User talk:A Musing

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User talk:A Musing/Archive-July 20, 2006

Contents 1 Luther Talk Page 2 Luther 3 Poetry portal 4 Seduction of Culture 5 Working on the Luther Page 6 Luther GA Nom Comments 7 FDR 8 Poetry portal 9 1913 in poetry discussion 10 What do you think of Pynchon? 11 Your numerous 'years in poetry' 12 You are wrong about the precedents on hate categories 13 Thanks for your message 14 Your position is so dispiriting to me 15 Poetry 16 Speedy deletes (or any other deletes for that matter) 17 Thanks to you too for help with the 19th century 18 Wither Martin Luther 19 Sunflower Fine Art Galleries 20 Poetry FAR 21 Poetry edits 22 Thanks for the link to the DNC Charter and ByLaws 23 To Sam, from Sam 24 Credential verification 25 Women writers 26 Poetry 27 WP:PEREN 28 Cfd notifications 29 Barnstar

[edit] Luther Talk Page

Sam:

Things have been very quiet here, but I'm on a Luther and the Jews sabbatical. Would you archive the page, save the current discussion? I'm afraid that Paul pushing the issue will make things busy again.

I also want to take up your suggestion for reorganizing the lead section. I liked your basic idea. Could we open a new discussion (or reopen one) on that notion alone? Bob --CTSWyneken^(talk) 18:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I announced that I would be posting the replacement text in one week and gave any and all more than fair warning and invited comments. Sam was the only person to offer such a comment. Sam, I'll be posting it now, so you may wish to go in and make the changes you feel are important. Ptmccain 18:46, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've made the changes I suggested. I would hold off on going back to the intro until any discussion on the latest changes occurs; I'm not sure it is good to put too many sections in play all at once. I'm not particularly adept at archiving, but if no one else takes a stab at it in a day or two I'll try to figure out what needs to be archived and what needs to stay. Sam 19:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Sam, I would expect that the section will be reverted and so you may wish to monitor this and maintain the revision even if the predictable users try to revert. We have conceded much to them, and have invited reasonable discussion in the spirit of WP:CIVIL so I believe it is only appropriate for the revision to stand since there were no reasonable responses made to it. I'll help support it as well, but of course we will wish to be mindful of WP:3RR.Ptmccain 20:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at it now Sam. I've removed all labels. I would appreciate your support in getting this text on the main page. We have shown good faith and have compromised and accomodated concerns of a few editors. Plenty of time was provided for discusssion. It is obvious that we are not being treated with good faith but only with hostility. That is inappropriate. Ptmccain 00:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Luther

Sam, I'm concerned that you continue to use the language of a mediator on Talk:Martin Luther. As I said before, there is no mediator on that page. It's important to stress that; I recently watched another case deteriorate because of a similar misunderstanding. Although I accept that your intentions are good, I feel you're encouraging what amounts to trolling. What you refer to as the situation between Ptmccain and Jayjg is, in fact, a situaton between Ptmccain and just about every editor who has tried to edit the page. He has engaged in vandalism; page blanking; repeated personal attacks; repeated 3RR violations; repeated WP:POINT violations; has sent threatening e-mails; and either threatened to, or did, post another user's personal details. He is not a good-faith actor. Any points he makes that are decent will be listened to, but in part because of your presence, he is acting out, which means it's difficult to grasp what he's saying, given the low signal-to-noise ratio. CTSWyneken is, I think, editing in good faith, but he has a very strong POV, and has admitted that editing articles about Martin Luther falls within his job description. There is therefore a tricky situation on that page, which has made it hard to write anything close to a neutral, and well written, account of Martin Luther's influence. Editor burn-out has been high (the highest I can think of on a low-profile page such as this), because of absurdly convoluted discussions about trivial issues, and because of personal attacks. It's therefore important not to do anything to pander to the person most responsible for the unpleasantness.

