User talk:Arthur Rubin/Archive 2006

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Archive 2006

Contents

Top Hat Page

This article needs to be simplified, and all approaches need to lead to 2/3, including qualitative approach. As mentioned on talk page, just because there are only 2 cards it can be, this does not mean that both are equally likely. And it really needs a text book source somewhere. oh and I suggest adding the experimental approach as a reasonable 3rd way.Obina 00:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


function (mathematics)

Notice that in my latest formulation I introduce the simple definition first and the other definition as a complication. Randall Holmes 01:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, note that Morse gave a suitable definition for ordered pair which covers the case of classes: redefine (x,y) as (x \times \{0\}) \cup (y \times \{1\}) (where the cartesian products are defined in terms of the usual Kuratowski pair. This allows one to define n-tuples of classes without difficulty... Randall Holmes 01:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

True. But it fails in MKU or NBGU (U = urelements), as you have a different definition of ordered pairs of objects which may be urelemnts or sets, and of objects which may be sets or classes. Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Also true! (I know this very well, since my main set theory is NFU; urelements all over the place). I added a brief description of the Morse pair to the ordered pair article. Randall Holmes 01:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

function (set theory)

Thanks for noticing and correcting the blunder re injection/bijection; I can easily make this mistake since I identify functions with their graphs and so do not customarily use the codomain, and I might not have noticed... It's also nice to know that someone actually looked :-) Randall Holmes 00:43, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

"fixing" the NBG article (von Neumann-Godel-Bernays)

Please consult with me about the nature of the fix you want to put in (I wrote the axiomatization in the current article). von Neumann does have historical priority for this form of set theory, and his axiom which conflates Replacement and Global Choice (what I call "Limitation of Size") is worth presenting (though admittedly rather weird); but I'm perfectly happy to see a more familiar form presented as an alternative (in my notes I talk about the possibility of an alternative formulation closer to the usual Replacement axiom). I would like to see both formulations in the article rather than have an argument about it... Randall Holmes 17:08, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

PS: I'm quite confident that there are things wrong with that article (including the parts I wrote), but I do think that von Neumann's axiom should appear in it, at least as an alternative. Randall Holmes 17:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
No problem. I was going to use my mother's axiom system (Set Theory for the Mathematician) for (v)NBGU as an alternative definition set. Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
How about writing it in as an alternative (leaving mine alone temporarily), and then I'll look at it and (assuming that I like your mother's set of axioms, which I probably will; I'll look for her book in our library) I'll try to add a treatment of von Neumann's axiom suited to your mother's set, at which point my development (which has no special authority) could be eliminated. Does your mother's set include a finite axiomatization of class comprehension (if it didn't, that would be a reason to keep my treatment, or to adapt my finite axiomatization section to your mother's axioms)? Randall Holmes 20:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

relation (mathematics)

did you notice that I requested mediation? I mentioned you as a party to the argument with Awbrey, but I hope I did not illegitimately ascribe to you any views on the dispute that you do not hold. Randall Holmes 20:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

your mother's axioms

I have your mother's book in front of me (I think I remember looking at it before :-) It's nice; it's not all that different from the axioms I present (except for the presence of the von Neumann omnibus axiom. Your mother did list a finite axiomatization under the axiom of constructibility, but did not explain why it works (which I attempt in my section on the subject). The notation is now atypical; this should be adjusted. I'm going to the talk page now to look at what you entered and compare it with my set... Randall Holmes 00:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Ducks

If it quacks like a Duck... it's not a Turing machine. --CSTAR 17:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: refactoring thanks

No problem, just a little thing. :) --AySz88^-^ 01:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Does this mean I now have a Erdős number of 2? o.O --AySz88^-^ 01:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Quantity in mathematics

Arthur, thanks for comments regarding quantity in mathematics in the article on quantity. Some responses have been made on the talk page under the points to be addressed section, which are as follow:

  • As for Arthur's comment regarding a line status: it must be clar the every line is a limited length, which belong to a fundamental quantity (as measure) along with mass, time period and temperature.
  • Concerning scalars, vectore and tensors, they are first of all variable quantities (variables assuming a set of values) that can be resolved into components; although other properties can be added up as well.

Can you make any sense of this? I cannot.

From Mathematics:

Mathematics is often defined as the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. Another view, held by many mathematicians, is that mathematics is the body of knowledge justified by deductive reasoning, starting from axioms and definitions.

I take this to imply two views: (i) that mathematics is concerned with studying abstract properties of quantity, structure, space and change (all of which pertain to the empirical world); and (ii) that mathematics is concerned with the formal study of abstract entities (e.g. logicism). I have serious reservations about defining such concepts as scalars and vectors literally as being quantities. Input would be appreciated. Holon 01:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hewitt

I've added some extra speculation at your request for clarification. Cheers, —Ruud 04:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

WAREL/DYLAN LENNON

Arthur, I am as annoyed of this troll as everybody else here, but I think it would be better to handle him correctly, and avoid unnecessary provocations. Wasn't your last revert a bit too much? It is his talk page after all. -- EJ 16:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think my last revert was in scope, as the question asked was why he was banned from ja.wikipedia.com, and a plausibly authoritative answer was removed in favor of speculation. I'm not defending the reversion of WAREL's deletion of the entire section, though, although I don't feel like re-reverting it. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Point taken. Anyway, I also don't feel like re-reverting, let's just see what happens. Cheers -- EJ 19:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

cataloguing userboxes

You stated on the UPP talk page that you are in favor of cataloguing userboxes in Wikipedia space. Please consider supporting the "Conditional Support" addendum/clarification on the WP:UPP main page. That is what it is about. Thanks.    GUÐSÞEGN   – UTEX – 00:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Nearly. I still don't consider the policy necessary, but I said would conditionally abstain if your condition was met and all improper (i.e., those in which the content itself would not be deleted, even from userspace) speedy deletions and out-of-process deletions were reverted — and (a new condition) all improper subst'ing was changed to subst as {{userbox}} rather than as raw HTML, at least at the user's option. It's possible that this last condition might not require a change in policy from the modified proposal, so I'm not insisting on the last clause, but first reverting the out-of-process deletions and subst'ing is a requirement. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

More Hewitt

See Anonymouser (talk • contribs). —Ruud 02:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

UPP

I commented on the Talk of your poll page (in case you're not watching it), but I'll let someone else break the ice. Septentrionalis 04:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I am watching. Thanks. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

bios theory

I just noticed you put a "merge" tag on bios theory. I thought I'd reply here, instead of there, so as to minimize the ongoing problem. As far as I can tell, bios theory is hogwash of some sort; the entire page should probably be deleted as non-notable scientific nonsense. Don't feed the troll who is pushing this stuff. linas 00:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree -- however, there may be a real field there, somewhere. Chaos theory, as currently described, only discusses systems with some various of quasi-periodic or pseudo-periodic orbits. There should be something that can be done without that. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:21, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Arthur. Can you help me make novelty section less confusing? It does read little strange with all that stuff about isometry/simmilarity recurrences, but I didn't know how to write it better. Few people complained for definition of novelty, so I tried to explain it using the analogy with existing description of recurrence plots that everyone seems to understand. Lakinekaki 17:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
I changed article quite a bit. Arthur, please read it and tell me what you think. Thanks. Lakinekaki 18:58, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

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Kojin Karatani

Do you know him? What do you know about him?WAREL 02:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The categorization is not supported in the article, and your comment about him on the Deconstruction page is just wrong, whether or not Karatani said it. There's also no assertion of notability in the article (yet). If someone were to nominate it for WP:CSD, it would probably go through. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you know him?WAREL 17:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

No. But I don't need to know him to know that your edits are not encyclopedic. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, BTW

I appreciate it. For some reason, several people here who ought to know better feel that because we disagree with them, nobody is obliged either to be civil to us or to assume good faith on our part. For over four years, I've edited articles and had little interest in Wikipedia politics. Suddenly people who have come only in the last 18 months are claiming to speak for and defend the entire Wikipedian culture whilst engaging in very un-Wikipedian acts. The last two months have been for me a tour of the dark underbelly of Wikipedian leadership. Opposing this proposed userbox ban- its assumptions, its impacts, its mechanisms, its corruptions- unfortunately may be the most important thing we do here for a while. StrangerInParadise 16:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

User:198.137.28.87

I count 4 of (almost) the same edit within 40 minutes at Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. If the first one is might be considered a revert, that makes 4 reverts. Could you check into it? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The first edit was new, so only the user's three subsequent edits were reversions. Regardless, that was his/her first warning (under this IP address, at least). —David Levy 19:07, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Dyslexics of the world, untie!

Thanks for the fix, StrangerInParadise 21:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Compass and straightedge

Please refer to Talk:Compass and straightedge before proceeding; then return here. Thank you.

Please reconsider your position once again. You made the right call the first time; you can make it again. I'm sorry, but I don't see how the text at Ruler does anything but reinforce the correct usage. What am I missing? John Reid 23:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Boxfoolery

Heh, thanks for cleaning up the boxfoolery on my user page today, and with the amusing edit summary besides. (For someone who does so little RC patrolling it's amazing how much vandalism I get hit with, and not just from Lar and Essjay...) Oh, and Erdős number 1? Nifty! Mindspillage (spill yours?) 08:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

xx-y date recircet series

Arthur Rubin, I created these redirects to fix an issue with some pages that parsed dates using the {{CURRENTDAY}} variable in conjuction with a numeric single digit date. for double digit dates (e.g. 2006-04-05 ) it works but for (2006-04-5) it fails. Correcting the formating of this requires using more sets of metatemplates. I was going to speedily restore these, but wanted to chat with you about it first. — xaosflux Talk 03:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I see your point. [[04-5]] is a plausible "mispelling" of [[04-05]], and if the latter works, so should the former. Perhaps you should generate all of them, instead of just "03-"" and "04-"". Unless, of course, you expect this to be fixed by next year? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 06:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've restore a bunch of them. I do plan on finishing the series, but hadn't gotten around to it yet :). I haven't gotten around to fixing or reporting the bug either, yet ! — xaosflux Talk 06:22, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've redeleted these, as they have been obsoleted by the {{CURRENTDAY2}} variable. If I've mised any, feel free to relist on CSD, Thanks! — xaosflux Talk 02:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

10,000 B.C.

I did not consider it to be an implausible typo. Something like Tunth Milloonium Bee See would be an implausible typo. enochlau (talk) 05:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

WAREL RfC

I've filed an RfC against User:WAREL. I listed you as a person who had attempted resolution with him, but it was called to my attention that it would have been better to let you add your own name if you were interested. So I've removed you from the list. -lethe talk + 01:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Erdos

Do you really have an Erdos number of 1? Even I think that's cool and math and I are not friends... Avraham 04:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The "Rubin, Arthur" on the Erdos number project page is me. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
That's so cool. I've got an Erdos number of... well, it's finite, and I'm pretty sure it's less than 20. DS 03:31, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Your own article

Hi Arthur. Have you seen Arthur_Rubin? I didn't create it. --C S (Talk) 08:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I was planning to ask you to add your date of birth to that article (or, bearing in mind the guidelines in Category:Living people, at least the year). However, having spotted {{User typewriter}} on your home page, I now feel a little guilty about doing so. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 14:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll put it in. It's probably public record from some of the Putnam Exam web sites, anyway. (You might link "my" page from there, if you haven't already.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I added a citation on Arthur Rubin to the paper you co-authored with Erdos. I was in disbelief that there was a Wikipedian with an Erdos number of 1 so I had to see for myself. Please correct it if I messed anything up. GT 07:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Does that mean a whole heap of Wikipedians now have an Erdos number of 2, because they have workoed on articles also worked on by Arthur Rubin? I would prefer the answer to be no, because it cheapens the concept, but if a baseballer can get a 1 for signing a baseball with Erdos's signature on it... The El Reyko 07:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
No. Erdos number is defined to require joint mathematical publications. I don't believe most people would count an article on Wikipedia as being "published" in that sense. The Hank Aaron thing is a joke. --C S (Talk) 07:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


The Game

People play The Game for number of reasons. Personally, I find it interesting to see what causes people to think of The Game, and hence lose. Sometimes these will be obvious causes, such as talking about other games, but at other times the reasons will be completely abstract. Various associations also build up. For example, if I lose for whatever reason and happen to be looking at the words "Arthur Rubin", then the next time I see those words I might lose. The more it happens the stronger the association becomes. It is sometimes difficult for players to pinpoint the exact thought process that lead to their loss. The Game is efectively an arbitrary thought that can be used to investigate memory and association. Also, habituation to The Game is interesting. Kernow 15:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Not bad, not bad.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Prime1ProCon

I don't mind being proven wrong. What I don't like is being simply dismissed out of hand, and even less to be called unethical. I served honorably in the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Please give me a point-by-point list of which arguments you think are wrong in my Prime1ProCon page. PrimeFan 22:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC) P.S. I have no opinion on the debate on whether to link that page.

I didn't intend to call you (as maintainer of the page, I suppose) unethical. If the page is wrong, and I know it, it would be unethical for me to link to it. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I misread. However, I'm still offended. I always make an effort to make sure all the information I put in my website is correct. Did you know for example that I actually checked the solutions to Znám's problem for k = 5 to 7 by hand? I would've checked k = 8 by hand, too, but I had Mathematica check it for me, a program I consider highly reliable.
Schutz was able to point out a specific mistake. Can you? PrimeFan 20:49, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Without looking at Schutz's post...
  • Defense/Con/2: 1 is (a) unit of the integers, and the unit (in a sense) of the natural numbers. The reals have nothing to do with it.
  • Defense/Con/4 (missing): 1 (and 0, and negative numbers) are trivially "lucky numbers"; there's no good reason why they should be prime.
  • Prosecution/Pro/3: strawman (although possibly not intentionally so). The question is not whether 1 is crossed or circled, the question is what do you do with the multiples of it?
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:17, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. I have made adjustments. PrimeFan 21:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Furthermore, the arguments involving the prime sequences (Defense/?/7 and Defense/?/8) -- they're both arbitrary. Starting with p0=1, or starting with p1=2 is an arbitrary choice, whether or not 1 is prime. (Furthermore, there used to be an artificial convention in OEIS that sequences start with 1, which may account for some a0=1 for sequences where it's not really approrpriate.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
That was in the book forerunners in the OEIS. I don't think the OEIS has ever had that convention. PrimeFan 21:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Marijuana Wiki

Hi there,

I see that you are a pro-Cannabis Wikipedian so I hope this will be of some interest to you.

I've started a Marijuana wiki (aka The Sticky Wiki) which I think you might be interested in. I'm hoping you can help me get started with this project. Whereas lots of articles about weed get speedy-deleted on Wikipedia, they would be totally cool over at MarijuanaWiki. But really I want the site to be more of a marijuana community than merely an encyclopedia.

To give you an example, I want to have city guides about where to score, find pot-friendly cafes, marijuana events, and what represents a good price in that city. Etc. (You can check out the featured article: "Toronto" to see what I mean). I also want to have grow diaries and marijuana blogs. All in all, basically more communal than encyclopedic.

I am in need of admins/moderators, and people experienced with MediaWiki to help build policy, categories, and templates, etc. If you'd be interested in helping me with this project, the URL is MarijuanaWiki

Thanks for your time and consideration. Hope to see you there!

-- nsandwich 23:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Cardinal numbers and the Axiom of Choice

In Axiom of choice, you said "that 'cardinals' ... cannot be defined without some aspect of the axiom of choice". This is false.

As it says in Cardinal assignment, "If the axiom of choice is not assumed we need to do something different. The oldest definition of the cardinality of a set X (implicit in Cantor and explicit in Frege and Principia Mathematica) is as the set of all sets which are equinumerous with X: this does not work in ZFC or other related systems of axiomatic set theory because this collection is too large to be a set, but it does work in type theory and in New Foundations and related systems. However, if we restrict from this class to those equinumerous with X that have the least rank, then it will work (this is a trick due to Dana Scott: it works because the collection of objects with any given rank is a set).".

