User talk:Blue Tie

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User talk:Blue Tie/Archive 1

User talk:Blue Tie/Article to work

Contents 1 Mel Gibson 2 Picture 3 Almah Article 4 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability 5 Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot 6 No "fair use" rationale 7 Polls are not generally a good idea, and in any case, RfA isn't one 8 Mel Gibson: australian-raised 9 Mel Gibson: quotes 10 Anal glands 11 Dwight Watson, American terrorist 12 Fawn Brodie 13 Thanks... 14 Polmalo 15 WP:VAND 16 Higher authority? 17 Arius article 18 Hi 19 A couple of well-intentioned questions 20 Cretanpride 21 Leaving 22 Notes 23 Lochry's Defeat 24 my username 25 Spiritus asper and Hebrew 26 “was graduated” 27 Re [1] 28 arbitration 29 Formal system 29.1 My reply to Kim 29.2 Why am I doing this? 30 "Spamming of user talk pages" 31 Copied for Reference 31.1 Statement by concerned User:Rednblu 32 Your statement at WP:RFAr 33 Thanks 34 Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability 35 Mistake! 36 3RR 37 From Trödel 38 RfA thanks 39 Your edit to Bill O'Reilly (commentator) 40 Re: Lostnav 41 NPA??? 42 Civility 43 Bushism 44 Note to Self 45 Re Salute 46 Added Lostpedia to Miscellaneous (Revisited) 47 Smiley Award 48 Marshall Kirk

[edit] Mel Gibson

Superb edit work on the article. Just what it needed to refresh its appearance after the flurry of angry edits. Fortunately it appears to be quietening and the topic can get back to being an encyclopedia.--Koncorde 17:32, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

As for the picture, it's Image:Lake mapourika NZ.jpeg. Of course you can use it; I found it on somebody else's user page myself. Septentrionalis 15:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Almah Article

If google sent you here... click here Almah

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, -- Drini 22:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

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Thank you, I have replied on my talk page for reasons cited there. Thanks mate - Glen 03:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No "fair use" rationale

That image is on the Wikimedia Commons. The Commons do not allow for "fair use" rationale. You'd do well to revert Mel Gibson in good faith rather than editing without knowledge of what you are doing. Thanks. (→Netscott) 23:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

This edit was what I was suggesting you revert (where you reverted a Commons image back into the article). I've just done so because the image you reverted to wasn't a "free" image. The Commons only host "free" images not images that qualify for "fair use". The reason images of Mel Gibson are being deleted is because they aren't free and don't qualify for fair use. Fair use is only applicable when there is no "free" alternative image. At this point there is a "free" alternative that shows what Mel Gibson looks like and that is his booking photo. In an attempt to find a more agreeable image to show what he looks like I found the sketch of him and put that on the article. Perhaps you can source a freely licenseable image of him? (→Netscott) 07:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

As you've not indicated which image your discussing that I've uploaded I recommend that you tag it for deletion or mark it with a tag that corresponds to disputing fair use. (→Netscott) 04:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure in what sense you're thinking that this image is mine, but it was an image that I merely found in the Wikipedia free image archive. Please know that drawings made from photos can be released under a free license. (→Netscott) 04:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Drawings of photos are not considered "derivative" works. (→Netscott) 04:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

In all honesty I would prefer another free image than the two that are currently available. I've searched a bit and not found much for Mel Gibson. Have you had a chance to search yourself? (→Netscott) 04:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Here are the deletion guidelines for tagging images on the Commons. My suggestion is to follow those guidelines to tag the image. As images are their specialty the folks there will surely know better than either of us whether that image should be deleted or not. (→Netscott) 04:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Since all an image on the Mel Gibson article has to do is show what he looks like any images used for that purpose will not qualify for "fair use" because his booking photo does in fact show what he looks like. (→Netscott) 04:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• Please see #1 of WP:FU#Policy. Thanks. (→Netscott) 04:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I have read it already. THanks!--Blue Tie 05:03, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• I haven't said that I necessarily agree with the logic but I do understand it and will abide by it in my editing on the project. You should know that Jimbo's words refer to unsourced or poorly sourced information about living people. The photo does not fall under such limitations. Do you disagree that the booking photo does not show what Mel Gibson looks like? The only problem I see with the photo is the context it was taken in. If the image was taken in another less incriminating context I doubt we'd be having this discussion. No? (→Netscott) 05:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You are right, I disagree that the booking photo shows what Mel Gibson looks like. Its not just that it is a booking photo.. its that I have a problem with him being inebriated and not looking like himself. So we would still be having this discussion... even if it were not a booking photo. But I also think that wikipedia should not be a smear source and using a booking photo as a fair representation of what a person looks like could, if it was used as a general rule for biographies, lead to lawsuits as well. It is simply a bad idea. There should be a policy against it. --Blue Tie 05:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps an exception to the "free alternative" rule relative to booking photos should be included in the Wikipedia Fair Use policy. You might try editing Wikipedia:Fair use directly towards such ends, you wouldn't hurt anything as if ever there was a problem your edits would just be reverted. (→Netscott) 05:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

• You should know that I believe I stand corrected (by you) relative to drawings made from photos. From looking WP:FU policy #1 the drawing does not appear to be "free" at all. I've commented out the drawing on the article accordingly. (→Netscott) 05:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polls are not generally a good idea, and in any case, RfA isn't one

First of all, thanks for linking to the articles you've contributed heavily to; the article on almah is facinating, and seems quite well written and (even better) well referenced. What prompted me to write, was that I noticed your comment: "Polls are the only good way to do this sort of thing. It's how administrators are chosen. Blue Tie 06:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)". This seemed to me to have some misunderstandings in it; Polls are actually quite rare in Wikipedia, even in discussions of policy. Most changes to policy come about by the informal process of proposal (by direct editing) followed by general agreement, or amendment (again by direct editing), then general agreement. Numerical tallying of support for a set of pre-written positions (so-called "polling" or "voting"), is generally only used when the change is considered very major, and/or controversial. And, as it happens, RfA isn't exactly an example of a poll; while percentage of support is one important factor, negative "votes" count for more, and there are other factors considered, as well as the considerable discussion during the RfA. Just thought this should be commented on. Thanks again for your work at Wikipedia, and please keep up the good work. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mel Gibson: australian-raised

FYI: I removed the same words for the same reason, added by the same person, the 18th of August.

[edit] Mel Gibson: quotes

I had put something up about moving in the discussion area the Mel Gibson quotes to WikiQuote and it seemed to be the general feel of the editors of this article. Wikipedia is used for encyclopedic entries and WikiQuote is used for the quotes. Other bios have just a few or no quotes at all even from people more famous for their quotes (i.e. Winston Churchill, Steven Wright, Mitch Hedberg) If it's not limited then there is no reasons to not put up every verifiable thing Gibson said. I think we should consider reverting back to just a few quotes and linking to WikiQuote for the rest. It keeps Wikipedia more encyclepedic.--Twintone 15:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with your edits. But I do not know that it is concensus. That is the problem. If you seek concensus, I will support your edits - except I would add one more about what acting is like. --Blue Tie 15:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anal glands

Good catch on the copyvio - I should have seen that a long time ago. I'll try to get the important information back into the article tonight, with a few references. However, you should be careful about blanking too much of the text, because you also removed an image I had added. --Joelmills 00:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dwight Watson, American terrorist

I don't feel very strongly one way or the other, but the man was convicted for threatening to detonate explosives in a public area, in order to get attention for certain political causes (though arguably, because of simple nuttiness). Why don't you think the label "terrorist" is appropriate for that? It would seem to fit the definition given at Category:Terrorists. Postdlf 02:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fawn Brodie

Your efforts to improve the article are impressive. However, you have also introduced some problems. I want to bring these to your attention:

Much of the article is unsourced, but knowing the subject a but I recognize that things are true. I suspect that most of these unsourced statements are from Brimhall. Nevertheless, there are some that just stick out like a sore thumb and I will mention these.

Unsourced statement: Despite the religious prominence of her family, the Thomas McKays lived in genteel poverty, their property burdened by unpayable debt. The young Fawn was perpetually embarrassed that their house did not have indoor plumbing. (I seem to remember this from somewhere, but I think it needs a source. Not sure about adjectives like "genteel", "perpetually" and "unpayable", though these make for good writing!).

Multiple problems: Although Fawn grew to maturity in a rigorously religious environment that included strict Sabbatarianism and evening prayers on her knees, her mother was a closet skeptic who thought the Mormon Church a "wonderful social order" but who doubted its dogma. Words "rigorously", "strict" are POV. "closet skeptic" and 'doubted its dogma" are in need of sourcing.

Unsourced Statement: According to Brodie, in the late 1930s, while her father was head of Mormon mission activities in German-speaking Europe, her mother became a thoroughgoing heretic. (I believe she was much more gentle with her mother's "heresy", suggesting it was more a difference of lifestyle or something like that. Her mom's mental condition is also an issue so this is somewhat complex anyway).

Unsourced Statement: Fawn herself seemed to have had growing doubts about marrying Jenson.

Not quite fair to call Vardis Fisher just a novelist after his testament of man series.

POV: Well reseached and smartly written,. If you just delete that phrase, wikipedia takes no editorial stance.

