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Visible minority

A visible minority (minorité visible) is defined by the Government of Canada as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour". The term is used primarily as a demographic category by Statistics Canada, in connection with that country's Employment Equity policies. The qualifier "visible" was chosen by the Canadian authorities as a way to single out newer immigrant minorities from both Aboriginal Canadians and other "older" minorities distinguishable by language (French vs. English) and religion (Catholics vs. Protestants), which are "invisible" traits.

The term visible minority is sometimes used as a euphemism for "non-white". This is incorrect, in that the government definitions differ: Aboriginal people are not considered to be visible minorities, but are not necessarily white either. In some cases, members of "visible minorities" may be visually indistinguishable from the majority population and/or may form a majority-minority population locally (as is the case in Vancouver and Toronto).

Since the reform of Canada's immigration laws in the 1960s, immigration has been primarily of peoples from areas other than Europe, many of whom are visible minorities within Canada. Legally, members of visible minorities are defined by the Canadian Employment Equity Act as "persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour".

Background
9,639,200 Canadians identified as a member of a visible minority group in the 2021 Canadian Census, for 26.53% of the total population. This was an increase from the 2016 Census, when visible minorities accounted for 22.2% of the total population; from the 2011 Census, when visible minorities accounted for 19.1% of the total population; from the 2006 Census, when the proportion was 16.2%; from 2001, when the proportion was 13.4%; over 1996 (11.2%); over 1991 (9.4%) and 1981 (4.7%). In 1961, the visible minority population was less than 1%.

The increase represents a significant shift in Canada's demographics related to record high immigration since the advent of its multiculturalism policies.

Statistics Canada projects that by 2041, visible minorities will make up 38.2–43.0% of the total Canadian population, compared with 26.5% in 2021. Statistics Canada further projects that among the working-age population (15 to 64 years), meanwhile, visible minorities are projected to make up 42.1–47.3% of Canada's total population, compared to 28.5% in 2021.

As per the 2021 census, of the provinces, British Columbia had the highest proportion of visible minorities, representing 34.4% of its population, followed by Ontario at 34.3%, Alberta at 27.8% and Manitoba at 22.2%. Additionally, as of 2021, the largest visible minority group was South Asian Canadians with a population of approximately 2.6 million, representing roughly 7.1% of the country's population, followed by Chinese Canadians (4.7%) and Black Canadians (4.3%).

2021 census
National average: 26.5% Source: Canada 2021 Census
 * Note: Subdivisions shown below have visible minority populations above the national average.

Alberta

 * Brooks (48.5%)
 * Edmonton (42.8%)
 * Chestermere (42.4%)
 * Calgary (41.4%)
 * Wood Buffalo (27.3%)

British Columbia

 * Richmond (80.3%)
 * Burnaby (67.8%)
 * Greater Vancouver A (67.2%)
 * Surrey (67.1%)
 * Coquitlam (56.5%)
 * Vancouver (54.5%)
 * New Westminster (46.8%)
 * Delta (45.3%)
 * West Vancouver (43.2%)
 * Abbotsford (40.2%)
 * Port Coquitlam (39.7%)
 * North Vancouver (city) (36.3%)
 * Port Moody (32.7%)
 * North Vancouver (district) (29.1%)
 * Langley (district) (26.6%)

Manitoba

 * Neepawa (53.1%)
 * Winnipeg (34.4%)

Ontario

 * Markham (82.1%)
 * Brampton (80.6%)
 * Richmond Hill (66.4%)
 * Ajax (64.6%)
 * Mississauga (61.9%)
 * Toronto (55.7%)
 * Milton (55.2%)
 * Pickering (51.9%)
 * Whitchurch-Stouffville (46.3%)
 * Oakville (42.5%)
 * Vaughan (41.3%)
 * Aurora (38.9%)
 * Whitby (35.4%)
 * Waterloo (35.0%)
 * Newmarket (34.9%)
 * Windsor (33.6%)
 * Ottawa (32.5%)
 * Kitchener (31.7%)
 * Oshawa (28.9%)
 * London (28.7%)

Quebec

 * Brossard (50.3%)
 * Dollard-des-Ormeaux (43.3%)
 * Montréal (38.8%)
 * Laval (32.7%)
 * Mount Royal (32.3%)
 * Kirkland (31.7%)
 * Dorval (28.0%)

2016 census
National average: 22.3% Source: Canada 2016 Census
 * Note: Subdivisions shown below have visible minority populations above the national average.

Alberta

 * Edmonton (37.1%)
 * Brooks (36.8%)
 * Calgary (36.2%)
 * Chestermere (35.0%)
 * Wood Buffalo (26.7%)
 * Banff (24.4%)

British Columbia

 * Richmond (76.3%)
 * Burnaby (63.6%)
 * Greater Vancouver A (67.3%)
 * Surrey (58.5%)
 * Vancouver (51.6%)
 * Coquitlam (50.2%)
 * New Westminster (38.9%)
 * West Vancouver (36.4%)
 * Delta (36.0%)
 * Abbotsford (33.7%)
 * Port Coquitlam (32.4%)
 * North Vancouver (city) (31.3%)
 * Port Moody (30.5%)
 * North Vancouver (district) (25.6%)

Manitoba

 * Neepawa (40.7%)
 * Winnipeg (28.0%)

Ontario

 * Markham (77.9%)
 * Brampton (73.3%)
 * Richmond Hill (60.0%)
 * Mississauga (57.2%)
 * Ajax (56.7%)
 * Toronto (51.5%)
 * Pickering (42.9%)
 * Milton (42.8%)
 * Whitchurch-Stouffville (36.9%)
 * Vaughan (35.4%)
 * Oakville (30.8%)
 * Aurora (26.9%)
 * Windsor (26.9%)
 * Waterloo (26.4%)
 * Ottawa (26.3%)
 * Newmarket (25.8%)
 * Whitby (25.3%)

Quebec

 * Brossard (42.9%)
 * Dollard-des-Ormeaux (38.8%)
 * Montréal (34.2%)
 * Laval (26.1%)
 * Mount Royal (24.7%)
 * Kirkland (24.2%)
 * Dorval (23.4%)

2011 census
National average: 19.1% Source: Canada 2011 Census
 * Note: Subdivisions shown below have visible minority populations above the national average.

Alberta

 * Calgary (30.1%)
 * Edmonton (30.0%)
 * Chestermere (29.2%)
 * Brooks (26.7%)
 * Banff (22.2%)

British Columbia

 * Richmond (70.4%)
 * Greater Vancouver A (62.1%)
 * Burnaby (59.5%)
 * Surrey (52.6%)
 * Vancouver (51.8%)
 * Coquitlam (43.8%)
 * New Westminster (34.8%)
 * Delta (30.2%)
 * Abbotsford (29.6%)
 * North Vancouver (city) (29.2%)
 * Port Moody (28.9%)
 * Port Coquitlam (28.5%)
 * West Vancouver (28.2%)
 * North Vancouver (district) (22.0%)

Manitoba

 * Winnipeg (21.4%)

Ontario

 * Markham (72.3%)
 * Brampton (66.4%)
 * Mississauga (53.7%)
 * Richmond Hill (52.9%)
 * Toronto (49.1%)
 * Ajax (45.8%)
 * Pickering (35.4%)
 * Vaughan (31.4%)
 * Milton (29.9%)
 * Whitchurch-Stouffville (24.5%)
 * Ottawa (23.7%)
 * Windsor (22.9%)
 * Oakville (22.8%)
 * Waterloo (20.4%)
 * Whitby (19.2%)
 * Newmarket (19.2%)

Quebec

 * Brossard (38.3%)
 * Dollard-des-Ormeaux (35.9%)
 * Montréal (31.7%)
 * Dorval (22.1%)
 * Kirkland (20.8%)
 * Mount Royal (20.8%)
 * Laval (20.7%)

2006 census
National average: 16.2% Source: Canada 2006 Census
 * Note: Subdivisions shown below have visible minority populations above the national average.

Alberta

 * Calgary (23.7%)
 * Edmonton (22.9%)
 * Chestermere (17.8%)
 * Brooks (17.1%)
 * Banff (16.8%)

British Columbia

 * Richmond (65.1%)
 * Burnaby (55.4%)
 * Greater Vancouver A (55.2%)
 * Vancouver (51.0%)
 * Surrey (46.1%)
 * Coquitlam (38.6%)
 * New Westminster (29.6%)
 * Delta (27.0%)
 * Abbotsford (26.4%)
 * North Vancouver (city) (26.2%)
 * Port Coquitlam (25.7%)
 * Port Moody (25.3%)
 * West Vancouver (22.8%)
 * North Vancouver (district) (22.2%)

Manitoba

 * Winnipeg (16.3%)

Ontario

 * Markham (65.4%)
 * Brampton (57.0%)
 * Mississauga (49.0%)
 * Toronto (46.9%)
 * Richmond Hill (45.7%)
 * Ajax (35.6%)
 * Pickering (30.5%)
 * Vaughan (26.6%)
 * Windsor (21.0%)
 * Ottawa (20.2%)
 * Oakville (18.4%)
 * Milton (17.1%)
 * Whitby (17.0%)
 * Waterloo (16.9%)

Quebec

 * Brossard (34.3%)
 * Dollard-des-Ormeaux (30.9%)
 * Montréal (26.0%)
 * Mount Royal (19.7%)
 * Dorval (19.1%)
 * Kirkland (18.7%)

2001 census
National average: 13.4% Source: Canada 2001 Census
 * Note: Subdivisions shown below have visible minority populations above the national average.

