User talk:Kessler/Archive1

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[edit] Welcome to the Wikipedia

I noticed you were new, and wanted to share some links I thought useful:

• Wikipedia:Tutorial
• Wikipedia:Help desk
• M:Foundation issues
• Wikipedia:Policy Library

For more information click here. You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~~~~.

Sam Spade Apply now, exciting opportunities available at Spade & Archer! 23:53, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Terrorism

Thanks for your message. I would have responded to you right away, but I decided to address the problem first. Removing large chunks of content from Wikipedia is highly discouraged, which is why I felt comfortable reverting this on sight. However, as you said it is important to open a dialog with the user in question. I responded to Finnishing's message on the article's discussion page. I also left him a welcome message on his talk page, as I don't think he's a vandal and I didn't want him to feel bitten. If you have any questions about how to do these things feel free to ask on my talk page. Happy editing! --Canderson7 20:46, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bihar

Wow

I really appreciate your copyedit of the article on Bihar. Admirable painstaking work.

TV 20:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The case of the eaten text

Hi, Kessler, I hope you weren't too frazzled by the mysterious behavior of the article Genghis Khan and the case of the eaten text! I found the root of the problem and put a note on WP:AN under your post. Best wishes, Bishonen | talk 10:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Wolff's book on Bach

Sorry I didn't reply to your comments; I must have missed them on my watch list. I loved Wolff's book, which was why I was disappointed to learn that there are antagonists. The person in question is a musicologist from Quebec who I know. Tony 09:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Tony,

Wolff's book is the leading target, nowadays, so of course stones must be thrown. He & it can take it. See John Butt's comments in his review, which I quoted... These are not really "antagonists", tho: polite academia term might be "fellow-seekers-of-truth" -- that from the same academics who define a "quiz" as an "opportunity-to-gauge-progress". Wolff's book reads well and has sold like crazy, too: both of these being classical reasons for academic jealousy...

Butt's point is better-taken than Wolff's in my own opinion, in fact -- Newton was more the Enlightenment scientist than Bach was, I think, ditto Leibniz -- but Wolff has opened us to consideration of some new and mind-stretching possibilities about both Bach and the German Enlightenment, at least, and for that he deserves much credit. Lotsa new dissertations and articles and books to be written & even published, now... :-)

--Kessler 18:49, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] segolene royal page cleanup?

Why did you put a cleanup tag on the segolene royal page? --Kessler 16:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I have not; Pearle only refiles existing cleanup tags by month. Max rspct and Docu have both tagged the article for cleanup, at different times. I surmise that the largest problem is that the biblography is in need of translation and reformatting. For example, "avril" should be "April". The big-blue-box format is quite jarring, and is not in line with usual English Wikipedia practices. See Ancient_Egypt#Further_reading for a case in point of how it's usually done. Wikipedia:Cite sources/example style has a more comprehensive list which shows how to put references in a more preferable format. Machine-readable citations may become a standard feature in the future (perhaps through the efforts of the m:Wikidata project) but are not a current goal. However, formatting references using the templates at Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations would make it easy to do bulk, automated conversion of citations across many Wikipedia articles to some newer format. The prose part of the article also needed some cleanup. I did what I could, but I left some comments and questions on the talk page regarding some issues that I could not resolve. Thanks for your work on this article! -- Beland 21:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

OK thanks for your reply. I see the comment you've just posted on Talk:Ségolène Royal. I'll try to defer to the original author of the prose content -- I just did the bibliography -- for a few days, and then tend to the points your raise about that myself.

As for the point you make about the bibliography, per your suggestion I've just posted to m:Wikidata about that: automated / machine-readable citation use is more common already than you perhaps believe it to be, I myself am convinced, but maybe a group meta effort would be best for implementing an approach to that -- for now I'll reduce & translate the BnFrance tagged formatting in the Ségolène Royal article.

--Kessler 19:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iffley

Thanks for the extra content you added to this article and for taking the trouble to obtain permission from the original publishers to use their text. However, it is not usual to insert large blocks of unprocessed text from elsewhere and I wonder therefore whether you would consider working it over in line with the standard conventions (I see above that Sam Spade has given you the necessary links) and integrating it into the article? Thanks.Staffelde 13:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

OK I'll try to get around to this soon -- under some time & projects pressure at the moment, tho.

--Kessler 22:48, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough - I'll stop bothering you about it! Staffelde 17:32, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

No bother -- thanks for the heads-up -- I figure we're all on a learning curve, here. --Kessler 22:15, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, done that.

--Kessler 00:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shalom

Hi there Kessler - I've responded to your point about Ben Bernanke on that page's discussion page. Gabriel Rozenberg 00:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly unfree Image:Cephalonia and Ithaca elevation.jpg

OK I'm getting the license.

