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Office of Strategic Influence (album)

Office of Strategic Influence is the first studio album by American progressive rock band OSI, released by Inside Out Music on February 18, 2003. The album was recorded in June 2002 and mixed in August 2002 at the Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut.

Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos originally recruited Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy to work on a progressive metal album. When keyboardist and vocalist Kevin Moore (founder of Chroma Key and former Dream Theater member) joined the project, the musical direction of the album changed to become more focused on soundscapes and composition than musicianship. Sean Malone (of Cynic and Gordian Knot) and Steven Wilson (of Porcupine Tree) also performed on the album.

The album is named after the Office of Strategic Influence, an organization set up after the September 11 attacks to spread misinformation and plant false news items in the media, among other functions. The Office was shut after The New York Times published a story on it; many of its operations were transferred to the Information Operations Task Force. The album's lyrics were written by Moore in reaction to the September 11 attacks.

Critical reception of the album was generally positive, praising the band's musicianship. Critics compared the band's sound to Porcupine Tree. Portnoy was ultimately dissatisfied with the experience of making the album. He performed on the second OSI album, Free, but was replaced by Gavin Harrison for Blood and Fire Make Thunder, the band's third and fourth albums respectively.

Background
Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos originally started work on Office of Strategic Influence as a side project while his bandmates took a break before starting work on their next album. Matheos decided to work with Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy because the two had wanted to work on a project together for some time. They originally planned to form a supergroup, envisaging the album as "straight prog metal".

Matheos spent seven months writing material for the album. He then sent Kevin Moore (who was living in Costa Rica) some MP3 files of the music he had written and asked him to write some keyboard parts. Moore (known as a founding member of Dream Theater and for his solo career as Chroma Key) had previously performed on three Fates Warning albums, and Matheos was expecting him to write keyboard parts as he had for the Fates Warning album. Instead, Moore "messed with [Matheos'] tracks and switched things around and put vocals to it and stuff like that." He said that he no longer considered the keyboard, bass and guitar parts separate from each other: "I don't write like that any more as much as I'm composing a whole song." The resulting track would become "Hello, Helicopter!"

Moore emailed his work back to Matheos, who was "pleasantly surprised" to be sent something completely different from what he expected. Matheos wanted to create a heavy album; before deciding to takes Moore's ideas further, Matheos and Moore wrote what would become "OSI". Moore said that after that, "[Matheos] was pretty much comfortable with whatever I wanted to do." This new song format was very different from what Portnoy and Matheos originally planned: the already-written long tracks were split into multiple short songs, closer to Moore's project Chroma Key than traditional progressive metal. "The Thing That Never Was", a track on the bonus disc, shows the direction Matheos and Portnoy originally planned to take the album in.

Matheos and Portnoy initially considered having a different vocalist perform on each track; this idea was scrapped as they decided the constant change in vocalist would disrupt the flow of the album. Vocalists considered included Steve Walsh, Steve Hogarth, Steven Wilson and John Arch. Portnoy particularly pushed for Daniel Gildenlöw to sing on the album. Early on in the album's production, Gildenlöw wrote some vocal melodies and lyrics for two songs and completely wrote another song. Matheos liked Gildenlöw's ideas, but did not want to take the music in the same direction Gildenlöw did. Moore ended up performing most of the vocals on the album. In order to keep the album from becoming too similar to Chroma Key, Matheos and Portnoy decided to feature a guest vocalist on one track. Steven Wilson (of Porcupine Tree) wrote lyrics and performed vocals on the track "ShutDOWN". He was chosen because his music in Porcupine Tree was similar in style to the music on the album. Portnoy also credited Wilson as "a pioneer of his genre".

Bassist Sean Malone (of Cynic and Gordian Knot) was only credited as a guest musician. Portnoy explained that this was because Malone's schedule did not allow him to join Matheos, Moore and Portnoy in the basic tracking sessions.

Recording
Office of Strategic Influence was recorded at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, Connecticut from June 2 to 9, 2002. Matheos and Moore mixed the album with Phil Magnotti (who had previously mixed for Fates Warning) in August. Portnoy pushed to get as much of the band together as possible for the main tracking sessions because of his dislike of "side projects done through mail."

Matheos and Moore created the basic song ideas in Pro Tools. Songs in the progressive metal vein were almost entirely written by Matheos, while Moore had more influence on the more vocal-driven tracks. Portnoy noted that they were ultimately "Jim's songs", but that Moore was very involved with arrangements, post-production, melodies and lyrics. Portnoy considered himself as "just a drummer": he made minor arrangement suggestions but did not have a part in the actual writing. Malone and Wilson contributed their parts after the songs had been arranged. Matheos saved any unused ideas for the next Fates Warning album.

Sean Malone said that he enjoyed playing on the album, but that "it would have been nice to work out parts with Mike as they were being recorded rather than after the fact". He took a "session approach" to the album, "trying as much as possible to create parts that fit what Jim et al had created, versus trying to impose anything upon it". He was sent MIDI bass parts for each song which served as a guideline. For the particularly sparse and texture-heavy tracks, Malone did much doubletracking to create "a natural kind of chorusing" he prefers to any digital effects.

Before the recording of Office of Strategic Influence, the last time Moore and Portnoy worked together was on Dream Theater's Awake in 1994. Matheos was initially concerned about how Moore and Portnoy would feel about working together for the first time in eight years. Moore noted that he and Portnoy were not on bad terms, but "just weren't in touch." The two both described the experience as initially "awkward". When recording the album Portnoy had to take directions from others; he found this difficult as he was used to taking the creative lead. Moore noted that there was tension when recording the same drum part for a song more than once (in order to give Moore choice later on): "He's used to just playing the stroke once, the way he wants to," he said.

In a 2009 interview, Portnoy blamed his frustration with the project on Moore: I honestly went in there with an open mind and I was truly excited to work with Kevin again... But it ended up being more of the same old shit that it was when he left Dream Theater... making those records [Office of Strategic Influence and Free] with Kevin wasn't fun. He's not a fun person to work with. He's a very depressing and stubborn personality and there's no reason in my life or my career that I need to subject myself to that sort of personality. Portnoy performed as a session musician on the second OSI album, Free, but was replaced by Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison for the third album, Blood.

Music
Moore described the music on Office of Strategic Influence as "a new approach to progressive rock", stating that he could use his musical roots in progressive music but "was far enough away from it to play with it." He said that "progressive rock has been around for so long and we have to stop taking it so seriously and really have fun with it." Portnoy described the album as "more soundscapish" than his work in Dream Theater, focusing more on composition and sounds than musicianship. He noted the style "would never work in Dream Theater."

Moore wrote lyrics for the album by "mumbling along to the song and then deciphering what I'm saying." The lyrics feature political themes ("Hello, Helicopter!" is about the US supplying military arsenals to other countries to protect its own national interests), although Matheos stated that the album was not political in nature. Moore said that he writes lyrics based on personal experiences, and that much of the album's lyrical content stems from how the September 11 attacks affected him. Moore's brother was a firefighter who worked at the World Trade Center after the attacks, "and I was totally apolitical before this, politically naïve and I still am," Moore stated. "I was like, 'Whoa, what the fuck is going on in the world?'"

Office of Strategic Influence features Moore's signature use of spoken word samples. He collected samples first and then tried to match them with the song's tempo. Moore said that the samples relate directly to the song's lyrics.

Matheos listed his influences as progressive rock bands such as Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer and heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath, UFO and Uriah Heep. Moore described his influences as minimal techno, experimental electronic musicians and "bands that play live and then chop it up". He specifically named Pole, The Gordons and Acid Undertones as influences. Malone cited Mick Karn as an influence.

Release and promotion
Moore chose the album's name from a list of band, album and song names he kept. The Office of Strategic Influence was a highly secret organization set up three weeks after the September 11 attacks. Part of its mission was to spread misinformation and plant false news items in the media in order to "influence the hearts and minds of the opposition." After The New York Times ran a story on the Office in February 2002, it was forced to shut, although many of its operations were later transferred to the Information Operations Task Force. "The funny thing about it was the government and administration was saying it's so embarrassing that they had to name it the 'Office of Strategic Influence,' we couldn't just put it in a room in the Pentagon and name it whatever the room number is," Moore said. "Someone decided to be really creative about it and name it what it really is."

The limited edition bonus CD features three bonus tracks on it. There are two cover songs: a cover of the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" performed by Moore and Portnoy, chosen because they both "love Pink Floyd", according to Portnoy, and a cover of the Neil Young song "New Mama" performed by Moore. The third track, entitled "The Thing That Never Was", is a seventeen-minute instrumental performed by Matheos and Portnoy, showing the original direction they intended to take the album in. The CD contains a 19-minute multimedia section, including two documentary-style videos shot during the album's recording, and a music video for the track "Horseshoes and B-52s" directed by Moore.

Matheos suggested using an altered version of the United States passport for the album's cover art. The differences are that the arrows are double-headed, the olive branch is wilted, and the eagle's wings have been clipped. Matheos, Moore and Portnoy decided against sending out promotional copies of the album before its release date in order to prevent an early Internet leak of it. The album was released in Europe on February 17, 2003.

