Talk:Tiny Tim (musician)

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[edit] DOB

I'm going to go with 1932 for his birthdate, though there is some disagreement about the matter (see [1] "Tiny Tim had recently said that he was born April 12, 1932, making him 64, although over the years he had sometimes fibbed about his age"). I've seen 1922, 1930 and 1933 all given, but I think we should stick with what Tim himself said last unless some fresh evidence comes to light. --Camembert

[The following 5 'graphs, including pseudo-sig, moved here by me, from under the == Dickens == hdg where an IP's edit left them. --Jerzy (t) 23:43, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)]

Regarding the uncertainty of Tiny Tim's age, writer William Poundstone, of the "Big Secrets" series of books, flatly states the following in the third book ("Biggest Secrets"):

"He was actually born Herbert Buckingham Khaury in New York City on April 12, 1923. Tim was 46, claiming to be 37, in 1969."

For what it's worth, I personally regard Poundstone as generally trustworthy on these matters; in the abovementioned book he precedes his litany of celebrities' real ages with an informative subchapter titled "How to find out anyone's age," discussing the searching of public records, old school yearbooks, etc.

He does not, however, specify exactly how he arrived at a 1943 birthdate for Tiny Tim, and indeed notes that "The New York City Department of Health is a real stickler" regarding the information required for a complete search.

-Tim Harrod

He was born in 1932, just look at the passport and birth certificate here: http://www.tinytim.org/effects.html Blogbourri 22:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Analysis

Under the analysis section, there is a comment about him saying he asked his wife to give up her job because he felt it was not her place to work (Paraphrasing here). It is marked with a citation needed. I found the source [2] but the source seems to be of questionable veracity. I think the quote should probably be removed. It seems more like a post-mortem flaming.

[edit] Dickens

Really, this should be broken up into 2 pages

  1. Tiny Tim (musician)
  2. Tiny Tim (Dickens fictional character)

along with a disambiguation page.

If you asked a random person "Who is Tiny Tim?", very few would give "the ukelele player" as their first answer.

Really? The first hits on a Google search are all for the singer (well, a few are for computer programs and things, but none are for the Dickens character). Furthermore, the Dickens part is only a stub, and I don't think it will get any bigger any time soon. I think the present set-up is fine, but if you really think they need fully disambiguating, then do it. --Camembert
1. Will you all please sign and date your responses to help keep thiings clear. Just add four tildes (~) after your comments.
2. More to the point, please check 'What links here' when doing any moves, in this case the one where the Tiny Tim, fictional character info was moved, there are internal links that now incorrectly point to the musician.
3. Yes, we need a disambig at this point, because of the above, and because other fictional characters from A Christmas Carol have their own entries. implications of the above issues that are off-topic here but should be discussed elsewhere. Unless sometone thinks it's better (and is willing) to change those, merging Crachit and Marley and whatever else in the Christmas Carol article? [strike out, and bolded replacement language, by Jerzy (t) 02:28, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)]
Quill 23:27, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC) [as modified & adjacently noted]
The biggest problem in putting up with rudeness is that it contributes to the impression that there's nothing wrong with it. So while i can take it, and while an apology would be worthless to me (as opposed to whatever it may be worth to this community), i conclude i am obliged to comment that:
  • The word "please" (from "if you please") indicates not feeling, or pretending that you don't feel, entitled to what you are asking for. And italicizing it, as above, imitates a change of tone of voice, specifically a tone of insistence, essentially to communicate "of course i have to pretend i don't feel entitled to this, but that's not going to stop me from being insistent about it." By my lights, that is sticking it in the listener's face that the politeness is a lie, and noticeably ruder than omitting the "please".
  • "Please" and so on aside, the request itself is rude in the context of WP, essentially bcz it mistakenly says "i want you to do more, or leave the article alone". WP is a volunteer project, and it works by people working on what they want to work on, and taking it as far as makes sense for them. (I support the practice of complaining when people break things: for instance, a change that turns a lk into a double redirect results in users who follow the lk landing at a page that reads something like "Redirect Tiny Tim", which is like expecting your guest to stick their hand inside the car door and pull on a greasy linkage to get out of your car. Avoiding that is why every "Move this page" screen says
    Links to the old page title will not be changed; be sure to check for double-redirects (using "What links here").... You are responsible for making sure that links continue to point where they are supposed to go.
but a lk to a dab page, or to an article that starts with a dab (or even to such a dab that lks back to where the first lk came from), is something understandable to a user with one minute of experience with us, and entirely different from a broken lk.)
"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right" is not a WP slogan; what you're thinking of is "Edit boldly". Half-assed edits, boldly put forward for criticism and improvement, drive this project. I for one will keep my half-assed edits coming, and keep my faith that enough eyeballs will see to the correction of the things i don't think through far enough, or decide not to polish. (Usually bcz for me at that time, a quick "it'd be a shame to ignore that problem" edit is the tolerable degree of distraction, from the thing that strikes me as the most important edit for me to do, as thoroughly as i can in the next half hour to few days that that takes me.)
--Jerzy (t) 04:26, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