Alberta

 * Edmonton (19.7%)
 * Calgary (18.7%)
 * Banff (17.3%)

British Columbia

 * Richmond (59.0%)
 * Vancouver (49.0%)
 * Burnaby (48.6%)
 * Greater Vancouver A (43.5%)
 * Surrey (36.7%)
 * Coquitlam (34.3%)
 * New Westminster (24.9%)
 * Delta (23.4%)
 * North Vancouver (city) (22.6%)
 * Port Coquitlam (22.3%)
 * Port Moody (20.7%)
 * Abbotsford (20.4%)
 * West Vancouver (20.3%)
 * North Vancouver (district) (19.3%)
 * Squamish (16.8%)
 * Fort St. James (14.7%)
 * Saanich (13.7%)

Manitoba

 * Winnipeg (13.4%)

Ontario

 * Markham (55.5%)
 * Toronto (42.8%)
 * Richmond Hill (40.4%)
 * Mississauga (40.3%)
 * Brampton (40.2%)
 * Pickering (26.4%)
 * Ajax (24.3%)
 * Vaughan (19.0%)
 * Ottawa (18.0%)
 * Windsor (17.2%)
 * Waterloo (13.5%)

Quebec

 * Saint-Laurent (38.2%)
 * Brossard (27.7%)
 * Dollard-des-Ormeaux (26.0%)
 * Pierrefonds (25.8%)
 * Montréal-Nord (23.5%)
 * Montréal (22.7%)
 * Saint-Léonard (20.8%)
 * LaSalle (20.6%)
 * Kirkland (17.2%)
 * Roxboro (16.6%)
 * Mount Royal (15.4%)
 * Anjou (15.1%)

Legislative versus operational definitions
According to the Employment Equity Act of 1995, the definition of visible minority is: "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour".

This definition can be traced back to the 1984 Report of the Abella Commission on Equality in Employment. The Commission described the term visible minority as an "ambiguous categorization", but for practical purposes interpreted it to mean "visibly non-white". The Canadian government uses an operational definition by which it identifies the following groups as visible minorities: "Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arab, West Asian, Korean, Japanese, Visible minority, n.i.e. (n.i.e. means "not included elsewhere"), and Multiple visible minority".

If census respondents write-in multiple entries, like "Black and Malaysian", "Black and French" or "South Asian and European", they would be included in the Black or South Asian counts respectively. However, the 2006 Census states that respondents that add a European ethnic response in combination with certain visible minority groups are not counted as visible minorities. They must add another non-European ethnic response to be counted as such:

The term "non-white" is used in the wording of the Employment Equity Act and in employment equity questionnaires distributed to applicants and employees. This is intended as a shorthand phrase for those who are in the Aboriginal and/or visible minority groups.

Controversy
The classification "visible minorities" has attracted controversy, both nationally and from abroad. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has stated that they have doubts regarding the use of this term since this term may be considered objectionable by certain minorities and recommended an evaluation of this term. In response, the Canadian government made efforts to evaluate how this term is used in Canadian society through commissioning of scholars and open workshops.

Since 2008, census data and media reports have suggested that the "visible minorities" label no longer makes sense in some large Canadian cities, due to immigration trends in recent decades. For example, "visible minorities" comprise the majority of the population in many municipalities across the country, primarily in British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta.

Yet another criticism of the label concerns the composition of "visible minorities". Critics have noted that the groups comprising "visible minorities" have little in common with each other, as they include both disadvantaged groups and groups who are not economically disadvantaged. The concept of visible minority has been cited in demography research as an example of a statistext, meaning a census category that has been contrived for a particular public policy purpose. As the term "visible minorities" is seen as creating a racialized group, some advocate for "global majority" as a more appropriate alternative.

Furthermore it is not clear why minority definition should center on the "visual", and the concept of "audible minority" (e.g. those who speak with what appears to the majority to be "accented" English or French) has also been proposed, as speech often forms the basis for prejudice, along with appearance.

title: Visible minority


text:
File:Stardrive book cover.jpg

Summary

 * Description: This flatbed scan of the book cover for the of the Star*Drive campaign setting was reduced in size by 80% and a drop shadow added using Paint Shop Pro.
 * Size: 262 × 340 pixels.

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

title: File:Stardrive book cover.jpg


text:
Star Drive

Star Drive (stylized as Star*Drive) is a science fiction campaign setting that was published in 1998 by TSR, Inc. for the Alternity role-playing game. The first published setting for Alternity was provided in the Star Drive Campaign Setting book in 1998.

It was written by David Eckelberry and Richard Baker. This setting book also requires the Player's Handbook and Gamemaster Guide for the Alternity game system. Much of the material created for this campaign setting was later reused in the d20 Future supplement of the d20 Modern role-playing game.

Setting
Star Drive is set in the 26th century, starting in the year 2501. Humankind has gained access to faster-than-light technology called the stardrive, a merger of technology between humans and the alien Fraal. A period of stellar colonization of habitable worlds ensues, led by six wealthy power blocs. New powers emerged, forming the Terran Empire in 2250. Tensions between the colonies led to the first galactic war in 2299, finally ending in 2312 with the emergence of 26 stellar nations.

A second, even nastier war began in 2346, sparked by a rebellion of mutants. This led to a pullback of the humans from their maximum expansion, isolating many colonies. The war continued for over 100 years, leaving worlds devastated and nations and alliances in difficult financial straits. The war ended in 2472 with the signing of the Treaty of Concord. This agreement has held the peace, barely, for the last three decades.

In the course of the past five centuries, humans have contacted several alien races. This began with first contact with the Fraal in the Sol System, followed by the brutish Weren, cybernetically enhanced Mechalus, reptilian T'sa, and gliding Sesheyan. A total of 50 sentient species in all have been contacted, with each being rated at various levels of development. (Some are considered borderline sentient.)

At the beginning of the 26th century, Humanity's political and social structure is divided into Stellar Nations (once countries), rich corporations or federations, most trying to collect their former colonies. These are : Austrin-Ontis Unlimited, Borealis Republic, Hatire Community, Insight, Nariac Domain, Orion League, Orlamu Theocracy, Rigunmor Star Consortium, StarMech Collective, Thuldan Empire, Union of Sol, and Voidcorp.

In addition there is a thirteenth nation called the Galactic Concord, created by the Treaty of Concord. The Galactic Concord is made up of citizens and territories donated by the other Stellar Nations.

Stardrive
The "stardrive" is a type of hyperdrive that operates on the principles of gravity induction. By combining two pieces of technology, the induction engine and the mass reactor, it allows travel at FTL speeds through the extra-dimensional medium of "Drivespace". Depending on the engine power of a stardrive, it could travel anywhere from 5 to 50 lightyears in a single trip, but due to the spatial physics of Drivespace, any and all travel between two points takes exactly 121 hours (approx. 5 days), no matter how far apart or how close the two points are.

The Klicks
The Klicks are a fictional race of aliens within Star Drive.

At the far end of the Verge, alien species unheard of before the Second Galactic War have begun to stir. Slowly but inexorably expanding into civilized space, the alien klicks and their allies began by devastating the entire Silver Bell colony on Spes, followed by fierce ground fighting on Rakke. The Galactic Concord has responded as quickly as possible, but faster-than-light technology being what it is, even distress messages take many days to get through.

Klicks are arachnid-like aliens from a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy. Ferocious, aggressive, and merciless, they have descended on human-controlled space in a slow and steady wave of invasion. Though the Galactic Concord has slowed their progress, the Klicks are determined and resourceful.

Klicks have strange, wedge-shaped bodies covered with smooth, chitinous plates. They possess six multi-jointed legs ending in thick claws, and an additional pair of forelimbs ending in sharp, manipulating claws. A Klick's sensory organs hang in a pendulous glob below the main part of its body, between the forelimbs.

The Klicks employ brutal but effective "hit-and-run" combat tactics. They favor ambushes and overwhelming numbers. Military analysts have suggested that Klicks have a hive-mind social structure, like terrestrial insects, but scientists discard the notion as unlikely "Earth-centered" thinking.

The name "Klick" was coined by Galactic Concord soldiers and based on the odd clicking sounds that the aliens make when they communicate. To further stymie efforts to understand this enigmatic species, Klicks captured in combat never survive longer than a few hours—generally because of terrible wounds sustained during their apprehension.

A Klick naturally produces a field of energy that causes non-Klicks to feel weak and tired. Galactic Concord soldiers, accordingly, prefer to battle Klicks from a safe distance.

Contents
The Star Drive Campaign Setting book is hardbound with 256 pages illustrated in color. It is divided into chapters covering the history of the setting; a description of the conditions, economy, and technology of the 26th century; descriptions of the various stellar nations within a range of over 1,000 light years; a more detailed look at a mysterious distant region known as the Verge, and finally game-specific details covering the player species, careers, employment, skills, equipment, and special game options available for players.

The game world includes a variety of standard fare science fiction features. These include psionics, cybernetics, robots, spacecraft, mutants, and advanced medicine. The level of technology is at "Progress Level" 7 (Progress Levels are used in Alternity to describe the technology of a civilization, with present-day Earth described as Progress Level 5, and the Industrial Age described as Progress Level 4). Characters are typically employed and have an allegiance to a company or government. They may also follow one of the future religions described in this book.

In addition to humans, players can run a character from one of the handful of alien space-faring races that lie within the known space.

The Verge is described, in many cases, planet by planet. The more prominent planet descriptions give a broad overview of the world, the government, and sites of interest. Maps of the main worlds are also show at a high scale.

The cover was among artist R. K. Post's first work for TSR.

Professions
The following careers are available to players:
 * Combat Specs: bodyguard, corporate security specialist, gunner, law enforcer, martial artist, alien combat spec, mercenary, soldier, and spacehand.
 * Diplomats: ambassador, clergy, Concord administrator, corporate executive, entertainer, first contact consul, free trader, military officer, naval officer, stellar noble, and swindler.
 * Free Agents: bounty hunter, corsair, explorer, gambler, guide/scout, investigator, outlaw, reporter, smuggler, spy, and thief.
 * Tech Ops: crewman, comptech, gridpilot, doctor, engineer, independent pilot, medtech, scholar, and scientist.
 * Mindwalkers: biokineticist, biowarrior, ESPion, mystic, telekineticist, psiguard, telepath, and mind knight.