POV: The brilliant (Nibley). Just remove "Brilliant" and you avoid wikipedia taking a stance.

Inappropriate title: Critical success with psychobiography. The section is predominantly about Thaddeus Stevens bio, not the critical success with psychobiography. I know you have a view that she was not engaged in psychobiography from the first. I disagree with you on that. I think the difference is that she later learned to couch what she did in more professional terms.

Editorializing: In one sense all biographers are psychohistorians. Any biography that refused to treat motives, character traits, and the depth of personality would be flat and uninteresting.

POV: some unidentified members of her extended family cruelly intimated was "just punishment" for her sins. (The word "Cruelly" is POV. This could be improved if it were a quote from Fawn or someone.)

Two other general comments: I think she is more widely known for her Jefferson book but I suppose that could be debated. However, more room is given to NMKMH than Jefferson. That seems wrong. But perhaps there is legitiately more to say. If so, then I think you should take some time to review her various stated motives with NMKMH.

Also, I reviewed both Nibley's response and the response to Nibley. Nibley's response is difficult to read but it at least make sense and tends to the scholarly. The response to Nibley is so bad... it is really awful.. that to include it as a link I feel demeans wikipedia.

However, I make no changes, as I have seen your edits and trust you as an honest and credible editor. --Blue Tie 20:23, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. My efforts to redo "Fawn Brodie" is a work in progress. I decided to bite the bullet, read Bringhurst's biography--I assume you mean "Bringhurst" rather than "Brimhall"--and summarize appropriate parts of it. So far I've only made it to Brodie's Thaddeus Stevens biography, so that's why the title seems odd right now.

I agree that Brodie is better known for Jefferson than for Joseph Smith, except in Utah.

Some of the things you think are POV are, well...a friend describes certain ladies as having their hat pins stuck in too tight. Can you give an example of a biography that doesn't treat motives and character traits and that isn't flat and uninteresting? Was Nibley not "brilliant"? Is NMKMH not "well reseached and smartly written"?

The response to Nibley is indeed pretty bad. The problem is that without it, a casual reader might not realize how often Nibley quotes Brodie out of context. Brodie was right when she called Nibley "flippant"--my own description before I discovered that Brodie had used the word before me.

Before I make further changes to the Brodie page, I plan to go back and footnote all the statements that you have noted as unsourced. I agree that anything controversial should be sourced; it's my fault for not realizing that those things were (especially the outhouse--which the McKays called "Mrs. Grundy").

--John Foxe 21:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

---

You are right, Bringhurst. Brimhall was her Uncle. I think you are doing a very excellent job on her article. When you are done, it should be nominated! I do agree that a biography often (not always) needs to deal with motives to be interesting. But there are different ways of doing it. (I am thinking about a book called "The Reason Why" about why the Charge of the Light Brigade happened. It researches the commanders and their actions but does not try to psychoanalyze them. It is a pretty interesting read.) Fawn really went out on limbs when she did it -- which makes for some wild and crazy guy sorts of things -- but it just "feels" wrong to me. Nibley was by all accounts (I never met him) an astonishingly brilliant man. But wikipedia cannot say that! It can quote someone who says so! But then it can quote someone who says he was dull and deceitful... or worse.. a depraved child molester. And NMKMH is absolutely well written. As for well-researched, that is harder to say... its a mixed bag. I believe it was reasonably well researched (particularly compared with prior 3rd person biographies) but the research was both slanted (not always her fault, but she has to take the blame) and not always well used -- or used at all! But in either case, wikipedia can not take an editorial position. It must stay Neutral on the quality of her work. As for NMTNH, I believe Nibley himself agreed that it was probably his worst published work ever. (Can't recall where I heard that). However, he also said that it was fundamentally sound, just not well done. Flippant might be the right word because as I recall he said he spat it out in almost no time at all (a weekend maybe?). It is a shame that the critique of Nibley that you found is so awful, but if that is the only one.. that is the only one. But I thought there was another one somewhere....

Incidentally, two things seem to stick out in her life to me. First, she seems and claims and appears to have some degree of admiration for the truth. Yet, she has this pronounced incident in the researching of the NMKMH book, where she lies. Both the Mormons and to the RLDS leaders. She claims that this caused her shame and grief, but she did it. Knowingly and consistently. And more than once. This is very hard to reconcile and I think it would be interesting to psychobiography Fawn! The second, is that she seems to have had some sort of sexual issues and she focused on these things. Where on earth did that come from? Could be all kinds of sources but first on my list would be some sort of child sexual trauma.

I have read MUCH of what Bringhurst has written about her but not all of it. I like his work, generally. I love the cover because she looks so attractive there and I never saw her that way until that was published. To me she was sort of a long-faced, slightly heavy and rather sad looking person - I did not think it was an attractive look. To each their own though. --Blue Tie 21:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Nothing true is POV. Wikipedia can say anything without citation that's true beyond reasonable doubt. That includes the fact that the 9/11 hijackers were murderers, that Stalin was a moral monster, and that Nibley was "brilliant." But not that he molested his own daughter.

Your book about the Charge of the Light Brigade sounds exactly like the sort of thing I was talking about in the sentence in which you accuse me of editorializing. I was trying to draw the distinction between treating the fullness of character and psychoanalysis. The burden of proof is on you to prove incorrect my statement that "Any biography that refused to treat motives, character traits, and the depth of personality would be flat and uninteresting." Without proof to the contrary that this statement is (not often but always) correct, your rejection of that sentence is itself simply opinion.

NMKMH was well-researched. What Brodie would have given for a set of Vogel's Early Mormon Documents. If you think that "well-researched" needs citation, by all means we can do that. But "well-researched" is not the same as "unbiased."

Speaking of Brodie photos, there's one in Bringhurst of Brodie as a fifteen-year-old in which she looks downright attractive.

--John Foxe 13:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

With regard to the idea that "Nothing true is POV", I quote from WP:NPOV, which is official policy:

Let the facts speak for themselves o Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:

You won't even need to say he was evil. That's why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man" — we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.

Perhaps with that in mind you will see what has colored my thinking in this area. Just describe the facts (all relevant sides if necessary) and do not editorialize on them.

And, no, the burden of proof is not on me to disprove something you claim. It is upon you to cite and prove. That is how wikipedia works!

Putting both ideas together it means that you can quote someone who claims that Fawn Brodie's work was well researched. You should also, if appropriate, provide quotes by others who may claim otherwise. That is NPOV. I realize it does not make for the greatest writing, but it is the wikipedia way. In the case of well-researched, I still think it is not a matter of fact but opinion. And it is an opinion about which, some may differ. I consider it somewhat far better researched than prior biographies but not "well researched" by more modern standards. However, my own opinion (and yours) is not good wikipedia content. Opinions of others who hold some respect in the area and which are published is fair and good content, but contrasting opinions should be generously (in accordance with their respectability) considered.

I think that your edits are good, because you already support your opinions with quotes and facts. However, you should remove your opinions and just let the facts you quote, speak for themselves. I hope I am making sense. --Blue Tie 14:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I repeat, "Nothing true is POV. Wikipedia can say anything without citation that's true beyond reasonable doubt." Nothing you've quoted opposes that principle.

Having said that, I'm determined to provide citations everywhere in the Fawn Brodie article that you think are necessary. If "well-researched" is a problem for you, then I'll provide the evidence. --John Foxe 19:13, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I've inserted more citations and explanations that I hope meet some of your objections. Take a look and see what else you think needs to be done. (I don't understand why you would object to Vardis Fisher being called a "novelist." That's what ANB does. The Testament of Man is, after all, a series of novels.) --John Foxe 20:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I think we may be dancing around semantics here. I've said, "Nothing true is POV. Wikipedia can say anything without citation that's true beyond reasonable doubt." The standard for Wikipedia you've given here is that a "fact" is "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." A "fact" is by definition "true." So I think we're in agreement.

All the best,

John Foxe 12:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's another attempt at reaching agreement. How about if I modify my statement to read, "Nothing factual is POV. Wikipedia can say anything without citation that is factual, that is, it is information about which there is no serious dispute."

--John Foxe 14:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks...

...for the help about the Removing warnings page. I didn't realize that was an archive of a discussion. So I'm going to assume it would be frowned upon to change that page at all. However, do you know of a page where an active discussion/policy reconsideration about teh subject is taking place? The page you replied to my comment seems to have become very bloated and everybody is going in circles, and I have no idea where to interject or express my opinion. Also, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and I am not sure if/how I can move the discussion into a serious consideration for a policy change. I don't know of the whole process that goes on in that side of the Wikipedia project, so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. 69.124.143.230 04:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not know if it would be bad to add a comment, but it is not a page of live discussion where any sort of change is going to happen. For that matter neither is the page you posted on. This issue has been going round and round for a few months and there are a variety of opinions. Current policy says that removing such warnings is "generally prohibited". It is a rule that should be gently, not harshly enforced but that tends to be an individual thing with different administrators. There has been no concensus regarding this policy, but the closest thing to a concensus (between 66% and 82% of a "vote") was that warnings should not be quickly reverted by the person being warned.