Reception
Office of Strategic Influence was critically well received. Keith Gordon of AllMusic praised the album as "offering both power and pomp." Tommy Hash of Prog4you.com described the music as "catchy, complete with great melodies and musicianship that does not overdo it." He described the album as "almost in complete contrast to the parent bands' other related side projects," such as Liquid Tension Experiment and Transatlantic. John Bollenberg of ProgressiveWorld.net praised Matheos, Moore and Portnoy for "[starting] from scratch without copying their past in order to deliver something fresh, new and exciting."

Hash described the album as having "the atmosphere of some of the mid-90s to the latter era Fates Warning fused with industrial sounding elements and sound effects that create an ambient effect." Gordon described the music as similar to Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Max Vague. Bollenberg noted "the material on Office Of Strategic Influence gets closer to Moore's very own Chroma Key mixed with dashes of latterday Porcupine Tree... there are bits and bobs all over the album that could easily have fit on In Absentia."

Gordon described the performances on the album as "crackling with electricity and passion". He lauded Matheos' performance on the album: "In any other subgenre of rock, Matheos would be a guitar hero on the order of Steve Vai or Eddie Van Halen, the Fates Warning frontman capable of both classically styled acoustic craftsmanship and chaotic metallic riffing, often in the context of the same song." He praised Malone and Portnoy for "[holding] down the bottom line with rock-solid rhythms".

Gordon praised Moore for "providing an instrumental counterpoint to Matheos' raging guitar. Moore's imaginative style and natural skill coax a myriad of sounds from his instrument to challenge Matheos in the mix." Sander noted Moore's contribution, saying that "at times there's more technology and electronics than in the average house release". Bollenberg noted that Moore's keyboards added "textures flirting with semi-industrial patches and often being closer to Nine Inch Nails than 'vintage' melodic prog." Hash praised Moore's vocals, noting they "fit in well with all of the instrumental textures". In contrast, Sander criticized Moore's voice as "dull": "the many added distortion and echo effects cannot always make it more interesting. His voice is okay for one or two tracks... but it's too flat to keep you tied to the speakers for much longer". He cited Moore's vocals as the main weakness of some tracks.

Bollenberg listed his favorite track as "Hello, Helicopter!": "it once again gets so very close to authentic Porcupine Tree with Portnoy introducing some tribal rhythms that go ever so well with the rest of the material. I simply melt once that superb sound of the Fender Rhodes enters, taking turns with synthesizer tweaks." Gordon described the instrumental parts of the album as "powerful and purposeful: an integral part of each composition rather than an excuse to merely 'jam'".

Personnel

 * Jim Matheos – guitars, keyboards, programming, producer, engineering
 * Kevin Moore – vocals, keyboards, programming, producer
 * Sean Malone – bass guitar, Chapman stick
 * Mike Portnoy – drums
 * Steven Wilson – vocals on "ShutDOWN"
 * Produced by Jim Matheos and Kevin Moore
 * Mixed by Phil Magnotti
 * Engineered by Phil Magnotti, Steven Wilson, Sean Malone and Jim Matheos

title: Office of Strategic Influence (album)


text:
User:Zydeco joe

Rub-board player in the premier English zydeco band "Joe-le-Taxi".

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Zydeco joe


text:
Exception

Exception(s), The Exception(s), or exceptional may refer to:

Arts and entertainment

 * The Exception, a 2016 British film
 * The Exception (2006 novel), a Danish novel (orig. Undtagelsen, 2004) by Christian Jungersen
 * The Exception (2019 film), a Danish film starring Amanda Collin, based on the 2006 novel
 * Exception (TV series), a 2022 animated science fiction horror series.
 * "Exception" (song), by Ana Johnsson* Exception (TV series), a 2022 anime series on Netflix
 * Exception (video game), a 2019 game from Traxmaster Software
 * Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, a 2015 book by Dick and Liz Cheney
 * The Exceptions, a German demo (computer art) group

Other uses

 * Exception (computer science), an anomalous condition during computation
 * Exceptional objects, in mathematics
 * Exceptional isomorphisms
 * State of exception, a concept of extension of sovereign power

title: Exception


text:
Formal system

A formal system is an abstract structure and formalization of an axiomatic system used for inferring theorems from axioms by a set of inference rules.

In 1921, David Hilbert proposed to use formal systems as the foundation of knowledge in mathematics.

The term formalism is sometimes a rough synonym for formal system, but it also refers to a given style of notation, for example, Paul Dirac's bra–ket notation.

Concepts

A formal system has the following:

 * Formal language, which is a set of well-formed formulas, which are strings of symbols from an alphabet, formed by a formal grammar (consisting of production rules or formation rules).
 * Deductive system, deductive apparatus, or proof system, which has rules of inference that take axioms and infers theorems, both of which are part of the formal language.

A formal system is said to be recursive (i.e. effective) or recursively enumerable if the set of axioms and the set of inference rules are decidable sets or semidecidable sets, respectively.

Formal language
A formal language is a language that is defined by a formal system. Like languages in linguistics, formal languages generally have two aspects:
 * the syntax is what the language looks like (more formally: the set of possible expressions that are valid utterances in the language)
 * the semantics are what the utterances of the language mean (which is formalized in various ways, depending on the type of language in question)

Usually only the syntax of a formal language is considered via the notion of a formal grammar. The two main categories of formal grammar are that of generative grammars, which are sets of rules for how strings in a language can be written, and that of analytic grammars (or reductive grammar ), which are sets of rules for how a string can be analyzed to determine whether it is a member of the language.

Deductive system
A deductive system, also called a deductive apparatus, consists of the axioms (or axiom schemata) and rules of inference that can be used to derive theorems of the system.

Such deductive systems preserve deductive qualities in the formulas that are expressed in the system. Usually the quality we are concerned with is truth as opposed to falsehood. However, other modalities, such as justification or belief may be preserved instead.

In order to sustain its deductive integrity, a deductive apparatus must be definable without reference to any intended interpretation of the language. The aim is to ensure that each line of a derivation is merely a logical consequence of the lines that precede it. There should be no element of any interpretation of the language that gets involved with the deductive nature of the system.

The logical consequence (or entailment) of the system by its logical foundation is what distinguishes a formal system from others which may have some basis in an abstract model. Often the formal system will be the basis for or even identified with a larger theory or field (e.g. Euclidean geometry) consistent with the usage in modern mathematics such as model theory.

An example of a deductive system would be the rules of inference and axioms regarding equality used in first order logic.

The two main types of deductive systems are proof systems and formal semantics.

Proof system
Formal proofs are sequences of well-formed formulas (or WFF for short) that might either be an axiom or be the product of applying an inference rule on previous WFFs in the proof sequence. The last WFF in the sequence is recognized as a theorem.

Once a formal system is given, one can define the set of theorems which can be proved inside the formal system. This set consists of all WFFs for which there is a proof. Thus all axioms are considered theorems. Unlike the grammar for WFFs, there is no guarantee that there will be a decision procedure for deciding whether a given WFF is a theorem or not.

The point of view that generating formal proofs is all there is to mathematics is often called formalism. David Hilbert founded metamathematics as a discipline for discussing formal systems. Any language that one uses to talk about a formal system is called a metalanguage. The metalanguage may be a natural language, or it may be partially formalized itself, but it is generally less completely formalized than the formal language component of the formal system under examination, which is then called the object language, that is, the object of the discussion in question. The notion of theorem just defined should not be confused with theorems about the formal system, which, in order to avoid confusion, are usually called metatheorems.

Formal semantics of logical system
A logical system is a deductive system (most commonly first order logic) together with additional non-logical axioms. According to model theory, a logical system may be given interpretations which describe whether a given structure - the mapping of formulas to a particular meaning - satisfies a well-formed formula. A structure that satisfies all the axioms of the formal system is known as a model of the logical system.

A logical system is:
 * Sound, if each well-formed formula that can be inferred from the axioms is satisfied by every model of the logical system.
 * Semantically complete, if each well-formed formula that is satisfied by every model of the logical system can be inferred from the axioms.

An example of a logical system is Peano arithmetic. The standard model of arithmetic sets the domain of discourse to be the nonnegative integers and gives the symbols their usual meaning. There are also non-standard models of arithmetic.

History
Early logic systems includes Indian logic of Pāṇini, syllogistic logic of Aristotle, propositional logic of Stoicism, and Chinese logic of Gongsun Long (c. 325–250 BCE). In more recent times, contributors include George Boole, Augustus De Morgan, and Gottlob Frege. Mathematical logic was developed in 19th century Europe.