The page has been vandalised a couple of times today by user User:Eock... I've reverted twice. --Starwed 08:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Source of derisive comment

Cut from intro:

He was derisively referred to as the master of the disturbing.

Who said this? When? And does anyone have a web link or title and page from a magazine or book? --Uncle Ed 13:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I see that User:Raul654 (who is an admin, by the way) added that comment on 9/20/03, so who knows whether he's still got this page on his "watch" list. I am almost certain I've heard that elsewhere, but I was a fan and don't at all agree with it, so I'm not going out of my way to try to track it down. Let it be gone! Wahkeenah 14:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
    • A quick survey of Google suggests that wikipedia is the primary source for this quotation, and it has proliferated like a cold virus throughout the Internet, as many sites directly rip off wikipedia. The price of popularity. Wahkeenah 15:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV

The "Rise to prominence in the 1960s" section contained some words which were bias, eg. "Sadly, Tiny and Miss Vicki mostly lived apart and divorced eight years later." with the biased word being 'Sadly'. I have removed these words as I felt they were too POV. I am still a relatively new user and am not completely familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, so if my removal is not appropraite, please notify me and feel free to revert. Thanks. -- Dave 06:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  • POV and also obviously redundant: The average reader wouldn't think it was a happy thing that their marriage failed. However, it's worth pointing out that the marriage did not live up to the hype, so I added that point (in place of "sadly"). Wahkeenah 01:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Good point, looks much better now. Thanks. Dave 04:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dead babies?

Is that line about the dead babies vandalism? It's totally unexplained and seems unlikely.

  • It was slipped in there by a-none earlier today. It be GONE. Wahkeenah 00:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name

According to IMDB's Bio, his birth name is Herbert Butros Khaury.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. -- tariqabjotu 23:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page name

