User talk:Iothiania

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You have new messages (last change).

What, no one has extended an official Wikipedia welcome to you yet? Well, let's take care of that right now!


Welcome!

Hello, Iothiania, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Cheers, -- Infrogmation 15:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the welcome. :-) -- Iotha 21:51, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Category:Gay or lesbian politicians

...to which I note you added at least Laurier LaPierre, is on Categories for deletion, now taking votes. I'd immediately vote strong keep except that I'm in an all consensusy mood and am and asking you (and Bearcat) what you think. :) Another lefty Canadian geek, Samaritan 20:39, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My only annoyance with the category is that it's only Lesbian & Gay and not LGBT. Category:Gay, lesbian or bisexual people is so filled, it seems logical to me to organise it into sub-categories. *shrug* Iotha 23:29, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User Categorisation

You were listed on the Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Canada page as living in or being associated with Alberta. As part of the Wikipedia:User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Alberta for instructions.--Rmky87 22:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article for December 25th

I noticed you have listed yourself in Category:Atheist Wikipedians. That said, you will probably be interested in my suggested featured article for December 25th: Omnipotence paradox. The other suggestion being supported by others for that date is Christmas, although Raul654 has historically been against featuring articles on the same day as their anniversary/holiday. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-11-28 08:19

Thanks for the suggestion. I went to vote, but it seems it's already been picked for the featured article. :) Iotha 04:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Language and Portal:Linguistics merge?

Hi there, I recently created Portal:Language, and was nosing around and noticed you (partially) created Portal:Linguistics on 9 Dec , but haven't done anything with it. Firstly, I was wondering if you would mind merging the two, and secondly, I was wondering if you would consider helping me maintain the former? Let me know. Jon 03:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead and merge them. I've gotten a bit sidetracked on working on it, anyway. I'd be happy to help. (And great job on Portal:Language so far. :) ) Iotha 10:01, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
You voted for Oxygen and this article is now the current Science Collaboration of the Month!
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[edit] Architecture of Africa - new AID collaboration

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[edit] Wikimedia Canada

Hi there! I'd like to invite you to explore Wikimedia Canada, and create a list of people interested in forming a local chapter for our nation. A local chapter will help promote and improve the organization, within our great nation. We'd also like to encourage everyone to suggest projects for our national chapter to participate in. Hope to see you there!--DarkEvil 17:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frog won!

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[edit] Hydrosphere is Science Collaboration

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Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Could you provide some more details please?

Greetings!

You recently added a {copyedit} tag, with the edit summary: "I think the tone needs work."

Could you provide some more details please?

Was you concern over the tone relate to the two paragraphs following the section headings Combatant Status Review Tribunal or Administrative Review Board hearing? The wikipedia currently has articles on almost 400 of the Guantanamo captives. Almost all of those articles have virtually the same two paragraphs following the section heading Combatant Status Review Tribunal. And those captives who have had documents released that concerned their Administrative Review Board have the same two paragraphs following that section heading.

If the tone needs work in this article, then it would need work on all these articles. So I would really appreciate it if you could provide more details about your concern, back on Talk:Aziz Abdul Naji.

Please don't be offended. You aren't the first person to have a concern over the tone, although there have been only a handful. Of that handful, when asked to be specific, several of them said they thought the tone was "anti-American". Well, when I asked them to be even more specific they said they thought the phrase "Bush administration" seemed anti-American, and that it should say "U.S. Government" instead. So, on the off-chance that this is your concern too, can I offer you the same reply I offered them?

The US Government is made up of three branches, Judicial, Legislative, and Executive. The initiative that lead to the creation of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and the Administrative Review Boards was solely from the Executive branch. IE. the Bush administration. To say it was a US Government initiative would imply a unanimity that does not exist. The Judicial and Legislative branches have both over-ridden aspects of this Executive branch policy.

Colloquially Executive branch policies are not referred to using the phrase "Executive branch". They are colloquially referred to by the name of President.

Was the phrase "Bush administration" the key to your concern?

I am not wedded to the phrase "Bush administration". If you can suggest something different, that doesn't imply the nonexistent unanimity, don't hesitate to volunteer it.