I realize that the summary of König's theorem which I gave was not quite correct. But, given the context, I felt that it was more important that it be brief and easily read. If someone wanted the exact details, it had a pointer to the article. JRSpriggs 08:00, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes and no.
  1. Cardinals can be trivially defined in ZFC as |X| as the least ordinal equipolent with X.  :)
  2. Cardinals can be defined in ZF (or ZFU + the class of atoms is a set) by Dana Scott's trick.
  3. Even so, the product (or sum) of an infinite family of cardinals cannot be defined in ZF-C, as guessed at in User Talk:RandomP#Axiom of Choice, before I supplied the reference.
(And the article at König's theorem had the same flaw before I attacked it. Perhaps I got a little carried away here....) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:29, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your improvements to König's theorem. And thanks for correcting your correction of my addition to Axiom of choice.
I did not read the whole discussion at RandomP's; but he said "(ZF) → If x is Dedekind-finite, it is in bijection with a finite von Neumann ordinal n.". It seems to me that this is obviously false. JRSpriggs 08:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
It is obviously "false" (independent of ZF). It's also a red herring, in that the argument requires that the sets be finite, in the sense of being in a bijection with a finite von Neumann ordinal n. A little study (by an expert in the field, that is me) showed that the set being well-orderable is adequate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
No, I did not say that. I made clear that it's something I thought was true, but I also made it clear that I did not have time to check that. Not accusing you of deliberately misquoting me or anything, but thought a denial would be appropriate anyway :-) RandomP 12:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Conjugate quantities

Could you give me a hint what you found wrong with the article? --LambiamTalk 23:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry — I'll get back to you tomorrow (my time). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Conjugate quantities are two observables that have a specific commutation relationship, namely [p,q] = 1; rather than any two observables which do not commute. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:09, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Grave concerns about Bios theory and User:Lakinekaki

Hi, I see you also find reason to doubt the claims made by the author of this article. On the talk page I have listed my objections to the first paragraph and have also drawn attention to the fact that Lakinaki is not only apparently the sole author of this article, but is also in real life one Lazar Kovacevic (BSEE, University of Belgrade) of Chicago, who apparently is employed at the very organization which is actively promoting "bios theory" (sic)! I find this very troubling and am seeking comments on what to do about it. ---CH 05:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

105263157894736842

Hi,

Saw that you put a {{prod}} on the article 105263157894736842 (number). I want to contest it as I feel that its notable enough for inclusion. Specifically, as per the guidelines of Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers, atleast 3 interesting properties of the number should be mentioned. This article fulfils it and even if the "interesting" part is debatable, its not a clear-cut case. In any case I feel that the article asserts notability in itself. If you feel unconvinced, please move it to AfD so that we can find out the community consensus on it. Hope it would be ok with you. Going further, I see that you are interested in numbers. If you are able to help me with the article (by finding more interesting qualities), I will appreciate your help. Regards, -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:39, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I feel a number that large should have more than 3 interesting properties. (Furthermore, Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers suggests that it should have a complex code leading to proper sorting: [[:Category:Integers|199E18 105263157894736842]] — or maybe that was 17.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Please don't discriminate against a number for its length. As regards to having a proper name, its a fixable issue. I would encourage you to fix it if you feel its required. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers#How_far_to_go.3F. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The section pointed out by you says "...and numbers with some remarkable mathematical property." Again, what is counted as "interesting" or "remarkable" is debatable and not so clear-cut. And I have not tried to circumvent the wikiproject for this number. Seeing the talk page, you will see that I have mentioned that I have created an article about that number so that any possible deviations from policy issue can be sorted out easily and in good faith. Regards, -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm forced to say that I don't consider any of those properties "remarkable", or even "interesting". I'll send it to AfD this afternoon, if you want to challenge the deletion. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:04, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
As for an implication in your first message, {{prod}} does not assert the absence of an assertion of notability, but merely an absence of notability. Again, if you wish to remove the prod, or cannot come up with a remarkable property for that number, I'll suggest it for AfD in 3 or 4 hours. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:06, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
That's what AfD is for. Differences of opinion will always exist, but we should find ways to tackle things peacefully. Its afternoon for you and night for me (another difference of opinion). Will discuss this issue on the AfD page from now on. Good night. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

k-parasitic numbers

Hi Arthur,

Its me again. I have another alternative that I feel should be acceptable for you (with regards to the 10526.... article). I can create a page on "k-parasitic numbers" (see http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/A092697 and http://www.michael-kreil.de/html/mathematik.html for reference) and redirect all the included numbers to that article. All the interesting properties of individual numbers can be discussed there. If you have no objections, I will go ahead with making that article. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead. Call the article "parasitic numbers", though, as the arbitrary "k-" (or "n-") will just confuse people, and hurt indexing. I don't really consider it notable, but it could easily be a good article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Query on my sandbox

Sorry, I only just noticed your query on my sandbox, and I've answered it. --AySz88^-^ 06:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

105263157894736842 AfD

Hi,

I remember sending you a communication about my intention of making article on k-parasitic numbers. That way, it will become a part of the article and as a whole belong to a class of article that is notable. Had you replied earlier, I would have already blanked the article and made it a redirect. I feel that this AfD is a waste of time (yours as well as mine). Please reply to my earlier message soon so that I can know how to proceed. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

My apologies. I'm not sure I consider (k-)parasitic numbers notable, but they are an acceptable topic. (I still don't think numbers list large should even have a redirect, unless they have some exceptional properties, but redirects are cheap.). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Personal remarks

Re your comment on the p-adic numbers page, I think a better use for you time and abilities might be to write more articles on subjects you know. In the last month, I've turned some stubs on important, sometimes central, topics into real articles: algebraic number field, algebraic curve, Poincaré disk model, and for less important topics, a slew of special cuves, for instance. I've started other articles, adding all of the content: hyperboloid model, Klein model, valuation ring. For this I get a suggestion that perhaps I should be Wiki-stalked. With all due respect, I don't think you've done more during that period; I don't see any substantial expansions or new article creations. Why, then, do you feel impelled to make personal remarks? Gene Ward Smith 06:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

In the three articles I mentioned, I see substantial errors in your revisions or positions, and the Wikipedia concensus seems to agree. Perhaps you should stick to subjects you know, and leave those subjects in which you have peripheral knowledge to those experts. I'm more of a mathematical generalist, at this point, although I made significant revisions in von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory, which you would see in the talk page.
However, the reference to wiki-stalking is inappropriate. I apologize. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 12:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the apology, but I'm afraid your claim to see "substantial errors" (which you have not explained) sounds like it is probably nonsense. As a number theorist, I'm likely to know more about p-adic numbers than you do, just for starters. It is a subject I know. What, precisely, are these alleged "errors"? Gene Ward Smith 21:25, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
For the p-adics, the primary error is the assertion that anyone other than yourself uses your preferred notation. You have no cites, although a few cites are left-to-right with the basimal point before the units place. Right-to-left seems standard. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
That's not what I asserted. I said that the left-to-right notation is used in the form of a power series, and that is true. In fact, to the extent there is a standard notation, that's it; or either that or giving a mod p^n reduction. No one uses right-to-left in serious work, it's all something people use when trying to explain the p-adics. No one uses my notation either, but I not only didn't I say they did, I said it was not standard notation in the article you are objecting to. And anyway, this isn't a math error, even if I'm wrong, and you can find a research article using right-to-left! Where are these alleged math errors? Gene Ward Smith 23:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

S9/11T article

Thanks for fixing my mistake from my last edit. And by the way, I'm sure that such criticisms have been levied (presumably), but we need to source them to someone. I didn't want to remove the criticisms, because it is pretty obvious that this group promotes views in stark contrast with the mainstream, and the criticism section should be beefy enough to communicate this fact to readers. Dick Clark 15:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

California WikiProjects

As a California Wikipedian, you may be interested in the California WikiProject (and/or one of its 'daughter' Wikiprojects on Southern California, Santa Barbara County, California State Highways and California County Routes). Please take a look at the WikiProject to see if there is anything that interests you. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to contact me. If enough people express an interest, it would also be very easy to create additional daughter WikiProjects, such as a Northern California WikiProject or a California Politics WikiProject.

It has also more than seven months since the 2nd Los Angeles area Wikipedia meetup ([ 26 September]] 2005), so it is time for another one. There have also been California meetups in San Diego (18 October 2005) and a very small one in Santa Barbara (8 April 2006. It's also about time that the Bay Area gets its first Meetup if anyone is willing to organize it. BlankVerse 06:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Sortkey

I have changed the sortkey at Talk:Arthur Rubin again to "Rubin, Arthur", because that is the standard method of sorting names. The category talk page does not mention sorting by first name. Ardric47 06:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

-2 revisited

User:Hoof38 has been banned as a sock puppet of the late, unlamented, User:Science3456. Would you have any objection to deleting the article at −2, as you're the only legitimate editor of it? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to this. Looking at your comment on the user's Talk page, I now think that I should have gone with my first impression and removed the disambiguation page. Thanks for letting me know.  (aeropagitica)  (talk)  21:00, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Chirotalk

I noticed recently that Chirotalk has started its own self-promoting article on WP. I nominated it for deletion. As someone who has recently edited the chiropractic article and discussion pages (and as some who is interested in AFD), I thought you might want to chime in with your thoughts here. TheDoctorIsIn 02:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Erdős number of 1

Wow...! - CrazyRussian talk/contribs/email 19:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

ISA Spam...

Thank you.

You intend to leave comments on the culprits talk page, expressing the viewpoint that spamming users is hardly going to lead to a positive outcome in regard to an AfD matter? ShakespeareFan00 23:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of it, but it's a good idea. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Centerville High School Science Olympiad

You stated the first time that you reverted the inclusion of this information that it was because there was no article. I added an article. You deleted it anyway. If I now add a more informative article will you still delete the information? Jesterjester 00:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see an article you created.
Furthermore, what you need to do is to write an article about the state (and/or national) competition, giving a general description, and the first few winners. If that's notable, then the standing of your school in that competion might be notable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:48, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I didn't make a completely new article. I added information to the list of wins on the Centerville High school article so that it would not be a stand-alone list, but actually have some other content. If you mean that Science Olympiad is not an important competition, there is already an article existing for it explaining its importance. Jesterjester 18:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
You didn't link to the Science Olympiad article. How am I supposed to know it's not a state (or school district) competition? (I still don't think it's notable, but I'd be willing to let it slide, if you add the information to any existing articles for schools in the state which scored in the top 5 or 10.) Besides, it's a bad section title. Perhaps "Ohio Science Olympiad"? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:05, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Direct logic AfD

Perhaps I should change my vote to Userfy to User:CarlHewett, then delete as a violation of his RfAr. No, too much trouble

I know, this is really not what anyone wants to waste their time on, is it. Thanks for pointing out the Arbcom ruling, incidentally. There is obviously a whole lot more to this than some disruptive boasting on paraconsistent logic. In fact I've never seen anything quite like it. -Dan 18:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

La Jolla

Just curious why you would prefer an article name for a place that is totally non-standard. Nobody (outside of a handful of Wiki editors) refers to communities like La Jolla as {community, city, state}. The primary principle for naming in Wikipedia is to use "the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" See: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions. This is why New Yorkers won't accept New York, New York (they insist on the more common, New York City. This is also why Manhattan is Manhattan, and not Manhattan, New York City, New York. So I'm wondering why you (and so many others) want to butcher the article names of communities like La Jolla with a non-standard and cumbersome naming convention. Thanks. --Serge 00:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I prefer standardization. Perhaps La Jolla (California), rather than La Jolla, California? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes I prefer place-name (state), but only when disambiguation is required. I'm glad you like standards. The Wiki standard is to use the most commonly used/recognized name. --Serge 05:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

nesara

Are you confusing nesara.us with the very different nesara.org? The .org site contains a copy of the legilation being proposed at nesara.org. While this may be nutty and fringe, so was string theory when it was first discussed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Carbonate (talk • contribs) 10:53, June 13, 2006 (UTC)

Possible. But nesara.us is the site of a notable nut, while nesara.org is the site for nutty, but not particularly notable, proposed legislation. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Krein space

Looking at the history for it I saw a comment claiming it needed a cleanup.

Given your clear expertise in the relevant field, can you take a look? ShakespeareFan00 15:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, it's either not my field, or the notation is so different from what I'm familiar with that I cannot help. (It would be interesting to see if the history shows any indication of what book "1.24" is taken from. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

hubert theory

Why did you revert me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ruber chiken (talk • contribs) 21:34, June 16, 2006 (UTC)

Because you're wrong (IMHO). If you're willing to agree to mediation (and sign your name properly on talk pages), I'll be willing to let the error go until a concensus can be obtained. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

what you are the mediator no.Just reed the section on the talk page,carefully.juge by your self hows rogn.He is a dick,it's imposible to discus anything with him.It's so carucatural.If something is not sourced,he deleated,he says,it's up to how what's to put the information to provide sources,not to how whants to deleat it,and when you provide source he don't understand them.I'm not the only one,to how he creates problems,he is alredy in mediation whit some one else,and the discotion goes nower.I'm refusing to discus any thing with him.If you don't what tha he roats the page is up to you.--Ruber chiken 22:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

He's generally correct, both on the talk page and in the article. The other problems which he may be in mediation or arbitration on have nothing to do with this article, and he's not being tendacious here. You are. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Extreme physical information

Hi, I somehow missed the AfD discussion, but yesterday I noticed that this article, Information and B. Roy Frieden have been edited by an anon who is almost certainly none other than Roy Frieden, in ways which tend to state his controversial views as established fact. I am too busy to argue with him, but I hope others will monitor this and try to persuade him to write more unbiased contribs in future. ---CH 07:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:BLP

Please review WP:BLP, specifically the section that reads "clear demonstration of relevance to the person's notability." Does the full expansion of L-S have a clear demonstration of relevence to the person's notability, or does the paragraph as it is written contain all of the relevent information? Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. His name may not be relevant — but is public, and probably shouldn't be suppressed. His being a Puerto Rican lawyer seems relevant, and the dispute being in part outing of his clients, is relevant. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Poussin proof

I am not sure that your version of the second equation is correct. The "1" on the right-hand side seems wrong to me. I think that it should be something else. Please add pointers to definitions for the fp and π functions. JRSpriggs 05:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the text the average fraction by which the quotient falls short of the next whole number is γ. suggests that we should be averaging \left \lceil \frac{\eta}{p} \right \rceil - \frac{\eta}{p}, or (with the exception of the few prime divisors of η, 1-\left \{ \frac{\eta}{p} \right \}. (See floor function for the symbol definitions — whether or not they're mathematically standard, they're good enough here if referenced.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 04:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. That is much clearer. JRSpriggs 04:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

University of Miami 2006 Custodial Workers' Strike

Greetings. On the VdD talk page, you stated this: "It should also be pointed out that only 2 or 3 of the 10 'Keep' votes gave a reason. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)" I left the following comment on the same talk page: "... Did you mistype? I would hate to conclude that you're misrepresenting a verifiable fact (namely that *most* of the keep votes provided reasons). Please reread the AfD page and then please comment on your mistaken claim. Thanks. Universitytruth 16:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)" I would like to invite you to (re)read the VfD page [1] and then revise your statement on the talk page. I conclude from the other sections on your talk page that you are good with numbers. Cheers, Universitytruth 18:04, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooops!

Arthur, Thanks for removing my signature from the chiropractic page:) That's what I get for playing with buttons that I have no experience with! Good thing you're on the ball!!!--Dematt 13:36, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/What Really Happened (2nd nomination)

It appears that an anon IP removed your opinion from the AfD discussion. I posted diffs near the bottom but I figured I'd let you go back and repost comments if you wanted to (quite a bit has been posted since then so a simple revert is out of the question).--Isotope23 16:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I added a new "vote". (I'll have to check whether my move comments are still there.)
It is still there and Doc Tropic has requested an admin review of the sockpuppets. Aeon 18:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Four types of error

I am attempting to reply to your imposition of this banner on the above article:

It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern:

Implausible name, needs more than one source for Type III and Type IV errors (actually, it has more than one source, but the type IV errors are different)

If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article, or if you otherwise object to deletion of the article for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced.

The article may be deleted if this message remains in place for five days (This template was added: 1 July 2006).

If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, consider improving the article so that it is acceptable according to the deletion policy.

At this moment I have the following remarks, to which I would request you reply at some greater length than the abrupt notice above:

(1) I have spoken English all my life; and, as well, have spent some 17 years or so associated with academic pursuits. Despite this I simply can not motivate any meaning at all from your notice as it appears on my screen. Can you please explain in plain English:
(a) what you think is wrong with what is written, and
(b) what changes you suggest (and, I assume that you are "suggesting", rather than "demanding").
(2) Given the fierceness of your (to me, incomprehensible) "demand/suggestion" I find it astonishing that you do not seem to have read the pieces from which this article was generated (viz., [2] [3] [4]) something which would immediately explain why the amalgamated piece was written in the way it was.
(3) Given that I am informed that we must always assume good faith, I would like to know why, given the force of your "tag" -- and the claims for "higher knowledge" that are deeply embedded within it -- why you did not deign to explain yourself, your action, your views and, far more importantly, provide some of your wisdom to a Wiki-newcomer such as myself, so that whatever it might be that you find deficient can be appropriately supplemented.

Once I have received these explanations, I will be in a far better position to respond to your concerns, whatever they may be, within the 5 days that you have demanded.

I hope that you reflect a moment upon the content of the banner -- the meaning of which I'm sure that you at least understand -- and recognize that it is, in and of itself, quite meaningless, frightening and oppressive (simply because draconian things are threatened on the basis of some thing that has not been adequately explained and, even worse, as a consequence, can neither be defended nor corrected).

