We have Changed the Wording in the Workflow Drop-down Box

by Kieran Healy on March 18, 2013

We have changed the wording
in the workflow drop-down box
at the bottom of the Research Output entry screen
Validation is carried out by Editors of Content
They check the metadata fields in the Pure record
Old, New
Entry in progress
Entry in progress
Entry completed by User
Validate
The workflow statuses are visible
The new wording has been chosen
The actions behind the scenes are unchanged.

(With thanks to Martin O’Neill for the original administrative email.)

{ 21 comments }

1

Harald K 03.18.13 at 1:33 pm

I have a tingling sense I ought to be familiar with the poetry you are spoofing here, but I don’t remember. Bertolt Brecht?

2

Stella 03.18.13 at 2:35 pm

Harald K – Surely it’s William Carlos Williams?

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

3

Steve LaBonne 03.18.13 at 5:08 pm

A frequently parodied poem! I like Kennth Koch’s:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

4

William Timberman 03.18.13 at 5:41 pm

Surely i>The Naming of Parts is also implied, even though it isn’t actually audible in the final confection.

5

William Timberman 03.18.13 at 5:42 pm

*^#%(^#%)^ Tags!

The Naming of Parts

6

ben wolfson 03.18.13 at 6:38 pm

I also thought first of “The Naming of Parts”.

7

Anderson 03.18.13 at 8:14 pm

It certainly works as found verse. You should submit it to a couple of poetry magazines.

8

Colin Danby 03.18.13 at 8:26 pm

At the sight of metadata
Visibly configured
Even the editors of content
Would cry out sharply.

9

sc 03.18.13 at 8:52 pm

white on white
translucent black capes
back on the rack

bela lugosi’s dead
the bats have left
the belltower
the victims
have been bled
red velvet lines
the black box
bela lugosi’s dead

undead
undead
undead

the virginal brides
file past his tomb
strewn with time’s dead flowers
bereft in deathly gloom
alone
in a darkened room
the count

bela lugosi’s dead

10

Substance McGravitas 03.18.13 at 8:57 pm

They fuck you up, those few who code.
They may not mean to, but they do.
Take objects from another node
And add some extra, just for you.

But those were tagged wrong in their turn
By gurus with old Macs and Dells,
Who once or twice might feign concern
While MUDding in a Unix shell.

Pro hands on data cruft to n00b.
There’s no way back from software bloat, see.
Get freedom from your office cube,
And don’t pass on another goatse.

11

Chris Williams 03.18.13 at 9:33 pm

Good found poetry blog here: http://verbatimpoetry.blogspot.co.uk/

12

Andrew Burday 03.18.13 at 10:18 pm

William and Ben, interesting suggestion. But I suspect it’s just two results of a common cause: both Kieran and Reed were parodying tech jargon (albeit different kinds of tech jargon, obviously).

Personally, I think Kieran was just effing around, with no particular model in mind — which could just be a shabby cover for my own lowbrow ignorance. The last two lines are appropriate for a political blog, though. They remind me of the words of that great postmodern bard, Pete Townshend: “Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss”. But without the optimism about not getting fooled again.

13

William Timberman 03.18.13 at 10:51 pm

I’m also fond of the accidental poetry of people struggling with an unfamiliar language. My favorite of the ones I’ve discovered myself came years ago in a latter from a Portuguese book dealer:

I apologize for the lateness, but alas your letter embezzle itself, and only now is found.

I’m sure that over the years I’ve played the clown in several languages other than my own, but people have been merciful, and pretended not to see the rubber nose. If any of them should happen to be reading this, I’d like to let them know that I’m grateful for their forbearance.

14

john b 03.18.13 at 11:05 pm

William: have you seen the Chinglish or Joyce competition? Sounds like it might be your thing.

15

William Timberman 03.18.13 at 11:42 pm

Thanks, john b. No, I hadn’t seen it, but yeah, I suspect it is my thing, separating the Joyce from the non-Joyce. And I sometimes wonder if maybe it was Joyce envy that first inspired William Burroughs’ romance with cut-ups. That’s not what the historians of literature say, and all the evidence is with them, but still…. (And parenthetically, stuff like this is why I’ve never trusted analytic philosophy — it being so utterly Joyce-less and all.)

16

Jim Harrison 03.19.13 at 12:18 am

My favorite found poem, a perfect dactylic hexameter found in a textbook on invertebrate biology:

The polyplacopheran mollusc, Lepotochiton cinereus.

17

Jeffrey Davis 03.19.13 at 1:00 am

Substance McGravitas, is that yours? If so, you have won the Internet for a week.

18

Substance McGravitas 03.19.13 at 2:10 am

Yup, that one’s a good template.

19

Cleisthenes 03.19.13 at 3:45 am

“My Euro burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh my friends-
Cyprus will save it with all its might.”

E.C.B. St Vincent Millay

20

pedant 03.19.13 at 12:17 pm

I’m also getting echoes of Four Quartets:

In my beginning is my end…

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started…

21

mbw 03.19.13 at 11:37 pm

so much depends
on a drop-down box
completed by the User

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