David Hilbert instigated a formalist movement called Hilbert’s program as a proposed solution to the foundational crisis of mathematics, that was eventually tempered by Gödel's incompleteness theorems. The QED manifesto represented a subsequent, as yet unsuccessful, effort at formalization of known mathematics.

title: Formal system


text:
Formalization

Formalization or formalisation may refer to

 * Logic translation of a natural language text to formal logic
 * Drafting formal specifications
 * A process enhancing bureaucracy in sociology

title: Formalization


text:
Talk:Orlando

Untitled
Not as that anyone who hasn't read the book would notice -- Orlando is actually about the history of English Literature. He becomes a 'she' as women become to figure more importantly in the world of Letters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sparky (talk • contribs) 14:49, 10 December 2003

True or false??
True or false: this article belongs at Orlando (disambiguation) with Orlando being a re-direct to Orlando, Florida. 66.245.18.193 15:03, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Moved most of the topics to the new disambiguation page - however, I tried to keep everything connected to what appears to be the 'root' meaning of Orlando on the Orlando page itself. (Orlando, Florida, was named after a guy who had Orlando as first name, who normally would have gotten his first name as a far derivation from Orlando/Roland character). So no automatic "redirect" to Florida please: when checking "what links here" non-"Orlando, Florida" references appeared quite frequent (I already adapted several of these so they would direct to the correct article directly). I suppose outside Florida (or US?) Orlando is probably more often used not to refer to the American city. Orlando is a very central theme in the whole of Renaissance culture, and the Orlando novel is one of the absolute "musts" of 20th century literature, etc... --Francis Schonken 10:02, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * 66.167.139.240 03:57, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC): Even after some clean up done by User:Francis Schonken and myself, it's clear that there are a lot more contributions to Wikipedia that use Orlando to refer to Orlando, Florida instead of Orlando (character) (blame Disney World, perhaps). For now, I've simply created Orlando (character) and redirected Orlando to it, as a compromise.  Having the character in a separate article makes it easier to deal with later, as contributions continue.
 * --Francis Schonken 05:18, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC):
 * Minor adjustments:
 * -> Orlando: redirect to disambig page seems more logical now;
 * -> Re-grouped disambig page, City on top;
 * -> Orlando (character): always: AND MUSIC...

 * It's not so much how important Orlando, FL is, it's how unimportant the others are. There's almost literally nothing else that has a legitimate claim to the name. Keep in mind the language of the encyclopedia is in fact English, not Italian or Spanish.  Matt Yeager   ♫  (Talk?)  05:31, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that the other meanings are unimportant. It depends on your level of culture. But to avoid a reversion war, I'll leave it to someone else to revert your reversion of my reversion! Eric Kvaalen (talk) 12:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The disamb page lists six things (not counting the city) that would normally be referred to as "Orlando" without a qualifier or other descriptive word (as opposed to, say, Orlando Bloom).

 * A seemingly unimportant film
 * A seemingly unimportant band
 * A seemingly unimportant 1960's TV series
 * The cat from a series of illustrated books
 * The name of a character in a Shakespeare play
 * One of Handel's operas (and not an especially important one)
 * Which of the following matters (regardless of culture)? I assume you must mean the Handel opera... but seriously? A minor opera (even one written by someone as famous as Handel) isn't really that big of a deal notability-wise. I guarantee you that most people typing in "orlando" are NOT looking for that page.  Matt Yeager   ♫  (Talk?)  02:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Orlando (name)
To be more in line with what the other name articles are like, I made a red link near the top of this article for Orlando (name). Ideally this would talk about the origins of the name, etc. Also, I've removed the list of the people named Orlando from here, as they would go in that Orlando (name) article. I might create a stub later, but, you know, maybe not. Recury 18:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Orlando massacre
Per WP:BRD I do not revert, but I see it really unconstructive that you removed the Orlando massacre after (and me) didn't seem to have any problems with it. The massacre is globally very often just cited as "Orlando" [//twitter.com/hashtag/Orlando] and as people usually don't know about the obscure naming conventions… in Wikipedia, they will often show up here to look for it. We should really have this link as a service for the readers. --SI 09:09, 14 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Hey, if the general consensus is against it, that's fine by me. I just think of it as an unlikely place to list what I would search for as the Orlando shooting Red Slash 02:09, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 20 August 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved per WP:SNOW. SST flyer  01:21, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Orlando (disambiguation) → Orlando – "Orlando" should not redirect to Orlando, Florida because I don't think it is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. And there is more than one place called "Orlando". 31.52.4.146 (talk) 12:03, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose move - it's a clear primary topic. The fact there's more than one place named Orlando is irrelevant.  ONR  (talk) 16:57, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Another poor move request from this IP. I suggest we just start instantly closing these. Nohomersryan (talk) 17:19, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Support move: the city is known as "Orlando, Florida", not "Orlando". There are too many other important uses - Shakespearean character, Virginia Woolf novel, etc - for a single American city to claim Primary Topic status. Pam  D  09:05, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose move. The existence of other articles doesn't prevent the Florida city from being the primary topic. Page view statistics |Orlando_(As_You_Like_It)|Orlando:_A_Biography|Orlando_(handel)|Orlando_(opera)|Orlando_(film)|Orlando_(given_name)|Orlando_(surname) show the city is clearly the primary topic.  Calidum   ¤   15:02, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose – City is hands down primary topic for the "Orlando" term. Sure, it's a popular name, and the dab page does the job. — JFG talk 23:58, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Once again, this IP is making disruptive request right after their block expired. The IP address has cited no evidence that the city is not primary topic for the term Orlando. Ḉɱ̍ 2nd anniv.   17:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment – I'd like to see a topic ban on move requests and blocking the page move feature for this IP user, but is that even technically possible or do we need this editor to open an account? — JFG talk 06:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe we could do so  Calidum   ¤   03:13, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 16 April 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 03:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Orlando (disambiguation) → Orlando – I realise that this was discussed before in 2016, but consensus may have changed. A recent discussion at Talk:Orlando, Florida showed no consensus that this is the primary topic. I would put forward two reasons. Firstly, the sheer number of entries on this page means that we should be cautious about deciding that there is a primary topic. Secondly, some people argued that the Florida city is widely known outside the USA because it attracts a large number of tourists as the location of Disney World. However, speaking as a European who has never visited the USA, the extent to which US cities are widely known elsewhere is not necessarily a function of the number of tourists, it's not like e.g. Chicago or Los Angeles. PatGallacher (talk) 17:07, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Weak support I agree the city is the most common use but as noted it doesn't appear to be significantly more so and as noted in the 2016 discussion its common for US cities to be called with the state. And as a side note I was wandering about submitting this RM but its now already done.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. There's no evidence that the Florida city is not the primary topic here and if it weren't for WP:USPLACE it would be at the base name already. The number of page views Orlando Bloom gets is irrelevant here. No one looking for his page would reasonably look up just Orlando. Jessintime (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Jessintime actually, that last part is not necessarily true. At this point we have reasonably certain examples where given names are habitually used by significant contingents of readers to navigate to people's biographies, despite there being primary topics and/or very popular eponymous topics, cf. Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 56, Talk:Charlotte etc. --Joy (talk) 13:04, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per Crouch, Swale above. ╠╣uw [ talk ] 18:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose The city seems like the clear primary topic here, seemingly with more views than the other primary topics combined. It is also a major US city, not a middle-of-nowhere town, and Wikipedia is not obligated to change its policies simply because people might have a poor grasp of geography. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. As the person who just proposed the RM to move the city to the base name, I still argue it’s the primary topic for simply “Orlando”. And as Jessintime said, if it weren’t for the poorly made guideline that is WP:USPLACE, the city’s article would be at its proper place of Orlando.  True CRaysball  | #RaysUp  22:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination; Crouch, Swale and ╠╣uw. No need for the parenthetical qualifier "(disambiguation)". There are 40 entries listed upom the Orlando (disambiguation) page, with little indication that the putative WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT of Orlando to Orlando, Florida exceeds the combined renown of the remaining 39 entries. Those researching the Florida location can always access it directly by simply typing "Orlando, Florida". —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Support Sheer numbers are typically poor indicators of wide familiarity for a locality. Particularly if the locality lies in a populous country or region. A lot of the hits will be merely local people looking it up for directions to something or other.  In other words, lots of people live in Florida, and they are driving a lot of the pageviews. It doesn't really reflect its recognizability globally.  Given that the numbers for Orlando Florida are not as outsized as all that relative to the rest, I'd prefer disambiguation.  Walrasiad (talk) 07:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. I prefer to error on the side of primary topic with respect to long-term significance, in which no "Orlando" topic has that type of long-term significance to warrant the primary topic. We have about 40 entries listed on the Orlando (disambiguation) page. We further have numerous notable people listed on both Orlando (given name) and Orlando (surname). And as detailed on Orlando, Florida, the city was apparently named after some person named Orlando, although the "origin of the name is unknown but at least five stories relate how Orlando got its name", including the possibility the city was named after Orlando (As You Like It). Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:05, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This is a case of a primary redirect, so we actually get a little bit more data to work with to try to understand primary topic by usage. This is the graph of monthly page views for the primary redirect, where we can see:

 * The Special:WhatLinksHere/Orlando page tells us there are incoming links to the primary redirect, in fact linkcount says as many as 1782. That's a generator of traffic to an extent for sure. The rest of it would presumably be mostly readers organically typing "Orlando" into the search box.
 * Now, the destination page attracts a lot of organic reader traffic as well, and we can at least try to compare traffic trends between the short term and the long term: |Orlando,_Florida this is monthly page views for both. Because of the sheer difference in scale, you have to click Logarithmic scale to get to see the variations in short term traffic in a comparable manner. To me it seems that sometimes these graphs match very well, but often times their trends also differ.
 * To try to figure out how many people go to "Orlando" and then reach for the hatnote, we can try to have a look at an the meta:Research:Wikipedia clickstreams, visualised at WikiNav for Orlando for last month. Here's the data for the last few months:

 * Using these numbers is obviously not precise for our consideration, for multiple reasons:
 * any small number of people generally arriving at the city page from whichever route could be clicking the hatnote
 * there's also anonymization thresholds in the clickstream mechanism that could well be obscuring some of the traffic
 * the city article is a big and popular article anyway, so the total outgoing clickstreams are largely unrelated to the hatnote
 * likewise, the total incoming views are around ~65k, where ~30k is known to be brought in by external search engines, so we don't necessarily know the context, they don't have to be related to just searches of the short term "Orlando", rather it could be something similar or derived from other variables search engines know about visitors (like their locations or interests)
 * But, it's the best we've got and we can at least compare these flawed numbers with analogous flawed numbers from other cases, and try to read the leaves from that. So let's look at the ratios:

 * That's pretty stable, though when we see a small traffic spike like January, it also rises. Taken literally, this would mean that around 13% of readers could consistently be needing to reach for the navigation aid, while around 87% of them are not doing that. Now, even if these numbers were precise, we wouldn't know the reasons for the reader behavior - for example we wouldn't know if some of these were misclicks, nor would we know if people who get navigated wrongly just gave up and went away without reaching for the navigation aid (while still getting counted as 'views' of the city page through the redirect).
 * How many readers reaching for the navigation aid constitutes a possible problem? We don't really know. I previously used ~90% as the point where it's hard to doubt it - if there's a difference of an order of magnitude, it's probably fine, otherwise we ponder it. A recent example where this seems to have been sound was Talk:Rubens (disambiguation).
 * Now, once these readers who reach for the navigation aid end up at the disambiguation page, we can try to see what they do there from WikiNav for the disambiguation page for last month:

 * (The long-term significance of a lot of these topics is quite obviously comparable to that of the city, if not obviously larger, which reinforces the idea to ponder a change.)
 * A recent possibly comparable example has been "Charlotte", described at Talk:Charlotte. It's also a well-known big city and a well-known human name. There, we had a rather contentious discussion but also a rather positive outcome - after trying the change, we found that presenting the readers with a list did not result in the same kind of ratios, rather only a plurality or a minority of readers went for the old primary topic, while many others navigated to other topics.
 * I've also discussed a number of other cases at WT:D that were like that, so I'd be hopeful in this case, too. I think we should engage in this kind of an experiment over here. (Support) Worst case, we end up disambiguating ~1.7k links, which is probably good anyway, and reverting the redirect after a few months of readers looking for the city having to just click the first item in the list, and this isn't really a bad thing anyway (we regularly force a lot more readers to do that in other cases, like New York).
 * --Joy (talk) 08:06, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support: people accustomed to looking for US cities will search for Orlando, Florida because they know that's how we title articles on almost all US cities. Presence of a major tourist attraction is not enough to give this place priority over the many other uses, especially Shakespeare character, Woolf novel, and cat. There is nothing to indicate that the city is the primary topic, although it might merit a stand-out "commonly refers to" link at the top of the page as is often done for something which, while not primary, is major. Pam  D  09:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to confirm, the latter practice is described in the disambiguation ordering section of the manual of style, MOS:DABCOMMON. --Joy (talk) 13:07, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Weak support I still intuitively feel like the city is the primary topic, but 's reasoning has convinced me that an experiment could be worth doing. If we find after a few months that the city does indeed get a majority of traffic, then we can start a new RM to revert the move. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:59, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. A Google search for Orlando demonstrates the city is the overwhelming primary topic. I appreciate the work Joy has done, but the data we have is extremely limited because most people get to our articles directly from search engines. Google knows to send everyone to Orlando, Florida directly, and that nobody wants the Orlando redirect. But our job is to serve the few who do type “Orlando” into our search, and we have no reason to believe our searchers are significantly different from Google searchers in terms of what they’re seeking when searching with “Orlando”. And that’s the topic of this article. —В²C ☎ 06:21, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Born2cycle well, the problem is that statistics say that we might have reason to believe that, to a similar extent they had maybe said that for 'Charlotte'. I know my various diatribes are rather intricate, so let me try a more visual demonstration: let's compare the |Charlotte|Orlando_(disambiguation)|Orlando same monthly page view statistics for the primary redirect and the hatnote destination from here and from there. The trend is basically the same - it looks like the hatnote doesn't receive a whole lot of interest from readers, right?
 * But, once we offered those readers a choice, the situation flipped on its head and we learned that no, they don't all go for the previously presumed primary topic.
 * If we |Charlotte|Orlando_(disambiguation)|Orlando|Charlotte,_North_Carolina|Orlando,_Florida add the cities to the graph, the trend is also practically the same - the city traffic just dwarfs the hatnote traffic.
 * When the long-term significance of topics named X is not obviously clear, while a primary topic/redirect is in place, the raw level of organic traffic is just not a reliable predictor for the choices readers make when looking up X alone. --Joy (talk) 12:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. I absolutely think of Orlando Bloom before I think of the city, which I barely think of. I am interested in how other people think of this in the context of living in or outside of the USA. -- NotC hariza rd  🗨 11:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Notcharizard "Oppose" means to keep the status quo where Orlando leads to the US city, and readers wanting Bloom or other uses have to follow a hatnote link to get to the disambiguation page. Is that what you intended?  Pam  D  12:56, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, don't know how I got that confused there! -- NotC hariza rd  🗨 14:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you aware that WP:PRIMARYTOPICs are not determined by ”what first comes to (your) mind"?— В²C ☎ 16:12, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The city is the primary topic by long-term significance and by usage . Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 07:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Shhhnotsoloud the problem with that list, as usual, is WP:NAMELIST - you have to separately go to and  to see the traffic for the people named Orlando.
 * Even if one doesn't weigh these equally for whatever reason, when the traffic for any individual named Orlando is double than the traffic for the city, let alone the long tail, something is off. --Joy (talk) 12:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * But those people named Orlando aren't known solely as "Orlando". Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 12:46, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Shhhnotsoloud yes, but that doesn't matter to all readers, some of whom expect to be able to navigate to them as such regardless of mononymous usage. I've previously found at least one case where their volume was significant even with a clear single primary topic by long-term significance, cf. Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 56, so in this case, where there's many more kinds of options (note PamD's reply), I'd expect to see that as well. Worst case, we find this case is actually different and revert within a couple of months, but this time based on clearer data. --Joy (talk) 15:56, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Support no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC here. While "Orlando" is being known inside the US given its presence of Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort, the name of "Orlando" remains unknown for readers outside the USA, at least for those who never travelled to the city. For them, the presence of tourism attraction doesn't mean that the city in Florida had long-term historical significance. 103.111.100.82 (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Orlando


text:
Edvin Loach

Edvin Loach, also Edwin Loach, is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Edvin Loach and Saltmarshe, in east Herefordshire, England, and about 3 mi north of the town of Bromyard, and east from Edwyn Ralph civil parish. In 1961 the parish had a population of 18. On 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished and merged with Saltmarshe to form "Edvin Loach & Saltmarshe".

The old church at Edvin Loach was built in the mid-11th century or later and was dedicated to St Giles. It is built within the earthworks of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle. Later it was re-dedicated to St Mary. The old church gradually became dilapidated, though its roof was still intact as late as the 1890s. It is in the guardianship of English Heritage. The new St Mary's Church, designed by Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1860, stands next to the ruins of the old church. It is an example of 19th-century church architecture designed in Early English style.

title: Edvin Loach


text:
Guanosine diphosphate

Guanosine diphosphate, abbreviated GDP, is a nucleoside diphosphate. It is an ester of pyrophosphoric acid with the nucleoside guanosine. GDP consists of a pyrophosphate group, a pentose sugar ribose, and the nucleobase guanine.

GDP is the product of GTP dephosphorylation by GTPases, e.g., the G-proteins that are involved in signal transduction.

GDP is converted into GTP with the help of pyruvate kinase and phosphoenolpyruvate.

Hydrolysis of GTP into GDP
The hydrolysis of GTP to GDP is facilitated by GTPase enzymes, which utilize a conserved active site motif known as the GTPase-activating protein (GAP). Initially, a water molecule is coordinated by the active site residues of the GTPase enzyme. The water molecule attacks the γ-phosphate of GTP, leading to the formation of a pentavalent transition state. This transition state is stabilized by interactions with the active site residues, including conserved catalytic residues. As a result, the γ-phosphate is cleaved, and inorganic phosphate (Pi) is released. This step also causes a conformational change in the enzyme that promotes the release of GDP.