I am doing my best to contribute to Wiki, in the best way I can; and I am hoping that you will assist me achieve this, Best to youLindsay658 00:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Specific problems with the article:
1. Title of article
A. No one is going to look for it under that name. Perhaps "Types of errors (statistics)", but a better title could be found. Furthermore, the count is wrong, as many of the "errors of the 4th kind" are distinct and incompatible, so there really shouldn't even be a trace of an article with this name.
2. Errors of the 3rd and 4th kind
A. You have at least the following distinct errors of the 3rd kind
1. Providing the right answer to the wrong question
2. choosing the test falsely to suit the significance of the sample
3. correctly rejecting the null hypothesis for the wrong reason
4. incorrect decision of direction following a rejected two-tailed test of hypothesis
B. and 3 distinct errors of the 4th kind
1. the error of giving the wrong answer to the wrong question.
2. solving the right problem too late.
3. the incorrect interpretation of a correctly rejected hypothesis
The errors of the 3rd kind could be unified, by careful choice of definitions, (although that unification might be WP:Original Research), but not those of the 4th kind.
For what it's worth, my father (Herman Rubin) proposes a number of different errors, most of which fall into the category of chosing the hypothesis after looking at the data. That doesn't match any of the errors mentioned in the article, but it's still an error.
You've written an excellent article. If you chose a plausible title and do not try to count the errors (only the errors of the 1st and 2nd kind are at all standarized), it might even become a Wikipedia:Featured article. Also, an article unifying the errors of the first and second kind seems an excellent idea; my expository skills are not up to the task, but there could easily be such an article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanation and guidance. I agree with your view that types I & II can only really be understood in terms of one another; and that is why I decided to merge them.
Another pertinent issue is that a wide range of the literature in the social sciences are now referring to "type I errors" and "type II errors" without the slightest explanation of the terms (and I have also seen something like "and, of course, this is an error of the second kind" without any explanation at all of what such a thing might be).
So, on the basis that Wiki will often be a place of first reference for many non-experts, I felt (and still feel) that the article should be "elastic" enough to stretch just a little way from the more precise statistical usage in relation to the first two categories only, in order to allow them to understand the evolution of the notion of rejecting something that should have been accepted and the notion of accepting something that should have been rejected.
A third issue is that, in relation to my academic studies (relating to aspects of thought experiments) I made a wide range of enquiries some 18 months ago amongst mathematicians and statisticians that I knew, and even one actuarial acquaintance (and, also, they asked amongst their friends and colleagues), and none of them knew where the terms came from. It took me some time to unearth the original Neyman and Pearson sources; and, as a consequence of that trouble, I am also certain that the article must contain accurate references to their work.
In relation to the other two categories, I'll take some quiet time to ponder on your astute comments and valuable feed-back and come up with a possible solution (maybe it will take a day or two) and, once I have determined some way to cover that sort of information in a precise way, I will immediately "run it past you" (assuming that is OK with you).
Finally, in relation to the title. . . I was never really happy with what I chose; however I thought it better to choose something, and then get on with writing. You have made me understand that I must be more careful in future.
I am flat out with a number of tasks at the moment, including my studies, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Best to you (and "Thanks" once more)Lindsay658 08:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the {{prod}} tag, and suggest Type I and type II errors (wuith the present set of redirects. Septentrionalis 21:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin and Septentrionalis. I have thought long and hard about the comments from both of you.
Upon reflection, I have formed the view that despite the fact that (as you, Arthur Rubin, so correctly remarked) the type III errors and, especially the type IV errors, have no real connexion with those things that are included within the first and second types, it is a simple matter of fact that many people can be led to think that they do (i.e., on the basis of their appearance in various sorts of literature); and, therefore, they do need to have some sort of information presented about them (just on the basis that many people think that they belong to the same class), even if that information is simply to say that they are not "standard" to the extent that the first two are.
I suppose, too, it is also correct to say that, whilst the III and the IV have no connexion of any sort with the I & II pair, they certainly are "associated" in the minds of many people (by that, I mean those people who have encountered the notions of either a "type III error" or a "type IV error" in their reading).
As a consequence of these ruminations, I have decided that the information about the so-called type III errors and type IV errors
(a) should remain there (on the basis that the information contains important material relating to the sources of the notions), and
(b) should be treated in a different way.
namely, that they should be presented in the spirit of being the consequences of various people hoping to leap upon an already well-established band-wagon, and allowing that band-wagon to become a presentation vehicle for whatever notion they wish to make known to the world at large.
Given all of that, this is what I am proposing:
(1) Rename the page "Type I and type II errors".
(2) At the head of the article only list the first two sorts of error (and, therefore, relegating any reference to a third and fourth sort of error to a later section (see (3) below).
(3) Amagamate the current sections of "Type III" and "Type IV" errors into a single section entitled "Proposals for further extension", with some introductory remarks to the effect that whilst they may, indeed be referring to "errors", they are errors of a different nature from the mirror images of types I & II.
(4) Amalgamate most of current footnote 8 into the text of the "Null hypothesis" section.
I hope that this meets your approval, Best to both of youLindsay658 01:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
This seems perfectly reasonable. Septentrionalis 12:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I have done the best I can to achieve the best result. I hope that you both approve of what is now at Type I and type II errors.
Also, it does seem that I will need some guidance about how straighten out the double redirects as Septentrionalis suggested; I have no idea how to go about it.
Another thing, given that the entire page now looks rather neat and tidy, is there some way that the physical size of the mathematical formulae in the "false negative rate" and "false positive rate" can be reduced? Best to you both (and "Thanks" again for your guidance and support).Lindsay658 01:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Reverts

I reverted not based on quality but because edits are being made by a user not allowed to edit. Trust me, you do not want to get involved with this guy. After a lot of rambling, nonsense edits and a tendency to "own" articles, he was finally banned last year after making a death threats. He returned with a parade of sockpuppets and has a tendency to stalk women, push POV and generally scare people. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 19:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Would you like to be an admin

Hi Arthur. You've been here for almost a year now, did good work in math articles and discussion pages, and I think you can be trusted with some extra tools. :) Would you want to candidate for admin? If so, I'd be happy to nominate you. If you are not familiar with what adminship entails (I doubt :) you could read the WP:RfA page and some links there in. A sample of a successful adminship is for example Lethe's nomination page, at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lethe (the answers to questions are the important part). Anyways, wonder what you think. You can reply here. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. I think I may have gotten into conflicts with too many admins for it to go through, but we'll see. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Cool. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Arthur Rubin. You need to

  • Answer the questions
  • Accept the nomination
  • Change the ending time (see on top) to exactly one week after you accept the nomination.
  • Post the nomination at WP:RfA (on top).

Concerning the conflicts you mention above, if you think this is not the right time, we can also delay things by a while. But OK, good luck! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Question on RfA

I posted a question on your RfA. Just figured I would tell you. Regards, Alphachimp talk 02:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

RfA Q

You don't relist AfDs that are on Today's log as they are still active, please edit your answer as I'd like to support you. :) --Andeh 13:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I misread the question. Fixed, now, although I left the previous answer in strikeout text. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Armando RfM

Hey Arthur, good luck on your RfA. Looks like it's going well. In any case, I noticed that there is a RfM pending on the Armando/Daily Kos discussion and you added yourself as a party. Did you do this because you initiated the first deletion review, or are you still involved? I'm trying to decide whether I'm "party" too, even though I haven't followed the discussion since it moved to Daily Kos. Best, trialsanderrors 20:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of ...

Yes, I debated putting the years back in, and can do quickly if you think it's a good idea (I was there primarily to deal with the month links). However for the 20th/21st C there will be eventually entries for almost every year, so the value of the links seem limited. Post about 2050 (?) the years redirect to centuries an millenia anyway. Let me know what you think. Rich Farmbrough 16:01 15 July 2006 (GMT).

Your edits to 2100

Don't be stupid. 2100 can also refer to a number, hence we shouldn't pretend that it doesn't, by redirecting in to 21st century. Jose and ricardo 19:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Try to remain civil, thank you. ~ trialsanderrors 20:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
In any case, upon further investigation, it seems the protocol is to redirect it to 2100s, where the year is specifically mentioned, and to add a dab header linking to 2000 (number) there. The standard in WP for an unaccompanied number link is that it refers to the year, see 2000 for example. ~ trialsanderrors 20:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Congratulations!
It is my great pleasure to inform you that your Request for Adminship has
closed successfully and you are now an administrator!

Useful Links:
• Administrators' reading list • Administrators' how-to guide •
• Administrator's Noticeboard • Administrator's Noticeboard for Incidents • Administrator's Noticeboard for 3RR •
Your admin logs:
• blocks • deletions • moves • protects • uploads •

If you have questions, feel free to leave a talk page message for me or any other admin. Again, congratulations! Essjay (Talk) 02:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations! Well deserved. -- Avi 02:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
congratulations sir. More mathematicians and scientists please. Blnguyen | rant-line 02:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Congrats man! Alphachimp talk 03:04, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Congrats! :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

מזל טוב!! - CrazyRussian talk/email 17:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll second the well deserved part! --Dematt 14:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Well done! - one more mathematician admin is always good news :-) Madmath789 15:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Cross-namespace redirects

You are receiving this message because you previously voiced your opinion on a Redirects for deletion of a cross-namespace redirect that was originally deleted but then went to Deletion review and was then relisted at RFD. This is a courtesy notice so you are aware that the issue is being discussed again and is not an endorsement of any position. --Cyde↔Weys 13:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Chuck Cunningham syndrome

If you believe it should be deleted, then why not nominate it? Daniel Case 19:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Because I'm just getting back into Wikipedia after dealing with real life for a few days. I think I'd propose a user RfC against you, first, though, as your article creations all seem to be unsourced. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Which ones? Daniel Case 01:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I hope that was a joke ... surely you couldn't have read through my contributions in two minutes? Daniel Case 02:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Not entirely; I'd looked at Darren (?) Syndrome previously (and I'm not going to go back and correct the spelling; its 130 am here, and I'm only online because I'm watering the lawn, and have to go back out and turn them off and go to bed in a few minutes. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I didn't create Darrin Syndrome and, in fact, I have never contributed to it. Daniel Case 12:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
My mistake, and your last comment to User Talk:Wikipediatrix seems to be a feasible solution to the conflict. I apologize, although I have doubts about whether the Cunninghams should be here. Furthermore, since a plausible outcome of the RCS AfD is merger into CCS. nominating CCS while the AfD is open would be confusing. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
OK, no problem (If I had been the one making the nomination, I would have nominated all those articles as one big group). Daniel Case 18:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

HS rfc

A quick note: It appears that there are more than one Wikipedian on the "other side" of History Student and his IP addresses. This might force it into WP:RfAr.

???

Justforasecond 16:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. Deleted, I hope without too many comments. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Returned.

--History Student 15:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wilkinson's polynomial

(I'm posting this at both Arthur's and Oleg's talk page; my apologies for the redundancy.) I wonder if you might take a quick look at this AfD. I think keep to be in order, inasmuch as Wilkinson's polynomial is, I think, notable, and inasmuch as, though unsourced and perhaps not altogether accurate, the article isn't wholly unsalvagable, but the discussion would surely benefit from the insinuation of someone better-versed in numerical analysis than I. Thanks in advance for any guidance you might be able to provide at the AfD or the article's talk page... :) Joe 04:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Chuck Cunningham syndrome

Hi... based on your comments on Fonzie syndrome and Reverse Cunningham, I was wondering if you'd care to take a look at this one? These made-up TV-fan "syndromes" are getting out of hand. Thanks... wikipediatrix 20:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Admin rollback

Hi Arthur. Just a note. I read on User talk:Karl-H about the issues with this editor, but I feel that when reverting his contributions, like here, one better use the old style revert rather than the rollback button. Adding an edit summary may make it clear why you reverted, and the user may feel less upset about it (the admin rollback is usually associated with vandalism reversion).

It is a minor thing, and no rule was broken, but I thought I'd bug you about it. Cheers, :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. I thought they were all recreations of previously deleted content of some sort (which would probably warrant a rollback); but I could be wrong — both as to what it was, and as to whether recreations of previously deleted content would warrant a rollback. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:06, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Need Help

Hello Arthur Rubin, I'm sorry to bother you but I need a sysops help in this matter. I'm being Wikistalked by an editor who has an issue with me. He is basicly I feel trying to derail a DR process that I'm in the middle of as a mediator (for the Mediation Cabal). If you feel that this is not the appropiate way to handle this then I will understand and if you could point me in the right direction thanks. the User is UCRGrad. Thanks

Please see the following talk pages [User talk:JakGd1]] User talk:Triddle User talk:Aeon1006

Thanks Again Aeon Insane Ward 01:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind another SYSOP got involved and Handled it sorry to bother you. Aeon Insane Ward 01:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Help on UI page?

Hello Arthur, I've been editing the Universal Intelligence page and I've discovered that its used in conjunction with artificial intelligence. This [5] website (page 13) has a mathmatical formula which I would like to include in the AI subsection on the UI page but I don't know how to put it in. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, unless you think the formula is complete bonkers. (I have no idea if it is or isn't) :) Thanks--Hughgr 18:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The formula would seem a reasonable measure of "problem-solving ability", which might be considered a measure of intelligence. However, it can't actually be calculated for at least three reasons:
  • As noted on page 12, K(μ) depends on the specific Turing machine U.
  • As there are potentially 2^n strings of length n, the sum may diverge. OOPS, I missed prefix universal Turing machine. It may still not numerically converge, as in \sum_n \frac{1}{n \ln^2 n}
  • The function, itself, is not computable. See our article on Kolmogorov complexity for an explanation of why K(μ) is not computable. (And those are for finite strings. This is more complicated, as it appears to be a (computable) real-valued function.)
But, if you want to include the formula, I see no difficulty in defining
\Upsilon (\pi)=\sum_{\mu \in E}{2^{-K(\mu)}V_\mu^\pi}
where E is the set of all payoff/outcome functions (see page 11) (loosely speaking), π is a "universal" strategy, K is the Kolmogorov complexity, and (page 9)
V_\mu^\pi = \mathbf{E} \left ( \sum_{i=1}^\infty r_i \right )
(the expected payoff with environment μ and strategy π, if you don't want include that formula.)
As for page 8, getting the sequence from μ and strategy π, the appropriate concepts are probably in axiom of determinacy. They should be, anyway.
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
See Hughgr, I told you Arthur would know. Is that not amazing!!! From now on, you are Awesome Arthur!  :) --Dematt 22:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, O.K., that was a bit over my head (a bit being equal to 1000 miles):) I guess I'll just add the one with the reference. Thanks for looking into it.--Hughgr 00:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

honeybee dance language AFD

Good evening. There have been some new facts and evidence presented in the discussion since your last edit. When you have a minute, would you mind taking the time to revisit the discussion? Thanks. Rossami (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Hillman/Dig

Hi, we both participated in a recent deletion review on CTMU. You might be interested in this MfD which is a consequence of threats by User:Tim Smith and User:DrL to have me blocked for alleged privacy violations in the documentation I kept at User:Hillman/Dig/Langan. ---CH 23:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Art Dreco

CAn you explain your comments on Art Dreco. I'm new to posting on wikipedia and don't quite understandPdrexler 02:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

List of similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

Just a note to let you know the article has been completely rewritten in the time since you voted on AfD. dryguy 16:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Vanished dairies

Every abandoned dairy is notable. I'm starting a new wikiproject just to document dairies, cheese, cows, and mooing. I will viciously defend any dairy article against AfD by using both polysyllabic and archaic words, along with convoluted logic. This will defeat any cows (masquerading as wikeditors) who try to destroy my labor. Wjhonson 16:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Barnstar of Diligence
In view of the abiding perspicacity of your always cogent contributions at WP:AfD, which have the effect not only of improving directly the project qua encyclopedia but also, inasmuch as they promote logical argumentation and civil and rational discourse, of improving indirectly the project qua evolving organism, you are surely well-deserving of this barnstar. Joe 17:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

You should feel free, of course, to move this or to remove it altogether; I want only to express that I, inter al., appreciate that your AfD contributions are invariably succinct yet altogether persuasive (especially since you often reach the same conclusion as I in many fewer words than I), for which construction you are to be commended. Joe 17:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:LIVING

Per "dig" MfD which I'm not sure you're still watching: I left a response there about WP:LIVING. Phr (talk) 05:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC) I am wrong. Phr (talk) 18:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Art dreco

I'm posting on your page to make sure you see it. (I also copied it back to my page so that the conversations are in one place.)

Very short articles providing little or no context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Limited content is not in itself a reason to delete if there is enough context to allow expansion.

– WP:CSD#A1

Patent nonsense and gibberish, an unsalvageably incoherent page with no meaningful content. This does not include: poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, badly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes.

– WP:CSD#G1

Each of these would be reasons for a speedy deletion. I don't think the article quite meets either of those, but it's close, and I see no reason to keep it. Perhaps if you include Reliable Sources for the use of the term, and add some accurate history of the style, it might be kept. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The 4 links indicate that the "Art Dreco Institute" may be real (or, at least arguably so); they do not indicate that anyone other than that institute and Paul Drexler use the term. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:49, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


[6]


I see that I am not following the standard manual of style and will correct this (though not immediately)
In answer to your two objections:

Point

— WP:CSD#G1
I see nothing in what I have written or in the Art Dreco Website to be

Patent nonsense and gibberish, an unsalvageably incoherent page with no meaningful content.

I would be most grateful for an example of such writing
The link above, to a page of the Art Dreco website shows articles going back 30 years about Art Dreco, including such authorities as Paul Harvey, The San Francisco Chronicle


— WP:CSD#A1
The site is full of articles. Are you suggesting that I incorporate more of the Art Dreco cannon in the wikipedia site?
What do you suggest next?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdrexler (talk • contribs) 15:54, July 31, 2006

Much of modern art seems to be gibberish to me. This page is only marginally more so.
By this criterion, most of the higher maths pages would be condemned by consensus. :-P This attempt at humour was contributed by Gondooley 19:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Almost all of the news articles (press releases do not count as a secondary source, but only a primary source) state only something along the lines of "Paul Drexler says that this style is called 'Art Dreco', and is coming back." We need a WP:RS that calls it "Art Dreco", and that it is a recognized movement.
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Nursing Schools in Arizona

Rubin There isn't any schools there it is a blank page I was just trying to at least add someting so it doen't look so bad. There is a very in depth list of schools on the page [7] Each School link goes to that school I wasn't adding to a category that had at least a couple schools in them.