--Kessler 16:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It might possibly be simpler to create your own and release it under a Creative Commons License or to the Public Domain yourself. See the instructions at the end of [1]. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It needs to come from the copyright holder, doesn't it? That's my understanding so far... that he holds the copyright and has granted me permission to post it on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia permission to show it, but that the license is something different and additional -- the license is to me & Wikipedia & others to make use of the image so long as we/they observe the license conditions, which he has to grant not me. Isn't that the way this works?

--Kessler 22:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the license as it is, is that Wikipedia wants its content to be freely distributable. If we have specific permission to use it here only, that can't be done. So it has be be available under a license that allows us to do that, and yes, it has to come from the copyright holder.

However, if you create a map yourself, then you will be the copyright holder and can license it as you please. This is true even if it strongly resembles the original since it's based on standard geographical data. The instructions at the end of the document tell you how to generate maps using the same tool the book authors used; it doesn't give you access to their proprietary work.

Don't parse the warning message too closely; it's a standard template intended to cover several issues at once and not all of it is applicable. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

OK that's what I understood, then: if I hold the copyright, I can license -- but if someone else does, that someone else has to -- he can grant me & Wikipedia the right simply to show his stuff, but Wikipedia wants a free-use license from him in addition... Makes sense. I've asked him about it, but just haven't heard back from him yet: he's probably churning through the GNU legalese.

--Kessler 22:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

OK the GNU license is there, now. Someone (else/other than me) pls remove the warning template.

--Kessler 19:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Odysseus unbound

I am sorry Kessler, but you may need to spend some time on Wikipedia to get an idea how it is organized. Most of the categories in your article were simply wrong. Most of the material I removed was completely offtopic. Either generical information relating to Homer or Odysseus, or almost surreal things like the Manesse codex (14th century), the Gutenberg bible (15th century), an image of an Estonian rock formation,... I'm sorry, but it almost looked like the article was a hoax. We have Homer's Ithaca where you can discuss generic arguments relating to the identification of Homer's Ithaca. Your new article seems to be entirely about the book, Odysseus Unbound. Anything beyond that topic may either be discussed on Homer's Ithaca or on Paliki. Please don't try to write a belletristic master piece of popular science there but stick to the topic of the article. dab (ᛏ) 16:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

dab: re. points you've made today --

> 09:34, 13 March 2006 Dbachmann "what is this even about?" + the geographical article on Paliki should obviously be seperate from all this Homeric stuff, whatever the merits of the latter. What are the geographical templates doing on this article? dab (ᛏ) 09:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

The article is not about Paliki geography, it is about the Paliki "Homeric stuff", as you put it: the new archaeological discoveries on Paliki... The geographical templates point to the locations of those -- that is what the historical controversies in this case have been about, those locations.

> 09:54, 13 March 2006 Dbachmann m (moved Talk:Paliki, Homer's Ithaca to Talk:Odysseus Unbound: move to book title) ok, this article was in serious need of focus. It is about a specific hypothesis, "Paliki = Ulysses' Ithaca", as put forward in the Odysseus Unbound book. I removed all offtopic stuff that properly belongs on Trojan War, Homeric scholarship or Odyssey, as well as the more misguided categorization, and moved the article to the book title. Paliki should of course be the article about the peninsula itself, and now links to this article. dab (ᛏ) 09:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

What right do you have to move this article, rename it, and edit it to change its focus entirely, particularly without discussing this with any of the rest of us who have been discussing it? Is it your status as "administrator"? I'd like to know more about that, if so: seems to me this is an arbitrary and high-handed procedure, then -- what & where are the rules validating you and allowing you to do this? I am questioning how democratic Wikipedia really is, here.

And no, the "stuff" you removed is not off-topic: the article is not about "the Trojan War" or "Homeric scholarship" or the "Odyssey" -- it is about new archaeological discoveries on Paliki which combine all of those topics plus philology and geology and transmission of texts and several more. You are mistaken.

And on my User talk site you just said:

> I am sorry Kessler, but you may need to spend some time on Wikipedia to get an idea how it is organized.

So educate me, dab: tell me where to go on Wikipedia to learn more... But the approach you've taken so far, on this, is just high-handed and arrogant and I believe ignorant: you don't appear to understand this subject, or to have the patience to instruct others where and when you believe we're wrong -- you just slash & burn, and make patronizing comments. That's no way to recruit and develop good people, if Wikipedia has any interest in doing so.

> Most of the categories in your article were simply wrong. Most of the material I removed was completely offtopic.

The article is about archaeology, as I've also said to you today on your own Talk page: the two basic sciences involved at Paliki, so far, have been philology and geology -- transmission of texts is a third field of study, also involved, for which the article included a brief explanation and cites -- current Wikipedia articles on these and other Paliki-related subjects either don't exist or are too general to cover the specific application to Paliki of the discoveries made there.

That is the point of Wikipedia "categories", isn't it? To link similar/related topics which nevertheless have to be given separate treatment? That is the point of any link. This is not an article about philology, or geology, or "The Trojan War" -- this is about the discoveries at Paliki, which does involve all of those but only as links.