Intracellular signaling
GDP is involved in intracellular signaling processes functioning as a critical regulator in the activity of GTPases. GTPases act as molecular switches, cycling between an active GTP-bound state and an inactive GDP-bound state. The interconversion between GDP and GTP is tightly controlled and serves as a molecular timer for signal transduction pathways. When an extracellular signal triggers the activation of a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR), the associated G-protein exchanges its bound GDP for GTP, leading to a conformational change and activation of downstream signaling cascades. This activation can stimulate a variety of cellular responses, including modulation of gene expression, cytoskeletal rearrangements, and regulation of enzymatic activities. The hydrolysis of GTP to GDP by the GTPase activity of the G-protein restoring the inactive state, thus terminates the signaling event.

In a type of intracellular signaling referred to as the Nuclear Import process, cytosolic proteins like alpha and beta importins would bind the nuclear localization sequence that is located within the protein, to which this complex would bind to a nuclear pore complex that allows for translocation into the nucleus. RanGTPase would bind to the beta importin which removes it from the complex, followed by the removal of the alpha importin which is also bound to the RanGTPase. While bound to the RanGTPase, the importins leave the nucleus where the Ran is hydrolyzed, converting the bound GTP into GDP. Ran-GDP can return the nucleus through its bind to a nuclear transport factor, where a Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor Protein can come to catalyze the exchange of GTP for GDP. We also see GTP hydrolysis in situations with Ras proteins in which the same reaction occurs.

title: Guanosine diphosphate


text:
Dominator (graph theory)

In computer science, a node $d$ of a control-flow graph dominates a node $n$ if every path from the entry node to $n$ must go through $d$. Notationally, this is written as $d dom n$ (or sometimes $d ≫ n$). By definition, every node dominates itself.

There are a number of related concepts:

 * A node $d$ strictly dominates a node $n$ if $d$ dominates $n$ and $d$ does not equal $n$.
 * The immediate dominator or idom of a node $n$ is the unique node that strictly dominates $n$ but does not strictly dominate any other node that strictly dominates $n$. Every node, except the entry node, has an immediate dominator.
 * The dominance frontier of a node $d$ is the set of all nodes $ni$ such that $d$ dominates an immediate predecessor of $ni$, but $d$ does not strictly dominate $ni$. It is the set of nodes where $d$'s dominance stops.
 * A dominator tree is a tree where each node's children are those nodes it immediately dominates. The start node is the root of the tree.

History
Dominance was first introduced by Reese T. Prosser in a 1959 paper on analysis of flow diagrams. Prosser did not present an algorithm for computing dominance, which had to wait ten years for Edward S. Lowry and C. W. Medlock. Ron Cytron et al. rekindled interest in dominance in 1989 when they applied it to the problem of efficiently computing the placement of φ functions, which are used in static single assignment form.

Applications
Dominators, and dominance frontiers particularly, have applications in compilers for computing static single assignment form. A number of compiler optimizations can also benefit from dominators. The flow graph in this case comprises basic blocks.

Automatic parallelization benefits from postdominance frontiers. This is an efficient method of computing control dependence, which is critical to the analysis.

Memory usage analysis can benefit from the dominator tree to easily find leaks and identify high memory usage.

In hardware systems, dominators are used for computing signal probabilities for test generation, estimating switching activities for power and noise analysis, and selecting cut points in equivalence checking. In software systems, they are used for reducing the size of the test set in structural testing techniques such as statement and branch coverage.

Algorithms
Let $$n_0$$ be the source node on the Control-flow graph. The dominators of a node $$n$$ are given by the maximal solution to the following data-flow equations:

 * $$\operatorname{Dom}(n) = \begin{cases} \left \{ n \right \} & \mbox{ if } n = n_0 \\ \left \{ n \right \} \cup \left ( \bigcap_{p \in \text{preds}(n)}^{} \operatorname{Dom}(p) \right ) & \mbox{ if } n \neq n_0 \end{cases} $$

The dominator of the start node is the start node itself. The set of dominators for any other node $$n$$ is the intersection of the set of dominators for all predecessors $$p$$ of $$n$$. The node $$n$$ is also in the set of dominators for $$n$$.

An algorithm for the direct solution is:

// dominator of the start node is the start itself Dom(n0) = {n0} // for all other nodes, set all nodes as the dominators for each n in N - {n0} Dom(n) = N; // iteratively eliminate nodes that are not dominators while changes in any Dom(n) for each n in N - {n0}: Dom(n) = {n} union with intersection over Dom(p) for all p in pred(n)

The direct solution is quadratic in the number of nodes, or O(n2). Lengauer and Tarjan developed an algorithm which is almost linear, and in practice, except for a few artificial graphs, the algorithm and a simplified version of it are as fast or faster than any other known algorithm for graphs of all sizes and its advantage increases with graph size.

Keith D. Cooper, Timothy J. Harvey, and Ken Kennedy of Rice University describe an algorithm that essentially solves the above data flow equations but uses well engineered data structures to improve performance.

Postdominance
Analogous to the definition of dominance above, a node z is said to post-dominate a node n if all paths to the exit node of the graph starting at n must go through z. Similarly, the immediate post-dominator of a node n is the postdominator of n that doesn't strictly postdominate any other strict postdominators of n.

title: Dominator (graph theory)


text:
Talk:Chiniquodontidae

Author's copyright notice: (This information has been derived from TRIASSIC CYNODONTS; Chiniquodontoidea, an internet directory.  As that's my webpage, there are no issues of copyright.  Trevor Dykes)

Some Remarks
First of all, a well done, even if brief, article on the Chiniquodontidae. I'd say virtually complete even if stub rated.

Wiki projects geology, and reptiles and amphibians previously listed don't seem to apply; their promos having cluttered up valuable space or relevant comment. Wiki Project Paleontology does. J.H.McDonnell (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chiniquodontidae


text:
Progress Quest

Progress Quest is a video game developed by Eric Fredricksen as a parody of EverQuest and other massively multiplayer online role-playing games. It is loosely considered a zero-player game, in the sense that once the player has set up their artificial character, there is no user interaction at all; the game "plays" itself, with the human player as spectator. The game's source code was released in 2011.

Gameplay
On starting a new game, the player is presented with a few options, such as the choice of race and character class for their player character. Stats are rolled and unrolled to determine Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Players start off with subpar equipment, eventually earning better weapons, armor, and spells. Almost none of the above-mentioned character statistics and equipment have any effect on gameplay, however. The only exception is the Strength stat, which affects carrying capacity, indirectly influencing the speed of level gain.

After character creation the game runs its course. The game displays the character's stats on the screen, including several progress bars representing how far the player character has advanced in the game. The lengthy, combat free prologue is represented by a set of progress bars, each accompanied by a line of text describing, among other things, the "foreboding vision" the character has. Then the first act begins, and the character is "heading to the killing fields..." where they will start the endless cycle of "executing (number of monsters) (adjective of monsters) (monster type)" or "executing a passing (player character)", only disrupted when their strength is no longer sufficient to carry more items. This forces their return to the market, where they will sell all the loot (each group of monsters drops one monster-specific item of loot, player characters will drop random magic loot) and then spend all their accumulated money to buy equipment. With each group of monsters "executed" the quest progress bar will advance one step; once it is filled it will be reset and the player awarded either with a magic item, a piece of equipment or a stats upgrade including the learning or leveling of a spell. After a fixed amount of time, the player will enter a new act, which has no effect whatsoever.

All equipment in the game is randomly given out as a reward for several instances in the game such as completing a quest, killing certain enemies, leveling a character, and especially when at the market, in which the character uses gold from the loot to upgrade his or her equipment. These items usually consist of two adjectives and a noun. Like the games Progress Quest mocks, these items have statistics and the adjectives are variables describing the item. The character level is used to determine what stats and adjectives each item has.

Players may choose to create an account offline for their own enjoyment, or create an online multi-player account that allows their character stats to be saved on a ranking website. This allows characters to compare their accomplishments with others while trying to achieve a higher ranking on their respective realm. Players can also join guilds of Good, Neutral, or Evil alignment in certain realms, though there is no benefit for doing so.

Plot
The story tells of the history of Grumdrig and the creation of the realms. Currently, there are six realms: Knoram, Expodrine, Oobag, Spoltog, Pemptus, and Alpaquil. The latter three are still open, but Knoram, Expodrine, and Oobag were permanently closed to the creation of new characters upon the arrival of Pemptus, which launched on February 8, 2007. On December 9, 2021, users found a mysterious "Alpaquil" realm on the guild pages. Fredricksen then released a beta version of the new realm, which would be exclusive to the in-browser version of the game. At first, it was only accessible through a link provided by Fredrickson, but on December 14, 2021 the realm was fully released to the public. The story mimics convoluted fantasy plots, using archaic and made up words such as "aberdoxy".