Main

 * Star Drive Campaign Setting

Supplements

 * Arms & Equipment Guide
 * Alien Compendium: Creatures of the Verge
 * Alien Compendium II: The Exploration of 2503
 * The Externals (Only available as a PDF)
 * Klick Clack
 * The Last Warhulk
 * The Lighthouse
 * Outbound: An Explorer's Guide
 * Planet of Darkness
 * Star Compendium: Systems of the Verge
 * System Guide to Aegis
 * Threats from Beyond

Harbinger trilogy

 * 1) Starrise at Corrivale by Diane Duane
 * 2) Storm at Eldala by Diane Duane
 * 3) Nightfall at Algemron by Diane Duane

Stand-alone

 * On the Verge by Roland Green
 * Zero Point by Richard Baker
 * Two of Minds by William H. Keith
 * Gridrunner by Thomas M. Reid

Anthology

 * 1) Starfall (short story collection), edited by Martin H. Greenberg

title: Star Drive


text:
Talk:Blood Meridian

[resolved] stub
Why is this still a stub?

I don't know if this is nit-picking, but I'm concerned about the line that says the Kid is "brutally murdered" by the judge. Actually, it's never explicitly stated that he's killed. All we know is that the judge is waiting for him in the latrine, and that later some bar patrons are horrified by something they see. Sure, it's probably murder, but for the sake of pure objectivity could we change this line to something less specific...came to a bad end, or something like that?

[resolved] Characters
Yeah in the characters section under Toadvine it says that him the kid and Bathcat sat out "the most violent massacre" or whatever but I'm pretty sure that never happens their in on every one. I remember at one point that Toadvine speaks up against murdering innocent Gilenos before the first massacre but never anything about them sitting it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.78.203.2 (talk) 07:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Redirect
Shouldn't this redirect to "Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West"?
 * I think that the standard naming practice in the case of a novel with two names is to use the primary name as the name of the article. See Doctor Fischer of Geneva, the full title of which is Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party. | Klaw Talk 04:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No real need for discussion, just go ahead and merge.Plowboylifestyle 21:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Murdered?
Actually, due to some earlier references to the judge's possible homosexuality (the naked dead boy in the fort, the saving-then-killing-and-scalping of the indian boy, the naked fool in the judge's room) and the fact that the judge is naked when the kid enters the latrine, along with the reaction of the men outside the latrine, I thought that there was somthing far different from murder going on at the end of that novel.
 * Um source? Naked != sex. LilDice 20:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Blood Meridian. It's pretty good. You should read it sometime, or at least the Wiki article. — Llywelyn II   13:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

The Kid was murdered?
I agree with the other comments....I just reread the ending. Both times I've read it I did not get the impression that the judge kills the Kid, though I suppose that is consistant with the text. [not signed]

The Murder
I finished the novel last night and thought it was obvious that the judge murdered the kid at the end. Most horribly, as Bloom noted. The kid enters the jakes, goes in and the judge, naked, rises behind him puts his giant arms around him, pulling him close to his "terrible flesh." Then the judge locks the door. Later the two men are horrified at the scene. Who knows what the judge did to him, but it didn't end well for the kid. I think the judge was naked becuase he just raped and murdered the missing girl. Perhaps he violated the kid as well, but I don't think so right now. Certainly with the judge, anything is possible. He killed him though, as the judge is the one true dancer. Bears that dance, bears that don't.
 * Yea I agree with you, the people who read rape into it can if they want, but regardldess the kid got what was coming to him. LilDice 01:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Another One on the Murder
Just want to follow-up with this discussion to say that I'm a bit surprised by the statement that the Kid was "brutally murdered" by the judge too -- I'd remembered it being much more ambiguous then that. [not signed]

It's Obvious
It's perfectly fair to say that the kid was murdered by the judge. Whether he was also buggered by the judge is a less clear. But it doesn't matter. It's enough that he obviously could have been. Those who would insist on being more cautious about saying whether the kid was killed by the judge are the same who would hold out for the possibility that Hemmingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" might be about something other than abortion. Additionally, you've got heavy-weight, professional judgement about the matter with Bloom. This is not something to toil over. --Docblueson 10:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree completely; and not only does Bloom believe the Kid to be dead but as does the majority of critical thought on the novel. In fact, I honestly can't recall a single statement theorizing the kid to have survived the ending. The only debate is to whether he was raped prior to his murder by the Judge. Qjuad 16:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Murdered? Maybe but not realy important IMO
Seems likely to me that the Judge represents War/Death (or a specific form of violence), and that the Kid now a Man represents a now outdated time and practice (perhaps the initial Indian Wars), his death (or more likely in my opinion, Suicide in the Jakes), represents the passing of this time and the coming of a new set of wars (namely the Range Wars and the Civil War), the first of which is hinted at in the epilogue. I might tend to read subtexts that arent their, but to me the Judge is an embodiement of a force of mankind and the debate over murder and sodomy are far to literal and belittle the power of the writing.
 * The Judge raped and killed the girl who owned the bear, then killed the Kid and set it up as the Kid killed the girl. The novel ends as it begins: the real pedophile sets somebody else up but escapes clean himself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.66.245.5 (talk) 23:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course the Judge murdered the Kid
Agree with the above: It's clear that the kid was murdered by the judge. Any "ambiguity" stems from McCarthy's method of storytelling.

However, what's less than clear is whether the "murder" was consensual: I get the feeling that the Kid's wandering around prior to re-encountering the judge was a way for CM to show how spiritually dead The Kid is, and by the time he meets the judge in the outhouse he's ready to "meet his maker" (ie, the Judge), who lovingly embraces The Kid and sends him to the logical end that he had been avoiding (at least in the Judge's mind). I noticed that during the fortune telling, the Judge refes to the kid as Blastharius.

I think this un-ambiguity should probably make it into the article, given the above discusion. (193.133.92.229 (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2010 (UTC)gea-141020) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.133.92.229 (talk) 21:10, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
 * sorry but all interpretations need proper third party sources. Active Banana   ( bananaphone  21:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Gnosticism ?
Could more information be provided regarding the parallels to gnostic beliefs ?

I saw many allusions and references to all forms of Christian mythology. Why limit it to gnosticism? Vatic Reverie 16:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I have to agree. The gnostic reading is based on a single article by someone who is not a Gnostic expert. In addition, the article is fairly short and the connections seem tenuous or trivial at times. The gnostic reading is valid, are there does seem to be some connections, but they are not overwhelming and it is far from a "gnostic" novel. Meanwhile, the Christian symbolism, images, and myth seem to be throughout the entire novel (the ruined churches for example). I think this section should be removed and combined with comments on other religious readings.
 * I realized this a necro comment, but I concur and have boldly removed the section. Arguing that gnostic thought is central to the work, is OR by proxy since McCarthy hasn't said anything about it one way or another. Including an entire section on the theory is giving it undue weight. One could just as easily argue that the Judge was a Jungian archetype or any of the Gods of War. - CompliantDrone (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * An IP editor has stated that "Cormac does mention gnostic/mysticism in his epigram to the book". I am unable to verify this in my copy. Regardless, I have no objection to the Gnostic hermeneutics section being re-added, but it needs to be either heavily pruned or heavily sourced by more than Leo Daugherty's essay. - CompliantDrone (talk) 19:42, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is the case. All editions of the book have 3 epigraphs which appear on the page preceeding the very first page of the novel. To my knowledge there has never been an edition which did not print Cormac's 3 epigrraphs. These are identified in sequence in the Epigraph and Ending section of this wikipage. The second one is the one about Gnostic/mysticism as quoted by Cormac.

 * The normal cycle for edits is Talk-Discuss-Edit. Your idea is feasible though cutting/deleting the entire section seems extreme since Cormac himself includes the epigraph and identifies the topic as relevant. Can you try to get any edition of the book so that you can see the epigraph for yourself, and then make a suggestion to possibly shorten this section, maybe by quoting the actual epigram, and placing it here in Talk before posting.209.3.238.62 (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The Gnostic themes in Blood Meridian are one of the main things readers notice about the book. Gnostic writings from the early Christian era are also full of Christian imagery.  Of course there's going to be Christian themes in a story set in 19th century America.  Anyway, McCarthy never gave interviews or wrote essays explaining his books, but lots of people notice the Gnostic themes.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:F00:1CB4:CDB4:1AE:79B:24C0 (talk) 06:35, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth the actual epigraph is simply topical and sourced to Jacob Boehme, who was a freethinking German Protestant/Lutheran and not a Gnostic in any meaningful and nonORy sense. — Llywelyn II   14:04, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Black John Jackson - stated to be an escaped slave?
I've looked through the text, and while it is possible or even likely that the sullen John Jackson character was an 'escaped slave', there is no actual reference or even hint of this that I can find. If no-one else can point something out, then I'll remove this reference.

References or links would be good for the statement 'Scholars have written pages about single paragraphs in the novel'.

Lastly, as a matter of interest only, it is notable that New York Times critic Caryn James, who reviewed 'Blood Meridian' on its publication in 1985, clearly didn't understand the book, and her review could be seen as contributing to it's initial muted reception:. Centrepull 08:44, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The "Scholars have written pages about single paragraphs in the novel" comment seems trivial. It is a common practice among literary scholars to write pages on a single paragraph.