The idea behind not removing warnings has the following purposes:

1. It serves as a notice to Vandal Reverters if someone is an ongoing problem. It helps them to identify that person quickly and take action. Note that generally, though not always, at least 3 warnings are required for a block.
2. It serves as a notice to the rest of the community that the editor may have some bad habits.
3. It creates a bright awareness in the mind of the editor regarding certain rules.

In my opinion, no one will object if, after a period of good edits without conflict, you remove the warning. How long is "a period"? I do not know, but I would think that the least amount of time would be a week. It may be somewhere between a week and a month.

I suggest you create a sign-in name, because people are suspicious of anon ip editors. Its not that things are alot easier that way, but you get less squinty eyed examination of your edits. --Blue Tie 04:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Again, thanks for the information. Not trying to get into details, I'd just like to make clear (as the wall of text over at the above-referenced page is beyond intimidating) that I only see validity in the first post. Basically, in that 2, that I don't think a person's talk page should be turned into a virtual form of fleece to select black sheep on the wikipedia, regardless of prior violations (how is rehabilitation possible in that case?) and that 3, if the editor in question is going to take the warning seriously in the first place, a constant reminder on their talk page won't improve that. I don't mean to turn your talk page into a discussion on the subject, I was just trying to clarify my position and why I feel so strongly about this issue.

Anyways, again, thanks for the help and the information, and I apologize for cluttering your talk page with my wiki-newbiness :) 69.124.143.230 23:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polmalo

• Thanks for the support. There's clear reason for suspicion here, and I make it a habit to check on the contributions of suspected sockpuppets/vandals to repair possible collateral damage. Polmalo's claims are ridiculous on their face, I told her to go ahead and "report" me. Danny Lilithborne 00:45, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:VAND

Thanks for your civil response on my talk page. However, the assumption that I favor the version WP:VAND is currently in is incorrect. Indeed, I made some changes to it, and reverted to a version before my changes. Apparently both my and Carnildo's version are objectionable to John. Looking further into the history, I see this is a bigger issue than I initially thought. I notice that there has been a persistent edit war ever since John inserted the clause forbidding warning removal, about a month and a half ago. With such a lengthy war, I'm surprised that the page wasn't protected earlier.

Consider this: according to what you perceive is policy, you should now be blocked since you removed warnings from your talk page. Yet you imply that it would be unfair (to which I wholeheartedly agree) and indeed, you have not been blocked. Would you think this sentiment is common with other editors as well? Do people regularly remove warnings from their talk page, and if so, under what circumstances? Have such people been blocked for that act? For such a policy clause, these are important issues to consider, moreso than whether or not a somewhat-controversial straw poll on the subject had a majority in favor (indeed, this is why we prefer not to create policy through voting on it).

So yes, I'm thinking about it, and I believe that this page needs to be protected for the nonce to forestall further edit warring. It is less important which version the page is currently in; it is more important that the situation be resolved. Yours, >Radiant< 13:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• Like I just said, I think it would be unfair to block you for that removal, and I certainly have no intent to do so. You are correct that consensus is more important than any single editor; however, I have heard people contradict the assertion that there is consensus for this clause. I have seen the originating poll but I did not find that very convincing.
• A central issue here is that Wikipedia is not as formally legalistic as some people seem to think it is. This is best explained on WP:PPP. Basically, we do not blindly follow rules, and in particular we do not follow rules where that would simply be a bad idea - after all, we are an encyclopedia first. Thus we frown on overly strict interpretations of any policy. The canonical example is that someone who makes a revert three times each day does not break the 3RR, but can nevertheless be blocked for revert warring. On the other hand, if it is generally not possible to find someone willing to block a user who removes warnings, then it seems to follow that removing warnings is not such a big deal after all.
• I agree that what I did was, in retrospect, not the best way to handle the situation, but I believe that undoing the protection at this point would make it worse. See also m:the wrong version - whichever version the page is protected in, can always be (but should never be) construed as a reward to someone. Note that my initial protection was swiftly superseded by Dmcdevit's protection of the same; I hope you agree that he is a neutral party. I do not believe the revert war started yesterday; in the history I see a low-level revert war for several weeks now. For that reason, I agree with you that a temporary moratorium is a good idea. I am unsure where you asked for this, but WP:RPP would be a good place for such things in the future.
• >Radiant< 14:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Higher authority?

The place to go would be the admin noticeboard. However, a complaint was already filed there a few days ago (this thread), and the matter was resolved by Arbitrator Dmcdevit who removed my protection and then protected the page himself (log). So the point is that the page is no longer protected by me, but protected by someone else. The matter is still being discussed on that forum and you are welcome to join the discussion.

However, what you're misunderstanding is that protection is not an endorsement of any particular version (see WP:PROT and m:the wrong version) - and what you're asking me to do is in effect continuing a revert war after a page is protected (which is, obviously, a violation of protection policy). On the one hand it is noble that you place consensus ahead of your own opinion; on the other hand not everybody agrees that there is consensus here, and it is very strange that you're using legalism to fight for a position you say you don't actually agree with. >Radiant< 08:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• Let's see, a couple of points. Yes, policy is the rules of the land, but conversely that means that if something is not a rule of the land, neither is it policy. Given the sheer amount of pages in Wikispace, it is plausible to assume that most people are not reading most policy pages most of the time. Since all such pages are nevertheless editable by all (which, by the way, I object to), it is quite possible that a change to a policy goes unnoticed. People who use a policy are likely to assume they know it, and likely to not re-read it every week to see if it has changed. This is tricky business, but what it boils down to is that you can't add something to policy and expect people to change their behavior on that basis.

Your statement about policy and law of the land is logically flawed and as a result, to my eye, somewhat nonsensical. However, I suspect you were attempting to get to "practice makes policy", which point you make later and which I do not disagree with.

I also object to all pages being editable. In particular, policy pages should not be editable by just anyone.

However, if a policy is published, then it is the policy. This is not just a matter of words. It is a legality. I mean in US Courts of Law. (Thus, I do not think all pages should be editable by just anyone). But that is the wiki way. Although you say that one cannot be expected to alter their behavior if they do not know the policies "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse" in any court of Law in any juridstiction of the world. It has been this way for centuries and the logic has been reduced to: Ignorance of the Law is no Excuse.

• It is true there have been several discussions on the matter; however, one should consider who participated in them. For instance, Wikipedia:Removing warnings poll was not really advertised very well, judging by the incoming links. Apart from the fact that it's unwise to change policy by poll, it is quite possible that dissenters were unaware of the poll. As it is now, there is obviously dissent to the clause; but more importantly, the clause appears not to reflect reality, as people who remove warnings are, to my knowledge, never sanctioned for doing so. So even if we might 'frown upon' warning removal, to state that it is 'generally forbidden' is false.

I do not think that it is right to look at just one poll -- and while you have done that, I have not. My comments about the 67 to 82% include ALL of the discussions that I could find. There have been two polls and one other discussion. None of them, including the latest one, has been advertised well. The only people who participate are those who actually CARE about the issue. That is not so bad a thing. I do not pay attention to "who" participated as you may have noticed because I am not concerned with "personalities". "Personalities" do not matter. It is irrelevant whether it is someone I like or dislike. What matters is the quality of their opinions and the way that they go about conducting themselves. So I have not paid attention to the "who" as you have -- and I suggest to you that doing so is a "bad" thing. But you do raise a point about numbers of people involved and it gets to two problems in my view: How does policy get made and how is concensus defined? I have asked those questions repeatedly and have never gotten anything but vague answers. I think its a flaw and this argument on Removing Warnings is exposing it because the distribution of opinions appears to be Bimodal in nature. For example, you say that the policy stating that it is "generally forbidden" (the actual word was prohibited") is false. But, in fact, you only believe it is false. There is no policy that says it is false and, until the edit war, there was a policy that said it was true. And people did act upon it -- thus it was not just theoretically true but practically true as well. In essence, you are one of the people who was edit warring for your particular point of view -- that it is a false thing. But you say that because you think it is a bad thing. Others disagreed with you both as to its falseness and as to its badness. Notice... how you are so absolutely sure that you are right. So, also, are your opponents insistant that they are right. This is a problem -- even if you do not see it. Incidentally, I would argue that I was the only person involved who was NOT editing for my particular point of view and did not think that the view expressed was "right". I might have been the one hopefully objective person there, yet you reverted me and claimed that it did not matter.

• As a side point, I don't really like your new proposal, since it is needlessly complex. Wikipedia tends to rely on common sense and simple rules more than on detailed legalisms and arbitrary limits.

Well, that's the beauty of discussions. Some people want warning removal to be considered vandalism. Some want warning removal to be automatic per the user warned. I think a middle ground is right. I suspect you are on the side favoring universal easy removal. But suppose you were involved in a discussion between several different people with various views on the subject. Some of them want to make it a rule that warnings stay forever and removal is vandalism. Would you consider my approach a better one? Suppose that they were looking at you and did not like your view. Do you think that they might consider my approach better than yours? Would my approach be a fair compromise? That should count for something.

• As to the dispute, there is nothing to prevent you from taking it to the ArbCom, although I would advise against it. It could be compared to swatting a fly with a sledgehammer. If you look through past and present arbitration cases, you would see the worst of Wikipedia exposed there, from lengthy volatile revert wars to sock-supported stalking campaigns. This incident pales in comparison, and Interiot's estimate that the ArbCom would not consider it is probably correct. I have already admitted the error, and I believe that it is of greater importance to find the cause of the revert war, and alleviate that.