> Either generical information relating to Homer or Odysseus, or almost surreal things like the Manesse codex (14th century), the Gutenberg bible (15th century), an image of an Estonian rock formation,...

These were images, originally included by me to illustrate the article's text, then deleted after discussion with others in the Talk section...

I still think I was right to include them: as I said in the discussion, which you appear not to have read, I don't understand how Wikimedia Commons ever is going to work if Wikipedia won't allow the use of its images -- and to me and to most, I believe, an image is something which can have non-literal uses -- so an image of an "Estonian rock formation" may be used to symbolize "geology", and an image of a Gutenberg bible may be used to symbolize "printed text", and an image of a (any) manuscript codex may be used to symbolize "manuscript text", which is how I'd used them -- images very often are used in this manner. By your Wikipedia definition of the use of images, it appears to me, the only use of an image taken from "the Manesse codex (14th century)" which you would permit would be for an article entitled, exactly, "The Manesse codex (14th century)" -- that's ridiculously limited, and not the way images are used.

But, procedurally, I did defer to the Wikipedia Discussion for the article and deleted the worst-offending images, myself, per this literalist interpretation of their use, when it was urged there by others. That's democracy, as I understand it, for better or for worse...

What you just have done is not, though: no discussion, no participation, no regard for other people's points of view, just a high-handed edit. That is anti-democratic.

> I'm sorry, but it almost looked like the article was a hoax.

Don't be sorry, and it wasn't. It was a very serious piece, intended to describe a very significant historical and scientific and cultural discovery. It took a very long time to compile and compose and discuss and edit and re-edit and discuss again, here on Wikipedia. A great deal of thought by a number of people went into it. You responded to one critic, without participating in any of the discussion yourself: every theory has its critics -- Darwin has his critics, Newton even has his critics, even Galileo still has his critics... And Bittleston/Diggle/Underhill have theirs: in their case I'd say, myself, that you have backed the wrong horse, in listening to the sole critic here to whom you chose to listen -- Underhill is a very well-regarded geologist, and Diggle is a leading classical philologist with an international reputation. Not a hoax, dab, neither them nor the article.

> We have Homer's Ithaca where you can discuss generic arguments relating to the identification of Homer's Ithaca.

That is not the purpose of the "Homer's Ithaca" article, which I set up. There are a great many historical ideas, theories, notions, fantasies, about the location of Ithaca: ranging from Eratosthenes, to every tourist-business-minded village in Ionia, to plenty of nuts who have woven possibilities out of thin air -- you will see references in that article now to Greenland, Culloden Moor in Scotland, the Gog Magog hills of Cambridgeshire...

The point of that article is to provide a framework for discussion of all of those precursor theories -- the scientists and the nuts among them -- there are many, and they are fascinating, but that is a subject in itself and has no room for the detailed explanation of the current leading hypothesis in the field, represented by Bittlestone/Diggle/Underhill now.

The latter certainly deserves its own article: plenty are in composition for other journals and reference works as we speak, and Wikipedia needs its own -- my hope, too, is that others will write Wikipedia articles on some of the more interesting older theories as well, such as Dörpfeld's work on Lefkas, or the several folks who have worked on Ithaki island -- that's all valid archaeology, correct or not in its conclusions, and of great historical significance for several scientific fields. Like Schliemann's work on Troy, or the work of Evans on Knossos...

But Paliki needs its own article: to present Bittlestone/Diggle/Underhill, yes -- just as one on Troy excavations would present Schliemann -- but also any discussion of the new idea, including discussion by its critics, and references to previous and competing ideas on the subject, which the Paliki article includes in its Resources and links, and which it can fold into its text as the academic discussion develops.

> Your new article seems to be entirely about the book, Odysseus Unbound. Anything beyond that topic may either be discussed on Homer's Ithaca or on Paliki.

No, it isn't, and no it can't: there is nowhere near enough room to include all of the necessary and interesting detail of the Paliki discoveries in a comprehensive article on "Homer's Ithaca" -- the latter article already is reaching a large size simply with its listing of the most major historical theories on the location, so adding "Paliki" detail to that not only would unbalance it but would make it too big.

The "Homer's Ithaca" article is an index: urged by the suggestion of Bittlestone/Diggle/Underhill critics that "other options" be considered. We have a religious fundamentalism controversy surging at the moment, here in the US, which also urges that "Creationism" be taught on an equal basis with "Evolution" in our school science classes... but, no matter, several of the "other options" for the location of Homer's Ithaca are in fact interesting, even if they are not scientifically credible, so they are listed at "Homer's Ithaca", and hopefully some of them will be expanded in their own articles and so linked there.