Just really makes no sense not to at least try and supply something if there is going to be a link for someone to be looking for a school. Nurse universe is about nursing jobs we have Baylor Hospital coming on board this week. I wasn't trying to spam just add some kind of content for the purpose of helping a student locate a school of choice. When the category gets to be like California then if I added a link yes I would consider that spam but to help a dead page I wouldn't label it spam. Please Reconsider this and let me know ok. Thanks.--Supplements 15:28, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Well -- if the category has no listings, it shouldn't be there as a category, even if it's one of the 51 states (District of Columbia may be considered a state). Perhaps you should try adding your link to Category:Nursing schools in the United States or to its lead article List of nursing schools in the United States. I wouldn't oppose a single link. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Understood-- I see what your saying Thanks--Supplements 17:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Art Dreco (article against deletion)

Mr. Rubin, I would like to post my now edited comments under the catagory of 'articles against deletion" if some such title can be created, and would like your help in getting it from an "edit" to a "post" since I am a newbie at this part of Wickipedia....having used and referred students to it since its infancy. Thanks for whatever you can do to help. Best, Unreconstructedrebel 02:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I moved your post from Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Art dreco to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Art dreco, where they will should be given the same weight as if you had put it there directly. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 05:02, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Business logic

I will copyedit the article to clarify terms you identify as poorly defined. Gazpacho 19:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Anniversary edit

365 days a year is strictly a Gregorian solar calendar unit of measurement. It takes approximately 365 days for the Earth to rotate around the sun.

This is not, however, the only way to measure a year. In lunar calendars, such as the Islamic calendar, a year is completed after 12 lunar cycles, which totals 354 days. Therefore, it takes 354 days to span from the first day of the second month (as an example) of the lunar calendar of one year to the first day of the second month of the following year. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.0.204.114 (talk • contribs) 01:48, August 3, 2006 (UTC)

OK, I added yet another calendar. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:06, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for Clarification

Hello, Arthur Rubin (congratulations on your recent promotion to admin here at Wikipedia!). Your friend the Hillman agent seems to be MIA, so I'll be waiting until he/she/it gets back to renew my discussions with him/her/it. But as it happens, I just noticed that you responded to me in the CTMU AfD as follows:

"The only kind of theory capable of 'resolving an intractable paradox of physical science' is a theory formulated on a level above that of the paradox itself; thus, using the theory, one can define a function which resolves the paradox by mapping its (otherwise conflicting) elements consistently into observables. [That was me; now here's you:] WP:BOLLOCKS. Well, perhaps, not, but no such (intractable) paradox is discussed here. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:22, 17 July 2006 (UTC)."

I'm very sorry that I wasn't able to respond to you when you made that comment - too much going on for me to notice it at the time, I'm afraid. But now that it has come to my attention, I'm struck by its ambiguity. Do you mean that science generates no intractable paradoxes in the conventional or computational sense? (If so, I'd like to know how you've managed to deduce this.) Do you mean that such paradoxes may in fact exist, but that the resolutions are necessarily scientific as opposed to interpretative? (If so, I'd again like to know your reasoning.) Or do you simply mean that the CTMU - an unquestionably notable theory which was covered by large-circulation elements of the popular media, but whose Wikipedia article you nevertheless helped to delete - doesn't have anything to do with such paradoxes?

I ask, of course, because you are a "relatively famous Wikipedian" who participated in getting that article deleted, and as an important mathematician, must understand quite a bit indeed! More importantly, because you have taken it upon yourself to help arbit the math-science-pseudomath/science-philosophy distinction here at Wikipedia, I think we all need to make sure that you thoroughly understand it, and are not letting misconceptions contribute to possible conflicts of interest on the parts of other Wikipedians. Thanks, Asmodeus 16:20, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I meant there was no such "intractable paradox" described (or mentioned, in sufficient detail to identify it) in the article; and that a paradox being "intractable" is (in almost all cases) a conclusion showing lack of imagination. (The only exceptions are in mathematics, where a paradox may be provably intractable.) See, for example the ultraviolet catastrophe for a physical paradox which could not be resolved within classical physics, requiring quantum physics to resolve it. Would you call that "intractable", or say that quantum physics is "a level above the paradox"? I'm requesting clarification, here, as well. As for CTMU — well, I'll wait for your reply to this question. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Response The question of whether one mathematical (or observational) structure stands in a certain relationship to another, or whether, given a structure and a set of relational constraints formulated with respect thereto, another structure satisfying those constraints can be generated or identified in polynomial time (in a number of steps expressible as as a polynomial function of the total number of structural elements), is not the question I'm asking here...although this question can easily be related to the questions that I am asking.
For present purposes, we might as well define an "intractable (scientific) paradox" as an apparent inconsistency which is agreed to exist by experts in the relevant field(s) of science, but which those experts have failed to conclusively and consensually resolve despite their protracted efforts to do so. (Such an inconsistency can be any of several kinds.) The question of whether such paradoxes owe to a "lack of imagination" on the parts of the experts "in almost all cases" is thus really about the creative competence of those experts. But although it would be possible to justify some fairly negative judgments along those lines, that's still not the question I'm asking here.
The questions I'm asking here are (1) given such an inconsistency, can you resolve it without a metalanguage of the theory or theories (and data sets) which generate it, and (2) if you own that such a metalanguage is required, is this metalanguage - i.e., a language sufficient for the full expression of the interpretative mapping M:T<-->U, where T stands for a (scientific) theory and U stands for the observable universe of that theory - necessarily scientific in nature? That is, in and of itself, does such a metalanguage necessarily involve observational applications of the scientific method (as opposed to the axiomatic method)?
You go on to discuss the UV catastrophe. As we all know, the UV catastrophe was "resolved" by the quantization of light, ultimately leading to the development of quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, there remains a problem with quantum mechanics: the formalism observably corresponds to reality only at limited junctures. The questions of if and how the rest of it corresponds to observable reality remain matters of widespread confusion, and have led to several conflicting interpretations of QM which are necessarily expressed in a "philosophical" metalanguage of QM (which can itself be cast as a metalanguage of classical mechanics). If one of these interpretations is ever refined to the extent that it can generate new falsifiable predictions, it will become "scientific". But until then, we're stuck with philosophical (observationally unfalsifiable) interpretations.
You have already identified "imagination" as important in the resolution of scientifc paradoxes. This alone casts doubt on the notion that there exists any algorithm generating a valid resolution in every case. However, you still seem to believe that there is a set of principles which can be used to conclusively identify such resolutions once they are given, and more generally, to quickly and superficially distinguish between valid and invalid resolutions. Prior to encountering you, the Hillman agent, and certain others here at Wikipedia, I hadn't known of any such principles. I am therefore asking you to share these principles - as opposed to the biases, hunches, rules of thumb, and other voodoo on which others have relied - with the rest of world.
Can you do this? Thanks, Asmodeus 21:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I get the feeling that we're not speaking the same (meta-)language. But, to try to reply to your point on the metalanguage — why does "a metalanguage of the theory or theories..." help? In other words, given such an inconsistency, can you resolve it without a metalanguage of the theory or theories (and data sets) which generate it.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
With all due respect, we'd better be speaking the same metalanguage, because only one kind of metalanguage is capable of coherently expressing the distinctions between science and pseudoscience, science and the philosophy of science, and physics and metaphysics. Those who can't speak it have nothing to go on but conjecture and personal bias regarding those distinctions. As a mathematician, you must already know this.
Regarding how such a metalanguage - a "theory of theories" - can help, that's simple: it can address the nature of the general correspondence between theories and observations. This correspondence, which is normatively described by the scientific method, is a requisite of science; without it, no scientific theory could describe or predict its universe to any extent whatsoever. Therefore, because science exists, the correspondence is real, and is subject to analysis as a source of potentially valuable information regarding science, its methodology, and ultimately, its content. The metalanguage in question is just an elaboration of this correspondence, and the theory which forms the topic of the article which you helped to delete is an advanced description of that metalanguage.
Remember, no scientist, mathematician, or philosopher needs to solve everything up in detail in one paper. The PCID paper cited in the CTMU article considers very simple operations, implementing them very directly in order to produce a new kind of theoretical structure. Frankly, no one who has read and understood it is likely to argue about that. I am therefore left to assume that you either did not read the material cited in the article, or that you did read some small part of it but failed to understand it.
I'm not here to recriminate. I'm just trying to figure out how you managed to conclude that the CTMU is "pseudoscience" and its author a "crank", and how you propose to improve on such erroneous determinations in the future. Any relevant information you can provide would be appreciated. Asmodeus 22:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Please answer my question, without traveling into Intelligent Design Theory, which is clearly pseudoscience, as is the specific form of Complexity Theory mentioned in the introduction of theCTMU paper. (I'll attempt to read the PCID paper, if different, but I don't have much hope, unless it discredits the paper I refer to as the "CTMU paper".) Being pseudoscience is not necessarily a reason for deletion, but....
If the "intractable paradox" is the one that leads to "intelligent design", it's only a paradox in the minds of Fundamentalist Christians. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
So that's what it all comes down to after all: just two naughty words, "intelligent design". Guilt by association. That's just beautiful, especially given that neither the CTMU nor its author is promoted or supported in any way by the ID movement.
I've answered every question you've asked, and as well as I need to, without mentioning those particular words (which, as far as I know, were considerably predated by the CTMU). Irreducible and specified complexity were mentioned in the PCID paper as elements not of the CTMU, but only of ID theory, probably as a gesture to the readers of that journal. By no stretch of the imagination does this make the CTMU equivalent to "ID theory". In fact, the CTMU was explicitly presented as a framework for the simultaneous interpretation of strong but ambiguously-related scientific theories including the theory of evolution. This framework "resolves intractable paradoxes of science" because it jointly quantizes such theories in the sparest, most general, and most background-free way possible, with no need for Christian Fundamentalism or any other body of religious belief or doctrine.
As those who have read and understood the PCID paper are well aware, the CTMU is based on a profound degree of closure and thus exhibits an unprecedented degree of structural autonomy. But even if that weren't the case, professional scientists and mathematicians, and NPOV-conscious Wikipedia editors and administrators, are not supposed to make knee-jerk judgments triggered by mere academic no-no's like "intelligent design". Rather, they are expected to make and formulate their judgments with care, accuracy, and neutrality.
In view of the large amount of ideologically polluted water that has already passed under the bridge, I respectfully urge you to handle such judgments more carefully in the future. Asmodeus 05:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Continuum versus Aleph-one

In the current version of Transfinite number, it says "The continuum hypothesis states that there are no intermediate cardinal numbers between aleph-null and the cardinality of the continuum (the set of real numbers): that is to say, aleph-one is the cardinality of the set of real numbers.". I was wondering whether the "aleph-one is the cardinality of the set of real numbers" is true even if the axiom of choice is false. So I am asking you as our expert on the axiom of choice. I know that GCH implies AxCh, so GCH implies that aleph-one equals the continuum. But what about CH? Is it possible that the continuum and aleph-one are incomparable while both sit directly over aleph-null? JRSpriggs 06:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the answer. I think one of my mother's papers covered that issue, but I don't remember the result. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Unverifiable-external-links

A new tfd discussion has been started because usage guidelines have been added on the template page and because the {tfd} notice was missing for most of the duration of the last discussion. Please review the recently-created usage guidelines before casting your vote. Although my delete vote remained unchanged, I would appreciate your renewed input in this discussion whether or not you agree. savidan(talk) (e@) 23:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Unverifiable-external-links

Hi, you voted for delete because "it's saying the links are questionable without requesting correction". The template actualy contains the line "Editors should consider finding replacement sources, or removal of inappropriate links.", so it actualy is requesting correction. If you feel this isn't strong enough language, can I sugesst discusion on the talk page of the template instead of deletion? --Barberio 09:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Restructuring of Japanese American internment

Please see my user page. I have created a subpage with a significant restructuring of the article. I have added a minimum of new text. Where I have removed text, that is noted on a separate subpage, with comments. I'd like input from you and a few others before I "publish" it as a subpage on the article's talk page. --ishu 15:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Greetings. I don't know whether you've had time to browse or review the proposed restructuring, but I am considering promoting it to the article, since I've received no feedback from the handful of people I've queried. If you've lost interest in this article, I understand. But if the edits have some merit, I'd prefer to have some support going into the talk, so that we can get the gist of it in. I'd appreciate any input you can provide. If nothing else, I'd appreciate if you could just scan the TOC. Thanks. --ishu 13:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Disemvoweling

Hello, Mr. Rubin. Did you look at the extensive discussion of the source for the forum moderation technique before doing your latest revert? I urge you to consider that a professional lexicographer cites this very definition in his online slang dictionary. Will points out that WP:RS says to be careful when citing an expert in a field on something then the citation has not been overseen by someone else, but there is a modicum of oversight in this case, and the guideline does not say that one mustn't cite it. What I frankly don't understand about all this is that there seems to be an effort here to wipe out a definition of the word that is clearly in use, by trying to find excuses to disallow any source that may be found. Please reconsider, and allow the article to include the definition for which it is most frequently used in current parlance. Thank you. Karen | Talk | contribs 20:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The article includes the definition most current used in blogs today, it just has the true most commonly used (and better sourced) definition. Your edit removed the self-censorship splat definition completely. I think that definition should be primary, unless you can provide sources that it is no longer used. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
No, the splat definition was still there, listed second, as it is no longer the one most commonly used. It had the Jargon File still listed, and a demonstration of how it looks. Why do you insist on removing the citation for a definition that is just as well sourced as the one you prefer? Karen | Talk | contribs 16:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Truth Movement Template

Hi,

LOL! This poor, idiotic Wiki-gnome was simply manually clearly the talk pages that happened to pop up in the CSD list as a result of the template's death. I don't know why some appeared and others didn't, and I have no "tech-secrets" that would make the removal of the template easier -- I think that is the sort of task at which Cyde-bot excels, however. Ask User:Cyde, and he'll probably be able to help. Best wishes, Xoloz 22:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

About your revert to Type I and type II errors

I just wondered if you really meant to do the reverts you did? - revert interchange of negative and positive

After reviewing the article, at least some if not all of them were correct. Bfg 09:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The (anon) editor just interchanged them everywhere, and the first few I rechecked (now) are correct as reverted. It's possible some of them needed to be changed, but it seems more likely that they are all correct as reverted. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Furstenberg

What's with the prod on Hillel Furstenberg? He's entirely notable - not my field, but I had a clear idea of some things he had done in mathematics. He is a member of two national Academies. He was a requested article. He had a number of references already here, including the Bible Code thing which is of non-specialist interest. I'd keep my powder dry for someone really lacking distinction. Charles Matthews 18:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

There was no assertion of notability in the article at the time. I really don't have anything to apologize for that I can see. (And there have been a number of requested mathematical articles which were deleted immediately after creation; mostly on concepts where the article writer hadn't a clue as to what the concept was, rather than non-notable requested mathematicians, but "notable" non-published amateur mathematicians have also been deleted.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I said he was 'known' for work. So he is, and that asserts notability. Unless you want to contradict the fact that his proof of Szemeredi's theorem is known. And the Furstenberg boundary. Sure, I could amplify articles all day. Charles Matthews 21:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Christopher Michael Langan

You mistook my edits for quotation marks, when they in fact italicized the names, as they should have been. If you look at the articles for 20/20, Esquire, etc., you will see that they are all italicized. I'm surprised an administrator made such a mistake. Exeunt 10:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Why do you keep vandalizing the energy conservation page?

Are you trying to repeal the laws of physics because you seem to know very little about the subject. Due to increasing wind resistance fuel economy drops rapidly over 60 MPH, not 70 MPH as you keep inserting. Read up on wind resistance and check fueleconomy.gov for yourself before vandalizing the page again.

If you are just reverting the page beacuse you personally enjoy speed you don't belong in the energy conservation area.

— Possible vandal 70.134.*.* (talk • contribs) (more info) has made little or no other contributions outside this topic.

Why don't you get an account, quit editing with anon IPs, stop campaigning for a 55 mph speed limit, and engage with us before further whining? Nova SS 04:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The reliable sources, which do not include the department of Energy propaganda you're so fond of quoting, say 50-70, and refer to engine speed rather than wind resistance in that speed range. Try again (and get an account, or we may need to block your entire ISP.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:10, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Scholars for 9/11 truth

I left a message on the talk page there based on your last edit summary, just wanted to give you a heads up. rootology (T) 15:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Unicode redirects

I don't fully understand the issue here. Heck, most of the character just appear as boxes on my screen, even when I switch to a unicode font. I recommend that you raise your concern directly with the user. He has committed in the past to not make unicode redirects, so if that is what he is doing then that's a problem. I don't understand the need for the redirects at all. -Will Beback 21:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, but a number of those are Unicode characters. I'll bring it up on his talk page. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello and Thanks

I just wanted to say hello and thank you for maintaining a great user profile, one which others can model after (as I did).