I am in complete agreement that a different path and method are preferred. But I believe a wrong has been done. I am not the least bit interested in having you chastized or disciplined. I do not "feel" particularly emotional or upset. I do not have a strong feeling that you are a bad person or that you were seeking to do a bad or wrong thing. I was never interested in an "admission of error". I would be very unhappy, if some action were taken against you -- it would distress me. I would specifically request that NOT happen. I suspect that it is unusual for you to violate policy (but I have not explored that to see if it is). My interest in going to Arbcom would be, as I have maintained all along, an effort to have the error of the revert and protection corrected. I do not consider the protection itself to be an error, but the revert + the protection was an egregious error. I am pursuing every possible avenue to have that correction developed prior to going to Arbcom. [Here] for example, is my latest effort. And I will continue with some other efforts. I am using full vigor and effort at reasonable and lower levels of appeal. However, if I am unsuccessful at lower levels I will work my way up the chain of appeals. After all, it was my edit that was reverted and then a protect put on it. I am operating on, what I think, are good principles and practices. I do not want to be a trouble maker or a problem. I think I have some standing and a reason to pursue the matter. I do not know if Arbcom is the highest court. I would go higher if it is not!

I certainly understand how you would feel that it is "more important" to "find the cause of the revert war and alleviate that" than to take the problem that I have to Arbcom. I do not necessarily agree. However, with regard to your sentiment, I suggest that you may share with others, attitudes that are at the heart of the cause of the revert war. Take a moment to ponder that.

• The trick is that Wikipedia doesn't follow strict rules per se. This sounds like something that couldn't possibly work, but in practice it tends to work out reasonably well. As such, we have no strictly formal process for amending policy (and mind you, arguably we do need one now that the community has grown) but the system of policy works quite well in practice.

You have struck upon one of my touchstones! I think we DO need a way of developing policy now that wikipedia has grown. Incidentally, it is probably a mistake to say that I am a new user. I have been a financial contributor to wikipedia and I have used the encyclopedia for years. I also made contributions as an anon for a few years. Some were minor, some were not. I started to contribute more heavily this spring and created this name when I decided to try to make more consistent and positive contributions to the cause. What I like about wikipedia is that it is "free" - anyone can edit. What I dislike about wikipedia is that it is "free" - everyone edits! The "like" part was great when wikipedia was a small community. It is much larger now. With largeness comes problems. In ancient Athens, democracy was easy... a few hundred people came to the town center and voted. You could see if everyone was there to be sure there was a quorum (and oh, by the way only free men could vote). In modern Athens, it is not that way. Too many people. Concensus is harder to achieve. So it is on wikipedia. The concepts of "concensus" and "rules" and "policy" need to evolve for a growing organization. In my profession, I am a change agent. I get paid thousands of dollars a day to help organizations that are either in trouble or growing, to help figure out how to adjust to change. Most often the thing that gets in the way is "But that is how we have always done it before". You would think that this sort of argument would come only from old people. But I have been surprised to learn that the most curmudgeonly people are often quite young and the older people, with experiences that enlighten them are often open to change. It is a surprise. Wikipedia is full of young people who have been here for a while... they do not like change. But the one thing that never changes is... change. It always happens. I have seen thsi before in many other on-line communities. (I have had email since the early 80's and been on the internet since 1990). The "old guard" (and those are often young people) do not like the newbies and do not like changes that happen to "their" world. I do not know all the issues involved but I have seen people storm off in a huff over such changes, even here on wikipedia. (Fortunately they almost always return -- at least for a while!)

• See also WP:PPP. Most communities write down good ideas as policy and base practice on that; we do it the other way around, in that we base practice on good ideas and write down policy based on that.

In actual fact, as a professional in this area, I assert and tell my clients that your description is the only way to write good policies and it is the way that all organizations write good policies.

Now let me caveat that statement. Sometimes policies must be "downward" and "directed". This happens chiefly because of legal issues but it may also happen because of vision and strategy of the founders or leaders. Both of those reasons are perfectly valid. Sometimes new practices are instituted that require new policies to act as training aids. These are, literally "laws" in the organization but they should not be viewed as "sacred". They should be considered as helpful and necessary but changeable when a better method is found.

• This point is not really important if you're simply editing or vandalfighting - but it becomes essential when you're about to amend policy. What went wrong here is simply that a group of people tried to base practice on what they wrote in policy, rather than basing policy on what was tried in practice.

>Radiant< 22:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. What went wrong here is that some people tried to write policy based upon their practices and others disagreed with some elements of those practices. You, for example, disagree with them. But you mis-characterize the issue, although I suspect that down deep you recognize the issue is more significant than a problem with words. It is a fight about how wikipedia operates. It may be convenient to do so, but I think you are being too cavalier in dismissing those who disagree with you as though they were doing something different than trying to put into words their practices. In essence you are placing yourself in the moral high ground and ignoring that they too have the same relative moral high ground because they were putting into policy what they practiced. (I am, of course, assuming that this is the measure of morality). This failure to see the other side is part of the problem preventing the achievement of concensus (or the acceptance of compromise) and I think the mindset that "I am right and the other side is wrong because I have the moral high ground" is disasterous to the process and has led to the place we find ourselves now where each side sees the other as an enemy to good practices. You mentioned earlier that you want to find the cause of the revert war and eliminate it. Review some of the attitudes you have expressed here in your reply to me along with my feedback and see if you can spot any views on your part or mine that could be the cause of a revert war.

--Blue Tie 00:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• First, it is simply false that I protected the page in my version , as this diff indicates. The fact that you or somebody else objects to both my version and Carnildo's version does not mean that they are identical.
• Second, one of your major assumptions is wrong: "if a policy is published, then it is the policy ... It is a legality." That, simply, is not how Wikipedia works. You expect everybody to act as if they know the latest edit of our ever-evolving policy pages; that is not realistic. WP:NOT a bureaucracy. You say that Wikipedia should be more formal. There are some good points in that - but however much you want it to be, the fact is that at the moment it is not. You can't make things more formal by assuming a priori that they are. By the way, your assertion that we are resistant to change is an overstatement.
• Third, I didn't just look at one poll, nor did I give certain people higher credence than others. But I do give certain arguments higher credence. The simple fact is that blocking for vandalism does happen, and regardless of how many people who want to change that, blocking for warning removal does not happen; it follows that warning removal is not vandalism. You are correct that I'm sure that I am right, but then you are equally so. We both seem willing to listen to arguments and evidence of why we're wrong, but you should realize that on Wikipedia, judicial technicalities don't count as a valid argument. There is a problem here that both parties claim they're right, and the solution is to discuss it (which what I'm doing) whereas it's only polarizing the matter further by insisting on a revert to the other version (which is what you're doing).
• Finally, since you asked, the highest authority on the Wiki is User:Jimbo Wales, so you would save yourself time and trouble by simply asking him immediately.
• >Radiant< 12:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arius article

You are certainly welcome. The article has come a long way since I first edited it back in January of 2005. In an unrelated vein, I would appreciate you input regarding the dispute I am having with others over the content of the "PZ Myers" article. Robert O'Brien 17:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

I'll read the lengthy response tomorrow. To answer your questions, I'm male, and I didn't write "voting is evil" (IIRC that was Fennec). >Radiant< 00:41, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A couple of well-intentioned questions

1. Can you summarize in, say, 50 words or less, the exact nature of the conflict between you and Radiant?

2. Why the sense of dreadful urgency?

All the best,
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}
03:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

There does appear to be a sense of dreadful urgency, in the fact that you seem to feel that whatever is taking place between you and Radiant! regarding WP:VAND needs to be adressed immediately, if not sooner.

As for my interest, I'm just a nosy parker. I generally add talk pages to my watchlist when I leave a message for someone, in case they reply to my message on their talk page. So I had Radiant's talk page in my watchlist, saw the flying fur, and wondered what the situation was.

Yours,

Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak}

18:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I do not know if I would call it a sense of dreadful urgency on my part. I do, however, think that 24 hours is enough time for someone to decide what they will do. Maybe you are a person who operates on a longer cycle. I know some people who operate on decision cycles like that in a matter of seconds. Everyone is different I guess!

