• 1 (16 Nov 2003 - 19 November 2005)

I'm puzzled why you chose to remove Ali G from the Chav article. Ali G is surely the best-known chav caricature on the planet. Ali G pre-dates wide use of the term "chav", but the character itself -- right down to the track suit, the trainers, the extravagant bling-bling jewelry, the adoption of sort of a confused London-suburb multiculturalism, a self-conscious piss-take on chav anti-intellectualism... that's about as dead-on as you can get. Plus, Google search "ali g" + "chav" = 14,500 hits. If you feel strongly about this, perhaps post on the Talk page for chav. Regards, MCB 22:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya.

Several reasons. First off, please see the discussions of this on the talk page, particularly the comment that explicitly addresses this, the comments about "wigger", and the numerous comments about Wikipedia:Verifiability. Secondly, I searched for a reputable source that makes this claim, and couldn't find one. The nearest I could find was this, which a) doesn't say he's a "chav" b) attempts (far from convincingly) to grapple with the term as a foreign expression and c) has a bloggish tone which flunks the reputability test (see Wikipedia:NOR#What counts as a reputable publication?). Third: I think you're confusing "wigger" with "chav". People unfamiliar with the term seem strangely prone to that. However, "chav" has no racial connotations (the Ali G caricature certainly does have racial connotations), though its usage is similar to "white trash". "Pikey", in contrast, does have racial connotations, if you're determined to find a British slang expression that combines race and class. The track suit, trainers, and bling are all derived from hip hop, but that doesn't mean anyone would be anachronistic or confused enough to describe Eazy-E, Schooly D, or any other blingsome rap "ASBOs", as "chavs".

Incidentally, please note that "chav" + "Einstein" gets 28,800 hits. [1] [2]

chocolateboy 23:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I read through the whole Talk page for the article (previously I had just read the tiny Ali G section) and I fear you are missing the point of the criticism of your edits. Your revert of my restoral of the Ali G material accuses it of being original research; that is clearly not so. What you don't seem to understand is that unlike simply verifiable facts (like the height of a building, or the date of a battle), the nature and intent of an artist with respect to a stage or fictional character is necessarily a matter of opinion and interpretation. (Characters don't carry signs saying "I am a caricature of a chav".) That does not mean that it is necessarily unverifiable, but that it needs a different kind of analysis. The point is that it's not my interpretation (which would be OR and POV), but that of lots of people out there, as seen in the Google search, who have made the connection. In opposition to that, we have your personal opinion and analysis about the meaning and cultural interpretation of a number of terms including "wigger" and "pikey", which are interesting but not necessarily relevant here, and more importantly, are your opinion and original research. What I fear from the criticism that I read on the Talk page, and your revert of the Ali G material, is that you believe that you have some unique and expert knowledge of what a chav is, and insist on editing the article to reflect that and not permit other analyses. I hope that is not the case. In any case, below is a tiny sample of the sources that assert or assume an Ali G-chav connection. Whether you think it's a valid connection is irrelevant; what's important is that it reflects consensus popular opinion which is uncontroverted by any authoritative source. (It's by no means unanimous, as the Google refs show, but I'd call it a consensus.)

• "Ali G interviews CBS reporter Andy Rooney who become more and more upset with Ali G's chav speak."
• "Is Ali G the original chav and is he to blame for chavism ..."
• Article title "The chav effect", quote "Made famous by stars like Ali G and Goldie..." and describes a particular type of modified car
• "It probably helps to know that Ali G lives in Staines, and is head of Da West Staines Massive." in a discussion of "charvers" and "chav"
• "We have our own share of problems but chavs aren't one of them. I don't think these Ali G lookalikes would last too long over here."
• Post titled "Chavs of the Times", photo is Ali G

I'm just on page 3 of Google results here, and there are at least 15,000 more citations.

MCB 23:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of people think that beer gives you a beer belly, that stress gives you ulcers, and that you need a large number of people in a room for two of them to have the same birthday. We don't base our encyclopedia on what lots of people on ChavScum mistakenly think. We base it on what reputable sources say. As for your links: they're all blog/forum posts and similar wibblery. As mentioned before, please see Wikipedia:NOR#What counts as a reputable publication?

Are you sure you read the talk page? The dodgy News Shopper source you cite is explicitly mentioned there, and I was not the only person to question its reputability. "Verifiable" means other reputable sources agree.

You're mistaken about "my" interpretation of "pikey" by the way. Please see the article's edit history. Of course, if I've missed something from that article, please be my guest.

chocolateboy 00:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. I think you have a very fundamental misunderstanding about the concept of a "reputable source" in terms of interpretation of popular culture. There is no such thing as a single authoritative source here. The denizens of ChavScum are a large part of what defines the concept of a "chav". You're casting about mistakenly looking for something like an official pronouncement, which is certainly valid in the case of medical issues or the height of a building... but not for definition and examples of a pop-culture phenomenon. What you call "wibblery" is what defines the contours of popular culture. News Shopper might be "dodgy" as a source for something like the Queen's birth date, but it's as valid as anything to determine popular consensus about something like this.

