User talk:RK/Archive 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

About your edit today of Shabbat -- when you remove material from a page, because it of good quality but is in the wrong place, could you paste it somewhere else please? Otherwise it will be forgotten in the article history. -- Tarquin 16:56, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The anonouser pasted the material back into Sabbath, tonight. I moved it to a section of its own, scribbling a hoodoo incantation over it, and otherwise left it completely un-edited. It's disproportionately long, but it is interesting, even if it is historically, completely irrelevant. As usual, I invite you to undo what I've done, or something nicer if you're so inclined. Mkmcconn 07:05, 17 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I posted this on my talk page a while back, as a reply to your comment. I'm somewhat new here, so I don't know what the accepted standard for replying is. Sorry. Paullusmagnus 21:39, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The creationist statement that evolution is a "only a theory" misrepresents the truth. When a scientist "admits" that evolution is a theory, it is because it is not directly observable, not that it is not well-confirmed by experimentation. That the Earth is round is a fact, directly observable from space, and also from the ship-sailing-away observation, and so very few people argue about it. The discovery of Relativity might not seem to contradict the "fact" of gravity, but, to a scientist, Newtonian gravitation is false, and Relativity is well-tested and not disproven. "Gravity" (stuff falls? Things head toward each other in the absense of force?) itself is not a precise enough concept for its truth or falsehood to be a scientific issue. I am not sure, but I think that most creationists that argue from a scientific point of view accept microevolution as an observable fact. They could further argue (I haven't heard this, but it must be at the bottom of the arguments) that just as extrepolating the inverse square law gives an incorrect result when it attempts to explain Einsteinian stuff, extrepolating microevolution gives an incorrect result when it attempts to explain the appearance of life. I don't think it's very plausible, but I can't disprove it directly. Since "evolution" here refers to the explanation of the existence of life, not microevolution, I think we should describe it as a theory. -- Paullusmagnus 17:05, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

]]

This is somewhat difficult to understand, but I believe the original poster is confusing two different branches of research. Evolution is about the change of living things only, what this poster appears to call "microevolution" (a term used almost always by critics of evolution as far as I can see). A link to abiogenesis is made in the last portion of the post above, but this is incorrect, the two have nothing to do with each other. Indeed, evolution is observed all the time in nature (look up any issue of Biological Abstracts to find dozens of speciation events), "explained" by a number of theories of varying applicability. Abiogenesis on the other hand consists of a very small number of somewhat dubious speculations that most would be uncomfortable calling a theory. The confusing part is the discussion of relativity, inverse square law and gravity, a mash that appears to be based on a lack of understanding of all three topics. User:Maury Markowitz

Do not worry about what people are thinking about you--for they are not thinking about you. They are wondering what you are thinking about them. --Anonymous

Contents

[edit] Brit milah

Please verify the recent additions to Brit milah by an anonymous user -- I'm not familiar enough with Jewish history to do so. If they are wrong, please move them to the talk page so that the user can comment.—Eloquence 11:16, Aug 30, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] edit summaries

RK, as I asked you before on the ethics page, can you please make your comments on the talk page of the article you are working on and not in the edit summaries. For example, the knowledge article talk page contains nothing about the massive changes you are making to the article, but you are saying things like "Um, all the material we have here on to acquire knowledge *already* is discussed in the propositional knowledge article. Moving text on this subject from here to there." in the summary. Thanks. Angela 01:40, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! Much better. Angela
Can I make the same request as Angela? For example, your recent edit to Neoconservatism (United States). Martin 17:28, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

For the article Islam, you undid some editing of mine and said, "Please do not rewrite Muslim beliefs to make them politically correct. Do not deny the words of millions of Muslims themselves." You made many edits, most of which I agree with but one paragraph.
The Quran describes two forms of Jihad (struggle)... For this paragraph, I removed the uneducated sentences but you placed them back. The term 'holy war' does not exist in Islam, period. Regardless of what one single or one thousand misinformed muslim and non-muslim men say, its not there. The section deals with The Qur'an, and the paragraph deals with the Qur'anic definition of Jihad. Its the same issue with 'cleric', which hasn't been addressed or corrected. Cleric is a poor translation, and incorrect since not only is there no clergy in the muslim world, its against Islam. Another is "Muslims are obligated to wage against those who are perceived to be enemies of Islam." That is not Jihad, not Islam and is unjust since the Qur'an states muslims must be attacked at first. And "According to most forms of Islam, if a person dies in the middle of Jihad, he is sent directly to heaven without punishment for any sins." is also incorrect. How should we go about finding a sincere unbiased article for Islam? I encourage your input. Take care. Usedbook 01:13, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