 * John Jackson never hints at his past, but it would be likely. It would explain his temper, and his anger when the Judge tries to pass him off as some kind of exotic savage who doesn't shake hands.  "Suttree" has a black character who finds violence the most honorable response to racism.  There was also a famous freed slave named John Andrew Jackson who became a famous lecturer in England.  Maybe his name is a tribute, or a mirror version ... out West an escaped slave might see military service as a way to restore their destroyed self-esteem.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:F00:1CB4:CDB4:1AE:79B:24C0 (talk) 06:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Which part of that did you think missed the mark? That's a completely apt review from someone who simply didn't like it and could point out exactly where the seams are stitched together. I'm amazed that this turned out to be McCarthy's fifth book rather than his first, given how self-parodizing some of the turns of phrase and setups are. Or it shouldn't count just because Moby Dick and "biblical" didn't show up? — Llywelyn II   14:12, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

[resolved] Accuracy corrections made
The kid should be noted as a formidable and vicious fighter after his encounter with the bartender (important given the later activities of the Glanton crew). White's crew were irregulars. The kid and Sproule were not the only survivors of White's filibustering expedition. He meets three others at Chihuahua, and the Mexican guide Candelario mysteriously disappeared before the slaughter. Centrepull 10:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

POV Weirdness, etc
There are moments in the page when I feel like I'm being sold Blood Meridian. For example, "Scholars have written pages about single paragraphs in the novel." You could probably say the same thing for almost any popular text in the 20th century, so it feels like someone is just trying to tout the novel.

And then there's this weirder passage: "John Emil Sepich's Notes on Blood Meridian was the first and remains, arguably, the most thorough examination of the novel's sources, their context and significance. Sepich's 1993 version of this book is out of print, and has become a collector's item, often commanding high prices. However, as of December 2006, contracts have been signed for a revised and expanded edition of Notes by John Emil Sepich to be published by University of Texas Press as part of the Southwestern Writers Collection. The book is expected to be available in Fall 2007. Additional books and articles have also examined McCarthy's sources for the novel."

The fact that it's "arguable" that it's the most thorough, well, makes it POV. Is there something special about "Notes on Blood Meridian" - an out of print scholarly book - that it deserves a full paragraph rather than a little note on the works cited \ further reading page? And then there's the final sentence, "additional books and articles have also examined," etc, as if this is somehow different from any other novel.

I also think that the article feels a little bloated. Wikipedia isn't Spark Notes; there's no reason to list all the characters & "themes" and give such a long plot synopsis. Jordansc 22:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're right on the the first couple counts -- feel free to fix it. However the article is certainly not bloated, there is not enough information if anything. It's an important novel and has had plenty written on it so there's no reason not to include themes, and a thorough snyposis. LilDice 00:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree that it's an important novel, but is it a function of wikipedia to provide detailed synopses and themes? I think we should include a synopsis, but there's no reason to describe the entire plot.  What use would that have for the wiki reader?  And detailing themes is a form of literary criticism; that seems like original research to me.  It's one thing to summarize what important literary critics have said about the novel under reception but it's another to announce that Blood Meridian is "about" violence, etc, as if an encyclopedic entry can have the final word on the novel's interpretation. Jordansc 23:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Per the synopsis every major novel/film on wikipedia has a plot synopsis, it's useful to provide context to the rest of the article. Detailing themes is not original research if it's sourced. Take a look at Moby Dick they do the same thing there. LilDice 23:21, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think there should be a synopsis but I don't know how useful it is to describe everything that happens in the novel. I guess that's just me.

 * But as far as themes go, I still feel like any description of a novel's themes - however sourced - is going to be a very selective and therefore POV'ed one. And, again, what use is it to tell the wiki reader that Blood Meridian is "about" violence? Jordansc 23:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * No, if there is undue weight to any particular sourced item then you start to get into POV territory, however merely selecting a published work to include in the article is not POV, think about it you could say the same for any article, we're simply reporting the facts on what themes critics write about. As for the 'about' violence bit, i'm not sure what part in the article you're talking about. LilDice 00:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right. I think my objections have more to do with Wikipedia's treatment of literature in general rather than this particular wiki article.  Since I spend my time reading \ trying to write about literature, anything that looks like it's trying to fully describe a book in X words seems too reductive to me.
 * Anyway, on a more modest note, the first two paragraphs of the violence section need to be sourced. The final paragraph of the section has sources, but based on the quotes it's difficult to see how they support the idea of a "warlike nature of man." Jordansc 03:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hop on it, just add tags. LilDice 03:41, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[resolved] Title
Per Naming conventions (books), we shouldn't use the subtitle in article names. If no one objects, I'll move the page over to Blood Meridian, and merge the page histories of the two versions.--Cúchullain t/ c 19:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should note that I went ahead and did this the other day.--Cúchullain t/ c 22:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[resolved] Two questions about the plot
There are two points about the plot that I would like to be clarified. Is there any point in the novel in which the kid actually shows any compassion for the victims, as the judge accuses him of doing? I seem to remember that at one point somebody said some such words, but I thought it was Toadvine. I can't find the passage now. The second question is why was the kid released from jail after the judge accused him? One explanation is that, since the judge has accused him of murdering Toadvine and Brown, and we find out later that they are still alive and have been arrested, the authorities discovered that the judge was lying. Eubulide (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything scene that shows the Kid demonstrating compassion for their victims, but he doesn't operate with a total lack of concern for others like most of the group does. Toadvine expresses discontent with what they're doing a few times. I think the point is we see almost nothing about what the characters think internally, all we can judge them by are their actions.--Cúchullain t/ c 19:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a point where the kid helps 'Davy' Brown with the arrow in his leg when no one else will.

 * Though that scene brings up an odd twist to the narrative, the gang is a total 'onry' lot, but do cooperate at times, and this scene of no one helping Brown, when it seems a simple thing to do sort of foreshadows the gang's demise. In such a harsh environment lack of cooperation will lead to deadly consequences, which is what happens.--aajacksoniv (talk) 10:40, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The Judge charges him with having clemency for the heathen in his heart. Clemency means mercy or gentleness, not compassion.  The heathen might not refer to Indians, but the Judge himself, who The Kid refused to shoot.  Perhaps the heathen is Tobin.  One could imagine that either of them betrayed Toadvine and Brown to the hangman.  The Kid does show compassion and regret for the Indians in one scene: when he has a breakdown in front of the mummified old woman, who'd been dead for years.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:F00:1CB4:CDB4:1AE:79B:24C0 (talk) 05:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Length of the plot
This is about the disagreement between me and Cuchullain about whether some details of the plot should be removed from the article. I tried to find a Wikipedia policy about the length of a plot summary but there is none. The only guideline is the generic one about length of an article, and according to that this article is well between bounds. I object to deleting any accurate information from a Wikipedia article because it is "too much". As for any other kind of content, if you delete something you have to give a reason: it is incorrect, non-encyclopedic, point of view, original work, or other motivation. None of this applies to the plot details that you deleted. I don't see how my edits where wrongly formatted, but if they were, just format them correctly, don't delete them. (By the way, you also deleted some content that were already there before my edits.) Eubulide (talk) 19:45, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The plot summary is becoming too long to be useful to the reader. Plot summaries should be limited to the essential details, per WP:PLOT. This article is not as bad as some in that it isn't just plot summary, but contains receptions and analysis sections as well, but the plot summary does need to be trimmed down. There's no rule saying you must cite a policy or guideline when removing material in order to improve the encyclopedia, and that's what I was doing. I did explain myself - we don't need every plot point and detail listed off here. Parts of your edits were formatted incorrectly (you put sentences on their own lines, I assume hitting return instead of space), I would have just fixed it rather than reverting except I didn't think the edits added to the article. Finally, according to the page history I didn't remove anything besides your additions.--Cúchullain t/ c 21:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:PLOT doesn't state that plot summary should be limited to the essential. It only requires that an article does not consist exclusively of summary. On the other hand, WP:WAF and WP:LENGTH give suggestions on what to do when a section or an article becomes too long: a section should be divided into subsections, an article split into subarticles. If you feel that the summary in this article is too long to be useful, you may split it into subsections about groups of chapters. Nowhere in Wikipedia's guidelines can I found the suggestion that information can be removed only because there is too much of it. In any case, you should give reasons for every deletion, not just erase part of an article indiscriminately. Eubulide (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I did give reasons for reverting you both times you did it - that there's no need for all that detail. It's nothing personal. The goal is to transmit an understanding of the book, not to collect every plot point without regard for their importance. WP:PLOT calls for a brief plot summary in terms of a larger article also dissecting themes and meaning - this plot summary takes up far too much space to be useful. There's no way this would ever pass for a Featured Article with a plot summary this long. Splitting the plot section into its article would not be a good idea.--Cúchullain t/ c 20:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:PLOT states that "A brief plot summary may sometimes be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic". Notice the "sometimes" and "may be". That this is a strict rule barring longer summaries is just your interpretation. Also your evaluation of when a summary is too long is subjective. On the other hand WP:SIZE clearly states that "Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage; certainly, size is no reason to remove valid and useful information." When information becomes too big to be useful, you should restructure it so that it becomes more accessible, not delete it. Size of the summary will not prevent the article from been featured (can you cite a case in which an article has been denied FA status only on the grounds of length of the summary, and such that the summary was of the same size as Blood Meridian?) Check the many featured articles about video games: they all have lengthy plot descriptions. You will not convince me that a the plot of a video game has more cultural relevance than a literary masterpiece. Eubulide (talk) 09:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like this has been resolved at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not at by the current wording at WP:PLOT and Manual of Style (writing about fiction).--Cúchullain t/ c 18:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know why anyone thinks it's useful to go through these comment threads and tag/mark them without adding anything whatsoever to the conversation but—Cuch's opinion to the contrary—the discussion about plot length isn't actually resolved. I find it bizarre that the current treatment passes over Chief Gomez and Gov. Trias (Spanish article) in complete silence despite both being important to the plot and carry-overs from actual history. There are massive holes with at least the current version of the plot summary. — Llywelyn II   14:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