I have absolutely no personal problem with Radiant. I think he made a mistake and the error should be corrected. I am seeking to have that done. I am going about it in a deliberate and steady fashion. I certainly hope you did not see fur fly because I have absolutely no feelings of animosity or anger or a desire for retribution at all. I just want an error corrected. --Blue Tie 19:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cretanpride

Thanks for the advice. The article in question (Homosexuality in ancient Greece) is already semi-protected, but I've reverted to his version. —Khoikhoi 18:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Blue Tie, I don't think it's "wise" to let this editor have his way. The death threat is most likely a false one, and letting his changes stand is telling him that disrupting Wikipedia is a good way for him to get what he wants. Furthermore, several editors, including me, got this email, and none of us except Khoikhoi felt that we should include his edit. Please see Talk:Homosexuality in ancient Greece. I won't revert the article, but I urge you to reconsider. Thanks. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Any investigation by law enforcement is likely to take a considerable amount of time, and could end without clear resolution. In the meantime, you've given a sockpuppeteer plenty of incentive to continue disrupting Wikipedia by showing him how to get edits included in an article against consensus. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well then, we disagree. I am willing to risk a block if need be on this matter. And I have never even been warned before so I take this seriously. --Blue Tie 19:56, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Exactly it is out of your and the others more directly involved hands now, and that is exactly what was needed. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I may say things somewhat rough at times like this, but this is not a issue to fuss about, o I just do what needs to be done. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem, Blue Tie; you did what you thought was right. I agree that having a policy set out in advance would be helpful, and if such a policy is formulated I'll happily abide by it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been resisting the temptation to call him "Cretinpride" for two months now... —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leaving

Yes, I know, I at times look at my very shiort watchlist and get tempted to do anyway something.... :-( -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

The Story of Joseph Brant (by Tom Penick)

The Mohawk Indian chief Joseph Brant served as a spokesman for his people, a Christian missionary of the Anglican church, and a British military officer during the U.S. War of Independence. He is remembered for his efforts in unifying upper New York Indian tribes and leading them in terrorizing raids against patriot communities in support of Great Britian's efforts to repress the rebellion. He is also credited for the establishment of the Indian reservation on the Grand River in Canada where the neighboring town of Brantford, Ontario, bears his name.

Brant was born in 1742 on the banks of the Ohio River and given the Indian name of Thayendanegea, meaning "he places two bets." He inherited the status of Mohawk chief from his father. He attended Moor's Charity School for Indians in Lebanon, Connecticut, where he learned to speak English and studied Western history and literature. He became an interpreter for an Anglican Missionary, the Reverend John Stuart, and together they translated the prayer book and the Gospel of Mark into Mohawk. Molly Brant, Joseph's sister, married General Sir William Johnson who was the British superintendent for northern Indian affairs. Sir William was called to duty during the last French and Indian War of 1754-1763. Joseph followed Sir William into battle at the age of 13, along with the other Indian braves at the school.

Following this frightening experience, Joseph returned to school for a short period. Sir William had need of an interpreter and aid in his business with the Indians and employed Joseph in this prestigious position. In his work with Sir William, Joseph discovered a trading company that was buying discarded guns from the Army, filling cracks in the barrels with lead, and then selling them to Indians. The guns would explode when fired, often injuring the owner. Joseph was able to prove this in court and the trading company's license was revoked.

It was the custom for young men not to marry until they had made their mark, and Joseph was now prepared to choose a wife. Around 1768 he married Christine, the daughter of an Oneida chief, whom he had met in school. They had both Indian and Anglican wedding ceremonies and lived on a farm which Joseph had inherited. Christine died of tuberculosis around 1771, leaving Joseph with a son and a daughter. During this time, Joseph resumed his religous work, translating the Acts of the Apostles into the Mohawk language. In 1773, he married Susannah, sister of his first wife. Susannah died a few months later, also of tuberculosis. In 1774 he was appointed secretary to Sir William's successor, Guy Johnson. In 1775 he received a captain's commission and was sent to England to assess whether the British would or would not help the Mohawk recover their lands. He met with the King on two occasions and a dinner was held in his honor.

While in England, Brant attended a performance of Romeo and Juliet. Lady Ossory, a member of a famous Irish family, asked him, "What do you think of that kind of love-making, Captain Brant?" He replied, "There is too much of it, your ladyship." "Why do you say that?', and Joseph answered quickly, "Because, your ladyship, no lover worth a lady's while would waste his time and breath in all that speech-making. If my people were to make love in that way our race would be extinct in two generations."

On his return to the colonies, he saw action in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. He led four of the six nations of the Iroquois League in attacks against colonial outposts on the New York frontier. The Iroquois League was a confederation of upper New York State Indian tribes formed between 1570 and 1600 who called themselves "the people of the long house." Initially it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After the Tuscarora joined in 1722, the league became known to the English as the Six Nations and was recognized as such in Albany, New York, in 1722. They were better organized and more effective, especially in warfare, than other Indian confederacies in the region. As the longevity of this union would suggest, these Indians were more advanced socially than is often thought. Benjamin Franklin even cited their success in his argument for the unification of the colonies. They lived in comfortable homes, often better than those of the colonists, raised crops, and sent hunters to Ohio to supply meat for those living back in New York. These hunters were usually young braves or young married couples, as was the case with Joseph Brant's parents.

During the U.S. War of Independence a split developed in the Iroquois league, with the Oneida and Tuscarora favoring the American cause while the others fought for the British under the leadership of Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant. A few of the leaders favored a neutral stance, preferring to let the white men kill each other rather than become involved. Brant feared that the Indians would lose their lands if the colonists achieved independence. Basic to animosities between Indians and whites was the difference in views over land ownership. The Indians felt that the land was for the use of everyone and so initially saw no reason to not welcome the Europeans. The colonists, on the other hand, were well acquainted with the priviledges of ownership (or lack thereof) and were eager to acquire land of their own.

Brant commanded the Indians in the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777. In early 1778 he gathered a force of Indians from the villages of Unadilla and Oquaga on the Susquehanna River. On September 17, 1778 they destroyed German Flats near Herkimer, New York. The patriots retalliated under the leadership of Col. William Butler and destroyed Unadilla and Oquaga on October 8th and 10th. Brant's forces, along with loyalists under Capt. Walter N. Butler, then set out to destroy the town and fort at Cherry Valley. There were 200-300 men stationed at the fort but they were unprepared for the attack on August 11, 1778. The attackers killed some 30 men, women, and children, burned houses, and took 71 prisoners. They killed 16 soldiers at the fort but withdrew the following day when 200 patriot reinforcements arrived. The settlement was abandoned and the event came to be known as the "Cherry Valley Massacre." Brant won a formidable reputation after this raid and in cooperation with loyalists and British regulars, he brought fear and destruction to the entire Mohawk Valley, southern New York, and northern Pennsylvania. He thwarted the attempts of a rival chief, Red Jacket, to persuade the Iroquois to make peace with the revolutionaries. In 1779, U.S. Major General John Sullivan led a retaliatory expedition of 3700 men against the Iroquois, destroying fields, orchards, granaries, and their morale. The Iroquois were defeated near present-day Elmira, N.Y. In spite of this, Indian raids persisted until the end of the war and many homesteads had to abandoned. The Iroquois League came to an end after admitting defeat in the Second Treaty of Ft. Stanwix in 1784.

Around 1782, Brant married his third wife, Catherine Croghan, daughter of an Irishman and a Mohawk. With the war over, and the British having surrendered lands to the colonists and not to the Indians, Brant was faced with finding a new home for himself and his people. He discouraged further Indian warfare and helped the U.S. commissioners to secure peace treaties with the Miamis and other tribes. He retained his commission in the British Army and was awarded a grant of land on the Grand River in Ontario by Govenor Sir Frederick Haldimand of Canada in 1784. The tract of 675,000 acres encompassed the Grand River from its mouth to its source, six miles deep on either side. Brant led 1843 Iroquois Loyalists from New York State to this site where they settled and established the Grand River Reservation for the Mohawk. The party included members of all six tribes, but primarily Mohawk and Cayugas, as well as a few Delaware, Nanticoke, Tutelo, Creek, and Cherokee, who had lived with the Iroquois before the war. They settled in small tribal villages along the river. Sir Haldimand had hurriedly pushed through the land agreement before his term of office expired and was unable to provide the Indians with legal title to the property. For this reason, Brant again traveled to England in 1785. He succeeded in obtaining compensation for Mohawk losses in the U.S. War for Independence and received funds for the first Episcopal Church in Upper Canada, but failed to obtain firm title to the Grand River reservation. The legality of the transfer remains under question today.

Her Majesty's Chapel of the Mohawks was built in 1785 at the order of King George III. The simple wooden structure survives today as the oldest Protestant church in Ontario and is the only church outside the United Kingdom with the status of Chapel Royal. The church contains some lavish appointments including a silver service and bible dating from 1712 when Queen Anne had a church erected for the Mohawk on the Mohawk River in New York. Also erected for the Indians in 1785 was a saw and grist mill and a school.

Brant continued with his missionary work. He felt that his followers could learn much from observing the ways of the white man and made a number of land sales of reservation property to white settlers to this end, despite the unsettled ownership. He tried unsuccessfully to arrange a settlement between the Iroquois and the United States. He traveled in the American West promoting an all-Indian confederacy to resist land cessions. Late in his life, he continued the work he had begun as a young man of translating the Creed and important passages of the Old and New Testament into the Mohawk language. He was a man who studied and was able to internalize the better qualities of the white man while always remaining loyal and devoted to his people. Joseph Brant died on the reservation on August 24, 1807.