I'm sorry to write to you in this way, because I do completely accept your good intentions, but as I say, I recently witnessed a similar situation elsewhere go badly wrong for the same reasons. I hope you don't mind me raising the issue with you. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I've said it before, I'm just another editor. If you want me to say it again or in any particular way I am happy to. If people want mediation, they should agree to it, as mediation is not possible without a desire to have a resolution from all parties. I happen to think mediation would be a good idea, but everyone will have to come around to that view for themselves (or not).

I do happen to be an editor who is "moderate" in the sense that I don't always agree with anyone among either "group". My experience so far has also not been that any one person is to "blame" for the tone, but, rather that many participate and that it feeds on each other, but I truly believe it will only sort itself out if people focus on the text, assume good faith til it hurts, and use discussion and dispute resolution techniques instead of revert wars. In the meantime, I'm going to weigh in with what I think, and everyone can take it for what they will. Sam 23:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

That you even identify two "groups" is indicative of the problem. There is the Lutheran group opposed by a variety of individuals with very different views and different backgrounds. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm not sure why you call this one a "low-profile" page. I came across this one because I regularly look at the FACs for what I think of as important historical articles, and Luther struck me as quite an important one. You can't understand the next 200 years of European religious disputes and wars or the ultimate emergence of nations without understanding something about Luther, Calvin and the reformation, and I don't think you can adequately struggle with contemporary philosophy or theology without addressing his views on grace. I think of this one as quite high-profile. I'm not sure whether that makes you feel any better about the burn-out. Sam 00:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a low-profile page in the sense of not getting much attention from editors. Why do you think addressing Luther's views on grace is necessary to understand contemporary philosophy? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Broad question in response to my own broad statement, but Western philosophy struggles intensely with questions of determinism and free will, and Grace is one way out of what is otherwise a dualistic box. On a different topic, I noted that you never had any thoughts in response to my comments about the citations in the first paragraph of "Luther and Antisemitism". I'd be interested in your thoughts (probably best put on the Luther talk page rather than here, of course). Sam 13:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poetry portal

Hey sam--I encourage you to add your name to the list of collaborators here. With your help hopefully we can get it to featured status. AdamBiswanger1 02:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seduction of Culture

Dear Sam: I ILLed the book, but I'm not sure why you referred to it. What should I look at? Bob --CTSWyneken^(talk) 15:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Working on the Luther Page

I'll be at the page again, working at paraphrasing the Schaff quoted material and eventually working on diversifying the citations there. I also want to revisit other issues in the article (except the Jews topic. 8-) ) I'll leave that one for a later day. (maybe in some sort of peer review setting.). --CTSWyneken^(talk) 15:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Luther GA Nom Comments

The Martin Luther article has been nominated for Good Article status. A reviewer dropped by and said that everything but the Luther and Antisemitism section qualified. Mantanmoreland said, in effect, the section was just fine but the rest was hagiographic. While I intend to leave the issue well enough alone, I thought you might be interested in helping see if he will offer us some suggestions. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 15:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FDR

You will find a reference in the WP document on the Te4hran conference. It is described in the memoirs of the Polish president in exile who was present at Yalta. Give me time and I will dig it out.Roger Arguile 08:53, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poetry portal

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the compliment. There was one quote from Samuel Johnson about poets that I thought would be good for the page. I'll find it, but how do I submit it? I can keep my eye out for other quotes as well (I find those the easiest). Is it possible to store quotes so that they automatically come up? That way I could contribute a bunch at once, which would make it enormously easier. I assume for poetry that we'd need to have something published before 1923 for copyright purposes, right? Other than that, I have no ideas at present, but if I get any, I'll pass them along. What could you use help with? I'm running across some interesting poets as I do the year pages, but I haven't been spending enough time reading through some of the individual poet articles. I was surprised to see quite a few died in World War I. Noroton 00:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1913 in poetry discussion

Hi Sam,

Thanks for your comments. I cut and pasted them and the other comment and my response on the Talk:List of years in poetry page. Thanks for the input. Noroton 17:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What do you think of Pynchon?

