User talk:George.Saliba

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[edit] Welcome to the Wikipedia!

Welcome to the Wikipedia, George.Saliba! Hope you enjoy editing here and becoming a Wikipedian! Here are a few perfunctory tips to hasten your acculturation into the Wikipedia experience:

Some odds and ends: Boilerplate text, Brilliant prose, Cite your sources, Civility, Conflict resolution, How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Pages needing attention, Peer review, Policy Library, Utilities, Verifiability, Village pump, Wikiquette, and you can sign your name on any page by typing 4 tildes: ~~~~.

Best of luck, George.Saliba, and have fun! Ombudsman 18:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lebanon Reverts

Why the reverts? Was the information added incorrect? As someone not that knowledgeable about the topic it seems strange that you reverted what seemed like it could have been accurate information with any explanation. --Ben Houston 00:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My initial view of the two changes I reverted was that, aside from being quite bad grammatically, they seemed laced with POV and out of place. The references to "full-scale 'so-called' civil war" and the popularity of Bachir Gemayel seemed to reflect POV (as far as information I can find, he seems to have been much more of a polarizing figure than a uniting one). Also, The first change talks about some of the names given to the war over an eleven year period in a section titled "Beginning of the War". I didn't totally understand the second edits reference to no declaration of war between Israel and Lebanon "to date" when, to the best of my knowledge at least, Israeli troops have withdrawn from Lebanon (with the possible exception of the disputed Shebaa Farms area). At any rate, I'm going to revert my previous revert, in the hopes that any useful information that was there can be cleaned up an preserved. George Saliba 01:35, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lebanon edits

Hey there, thank you very much for your edits to the article Lebanon. I just wanted to note that you marked all your edits as minor. Minor edits should be superficial edits that you believe will be agreed upon by all editors. While I personally agree with all of your edits (and think they've been quite an improvement to the article), you should use that minor edit check box a little less often :), especially for correcting typographical errors and grammar.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to invite you to join WikiProject Lebanon. If you're interested enough in editing Lebanon-related articles, please list yourself as a member. Thanks again. LestatdeLioncourt talk 16:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for clarifying. I honestly wasn't sure what the difference between major and minor edits was. :) I figured major edits were adding new articles and the like. I'll try to be more accurate in the future. Also I'll definately take a look at the WikiProject. While I don't edit Lebanon-related articles exclusively, they're definately articles I try to keep an eye on. Thanks. George Saliba 23:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Nice Edits. I'm the guy who wrote all the stuff you deleted. So you think details of Hariri assassination such as the origins of the vehicle used for the assassination, the details of the local lebanese investigation, the reasons why the international community dismissed their findings out of hand and setup the Mehlis UN investigation... these are all irrelevant details?
You also removed mention of the main evidence in the Mehlis report used to implacate syria which relies on testimony from syrian agents "that defected" and to turn against Syria and testify against them. That's irrelevant detail? Isn't wikipedia supposed to be about detail? How can you have too much detail in an encyclopedia? Isn't that what you go to an encyclopedia for?
If you could prove that this detail is factually incorrect, then I would agree you would be right to remove it. But we both know you can't, because the source of the text is almost entirely word for word out of the Mehlis report and associated news reports. If you think it is a biased representation of the facts, fine !!! Go do some research and include some additional detail that you think give a more balanced representation of the events. But simply removing well-documented details regarding a topic is just plain censorship.
Basically you've left nothing but hear-say dribble with no factual content at all. If this is how wikipedia is going to deal with this I think you'd be better off removing all mention of the assassination all together, it would be better to have nothing there than what you've currently got. But of course you can't because this assassination marks a turning point in the history of Lebanon, it's a really major event. Is this really the best Wikipedia can do? "Yep Hariri got assassinated. Pity that. The Syrians did it. Now move along, nothing to see here!"
User:Micktion
The main article about Lebanon contains a summary about the Cedar Revolution. It should be just that—a summary. As such, I moved your text (note: moved, not deleted) to the correct location in the main article about the Cedar Revolution. It is not appropriate for a summary about the Cedar Revolution, but is entirely relevant to the main article and worth keeping. George Saliba 03:48, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use image use

Please do not add images marked with a fair use tag such as {{promophoto}} or {{univ-logo}} to non-main namespace pages, such as templates or userpages. Doing so violates our policies on fair use. Specifically, Wikipedia:Fair use criteria item #9. See Category:Non-free image copyright tags for all tags in the non-free images category which falls under this restriction. Twice today you added Image:University-of-Colorado-Boulder-sports-logo.png to templates ([1],[2]). The policy proscribes actions like those. If you have any questions about this, I'd be happy to answer. --Durin 19:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying this for me. I had no idea that the user templates weren't covered under the fair use criteria. Good job keeping an eye out. :) George Saliba 19:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict civilian casualty numbers