In any case, I have provided multiple sources by way of verification. In opposition, you have provided nothing but your naked opinion as some sort of "expert". I believe it to be justified for me to revert, and ask for an RfC if necessary. You are showing signs of attempted "ownership" of this article, which is very bad form. MCB 00:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ChavScum is noteworthy in this context, which is why it gets mentioned. [3] But a humorous site that consists entirely of forum posts clearly doesn't fall under the rubric of "reputable source" as defined in Wikipedia:NOR. As mentioned in Talk:Chav, if the page were about ChavScum, then cracking open the "Tony Blair is a chav" nonsense might be slightly more plausible.

What you don't seem to understand is that unlike simply verifiable facts (like the height of a building, or the date of a battle), the nature and intent of an artist with respect to a stage or fictional character is necessarily a matter of opinion and interpretation.

No it isn't. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] I highly recommend this and this after you've finished rereading Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:No original research.

You're casting about mistakenly looking for something like an official pronouncement

No, just looking for sources comparable in calibre to those the article already contains (the BBC, The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times &c). Reputable sources are particularly important for this article because of its ignominious history of inaccuracy and original research. If you can find reputable sources for the Ali G reference (you've listed none so far), then I'll happily "get me coat".

News Shopper might be "dodgy" as a source for something like the Queen's birth date, but it's as valid as anything to determine popular consensus about something like this.

No it isn't. It makes a claim about Thomson's facts and figures that ought to be trivially verifiable. It isn't:

I have no doubt in my mind that at the very least the stuff about Thomson's needs re-writing. I too can find no evidence whatsoever thet 'Thomson has reported' anything. Preferably it should be deleted as relying on a single rubbish source. Icundell 12:34, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it to be justified for me to revert, and ask for an RfC if necessary.

Bring it on!

chocolateboy 01:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers for that. Glad you liked my changes to the template. :) Wikiwoohoo 21:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Chocolateboy, would you care to explain why you considered the link to 'Chavopedia' in the humour section of chav was spam? If it's breaking any specific Wikipedia rules to put that link there, kindly show me where. Thanks. --Archstanton 15:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC) P.S. It's not that I'm especially concerned about that particular link, as that site is very new while Chavscum and Chavtowns are very well established and very popular. But going by Wikipedia's own guidelines on spam, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with it. --Archstanton 16:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi.

The site is less than two days old and gets just five unique Google hits. We don't add links to non-notable personal websites (the site has 1 registered contributor), and doing so is considered to be spam.

Please see Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines and Wikipedia:External links#What should not be linked to for more information.

chocolateboy 16:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for those links and the explanation. --Archstanton 16:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for rving the spam link. I guess I assumed good faith...Gillespee 07:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weird. I have no idea what happened in my recent revision of the Britney Spears article. I had no intention of making the vast majority of those changes, only of removing a single spam link. I honestly can't think how the rest of the changes got made. Thanks for making the correction. --Yamla 15:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. I figured accidental strangeness was afoot :-)

chocolateboy 16:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It gets less and less rubbish the more months you revert back ;) --Kiand 18:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, it wasn't new knowledge to the world, just to the web. Secondly, if Wikipedia is going to be taken seriously then it needs to branch out. Personally, I don't find Britney Spears to be notable in the least. There are probably 30 books on that subject better than the article. In fact, another article on Spears just isn't needed by the world. This is where I have a big problem with notable. To me, Spears just isn't notable. Also, people should have to justify why they are deleting pages. I've seen that deleting pages is a sport on Wikipedia, with the same people trying to delete 100 pages at a time. I doubt if they read them. They sure don't offer any justification indicating that they had. george 18:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, but please take it up on Wikipedia talk:No original research or the village pump. I didn't invent the policy (that honour belongs to Jimbo Wales). I merely endorse and enforce it. Lobbying me will do nothing to change it.

chocolateboy 18:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In this case it is: ... name cannot be Buffy under current astronomical naming conventions. If 2004 XR190 is considered a plutino it must be named for a deity of creation. (See 2003 UB313 (Xena)) They take planetary naming pretty seriously. In the case of Xena, they would have likely offically named it Persephone (a daughter of a creation deity which must spend part of the year in the underworld) because of the fact that it returns to an orbit inside of Pluto's orbit part for part of its orbit and for part of the orbit it must be outside Pluto's orbit. Persephone happened to be taken to the underworld by Hades, who happens to be Pluto in Roman mythology. Astonomers like things tidy like that. That said, since they are unsure of the defintion of a planet, they have yet to apply a name to Xena. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ctrl build (talk • contribs)

Gracias.

chocolateboy 11:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wow someone had an issue with you and the GNAA. Anyway, I was trying to contact you because you seem to have done a lot of research in bastard pop and I am making a film that touches on this subject. Could you please contact me: brett@etherworks.ca

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.136.201 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your compliments of my name :D. The story behind it is a bit weird: I was stuck for something to call myself, and it was the first gripe that came to my head when I was registering. I originally thought that it was overlong, but just went for it. If dastardly grammar did not come to my mind, I could have been called something weird like 'Damn the Cashew-Raisin balance.'

I always liked the name 'Can't sleep, clown will eat me' too. Clowns have always freaked me out. When I was younger, I knew this guy who was 'Stalo the Communist Clown' at day, and a drug-pusher by night. It was very traumatic. Besides, you can't help but wonder what they're keeping under those noses. --It's-is-not-a-genitive 19:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

surely the fact that kev now redirects to the chav page means that it is a regional variation of chav and therefore should be put in 2 the regional variations section and seeing as kev isnt referenced in the article now it should be else the redirect is pointless