A geographic "Paliki" article, which I understand to be your second suggestion, is not suited to the "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca" topic, either. Wikipedia already contains an assortment of such geographic articles for the Ionian region: Kefalonia, Lefkas, Ithaca -- the last an entirely different island, Ithaki, calling itself "Homer's Ithaca" in spite of obvious errors in the claim which have been known for centuries -- and "Paliki" in fact is not an island, although it once was, but now a peninsula of Kefalonia... So the geographic things are complicated, here: complications avoided, and clarified, by establishing a separate article for "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca".

The other "geographic" island articles, anyway, are devoted to chamber-of-commerce and touristic-style description: "local sports teams", "forestry & fishing", "radio & television", local government structure -- the "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca" is not about any of that, not even about its history -- Homer and the Odyssey and the discovery of archaeology substantiating it are Western civilization and several of its sciences, like Schliemann and Troy.

The "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca" article addresses, specifically and in some detail, a major archeological discovery and the debate about it. The methodology pursued by the specialists involved -- Diggle's philology, Underhill's geology, and the discussion of that by their critics -- is its central theme. I see no other place on Wikipedia for this: not in any of the articles which you or the one critic who reported this to you have suggested -- if this is a turf war of some sort I really feel Wikipedia's purposes will be better served by being broad-minded than narrow. The Paliki issue in academia certainly is going that way: the articles and papers and conferences, in classics and transmission of texts and paleography and many other fields, all certainly are going "broad" rather than "narrow", on this -- it will be a loss to Wikipedia if it just slots it into some tourist article or calls it a book review. The Bittlestone/Diggle/Underhill view is important, yes, but other views on Paliki -- including the views of sceptics and critics -- do need to be added, now and as they develop.

Restoration of the article to its original title is what I'd plead for, here. Discussion of the article's structure and expansion and the direction of that to me seems best conducted in the Talk section there.

> Please don't try to write a belletristic master piece of popular science there but stick to the topic of the article. dab (ᛏ) 16:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's discuss in "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca" Talk and make changes, then... I don't think my writing is "belletristic master piece of popular science", and I believe I "stick to the topic of the article"; but if others disagree I still am very willing to listen and to learn -- and to change, and to see others make changes. But discussion is the key, I believe: give some reasons, make some alternative suggestions -- to me that's democracy, and what you just have done here is not.

--Kessler 18:57, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

well, Wikipedia is not a democracy. My edits were straightforward and in line with WP:MoS. I do not dispute that your article is valid, and I left the core content untouched, but "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca" is not a valid article title (unless it refers to a book title), it is an assertion (a hypothesis). And there is no reason to pile generic information on Homeric scholarship etc. on an article with the specific scope of discussing Paliki as a candidate for Homeric Ithaca: Your article, whatever we shall title it, is a specialized sub-article of Homeric Ithaca, and you shouldnt try to make it into more than it is, or spam links to it all over Wikipedia. I'm not trying to stop you from presenting Paliki as the most likely candidate on that article, I just don't see what that has to do with all the superfluous junk I removed from the article. But we should wait for what other editors have to say on the matter, of course. And if you are unsatisfied with the feedback you get on the talkpage, you may put the matter on WP:PR. regards, dab (ᛏ) 19:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I am interested to find that Wikipedia is not a democracy. My own understanding of that term very much includes the definition offered by the link you provide: "Its primary method of finding consensus is discussion" -- I'd say there is more to democracy than just that, but that consensus and discussion are important parts of democracy. I'm not going to lecture to someone in Zurich about democracy, though, or consensus, but they're at least complicated subjects: if Wikipedia has come up with operable new definitions, it will interest me very much to see how they work in practice.

But yes, your edits were straightforward, and yes I now see that you did leave the core content -- if not untouched, exactly, then at least intact. The old title and the extra "stuff" opened the article more to expansion, while your edits now restrict it to a very narrow mere-description, I think. But editors always do this, I realize: encyclopedias don't always, and certainly Diderot's did not, but most editors do. We'll just have to see what other editors say, then, as you suggest. I hope they won't want to cut further: it's discouraging enough to see this amount of slicing -- any more and doing real research for writing here will seem not worth the effort.

The Homer's Ithaca page, as I said, is not intended to subsume this one. My intention -- my hope -- is that others will take on the other entries there, and give Wikipedia additional material on the archaeology which has been involved. Wikipedia readers ought to know about Dörpfeld's work on Lefkas, and Ithaki island's longstanding claims to "Ithaca", and the others; just as they ought to know about Schliemann's work at Troy, and that of Evans on Crete, and whatever history may be salvageable now in Mesopotamia. "Western civilization" needs more than just a footnote, or a generalized summary, if we are to understand it: and we need to, for all the good as well as the bad that it has done and still is doing.

"Specialized sub-article", then... Yes, that was my own intention too, although I'd hoped for more uniformity in the titles: with the article on "Paliki, Homer's Ithaca" parallel to one on "Lefkas, Homer's Ithaca", and "Kefalonia, Homer's Ithaca", etc., each focused not on geography but on very specifically the Homeric archaeology. Now I don't see how that effort would scale up: I suppose with links from an expanded Wilhelm Dorpfeld article into the Homer's Ithaca page, also from articles on other relevant Ithaca researchers -- no longer geographically-oriented but now instead linked to the writers' names -- just have to see.