Thanks for reverting my change to these numbers. I completely missed the existing reference when i was editing it. I wanted to let you know that I've updated the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict article with the latest figures from the article they cite (http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/middle_east/pdf/061109_Lebanon_SitRep_06.pdf), which was last updated November 3, 2006. Any thoughts on replacing the Lebanon article's reference with this one, and updating the figures accordingly? On the one hand, these figures are more up to date, but on the other I'm not sure which organization has the more accurate data. Cheers. George Saliba 08:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah sure go ahead and update the numbers. Your source is more up-to-date and perhaps carries more authority with it than the UNDP report. LestatdeLioncourt talk 09:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Matn

George: A friendly hello and a courtesy note to let you know that I changed Metn back to Matn. My justification is that this is an Article about Lebanon. The Lebanese in Lebanon, and many Lebanese around the world, do not typically use Metn in English, they use Matn (North Matn, Higher Matn, etc... ). Also, AUB, a highly respected University in Lebanon uses Matn not Metn [3]. The same applies to Matn University in Jdaideh (the capital of Al Matn) [4]. Thank you. Khaled. Lcnj 05:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Khaled. I understand your reasoning, but I have to respectfully disagree. Metn is the more common spelling in English (google Metn Lebanon versus Matn Lebanon), and the AUB site you cited also uses Metn in more recent versions [5]. I agree that the Matn University officially uses Matn, but I can't say that this is true for all uses of Metn in general, and for all I know may be left over from the French language. I'm going to post on the Lebanon discussion page in the hopes that we can form consensus on the issue. I encourage you to join in the discussions there. Thanks. George Saliba 05:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lebanon and Good Articles

Hi George,

I am thoroughly impressed by your diligence and conscientiousness with respect to Lebanon. Keep up the good work!

I would like to say something about WP:GA, though. It is not impossible that the assessment could be reviewed and the GA rating delisted, based on the large number of {{fact}} tags currently on the article. [In fact, I might even have to list it for review myself -- but I would wait three weeks or so, to give you time to work. But the point is, someone — anyone — could list the article for review, at any time, even right now. With that many tags, your chances of keeping the GA rating would be less than optimal.]

For that reason, I strongly suggest that you turn your attention to fixing those. :-)

Later, --Ling.Nut 00:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Ling, thanks for the suggestion. I'll do what I can. What's the general policy on statements marked with {{fact}} that people can't find references for for a prolonged period? Should we just leave the statements, comment them out, or do we remove them at some point? George Saliba 02:35, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
There is no general policy. :-) You might find numbers (such as population figures) from gov't sources; from any reputable source if not. You might find generalities on reputable popular news sources. You can remove a few tags (being very detailed in your edit summary about why you are removing them), but if you remove too many, it kinda looks bad. Don't forget http://scholar.google.com/
Cites/references are especially important for a controversial topic.
--Ling.Nut 05:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
BTW, do you have any college students or academics or other people who have access to the LexisNexis database working with you. Using the LexisNexis database for news articles, you could probably wipe out most of them, tho it would take time.
Your email isn't activated. I was gonna send an example. But see if anyone has access to it. --Ling.Nut 06:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately I don't. This Google Scholars looks very promising, however. I like to use Google News for looking for recent citations, but Google Scholars should help a lot for less current event citations. Thanks for the tip! George Saliba 06:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signature question for you

Hi Lestat, I just started playing around with my signature, and I have a quick question for you. How do you make the date at the end of your signature small? My preferences page is unhappy when I leave an unclosed <small> tag at the end, so I'm guessing I have to put something like <small>?</small>, I'm just not sure what the ? should be. Thanks. — George Saliba [talk] 11:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I simply sign the date manually, by adding <small>~~~~~</small>. So your signature would end up being: ~~~ <small>~~~~~</small>. LestatdeLioncourt talk 11:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Doh, I didn't even consider the obvious. Thanks! — George Saliba [talk] 12:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need your opinion

Please check out Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Lebanon/Assessment and post any comments you may have. LestatdeLioncourt talk 14:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

The user with IP 84.54.30.3 is filling the page with pure POV edits. I'm afraid I don't know the proper procedures to warn them, escalate, etc., but I've been reverting their edits as fast as I can, while maintaining other peoples edits. If one of you has a chance, please give them a warning on their talk page. Thanks. — George Saliba [talk] 23:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