Development
Progress Quest parodies the stat-gathering aspect of role-playing video games, in which the player advances their character by accumulating arbitrary statistic points. EverQuest and many other MMORPGs of its time are infamous for their "auto-attack" combat system, where players press a button to initiate combat mode and, from then on, have little to do other than watch; Progress Quest mocks this with its totally non-interactive gameplay after the initial character setup. Progress Quest also pokes fun at traditional RPG races, classes, stories, quests, items, and more.

The program was made available by Eric Fredricksen in early 2002. Fans quickly joined in on the parody by submitting numerous fake reviews to several popular freeware download sites and game review sites giving Progress Quest the highest scores possible.

The game has been upgraded several times throughout its history. One particular upgrade added shaded bars to the screen, which caused some players to refer to the new version as Progress Quest 3D. On the "game's" now-deleted official forums, a popular in-joke leads newbies to believe that there exist Silver, Gold, Platinum or even Diamond-encrusted DVD versions of the game which have enhanced 3D graphics. Fake "Progress Quest" screenshots from other games, obscure 3D RPGs, helped spread this rumour.

On May 20, 2011, Eric Fredricksen released the source code of the game on Bitbucket.

Reception
Critics have commented that, despite the automatic progress, Progress Quest was an enjoyable experience. Reviewer Nick Hide compared this with other MMORPGs in which players persevere through dull tasks, just to level up or obtain a new item, owing to an emotional attachment with the character.

Progress Quest arguably represents the first example of a genre of casual game called the "idle RPG" or "incremental game", popular on certain web sites. These games generally feature a complex progress system in which progress is made automatically with the passage of time, but unlike Progress Quest, there are often decisions to be made by the player in terms of allocating resources between stats that do affect the game in order that the idled time should be used as efficiently as possible.

Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard stated Progress Quest influenced the Fallout mobile spin-off Fallout Shelter.

title: Progress Quest


text:
Office of Special Investigations

Office of Special Investigations may refer to:

 * U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations
 * Office of Special Investigations (Government Accountability Office)
 * Office of Special Investigations (United States Department of Justice)

title: Office of Special Investigations


text:
User:Doctroid

A Kibologist.

title: User:Doctroid


text:
Pam Ayres

Pamela Ayres MBE (born 14 March 1947) is a British poet, comedian, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes. Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to appearances on other TV and radio shows, a one-woman touring stage show and performing before the Queen.

Early life
Pam Ayres was born in Stanford in the Vale, Berkshire (now administered as part of Oxfordshire), the youngest of six children (having four elder brothers and a sister) of Stanley and Phyllis Ayres. Her father worked for 44 years as a linesman for the Southern Electricity Board, having been a sergeant in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War. Ayres considered her upbringing "a country childhood"; she was raised in one of a row of small council houses.

After leaving Faringdon Secondary School at the age of 15, she joined the Civil Service as a clerical assistant and worked at the Army (RAOC) Central Ordnance Depot in Bicester. She soon left and signed up for the Women's Royal Air Force, where she trained as a Plotter Air Photographer, working at JARIC in a drawing office dealing with operational maps. Whilst serving in the air force, she gained O-level passes in English language and English literature and began her career as an entertainer. On leaving the WRAF, she went through a number of jobs, before ending up at Smiths Industries, Witney, where she spent six years, working as a 'Confidential Secretary'. While at Smiths, Ayres began performing at a local folk club, and this led eventually to an invitation to read on BBC Radio Oxford in 1974. Her reading of her poem The Battery Hen was re-broadcast as Pick of the Week on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, leading to a six-month contract with Radio Oxford. Her recital went on to feature as an item in the BBC's Pick of the Year. In February 1976, she left Smiths to pursue poetry full-time.

In September 2006, the BBC's Magazine Monitor's "10 Things...", claimed, though without providing details, to have learnt that week (1-8 Sep) that Bob Dylan inspired Ayres to write poetry. However, although Ayres has often spoken of her admiration of Dylan, in a 2015 interview, she stated that "I don't know that he [Dylan] ever was the inspiration to start writing poetry... I certainly loved him." In a 2006 interview (aired on Radio New Zealand's Nine To Noon programme, 24 October 2006), she stated that, at the age of twelve, she enjoyed writing parodies of the Lonnie Donegan songs popular at that time.

Career
In 1975, Ayres appeared on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks. This led to a wide variety of guest appearances on TV and radio shows. Since then she has published six books of poems, toured in a one-woman stage show, hosted her own TV show and performed her stage show for the Queen.

Her poetry has a simple style and deals with everyday subject matter. Her poem "Oh, I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth", was voted into the Top 10 of a BBC poll to find the nation's 100 Favourite Comic Poems. In the UK Arts Council's report on poetry, Ayres was identified as the fifth best-selling poet in Britain in 1998 and 1999.

From 1996, Ayres has appeared frequently on BBC Radio: from 1996 until 1999 Ayres presented a two-hour music and chat show every Sunday afternoon on BBC Radio 2; this was followed by two series of Pam Ayres' Open Road, in which she visited various parts of the United Kingdom, interviewing people with interesting stories to tell about their lives and local areas. More recently Ayres has become a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, appearing in programmes such as Just a Minute, Say the Word, That Reminds Me, and six series of her own show, Ayres on the Air, a radio show of her poetry and sketches.

In 2007, Ayres acted in a radio sitcom, Potting On for Radio 4, co-starring Geoffrey Whitehead. She wrote and recorded six series of her Radio 4 programme Ayres on the Air, the latest of which was broadcast in 2018.

Since 2002, Ayres has appeared a number of times on Channel 4 in Countdown ' s Dictionary Corner alongside Susie Dent.

In 2009, she made her first appearance on the BBC TV programme, QI. In 2011 she said in a Daily Telegraph magazine interview that she was "about to go on my 14th tour of Australia".

Her autobiography, The Necessary Aptitude: A Memoir, was published in 2011. It traces her life and career from growing as the youngest of six children in a council house in the Vale of the White Horse, Berkshire, her time in the Women's Royal Air Force and the string of events that led to Opportunity Knocks. The title refers to the number of times she was told in her life she "did not have the necessary aptitude".

In 2013, she published her latest book of poems, entitled You Made me Late Again!

In September 2021, her TV series The Cotswolds with Pam Ayres premiered on Channel 5. Each episode features a special guest and ends with Pam reciting a short, uplifting verse summing up her adventures. In 2022, the programme was recommissioned as The Cotswolds and Beyond with Pam Ayres, as the programme expanded its remit to have Ayres visit the market town of Pershore to meet Toyah Willcox, as well as going to the Henley Regatta with Steve Redgrave, the Dean Forest Railway and the gardens at Highgrove, where she met the then Prince of Wales.

She regularly performs her poetry at the Glastonbury Festival, most recently in 2024.

Influence
The poet John Cooper Clarke has cited Ayres's early success on Opportunity Knocks as being highly influential on his career.

Personal life
Ayres is married to theatre producer Dudley Russell, and they have two sons, William and James. They live in Cirencester, Gloucestershire and keep rare breeds of cattle, as well as sheep, pigs, chickens, and guinea fowl. Ayres is a keen gardener and beekeeper. She is a patron of the British Hen Welfare Trust, Cheltenham Animal Shelter and Oak and Furrows Wildlife Rescue Centre.

Ayres was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1979 and again in 2018. On the first occasion, she chose "The New St George" by John and Chris Leslie, The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, and a large basket of sugared almonds as her favourite song, book and luxury item respectively; on her second appearance she chose The Fureys' "When You Were Sweet Sixteen", The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose: From William Caxton to P.G.Wodehouse by Frank Muir, and a medicine cabinet including mosquito repellent.

In the 2004 Birthday Honours, Ayres was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to literature and entertainment.

Select bibliography and discography

 * 1976: Some of Me Poems. London: Galaxy Records ISBN 0-9504774-0-0
 * 1976: Some More of Me Poems and Songs. London: Galaxy Records ISBN 0-9504774-1-9
 * 1978: Thoughts of a Late-Night Knitter. London: Arrow Books ISBN 0-09-134380-1
 * 1978: All of Pam's Poetry; illustrated by Roy Garnham Elmore. London: Hutchinson ISBN 0-09-134380-1 (including the contents of her first three books)
 * 1985: Dear Mum: Poems for Mums and their Babies. London: Severn House Publishers ISBN 0-7278-2066-4
 * 1992: Pam Ayres: the Works. London: BBC Books, Sep 1992 ISBN 0-563-36751-2
 * 1998: With These Hands: a collection. London: Orion, Feb 1998 ISBN 0-7528-1553-9
 * 2006: Surgically Enhanced. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Sep 2006 ISBN 0-340-92278-8
 * 2013: You Made me Late Again!. London: Ebury Press, Sep 2013 ISBN 9780091940461
 * 2019: Up in the Attic. London: Ebury Publishing, Oct 2019 ISBN 9781785177125
 * 2022: Who Are You Calling Vermin?. London: Ebury Spotlight, Sept 2022 ISBN 1529149991

Audio CDs
 * 2005: Ayres on the Air. BBC Audio, highlights from BBC Radio 4 series ISBN 0-563-52435-9
 * 2006: Pam Ayres: Ancient and Modern. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Nov 2006 ISBN 1-84456-318-9

DVDs
 * 2006: Pam Ayres: In Her Own Words (Acorn Media, March 2006); recorded live at The Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham in September 2005
 * 2011: Pam Ayres, Word Perfect: Live from the Theatre Royal Windsor (Acorn Media, September 2011)

Autobiography
 * 2011: The Necessary Aptitude: A Memoir. Ebury Press, September 2011 ISBN 0-09-194048-6

title: Pam Ayres


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User:Securiger

Use of present tense in historical articles
There has been a recent trend to writing historical articles entirely in the present tense. This is not the "historical present tense", it is just wrong; but apart from bad grammar, there are also other reasons to regard it as an error, avoid it yourself, and correct it wherever you see it.