My intention was not to "spam links all over Wikipedia", tho: I've always thought the more links the better, in hypertext, but links do have to be relevant -- I don't think I put in any irrelevant Paliki links -- there were a lot, true, but this "Homer & literature & philology & geology & history & other things" subject seemed to call for each of them.

I do appreciate your explanation, here. I still am offended by your procedure: changing and erasing and telling us only after -- it seems to me that basic courtesy, if not democracy, requires notification and discussion prior to the event instead of after. I see that you have been on Wikipedia for a long time, in Wikipedia years: the models which may have worked for your smaller community originally will not scale up well to the broader world which Wikipedia now inhabits, I think -- editing this is a lot of work, I can imagine, but newbies not "in the club" increasingly will object to high-handed actions by an "elite". Sooner or later that political structure has to be explained, better than it is now: you've been more polite about it than others have, but politeness is arbitrary -- a big democracy, or consensus, needs something more predictable than just politeness, particularly post hoc. Prior discussion, if only to "warn", makes the medicine go down more easily.

But OK, then, I'll wait and watch and work with the new title you've given this. Your help here, and your patience in this last explanation, are much appreciated.

--Kessler 21:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merapi Map

Hi there, in my active period on wiki (long since past) I would have reverted your map immediately. Its a heap of crap, like most maps of java. However, you seem to be a good internet person, so I did not do that, but would seek your perspective on why you think its a good map? It might "look good" but it is a seriously deficient map. I do not think such maps should be endorsed on wikipedia. It does not identify gunung merbabu, or muntilan or kaliurang. I could labour at length the reasoning on why most maps of central java are a waste of time, but then I could have done an honours thesis on that. While I lived in Yogyakarta some years ago I had head banging experiences with periplus about the blatant errors on their maps of java and yogya and they couldnt be bothered in the slightest even when mistakes were pointed out. Unfortunately my good maps of merapi and surrounds are in storage and wont be out and sorted till the end of the year. One of the problems of wiki, everyone contributes, and so much junk gets in. The villages around the summit go as close as 4 km from the peak. Old dutch maps are the best, as the detail is annoyingly complex - just the names of the villages you quote are _not_ in any way the villages that are at risk - the map does not even have any of the villages which have the volcanology observation posts in. babadan, selo, kaliurang for three of them for a start are not in sight, they have people living in them, i have had the pleasure of meeting the people in those villages. they are not on the msn map. the msn encarta map is not worth the jpeg it is in. anyone could go to an old dutch map and pull whatever name they like off the map. Sorry to be a nuisance, but I think the merapi article exemplifies why I have gone off most of wiki (and my 15 year old uses it for homework and leaves me in apoplexy) and I will leave it at that for the moment. Sorry to be damp blanket on this one SatuSuro 01:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi SatuSuro,

It is good to meet you, and I am glad to know that there is someone out there in the Internet aether as familiar with the Central Java area, particularly its geography and vulcanology and cartography, as you appear to be. I suppose the only reply I can make, to your criticisms of the Encarta map link I put in and praised, is that "good" always is a relative term: in the present context "better than all the others" is the qualification I would put on it -- "others" meaning here the other maps currently available online via that Wikipedia article.

I looked through the latter bunch, briefly, and saw none which responded to my own personal question, which concerns the potential loss of human life from the current Merapi activity. I wanted to know where the people are: how close, how near the path of the gas emission & eruption & lavaflow & ashflow etc. -- I didn't find anything particularly useful, in the Wikipedia article or linked to it, which indicated any of that. So I went out hunting, online, and linked Encarta's map which at least shows the locations of a few towns. If there is something better which is available online -- available to Wikipedia, as well, given all their concerns about copyright and Creative Commons licensing and so on -- I certainly hope you or someone else will add it, and then by all means dump the Encarta map link if the addition is any better.

Your interest in the old Dutch maps, and in others which might show things in Central Java well, is shared by me and by many more of us out here. I hope you will pursue it, and figure out some way to link it in to Wikipedia. Wikipedia may be "shared junk", as you say, but it has that in common with the libraries & museums & most of the academia of the world: the trick always is the "DNA strategy", to filter out the good stuff from the junk -- libraries for example function by the 80/20 inventory rule, in which only that smaller percentage of the collection ever really gets read or really is worth reading, and museums and general academia probably are more like 90/10... What Wikipedia and the Internet overall give us is greater "sharing" than we ever have had before: now it is up to us, and not the many self-appointed elites who used to do it "for" the rest of us, to do the filtering. So I hope you'll help.