Hey Sam,

So you're reading Against the Day? Thanks for the comment on that page. How do you like the book? I've never read Pynchon (just got interested in contributing to that page), and for the first time I'm tempted, although with a book that size I get afraid I'll be swallowed up by it. When I read James Clavell's Shogun (just as long, not nearly as daunting) as a teenager, I barely got up from a sofa I was laying on for the seven days it took to finish the book. With Pynchon I might die of starvation, the book propped on my chest. Noroton 20:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to give Pynchon about an hour every night -- it's great stuff. V and The Crying of Lot 49 are both favorites of mine; I haven't tackled Gravity's Rainbow and didn't get as excited about Mason Dixon or Vineland. But Against the Day, so far, is right up there with V in my book, and I've got to say I think the collection of references is a great way into the book. But you can't sit down and read through and get as much out of it - it really needs to be tackled in smaller chunks. Sam 20:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your numerous 'years in poetry'

If you would please stop making these articles. They are all going to be deleted per CSD-nocontext unless you can actually put something besides one birth or death. If you can come up with some more content, then these pages would be fine. Until then, please leave the creation to people who actually have content for their pages. --teh tennisman 14:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• I suppose that since there is a whole list they are ok; it just seemed odd since none of these articles have anything to them. --teh tennisman 14:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You are wrong about the precedents on hate categories

You voted keep Category:Anti-Islam sentiment solely because you are under the illusion that these are usually kept, but that just isn't the case. I have seen several deleted (anti-Polonism is one I remember well) and even the anti-semitism categories get a lot of delete votes. Please do not let a bad precedent be set due to a lack of knowledge of the full range of precedents. Sumahoy 02:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for your message

I am aware of other precedents; I believe there has been controversy over a category of "Racists" as well. I think this is a very difficult one, and will further explain my thinking on the page. Thanks, Sam 02:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:Racist people is standing at about 90% in favor of deletion, so I hope you aren't going to take that as a precedent just because there is still doubt about it getting deleted. Bad categories can be blocked permanently and that is the end of the matter, so there is no need to resign ourselves to accepting them. Sumahoy 02:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that has been deleted before. I'd be happiest if we developed a consistent rule and got rid of all of these categories. Sam 02:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

So would I but the nature of Wikipedia means that consistency is not something it does well. We just have to do what we can. Sumahoy 02:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your position is so dispiriting to me

Your argument is a council of despair. Following your approach, as soon as there is one bad category in a field, perhaps kept as a result of a campaign by an organised group or just by chance as to who happened to be around that day (and we might be talking about two or three people out of seven or eight) that means unlimited bad categories can be created in that field and all of them must be kept forever. I think that is so self-defeating. Let's create more precedents that go the way we want, not start voting for things we actually oppose. Can't you see that your approach can also rob other users of motivation. Please don't let the side down with this defeatism. Sumahoy 03:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Ideally, we would see the community work for NPOV in everything; where, as in this case, the community has consistently decided to permit a series of categories with all kinds of difficult POV questions and risk, I think it is best to have all of the POVs aired. It's not just one category - if it were just anti-Semitism, I could write off it off as an exception and aberation. But the religious hate categories have been embraced across the board. Sam 03:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poetry

I was removing the category Category:1910 which appeared to have been incorrectly added to several of the year in poetry articles. Tim! 22:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletes (or any other deletes for that matter)

You can ask the deleting admin to reconsider and undelete. You can ask him/her (or any other admin) to userfy the deleted article, i.e. copy it to a sub page of your user page, so you can work on it. It's all kept in the (deleted) history, which any admin can access. Tyrenius 19:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks to you too for help with the 19th century

Hi Sam,

You inspired me with your additions. I've been going through the list of American poets, adding their birth/death years on that list and then taking all but the most minor and adding births and deaths to the years in poetry list, but I kept finding that I couldn't add birth years for those who died in the late 19th century -- now I can do that and don't have to go back to the task just to add the birth years. It would probably be good to get the 18th century up all at once for the same reason, but I won't start that till I'm motivated.

