Talk:Elephants' graveyard

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Move the apostrophe

Shouldn't the title of this article be Elephants' Graveyard?--U.U. 05:46, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

No. See Wikipedia:Naming_convention#Lowercase_second_and_subsequent_words. --Prisk 05:49, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That was avtually a typo. What I meant was that shouldn't the apostrophe be after S?

That was avtually a typo. What I meant was that shouldn't the apostrophe be after S?--U.U. 06:34, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

What about just "Elephant graveyard"? I thought that's what it was. --BDD 02:20, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If more than one elephant uses the graveyard, the form should be elephants'. The page needs a bibliography so readers know on what authority the elephants' graveyard myth is considered a myth. One external link to a site which thinks animals are telepathic doesn't improve Wikipedia's reputation for restrained scientific comment. RM

I'm looking for sources to tidy this up; so far I've seen "elephant graveyard", "elephant's graveyard", and "elephants' graveyard" each multiple times in scholarly sources. --Zeborah 02:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the initial recommendation. Elephants' graveyard would be grammatically correct; the article should be moved to that page instead of using a Re-direct. Boneyard90 (talk) 20:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Popular culture

Enough with the edit war - can we leave the popular culture stuff in for long enough to talk about whether or not we should keep it? Personally I think it shouldn't be there in this sort of form because:

lists like that get long and unmanageable quickly, yet as long as they get, there's no hope of them ever being complete
it's not encyclopaedic, but rather just a jumble of data
it's (I think) against policy, being original research (ie Wikipedia editors watching the films themselves), rather than information found in secondary sources (ie Wikipedia editors getting information from researchers who've watched and discussed the films).

By contrast, if we can find a source(s) that discuss "elephant's graveyard in popular culture" then it would be reasonable to synthesise the main points of those sources into this article. But that would be in paragraph format and it wouldn't try to give a complete list, just enough examples to clarify the summary -- it'd be a format/style along the lines of:

"The concept of the elephant's graveyard has been prominent in popular culture since 1823, when the eponymous hero of _The Elephant Who Wanted to Go Home_ became so popular in London that schoolchildren had elephant skeletons embroidered on their sailor suits[1]. In the twentieth century, works referencing the concept have been divided between those seeing it as an unattainable goal (cf _Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Elephant's Graveyard_) and those promoting it as the ultimate metaphor of oncoming environmental catastrophe (as in the 1985 film _The Ivory Forest_).[2]"

(Where [1] is a reference to an article about London schoolchildren fashion in the 1820s, and [2] is a reference to a chapter in a book about Western myths and misconceptions about Africa. Or whatever.) --Zeborah 07:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've done a bit of a reorganisation among other things - I found a citation for the Tarzan stuff, but ideally I'd still like to get rid of the "other references include' list if no reliable sources can be found which discuss them. --Zeborah 06:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Other references" list

And a year later -- keeping the Tarzan stuff in there, but moving the rest of the stuff to here as they don't seem particularly important either to the concept of the elephant's graveyard or to the places they occur -- true trivia, iow. The list is as follows: --Zeborah (talk) 10:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other references include:

The Disney animated film The Lion King featured a prominent scene in an elephant graveyard.
The elephant graveyard is discussed in the first book in the Edgar Font's Hunt for a House to Haunt series.
An episode of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest finds Jonny helping an elderly elephant reach the area.
An elephant graveyard also appears in the Asterix volume Asterix and the Magic Carpet.
British new wave band Boomtown Rats perform the song "Elephant's Graveyard" on their fourth LP, Mondo Bongo.
In the MMORPG World of Warcraft there is a kodo graveyard, a reference to the elephant graveyard.
The Haruki Murakami novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World discusses the concept of the mind/identity as a proverbial elephant graveyard.
In the collectible card game Magic: the Gathering, an elephant graveyard is a land card.
In the James Gurney novel, Dinotopia, dinosoaur characters often go to a location known as "The World Beneath" to die.

Cites

Shouldn't there be a specific cite to the claim in the intro that it is a myth?: Does it really need one? I could cite it to sources 1 through 5 but it seems a bit of overkill. I think of the intro as something that summarises the rest of the article - if people want to know more they can see the appropriate section and follow the references from there for what they're specifically interested in. --Zeborah (talk) 05:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)r[reply]

Elephant gravesites

Don't elephants visit the sites where their fellows have died? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 03:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sure they do. Especially on May 23, which is All Saint's Day in the elephants calendar. They hold flower bouquets with their trunks and dress up neat for the occasion. A eulogy is delivered by the matriarch of the group, and they all trumpet a tune from the Babar Book of Brayers. It's a highly emotional time for pachyderms. 77.58.147.83 (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No need for sarcasm, the guy was just asking a question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.153.163 (talk) 19:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They are known to return to the corpses and bones of their dead companions, but there is no specific repository for these; the bones are found where the animal died, wherever that may be.Drsruli (talk) 09:27, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Citations?

There's a "citation needed" marker about a reference in the X-Files episode. I've just watched the episode, and the reference is there. Surely citing the title of the episode is sufficient. Or what? A time-stamp? -- Evertype·✆ 17:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the location (minutes/seconds) into the episode is needed, for the same reason we require a page number when someone cites a book as a reference. Alternatively, a reliable third-party source that confirms the reference might be used. NewYorkActuary (talk) 19:22, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This seems absurd. However, are there specific Wikipedia guidelines for the presentation of this material? -- Evertype·✆ 17:38, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]