You seem to be talking about some sort of theoretical Islam , while I am writing about real-world Islam. There is a clergy in Islam. Imams are a low-level clergy, more like non-ordained prayer leaders, but there are many other forms of Islamic clergy as well, including ayatollahs. That's just a fact. Whether or not they should exist is not for Wikipedia to say. The fact that many Muslim clergy do exist, and millions of Muslims respect them as such, is an indisputable fact that must be mentioned. We could, of course, write that other Muslims are unhappy with this situation, and they believe that clergy shouldn't exist in Islam. But we can't rewrite Wikipedia articles to match the religious beliefs of those particular Muslims who happen to reject the idea of Muslim clergy. The same is true for your statements about Jihad. While you may reject the ideas I wrote about, millions of other Muslims accept those ideas. You can't write their mainstream ideas out of existence, even if you personally wish that these ideas did not exist in Islam. There are entire books on this subject by Muslim scholars who are more than happy to admit that many Muslims view Jihad as holy war. This isn't done to make anyone uncomfortable, but only to describe real-world Muslim beliefs. RK 15:23, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)
It may seem like Imams are clergical. Since a clergy is "the body of people ordained for religious duties", I would have to partially disagree because any male in the room can step up to do the adhan or lead congregational prayer. Of course, other than Sunni Islam, there are muslims who have accepted clergy. As for Jihad, although I'm positive of a 'holy war' concept being nonexistant in the Qur'an and Sunnah, it unfortunately is also accepted by many of todays muslim youth. All of this should be somehow mentioned in the article and I look forward to cooperating with you. Take care. Usedbook 11:13, 6 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Great work on Ethics. I think the neutrality dispute notice should now be removed. Comments? Perhaps I should have been bold and just done it, I'm happy to. Andrewa 15:58, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

Don't remove it yet. While the edit is not terrible, and improves the structure a bit, it has removed some essential links, fails to acknowledge fully the well-defined study called global ethics and, it makes claims that are at best patronizing, such as, "Ethics applied... leads to feminism" etc. The issues raised in Marxism, Feminism and Queer studies about work, women and bodies can be partly defined as meta-ethics concerns about subject-object problems, within the typical Western moral philosophy framework, but they cannot be hived off as "unrelated" "applied" issues since they affect the actual disposition of bodies - as Immanuel Kant said, one must treat people as ends, never as means. All of that can be cleaned up relatively easily, but until that's done the NPOV dispute stands in the other direction. An edit to just more or less say the above could probably remove it, though.
Also the redirect ethical tradition is a more neutral name for ethics in religion since not all the approaches described as wholly contained in religions, some have to do with national traditions or cultures. And there is a whole separate study of ethical relationship which was linked for a reason - according to most feminists the study of ethics begins with relationships, whereas conventionally the study of ethics often began with ethical dilemma or paradox.
(feel free to move these comments to Talk:Ethics).

The wiki is not a discussion site, but an encyclopedia. The various "Discrimination against non-Muslims..." articles are off topic, as well as being a waste of resources because they're already in existance elsewhere.

I disagree; this encyclopedia already has extensive articles on Discrimination, Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Persecution of Christians, Anti-Semitism, Slavery and many other related topics. So do a growing number of other encyclopedias. The Wikipedia communal consensus has long been that such subjects deserve to be discussed in detail, as long as they are kept as factual as possible, and discussed in an NPOV fashion. We even have detailed discussions of slavery in the US, anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, homophobia and persection of homosexuals in Islamic nations, etc. The persecution of Christians, Buddhists, Bahais, Jews and Sufi Muslims in many Islamic nations also can be discussed in a NPOV fashion. RK 20:19, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

RK, most folks were with you re: EoT banning, but your "F*ck off" post on Village Pump doesn't win you any friends. Hope you reconsider the language.