Your thoughtful note is much appreciated,

--Kessler 18:29, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

p.s. Your 15-year-old is the future, as you no doubt realize: encourage her/him to use Wikipedia, but like any other secondary resource -- as a good entry-point for an overview, but one which must be backed up by further research into the "original sources"... That is why I add "resource lists", of bibliographies & links, to Wikipedia articles on which I work. If a Wikipedia citation appears in a college-level paper there will be & should be trouble, you might advise; but the same always has been true, as well, for Britannica or any other "encyclopedia" -- this doesn't make secondary resources any less valuable -- that initial "overview" has stimulated more than one youthful student excitement, for a subject which may become a lifelong interest.

Thank you for your considered response, you have raised enough subjects that to positively respond to would take a large space. I only hope that I will be able to contribute with the dutch materials and others that I accumululated some years ago! It should be later in the year! I should be more tolerant of other contributors!

Best Wishes SatuSuro 13:04, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Nice meeting you over the Bernier article. Your discussion on Homer's Ithaca raises points I feel great sympathy for. Let's not get discouraged. Wikipedia is great for sharing knowledge as well as for studying the psychology behind the actual working of human intelligence. It's fun to participate in adding content, it's fun to watch the debate in the backroom. Perhaps never so much though as having a life away from this "damned contraption". What do you think ? (Lunarian 11:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC))

Salut Lunarian,

It is good to meet you as well. The Bernier article is fun, prompting me once again to read some of the things that guy wrote: my own view of the places he visited, which I saw during the 1970s and 1980s, must pale by comparison to his view of them back when he was bumping around over there -- latter-day Marco Polo, Bernier. The article could be further improved, I think, by the addition of something on the "influence" of Bernier: his books were best-sellers, after all, and they inspired much of the literary and commercial activity and military etc. which followed -- Colbert... -- so it might be fascinating to trace his influence, justified or not, upon the development of international trade, colonialism, globalization, modern understanding as well as misunderstanding among nations & races & cultures, etc.

As for that other discussion which you read well, yeah, I did get pretty hot-under-the-collar about that one, and I still am -- arbitrary & high-handed intrusion, I thought, also just plain sneaky on the part of that first guy, also un-Wikipedian -- there is a fine art to "establishing consensus", and those two definitely didn't "get" it, that time. The internal political structure of Wikipedia itself continues to be its greatest challenge: defining & enforcing ambit-of-action among its various decision-making elites -- it will be very interesting to see whether the current undefined & unevenly-enforced "casual" approach, à l'américain, really scales up, to a truly general-public & trans-national user base, or whether it's just naive. Two thousand plus years of political theory scepticism says "pure" democracy never works, altho there's always a first time for everything.

As for "discouragement", though, I don't discourage easily... :-) Yes Wikipedia is fun, and yes it is fascinating, and yes like most things fun & fascinating -- like favoritesubjects sex & religion & politics, for instance -- all have their frustrating moments, but these are part of the experience.

It is my own feeling in fact that, overall, Wikipedia may be the "index" which many of us have wanted to see develop for the entire Internet: the flexible organizing principle, and structure, which can give some sense of order or at least utility to the digital "information overload" chaos but without limiting it -- Wikipedia to me seems better, anyway, than the proprietary "filters" and secret commercial "search algorithms" which have been in use so far... "massively distributed collaboration", Mitchell Kapor calls the new idea...

But the jury still is out, on this last. Much depends on the inspiration from the top, where Jimmy Wales certainly is inspired & inspiring and he continues to hold to his democratic & open-ended vision -- but it depends also upon the bottom, where us mere users have to be good folks, and work hard, and stay reasonable, and keep our worst biases & preconceived notions off the table.

And also it depends upon the Wikipedia middle: where "administrators" and other elites -- who & which inevitably seem to surface in any human organization, including Wikipedia -- have to exercise good judgement & great self-discipline & much diplomacy... :-) So it ain't gonna be easy, but then nothing worthwhile ever is.

As to your "getalife" point, that is emphatically shared by me: one reason I'm learning Wikipedia now, in fact, as I've learned every other Internet and digital technique I've ever tackled, is that I find these things free me up for time-with-family and for taking-long-walks-in-the-park-with-my-dog and other similar -- thanks to Lotus123 & Yahoo & Google, plus & maybe most of all to a speed-typing class I took in high school, I now accomplish far more both monetarily & otherwise in 2.5 days per week than I ever did before working in offices 9-to-5, freeing me up now for plenty of play-time -- and per Mr. Greenspan lots of others are discovering this digital productivity miracle-cure now too (finally, as it took us a long time to dump the old in-basket). I believe Wikipedia may make a significant "killer app" contribution to this trend. I hope so, anyway. Yes it's the "time away from the tube" which really counts, but it takes efficient & productive use of the tube to get us there. Time to walk the dog again...