I've become fascinated by Lord Byron. I found this Web site that gives a chronology of his life, and it's fascinating. It also makes me want to find out more about him. If not "mad" he was certainly "...bad and dangerous to know", although the chronology makes it seem as if the women around him were more dangerous to him. He was also thunderously successful. He sometimes performed real kindnesses, but I also hear (elsewhere than in this chronology) that he could be cruel. If you're interested, here's a link:

http://www.rc.umd.edu/reference/chronologies/byronchronology/1816.html

He also meets all sorts of people and travels to all sorts of places. He met Stendhal at La Scala, for instance. Best, Noroton 22:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wither Martin Luther

Dear Sam: Believe it or not, the article is down to fighting weight. I've opened a discussion about the path to FA status from here and invite you to come and opine. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 14:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sunflower Fine Art Galleries

Just an FYI. I stumbled across this article and noticed you had at one time tagged it as ADVERT and left a notice for User:Patrickartguy. Apparently that tag was removed by User:141.155.153.250 (another editor of that article and the article for artist Patrick Antonelle, go figure). I have re-tagged the page as suspected SPAM. Fountains of Bryn Mawr 15:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poetry FAR

Poetry has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poetry edits

Hi there, I've been out of commission for a few days with the flu, but I have just noticed your work on poetry. It looks like you've done some substantial work. I will take a good look at it in the next day or so. I hope you don't think I'm a random troublemaker, after seeing all the tribulations that article has been through, I have almost regretted putting it up. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 19:29, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for the link to the DNC Charter and ByLaws

I have been looking for this on the web and could not find it. Thanks again. I will also contact the DNC to see if there is an updated version for 2006 or 2007.Tommy Blueseed 23:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To Sam, from Sam

Hi Sam. I have recently become User:Sam, and I just noticed that you are signing your posts as "Sam". I'm wondering if you would mind modifying your signature slightly so that it isn't exactly the same as my user name so that we are not confused with each other. I have not yet been signing as "Sam", as I want people to get used to my new name, but I hope to start soon. Thanks, -- Samuel Wantman 17:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem. I've been feeling like a little change anyways. Sam 17:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Credential verification

That was a good little exercise, and we'll see if it gives others confidence. Thanks for handling it so efficiently and discreetly. Metamagician3000 03:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Women writers

I just (finally) submitted the category for review for reinstatement. Fingers crossed. scribblingwoman 14:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poetry

Keep up the good work making the citations consistent. Post when you feel it's done. Marskell 10:43, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:PEREN

That's odd, since to me it appears as though you are changing the subject matter of the "proposal" to fit your version of things. The notion that anyone must be notified in deletion debates has been brought up at pretty much all the XfD process talk pages and on the Pump at some point (note: it is for you to satisfy yourself of this - I am not going to dig through hundreds of pages of archived talk just to please you). Whether or not it has specifically come up at CfD is irrelevant, and to suggest that its "perennial" status does not apply to CfD in this respect smells awfully like a lawyer has stepped into the ring. Chris cheese whine 23:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

That's precisely why I undid your edit. It is unsupported in your opinion. Hence, it is POV. Having hung around deletion processes for some time (heck, I remember the times when everything went through the one VfD process), I have no reason to doubt User:Radiant!'s statement that compulsory notification has come up several times across deletion processes as a whole, whereas I can see plenty of reason to doubt your assertion that it hasn't. If anything, the unsupported statement is yours that somehow CfD isn't subject to the same overriding principles as any other XfD process. Chris cheese whine 00:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

My actions are no more "improper" than yours. You're deliberately being awkward now. Chris cheese whine 00:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I disagree that the content is indispute. For it to be in dispute means that there is more than one malcontent user with a valid objection. One user deliberately being awkward (I'd say that insisting that we dig through the archives to find the discussion you want is deliberately awkward) does not make a dispute, no matter how loudly you care to shout. Chris cheese whine 00:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cfd notifications

You can use this template {{Cfdnotice}} for posting on talk pages etc. Tim! 17:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

"If in the future you need substantive comment on literary topics, particularly relating to poetry, or historical topics...please feel free to ask, and if I can I will comment." Will do! Marskell 21:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)