So far as I can see (although I haven't researched the origins in detail), this habit has been started by TV channels like the The History Channel and Discovery Channel trying to make historical presentations more immediate for younger viewers. To some extent they can get away with it, because usually it is in a narrative superimposed on a re-enactment, and the viewer is supposed to understand that events being described in present tense are contemporaneous with the historic scenes being re-enacted. In that sense, it is supposed to draw the viewer into those events.

In writing, however, it is almost always a bad mistake. Without the backdrop of the re-enactment dynamically indicating the flow of events, the loss of temporal information can become very confusing. This is especially so because the writer knows the context of events being described, and may simply assume it will be clear to the reader; to the reader, however, the ambiguity is obvious. Consider this example from New South Wales Police:
 * 1862. In this year the New South Wales Police Force is created by the amalgamation of all existing forces into one organisation.  The new force, brought about by the Police Regulation Act 1862, is controlled by Inspector General John McLerie.  Sub-districts are created across the State, and these are controlled by Police Inspectors.  Police are now being issued with .36 calibre Colt Navy revolvers.  Until this time they had only been issued with various single-shot weapons, which were most unsatisfactory.
 * 1871 ...

Did all the events under "1862" occur in 1862, or is this a summary of events from 1862 to 1871? What about the revolvers; while a person who understands the history of firearms can fill in the gaps, someone not knowledgeable in such matters could misinterpret this to mean that NSW police were issued single-shot weapons in 1862 and that those weapons have recently been replaced by Colt Navy revolvers. Similarly, what about John McLerie; the text seems to say that he is still Inspector General; that can't be right, he was first appointed 143 years ago, so by logical deduction we can remove the ambiguity. But what if the date had been 1962?

An additional problem is that continuous use of present tense makes it more difficult to express more complex ideas, such as third conditional mood:
 * Jones would have left immediately had the supplies arrived.

Although this is a complex grammatical mood, a native speaker understands it easily. Trying to express the same thing in the present tense is impossible; the writer usually ends up with a mess that mixes up present tense, future conditionals and past tense.

 * Very good comments regarding present tense. I have been hoping to write a series of article on Historical method, one being the use of Contemporaneous corroboration.  Perhpas you would be interested in assisting.  Thanks. Nobs01 18:58, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

External references

 * Ch.14 of "A Guide to Writing in History and Classics"
 * Commandment IX of "Ten Commandments of Good Historical Writing"
 * Definition of "historical present" at Bartleby.com (Note: will generate a pop-up).

Multi-licensing
See the Multi-Licensing FAQ.

I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages and comments on talk pages, as described below:

Enough about me, how about you?

Template messages/All

title: User:Securiger


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Wikipedia:Controversial articles

Controversial articles, by their very nature, require far greater care to achieve a neutral point of view.

Describe the controversy
An article about a controversial person, issue, group or organization should start with facts: "According to the FBI, the XYZ faction had over 1,000 active members in 1982." Next, the article should accurately describe their views, no matter how misguided or repugnant. Where a person or organization has released published statements about their aims or objectives, these can be summarized for the reader: "According to the XYZ faction's 1983 manifesto, which was published in the New York Times, the three main aims of the faction were to..." If the organization's leader or its members have been convicted of crimes committed in the furtherance of the group's objectives, these legal outcomes can be summarized for the reader: "In 1984, members A, B and C of the XYZ faction were convicted of hijacking..."

Remember to ask the question, "How can this controversy best be described?" It is not our job to edit Wikipedia so that it reflects our own idiosyncratic views and then defend those edits against all comers; it is our job to be fair to all sides of a controversy. For a controversial individual or organization, it is likely that many sources have criticized the person or the group. A well-sourced summary of these criticisms should appear in the article, giving weight to the viewpoints in accordance to the weight that these viewpoints are given in reliable, published sources: "Several US organizations such as A, B and C criticized the XYZ faction for its..." If authoritative sources support the existence of positive viewpoints about the person or group, these too can be summarized for the reader: "The organizations P and Q endorsed the aims of the XYZ faction, and the political philosophers John Smith and Sue Jones defended their political arguments."

Please be clear that the Wikipedia neutrality policy certainly does not state, or imply, that we must "give equal validity" to minority views in a controversy. If the vast majority of political philosophers criticized the XYZ faction, and only two political philosophers supported the group's aims, then giving substantial coverage of these two philosopher's views could be viewed as undue weight.

Be precise
Keep all content within the scope defined by the article title. Important content that drifts outside of that limit should be moved to appropriate other articles and linked to or the current article should be retitled. The lead does not define the limits of the article; if the lead is more limiting than the title, add the content to the body and rewrite the lead to summarize the body more accurately.

Consider adding different kinds of content within the scope of the article, so that the subject as a whole is treated with greater accuracy, because more of the important parts of it will have been covered because of your editing. For example, in an article about schools in a nation, if only those in big cities are covered when others exist but are unmentioned, add about other schools in that nation, to make the article more comprehensive within its title.

Word closely to sourcing. Don't say the sky is blue if you can't find a source to back up the statement. Instead, delete the statement or rephrase it to what you can back up. Precision is vital. Quote, except that too many or too-long quotations are discouraged in Wikipedia (more are allowed in Wikiquote). The alternative to quoting is to paraphrase, so, when you paraphrase, do it very closely to the source, changing the wording without changing the meaning. Even if you understand the subject well enough to paraphrase not very closely because you know the meaning is the same, other editors don't and you may be accused of misrepresenting a source, so paraphrase closely or find a source closer to the paraphrase you favor.

Be careful with attribution
When writing an article on most topics in Wikipedia, simple declarations of fact and received opinion do not need to be sourced in the article; indeed, it would be prohibitive to force editors to provide a reliable source for every claim. However, a verifiable source does have to exist in the world, even if not cited in the article. (In this essay, attributions and citations are both discussed as attributions, although in Wikipedia attributions are like "according to Smith" in a sentence and citations are often bibliographic in a footnote.)

However, when dealing with potentially contentious topics, such as in the field of religion or current affairs, a lot more care has to be taken. The more at variance from commonly accepted notions an assertion is, the more rigorously it should be documented. Keep the following things in mind:

Be careful with weasel words
Weasel words are a way to give unconfirmable assertions the appearance of fact. "Houston is considered the friendliest city in the world." Really, now. Who says so? Do not use expressions like "is claimed", "is thought to be", and "is alleged", without saying specifically who is doing the claiming, thinking or alleging.

Also, beware of using words of attribution that cast aspersions on the source. This is largely an issue of context; for example,

 * Standing before the ruins of an exploded apartment building, the military spokesman claimed that "only military targets were hit".

Here, "claimed" suggests the writer's doubt; "said" would have been more neutral. Also, "alleged" often suggests a statement of questionable truth.

Attribute each sentence, not just a paragraph
When you write new content, make it perfectly clear if a footnote is meant to support the whole paragraph or only the last clause before the footnote. For example, start with a clear attribution like "Mr. Smith has written..." If this is not possible and there could be any confusion about the source, it is better to have the same material sourced more than once in the paragraph. Otherwise the subsequent editor either has to retrieve the source (which may be unavailable to that editor or slow to get) or only can estimate the previous editor's intention. While in such cases some may prefer sourcing every sentence, later editors may find this excessive, remove the extra references. Sentences (and sometimes paragraphs) may contain more than one source, as long as it is clear to future editors which source supports which statement in a sentence. See bundling citations for more information. Later editors who find that part of a paragraph is not properly sourced may put a "citation needed" tag on the questionable material.

Attribute facts
When establishing an event or action, reference should be made to a reliable source. Ideally, this would be a dependent scholarly work, but most of us don't have access to this kind of material. For most events since 1995, and some before, Web-based news reports can be cited to establish basic facts. These should be from the mainstream media or independent organizations, taking into account that they have their biases as well.

Attribute assertions
When characterizing a person, event, or action, an assertion should likewise be attributed to an acceptable source. A regular news story from a mainstream media organization is best, but don't rely on the journalist to report the bias of its sources accurately. Alternatively, a text from conservative or liberal alternative media may be cited, provided the source is accurately labeled in neutral terms and the label is sourceable. For example,

 * The conservative American churchgroup...
 * The liberal anti-war group...
 * The right-wing pro-Israel advocacy group...
 * The radical Islamic group...
 * The indigenous rebel movement...

