :) --68.146.186.92 05:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't catch it was an April Fool's joke at first because it showed up about 6 hours before April Fool's on my time. Still a funny article to get featured. --SeizureDog 06:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia runs on UTC, which is ~6 hours ahead of EST. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 06:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Happy April Fool's Day! Huangdi 16:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Which started 16 hours ago... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 16:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was an April Fool's joke, because 1) I've never seen Babylon 5 and 2) Spoo is another word for semen (short for "spooge")

1)It's a really good show, and 2) Yes. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, great call for the April 1st "cover" article. Bobak 22:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

"Spoo" as a featured article? Haha, congratulations and well done! ComaDivine 23:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Parody of "Spice"?

From reading this article there seems to be some similatities with Spice from Frank Herberts Dune. I was just wondering if there was any link? Clearly Spoo is less harmful etc but almost as soon as I started reading it I could see similarities. Zarboki (Talk) 00:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

There are no similarities. Spice is a drug. Spoo is a food and animal that has no narcotic effects or addicitive properties. Zero similarity. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Apart from both being fictional foodstuffs that begin with "sp..." --- ALoan (Talk) 00:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay maybe I was reaching a little but think about it - it has a difficult to describe flavour, it is very rare, harvesting it is hazardous, it begins with "sp"..., it is a tradeable commodity, it is made by worm-like aliens, is very desirable. I just thought there might be something there. Zarboki 01:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Babylon 5 is well known to be one of the most unimaginative shows every, so it is likely that spoo (especially given that it is a worm derivative) is from spice. I mean, goodness, they even fly around in X-wing ripoffs. The whole show is pretty much one huge ripoff.
I believe the terms are 'homage' and 'pastiche', rather than 'rip-off' ;). As for the spoo/Spice link - I can see it, but it's not verifiable enough IMHO. If anyone can find confirmation from Straczynski, put it up. Otherwise, we'll just have to treat it as coincidental, I think. Plus the initial suggestion was on 1st April, which gets my Spidey sense tingling ;) Doctor Atomic 03:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking along those lines. As to the April 1st reference - it was a FA on April 1st and that's when I found the page. Zarboki 08:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Reference formatting

I'm going to put back the old reference formatting for now - the old one looks better I feel. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree. The old style reference format used external links to fake internal ones, it required careful synchronization between reference section and article body whenever changes were made, and it didn't allow multiple links to the same refernece (as I mention below). You're offering only a subjective opinion in opposition to this. Bryan 01:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
It did not fake external links as internal. Additionally, two Ibids is not that big of a deal (aside from being completely appropriate). As for careful synchronization being needed, its not a problem - this article is incredibly stable, and massive ammounts of text being added are unlikely until more stuff is published (unlikely again). --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes it does. Perhaps you're using a different skin that doesn't make it as obvious, but in Classic internal links and external links have a different color. Footnotes using the old templates are external links that happen to point back to pages on Wikipedia. Check out the source for template:ref; it uses the "fullurl:" tag to insert an external link. Anyway, the new ref tags are the standard endorsed by both Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Footnotes, so I think you should present more of a case for switching back than just a personal preference for how it "looked." Bryan 01:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Woop, the below got cut off because we saved at the same time with the same header:

I notice that the edit conflict that I stepped on while finishing converting the referencing formatting was a reversion of the first half of my conversion work. Well, obviously I disagree. Aside from the subjective matters of personal preference, the new reference format allows for multiple references to the same note to be combined quite easily; see the "JMSspoopost" reference, which previously had three copies in the reference section. The previous version looked less tidy. Bryan 01:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Bryan in that the Cite.php extension is superior to the older templatized systems, and is now considered, in the footnote guideline, to be "best practice" (where numbered references are used). However, I would suggest that the day when the article hits the main page is probably not the best time to introduce changes like this, especially when there is some opposition from at least one regular editor of the article. Irrespective of what system is eventually used, would you have any objection, Jeffrey, to increasing the font-size of the refs? I understand the benefits of a smaller font for the refs section, but 84% is simply too small, IMHO, particularly for high res screens. 90 or 92% seem to ensure visual clarity across most monitor settings, while preserving the benefits of having smaller sized refs. Would 92% be acceptable? Regards —Encephalon 01:29, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The bigger font is OK... --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 01:32, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Cool! Congrats on the article.:-) —Encephalon 01:38, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I would have thought that the day when an article hits main page is when it'd be most important for it to have an easily-updateable referencing format - that's why I jumped in and did it when I did, I saw that the main page had just updated and was anticipating an impending spate of edits to the contents of the article as a result. Oh well, there seem to be a bunch of content edits coming in now so a straight revert to my version would be difficult at this point. I'll just re-do the work some other time. I've been wandering around updating reference formatting on random articles for weeks now so I'm used to it. :) Bryan 01:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
And seriously, thank you for your efforts. They are appreciated. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Does that mean I can put the ref tags back in without being reverted? Bryan 05:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


exactly what is the OR you referred to? Bcameron54 19:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
"Spoo is also a portmanteau of 'Spam' and 'poo', both familiar in sandwich lore." Please. Provide a reference for that, which, by the way, looks like vandalism, more than anything. Nothing in the history of the word or the fictional aspects suggests any of that. Original research, if not vandalism. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 20:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
we were talking spoo here. happy april fool's day. Bcameron54 17:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Spp and the vegetarians

Is there an equivalent of vegetarian haggis?