The Ending - The Epilogue
With all the discussion of the ending in the main article there are only two short notes about the Epilogue. I am one of those who finds the ending ambiguous and mysterious all very much like McCarthy's work in this novel and elsewhere.... does not bother me in the least. Yet, for some confounding reason, which I can not seem to analyze , it seems, to me, that the Ending and the Epilogue are tied together and possibly in some abstract way a solution , or partial solution to the ending. Anyone noted this before?--aajacksoniv (talk) 17:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * No, but interested to hear what you have in mind. Post to my talk said if you like. Landed little marsdon (talk) 23:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Alas! It may yet come to be, but by damned there seems some connection I cannot figure out, McCarthy seems to have trumped us all, ... , something that seems simple to many, does not seem simple to me. I shall cogitate up on it, but the solution it not forthcoming ... quickly.... --aajacksoniv (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Personally I think it's one of the strangest concluding sections in American literature, and it has that quality Bloom calls "canonical strangeness" in one of his books (Genius maybe?) What we'd need is a reliable source to cite.  I think Bloom himself wrote about it somewhere.  Antandrus  (talk) 02:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * He did, as noted above. Famous as he may be, he obviously overstepped himself claiming the kid is certainly killed when the author went extremely far out of his way to avoid making that certain. — Llywelyn II   14:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

[resolved] Tobin's Name
"The expriest" Tobin is listed in the article as having the first name "Benjamin," without a citation. I don't recall this name appearing in the novel, nor could find it in a cursory flip-though. Does this name appear in the novel at all, or is it from another source, like Chamberlain's book? If it doesn't appear in the novel or come directly from McCarthy, I don't think that we can assume that Tobin the McCarthy character shares a first name with any Tobin that appears in another work, even if we know that the latter influenced the former. --68.222.49.70 (talk) 22:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I am also thinking that this is not correct. I don't recall Tobin's first name as Benjamin. I will look into this for a few days. If I don't find it or hear from other editors then I will probably remove it. (two years later). Steve Quinn (talk) 00:24, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

As an actual resolution of this point, one of the editors must've misunderstood one of the references to the judge's "benjamin", which Wiktionary claims is dated mostly British slang for a kind of small coat. — Llywelyn II   14:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Film adaptation
Has anyone commented in a significant source on whether the film should be made? I'm looking for something like my forum post called "Please Mr. Franco, don't make "Blood Meridian" except that is a forum post so we obviously can't use it here. Have any significant film/literature critics commented?  175.38.205.106 (talk) 04:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would love to see this novel made into a movie. It would be awesome!--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Yes, although at this point it's less people filling their wordcount assignments with why it's a bad idea in principle and more with the diverse ways in which the actual attempts to do it have specifically failed over the years. — Llywelyn II   14:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

[resolved] Writing
The uncited parts of the Background and Writing state that McCarthy wrote this in 1981 while living off his MacArthur Fellowship grant. However, in an article published at Slate.com. the author, who visited Texas State University, San Marco (which holds Cormac McCarthy's papers), states that McCarthy began Blood Meridian in 1975 and had been working on it off and on for some time. While, perhaps, McCarthy might have made a serious push to finish in 1981 (something that cannot be independently confirmed it seems), this hardly seems like "he started writing it."

It even states how the initial drafts did not have the infamous Judge, but that the character was created and inserted by the late 1970s. It also discusses the editing process. The article can be found here: [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/cormac_mccarthy_s_blood_meridian_early_drafts_and_history_.html Cormac McCarthy Cuts to the Bone Blood Meridian used to be a much different novel. McCarthy’s early drafts reveal how an American masterpiece was born]. Perhaps a serious rework of the "Background and Writing" needs to be done? ValensDragosee (talk) 02:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, McCarthy's biography at "the official website of" the Cormac McCarthy Society states that McCarthy received a 1981 MacArthur Fellowship "genius grant" and "McCarthy used this money to live on while writing his next novel, an apocalyptic western set in Texas and Mexico during the 1840s..." 1.

 * I am guessing this is where the he "wrote his novel in 1981" came from. So, it seems this [is] at least inaccurate. It's not clear from this sentence when he actually started writing this novel. The author of the biography probably didn't have access to that kind of information when it was written. According to the Slate article, the McCarthy collection of papers did not become available until 2008.

 * So, I think the article needs to be updated. Everything else in the "Background and Writing section seems to be accurate, based on recollections of the literary critiques I have read. I will have to go exploring to find these literary critiques again. Other than that I will go ahead and update the information on when McCarthy actually started and finished Blood Meridian. User:ValensDragosee, thanks for pointing this out, and providing this link. I think I actually came across this article before, or something similar, because I was doing research on the particular novel, last year  Steve Quinn (talk) 04:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

[resolved] Epilogue
The section on the epilogue seems to be original research. Specifically, the guilty lines are: "...apparently in the construction of an extended fence. This cordoning off of territories into plots of land suggests the domestication of the "Old West" and the end of the frontier that came shortly after the events of the novel." and "The images of the epilogue seem to serve as a harbinger of the more ordered and settled civilization which will soon replace the war-torn chaos of the West, with its own rituals and codes very unlike those portrayed in the novel's setting."

The epilogue is of course deeply ambiguous and makes no mention of any of these things. This is strictly interpretive--and totally unsourced. If this interpretation can be found in the critical literature, then it should be presented attributed to the critic and sourced. If it does not then the section needs a total rewrite. 208.101.164.4 (talk) 03:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You're absolutely right. I fixed the problem, hopefully to your satisfaction. Thanks for the note! Binksternet (talk) 05:32, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Adaptions?
Was there any adaptions of the novel?--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

[resolved] Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The mob did not kill the reverend on screen. The judge told some of the people helping round up a posse that he had been lying—which incidentally we don't know is true—and they hung out at the bar laughing and drinking up. Very pointedly, no one leaves to go tell any of the larger number of other people gunning for the reverend that they should call off the mob. — Llywelyn II   14:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

[resolved] Proposed film adaptation section
I think it would be prudent to have a section about the attempt(s) to have this novel adapted into a feature-length film. Although James Franco's attempt was unlawful and ultimately died in its crib, I believe its mention is warranted in this article. I mean, hell, there probably won't even be a stand-alone article about a film. D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 01:13, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Go ahead.--Paleface Jack (talk) 18:31, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I kicked things off, but I have to admit that there is a ton of content to include, as this project's been attempted so many times. Baby steps. D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 11:44, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

[resolved] Article content and organization within plot
Hi! I am in a Professional and Technical Editing course and will be working on editing this article over the next couple of weeks. I noticed that there has been discussion involving the length of the plot summary in regards to similar articles and the unspoken Wikipedia rules along this front. Involving the plot summary, I plan to reorganize and rewrite some of the article in order to better facilitate a neutral and concise synopsis as a potential option to edit this section. Additionally, I plan on performing similar edits within the Major Characters section to achieve a holistic summarization that mimics Wikipedia pages of similar content.

I'll start working on the article in my Blood Meridian Sandbox, and it would be great to hear any suggestions or feedback from the community. I'm also interested in discovering if anybody has any more recent information about this discovery and research. Thanks! Sisypheantasks (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

In looking at other novel wiki pages, I noticed a growing precedent concerning brevity in character and plot sections. While Blood Meridian is a fairly dense novel, I think the page could benefit from a streamlined approach in these two sections. I will continue to consider this and implement changes within my Blood Meridian Sandbox. —Preceding undated comment added 00:11, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Moving forward, I will begin to implement the changes found in my Blood Meridian Sandbox. I will address the plot section within separate changes because these changes deal with minor suggestions/edits, while also affecting a content-based portion of the page Sisypheantasks (talk) 02:48, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

As noted above I disagree strongly. There are some aspects where the text may be too prolix but any plot summary that loses Gomez or the governor isn't actually following the plot terribly well and is missing too much of the setting and historical backdrop that the novel went out of its way to mention and evoke. — Llywelyn II   14:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Jan. 2021, recent edits
I proposed to : "I would like to suggest that you revert Blood Meridian to your "missing period" edit. Everything from there was egregiously pernicious to the article. One example is reverting to a problematic plot summary and then tagging it as a problematic plot summary."

Rublov replied: "I believe that we agree that the plot summary needs to be shorter, but I think that interest is better served by trimming the existing summary. If you'd like to work together to improve it, I'd be happy to continue this discussion on the talk page."

The plot is one problem, not the problem. Consider for example the lead. The kid is now allegedly referred to only as the kid. But this is false.

Consider for example the Judge's character which twice calls him socially refined.

It is possible to enumerate each problem subsequent to the aforesaid missing period edit, and it is possible to work together to address each problem. But I again suggest merely reverting to the missing period edit. Untitled50reg (talk) 19:28, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

 * Okay, fair enough for the two specific problems you noted. I've reverted those. I do still think that plot summary at the time I edited it was not an improvement over the version I restored. For instance:

 * Describing the epigraphs as touching respectively blood and darkness and scalping is so vague as to be unhelpful. If we're going to mention the epigraphs at all, we should provide enough information to make it clear what relation they bear to the book.
 * expriest Tobin should be ex-priest Tobin
 * The kid travels. - again, without further information this sentence is pointless.
 * The scene with the judge and the man in the outhouse is not adequately described. For instance, the original plot summary quotes the book as [the judge] "gathered him in his arms against his immense and terrible flesh", which was changed to the naked judge "gathers" him. If you haven't read the book, it's very difficult to tell what this is supposed to mean.
 * The book ends with an enigmatic epilogue. It seems worth an extra sentence or two to describe what happened, which the original plot summary had.
 * In places the new plot summary is choppier than the original, e.g. The kid and Tobin enter San Diego. They both need a doctor and Tobin goes looking for one. The kid is arrested. The judge visits him. The kid is released and finds a doctor and has the surgery he needed.
 * Archaic words like therefrom and thereto are used unnecessarily.

 * Overall, the new plot summary did not appear to me to be a sufficient improvement to warrant wholly revising the old summary. Rather, I felt that trimming the existing summary was a better approach. I'm sure that there are aspects of the new summary that are indeed better; hopefully in this discussion we can come to a consensus about what those are. Rublov (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * For your first point, it is not clear what relation the epigraphs have. The article possibly even says so. Next, ex-priest and expriest is not much different either way so I contemn this particular point. Next, the ambiguity of gathering is so because it is inherently ambiguous. Next, the elaboration over the epigraph is entirely speculative and worthless. Next, choppier is more concise. Next, the "unnecessary" use of archaic terms pertains again to concision and lack of the "unnecessary". Overall basically every difference in the article subsequent to the aforesaid missing period is a problem to me. The differences pertain mostly to errors and concision. Further discussion from myself shall not be forthcoming because I have already said. Untitled50reg (talk) 21:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If there are particular factual errors in the plot summary, then please point them out and I'd be happy to correct them. I didn't exhaustively review the differences between the new and original plot summaries as I assumed that the previous longstanding summary was accurate, and your edit summary made no mention of factual errors. But if you think there are, let me know and I can check against my copy of Blood Meridian if necessary.