Cheers! -- Geo Swan 02:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Heya. When I said "I think the tone needs work", I was referring to the lists under "The following primary factors favor continued detention:" and "The following primary factors favor release or transfer:". Truly, I should have said that I thought the wording needed work. I feel that the wording both doesn't flow well, and just doesn't seem like the way an encyclopedia should sound. That, and the lists don't seem well integrated into the entire article. So, I was worried about it having an unencyclopedic style regarding its awkward language structure. I didn't get an anti-american feel from it, it seemed neutral enough to me in that regard. And no worries: I'm not offended. :-) Iotha 02:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah. Those lists are direct quotes from the factors memo. There are five different kinds of official DoD documents I have used:
  • 58 of the captives have had all the unclassified documents in the Combatant Status Review Tribunal dossier released in 2005 due to separate FOIA requests. These dossiers contain other documents that can be interesting. Moazzam Begg's dossier contains a pair of memos documenting his Tribunal President's and the CSRT's legal advisor's reasoning for denying him the opportunity to prove that he had been issued a POW by the ICRC. The Tribunal's President, and legal advisor, very explicitly, explained that the CSRTs were not authorized to consider whether captives were entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. This is one of the big lies about Guantanamo. The Bush administration represents the CSRT as superior to the "competent tribunal" that the USA is obliged to convene to determine whether the captives were innocent civilians, were lawful combatants, entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, or were combatants who had done something that would authorize the USA to strip them of the protections of POW status. The Geneva Conventions that the USA signed, and remains bound by, state that a captor can't strip a captive of the protections of POW status unless they first convene one of these "competent tribunals". Army Regulation 190-8 contains a description of the Tribunal US officers are supposed to convene to determine whether a captive was a civilian refugee, a lawful combatant, or a combatant who had done something that stripped them of the protections of POW status. During the 1991 Gulf War the USA convened something like 1200 competent tribunals. These Tribunals found something like 70 ro 80 percent of those whose status was considered were civilian refugees. The rest were lawful combatants. In the 1991 Gulf War not a single captive was classified as a potential war criminal.
  • Over 300 of the captives had the transcripts of their CSRT released, or their written statement in lieu of attendance released in 2006 due to a single FOIA request. These transcripts include both the allegations and the captive's attempts to address them.
  • 517 of the 558 captives whose "enemy combatant" status was reviewed by a CSRT had their "Summary of Evidence" memo released in 2005 due to a single FOIA request. All but one of these memo had both the captive's names and the captive's ID numbers redacted. But over one hundred of the memos also had someone scribble the ID numbers in the top right hand corner of the first page. Unfortunately, a month or so after I found those ID numbers, and started to use those documents, the DoD took those FOI documents down from their page.
  • Several hundred captives had the transcripts from their Administrative Review Board hearings released. "Factors" is what they called the allegations, this time around. These transcripts included the captive's attempts to address the factors.
  • 121 captives had their the memos that summarized the factors for and against their continued detention released. Aziz Abdul Naji is one of those 121. I thought it was worthwhile to record the allegations, or "factor" as the DoD called them, even though there is no record of Naji replying to the factors.
I had one correspondent who asked why these articles included a summary of the captive's replies, because (paraphrasing) "They all say the same thing -- some variation of 'not guilty'." -- LoL.
When a reader chooses to examine the details of the allegations, or factors, in detail, they can reach an informed conclusion as to whether that captive was "captured on the battlefield", or one of "the worst of the worst". -- IMO that makes the allegations, or factors, notable -- even in the absence of a record of an attempt on the captive's part to address the allegations or factors. Paraphrasing the factors or allegations, to make them briefer would be extremely difficult. To do a good job the paraphrase would be close to as long as the original, and it owuld be sure to be unsatisfactory to someone. If the lists were not composed by an employee of the US Federal government including the list verbatim might be challenged as a copyright violation. But anything that is the work of a US Federal Government employee, as part of his or her job duties, is in the public domain.
I hope this addresses your concern.
Cheers! -- Geo Swan 20:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I will be glad to collaborate with you on improving pages (within my abilities) on Wikipedia that need help.

Calls, lacking any detail, for toning-up of {{tone}} will be looked at blankly until such detail is provided in a community-minded manner, however. Thanks! Schissel | Sound the Note! 02:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer. Do you have any specific articles in mind? Cheers. Iotha 02:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The article String Quartet No. 15 (Beethoven) was the one I had in mind, yes. Thanks. I think a few minutes ago there was nothing on the discussion page; now there is, which answers my question (or at least, gets things started; I'll read the MoS again and other work articles, since generally they've seemed to me to have rather the same tone. However: I am not alert. Thank you for both answers.) Schissel | Sound the Note! 02:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Environmental Protection Userbox

Hi lothiania,
Thanks for using the userbox that I created (the one about supporting environmental protection). I'm glad that there're people in the world who care about the environment just as much as I do. Please encourage your friends to put up this userbox if they have accounts in Wikipedia. Currently I am doing double major (Biology and Environmental Science) at University of Toronto. If you have any questions about environmental protection, please don't hesitate to contact me by wiki.
OhanaUnited 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Stubsensor

Oh, cheers :D

Sounds like I never got around to completing it, and then forgot about it :)

Thanks for telling me :)

GnjTalk|Contribs 16:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AACP

Could you please take another look at AACP? I tried to improve the page. --Eastmain 18:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a look at it. My main corcern about the article was that no one would ever find the articles it disambiguates notable enough to write about. Seeing as you've taken up that cause, I see that worry was unfounded. Cheers. - Iotha 19:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You helped choose Wall Street Crash of 1929 as this week's WP:ACID winner

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[edit] Metal is now the Core Topics COTF

 You showed support for Matter at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics/Core topics COTF. This article was selected as our collaboration of the fortnight. Hope you can help.

Thanks for your interest in helping us improve Core Topics! Walkerma 16:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Free Software

Greetings, Iothiania, I notice that you're interested in open-source/free software. Please consider joining WikiProject Free Software. We're just starting out, and we could really use some more members. Thanks! Geekman314(contact me) 16:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Free Software

[edit] WikiProject Free Software

Greetings, Iothiania, I notice that you're interested in open-source/free software. Please consider joining WikiProject Free Software. We're just starting out, and we could really use some members. Thanks! Geekman314(contact me) 15:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You helped choose Atmosphere as this week's WP:ACID winner

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AzaBot 01:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Matter is now the Core Topics COTF

 You showed support for Matter at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics/Core topics COTF. This article was selected as our collaboration of the fortnight. Hope you can help.

Thanks, Walkerma 05:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

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