Bibliography 1. "Brant, Joseph," Dictionary of American Biography, 1927. 2. "Brant, Joseph," The Encyclopedia Americana, 1992. 3. "Brant, Joseph," The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1991. 4. "Brantford," The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1991. 5. "Cherry Valley Massacre," The Encyclopedia Americana, 1992. 6. Flick, A.C., "The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign of 1779," History of the State of New York, 1933-1937. 7. Green, Evarts Boutell, The Revolutionary Generation 1763-1790, 1943. 8. "Iroquois League," The new Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1991. 9. Mathews, R. V., "In Defense of Joseph Brant," Conservationist, 31:41,March 1977. 10. Mitchell, Lt.Col. Joseph B., Discipline & Bayonets, 1967. 1. Monture, Ethel Brant, Famous Indians, 1960. 12. Van Steen, M., "Brantford's Royal Chapel," Canadian Geographical Journal, 57:136-41, October 1958. 13. Weaver, Sally M., "Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario," Handbook North American Indians, 1978

[edit] Lochry's Defeat

Good job on starting Archibald Lochry. We need an article on Lochry's Defeat -- it's already in the campaignbox for the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War -- and you're just the person to get it started! —Kevin 13:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] my username

Hi BT, I'm still formulating my reply to your last question about timelines, but I can answer your question about my username pretty quickly. It actually comes from The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan; it's strange/funny to me that you find my name reassuring, as in the books it's a title for the sort of Second-in-command of the evil side (see also nae'blis). I didn't choose it for the evil connotations, but rather because it reminds me that while I'm not "in charge" or things, neither am I just a peon to be stepped on. It's nice for keeping my ego and lack of self-esteem in balance, I find. Talk to you soon. -- nae'blis 13:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spiritus asper and Hebrew

Hi Blue Tie, sorry for not answering your request earlier. I must admit I haven't found much about the usage of the apparent "spiritus" sign in Hebrew transliteration. In professional typesetting of scientific Hebrew transliteration it's typographically distinct both from the Greek spiritus symbol and the apostrophe/quotation mark symbols that are typically employed in everyday computer usage. Unicode simply calls it "left half ring". I don't know what Semiticists call it. I'd say we just leave it as it is now in the article: Mentioning it as something apparently based historically on the Greek spiritus signs, but today distinct from it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] “was graduated”

Before declaring “was graduated” to be “abnormal”, you need to brush-up on your English grammar. At this point, the colloqial, bare “graduated” has become accepted, but it doesn't even make a whole lot of sense, and its acceptance did not render the earlier, logical consruction somehow incorrect. In every other context, “graduate” is a transitive verb. (A cylinder is graduated.) And in the context of schooling, it remains proper (though no longer exclusively so) to use “graduate” as a transitive verb. A school graduates students, who thus are graduated. —12.72.69.193 22:47, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re [1]

No, I don't "believe that the consensus is in the direction of NOT prohibiting the removal... [of legitimate] warnings". The consensus is clearly in favor of prohibiting the removal of legitimate warnings, at least under some circumstances. However, making policy (or, in this case, retaining existing policy) doesn't simply require obtaining consensus. One actually has to be able to keep the policy language on the policy page. As we have recently seen, there were many editors editing the policy in favor of warning removal, and only two editors restoring the language prohibiting the removal of legitimate warnings. I conclude that, under these conditions, my new version of the policy is actually the most favorable language with respect to prohibiting the removal of legitimate warnings that will be stable. I don't believe that an attempt to restore the warning removal language in Wikipedia:Vandalism is advisable under the present conditions -- such an attempt would simply lead to another edit war. Harmonious editing is more important than the sentence fragment in dispute. Note that the current policy doesn't expressly permit the removal of legitimate warnings, either -- some administrators will continue to take action to stop disruptive warning removal by new and unregistered users. John254 06:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] arbitration

Hi, since you were involved with related discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, I thought you might be willing to comment at an arbitration case I put together at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Harrassment.2C_talk_page_vandalism.2C_and_non-consensus_changes_to_guideline. I would really appreciate your input. Thanks. Fresheneesz 05:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formal system

I appreciate the sentiment that Wikipedia could benefit from having a more formal system for a variety of purposes. I would encourage you to draw up a proposal for such a system and show it to the community for comment. >Radiant< 09:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really pleased with the concept of creating more formal systems, though such a design might be useful in emergencies as a stopgap measure. (stopgaps never stay that way though :-/). I would prefer to reconstruct problem areas. Kim Bruning 10:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for that invitation. I am overwhelmed at work and so I do not know if I can get to it until next weekend. But even if I did get to it I am not sure how to get around this problem: We do not have a good method for establishing and/or measuring and/or determining consensus. The first formality that is requred is an agreement about consensus. This is like a chicken-egg question. How do you get clear consensus about consensus when the notion of what constitutes clear consensus is the reason for developing the definition about clear consensus? Catch-22. If I work on something, can I get you to also edit it and then we can present it together? How would we present it and what would be a path toward some sort of acceptance? I am baffled by this, but I think it is a problem for the future of wikipedia and it might be a serious one.

Incidentally, I appreciate and value the thoughts of people like Kim Brunning who are against more formal systems, but I think that new things need to be looked at. Part of the beauty and value of wikipedia is the "free" nature. I also think that is part of the problem. I do not pretend to be wise enough to completely square the circle on this but I know that things are not right. Certainly the key is to keep it as free as possible while establishing a framework for better conflict resolution at the user level. I believe that this graph reveals the problem that is leading to increased conflict. As Extreme Unction pointed out "Consensus does not scale". --Blue Tie 17:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• 67.20% have been edited by fewer than 10 distinct Users/IPs.
• 86.07% have been edited by fewer than 20 distinct Users/IPs.
• 91.90% have been edited by fewer than 30 distinct Users/IPs.
• 99.21% have been edited by fewer than 150 distinct Users/IPs.

Wikis scale very well under that kind of load -->

Kim Bruning 21:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

1. As far as I can figure with a single spike on the left hand side, all you're going to see in a trend graph is that spike growing taller. If very few interactions show up over the entire dataset to date, then this won't change if you look at only a subset. We could make a trend graph for you if you truely insist, but it's not going to show anything new.

2. The data is only 6 months old. The wiki is unlikely to have changed much in that period of time. If you like we can make a new version. Since there's a single spike on the left side which contains almost all the articles on wikipedia, practically any "major change" will hardly show up (and thus can hardly be considered a major change). We could download a new database dump and redo the statistics for you if you like, but very few pixels will change in this image, so I don't think it'd be worth the effort.

3. The data source is the entire history of the main namespace of the en.wikipedia database as dumped in january of this year. The processing was done by one of our developers (Greg Maxwell), and I doublechecked to make sure he wasn't doing anything too crazy. Even so, the numbers don't change depending on who is doing the statistics.

4. Many people believe that as the number of editors on wikipedia grows, that the number of interactions between editors has increased. This turns out to not be true. In january, this value was still near to 0 for most of wikipedia. Most editors don't edit most pages most of the time, so they also can't have very many interactions on those pages ;-)

5. Meh. It's just a computer generated graph. We zoomed it in on the bottom left corner for convenience only. When zoomed out, all you see is a single spike on the left hand side. For a different kind of graph, see Image:Articles_distinct.png.

If you like, I can look up the raw data for you, and provide you with a link. You can then do the numbers on this data yourself.

Kim Bruning 20:57, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that I'm not trying to lie with statistics by the way. What we're doing here is strictly the kind of statistics nescessary to do useful work, so we're not drawing any pretty pictures. Sorry about that. Kim Bruning 21:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I'd better explain a bit better. In january, we took a wikipedia database dump. For each article, we looked at the page history and counted the number of unique editors that had contributed to that page. We then plotted a histogram showing number of editors on the x axis, and number of articles on the y axis.

That means that this graph is a summation of all edits since mediawiki was taken into use. It is not a single point in time. If the histogram had been any different, there might have been some trend over time, but the only trend line that would match this data would be:: average number of wikipedians per article remaining constant at some very low value.

Another way of putting this is to say that editor interactions have been fairly constant with only very few editors being present at any one article. Spectacularly so. At time of measurement, there were very few pages with more than 150 editors. Just like now, people were hypothesizing that average density of wikipedians per article was growing, and our findings disproved that hypothesis quite thoroughly at that time.

I'm unsure how if we disproved the hypothesis then, we now need to disprove it again, though we can certainly do so as often as we like.

I'm frankly uninterested in telling stories with statistics right now. I'm just trying to get a handle on a complex system that is constantly evolving.

Wikipedia: namespace pages do not contribute (directly) to the encyclopedia, so statistics about those are less interesting. They may well have different dynamics and might require err... a different management stratagy (and that's putting it mildly).

Kim Bruning 09:17, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The paper you are looking for is:

Dunbar, R. I. M. (1993). Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (4): 681-735.

It turns out that the value of your variable X is very much smaller than 150

Just judging visually, the median and mode of the distribution are both very near to 1.

Due to the cumulative nature of page history, numbers of editors per page can only have gotten higher. Barring random noise, no values in the graph except for those close to one have gotten higher. Therefore, any histogram for an earlier time period can also only have had values close to one (as it would be a histogram over a subset of the edits counted in this histogram). So previous graphs must have had a similar distribution to now.

Based on this paper, note that if the number of interactions per person or per page were to sharply rise, wikipedia would likely fail entirely. That would be a rather obvious change.

Kim Bruning 22:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My reply to Kim

I started my reply right at the first time I saw your edit and it was under anon 80. You have made several other edits to your comments since then, that I missed while I was chatting with a friend. So, rather than go back and re-write my oh-so-clever sarcasm, I am going to post it all here. However, the sarcasm stops about halfway down. So if you don't want to read it, start with the paragraph that is highlighted in blue letters.