[edit] Christian-Jewish reconciliation

You wrote:

Right. Damn those fake Catholics! Ony you represent the real Catholics! Sigh....
Right! And you alone define the truth of what Catholics and Chrisitans must believe! To heck with those arrogant Chritians who differ from you! That'll show them! Good for you! Keep it up! RK
Right on, True Catholic-man! To heck with those stupid ignorant Catholics, they are deceivers and liars. Only you know the truth! Right on!
Right on, True Catholic Man! You show them! They are committing apostasy. Thank God you are here to show us the truth! To hell with Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Wikipedia is run by pseudo-Catholics, and we don't need to follow their stupid rules!  ;-) RK 20:51, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)
This anti-Semitic rant is fun. I have seen similar statements about those arrogant Jews by the Nazis. Want to add some other groups in as well, or will leave it at Jew-bashing alone? RK

Stevertigo wrote:

Stop your "Christian-baiting", please Bob. Youve violated Godwin's law more times than I can count. 戴&#30505sv 21:16, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Stevertigo, stop your outrageous anti-Semitic slander. I wrote no such anti-Christian diatribes, and you know this. Some anonymous user was making grossly hateful anti-Catholic attacks, and anti-Semitic attacks. To see you support such hatespeech and attack me if out of bounds.

RK, any chance you could concentrate on the factual errors in our Anon's edits, rather than the current sarcastic approach? I know you can do better than this. Thanks. Martin 23:20, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The "factual error" is that he slanders all Catholics as heretics, and sets himself up as God's sole authority on the Church. I am shocked to see you support such outrageous behaviour. RK 00:09, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No she doesn't, and no she doesn't. She states her personal belief that some Catholics are heretics. She gives her personal opinion on the true nature of Catholicism. As I said, I know you can do better than this. Martin 08:45, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[RK deleted all of the above, and wrote] Martin, stop supporting blatant anti-Semitism and Catholic bashing. RK 13:53, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] a more effective strategy

Robert, I am just as concerned as you are, about preventing anti-Semitism from taking over the Wikipedia. But let me suggest a more effective tactic than what you are doing.

Instead of reverting "lies" and "propaganda", why not attribute it to an advocate? For example, you might say that Karl Krusher, author of Wagner's Wonderful Wackiness, wrote that the Hudna only existed on paper.

Indeed, it's better to move offending text to talk, rather than simply reverting. A good comment when making such a move is:

  • moving text to talk for repair; or
  • this claim needs a source

By keeping the conversation calm, you attract kindly old patient men like me -- rather than hotheads who harbor hatred and thrive on the nasty give and take. --Uncle Ed 14:14, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

RK -- While I disagree with many of your edits, I do agree with your removing the paragraph about arguing that believing in Christianity means you will be considerd anti-Semitic. Perhaps if you could be less sweeping in your edit and so provocative in your summaries... Using the terms "rant," "anti-Semitic," and "anti-Catholic" in edit every few minutes makes it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. -- Bcorr 14:46, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Stop writing on my page, Stevertigo and Martin. Your anti-Semitic harassment has been noted, and sent to the WikiEn list. Under no circumstances are either of you allowed to write anything on this page, ever. RK

Try again, and this time, try asking politely, rather than attempting to issue commands you do not have authority to issue. Martin 21:13, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

RK -- I'm not a sysop and have no special agenda here, but I sincerely want to know why you keep blanking [[]]? And why would you put the following up after all that has been happening today:

Because I truly believe it to be wrong, and evil, to hurl hatred at Catholics and at Jews. And there is no ambiguity about the recent issues. I cannot understand how someone can read the new comments (supported by Martin and Stevertigo) and not see them as hateful to Christian Catholics and to Jews. They are not attempting to add any information to this article; they are pushing their agenda. This is especially so in regards to Stevertigo who has been outed as a quasi-Nazi Christian Identity anti-Semite. Stevertigo in particular has a long history of attempting to rewrite Wikipedia articles to push explicitly Nazi points of view, and his attempts to do so are archived and documented. Martin (MyRedDice) refrains from writing such statements himself, but he aids and abets Stevertigo on every occasion. I can e-mail you a detailed analysis on this very subject. We are dealing with two highly intelligent and literate Jew-haters, who also don't like Catholics very much as well. Don't take my word for it; please read the analysis. RK
Thanks for the quick reply -- I want to say, however, despite what has happened in the past, I truly do not see quasi-Naziism, anti-Semitism, or anti-Catholocism in the edits in question over the last two days. Perhaps it's best to ask a neutral party (or as neutral as possible) to work on the article. Despite not agreeing with much of what you write, I have come to respect your intelligence and understand your commitment to fight anti-Semitism, but I think you are hurting your cause by being so combative and (to me) inflammatory. Please stop blanking that page and please take a break before you alienate people who aren't directly involved in the conflict. Peace, Bcorr 17:02, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If anyone's been sent a copy of RK's "detailed analysis" and desires some sort of response from me, I'll be delighted to oblige. Martin 21:18, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Do you a deal. I'll agree not to edit this talk page, if you agree to stop insulting people. Which is more important to you, RK, your desire for me not to edit this page, or your desire to make personal attacks? Martin 21:40, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Robert, if you've got something to say, put it right here on the wiki where everyone can see it. Here on this page, or on my talk page. For the benefit of any who did not see it, here is your recent comment about me:

Can someone get "Louis Kyu Won Ryu" to stop vandalizing my home page? He has no right to dictate what is on my page.
(He probably is Martin, but I will pretend otherwise. for the moment; Martin has assumed other false identities in the past. However, the present issue is that no one has the right to dictate what is on our own homepages.)

And once again, my name is Louis. I'm not Martin. Louis Kyu Won Ryu

Guys, guys... Remember the story about the Wind and the Sun from Aesop's Fables? You're not going to make Robert talk to you by pounding on his talk page.

I daresay he'd rather discuss issues of mutual concern on the mailing list (wikien-l) or on the talk pages of the article in question.

And, Robert, if you want me to stop posting here, for what it's worth, I'm willing to do that. Over and out. --Uncle Ed 22:30, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Ed, I don't believe that there was ever any intent to, as you say, "make" Robert talk to anyone. Should he wish to leave anyone's comments unanswered, that is answer enough for any who happen by, as he well knows. To delete legitimate questions and concerns raised by a respected Wikipedian, such as Mr. Dice, is most unfair, as Mr. Dice is deserving of an opportunity to state his case for all to see. This is the most appropriate place for that since it is here that Robert has raised some exceedingly grave accusations to which Mr. Dice has every right to respond. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 22:42, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Response to mailing list post

twinposted to mailing list

Robert wrote:

Can someone get "Louis Kyu Won Ryu" to stop vandalizing my home page?

For the record, it's Robert's TALK page.

He probably is Martin, but I will pretend otherwise. for the moment

For the record, I'm not Louis. A developer could probably prove this beyond reasonable doubt. Further, I do not know who Louis might be, or if sie is anyone I know. Like Mr. Kaiser, I can speculate. Unlike Mr. Kaiser, I will do so privately.

Martin has assumed other false identities in the past.

For the record, I have only one account on Wikipedia, and that is user:MyRedDice, where I give my full legal name, my work address, a non-disposable email address, and a self-photo. I have never had any other Wikipedia accounts.

On the other hand, I've previously engaged on a forum which strongly encouraged the adoption and theft of multiple ever-changing identities. Perhaps this is what RK is referring to?
http://www.algonet.se/~kajn/

-Martin 23:31, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Martin's post above can in way be construed as vandalism. He was simply copying a post from the mailing list for the benefit of the many people here who may interested in such a thing but for various reasons do not subscribe to the lists. Do you really think vandalising other people's user pages is going to help? Angela 23:43, Oct 1, 2003 (UTC)

Angela believes that it is Ok to vandalize RK's user page. If that is true, then it is also Ok to vandalize her page.

Or is it Ok for her to vandalize a Jew's page, but not for the fucking Jew to respond? I guess so!

I would like to point out that I have never edited your user page. I did place a question on your talk page, but that's kind of what they're there for. Angela 23:50, Oct 1, 2003 (UTC)

RK, stop it. Vandalizing other people's user pages is not acceptable. There is a difference between user pages and talk pages. This is your talk page. Everyone is free to put comments here. If you continue to vandalize MyRedDice's user page, it will be protected, if you vandalize other pages, you will be banned.—Eloquence 23:51, Oct 1, 2003 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../r/k/2F/User_talk%7ERK_Archive_3_5a19.html"