There are a number of ways you can deal with vandalism. First you should go to the anon's talk page and post the appropriate vandalism warning template (see this page for more detail). Very frequent vandalism by anons can be dealt with by requesting semi-protection. It's usually expected of the editor who reverted the vandalism to post the warning templates, but many people ignore this practice. I've already warned the IP you mentioned with {{test0}}, so don't worry about that :). LestatdeLioncourt talk 13:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Awesome! Very useful link, thanks! — George Saliba [talk] 19:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me for being a little too nosy (and bossy), but there's one thing I forgot to mention: you should generally replace lower-order templates for the same type of vandalism with higher-order templates. For example, when you want to post {{test2}} on a vandal's talk page, you should remove the existing {{test1}} template (generally the one relating to your own article in case of vandalism to several articles) and replace it with your new one. Hope this is useful. LestatdeLioncourt talk 13:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, thanks man. I always welcome useful suggestions. :) — George Saliba [talk] 21:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Sincere Thank You!...

George, buddy... You make my life soooooo easy... and make me a little lazy and not learn Wikipedia stuff as quickly as I should... like how to make those nifty reference marks... Yes I put a great effort into my edit, but I am always comforted knowing that you'd come after me and make it look nicer without changing my content as an Editor and displaying utter civility and respect... :).... A sincere "Thank You, mate" is due!... I think we should start thinking about cloning cool editors like you and that "teen" LeStat... :) Lcnj 06:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, no problem man, and thanks. I actually laughed when I saw you sign your edit to the Lebanon article with the ~~~~. I've come very close to doing that myself many times. :) And ya man, we could totally use more Lestat! — George Saliba [talk] 06:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV pushing

Hi, why do you recognize Hezbollah as pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian movement , while you don't recognize 14 March as pro-American and pro-Arabia one. Your edition[6] is unjust. "Most Shiites see Saad Hariri as a proxy of the Saudi royal family, handpicked to carry on his father's mission of transforming Lebanon into a corrupt, elitist republic with an "open for business" pro-Western foreign policy."[7]--Sa.vakilian 07:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sa.vakilian, please don't misinterpret - I don't see the March 14 Alliance as not pro-American and pro-Arabian. In general, the terms that seem to be used in media are:
  • For the opposition group (Hezbollah, Amal, FPM): pro-Syrian, Iranian-backed
  • For the ruling government (March 14): anti-Syrian, pro-US, pro-Western, US-supported, Western-backed, Arab-backed, Saudi-backed - these are all fine with me.
I'm absolutely fine with you adding these to balance the article. I do not, however, agree with removing information. Please feel free to add such terms, with appropriate references and such of course. I do not believe I have any POV in this matter. — George Saliba [talk] 07:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
My input... I am fine with a "balance of POV's" as long as I see a "balance"... but I am seeing that George is doing all he can to bring a "balance of POV's" while vakilian is pushing ONE POV. vakilian, can you give me a civil reposnse to my question re: NPOV ? Thanks. Lcnj 00:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ali Ahmad Mahmoud

George. If you are sure his father is Ali, then your reasoning is correct. However, many Lebanese sources (as well as the news in Arabic) refer to him as Ali Ahmad Mahmoud. Take a look at [8] and [9]. Unless you are sure his father is Ali and his name is Ahmad Ali Mahmoud, I would go with how the Lebanese call him. They know best... I will let you make the final call unless I have better info in the future... Either way, may her rest in peace... What a waste of valuable human life... Lcnj 16:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Lcnj. Indeed, what a waste. I'm not 100% sure on his fathers name, but the Associated Press reported[10] his name as Ali: "Mahmoud‘s father, Ali, said he initially had thought of revenge, but backed down after a visit by envoys of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and his ally, Parliament Speaker and leader of the Shiite Amal Movement Nabih Berri, who said vengeance would only play into the hands of those trying to divide Lebanon." — George Saliba [talk] 23:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey thanks

Hey thanks for that George, you're a champion. It looks pretty good on my Jieh page. I'm wondering if you know how to integrate a video into a wikipedia page? Is it possible you think? Prince Cadmus II 10:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey Cadmus, no problem. If you're able to get some coordinate locations on the Jieh page the infobox I added is capable of doing some basic mapping (see Bteghrine as an example).
I'm not sure how to integrate a video, although I think it's possible. You should take a look at Media and the video policy. Hope that helps. — George Saliba [talk] 10:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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