I was about to reply and thank an anon ip (and I was wondering how he found this discussion!) but it turned out to be you. I will say the almost the exact same things to you that I was going to say to the anon IP except that I will leave out the one part where I was going to say "You make no sense". :-)

I have to admit, I am intimidated by this citation. You see anyone who wrote a paper in 1993 that addressed wikipedia (founded 10 years later in 2003) would have to be more than a genius, he would have to have god-like powers of precognition. And I do not think I am that smart and I am afraid to match wits with a god. But my stubborn nature comes out and even though I might be damned for the blasphemy of contradicting a deity, I will make some attempt to justify my obviously wrong-headed perceptions.

Aside from my fear of riling deity, I also have another problem: A corrupt text. You see the version of this paper that I can find [here] does not have these important words in it:

"wikipedia" (or even "wiki") "intuition", "intuitive" or "unintuitive" "theory"

The word "impossible" in various forms does appear but it appears in contexts that (at least for me) are unrelated to wikipedia:

• "it is all but impossible to do anything else while grooming or being groomed."
• "80-85 Db (sound level) ... At such levels, speech recognition is close to zero, conversation becomes impossible ..."
• (an equation shows) the percentage of time devoted to social grooming during the day ... Logging the data does not affect the value of r2, but produces impossibly high values of grooming time for some primate populations as a direct result of the transformation.)

I suppose that if someone spends a great deal of time grooming, they will have a hard time reaching consensus with othes on wikipedia, but perhaps they did not care in the first place.

Also, strangely, the article that I found by the exact same title and by another author of exactly the same name does not discuss dysfunction interactions at higher levels of density on the internet, but rather discusses the relationship between neocortex development and social group size in primates. It postuates that language is used to improve the ability of primates to understand and integrate social relationships. Yet nowhere does my (obviously unrelated) article discuss the issues that we are dealing with. So, since I obviously have a corrupted text I shall have to address the quote that you provide.

That quote is that "in theory, wikipedia is impossible". I wonder which theory that would be? I have done some research on the matter and I have determined that all of the essential ingredients for making wikipedia work were available - in many cases even as far back into history as 1993:

• Electrons
• Human Beings
• Control of electrons by humans
• economic control of electrons by humans
• development of binary arithmetic
• structuring of transistors and related items on IC's into binary arithmetic algorithm machines
• development of object oriented "programming" languages to create conditions by which electrons are controlled to *produce results in these IC circuits.
• video and other digital or analog devices for outputting of said results
• telecommunications technologies permitting the transmission of inputs and results (and other data) over *relatively lengthy spatial distances.
• electro-magnetic storage devices permitting the transmission of inputs, results and other data over relatively *lengthy temporal distances.
• The development of object oriented programming (software) and telecommunications devices into the "world wide web".
• Marketing efforts (by previously mentioned human beings) that led to exponential growth in web participation (also by human beings).
• Human beings with altruistic motives outnumbering those without altruistic motives.
• Demonstrated success by humans in small groups to come to consensus under various conditions and degrees of lattitude.
• Demonstrated success by humans in being led or directed by small groups.

Thus, it is unclear to me how "in theory wikipedia is impossible". It seems quite possible and in fact, is a logical and long anticipated outcome of the world wide web.

Now, with regard to your comments about Greg's research. I am looking at the second graph you sent me because it has better information. The distribution of points is nearly log linear to about 90% (30 editors) whereupon it transitions gradually over population to 100%. It appears that the median is about 400 distinct editors per page (certainly well over 200 though this is difficult to determine based upon the graph), the 50% point is at about 6 edits and the mean is probably between that number and 30. There is no mode (except for the theoretical zero). However, the cumulative nature of the page hides how things have changed over time. And how might they change? In essence, over time, the slope is going to change. The point at the origin is fixed; it cannot move. The article that has over 8000 editors will not stop being an article and it will get more editor contributions. So that end of the graph will move out. This will tend to flatten the curve. However, it will be hard to change the overall shape. There will still be an asymptote to 1.00 and a bending at the some point. But the bending point is critical. With increased population, the charge will stretch inexorably to the right and the bending point will move to the right. How much? It is difficult to say, but if the average editor produces only 10 edits (which is low for this analysis), and with about 2 edits to an article, and you get a doubling in the number of wikipedians but the number of articles stays the same (which is not a true analogy but is a simplification for discussion) then the chart would move to the right by 5 edits/editors. This would result in a 16% increase in the number of edits/editors per page.

At first glance that does not seem like much. However, the interaction space does not work linearly but factorially. (I am pretty sure it is a factorial growth rate). If there are 30 editors on a page the number of potential interaction is 30! or a number that is ridiculously large (265,252,859,812,191,000,000,000,000,000,000) but the number of potential interactions for 35! is 39 million times larger! More realistically, of the 30 editors, perhaps only 20% are editing actively at a time. That would be 6 editors. And the total number of possible intereactions is a mere 6! = 720. However, if the number of editors grows by just 16% (from 30 to 36) and the number of active editors grows from 6 to 7, the increase in possible interactions grows to 7! = 5040. that means that a 16% increase in editor/page density produces a 700% increase in potential interactions. If the fraction of potential intereactions that convert to actual interactions stays exactly the same and if the fraction of actual interactions that go to conflict also stay the same, the increase of conflict interactions will also increase 700%. However, what is more likely to happen is "breakage". Editors will run away and leave wikipedia because of the bad interactions that they had and so the number of actual interactions that go to relatively permanent conflict will not increase that much. But there will, instead, be damage to wikipedia by the loss of other potentially good editors and the retention of those who are somewhat more combative. This change might be quite large but could go unnoticed, particularly by the editors who "win".

I hope, in the above discussion you did not miss the exponential effect on the number of editors. You have been maintaining that the system can manage modest growth. The growth has not been modest. But even modest growth can have huge implications for interaction events if editor/page density increases just a little. And it has increased. What is more, the increase does not have to be on all pages. If attention on wikipedia is not uniformly distributed across articles but the new entrants focus on the more interesting or popular pages, then on those few pages, the interaction density can become astronomical. And the potential for conflict becomes essentially certain. Under such circumstances, concensus will be essentially impossible under vague rules and both sides will declare concensus or some semblance of it.

Wikipedia will not 'noticably' fail, as in a catastrophic collapse of the system. I do not want you to feel that I am suggesting that will happen. I am not. wikipedia has built-in protections against such failures. Instead it will fail something like the way royal families fell through incestuous inbreeding, power hoarding and feudal warring. Survival of the fittest will be the rule. The long-term aggressive editors (and admins) will survive and the more meek or less combative editors will leave. There will be "camps" of survivor groups who war at times (they are, after all war survivors), sometimes making alliances with other groups that they previously warred with, then breaking those alliances after a while also. Generally though, there will be a truce and groups will take parts or sections of wikipedia to themselves. New users will be "welcomed" but when they do not join one group or another they will become food unless they stay strictly to themselves.

Will this be seen in the outside? I don't think so -- so the failure will be somewhat invisible and private. Is it already happening to a degree? You have been here longer. You may decide this and let me know. I have no idea or opinion on it, but I note that there are anti-wikipedia sites springing up like Mushrooms all around and manned by former editors and even a few admins. --Blue Tie 03:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Answering the black section first:

The concept of meatball:CommunityMayNotScale, has been discussed in great depth. The original research on which the discussion is based occurs in this paper. The paper extrapolates and defends the position that a human being is able to interact with ~150 other human beings during some extended period. This is known as the rule of 150 or Dunbar's number.

As long as the number of interacting people in any essential subsection of our system stays under 150 , we should be ok. Naieve interaction formulae or growth formulae would have you think that the number of editors at some particular location would be >> 150, and therefore wikipedia would fail to operate. "wikipedia is impossible in theory"

What we found in january is that over 99% of pages had <<150 editors. So at that time, wikipedia was working likely working fine.

Note that Dunbars number is a very rough estimate indeed, and there might be considerable variation in the number of people that can still effectively interact.

I think that you have really extrapolated the paper well past its intended meaning with that analysis. First of all, the paper is dealing with physical communities. Second, the paper is not researching levels at which relating becomes dysfunction or confrontational, but rather levels at which relating falls apart or ceases to exist -- which is almost certainly a higher number than the place where relating becomes confrontational. And finally, the notion of what constitutes a "society" as it relates to wikipedia is not clear. You are arguing it is editors per page. I would argue (and I think I am somewhat closer to the meaning of the original paper if it can be applied at all) that it pertains to the total number of active editors on wikipedia. More than 150 or 200 and the relationship space breaks down and some of the people become strangers to one another. Put all that together and I would say that there is no isomorphism between the model presented by that paper and the wikipedia problew we are discussing. --03:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Kim Bruning 09:54, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Just one detail: the number of interactions grows as the square of the number of individuals, nothing near as fast as a factorial. Please excuse my interruption. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the thought. Maybe you are right, but I have provided my rational for factorial on your page. --Blue Tie 03:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The number of one-to-one interactions goes up as the square of the group size. More complicated interactions, like you describe, would certainly increase faster. I just found the link for what I'm thinking of; it's Metcalfe's law. I hope that helps. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:34, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a mention in that article about how the metcalf law overstates the value of adding to a network because not all contributions are equal. I think that a simplistic model such as the one that I calculated also has such problems. That is why I consistently call it the space of potential interactions -- not the actual interaction space. The Matcalf article suggests a log transform, which may be an appropriate though unvalidated exedient for our purposes.