Identify the possible bias of the source (including organizational, financial, and/or personal ties with interested parties). If the status of the source itself is disputed, it is best to avoid such characterizations altogether; instead, a link to an article on the source, where those conflicting viewpoints are discussed, should be used (if possible). (One example is the much-disputed distinction between a terrorist and a freedom fighter, but other disputes are certainly possible.) In the event that non-centrist points of view are presented, it is desirable to include assertions from multiple perspectives.

Raise source quality
A barely acceptable source is acceptable and can be cited, but try to find better (or the best) sourcing you can. The qualifications of the author (including whether the author's background is stated in the book itself), the reputation of the publisher for accuracy (such as a university press), and use of the work in training postgraduate students all indicate the quality or reliability of the source. Although both easy-to-verify and hard-to-verify sources are allowed, as long as both are at least minimally verifiable, when you have a choice the easy-to-verify source is preferred, and that usually means a source that can be read online and for free, provided that does not produce a source that's worse in other respects. If you must choose between an easily verifiable source that's barely reliable and a very reliable source that's barely verifiable, choose the more reliable source. If you can cite both, cite both (you can generally cite up to three for a point).

Editing procedures
If you are preparing to create an article that is likely to be severely challenged by many editors, put extra effort into complying with policies and guidelines (and those essays that have gained the most acceptance as modeling how we should edit). There are some editors with special roles who seem to have forgotten what the policies and guidelines say and you can't afford to be ignorant yourself, so you may have to take time to read more of them and more often, so you can find and quote whatever applies to a dispute. Not everything interesting can be added to Wikipedia but, if you edited within policies and guidelines, probably not everything you added should be deleted.

If you contribute to a controversial article then it can be handy to separate the non-controversial contributions from the controversial ones. First make the non-controversial edits and then the (suspected) controversial ones. If the controversial edit is reverted by another contributor then at least the non-controversial edits will be maintained. Although when you save an edit you can checkmark it as minor, try not to, except in the most minor cases, as doing so may make you look like you're trying to hide your work from other editors' watchlists (because some editors don't watchlist minor edits).

Expect to spend time responding to challenges and edits. Be sure the article is on your watchlist (if you exclude minor edits from your watchlist, set your preferences not to exclude them anymore) and check it at least a couple of times a week, because some procedures customarily allow you about a week to respond and some may require an almost immediate response from you. Make time to do more research, because often someone will say something that cannot be usefully answered without new research by you, and you may be surprised by what is challenged.

Be patient and don't chew people's heads off on the ground that if they don't use their brain they don't need it. Patience often means going an extra length to explain something that seems obvious. Assume good faith even on the part of annoying editors and be civil even when they're not. Some editors seem to provoke and you can wind up losing because of double standards. Even when provoked, answer on the substance as if they had always been civil.

If someone's editing is acceptable even though it's not great, leave it intact and don't risk becoming an article owner, which is not allowed. If editing is partly acceptable and partly not, only change what is not, even though selectivity is more complicated than reverting or undoing an entire edit. Craft a compromise that has a hope of satisfying all sides, even if the compromise is not your first choice. Make your Edit Summaries as clear as possible and avoid criticizing editors in them. Edit Summaries have to be short, so, if you run out of room in the Edit Summary field, expect to start a Talk topic in a few minutes and meanwhile use the Edit Summary to link to the Talk topic. Apply BRD by discussing disputes, whether you open the discussion or someone else does, which means you should check the article's talk page when it turns up in your watchlist. Allow consensus to develop then abide by the outcome even if it's not what you would like. An article consensus cannot override the consensus that applies to a policy or guideline and no one should apply an article consensus when that would require violating a policy or guideline, nor should a sham consensus be followed.

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Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout (born April 13, 1947) is an American poet generally associated with the Language poets. She has published more than two dozen books, including poetry and prose.

Armantrout was awarded the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for her book Versed which was also nominated for the National Book Award. Versed later received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Armantrout is now retired from her long tenure teaching at the University of California, San Diego, where she was Professor of Poetry and Poetics.

Early life
Armantrout was born in Vallejo, California. An only child, she was raised among military communities on naval bases, predominantly in San Diego. In her autobiography True (1998), she describes herself as having endured an insular childhood, a sensitive child of working class, Methodist fundamentalist parents.

In 1965, while living in the Allied Gardens district with her parents, Armantrout attended San Diego State University, intending to major in anthropology. During her studies she transferred to English and American literature, later studying at the University of California, Berkeley.

At Berkeley, Armantrout studied with poet Denise Levertov and befriended Ron Silliman. The latter became an important friendship for both poets, as each of them would become associated with the “West Coast” contingent of the so-called Language poets of late 1980s San Francisco.

Literary career and recognition
Armantrout published poetry in Caterpillar in the early 1970s, and from this point began to view herself as a poet. She took a master's degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, and wrote Extremities (1978), her first book of poetry.

Armantrout's poems have appeared in many anthologies, including In The American Tree (National Poetry Foundation), Language Poetries (New Directions), Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, From the Other Side of the Century (Sun & Moon), Out of Everywhere (Reality Street), American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Language Meets the Lyric Tradition, (Wesleyan, 2002), The Oxford Book of American Poetry (Oxford, UP, 2006) and several appearances in the annually published The Best American Poetry, including 1988, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2007.

Armantrout has twice received a Fund For Poetry Grant and was a California Arts Council Fellowship recipient in 1989. In 2007 she received a Grants to Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008.

Armantrout was one of a group of ten poets who participated in The Grand Piano: An Experiment In Collective Autobiography. Writing for these volumes began in 1998 and the first of its 10 volumes was published in November 2006.

Wobble, published in November 2018, was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Poetry.

Style
Armantrout was a member of the original West Coast Language group. Although Language poetry can be seen as advocating a poetics of nonreferentiality, Armantrout's work, focusing as it often does on the local and the domestic, resists such definitions. Unlike most of the group, her work is firmly grounded in experience of the local and domestic worlds and she is regarded by some as the most lyrical of the Language Poets.

Armantrout credits William Carlos Williams for developing her "sense of the line" and her understanding that "line breaks can create suspense and can destabilize meaning through delay." The basic unit of meaning in Armantrout's poetry is either the stanza or the section, and she writes both prose poetry and more traditional stanza-based poems.

In a published interview with poet and novelist Ben Lerner for BOMB Magazine, Armantrout said that she is more likely to write a prose poem "when [she] hear[s] the voice of a conventional narrator in [her] head."

Reception
Critic Stephanie Burt at the Boston Review commented: ""William Carlos Williams and Emily Dickinson together taught Armantrout how to dismantle and reassemble the forms of stanzaic lyric— how to turn it inside out and backwards, how to embody large questions and apprehensions in the conjunctions of individual words, how to generate productive clashes from arrangements of small groups of phrases. From these techniques, Armantrout has become one of the most recognizable, and one of the best, poets of her generation"."

Personal life
Armantrout graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 1970 and married Chuck Korkegian in 1971, whom she had dated since her first year at the university.

Poetry

 * Collections
 * Extremities (The Figures, 1978)
 * The invention of hunger (Tuumba, 1979)
 * Precedence (Burning Deck, 1985)
 * Necromance (Sun and Moon Press, 1991)
 * Couverture (Les Cahiers de Royaumont, 1991) - a selection in French translation
 * Made To Seem (Sun and Moon Press, 1995)
 * Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)
 * The Pretext (Green Integer, 2001)
 * Up to Speed (Wesleyan University Press, 2004)
 * Next Life (Wesleyan University Press, 2007)
 * Narrativ [English-German, Bilingual edition, translated by Uda Strätling and Martin Göritz] (Luxbooks, Wiesbaden, 2009) ISBN 978-3-939557-40-1)
 * Versed (Wesleyan University Press, 2009) - 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
 * Money Shot (Wesleyan University Press, 2011)
 * Just Saying (Wesleyan University Press, 2013)
 * Itself (Wesleyan University Press, 2015)
 * Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2015 (Wesleyan University Press, 2016)
 * Wobble (Wesleyan University Press, 2018)
 * Conjure (Wesleyan University Press, 2020)
 * Finalists (Wesleyan University Press, 2022)

 * Chapbooks
 * writing the plot about sets (Chax, 1998)
 * Currency (Yale Union, 2016)
 * Entanglements (Wesleyan University Press, 2020) ISBN 978-0-8195773-99

Prose

 * True (Atelos, 1998) - memoir; republished in Collected Prose
 * The Grand Piano: An Experiment In Collective Autobiography (with Bob Perelman, Barrett Watten, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Tom Mandel, Ron Silliman, Kit Robinson, Lyn Hejinian, and Ted Pearson) (Mode A/This Press, 2007)
 * Collected Prose (Singing Horse Press, 2007); ISBN 0-935162-37-2

title: Rae Armantrout