This page should be at Tiny Tim (musician). He named himself after Tiny Tim (A Christmas Carol) and he will be forgotten in 10 years, whereas the character from A Christmas Carol obviously won't. I moved it to the proper name, but it was reverted without explanation by an admin (I know it was an admin because the edit history of the dab page I created for Tiny Tim was obliterated). Mike Dillon 02:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Page moves like that shouldn't be done with discussion. I added a note to the top of the page pointing to the fictional Tiny Tim. Cjosefy 06:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Page moves "like" what? Moving a cult character away from the name of the article of the classic character they're named after? I'm going to put this on Wikipedia:Requested moves to get a more balanced opinion; Tiny Tim partisans are obviously going to want to keep their niche. Mike Dillon 16:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with the move now that a discussion has been had, but as I said originally, you moved the page without ANY sort of notice or discussion. That's not a good thing in this case. So a move "like" that shouldn't be done. Cjosefy 16:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This move has been listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves#August 18, 2006. Please show a little perspective and allow Tiny Tim to become a disambiguation page, as it should be. Mike Dillon 17:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been ten years since the musician's death; and longer since his stardom. If he isn't forgotten yet, why should he be forgotten ten years from now? Whereas the Dickens character is, and is always likely to be, a stub; I see no real purpose for the article (as opposed to a redirect to A Christmas Carol). Septentrionalis 20:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Even if the Dickens character never had its own article, Tiny Tim should be a disambig page to allow readers to actually find what they're looking for. For most people, "Tiny Tim" is the Dickens character. The decision about whether to have a dab page has nothing to do with whether the things being disambiguated have their own article; it has to do with user expectation when searching and editor expectation when linking. The only reason this article is not a stub is that Tiny Tim is a cult figure (particular among Howard Stern fans); the rest of the world doesn't care about this guy. Mike Dillon 20:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I am inclined to agree, and I was a fan of T.T.'s while he has around. Entering simply "Tiny Tim" should take you to a disambiguation page. It is questionable whether Tiny Tim the Dickens character needs his own page, as there is little you can say about him beyond restating what's in A Christmas Carol. In truth, he's not a major character in the story, mostly just a plot device. The disambig page could either direct to that small article, or to the A Christmas Carol, or both, plus the Tiny Tim (musician) writeup. Wahkeenah 20:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
That's what dab headers are for: For the Dickens character, see A Christmas Carol. Dab pages are undesirable when there are two alternatives; it means everybody has to click twice. Septentrionalis 07:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, an undue burden on the user, fer shure. The issue largely seems to be, which character is more widely known, and thus which one deserves his own unambiguous page. If the answer is "neither", or is in dispute, the disambig page would seem to be a reasonable compromise. Wahkeenah 12:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear, since I wasn't in my initial rant, my proposal is to move this page to Tiny Tim (musician) and for Tiny Tim to be a disambiguation page, not to move Tiny Tim (A Christmas Carol) to the unqualified name. I actually agree that the Tiny Tim (A Christmas Carol) stub is not very useful, but in that case I'd point users to the page for A Christmas Carol from the disambig page. Mike Dillon 21:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with that approach. Wahkeenah 23:47, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I too support the use of a dab as the Tiny Tim page as Mike Dillon proposes. -- Beardo 00:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support moving this to "...(musician)", but also move the Christmas Carol character to "Tiny Tim" as the obvious primary meaning. --CharlotteWebb 11:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] "Analysis" section original research

Nearly the entire "Analysis" section appears to be original research. The entire concept of analysis appearing in Wikipedia violates the no original research principle. I will remove the section, assuming no one produces valid references for the content contained therein. --Bk0 (Talk) 03:13, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  • I've done some weeding on it, to remove the "of course"-type conclusions that are speculation, and to try to point out where the factual parts come from. Wahkeenah 03:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] On the Old Front Porch

I don't understand this section -- is he singing the three parts, or are Billy and Ada? This could be more clear.

[edit] Wives

Okay, this article has Tiny Tim getting divorced by Miss Vicky, and then no mention of any remarriage yet him conversing with his wife just before his death. Anybody see a problem here?

  1. Victoria Mae Budinger (17 December 1969 – 1977) (divorced) 1 child
  2. Jan Alweiss (26 June 1984 – 1995) (divorced)
  3. Susan Marie Gardner (18 August 1995 – 30 November 1996) (his death)

—SlamDiego 11:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Middle name

IMDb.com reports Tiny Tim's real name as “Herbert Butros Khaury”. This is in keeping with the traditional Arab practice of forming a name thus:

<personal name> <father's personal name> <grandfather's personal name> <great-grandfather's personal name> … <name of ancestor for whom family is named>

—SlamDiego 09:37, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tiptoe through the Tulips?

Tiptoe through the Tulips has a link that redirects right back to the page. Can I fix this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Crushedmidnight (talk • contribs) 01:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

Actually, it would be better if you didn't change it. Someone may eventually write an article about the song, replacing the redirect with content about the song itself. If you change the link, then someone will have to re-link it. --rogerd 01:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move?

Would it be worth killing the dismbig parentheses in the title to moe this to his real name, which is the first name given in the article? Or am I the only one who hates those? Milto LOL pia 05:09, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Des Moines

Tim lived in my hometown of Des Moines, Iowa for a couple of years in the early '90s. He had a steady gig at one of the music venues in town.

Cranston Lamont 21:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)