--Kessler 19:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

...or again leaf through the encyclopediae we used to "play" with as a child ! (Lunarian 12:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC))

Yep. Mine was an old edition of the World Book -- great pictures. :-)

--Kessler 17:32, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brasenose

I removed the link because it was to a non-notable person, for whom there's no Wikipedia article. It might be mildly interesting that a notable person's non-notable ancestor was educated at the College, but I'm not even sure that the information belongs in the article text; that's more open to debate, though. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

It's an odd notion to me, Mel, that the great great grandfather of George Washington might be a "non-notable" person, as you suggest. I would think that anyone interested in or even aware of George Washington would consider the fact that his great great grandfather was at Brasenose to be something of note -- making Lawrence, that connection, very "notable" in fact. Brasenose itself certainly seems to think so: they make a great deal of the connection on the college website, per the link which I provided. I am going to restore the link, then; although per your suggestion I'll also add a stub article on Lawrence -- not that presence on Wikipedia is a sole criterion of notability -- perhaps others on Wikipedia can tell us more about him there. --Kessler 13:59, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak about the Website, but the College doesn't normally make much of him (I was there as a graduate student for about twelve years in all, as well as another year as a lecturer, and he was never mentioned, to the best of my knowledge). I find it equally odd that anyone should think that merely being a (fairly distant, if direct) ancestor of someone notable makes a person notable; why should it? (In AfD discussions here, the consensus has certainly been that being related to a notable person – even a sibling or parent – isn't enough for notability.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:15, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Just regarding the website, Mel, the fact that there the "Washington connection" is made so prominent -- see,

http://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/history/alu/american.html

-- to me indicates that someone at the college, now if not when you were there perhaps, considers it to be an important part of their history. The website I am sure is well-vetted: nowadays websites are a vital part of college public relations -- no longer the simple student project, easily-ignored and easily-disavowed, which earlier academic websites once were.

I was at Brasenose myself 1971-2, and I do remember some allusion having been made back then to Washington, among the various "American connections" stories and jokes about same, perhaps, which were heaped upon me as a visiting Yank. The principal at that time had a good sense of humor and may have brought the subject up. The British often remind Americans, sometimes ruefully, that Jenny Churchill was "one of you lot", and the Harvardification of St. Mary Overie / Southwark Cathedral, and the Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe Americanization of Stratford-on-Avon and other such sites often are made objects of fun. So it seems to me that this Lawrence W's notability in the UK not only is very likely but in fact is well-established. Also, Wikipedia already has two other "Lawrence Washingtons" in it -- George's elder brother and grandfather, both arguably "notable" simply for their family relationship to George -- and I've just added in the one under discussion by us here.

I don't find any of this notability surprizing. One doesn't have to be a lathering-at-the-mouth genealogist to take some interest in the lineage of a "Father Of His Country" such as George. Yes Isaac Newton's parentage / lineage may not be so notable. But the US is a nation of immigrants, largely, and Americans in the US become particularly excited when lineage can be traced back to The Old Country, as this particular Lawrence does for us. It's also of great interest, for us in the US anyway, to discover yet more evidence that our Founding Fathers were less plebeian and populist than they were aristocratic and inheritors of British Tradition: which having had a great great grandfather at Oxford would seem to indicate for George.

So I appreciate the link's being left in. It is "notable" to Americans in the US, I think, and it appears to be notable to the British too, at least, or to the British at Brasenose, anyway. Whether it is to anyone else on the planet, well, I don't know: I expect most foreign students interested in Brasenose for their educations would know of "George Washington of the USA" and would think his ancestor's having been at BNC to be worth noting.

--Kessler 19:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I was just copy-editing the article when I checked the BNC page, and discovered that you'd essentially cut-and-pasted the article from it. I'm afraid that that's not allowed, and I've had to blank it and mark it as a copyright violation. In fact, if a new article can be created that's not a copyvio, the title will need to be changed — the date is arbitrary, being apparently the date of his Fellowship; we need either his birth and death dates, or some other way of distincguishing him. As he seems to have been utterly undistinguished, it's not clear how that would be done, but I'm sure that something could be managed. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Will you please un-blank and un-copyrightviolation that page: I am in the middle of writing it -- yes I'd just copied some material into it, but I rewrote most of that and was taking a break to get some work done before finishing the rest. A lot of work has gone into that article, and I'd appreciate being allowed to finish it.

--Kessler 22:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

OK I see now that's not the way this is done: someone pls delete it, then -- I'll finish it offline and re-submit.

--Kessler 23:36, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

You can start a new article (but remember, using non-copyright material from the start) at the temporary page linked to from the copyvio notice; that way, other editors can join in and help.