Scientific notability guideline

Hey, I noticed that we have notability guidelines on everything from hotels to porn actors, but none on scientific concepts, theories, and terms. I started putting some intitial ideas together at User:Trialsanderrors/SCIENCE and am looking for contributions and feedback now. If this essay can gather some steam we could move it into the WP space and make it an active proposal. There are lots of particulars in debates about scientific topics such as peer-review, citations, impact factor, etc., that editors should be made aware of before they offer an opinion based on the "Google test", and I think it would be a good way to collect all of this in one spot. Let me know if you're interested. Cheers, trialsanderrors 10:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for admin attention

I'm requesting some Wikipedia administrators to communicate with a user, Aeusoes1, who is causing some problems for the Hawaiian phonology article. Please look at the article's talk page, section "Edits by AEuSoes1", especially "Edit 3". If it's appropriate, in your opinion, please consider a temporary block for that user. Otherwise, perhaps you can reason with him. Thanks. Agent X 16:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. He seems argumentative, but I can't say whether all of his edits are substantive, as I don't have any of the IPA fonts. I decline to interfere. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Please stop plan to move "Ordinal number"

User:Salix alba is planning to move Ordinal number to another name. Please stop him. JRSpriggs 03:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Revert war of the day

Please undo your last revert. My most recent round of edits starting from a week ago has received only positive and encouraging feedback until today's ambush. There has been no attempt to build a consensus to revert all that progress. If you think the article has become incomprehensible, I beg you to voice that opinion in detail on the talk page, so that I can do my best to address whatever grievances arise. Melchoir 15:22, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, never mind about the revert. I guess you're away, so I undid it myself. Nonetheless, I will be eager to hear how you think the article should be improved. Please extend me the opportunity to actually make those improvements before giving up on them. Melchoir 17:18, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Mistake

I think you may have made a mistake here. The article .9 does not exist. —Mets501 (talk) 19:13, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

The C in conflict should probably be lower case as that was the name of the article prior to User:El_C moved the article to War. [8]. --Bobblehead 01:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

oops. I guess I need to double-move it.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for moving it back. Iorek85 02:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Wheel warring

Hello. Engaging in wheel-warring (i.e. without discussion) reflects poorly on you; I will be seeking remedy for your administrative abuse. Thanks. El_C 02:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

The present consensus suggests the title should be 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. If you want to move it there, I have no objection. Intermediate moves without an effort to clean up redirects are disruptive. And one revert is not a wheel war. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 12:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
No, as I keep saying, it'll have to be IDF-Hezbollah, in that ill-thought event. And that dosen't respond to your wheel warring; overuling an admin action without discussion. El_C 13:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
No, you're wrong. Hezbollah attacked Israel (although the first attack was against the IDF). Israel is attempting to attack Hezbollah, even though their use of human shields makes it difficult. And your move was not with consensus, and in violation of the mediation agreement, which I think you had agreed to. (And apparently, I was wrong. One revert can be a wheel war. But you're the one warring in this instance, as it's reinstating a previous move which was reverted by consensus.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
You thought I had agreed to mediation? Based on what exactly? I was not privy to any such thing. Your explanation, which relies on the timing of the attack for the description, make little sense, and such a title is pure original reserach by any scholarly standrads. Further, I did not "revert" anyone, so that does not excuse your wheel warring. No one had strong objections after a ten day discussion, there was consensus, so I moved it for the first time. This is getting rather circular. El_C 13:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
It's the first time in this round that you've moved it. But there's still no consensus, even in the section discussing your move, and your move request was out-of-process while a WP:RM is in progress. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I've never moved it before. Why do you need to use so much bold text? Why do you fail to respond to the mediation claims? The discussion I had for ten days, did have consensus at the time when I moved the page. None of this excuses your wheel warring, which is why I suspect you keep avoiding the point. El_C 14:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I keep telling you, there was no consensus, either in the WP:RM poll, nor was there a strong consensus in your move section. I don't think there was consensus at all, but there clerely were objections even before your move. Furthermore, WP:RM is still in process, and your unilateral move violates that process. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
While I keep telling you that you wheel warred, a much worse offene then whatever you think I've done. El_C 14:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I may have wheel warred, under some definitions. But your move caused disruption, and was out of process, while my revert was in process and was already being discussed on AN/I. (And I recall your participating in the wheel war on Israeli Apartheid, although I can't find any evidence of it. My mistake.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Your wheel warring is the disruption. I've never wheel-warred, ever. Nor have I preformed any admin actions on Israeli Apartheid; your memory clearly fails you, not to mention it is impertinent. El_C 14:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Your move (without attempting to clean up double-redirects) is the disruption. I probably shouldn't have reverted it without a consensus on AN/I; but I should have blocked you for the disruption. As an Admin, you should know better than to move out of process and to use Admin tools to support your position in a dispute. That you can't see a dispute seems grounds for blocking, as well, as it's clear to all others. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
That [I] can't see a dispute seems grounds for blocking, as well, as it's clear to all others. Interesting... And not fixing double redircets is not disruption, that's a technical oversight. Again, interesting theories, but wrong. I've yet to hear an admin voice an opinion on this. Simply because a user places an ANI notice does not provide you with a license to wheel war. Not to mention that you did not even respond to that ANI notice before starting to wheel war. El_C 14:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps. But User:Joseandricardo was originally blocked for making moves against clear consensus, which is exactly what you've done. But let's keep this in one place. As I noted on the talk page in question, the move "discussion" is in 3 sections there, your talk page, my talk page, and WP:AN/I. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I had consensus at the time of the move. El_C 15:03, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Nope. Not even in the section you'd carved out of the WP:RM discussion to support your move. There was one person who said, essentially, "wait for the WP:RM process to complete", and one who suggested Hezzbolah should be there. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
There was consensus for it at the time. And I didn't carve out anything (!). Someone moved it there later, I posted at the foot of the page, as I always do. But I'm no longer interested in speaking to you at this time. El_C 15:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Does El_C have a history of behaving like this? I'm finding his attitude very confrontational for no apparent reason. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 21:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps that's why I started watching him — he was confrontational on one of the articles related to this one, which was brought to my attention when I was watching someone else's talk page. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, whenever you gain your powers of recollection, I will be more than pleased to address the particular incident/s behind why you started "watching [me]". This, since I'll need to know what I'm actually am to respond to, as sadly I lack telepathic abilities. El_C 06:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Chiropractic and mainstream medicine sentence

Arthur, I saw your note to Steth about the sentence in Chiro. I was not changing it because I saw you seemed to want it that way. Hughgr brought up some good points. Are you okay with removing it? --Dematt 02:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's accurate in either form, but very difficult to source, so it needs to be removed unless a source can be found. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I will keep looking to try and find a solution as I am sure Mcceady will put it back in. Thanks for your help! --Dematt 02:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
It needs to go back in. The lead must be a mini summary of the whole article. It contained two elements that need to be there. I find it amazing that you will listen to Steth at all, knowing his intention to turn the whole article into a sales brochure, while using every opportunity to slam the opposition. -- Fyslee 05:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
It could probably be sourced easier by saying that "skeptics" don't consider...or something like that. Mainstream medicine doesn't even use the concept. That type of thing is of course hard to source, but easy to falsify. Those who doubt it should provide a single example where mainstream medicine does use it! (OK, it might be possible to find one example of some off-beat MD who does, but it would be the exception that proved the rule!) Leaving it out allows Steth to continue his suppression, which makes the article less than it could or should be.
The removal of the NACM info in the Reformers section is also another Steth dream. All the others are allowed to state which associations they tend to join, but not reformers! That's weird! -- Fyslee 05:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The revisionism in the external links is an unheard of step, setting a dangerous precedent. No where else here is this type of thing allowed.

There are guidelines for external links, and these sentences are to the point:

  • "If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question. If you cite an online article, try to provide as much meaningful citation information as possible." [9]

An example:

Here we have a description, but no tampering with the actual title, especially to obscure it or enhance it! That type of editing is POV suppressing or POV pushing, depending on whether it is obscuring or enhancing. -- Fyslee 07:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Unicode redirects

In Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2006 August 29#Various strange redirects, I thought I withdrew the requests for deletion for 〡 (Chinese numberal 1), changing the target from Vertical bar to 1 (number) and Ⓐ (circled A), changing the target to A. They were deleted anyway, and I'm bringing it up on Wikipedia:Deletion review. I'm informing you per policy, as I'm not sure which one of you deleted them. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Whoops! I saw a backlog in redirects for deletion and deleted the gibberish looking redirects! Look like I screwed up big without noticing the discussions. I've only been an admin for a few days, and I'll start undoing them now. Real sorry about that. Relisted --  Netsnipe  ►  03:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

For something as uncontentious and obscure as Unicode redirects—or most any redirect for that matter, deletion review is just a waste of time. As in this case, it was just an error, easily fixable. Even if it weren't, I don't think anyone deleting them has some sort of agenda with regard to Unicode redirects. It is only a matter for pointing out the error on the user's talk page. Really, for anything like this, that is the first stop and deletion review is only necessary when people are being obstinate. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


An apology is due?

I've just seen the half dozen or so AfDs where you have, without any evidence, accused me of probably being a sockpuppet. May I ask

a) of whom

and

b) where is your evidence of this?

You may also wish to refer to the checkuser I was forced to request be done on myself, which states that there has been "no malicous activity at this IP".--Pussy Galore 22:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you want me to replace "Sock puppet" by "single-purpose account"? Almost all of your edits have been in support of User:Striver's* articles on AfD, so whether or not you are the same account, you have the same points of view. Or can you name an edit which he wouldn't have done if he thought he could get away with it?
* (Those which he created or significantly edited.)
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Just to confirm, you suspect me of being a sock puppet of User:Striver? In answer to the second part of your question, I've no idea what Striver would or wouldn't have done, I've no idea who he is, nor am I familiar with his work.
What is the single purpose of this account?--Pussy Galore 23:46, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I would suspect you of being a sock puppet of User:Striver. Or haven't you noticed that all the articles on which you voted keep were created or significantly edited by User:Striver, even those which didn't have {{911tm}} added. But whether or not you post through the same ISP as Striver, you say the same things. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
No, I hadn't noticed. I'm not one of those editors who keeps a record of who creates what so that I can later vote for it in Afd. Quote these things we say which are similar please. --Pussy Galore 01:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Sigh, another one connected to the Pepsidrinka/Striver crowd Ask MONGO.--Scribner 01:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

McCready to be banned for 10-days on Pseudoscience articles

You might want to weigh in your thoughts here, if you haven't already. TheDoctorIsIn 18:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Acknowledged. I'm afraid that, although Mccready's edits are usually accurate, he doesn't recognize community concensus that his statements are unbalanced. I'm afraid I concur with the ban. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

JarlaxleArtemis arbitration

I note that User:JarlaxleArtemis is on your "watch list". You may be interested to know that a Request for Arbitration against him has been made. —Psychonaut 22:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Acknowledged. Thanks. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Notability (books)

Hi, you were recently involved in a debate where Wikipedia:Notability (books) was cited. This proposal is under development and would benefit from being assessed by more editors. Perhaps you would be interested in expressing an opinion at the project talk page. NB This does not have any bearing on the previous debate in which you were involved. JackyR | Talk 19:19, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Acknowledged. Thanks for the invitation. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

"Scribblings", set theory question

Hi Arthur; you and I have debated on the 9/11 pages. But that's not what I'm writing about here. On one of the AfD pages you mentioned your "scribblings". But I see no mention of them on Arthur Rubin. If you'd like to list those here I'd be happy to paste them onto the page. Also, I noticed that you worked on Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory. I'd never heard of it. When I took set theory in the 90s I remembered suffering much cognitive dissonance from the very beginning because of the concept of using an axiom schema. Apparently the NBG obviates that need at the expense of being a "conservative extension" of ZFC. I haven't studied conservative extensions so I don't know if using one is "too liberal"; thus my question: do mathematicians use NBG widely in place of ZFC? Kaimiddleton 22:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I could give you a list of my publications, or put it on one of my web sites, but it would just be my word, so it couldn't be added on that basis, per WP:V. I can check to see if any of the journals have online indicies. Probably best would be for me to create a subpage of my user page with my publications, and see which of them can be verified. Alternativly, someone with access to the Math Reviews database or a citation index could look me up, and I could confirm which of the A. Rubin's and Arthur Rubin's listed there are me. (This last might have the additional advantage that the 2 papers in which I participated, but never received final publication information, might be located. Hint: My middle initial is "L", as there seem to be a few papers by Arthur H. Rubin.)
As for NBG (which I've usually seen as vNBG, but I haven't been active in the field for some time), there are advantages and disadvantages. As it's a conservative extension (the definition in our article is adequate, but only if you consider NBG as a two-sorted system, which is not technically necessary), it doesn't really matter. But some analyses benefit from the finite set of axioms of NBG, while other analyses benefit from the fact that any theorem of ZF follows from a finite set of the axioms of ZF, and that any finite set of the axioms of ZF has a countable model as seen from that model of ZF. Many of the "transfer" results of D. Pincus (see, for example, the references in http://www.math.purdue.edu/~jer/Papers/KW-AC-MC.pdf and other papers of my late mother) work better in ZF than in vNBG.

your article :-)))))))

i mixt up,lost some of my edit.is not going to change your vote but i think is fair to note the change.--Pixel ;-) 23:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Harry Potter 7

Hello Nice to see that some new faces have recently become interested in commenting on the article. However, I am interested to know how you became involved with the page? It would seem that someone came along and changed the title without any discussion. Then someone started a debate about a different title. A number of people I have never seen comment on a Harry Potter page then opposed the proposed further move. This is quite extraordinary attention for a HP page.

No one has yet explained the grounds for changing the page from its original title. Can you explain why this was done? It was also done by someone who had never edited the page before and was pretty inexperienced. A justification was given, but not explained. Then an anon deleted the debate. Also very strange. Why would anyone do this? Sounded like someone wanted to avoid discussion. While I do not think it likely that people would have opposed the page title change if it is satifactorily explained, this has still not been done. I do not see how any change of title can be discussed or considered unless someone explains why it needed to be moved in the first place. Sandpiper 08:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, I saw the move request in Wikipedia:Requested Moves. Which move do you question? The recent move history seems to be Harry Potter book seven → Harry Potter 7 (Book) → Harry Potter 7 (book), with a requested move to Harry Potter seven (book). Personally, I think Harry Potter (book 7) is a little better, but the title should be known shortly, even if the rumoured 2007-07-07 release is wrong. (Besides, I've read the first 6 books, as have millions of others.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Galatasaray article

On the page of Galatasaray i saw a mistake but i cannot revert it becauce the page is under protection , in the Managerial area Yılmaz Gökdel was the manager in 1974-1975 season could you fix this?

Johnny200 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Researchers questioning the official account of 9/11

You made this edit with the edit summary:

If we don't have a definition of "researcher", then we MUST rename this to "People".

Reinstating this passage is original research as it stands. There is a simple method in policy to sort out the problem, which is WP:VERIFY, namely if a verifiable secondary source calls someone a researcher, then it is acceptable. There is no "must" about renaming the page without a definition. Tyrenius 08:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I don't agree that it's orginal research — It could be considered a definition for the purpose of the article. It's also close to the definition User:Striver suggested in opposing the rename (which I'm thinking of requesting again, if no definition appears in the article.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 12:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. I see I've misread WP:NOR. It doesn't seem to make sense that we can't specify which of a common definitions of a term that we will use in an article. But, as it stands, we need cites to a WP:RS calling them a "researcher". And it has to be in a context which means that the writer thinks they're a researcher, rather than just that they call themselves a "researcher". — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 12:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Why pick on me?

Why are you picking on me to retract my comment and to cancel the vote? First, it's not my vote to cancel. Second, check out the "contributions" of User:Jonathunder who notified a series of folks on their talk pages, cherry-picking those who voted against the previous attempt to move Los Angeles. He only notified the supporters as well after I suggested he do so on his talk page. Finally, to balance it all out, I notified all those who previously voted on Philadelphia. What's wrong with that? --Serge 18:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Your comment that the oppose votes occured at the same time is unjustified. I am making no comment about ths vote spamming at this time, although I wish I had been notified, as I voted against the rename of La Jolla, and Anaheim Hills, which apparently have been moved back where they belong at neighborhood, city, state. The vote being closed for spamming is appropriate no matter who started it, or who is responsible for the spamming. Finally, I'm picking on you because none of your comments show WP:AGF. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

My comment about the opposed votes occuring at the same time is unjustified?

  • User:Coolcaesar was notified on his talk page by User:Jonathunder at 05:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC); he voted at 05:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC). 38 minutes later.
  • User:Ishu was notified on his talk page by User:Jonathunder at 05:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC); he voted at 16:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC). One hour later.

Are you suggesting these are coincidences? --Serge 19:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the latter is 11 hours later, not one hour. And I don't think 4 notifications is out of line. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I never said nor meant to imply it was out of line, though I think cherry picking only those who voted previously consistent with his POV was pushing it, which is why I left the note on his talk page. Okay, I misread it... so he voted 11 hours after he was notified. --Serge 22:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Time stamp?