Jackiespeel 21:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

None ever mentioned. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


Shmoo

Am I the only one who recognizes the Spoo as a shameless ripoff of Al Capp's SCHMOO? http://www.deniskitchen.com/thestore/bios_shmoo.html Adamdavis 02:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Yes, you are the only one. It's not linked in the article at all. Not even in the see also section. And it must be a rip-off! Of course! --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 10:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Missed it! Thanks for pointing out. The resemblances look like more than a case of "see also". Adamdavis 14:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
Doubt this is the ripoff. It seems much more likely that this whole spoo business (the term by the way, has not entered common internet jargon, only B5 dork jargon) is much more a ripoff of dune.

"Dilbert's spoo has too much fleem."

He said so in this one "Dilbert" cartoon by Scott Adams. Dilbert appears to be the only engineer that doesn't know how to lie. OneWeirdDude 21:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

pronunciation

Pronunciation needed or add the word to Wictionary too, please. --Snek01 07:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The word is not appropriate for wiktionary. As for the pronounciation, it's pronounced like the word poo with a soft s before it. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Spoo and Bill Mumy

I always assumed the etymology of Spoo in Babylon 5 was related to Bill Mumy (who played Lennier in the series).

In 1979 Barnes & Barnes (Bill Mumy and Robert Haimer) recorded the song "Three Drunk Newts" which begins with the two of them yelling what I always thought was "Spoo!". When spoo references started appearing in Babylon 5, I assumed it was some sort of inside joke between Straczynski and Mumy. --Circumjacence 03:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You assumed incorrectly. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
If it can be shown that Barnes & Barnes indeed say "Spoo!" at the beginning of the song, is it worthy of mention? 1979 predates the He-man reference and Mumy did play a fairly important Character in Babylon 5. What would be the best way to go about referencing an audio work / lyric? --Circumjacence 14:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Reliable sources

This article refers to sources that are considered unreliable. No idea how this article ever came to become a FA. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps because your view on what sources are considered unreliable is a lot more restrictive than the mainstream? I don't see anything objectionable in the references myself (aside from formatting issues - could use more cite templates IMO). See Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Spoo, looks like there was a lot of discussion of the references there. Bryan 04:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Content

tastes like...?

Shouldn't the 'taste' paragraph mention that there is Bab5 episode which does mention how it tastes: I'm not sure, but as I recall, G'kar is introducing a human dish to another Narn, who tries a bite and asks with surprise "where did you get fresh spoo?" G'kar insists it really is a human delicacy, "swedish meatballs". (This is the same episode which claims Spoo-like dishes have independently turned up in all major cultures.) Can anybody confirm this with a reference? Not-just-yeti 03:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)not-just-yeti

You are confusing Spoo with what G'Kar knows as "Breen," a wholly unrelated dish. In the episode "Walkabout," G'Kar mentions off hand that every sentient species has a version of Breen - a dish humans know as Swedish meatballs. This was also a sly reference by JMS to a similar concept by Douglas Adams from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo and the Legend of Spoo

Featured article star Jimbo Wales hates this article. No, seriously - he does.


Jimbo Wales hates this article?

As far as I can see, that's not a template. Is it just trolling? I have never seen a box like that before. --Ifrit 19:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

'The box is custom made, for, although he is incorrect in his factual assesment, he does indeed dislike it. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 07:05, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I see absolutely no reason for it to exist, whether it's correct or not. I'm removing it. Bryan Derksen 05:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Alternate version

To clarify at the outset, I'm not pushing for the removal of any references. Knowing how this article's referencing is controversial, however, and because it's sometimes difficult to imagine what the article would look like otherwise, I've created this page for future reference as to what the article would look like without message board, e-mail and blogging discussions. FWIW, it would IMO still be a good article, still with real-world perspective. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 00:20, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Don't mean to come off as a hardass, but if you check out the Whatlinkshere for the article, you'll see a great deal of old discussion about the reliability of the references. At first, many people were against the message board material, but as time went on, there developed a growing ... I wouldn't say consensus, but at least acceptance that under certain conditions, message board/bbs/usenet material, if verifiable, is entirely appropriate as a source of reference material. Indeed, J. Michael Straczynski has been pointed to as a prime example of someone who has provided exclusive and necessary material on the internet and/or it progenitors, material that is both vital to articles about him or his works, and entirely and decidedly proven and verifiable.
This article has been pointed to an example of a good balance of fictional and realistic elements, and a good example of online reference use. That is not to whitewash the fact that there are folks who are against this article's existence, even folks in high places. But this article has been confirmed by the community as one of our best, survived a near perfunctory and needlessly vitriolic FARC, and was selected to be showcased on our project's main page - no small feat considering the subject and its supposedly controversial use of references. To gut the article may still leave it "a good article" but it is better off remaining featured. IMHO. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Calm down, I didn't mean defeaturing it. As I said, this is for future reference- more challenges, FAR if there ever is another one (I'm not going to start one, don't worry). But if you've been to AfD lately, you'll notice people are getting stricter and stricter about this sort of thing. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 02:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Dilbert Spoo (and Fleem)