To be honest, though, if I'd seen the article under other circumstances I'd probably have put it up for AfD (and if I hadn't, I'm pretty sure someone else would have). The only thing about him that was of any notability was his relationship to a notable person four generations later. If that's enough for inclusion, then (even if we stop at great-great-grandparents) we need articles on sixty-two people (Washington's parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents). And why stop at the fourth generation? If we do that for every notable person, Wikipedia will probably have to have articles on everybody who ever existed up to about the 15th century. This seems to be a matter for family trees and a genealogy site, not for an encyclopædia. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I already put in the new article, it's at Lawrence Washington (1602-1655), with completed floreat dates at your suggestion. I did this before I'd read the bit about the special page for such rewrites; so in addition, and as per the instructions I think, I put in a line on the discussion page of the article-up-for-deletion -- I'd appreciate your doing a "speedydelete" of the latter, if you would -- explaining this.

You and I may simply have to disagree on the notability or not of this particular ancestor of GWashington: please see again my reasons already given to you personally here, plus the abbreviated version I put on the discussion page for the new article. I continue to believe that "The Reverend Lawrence" in fact is very notable, both to Brasenose per their own college website -- which you'll remember is the reason why our discussion of all this came up in the first place -- as well as to any US American or other Wikipedia user interested in George Washington.

The point is not, as you suggest, to mount a detailed genealogy here: GWashington like anyone else had lots of ancestors who were very non-notable, as you put it, and deservedly so. The notoriety of "The Reverend Lawrence", however, seems completely sufficient here: both for his Brasenose College connection and the interesting story of his debt left there, and for his Anglican church position and Civil War hardships and final penury and tragedy.

No historical biography ever gets written, nowadays, without some eye on the ancestors: that's the legacy of Erik Erikson and modern psychological biography trends, at least, and also of popular taste now. GWashington's own careful penny-pinching and scrupulous attention to accounts, qua army general and executive and manor-owner, i.e. as vs. TJefferson etc., are much commented-upon by all of his modern biographers: so the presence in GWashington's immediate family line of a "black sheep" or "impecunious" or simply "financially-unlucky" ancestor, only a couple of generations removed, might explain much about the family stories and traditions and insecurities which led up to these significant personality traits, in our first US president. You'd be doing Wikipedia a disservice, I believe, by eliminating the new article entirely: I encourage you to leave it in.

--Kessler 17:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can You Assist?

I am creating an article on "Les Neuf Soeurs" but am not the most perfect of editors, could you have a look ? I would take it as a privilege. (Lunarian 13:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC))

Salut Lunarian,

I am flattered by the request, and you will see the results of my humble efforts now online at your very interesting article's page... I hope I haven't changed any of your meanings: all I've done is a quick copyedit, plus a lookup & completion of the bibliographic entries.

Additional work by you, and others, will be needed to fully "Wikify" the article: adding headings & links, formatting things, conforming to house-style, etc., etc. There are all sorts of "how to Wikify" instruction resources online, although I myself find those to be not-so-helpful and often-suffocating -- like "grammar" instructions, or "how to learn Chinese" manuals, never a substitute for actually doing the thing and learning from experience -- so I'd encourage you to look at other, similar, articles on Wikipedia, for guidance.

The role played by the 18th c. Paris "salons", in forming not just modern France but the modern US as well, is a fascinating and relatively-new topic, over here in the US: at least it is new in the sense that recently it has been dusted-off by a number of leading historians here. Simon Schama... And there is a very entertaining book out now by Stacy Schiff, "A Great Improvisation : Franklin, France, and the Birth of America" (New York : Henry Holt, 2005) ISBN 0805066330 -- which may interest you and which I hope will be translated soon -- although her sometimes-very-funny l'américain may not translate any better, into French, than French does usually into l'américain. But these people share your view, I think, that there is much for both sides to learn through a re-opening and re-examination of the French/USA cultural contacts of the time of our two revolutions.

I'll be happy to take another look at your article, anytime -- perhaps once you or others have done a thorough "Wikification" or other alteration, or an expansion, send me another note. Happy, too, to correspond in French if you wish: you in French, me à l'américain...

Cordialement, --Kessler 17:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

--As always: added value in your reply. Thank you very much. (Lunarian)

[edit] Again?

à mon copaign,

"Les Neuf Soeurs" has been enlarged and in addition I had to create Jean-Nicolas Démeunier. I had a visit from User:Wetman. Have you met him ? Great fun.

poigné de maign,

(Lunarian)

Hi (Lunarian): OK I've done a copyedit of your interesting new Jean-Nicolas Démeunier article: put a note about the Gorman citation change in the Discussion there. Haven't met User:Wetman myself, no, but he does have an interesting user page: good "take" on the general Wikipedia approach.

--Kessler 19:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for fixing Chalatenango Department. Rl 16:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You're very welcome, and thks for the thks. --Kessler 15:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Question about Nayaks

I just checked over the two articles you mentioned. I remember finding out about the copyvio, but so far it looks alright for the most part. However, if you are maintaining the articles or if you have spare time, it might be a good idea to add some categories to the articles to increase their usefulness and accessibility. There are also some basic typos and grammar errors, but it shouldn't be a big problem as time goes along and as people start to edit it. Thanks for the message. -→Buchanan-Hermit™/?! 05:29, 6 June 2006 (UTC)