What's the time stamp business about on your user page? -- Fyslee 21:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The details aren't that important, but the idea is to keep track of how far I've checked my various watchlists. For instance, I've checked most of the XfDs up to 10am today (PDT). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
The result is that your user page shows up on our watch lists every day whether you have made a substantial change in it or not. I write that kind of information on a piece of paper next to my personal computer. JRSpriggs 07:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
OK, I'll move it to a subpage. I edit from more than one computer, so I need a shared file of some sort, and Wikipedia seems appropriate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 12:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Grammar

Thanks for catching that mistake. I've been living in Denmark for the last 23 years, so my English grammar, punctuation, and syntax, are pretty rusty! -- Fyslee 15:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

ODP cross-pollenation

I'm trying to formalize an effort to get more links to and from ODP and Wikipedia and to capture external links not wanted by Wikipedia for ODP. I'm hoping to pull this into a full-fledged WikiProject. Please see User:Wrathchild-K/ODP Project. I'd love your feedback. (There's also a discussion on the internal ODP editor forums.) —Wrathchild (talk) 17:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Archive this section (and the rest of your talk page)

Over 133 sections of talk is too many to have on your talk page simultaneously. Time to archive. JRSpriggs 06:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

P.S. See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page, if necessary. JRSpriggs 06:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Done, although perhaps not optimally. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Werdnabot seems to be broken again. It has not done any archiving (for anyone) since 24 October 2006. (Just as I was trying to get it to work for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, too.) And Werdna himself seems to have dropped out of wikipedia (at least temporarily). If this continues, you may have to go to manual archiving. JRSpriggs 07:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk page spam

No matter which way you go about it, there's always somebody who isn't going to like a uniform message to many users, and will consider it an intrusion on their talk page. See WP:TALK for talk page guidelines, especially the comment 'The practice of "spamming" - posting similar messages to more than a few users' talk pages, often for the purpose of soliciting a certain action - is discouraged.' Usually those with a vested interest in the article will have it watchlisted anyway, and they'll become aware of any major change that way. -- Longhair\talk 18:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Please check history

Please check the history on the cruft page, *I* added the Clinton Chronicles in, and NuclearUmpf removed it, causing Tbeatty to possibly think that I did NOT add it to the page. To leave Tbeatty's comments is dishonest, as it indicates that I did not add it. Please see talk, and restore the page to my last version.NBGPWS 18:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

your revert at irrational

If the definition I put up is incorrect, why is it in the introduction? I didn't write anything new up there, I just rearranged it. As it stands, the page real number says that a real number is the irrationals + the rationals. But the page irrational number says that an irrational number is the reals - the rationals. So now the intro contains a circular definition, and an incorrect one. So... we should do something about that. Fresheneesz 21:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

"It's incorrect as a definition, although it's a correct statement once all the terms are defined. It's even more circular as a defintion than the one you reverted. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok.. well.. how can we define an irrational number to be independant from the definition of a real? Fresheneesz 21:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we can. Perhaps it would be better to add "colloquially" (or some other adverb) to the initial "definition" at Real number, as I did at König's theorem. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Langan

Hello I found the image on the internet and it is a picture of Langan and his wife, it should be fine to use it, I can't remember where I found it, has it been deleted already cos its not in the article anymore. syndiffeonesis

  1. It's not OK to use just anything on the Internet, because the copyright has to be such that "we" and the people who copy our content can legally use it.
  2. I just edited the caption (and added the copyright removal notice). User:DrL removed the picture.
  3. Your re-adding the picture is still vandalism, though. Don't do it again.
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
How do I get a picture of Langan into the article cos I used google and found that one which I thought was cool cos, it shows his wife aswell but their is also this one [[10]] at his Society sight which is only copyright 2001-2003. Does that mean we can use that one? And I found the sight again using google which is this [[11]] and it doesn't say copyright so can the image please stay? what do you mean the picture is vandalsim? I won't add it again cos I want to make the page better but please explain what I did wrong. Hes the smartest man in the world you should respect him too. syndiffeonesis
For us to have it, the copyright has to be properly released; pictures are normally copyrighted by the photographer and licensed back to the web site owner for use on that web site only, so we cannot use it. And I don't think I was saying the the picture was vandalism, but re-adding it after it was removed by other editors without addressing their concerns is, in effect, vandalism. You need to find a picture with a released copyright, or an irrevocable "right to use" from the photographer (or, I suppose, Langan, as we'd have to trust that he wouldn't lie about whether he has the right to release it.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Pi-unrolled

What's wrong with the caption? There's a huge blank space next to the TOC; why not put something useful there? John Reid 06:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What's right with the caption? On my screen, your version went for 5 lines. Perhaps a little more wouldn't hurt, but there's no reason to get carried away. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 05:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is five lines "carried away"? The TOC for the article includes a total of 29 major and minor sections, thus runs for 29 lines. On my screen, the 360px-wide image covers about 7 lines; even if the image is hung under the introduction, that leaves about 16 lines of white space below it. As it is, with the image top right, there's even more of this vast visual desert going to waste. Why should this be empty?

I wrote that caption for Image:Pi-unrolled.gif's upcoming appearance on Main Page. It is substantially the same length as other FP captions. It covers important bases:

  • How we construct the number line and why
  • The exceptional nature of the operation of "unrolling"
  • The nature of the number found, π
  • A common, everyday, real-world example of the illustration

Of course, if you're able to cover all these bases in fewer words, I hope you will do so. Edit FP caption and then copy that to Pi. Okay? John Reid 15:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it (the caption) is ugly. Perhaps the information should be in the body somewhere, but captions should be short. An FP does not necessarily belong, with the same caption, in even a GA. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Text is ugly? Or text is only ugly when it's a caption? Why should captions be short? They certainly shouldn't be very long but I think the paragraph is quite middle-sized. My rationale for putting the caption there does not depend on the image's FP status; it's simply that promotion prompted me to write a better caption. If you can further improve on it, please do so.

A lot is going on in that image -- by design. The four points I mentioned above are all relevant to the image; three to the image alone. What purpose will it serve to put the image one place and its explanation in another? Meanwhile, tell me what you want to do with all that whitespace. John Reid 01:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Billion

I see you've reverted me at 1000000000 (number), too. Please explain your reverts in a bit more detail, with a little more support. Okay? Why exactly is directory assistance non-notable? How is a cubic milimeter not a volume? John Reid 18:23, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay, I've been ill. Directory assistance, as whole, may be notable, but toll-free directory assistance is not specifically notable. I wouldn't oppose 5551212 under million, but 8005551212 doesn't strike me as notable, especially since 800 is not the only toll-free prefix. As for volume, technically liter is the unit of volume, which makes the the comments about cubic meters somewhat uninteresting in terms of volume. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 05:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about it; I hope you're better. 8005551212 is the toll-free directory assistance number, even for toll-free numbers with other prefixes. It has been so for many years. Let's put that back. It's not a mathematically interesting number, that's all. Let's have something for the laymen.

As soon as we speak of cubic anything, we are speaking of volume. One way or another, no discussion of cubic stuff belongs under In terms of count. I'm not entirely clear whether the image should also be put under In terms of volume, too. And why prefer the ugly SVG version? John Reid 15:30, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Go ahead and put it back. (In many countries, telephone "numbers" can start with 0, which makes it more confusing as to exactly where phone numbers should go.) Please don't abbreviate, and note that the phone is (probably) correct only within the NANP, and that cubic meter is not an SI unit of volume. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
(According to the units.dat file shipped with GNU units, which is an interesting read at least: "The liter was defined in 1901 as the space occupied by 1 kg of pure water at the temperature of its maximum density under a pressure of 1 atm. This was supposed to be 1000 cubic cm, but it was discovered that the original measurement was off. In 1964, the liter was redefined to be exactly 1000 cubic centimeters.". Not sure about SI unit status, but the change is quite well-accepted by now, I would say). RandomP 22:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the comment about the cubic length and volume units being different after reading comments in the SI and litre article. I must admit that I heard about the different during a time that, at least according to those articles, there was no difference, but.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I take your point about the local nature of toll-free directory assistance. I'll surely qualify that on reinsertion.

I think the whole problem with count vs volume began when the image was inserted under "count"; it's really a demonstration in terms of volume -- SI or not. The image alone does seem to lean toward counted unit cubes but then the little snippet of text was added about a cubic meter. I probably didn't make things any better; I'll try again. Sorry. John Reid 01:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Prime number

What about 6 or 12? they are composite and they don't take on all values when you do p mod m. I tried it for 60 and my hypothisys seems to hold true... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.45.7.31 (talk • contribs) 03:31, November 2, 2006

The correct formulation is:
p mod m takes all values from 1 to m-1 (as p ranges over all primes)
if and only if
m is prime.
But I'm not sure that's interesting. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
To be specific as to your "6n" conjecture — If m = 6q, and q is a large prime, then the values of p mod m (as p ranges over all primes) are all numbers congruent to 1 or 5 mod 6 except q and 5q. Those aren't any more likely to be prime than numbers congruent to 1 or 5 mod 6, in general. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Heim Theory

I saw your comments on my talk page. Sorry if I lost my cool temporarily, but I'm afraid that sometimes it seems as if a small group of editors, angry at their failed attempt to delete the Heim Theory page, are determined to infect it with their anti-Heim POV. I hope you also warned some of these sore losers when their arrogance poked throguh. Somewhere, unfortunately I can't find it right now, two of them were talking about deleting pages associated with Heim-theory such as Selector Calculus (so it might be they who deleted this and redirected it to difference operator), referring to Heim Theory 'metastasing' over wikipedia. This was a grossly improper, insulting way of referring to Heim Theory - equating it with a cancer. If I ever find the place where these conspirators hatched their evil mouthed scheme I will point you to it. Yours helpfully, --hughey 18:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that, unless you can find and can read the papers in original German, it would be difficult to establish that Heim theory is not pseudoscience. The original papers used non-standard notation, even for the time (probably because Heim was not aware of the standard difference operator notation), and Heim didn't publish much in established, peer-reviewed journals. However, the modern papers building on his work bring it up to the standards of fringe science (at least according to the reports of those who have read them.) I'm afraid I haven't been watching the Heim theory article closely as of late, but the removal of the space driver speculation seems a significant improvement. I believe I could follow the papers if they were translated into English (as I have a PhD in mathematics from CalTech, and took a number of GR and QM courses there), but I really don't have the time to confirm whether his derivations are correct. (It should be pointed out that no one has posted on Wikipedia a pointer to derivations of the mass equations from "first" principles.)

I agree that "metastasing" is not an appropriate term for this set of articles; I'd reserve that for the 9/11 conspiracy theory articles and Johnathon Bowers sets.

Also, for what it's worth, I now believe that Selector calculus should have been merged into Heim theory, with a pointer to difference operator added, rather than what was actually done (merging to difference operator.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Kolmogorov complexity

Could you please have a look at that article. I am particularly concerned about the recently inserted picture of the Mandelbrot set. See my remark on the talk page. Although models of computation over the reals have been developed (e.g. by Smale, Shub, Blum and others) Kolomogorov complexity as dealt in this article concerns objects which are explictly encoded by finite bitstrings (Remark: what an encoding is for elements of a class of objects, is itself not entirely trivial. I think of an encoding as analogous to a chart on manifold; here two charts φ ψ are equivalent iff the overlap function φ ψ-1 belongs to some computational class such as PT.) In any case, I don't see how one can consider a class subsets of the plane large enough to include the Mandelbrot set as being encoded by finite bitstrings. I am aware that some very special classes iteratively defined fractals can be encoded by finite bitsrings, but it's not clear to me how that applies here.

In any case, I am very tried of the endless argumentation on WP.--CSTAR 18:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I quite agree the concept of Kolmogorov complexity does not apply to the Mandelbrot set, even without looking at the article. I'll help out there when I have the time, possibly tomorrow. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:17, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

WAREL's latest sockpuppet

Hi Arthur, I hope all is well. I blocked User:MIYAJ (WAREL's latest sockpuppet) and I reverted his edit on perfect number, because you had also reverted it. However, I have to admit that I don't quite understand your edit summary. Could you please have a look. Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:51, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

My intent was to indicate that, even if WAREL's statement was correct, he should have added his entry to the previous one, rather than replacing it. His "correction" doesn't exactly imply the previous version. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Probability-based strategy AfD

Just a note to let you know that I have nominated the article you have edited, or expressed interest in, for deletion. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Probability-based strategy Pete.Hurd 05:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Dallas

Hello! Your discussion, as it dealt with a proposal for work across the project and not the specific project page, was moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Dallas/General (Our general discussion forum). My reply is there. Happy editing! drumguy8800 C T 20:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Global city

Hi Arthur,

Major cities are not my topic I am the physiscal chemist, but I do care about science. I do not think that the Loughborough view of the world is so scientific and should be presented as such in wikipedia. I tried to politely point out a major and significant shortcoming in their approach: cities that grew from multiple centers like the Triangle -my current abode-, the Colorado Front range and -dare I say my hometown- the Netherlands Randstad are simply not treated fairly. The article should at least be honest about the fact that other approaches are quite possible but all that gets censored away. Can we ask for arbitration or so. I am usually at nl: not here (I dont like it here because I always run into this kind of bias)

Jcwf 22:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

We can try for arbitration; IMHO, it's generally slow enough that you could check in daily and not lose too much. However, your "multiple center" (or centre) argument wasn't taken from a reference (as far as I know), so cannot be placed in the article. It can, however, be placed in the talk page for discussion, which I did, even though User:Elk Salmon seems to think that GaWC is the only published analysis. If he's correct, then the article possibly should reflect their city lists.
The next stage, as I understand article dispute processes, would be an article WP:RfC. "Talking" with Elk Salmon seems unlikely to be productive, although I suppose it could be tried. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I thank you Arthur, although I am somewhat dismayed at your interpretation of 'taken from reference'. This way the most patent nonsense can be protected from any critique. This makes wikipedia decidely anti-scientific. In science any logical argument is allowed. Besides: I have nothing against putting the GaWC list in the article, but it at least deserves a remark about the procedure followed in it. I quote the list itself as proof: it treats Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague as separate entities. The 7 million people who live there all know that they live in a thing called Randstad. Even the anglophone world has some name recognition on that point, at least here in the US (thanks to a certain employment agency). Jcwf 23:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
This article is difficult to maintain — that's one of the reasons I nominated it for deletion and for a move to GaWC. But, to avoid people adding their own lists, we must require that any list be properly sourced. In general, WP:OR requires that any (arguable — and User:Elk Salmon will argue it) synthesis requires a reliable source. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Number Gossip

Sorry if I misunderstood guidelines.

I feel that my number gossip page ( http://www.numbergossip.com ) is a good resource about numbers and sequences. It would make sense for me to have a link to number gossip page from every sequence article in Wikipedia about sequence that number gossip searches for and for every number article that have unique properties in number gossip search. What should I do?

Another question. I constantly update number gossip page with new unique properties for numbers. Is there a way to automatically feed the properties that are not present in wiki to wiki? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tanyakh (talk • contribs) .

Sorry about the delay. Unless you claim your website has the stature of the OEIS, it shouldn't be listed in all number sequence or property articles. It might be listable in one or two articles, perhaps Integer, though. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Probably not automatically; we've rejected some properties as "uninteresting" in the past. You could create a script for your user page to create the articles, but I would advise against doing it "automatically" — if, for no other reason, to ensure that we don't have the article under a different name. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
OIES has been around for 40 years, my number gossip is only 7 years of work, (and I am working full-time with something else and I am a single mother). So, it is a long way ahead for me to create an On-line Encyclopedia of Integers matching in stature the OEIS. But this is what I am doing. OIES is a great website and I use it a lot, but it is not targeted to provide information about specific integers, and my website does. As by the guidelines, I can't put the link to my website in wiki. Thus, I am asking you to add the link where you think it is appropriate. I trust your judgement. You can find my resume on my personal website: http://www.tanyakhovanova.com . Sorry, I have not yet figured out how wiki talk works; I hope this time I at least signed it correctly. Tanyakh 17:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
I took the liberty of changing her pointers into clickable ones. JRSpriggs 09:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Vote request

Please Vote, as per wiktionary the correct spelling is Wiktionary:anti-Semitic NOT Antisemitic. 67.70.68.51 12:25, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Why are you famous?

What have you done? What makes you different? Do you think that you are better than others? If so, can you provide a reasonable justification in respect thereof?

Wikipedia, whatever else can be said of it, is, well, very public. This message, for example, is not just between you and me. Anyone in the world, at any date, or any time, can read it. Will this influence the content of your response (assuming that you feel I am worthy of a response)?

--Lance talk 09:55, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the context of this message is, but, and my immediate reply would be "why are you asking"?
For what it's worth, my IQ was rated (as a child) at 163 on a test which isn't reliable much above 155, so, for all I know, I might be the smartest person in the world, rather than Marilyn vos Savant. I don't think so, but I never had much interest in taking more advanced IQ tests.
I received my Ph.D. in Mathematics from CalTech at the age of 22 in 1978.
I have a number of awards from high school math contests, and am a 4-time Putnam fellow. (See Arthur Rubin for some other details.)
And I do have a (joint) patent to my name.
But I think I'm better than others because I'm usually right when there's a dispute about facts. Wikipedia policy/guidelines/essays/whatever are another matter, being more of a weighted popularity contest than a factual argument....
And I don't think I'd say anything differenet if it weren't public, except that I might put more emphasis on "Who are you to ask?", and I certainly wouldn't Wikilink my comments except on a Wiki. Also, I might copyedit here more than I would unless asking for something.
As for Wikipedia policy, it's considered antisocial to redirect your user page unless you intend to apply for a user name change, as it breaks the User Contributions link in the navigation toolbox on the left (in the standard configuration). Would you please move it back where it belongs?
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Beauvoir

I can understand not wanting to decide content disputes (even very minor ones) in the RfD process, but now that it's closed, do you have any real objection to my proposed retargeting? I don't think that Beauvoir (disambiguation) is a bad target, per se, but only that my proposed target is better. On the other hand, I don't think it's worth disputing the current target if there's a difference of opinion; hence, I'd like to hear yours. Gavia immer (u|t|c) 18:11, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and retarget. I just think that the initial target (at the time of the RfD) was clearly wrong, and that no one actually wanted to delete the redirect. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Quite understood. Thanks for the prompt and courteous reply. Gavia immer (u|t|c) 18:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

User: Lance

Dear Mr. Rubin,

Perhaps my inquiry in respect of your identity was misconstrued. What I find most compelling about this forum is its anonymity. In such circumstances, I am free to speak my mind unconstrained by ordinary social constraints; a privilege that I freely exercise.

You appeared to be offended by my inquiry; if so, I regret the offence; and please accept my apology, if such sentiments are appropriate in the circumstances.

Please note that I had administrator approval for my multiple accounts as set out hereafter:

Multiple accounts

Hi Lance, I was asked to comment re: your multiple accounts, Lance (talk · contribs) and Lance6968 (talk · contribs). I don't see a problem as long as you are aware and comply with WP:SOCK#Legitimate uses of multiple accounts. Cheers. ←Humus sapiens ну? 08:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


I had an editing dispute with User:Jayjg over the content of the article "Kosher tax," that I had substantially re-written. User:Jayjg's actions—subsequent to User talk:Humus sapiens' approval—has to be understood in this context; and can thus fairly be described as vandalism.

For the foregoing reasons, please restore my user page to my last edit.