 * I will reiterate my openness to working with you to improve the plot summary, but you'll have to do better than unsubstantiated accusations of egregiously pernicious editing when all I did was restore a perfectly good, if overlong, plot summary and trim it a little bit. Rublov (talk) 22:44, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it. Untitled50reg (talk) 12:14, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, obviously there should've been more good faith assumed even if only the 1st and 5th points mentioned are actually well taken.

 * In general, it's a tricky business doing a summary of something this important and literary but too new for critical concensus to have fully congealed and begun oscillating between set camps. You don't want things to be unsourced but neither do you want to treat opinions from even major sources like Bloom as authoritatively correct; they need to be treated as just some of the critical reception. You don't want to retell the whole story (as some previous versions of the page did), you don't want to omit important beats like Gov. Trias (es) and Gomez (as the article currently does), you don't want weight given to  theories like how 'Gomez' etymologically is 'son of man' (or even  'Son of man' or 'Son of Man') by way of Visigothic, but you should include sourced treatment of the major theories about the work—particularly how people tend to react to the ending as variously implying that the judge kills the mankid, rapes the mankid, kills and rapes the mankid in some order, or represents the collapse of the mankid into complete despair or violent acceptance of his own immorality.

 * The best you can do is go piecemeal and improve the obviously wrong or missing bits instead of trying to treat it as a project to completely redo in a way that invites tossing the babies out with the bushes. — Llywelyn II   14:58, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

 * There should also be mention somewhere of the pulse of the judge's stories/sermons/parables through the narrative, whether in the overview, summary, or character description. The parable for the Anasazi in particular seems to tie precisely into the book's violence, as if the story is reminding the rest of us just what beasts our fathers actually were and letting us off the hook for failing to live up to what we are otherwise told of their "example" and how the present age is a fall from any time of greater civility, grace, or communion with G-d. (Obviously anything close to that needs a better than just saying c'mon look at It. Doesn't make it wrong either.) —  Llywelyn II   00:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 February 2019 and 3 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sisypheantasks. Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:17, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If this even needs to be called out 3 years later, can't this just be combined with Sisy's comments above? — Llywelyn II   14:40, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Jakob Böhme
I made two edits to the article, one for removing the 'Gnostic' association from Jakob Böhme and the second to make his spelling in German. As I'm new to Wikipedia I'm unsure if English Wikipedia articles are supposed to have more anglicized names where possible or not.

As for him being labeled a 'Gnostic' Christian, he was not a Gnostic. He was a Lutheran, more specifically a mystic and more specific still a Christian theosophist. I suppose either of these three labels are fair. Sagacious91 (talk) 11:06, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Blood Meridian


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Ikegami Tsushinki

Ikegami Tsushinki Co., Ltd. (池上通信機株式会社) (tyo: 6771) is a Japanese manufacturer of professional and broadcast television equipment, especially professional video cameras, both for electronic news gathering and studio use. The company was founded in 1946.

History
Ikegami introduced the first portable 4 1/2-inch Image Orthicon tube hand-held TV camera. The camera made its debut in the United States in February 1962, when CBS used it to document the launching of NASA's Friendship 7, its first crewed space mission to orbit the Earth. In 1972, Ikegami introduced the HL-33, the first compact hand-held color video camera for electronic news gathering (ENG). The compact ENG cameras made live shots easier and—when combined with portable videotape recorders—provided an immediate alternative to 16mm television news film, which required processing before it could be broadcast. In addition to ENG, these cameras saw some use in outside broadcasts in Britain, particularly for roaming footage that was not possible to capture using the much larger tradition OB cameras. The later HL-51 was popular among broadcasters for both ENG and EFP image acquisition.

Although Ikegami is known as a manufacturer of high-quality television cameras, the company does not make video recorder mechanisms (VTRs), and was a licensee of professional video formats such as Sony's Betacam SP and DVCAM, and Panasonic's DVCPRO. In 1995, Ikegami co-operated with Avid on a tapeless video acquisition format called Editcam, but few were sold. Ikegami developed a tapeless camera format is called GFCAM Toshiba.

In the early 1980s, Ikegami developed arcade video games as a subcontractor to Japanese video game companies. Among the games they developed are Computer Othello, Block Fever, Monkey Magic, Congo Bongo, Popeye, Donkey Kong, Radar Scope, Sheriff, Space Fever, Space Firebird, Space Demon, Heli Fire, Sky Skipper, Space Launcher, and Zaxxon. At that time, computer programs were not recognized as copyrightable material. According to these sources, Ikegami proceeded to sue Nintendo for unauthorized duplication of the Donkey Kong program code for the latter's creation of Donkey Kong Junior (1983, Tokyo District Court), but it was not until 1989 that the Tokyo High Court gave a verdict that acknowledged the originality of program code. In 1990, Ikegami and Nintendo reached a settlement, terms of which were never disclosed.

Products
Some Ikegami Models included the ITC (Industrial Television Camera)-730, HL-79 HL-55, HL-V55 and HL-99. Ikegami makes a full line of SDTV and HDTV TV cameras.

Many of the model numbers of Ikegami portable television cameras begin with the initial letters "HL", which stand for "Handy-Looky", an original translation from the Japanese.

title: Ikegami Tsushinki


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Knucker

Knucker is a dialect word for a sort of water dragon, living in knuckerholes in Sussex, England. "The word comes from the Old English nicor which means "water monster" and is used in the poem Beowulf. It may also be related to the word "nixie", which is a form of water spirit, to "Old Nick", a euphemism for the devil, or to the words "Nykur" (Icelandic water horse), "Nickel" (German goblin), "Knocker" (Cornish goblin), "Näcken" and "Neck" (Scandinavian water men and water spirits), "Näkineiu" and "Näkk" (Estonian mermaid and singing water animal), and "Näkki" (Finnish water spirit)."

Appearance
The knucker is said to have wings, and is sometimes described as a sea serpent. The knucker has "a giant, slithering sea serpent's body, and cold, bold sea serpent's eyes and a deadly, hissing sea serpent's mouth".

In folklore
The most famous knucker lived, according to legend, at Lyminster. The knucker apparently caused a lot of trouble, consuming local livestock and even villagers, and so it was decided to slay the monster. A number of different legends recount how this was done.

One version has the dragon slain by a knight-errant after the king of Sussex offered his daughter's hand in marriage to whoever rid them of the beast. Legend says that after marrying the princess, the knight settled in Lyminster and his gravestone, the Slayer's Slab, can be seen in Lyminster church.

An alternative legend has the dragon outwitted by a local farmer's boy, called Jim Pulk or Jim Puttock, said in some versions to be from Wick, after the Mayor of Arundel offered a reward. He killed the dragon by cooking it a giant poisoned pie, which he took to the knuckerhole on a horse and cart. The dragon ate up pie, horse and cart. When it had expired the boy returned and cut off its head. In some versions he then dies himself, probably of the same poison he used on the dragon, though this is possibly a later addition designed to explain the Slayer's Slab.

It was believed that knuckers could be found at knuckerholes in various places in Sussex, including Binsted, Lyminster, Lancing, Shoreham and Worthing. A knucker hole is a very deep round pool, which is considered to be infinitely deep. However, even though the knucker hole in Lyminster is only thirty feet (9 m) deep, a local legend says that the villagers tied together the six bellropes from the church tower and lowered them into the pool, but they could not reach the bottom.

title: Knucker


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ivo Hugh

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was DELETE. Rhobite 06:26, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Ivo Hugh
A character from a series of children's books, I believe. (It isn't very clear.) But the article itself says this character isn't significant. A hoax, or a joke, probably. Delete --BM 16:15, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.
 * Delete. Gamaliel 16:49, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, the article says Ivo only appears on one page so a merge would hardly be useful even if the actual book were specified. Radiant! 09:07, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and allow for organic growth. Surely this is worthy of inclusion if it garners over 7,000 google hits?    Is the Google test not applicable in this instance?  If so, why not?  GRider\talk 00:38, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, but with reservations. Needs expansion. Megan1967 00:39, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment. I would say that essentially all the Google hits are on-line retailers selling Thomas the Tank Engine model trains, of which Ivo Hugh is one.   It is a very large line, and the manufacturer includes Ivo Hugh in order to have an engine pulling zoo animals in the line.   As the father of a five-year old, I am an expert on Thomas the Tank Engine characters, and I didn't even recognize this one.   --BM 13:02, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not every character from every book is sufficiently noteable for a Wikipedia page. Martg76 19:14, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)


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EMD SD24

The EMD SD24 was a 2,400 hp six-axle (C-C) diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division of La Grange, Illinois between July 1958 and March 1963. A total of 224 units were built for customers in the United States, comprising 179 regular, cab-equipped locomotives and 45 cabless B units. The latter were built solely for the Union Pacific Railroad.

The SD24 was the first EMD production locomotive to be built with an EMD turbocharged diesel engine. The first SD24 was built sixteen months before the four-axle (B-B) model GP20. Power output of the SD24 was 33 percent higher than the 1,800 hp of the concurrent Roots blower-equipped SD18s with the same engine displacement. The SD24 had 400 hp per axle, limited by the traction motors then available. Nevertheless, the turbocharged SD24 provided full rated power at all altitudes, which the Roots-blown SD18 could not provide.

In terms of sales, the SD24 was only a moderate success, and had average service lives in SD24 configuration (though a few deturbocharged rebuilds are still in operation), but the SD24 was a milestone in EMD locomotive development and the forerunner to today's high-powered six-axle locomotives.