Actually this problem would be a cool masters thesis or doctoral dissertation.--Blue Tie 11:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want to count every possible unordered pair of non-empty subsets as a "potential interaction", then it's not quite factorial either. I wrote down a recurrence relation for that, and solved it to obtain that the number of "potential interactions" with n participants is (3ⁿ+1)/2 - 2ⁿ. That gives us 0 when n=1, 1 when n=2, 6 when n=3, 25 when n=4 (you must have missed one), 90 when n=5, etc. If you want to see the details, just let me know. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why am I doing this?

Originally I started out doing informal mediation on wikipedia. I'd been working on designing and implementing mediation systems that are able to scale under the increased workload.

When you're dealing with mediation, problems with guidelines and with scaling quickly become obvious, hence I'm branching out and trying to understand the problems we're facing on a larger scale :-)

Kim Bruning 22:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

We might have some interesting discussions. I believe that it is best to let users have some general guidelines and let them rule themselves. However, as the number of users increases, there must be some increase in the definition in the guidelines to HELP them rule themselves. I believe the one guideline that really needs a more firm focus is WP:CON. I believe that one solution would be to have a "bright line test" that says "this is definitely consensus in the case of a dispute" and another that says "this is probably concensus in the case of a dispute" and "this is certainly not concensus in the case of a dispute". This bright line test should be numerical at its core but does not have to be exclusively numerical. That proposal is so foreign to what many people think here (aversion to numbers) that I could be burned at the stake for suggesting it.

Are you male or female? I thought you were female but I could be wrong. I was to meet someone named Kim once and was surprised to meet a man smoking a pipe. --Blue Tie 03:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Spamming of user talk pages"

In short, the policy exists (it's on the books somewhere but it's 5:38 AM and I'm half asleep) to ensure that one does not make it appear that a consensus one way or another exists if it does not. If one makes a post to supporters of one size of a dispute (and using wording such as "outraged") it tends to swing support one way or another - thats not building consensus, it's playing a political game of supporters gathering.

I hope that makes sense... I need to go visit Starbucks now :) -- Tawker 12:42, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copied for Reference

Hi, Blue; this is Red. Your comments made me think. Thanks. --Rednblu 18:15, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by concerned User:Rednblu

Surely I need not recite here an example of "heated Wikipedia editing"? Surely, we can think of our own live example of heated Wikipedia editing.

Operationally, the heated Wikipedia editing is done by voting. But the voting in heated Wikipedia editing is the chimpanzee politics version of voting, organizing a faction to overpower what officially Wikipedia colorfully calls "the crank" who does not bow to the consensus.

In this particular case, User:Fresheneesz will not bow to Wikipedia consensus, where consensus is "general agreement among the members whose vote counts in a given group or community in which each member exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action." And User:Fresheneesz has a solid right to complain that there is no rational definition for Wikipedia consensus. For the WP:CON page itself lacks any useable definition for what consensus is, thus leaving each of us to our own chimpanzee devices of organizing some localized consensus faction of our own to get any problem resolved.

So how do we fix this situation? I would suggest that all of us appearing here at User:Fresheneesz's bidding should retire from this RfAr, which is pointless. We need to reconvene at a Wikipedia ProjectPage to clarify the text of the Wikipedia policy pages to be self-consistent. For example, since heated Wikipedia editing is actually done by voting, we should define in an orderly fashion some progression of experiments in various proportional voting formats that we 1) test and 2) select because they actually work in practice. Alternatively, if we want to continue the current sham of making policy according to the chimpanzee politics of the current consensus, we should define clearly the current mix of sockpuppets and cliques that are required to stabilize pages, defend quality, and keep the peace. What do you think is best? --Rednblu 07:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your statement at WP:RFAr

The statement you have made is over 1100 words, which is more than twice the 500 word limit. This case already has an abnormally large number of commenters, so your verbosity is unhelpful. Please revise the statement to 500 words or less. Thanks. Dmcdevit·t 22:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the Fawn Brodie article nomination. --John Foxe 19:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks too for your contribution to this article's success. All the best, --John Foxe 09:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Non-Notability/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, -- Drini 22:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mistake!

Shit! It was so funny mistake! Take a look at this page I found on your user page! :)) Hessam 11:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 3RR

Blue tie: I am concerned that with your last edit, you have violated 3RR (I'm assuming User:71.137.81.253 is you, is that right?). If that IP is you, please revert at least one of your edits as soon as you can. If not, please disregard. Thanks. IronDuke 20:27, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

These are the four reverts I count.

• Here is the first one: [2]

• The second: [3] (as IP)

• The third: [4]

• The fourth: [5]

It's up to you, but I would advise reversion of the removal of the Antisemitism template. I can't see how anyone could object to it. An "antisemite" template, maybe.

And you're quite welcome for the warning. I much prefer to let editors who are acting in good faith (as you appear to be) correct their own mistakes (assuming you made one) than to try to get someone in trouble just for the sake of it. IronDuke 21:56, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Hey. Per your request, I have enquired here: [6]. Going out now, will check back in with you tomorrow... IronDuke 01:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From Trödel

Thx - see my thank you project here: User:Trödel/RFA --Trödel 13:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA thanks

[edit] Your edit to Bill O'Reilly (commentator)

Though in the linked source, O'Reilly claims the Geneva Conventions only cover those wearing uniforms, this is not explicitly stated anywhere in the Geneva Conventions. Harksaw

[edit] Re: Lostnav

Hello. I'm asking that you please be civil and assume good faith, and not jump straight to arbitration when someone disagrees with you. I replied to your comment as soon as I could. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of time to visit Wikipedia every day. Regarding the issue at hand, discussing changes to the Lost template is something that is always done regardless of the size of the change. If you take a look through the history there's discussion about just about every change, big and small. You should have discussed adding Lostpedia before adding it, per the status quo. Jtrost (^T | C | _#) 23:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPA???

Where did I attack you personally? I don't even know you. All I did was present my arguments against what you had to say. Have a nice day.--csloat 01:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. I have removed your attacks from my User Talk page. I have apologized to you for incivility in our interaction; it is unnecessary to stalk my other edits and use them to attack me. If you do not accept my apology, I don't know what to say. But there is no reason to torment me on my talk page. If you feel my conduct is a violation of Wikipedia policies, there are procedures in place to enforce those policies. Feel free to use them. I personally disagree with you. Have a nice day!--csloat 22:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment on my talk page. I would prefer to engage in a dialogue than to have you throw accusations on my page and then announce that you don't want me to respond. I felt it was an attack. I removed your comments because (1) I was not allowed an opportunity to respond to them, and (2) I felt you were incorrect. You cited items as personal attacks that were simply accurate statements of my perception of what was going on. User ss108 had posted a quote that Salon is a "tabloid" claimed that quote meant it was not good investigative journalism. I showed that the quote was taken totally out of context, and that it specifically went on to defend Salon's investigative journalism. This is a fact. He continued to assert the claim, ignoring my comment and the rest of the quote. At that point, yes, I felt that the action was mendacious. And, yes, I did think your arguments in defense of his position bordered on the absurd (please check and see that I changed the wording of that sentence so it was clear that I was attacking the argument and not you). I participate on Wikipedia out of a desire to improve these articles and offer my contribution on issues I have expertise or knowledge about. When someone says something that I think is incorrect, I will state that fact. That is not incivility. And as you should know, WP:AGF does not mean an editor should have to ignore reality:

This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. Accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith, without showing reasonable supporting evidence, is another form of failing to assume good faith.

I feel that ss108s actions were evidence not of malice per se but of the intentional distortion of a quotation in order to make a point that the quotation did not make. That is, to me, the definition of mendacity. I did not accuse you of such, but I did say that I thought your position bordered on the absurd. I still do. Salon, as I have shown, is a widely respected outlet for responsible journalism, and in the entire discussion we had, you did not once post a single piece of evidence to the contrary. Once again, I apologize for expressing my frustration in a manner you found uncomfortable, but I do not believe I have violated Wikipedia policies.--csloat 22:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Civility

Thanks for your message, I agree. I'm glad to see I was not the only one who noticed and complained about his incivility. Isarig 17:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bushism

Good afternoon! Re the "nuclear/nucular" issue, I invite you to check out my remarks here. I haven't changed your edits, but am bringing this to the talk page for discussion before proceeding further.
Regards,
Septegram 20:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Note to Self

Just a poke

[edit] Re Salute

Thanks! It looks like no-one's reverted my change to The Decider so I think I made the right call there. — ciphergoth 09:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added Lostpedia to Miscellaneous (Revisited)

I added Lostpedia to Miscellaneous portion of the LostNav template and would like your thoughts added to my post at Added Lostpedia to Miscellaneous (Revisited). Thanks. -- Jreferee 14:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smiley Award

Feel free to place this award on your user page, as a token of appreciation for your contributions. If you're willing to help spread the good cheer to others, please see the project page for the Random Smiley Award at: User:Pedia-I/SmileyAward

[edit] Marshall Kirk

I love your article on Marshall Kirk. I wish my articles were so good. --Wiki Eto Klevo 06:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)