Regards,

--Lance talk 23:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any user page redirecting to any other user page as complying with WP:SOCK#Legitimate uses of multiple accounts. The idea of allowing multiple accounts to is keep your edits separate, while, here, you seem to be trying to conflate the two users. The move block stands, although you may appeal to User:Humus sapiens, and I'll probably abide by his decision. You may change "Lance6968" to "Lance" on the USER page, but it would be vandalism on the talk page, as it edits a statement over a signature. (And, as I noted on your talk page, your signing someone else's name to something he didn't say is blatent vandalism.) I can't verify that you placed it back in the same context, or who deleted it, so it's still not obvious that it isn't vandalism, but I must assume good faith. Please point to diffs (see below for an example). I also can't readily find evidence that the two users are the same.
(It would have been preferable if you had pointed to a diff where Mr. sapiens said that, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ALance6968&diff=81753658&oldid=81563337) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Global city

Please sort out the content dispute you're having on Global city on the talk page of the article instead of taking part in further revert warring. Thank you. Cowman109Talk 02:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

General intelligent design

Hey, I saw you tagged the article for deletion, and I just wanted to know more about your reasons for deletion. Is it a hoax or something? Or is it a legit article that can be rewritten by erm...a mathematician like yourself? Nishkid64 23:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that it's a hoax — but that wouldn't be grounds for a speedy deletion. I just can't figure out what it's saying at all; just look at my edit summary:
It has words, and the words are formed into sentences, and the sentences make no sense.
— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but it was still looks like something that should be written about judging from "What links here". Nishkid64 00:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Not really. They were all redirects and TLA disambiguations created by the same person. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:08, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Logic-systems

Sorry, but a Logic-system is from logic. Indeed, it is from the area now called universal logic. It is a generalization of a Formal Theory as you might read the definition in Mendelson's book. Published results appear in the 2001 paper in the references. Another paper using logic-systems will appear in a few days in the journal Logica Universalis. More are in the works. It is shown there that a general logic-systems is equivalent to a consequence operator. Depending upon usage one can now use a general logic-system or a finite conseqeunce operator as representing a universal logic. Indeed, the lattice theoretic properties of the set of all finite consequence operators defined on a language have interesting set-theoretic logic-system properties. The language L is not considered as a formal language. Now, it was Tarski in 1931 who introduced the notion of universal logic via consequence operators when he defined the consequence operator. As to General Intelligent Design, I'll wait until there are at least 10 publications that use the material or reference it. At the moment, there are only four. I guess that this note will be time and dated stamped automatically. (talk) 09:23, 16 November 2006 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raherrmann (talk • contribs)

To properly sign your messages, please use "~~~~" (four tildas) as I do at the end of this message. The wiki software will automatically convert it to your identifier and a time stamp. JRSpriggs 07:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Nov 13 RFD Closings

I just closed the remaining Nov 13 RFD nominations. In doing so, I noticed your closures of Beauvoir & Clyde Frog. It's minor, but there were a couple of things that struck me:

On Beauvoir, you stated "The exact target is a content dispute, which shouldn't be discussed here." However, when RFD was renamed "Redirects for discussion", one of the reasons given was that it should be a place people could take redirects they weren't sure what should be done with. It wasn't meant to be a dispute resolution mechanism, but support cases like this one (someone who wasn't sure what should be done). Typically, we close those as "re-targeted".

On Clyde Frog, you stated "moot, being created as an article". However, Clyde Frog wasn't actually the nominated redirect. Clyde frog was as I stated in my comment. The nominator mislabeled the heading. When you closed the discussion, you left the RFD tag on the redirect. Somebody did remove it the day after you closed it.

Thanks. -- JLaTondre 13:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Oops. I hope I didn't confuse too many people. (I think Beauvoir has been further retargeted after closure, anyway.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:05, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Nope. Not a problem. It was minor as I said. -- JLaTondre 21:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you sir

Your deletion comments are very good. When most of the Jews are voting for keeping the article and you are the first Jew brother I found who had voted for deletion. I appreciate it. [12]. --- ALM 17:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I try to keep my POV out of my "recommendations" (!votes) for Wikipedia. I'm happy to see that my attempts are appreciated. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

re 65.164.168.38

Hi Arthur. I've replied on my talk page. Paul August ☎ 20:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Why?

Why did you revert my change? The Crying Orc 17:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I see what your masterful scheme is. ;-) The Crying Orc 17:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) To answer your first question, there's no evidence it's his current occupation. Although I don't really think he or the book is notable, under WP:LIVING, we really can't say something like that unless it's verified. So, although I think the article is better with it there, we can't have it without a cite. Sorry. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I understand. I just like symmetry, that's all. And I thought that he needed some 'job description' since all the others had one, so I tried to put one there. I sourced it from the Wikipedia article! The Crying Orc 17:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Pat Price

Is this bogus CIA report the source of some of the cruft in Project Stargate? Guy (Help!) 18:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably. Unfortunately, there was a real "black" CIA project, which found (in declassified published reports) found no successes, and was enventually cancelled, as was reported. I'm not sure where the rest of Project Stargate came from; either from phony CIA documents, or from scripts of Stargate.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Editing of pi page

Please allow me to add the comment as the result is very intriging to mathematicians as root pi - root 3 is extremely close to a rational number as the first few decimals repeat. Also the result has an error of 1 X 10^-8 which is a very very very small number!

If the problem is that I have put my name next to it I do not mind if that is removed (that is understandable) but I feel the mathematics should be included on this page.

Thank you,

James.

I don't find it interesting, as the expression to 9 decimal places is "simpler" than your expression to 7 decimal places. I don't find it interesting, so unless you can find a source which states it as an interesting fact, it can't be here in Wikipedia. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 10:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Arthur Rubin.jpeg

  1. is it realy you?
  2. If yes,under what liscence do you whant it?

Image:Arthur Rubin.jpeg

  1. Yes, it's me.
  2. I'm not sure the correct license. It was taken at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and we paid for the picture on CD, but I'm afraid it may be non-commercial use only. I'd need to research that further. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 10:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

My recent edits

Arthur, please review my recent edits to the Langan bio and let me know if you think I have done anything to violate NPOV. I removed the unsourced assertion that Langan is an ID advocate and rearranged the paragraphs and put back a brief description of the CTMU paper. --DrL 14:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The rearrangement is just wrong. That he's a fellow of ISCID must precede the reference to the paper published by ISCID, or the fact that ISCID is an ID front (I mean, was created by ID advocates :) ) would be given undue weight. Some statement that ISCID is associated with ID is required in this article.
The revision I reverted to is pretty bad, stylistically, but I didn't want to revert back a week. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your guidance, Arthur. Please look at it later this morning as I will try to improve it with your requirements in mind. --DrL 14:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Langan Article

It's heartening to learn that you have a high IQ (although I would expect such given your degree and accomplishments). Perhaps you can examine one section of the Langan article and give me your considered opinion.

The opening sentence describes Langan as an "intelligent design advocate" and uses this quote as a reference for support. I think the quote is actually good, but does not support the statement that Langan is an ID advocate. It is more of an indicator of Langan's balanced position on the topic of ID - evolution. As such, I think it is good in the article but the designation "intelligent design advocate" ought to be removed or changed to better reflect Langan's position. What do you think? --DrL 19:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Isn't that asking me to make an original synthesis of information? No?
Well, that quote alone, without further interpretation through CTMU or other philosphical constructs, is consistent either any of the following interpretations:
  1. A modified anthropic principle (if there weren't intelligent life in the this universe, we wouldn't be here to discuss it) and that the universe must contain "intelligence" in order to produce intelligent life, or
  2. A redefinition of the term "intelligence" to state that a universe which "solves problems" must be "intelligent",
  3. with his being an intelligent design advocate.
I just can't tell. From what I remember from reading the CTMU paper, I lean toward #3 with a hint of #2, but I could easily be wrong. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. My take on reading Langan is that his position is largely 1 & 2. It's POV to depict him in a particular way that is not consistent with the position he takes in his writings. That's what's being done in his bio. This is especially true in light of the fact that the ID buzzwords have been conflated with creationism and used to paint people as creationists, or evolution-deniers, and dismiss their ideas. Langan makes very clear in his writing that he supports the concept of evolution (although it is not in itself explanatory in the complete sense). I hope you can step back and evaluate the changes that I suggest in the future in an open manner (maybe even make some of your own) in an effort to maintain NPOV in that article. --DrL 20:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
You're wrong in part. The mathematics of ID makes no sense, so it would be MHO (and the stated opinions of some WP:RS) that ID is a cover for creationism. I'm not absolutely sure if CTMU is a cover for ID or not. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 10:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not ID is a cover for creationism or the mathematics of ID makes sense to you or anyone else really has nothing to do with Langan and the CTMU. The CTMU as a "cover" for ID is nonsense! I have read all of Langan's published writings at length and he is very cautious regarding ID. He has never endorsed it and totally avoids the politics. He took advantage of ISCID's open-minded offer of publishing his work and I believe that is the extent of their relationship. Please bear that in mind. --DrL 16:11, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for assistance

Please review the recent rv by FM to the Langan article. There is nothing wrong with the edits I made this morning and work I've done to improve the article. TIA. --DrL 17:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I reverted FM's global revert and I would please ask you to review the situation and encourage editor collaboration and discussion. I am perfectly willing to work with the other editors and would suggest that changes that are too POV one way or the other, positive or negative, be discussed by interested editors. --DrL 17:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Rollback

A word to the wise: a lot of people don't agree with the use of rollback on non-vandalism edits and get upset over things like this. While I don't feel strongly one way or the other, some people consider it an abuse of admin privileges. Guettarda 01:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I see your point. But that particular edit falls under (the current interpretation) of WP:BLP (as applying to active organizations), and should be speedily removed, and I had removed that edit before, giving a reason. I don't know if adding text in violation of policy when a reason had previously been given for its removal is technically "vandalism", but it seems close. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Removing talk page warnings

Hi, Arthur - I am looking for your advice here. I warned kenosis for violating WP and he has removed my warning twice with misleading comments. As I understand it, warnings should not be removed from talk pages. Before I go back and put in a stronger warning, I thought you could let him know that his edit was in violation and that he should leave the warning on his page. I'd prefer to leave it at that than escalate. --DrL 15:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It's been established that removing talk page warnings is not necessarily in violation of WP policy, I'm afraid. (See the discussion on the deletion of the warning template about removing warnings.) I wouldn't do it, myself, without consensus that the warning was unfounded (which I once obtained at WP:AN/I), and perhaps it should be in violation of WP policy.
However, as his comment on removal is also in violation, I've reinstated and amplified. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comments, Arthur. I would appreciate it if the edit summary could be redacted. Do you know who I can ask about this? --DrL 19:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Arthur - if you're going to lecture people about failing to assume good faith, you should really refrain from edit summaries like this one. You also ignored my comment about assuming good faith at Talk:Christopher_Michael_Langan. Either DrL is Langan's wife, and thus she has a valid opinion (which should be restricted to the talk page) or she isn't, in which case she is just a pov-pushing edit warrior, who is editing against consensus. You seem to be assuming the former, which means that you are just as guilty of failing to AGF as is Kenosis. Guettarda 17:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Rubin: Sorry to see you get caught in the middle of the lobbying efforts by the protagonist(s) of the article on Mr. Langan. However, violations of WP:Autobiography, by an apparent husband-and-wife team engaged in attempting to control the content of the husband's WP article, require mention of who the participating parties are in order to identify what the relevant issue is. These WP users appear to have a conflict of interest, and a "warning" by either of those parties for me to desist from mentioning either of them is not, in my judgment, a genuine warning based on any actual violation of WP policy. It is instead simply a lobbying attempt by one of the involved users. That is why I removed it from my talk page. Take care. ... Kenosis 18:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Arthur, word of advice: make sure you know what you're on about before making a statement like the one you made on Kenosis' page. •Jim62sch• 21:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I still think the initial edit summary was inappropriate, although provoked. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Billion-edit pool

Hello ! You missed Wikipedia:Billion-edit pool. Pity. Someone has opened a request at WP:DRV on the others: "deleted out of process and should be restored". Hmm. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

After careful study, I decided that the billion-edit pool is different, so I put it back. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Tango TV

See Talk:Tango TV for my suggestion as to how to proceed, and let me know how I can help. Andrewa 15:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and take over, if you want to. That looks like a good place for the discussion, even if it is presently a redirect. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Open Directory Project and AboutUs.org

Not a spin off-- Ok - Please check re-wording. Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WikiPersonality (talk • contribs) 18:58, December 2, 2006 (UTC)

It would be marginally acceptable, although a violation of WP:NPOV, as long as the article is present, except for the possiblility that the site is yours, which would make your addition spam. However, when the article goes, the comment in Open Directory Project should go as well. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Note of thanks

Just to thank you for having signed all my edits in Talk:Global city. I'm sorry, i just always forget. I'll try to remember now. Oh yes, and you're probably right about Manila being more important than Barcelona. My mistake! Daniel Montin 12:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Seeing what Jcwf said earlier about Global city, I too take advantage to complain about that article. it's a scandal that such an outdated and controversial item should be published on Wikipedia. The very fact that it attracts so much discussion is a bad sign. Daniel Montin 20:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

User:Illena ban from pages?

Where is this ban documented?

Ilena complained to the unblock-en-l mailing list about the block; I have replied already, but was curious if the ban you referred to in the talk pages was real/documented or not... There's nothing on her talk page, etc, with a reference for it.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 20:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I cannot confirm the ban. I recall someone banned from Stephen Barrett, who seemed to be Ilena, but I can't even find a reference to that. (I didn't act because the ban, only the 3RR (actually around 7, if you count the anons making the same edits.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Right, there was no real question about the 3+RR issue, I just wanted to be able to bring all the right info to the table if there was more pushback. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert 21:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Your rv

To me this is an obvious violation of WP:LIVING, but I'd already asked for Xoloz's advice and intervention so why don't you just let it sit. --DrL 05:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:LIVING

As a reminder, WP:LIVING states that "Editors should remove any controversial material about living persons that is either unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Reliable sources, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source. In cases where the information is derogatory and poorly sourced or unsourced, this kind of edit is an exception to the three-revert rule. These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages." --DrL 06:02, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why the assertion that he's a crank could be taken as anything but opinion, but it could be a violation of WP:LIVING. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject:LEAD

I have proposed [13] a very bold wikiproject to have article's lead paragraphs conform to WP:LEAD, it could potentialy be an issue of debate as presently thousands of articles do not conform and would be tagged. I would very much appreciate your advice on the WP:LEAD talk page. Thanks FrummerThanThou 15:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Spurious AfD

Your input is urgently needed on a spurious AfD [14]. -- Fyslee 22:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed moves ot Tango TV articles

See Talk:Tango TV#Where to now. Comments welcome of course. Andrewa 19:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

question about a merge

I'm planning on merging Paganini Variations into Caprice No. 24 (Paganini). I'm wondering how to get rid of the former once the merge is done. Do I just nominate it for deletion? Skiasaurus 04:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The normal procedure would be to replace it with a redirect.
#redirect [[Caprice No. 24 (Paganini)]]
The GFDL would prevent deletion unless you log the history of Variations into the talk page of Caprice. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Edison pioneers

Art, you were a little too hasty with that one, by a total newbie. I left him a note about what to do. DGG 07:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right. (But I did tag it with {{db-bio}}, rather than deleting it as {{db-bio}}.) The person he added was not notable unless this was notable, though, and all the people he's added seem to be his relatives. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Edison, again.

I have edited the article a little-- just to assert importance. I may be a little confused, being new to this, but I think it said that a db tag removed by someone other than the original editor should not be removed. I expect to be doing this a good deal and want to learn how. Can only you remove it? What I do not know how is how to turn this into an AfD. I think i saw somewhere that I should ask you to do it, so I am asking you. Perhaps you may be acting a little too hastily. Remember this is a total newbie. And., for that matter, remember I'm a relative newbie at AfD and the like, and instruct me, rather than revert me. I'll check back here for the instructions. DGG 07:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry--I had not seen your reply for some reason when I wrote the above. Ive adjusted it a bit, as you see. .DGG 08:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
No, anyone other than the major editor of a page may remove a {{db}} tag (and it generally should not be reinserted), and anyone may remove a {{prod}} tag, and it should hardly ever be reinserted. However, an {{AfD}} tag may not be removed unless the AfD is closed. As for creating an AfD, there are instructions at WP:AfD. Write again if you need more help. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sr wiki bot Sashato

Yes i know for that mistake, we at sr: wiki will start to redirect those pages to centuries like on en: wiki and everything will be fixed than. --SasaStefanovic • 14:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Perfect number

I was wondering why you reverted the addition to the article about Kishore's proof. Your edit summary said the (new) user was the banned user WAREL. As best I can tell WAREL has not been banned for 8 months.[15] Further, the Kishore result seems useful.

Now I'm not adding it again, and I didn't check the result against my copy of the Kishore paper (its buried somewhere in one of my binders), but I was curious. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe WAREL is community banned, but not blocked. I'm sure he's restricted from using sockpuppets, though. As for the edit, I may revert myself if it's not not byte-for-byte identical to a previous version of WAREL. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
It is a byte for byte copy of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Perfect_number&diff=85713811&oldid=85705154, which was clearly a User:WAREL sockpuppet. It did add the result instead of replacing another, and failed to add the actual reference, but it's enough for suspicion. It's also User:Chikushi's first contribution. No, I think it probably is WAREL, but I'll request review at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Mathematics. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. Are you opposed to the Kishore result itself? If not, I may look it up and add it myself, because I remember thinking that it was a fairly important discovery, at least in terms of its generality. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
No, the result is fine (if accurately posted). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
If I get around to adding it, I'll be sure to double-check it. Have a nice day! CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot trashed your talk page

I regret to inform you that Werdnabot has trashed your talk page at 13 December 2006. See difference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AArthur_Rubin&diff=94006743&oldid=93776242

Werdna was fixing a bug caused by changes in underlying library routines. When he ran the new version, it changed all the ampersands to ampersand-"amp"-semicolons on all pages it touched (i.e. "&" to "&" (edit to see this)). He then ran a program to revert all those changes. But some of us (including you) had had our pages editted since and it did not revert them. But it did revert in your archive file.