There is another occurrence of "spoo" in popular culture, the slightly cultish obsession surrounding the phrase "My spoo has too much fleem.", which occurred in a Dilbert comic (date unknown). If anyone could help elaborate or perhaps even link to the comic so that the rest of the world could enjoy it, it would be greatly appreciated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MyOwnLittlWorld (talk • contribs) 23:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Further linguistic sources for "spoo"

The urban dictionary of sexual slang [1] offers correlative data for a sexual/slang origin (which may have followed common linguistic "reduction" from "spooge" to "spoo"). Also, this seems to have crossed over to computer jargon (as "bad output") as can be seen at: spooge:

Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spooge [I'm new to Wikipedia; please to pardon all blunders.] Beofluff 09:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

If we can find a more reliable reference than Urban Dictionary, then I'm all for adding the "spoo(ge)" definition to it. I've heard the term used in that way before, and was actually going to say something about it myself. Ten Pound Hammer • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps•Review?) 20:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that usage is mentioned in the article and has been for a long time ("According to Slang and Euphemism, spoo is a slang term for ejaculate, etymologically derived from spew, and cited by linguist Pamela Munro in a paper on 1980s collegiate slang at UCLA.") --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 13:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

"Real-world etymology of the word"

Consensus is based on a system of good reasons. So, what are the good reasons for keeping information that has nothing to do with Babylon 5 spoo in the article about Babylon 5 spoo? Once again, several people in the review indicated that this information is irrelevant; I saw no rebuttals. Punctured Bicycle 13:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The real-world usage of the word provides etymological background on the word's construction and use in regards to the word's creation and origins prior to and in relation to JMS. The section is necessary. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 13:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
First off, this article is not about the word spoo; if it were, it would begin "Spoo is an English word..." Second, the relevant "etymology" of spoo was preserved in the article ("Spoo is Oops spelled backward"). Third, if you want to indicate that Straczynski was not the first to use spoo, so as not to mislead the reader, then fair enough. But that can be accomplished in a single sentence; you don't need to list every example under the sun—examples which, again, have no demonstrated connection to Babylon 5. Finally, Jimbo Wales himself has cited this article as a good example of original research (even as a featured article), and this section partially shows why. For example, surveying USENET and print archives to discover the "earliest known" occurrence of something is pure original research. It is up to reliable, third-party, secondary sources to tell us when something first occured; you, or whoever searched through these archives, lack the editorial oversight of credible, professional publishers. Punctured Bicycle 13:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo's word is not gospel, and most of the references are third party. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 13:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo's word is based on Wikipedia:No original research, which is official policy. Is that all you have to say? Punctured Bicycle 14:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Spooge

The section of the article covering etymology is about the word Spoo. It is not about the word Spooge. We have seem to come to the agreement that Urban Dictionary is not a reliable source. Finally, the source provided for spooge (even though, once again, this is about Spoo) does not contain anything readable: it is 180 some odd blank pages. This would be an acceptable addition if some reliable source noted spooge is a derivative of spoo, or that the definitions are identical. It should be noted that the slang definition of spoo similar to the one trying to be introduced for spooge is already there in the section. Continuing to re-add the definition of a completely unrelated word makes no sense. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 06:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Does the Google Books link not actually work for you? If it did, you'd immediately see that it is both a relevant and reliable source (both spoo and spooge are listed side-by-side as synonyms for semen). But I could dispense with Google and cite the book directly, since, again, it is a reliable source.
Why add it at all? Because it's my understanding that "spooge" is a far-better-known form of the word "spoo" (meaning semen), and if we're going to mention spoo-meaning-semen, it's worth adding all of two words backed up by a reliable citation to say "spoo (you've probably heard of it as 'spooge')".--Father Goose 07:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, restoring the redlink was simply an error on my part.--Father Goose 07:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Unless there is a direct etymological connection between Spoo and Spooge, mentioning Spooge as a synonym for semen (when Spoo's connection to semen is already noted) makes about as much sense as listing off the dozen other things that mean semen, and bogs the article down in irrelevant synonyms sufficiently covered elsewhere. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 08:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Earlier, you said "this would be an acceptable addition if some reliable source noted spooge is a derivative of spoo, or that the definitions are identical". I provided a reliable source that shows the definitions are identical, which additionally improves the referencing for "spoo means semen".
If you are abandoning your own concept of "what is acceptable", then I have to believe you're just fixated on winning a fight at this point.--Father Goose 09:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
No, its called being wrong, in retrospect, about the "identical definitions" thing, because frankly, it opens up a can of worms where the paragraph will get bogged down with unrelated synonyms. It took this conversation to see that. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 09:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)