EMD thought the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway would want to start purchasing the SD24 and sent the first demonstrator to the DMIR painted in the road's livery. The DMIR did not end up purchasing the SD24 and the demonstrator went to the Union Pacific Railroad.

EMD-type Turbo-Compressor (Turbocharger)
The turbocharger was the then-new EMD mechanically assisted turbo-compressor. During engine startup, and at lower power levels, during which there is not sufficient exhaust heat energy to drive the turbine fast enough for the compressor to supply the air necessary for combustion, the engine drives the compressor through a gear train and an overrunning clutch. At higher power levels, the overrunning clutch is disengaged, and the turbo-compressor operates as a true turbocharger. It is possible for the turbo-compressor to revert to compressor mode momentarily during commands for large increases in engine power. Turbocharging provides higher horsepower and good running characteristics at all altitudes. Turbocharging also improves fuel consumption and reduces emissions.

Previous Union Pacific experiments with turbocharging had utilized multiple Elliot or Garrett AiResearch turbochargers feeding the usual pair of Roots blowers. EMD's mechanically assisted turbocharger eliminated the need for the pair of Roots blowers and also integrated the turbocharging function from two (Elliot) or four (AiResearch) smaller add-on turbochargers into one much larger, turbo-compressor (turbocharger) with intercooling.

The introduction of the EMD-type turbocharger was successful and all subsequent SD series were offered with this turbocharger, although not all models within a series were offered with turbocharging (e.g., the 38 sub-models within the 40 Series were Roots-blown).

Options
Optional equipment that could be specified by ordering railroads included multiple unit controls, a steam generator, dynamic brakes, winterization equipment, an air signal line, and hump control. Despite the options the vast majority were similar in configuration.

The standard fuel tank offered a 1,200 USgal capacity, while 2,400 or tanks were optional. In practice, all SD24s ordered had the 3,000 USgal tank except for the last built, Kennecott Copper's single locomotive. In order to provide room for a larger fuel tank, the air reservoirs were relocated on the roof just behind the locomotive's cab. The tanks were known as "torpedo tubes" due to their long, thin design.

Winterization included a winterization hatch over one of the radiator fans, to direct warm air back into the engine compartment.

Either a low or high short hood could be ordered; in either case, the short hood was front by default. The Burlington, Southern and first EMD demonstrator had high short hoods; all others were low short hood. Low short hoods from the factory had a pronounced downward slope of the top towards the nose, as did those of the contemporary GP20. Many of the high short hood units had their noses chopped later on, often as a consequence of rebuilding; these as a rule have flat-topped short hoods.

Rebuilds
As the SD24 locomotives aged, they began to develop reliability problems, especially electrical ones. In addition, the extra maintenance requirements of the turbocharged engine were acceptable when they were some of the most powerful locomotives available, but in secondary service, they were an expensive way to get 2,400 hp. Thus, a large number of SD24s were rebuilt by various owners to extend their lives.

Illinois Central Gulf SD20
From August 1979 through December 1982, the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad rebuilt various C-C locomotives (the EMD SD24, the EMD SD24B, the EMD SD7, and the EMD SD35) to 2000 horsepower roadswitchers powered by EMD 645E prime movers, resulting in the EMD SD20. All units had the electricals upgraded to Dash 2 technology, and the turbocharger was removed on the SD24s and SD35s. 35 of the 42 SD20s built were rebuilt from either the SD24 or the SD24B. Illinois Central, the successor to the ICG, retired them in 1995. They later found work on shortlines such as the Chicago & Illinois Midland, the Wisconsin Southern (WSOR), the Iowa Interstate (IAIS), and the Indiana Harbor Belt. These units are slowly being retired, with the IAIS and WSOR having completely removed them from their rosters. The IHB has only 3 left, and the CIM (now the Illinois Midland) retains only 1 of their 5.

Santa Fe SD26
From January 1973 through January 1978 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway rebuilt its fleet of eighty SD24 locomotives, naming the resulting type the SD26. The rebuild boosted the power output of the locomotives by upgrading the 16-567D3 engines with EMD 645 power assemblies. Other work improved the reliability by replacing the entire electrical systems, and replacing the multiple body-side vents with a central air filtration system. The large box fitted high on the body behind the cab for the air filters required relocating the "torpedo tube" air reservoirs further back on the long hood, and gave the SD26 a noticeable "hump-backed" appearance. One unit was wrecked, 44 were traded to EMD in 1985 and 35 were sold to Guilford Rail System in 1986. All have since been scrapped.

Union Pacific SD24M
The Union Pacific Railroad modified three SD24 locomotives experimentally to see if it would be worthwhile to upgrade their fleet of 30 such locomotives.

Unit 410 received the most minor modification: upgraded air filters.

UP 423, however, was substantially rebuilt to UP 3100 in August 1968 with a constant-speed 16-645 3,000 hp prime mover, a new alternator and new traction motors. With the constant-speed engine, speed control was via changing the level of excitation of the alternator; the traction motors were permanently wired in parallel. New, variable dynamic brakes were also fitted, as was a self load feature enabling testing under load without an external electrical load apparatus. This latter feature became standard on later locomotive models. The constant-speed prime mover, on the other hand, was not successful enough to duplicate. From 1975, the locomotive was used as a heavy switcher at UP's North Platte, Nebraska hump yards, a fate common to UP's other surviving SD24s.

UP 414 did not receive as major a modification as #423, but it was refitted with a 16-645 engine, AR10 alternator and Dash Two electrical cabinet in May 1974, making it effectively an EMD SD40-2. This was a testbed for a proposed upgrade of all UP's SD24s, but UP decided not to go ahead with the work. Both UP 3100 and UP 414 were classified as "SD24m" by the UP, but some UP internal documents class UP 414 as a "SD24-4".

CNW SD18R
Several high-nose Southern SD24s were rebuilt by the Milwaukee Road and Morrison Knudsen for Precision National's lease fleet in 1979. The turbochargers and dynamic brakes were removed, and Precision gave them class SD10. In 1980 more followed, though they were low-nose units of Union Pacific origin. In 1982 the Chicago & North Western bought 22 of the high-nose and four of the low-nose units. Producing 1800 hp (without the turbocharger), they were designated model SD18R - not to be confused with actual SD18 locomotives as manufactured by General Motors Electro-Motive Division.

Preservation
At least two SD24s survive in museums:

 * Chicago Burlington & Quincy 504, formerly Burlington Northern 6244 (which can be seen in the movie Groundhog Day), is preserved in operating condition at the Illinois Railway Museum.
 * Wisconsin Central 2402, ex Fox River Valley Railroad 2402, built as Burlington 510, is at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, WI, mechanically complete except for traction motors, its currently being restored back to its Fox River Valley Railroad appearance.

title: EMD SD24


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Cognitive load

In cognitive psychology, cognitive load refers to the amount of working memory resources used. However, it is essential to distinguish it from the actual construct of Cognitive Load (CL) or Mental Workload (MWL), which is studied widely in many disciplines. According to work conducted in the field of instructional design and pedagogy, broadly, there are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load is the effort associated with a specific topic; extraneous cognitive load refers to the way information or tasks are presented to a learner; and germane cognitive load refers to the work put into creating a permanent store of knowledge (a schema). However, over the years, the additivity of these types of cognitive load has been investigated and questioned. Now it is believed that they circularly influence each other.

Cognitive load theory was developed in the late 1980s out of a study of problem solving by John Sweller. Sweller argued that instructional design can be used to reduce cognitive load in learners. Much later, other researchers developed a way to measure perceived mental effort which is indicative of cognitive load. Task-invoked pupillary response is a reliable and sensitive measurement of cognitive load that is directly related to working memory. Information may only be stored in long term memory after first being attended to, and processed by, working memory. Working memory, however, is extremely limited in both capacity and duration. These limitations will, under some conditions, impede learning. Heavy cognitive load can have negative effects on task completion, and it is important to note that the experience of cognitive load is not the same in everyone. The elderly, students, and children experience different, and more often higher, amounts of cognitive load.

The fundamental tenet of cognitive load theory is that the quality of instructional design will be raised if greater consideration is given to the role and limitations of working memory. With increased distractions, particularly from cell phone use, students are more prone to experiencing high cognitive load which can reduce academic success.

Theory
In the late 1980s, John Sweller developed cognitive load theory out of a study of problem solving, in order "to provide guidelines intended to assist in the presentation of information in a manner that encourages learner activities that optimize intellectual performance". Sweller's theory employs aspects of information processing theory to emphasize the inherent limitations of concurrent working memory load on learning during instruction. It makes use of the schema as primary unit of analysis for the design of instructional materials.

History
The history of cognitive load theory can be traced to the beginning of cognitive science in the 1950s and the work of G.A. Miller. In his classic paper, Miller was perhaps the first to suggest our working memory capacity has inherent limits. His experimental results suggested that humans are generally able to hold only seven plus or minus two units of information in short-term memory.

In 1973 Simon and Chase were the first to use the term "chunk" to describe how people might organize information in short-term memory. This chunking of memory components has also been described as schema construction.

In the late 1980s John Sweller developed cognitive load theory (CLT) while studying problem solving. Studying learners as they solved problems, he and his associates found that learners often use a problem solving strategy called means-ends analysis. He suggests problem solving by means-ends analysis requires a relatively large amount of cognitive processing capacity, which may not be devoted to schema construction. Sweller suggested that instructional designers should prevent this unnecessary cognitive load by designing instructional materials which do not involve problem solving. Examples of alternative instructional materials include what are known as worked-examples and goal-free problems.

In the 1990s, cognitive load theory was applied in several contexts. The empirical results from these studies led to the demonstration of several learning effects: the completion-problem effect; modality effect; split-attention effect; worked-example effect;  and expertise reversal effect.

Types
Cognitive load theory provides a general framework and has broad implications for instructional design, by allowing instructional designers to control the conditions of learning within an environment or, more generally, within most instructional materials. Specifically, it provides empirically-based guidelines that help instructional designers decrease extraneous cognitive load during learning and thus refocus the learner's attention toward germane materials, thereby increasing germane (schema related) cognitive load. This theory differentiates between three types of cognitive load: intrinsic cognitive load, germane cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load.

Intrinsic
Intrinsic cognitive load is the inherent level of difficulty associated with a specific instructional topic. The term was first used in the early 1990s by Chandler and Sweller. According to them, all instructions have an inherent difficulty associated with them (e.g., the calculation of 2 + 2, versus solving a differential equation). This inherent difficulty may not be altered by an instructor. However, many schemas may be broken into individual "subschemas" and taught in isolation, to be later brought back together and described as a combined whole.

Extraneous
Extraneous cognitive load is generated by the manner in which information is presented to learners and is under the control of instructional designers. This load can be attributed to the design of the instructional materials. Because there is a single limited cognitive resource using resources to process the extraneous load, the number of resources available to process the intrinsic load and germane load (i.e., learning) is reduced. Thus, especially when intrinsic and/or germane load is high (i.e., when a problem is difficult), materials should be designed so as to reduce the extraneous load.

An example of extraneous cognitive load occurs when there are two possible ways to describe a square to a student. A square is a figure and should be described using a figural medium. Certainly an instructor can describe a square in a verbal medium, but it takes just a second and far less effort to see what the instructor is talking about when a learner is shown a square, rather than having one described verbally. In this instance, the efficiency of the visual medium is preferred. This is because it does not unduly load the learner with unnecessary information. This unnecessary cognitive load is described as extraneous.

Chandler and Sweller introduced the concept of extraneous cognitive load. This article was written to report the results of six experiments that they conducted to investigate this working memory load. Many of these experiments involved materials demonstrating the split attention effect. They found that the format of instructional materials either promoted or limited learning. They proposed that differences in performance were due to higher levels of the cognitive load imposed by the format of instruction. "Extraneous cognitive load" is a term for this unnecessary (artificially induced) cognitive load.

Extraneous cognitive load may have different components, such as the clarity of texts or interactive demands of educational software.

Germane
Germane cognitive load is the processing, construction and automation of schemas. It was first described by Sweller, Van Merriënboer and Paas in 1998. While intrinsic cognitive load is generally thought to be immutable (although techniques can be applied to manage complexity by segmenting and sequencing complex material), instructional designers can manipulate extraneous and germane load. It is suggested that they limit extraneous load and promote germane load.

Until the 1998 article by Sweller, Van Merriënboer & Paas, cognitive load theory primarily concentrated on the reduction of extraneous cognitive load. With this article, cognitive load researchers began to seek ways of redesigning instruction to redirect what would be extraneous load, to now be focused toward schema construction (germane load). Thus it is very important for instructional designers to "reduce extraneous cognitive load and redirect learners' attention to cognitive processes that are directly relevant to the construction of schemas".

Measurement
As of 1993 Paas and Van Merriënboer had developed a construct known as relative condition efficiency, which helps researchers measure perceived mental effort, an index of cognitive load. This construct provides a relatively simple means of comparing instructional conditions, taking into account both mental effort ratings and performance scores. Relative condition efficiency is calculated by subtracting standardized mental effort from standardized performance and dividing by the square root of two.

Paas and Van Merriënboer used relative condition efficiency to compare three instructional conditions (worked examples, completion problems, and discovery practice). They found learners who studied worked examples were the most efficient, followed by those who used the problem completion strategy. Since this early study many other researchers have used this and other constructs to measure cognitive load as it relates to learning and instruction.

The ergonomic approach seeks a quantitative neurophysiological expression of cognitive load which can be measured using common instruments, for example using the heart rate-blood pressure product (RPP) as a measure of both cognitive and physical occupational workload. They believe that it may be possible to use RPP measures to set limits on workloads and for establishing work allowance.

There is active research interest in using physiological responses to indirectly estimate cognitive load, particularly by monitoring pupil diameter, eye gaze, respiratory rate, heart rate, or other factors. While some studies have found correlations between physiological factors and cognitive load, the findings have not held outside controlled laboratory environments. Task-invoked pupillary response is one such physiological response of cognitive load on working memory, with studies finding that pupil dilation occurs with high cognitive load.

Some researchers have compared different measures of cognitive load. For example, Deleeuw and Mayer (2008) compared three commonly used measures of cognitive load and found that they responded in different ways to extraneous, intrinsic, and germane load. A 2020 study showed that there may be various demand components that together form extraneous cognitive load, but that may need to be measured using different questionnaires.

Effects of heavy cognitive load
A heavy cognitive load typically creates error or some kind of interference in the task at hand. A heavy cognitive load can also increase stereotyping. This is because a heavy cognitive load pushes excess information into subconscious processing, which involves the use of schemas, the patterns of thought and behavior that help us to organize information into categories and identify the relationships between them. Stereotypical associations may be automatically activated by the use of pattern recognition and schemas, producing an implicit stereotype effect. Stereotyping is an extension of the Fundamental Attribution Error which also increases in frequency with heavier cognitive load. The notions of cognitive load and arousal contribute to the "Overload Hypothesis" explanation of social facilitation: in the presence of an audience, subjects tend to perform worse in subjectively complex tasks (whereas they tend to excel in subjectively easy tasks).

Individual differences
As of 1984 it was established for example, that there were individual differences in processing capacities between novices and experts. Experts have more knowledge or experience with regard to a specific task which reduces the cognitive load associated with the task. Novices do not have this experience or knowledge and thus have heavier cognitive load.

Elderly
The danger of heavy cognitive load is seen in the elderly population. Aging can cause declines in the efficiency of working memory which can contribute to higher cognitive load. Heavy cognitive load can disturb balance in elderly people. The relationship between heavy cognitive load and control of center of mass are heavily correlated in the elderly population. As cognitive load increases, the sway in center of mass in elderly individuals increases. An 2007 study examined the relationship between body sway and cognitive function and their relationship during multitasking and found disturbances in balance led to a decrease in performance on the cognitive task. Conversely, an increasing demand for balance can increase cognitive load.

College students
As of 2014, an increasing cognitive load for students using a laptop in school has become a concern. With the use of Facebook and other social forms of communication, adding multiple tasks jeopardizes students performance in the classroom. When many cognitive resources are available, the probability of switching from one task to another is high and does not lead to optimal switching behavior. In a study from 2013, both students who were heavy Facebook users and students who sat nearby those who were heavy Facebook users performed poorly and resulted in lower GPA.

Children
In 2004, British psychologists, Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch proposed that the components of working memory are in place at 6 years of age. They found a clear difference between adult and child knowledge. These differences were due to developmental increases in processing efficiency. Children lack general knowledge, and this is what creates increased cognitive load in children. Children in impoverished families often experience even higher cognitive load in learning environments than those in middle-class families. These children do not hear, talk, or learn about schooling concepts because their parents often do not have formal education. When it comes to learning, their lack of experience with numbers, words, and concepts increases their cognitive load.

As children grow older they develop superior basic processes and capacities. They also develop metacognition, which helps them to understand their own cognitive activities. Lastly, they gain greater content knowledge through their experiences. These elements help reduce cognitive load in children as they develop.

Gesturing is a technique children use to reduce cognitive load while speaking. By gesturing, they can free up working memory for other tasks. Pointing allows a child to use the object they are pointing at as the best representation of it, which means they do not have to hold this representation in their working memory, thereby reducing their cognitive load. Additionally, gesturing about an object that is absent reduces the difficulty of having to picture it in their mind.

Poverty
As of 2013 it has been theorized that an impoverished environment can contribute to cognitive load. Regardless of the task at hand, or the processes used in solving the task, people who experience poverty also experience higher cognitive load. A number of factors contribute to the cognitive load in people with lower socioeconomic status that are not present in middle and upper-class people.

Embodiment and interactivity
Bodily activity can both be advantageous and detrimental to learning depending on how this activity is implemented. Cognitive load theorists have asked for updates that makes CLT more compatible with insights from embodied cognition research. As a result, Embodied Cognitive Load Theory has been suggested as a means to predict the usefulness of interactive features in learning environments. In this framework, the benefits of an interactive feature (such as easier cognitive processing) need to exceed its cognitive costs (such as motor coordination) in order for an embodied mode of interaction to increase learning outcomes.

Application in driving and piloting
With increase in secondary tasks inside cockpit, cognitive load estimation became an important problem for both automotive drivers and pilots. The research problem is investigated in various names like drowsiness detection, distraction detection and so on. For automotive drivers, researchers explored various physiological parameters like heart rate, facial expression, ocular parameters and so on. In aviation there are numerous simulation studies on analysing pilots' distraction and attention using various physiological parameters. For military fast jet pilots, researchers explored air to ground dive attacks and recorded cardiac, EEG and ocular parameters.

Journal special issues
For those wishing to learn more about cognitive load theory, please consider reading these journals and special issues of those journals:
 * Educational Psychologist, vol. 43 (4)
 * Applied Cognitive Psychology vol. 20(3) (2006)
 * Applied Cognitive Psychology vol. 21(6) (2007)
 * ETR&D vol. 53 (2005)
 * Instructional Science vol. 32(1) (2004)
 * Educational Psychologist vol. 38(1) (2003)
 * Learning and Instruction vol. 12 (2002)
 * Computers in Human Behavior vol. 25 (2) (2009)

For ergonomics standards see:
 * ISO 10075-1:1991 Ergonomic Principles Related to Mental Workload – Part 1: General Terms and Definitions
 * ISO 10075-2:1996 Ergonomic Principles Related To Mental Workload – Part 2: Design Principles
 * ISO 10075-3:2004 Ergonomic Principles Related To Mental Workload – Part 3: Principles And Requirements Concerning Methods For Measuring And Assessing Mental Workload
 * ISO 9241 Ergonomics of Human System Interaction

title: Cognitive load