The result of this was that eight section of your talk have been removed but do not appear in your archive and many other parts of your talk page have the screwed up ampersands. I tried to "undo" Werdnabot's bad edit, but the "undo" failed due to conflicting intermediate edits. By the way, Werdnabot has done another archive job (correctly this time) since the bad one. JRSpriggs 07:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I archived the missed versions (plus one section that didn't have a time stamp), and fixed the ampersands in my talk page. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

James W. Anderson

I don't believe the closing admin did a good job of judging the consensus. But I wanted to get another opinion. What say you? --C S (Talk) 11:36, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, but in my opinion, the first step should be to ask the closing admin. I did so at User talk:HighInBC#AfD on Anderson. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I thought about asking the closing admin, but I thought it would be better to get a second opinion before bothering him. Anyway, I left a comment on his talk page. --C S (Talk) 15:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, admins should be challenged more often (and as I said on HighInBC's talk page, I'd've come to a different conclusion). He explained his decision, and that's it. It's not important enough for me to have it go through DRV (though you are of course free to do so if you can be bothered). However, I did make a note to nominate the article again at AfD in some months' time (unless more news sources pick up the story, of course). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 06:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Your Hasty Deletion of Newbie Entries

Art, thank you for helping to clean up my newbie entries. However, I would have appreciated a bit of dialog or an opportuity to complete my entries prior to your scrubbing them.

I have learned from other kind users (DGG) what to do when an entry needs more help from the community to flesh it out and where the notability guidelines are for my American Biographies project. I will generously use the following tags in my future articles: 'underconstruction' 'expand' and 'not verified' when they are needed.

I have also left detailed STRONG KEEP votes on discussion for deletion pages for Whip Jones, Robert P. McCulloch, John I. Beggs and the Edison Pioneers. I may also add the three tags above as necessary.

Please don't be so hasty with Newbies and I'll continue to make entries for people and groups who are clearly notable.

-Gecko

I replied on the AfD pages, but it would be better if you kept the articles in user-space (as subpages of your user page) until such time as you've added indications of notablility. Perhaps WikiProject Biography has a review request area? In any case, most of your articles failed {{db-bio}} at the time I nominated them. I do apologize for being so quick, but I've seen as detailed fake biographies created as clusters before. As you had no references, I couldn't easily check that they were real people. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, fair enough. Could you consider taking away your Whip Jones AfD as unreal as it sounds, its not fake. I've revised it and will take your suggestions on it, but I believe it should stay ... see my other notes on the discussion page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SavageGecko (talk • contribs) 19:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

Perspex machine talk page

Hey, I was just wonding what you meant by "wikipedia etiquette". According to the rules for talk, formatting other comments is allowed as long as you don't change the actual comment. Putting the comments in categories based on what they're talking about seemed like the right thing to do. The way it is now you have to jump back and forth to figure out who's talking to who and about what. What you did just doesn't make sense to me, shouldn't there be an attempt to make the talk page more readable as long as no person has their comment changed? fintler 00:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You reordered the comments, so I couldn't tell if anyone had their comments changed. I think you also unthreaded some related threads. (And you put your new comment at the beginning, which is definitely a questionable activity. Retitling, without reordering, the comments would be allowed. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


Whip Jones

I've revamped the page and I'm asking for a revote. Please see the discussion on this. Please reply there to comment on what you think we need to fix or delete to keep it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.44 (talk • contribs) 06:34, December 15, 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not convinced he's notable, be it's now arguable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

most common name difficult to determine?

Hi Arthur. At WT:NC you wrote:

In those cases where "the most common name" is unknown or difficult to determine (e.g., royalty, ship names, highways, settlements), ...

I agree with royalty, ship names, and highways, but how is "the most common name" unknown or difficult to determine for settlements? Most "settlements" (cities, towns, villages) have one name by which they are referred most commonly, no? --Serge 19:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that's what we're arguing about, rather than the disambiguation question. In the case of major cities, it may be that they are normally referred to by the short-name (as you've been arguing), but, even within California, the city of Lake Forest is probably better known as El Toro, California. Which name should we use? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Of course there are exceptions for which the most common name is difficult to determine, like your Lake Forest/El Toro example, but surely you're not contending that that is the case for most settlements? By the way, I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to El Toro as El Toro, California. They may do that out of the state, but surely the vast majority of references to El Toro are made within California where it is rarely qualified with the state. --Serge 21:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
There are a lot of them. For example, Saigon versus Ho Chi Minh City. Bombay versus Mumbai. Calcutta versus Kolkata. New York City versus Gotham City versus The Big Apple. LA versus Los Angeles. Etcetera. JRSpriggs 08:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Intelligence Daily

Mr. Rubin,

A link to The Intelligence Daily (http://www.inteldaily.com - an informative site was deleted from the sites section of Hubbert's Peak Theory. Inteldaily.com is a website relevant to the topic of Peak Oil. May I ask why it was considered to be a spam link and subsequently deleted? Is it possible to list the site url again?

Sincerely, Alex —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Inteldaily (talk • contribs) 23:54, December 17, 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be specifically relevant to the topic of Peak Oil. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 02:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

The image on the pi article

I included it so the reader could better visualize the circle. Perhaps I was a bit (way) snarky with my comment but the text-based "graph" is rather hard to interpret from a glance. Could we perchance have this altered? I could patch up the image a bit by adding in the points of interest and overlaying a grid that illustrates how the squares were counted. eszetttalk 22:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead and re-insert it. However, it needs to be closer to the text-based graph than it appeared in the version that first appeared (which I don't know how to do), and it needs to have the points inserted, although not necessarily named. (undo) doesn't work because of intervening vandalism. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll do that when I get back home. I was in a bit of a rush at first so I didn't add in the points. Thanks aplenty! eszetttalk 15:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

911 Conspiracy Theories/Alternative Theories

Why dont we focus on identifying individual points of objection at Talk:9/11_conspiracy_theories#Why_dont_the_Oppose_and_Agree_camps.3F instead of having long winded debates that cover 2 or 3 subjects The we we know everyones objections either way, we can work out a compromise on each point with a view to reaching a consensus. "Snorkel | Talk" 09:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Numbers

"This user has no idea what the hell 1337 is and/or prefers to contribute using proper words."

I thought the answer was 42. And, thanks for your accurate and concise summary of the litigation in Barrett v. Rosenthal. I looked at that and thought, well, yes! Jance 00:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You do know I was joking about '42', I hope. That was from Douglas Adams.Jance 18:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

NCAHF

Are you sure that DBAs are not stored there? In the state I live, they are. In fact, I do not believe this organization is yet registered. I don't know that any of this is particularly notable, but I think you might be wrong in this call. How do you know this?Jance 05:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

David, I also asked my spouse, who has over 20 years of experience as a lawyer (more than I, as law is a second career for me), and deals with this all the time. He agrees with me. I hope that an admin will not dismiss what she has to say because of his own point of view or bias - including being disgusted with her 'style', or combativeness etc. It would be easy to do. The editing on this article seems very polarized. Of the editors who have worked on this, I think I am the only one that has not shown in my edits to have strong feelings for or against Barrett/NCAHF. As you know, I have deleted some significant material that seemed malicious or inappropriate, or badly written. I think I can look at this with some objectivity.Jance 06:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the "Secretary of the Commonwealth"'s site, DBAs are registered with the city or town. I can't prove that they're not copied to the state, but I couldn't find any evidence of it on that site. (In California, DBAs are registered with the County government, but do seem to be copied to the state.) Actually, I don't think they're registered in MA, either, but we, as Wikipedia editors, are not supposed to draw conclusions. I also think that "non-natively" is horribly confusing; I only understand that phrasing because of the discussion in the talk page. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 09:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Arthur, I am very sorry - I don't know where I got "David". I must have been thinking of the MD. However, I generally appreciate mathematicians more than MDs.  ;-)

I was too tired to be WIki-editing. I did not look at the website at length. Not copying it seems a bit antiquated. The "non-natively" was confusing (eg is that supposed to have a special definition?) I suspect that "subscription" would not be deemed the same as a donation. Finally, I think way too much time has already gone into this one paragraph. I am not going to look into it further. I wouldn't be surprised if someone does, though. Jance 14:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Need an admin

I need help from an admin on G. Patrick Maxwell. Several editors have complained about the poor sources (or outright lack of sources). DrOliver, a plastic surgeon who had Maxwell as a teacher, wrote this article. I do think it is a 'fluff' piece, but that aside, it is badly written and unsourced. I acknowledge a general dislike for the author, but that does not negate Wikipedia guidelines. DrOliver has had months to add sources, but he continually reverts. This last time, I copied and listed the sources from the article, on the talk page. You can see for yourself how valid these are. At least 3 admins have commented on the sources, but they all left. Meanwhile, Droliver continues to revert. Is there nothing that can be done? I have asked him to simply correct the sources, and add another source (A high school student would fail if he writes a paper stating that X is "known for" or made "significant contribution to" where the only source is a marketing catalog of a company with whom the subject had a contract). And, of course, that does not correct the many sources that are simply broken links. Thanks.Jance 00:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

?

Just so we can try to get things cleaned up & closed.--I'clast 05:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The California Supreme Court

Dear Arthur Rubin,

You say [elsewhere] that, "[T]he California Supreme Court (improperly) ruled that malicious reposting of libelous material cannot be legally libel" (Emphasis supplied). I am intrigued. Does improperly here mean that the court did not follow proper procedures, or do you mean that the case was reversed by higher authority on this matter ? In the latter case, perhaps the appropriate word would be wrongly. In any case, perhaps you could supply a relevant link attached to the word improperly , or wrongly should you choose to substitute it. Robert2957 09:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't resist. The CA decision was "proper", based on the plain meaning of the statute. That said, it would not be the first time that Congress poorly drafted a bill. The ruling is also consistent with precedent. Logically, it makes no sense that a "reposter" of libel would be immune, but a primary publication would not be immune. The effect is the same. Regardless, until or unless the US Supreme Court hears the case, the ruling is both "right" and "proper."Jance 14:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I meant morally improper, as it immunizes a class of people making defamatory ocmments. I thought they had misinterpreted 230, as well, but "user" is sufficiently ambiguous to cover true publishers (as opposed to republishers, such as Ilena), making it a plausible interpretation that any defamatory comment only posted on the Internet is immune from prosecution for libel. I would hope Congress would clarify the section retroactively. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2006

{UTC)

Thank you for responding. Strange though this court decision may be, is it appropriate to express such an opinion in any part of the Wikipedia? It is, after all, not a soap box. Robert2957 16:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Robert, what is 'appropriate' here is sometimes a moving target.
Re the decision, SCOTUS has stated that the bar for proving defamation is high when it comes to a defendant that is a public figure, and when the statements are of public interest. Like all public figures, Barrett has "thrust himself in the limelight" so to speak. And, of course, opinion is not defamation. It would be very difficult to prove defamation here, even absent Section 230. In fact, the only statement that was arguably defamatory was the one against Polevnoy, and not Barrett. While I am not sure how I personally feel about outright immunity, I do not find the decision "morally" improper. Even this conservative Court is protective of the First Amendment. That does not mean I condone IR's inflammatory and outrageous statements. It does mean that under the circumstances, they are not actionable. Jance 01:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
What is morally proper about a private person naming individuals as "quacks", and setting out to destroy them? That is exactly what Barrett is doing, by his own admission. I did not realize this until recently; I assumed he only criticized certain types (or all) "alternative medicine" which seems reasonable to me. But who decides what individual should be targeted and held up to public ridicule? Who determines what individual should have his license jeopardized and career destroyed? Is that the province of a single (and private) "quackbuster" and his employees? Barrett has annointed himself judge, jury and executioner. In all seriousness, the NCAHF (and by extension, Barrett) argued in court that he should not only be given the investigative powers of a district attorney, but he should be given more power than a DA, in court. Even a DA must prove his case. Barrett argued that he should only have to make an allegation, and force the defendant to prove his "innocence". Not even a DA has that much power. In medicine, the burden of proof is on the one making the medical claim. In court, the burden of proof is rightfully on the plaintiff/prosecutor - not the defendant. At least in the US, we do not have a feudal system (yet).
The more I think about this, the more alarming it seems. Yes, I think Hulda Clark is a quack, and should probably be in prison, instead of Tiijuana, fleecing cancer victims. So yes, I think it is a public service to expose someone like that. But what about one less "quackish" than she?? Where does Barrett draw the line? And why would we give him the power to make that decision? I don't care if he is a retired psychiatrist. I don't care if he is board certified in 17 specialties. He has not been appointed a judge or jury. This is what also so alarmed the King Bio court, when dismissing Barrett's charges of "false advertising" and "unfair business practices":

"The logical end-point of Plaintiff’s burden-shifting argument would be to permit anyone with the requisite filing fee to walk into any court in any state in the Union and file a lawsuit against any business, casting the burden on that defendant to prove that it was not violating the law. Such an approach, this Court finds, would itself be unfair."

What if Barrett et al make a mistake? How does he then go back and fix a person's livelihood and life? Whether or not Barrett has been sued is irrelevant. Not many of us would care to think of ourselves as "unscientific". Maybe Barrett is given a pass because he is a medical doctor and MDs still are put on pedestals. (I have no such illusions about MDs!) Barrett may especially appeal to those of us with a mathematical or scientific education. That is where, I think, we need to be careful. This is not a question of truth (or consistency). It is a question of fundamental fairness.Jance 02:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Dear Jance,

I find what you say interesting; but I would like to know Arthur Rubin's response to my query. Robert2957 09:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Please Help ME!

I dont know what to do anymore, User:LUCPOL added another test4 template.... and he moved Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union to; what he thinks it should be;" Silesia City" 2 times(without consensus of anyone, might i add)! and edited some of my comments on User:Jadgers comment page...and!!.... i cant even understand half of his comments...-- Hrödberäht 00:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

He also went and "commented" on that "private" conversation between me and jadger ...[16] [17] [18] -- Hrödberäht 00:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Hes just moved it again...-- Hrödberäht 01:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

User:R9tgokunks (Hrödberäht) vandalise (edit war, 3RR) arcicles: Metropolis, Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union, Ostrava, List of famous German Americans, Father of the Nation etc, etc. He's always revert. See history in arcicles (all edit war R9tgokunks vs all users in all arcicles): [19], [20], [21], [22], [23] etc. Please help. Please blocked this user on month (or more). LUCPOL 00:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

PS: He manipulates, it lets old links (see highly - links discussion from... september etc). LUCPOL 01:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Why are you, might i ask, cyber-stalking me?-- Hrödberäht 01:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you block both these users if you do anything. I found this when I saw LUCPOL's 3rr "report". Both users have violated 3RR on multiple articles in a rather large scale edit war. Add to that LUCPOL's removing of comments from his talk page in an attempt at making it appear that the other user was lying. --Wildnox(talk) 01:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Ive only been blocked for 8 hours once (for a 3rr that i was upset about), im not aware of any other 3rr violations since.-- Hrödberäht 01:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm saying that you both violated it today, not that you had been blocked for edit warring with eachother in the past. --Wildnox(talk) 01:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
How irresponsible, LUCPOL, that you go all the way back to September to argue to get me blocked. If i have broken the 3RR again since, it was because i was completely reverting vandalism.-- Hrödberäht 01:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Really? What is? [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] etc. This is 3RR and edit war! LUCPOL 01:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Edit war, No, no, Jack O' latern and i came to an agreement and 'afterwards' i edited the article which he advised me on, check it out on my talk page and in the history.Fathers of the Nation, is not an edit war.and the first 3 are involving reverting vandalistic edits that include 1.not getting a consensus on moving an article. 2.not following wikipedia policy. 3. Continued Vandalism and reversion of constructive accurate edits according to wikipedic content. In the words of Wildnox, regarding your quote:"archiwe", quote:"you didn't archive, you removed the messages for the purpose of claiming another user was lying)", that other user in this case being myself.-- Hrödberäht 01:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[[29]] It seems that LUCPOL is driving a personal agenda to move Upper_Silesian_Metropolitan_Union back(which i hadnt known before) to Silesia city, and according to other comments on the matter, Silesia City is not a name for it, or, let alone a variation of it.-- Hrödberäht 01:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

These are old data. This is new data: [30] or in Wikinews. LUCPOL 02:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to be offensive, but we dont speak polish, and i myself barely understand more than 2 words of polish other than "Polska" and "Gdansk", and they are probably localized terms which are never used in English. -- Hrödberäht 02:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

PS. I did not make 3RR: see: [31], [32] - My 3 corner edition and 3 reverts from R9tgokunks (Hrödberäht) - in draught 24h, 28 december 2006. I did not make 3 reverts, this is 3 corner edition. LUCPOL 03:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Barrett again

Shame about the amount of time being wasted on the articles related to this person. I am beginning to wonder if some users should be banned from editing Barrett related articles? Possibly a blanket statement from arbcom along the lines of anyone within one/two degrees of freedom to Barrett should recuse themselves from Barrett related pages. The bickering is clearly from a subjective perspective and wastes huge amounts of time. This is not unprecedented since a similar ban was handed out to three different users on the Jonathon Srafati article. In that case three different users were banned from editing the article (but not banned from wikipoedia). See the Sarfati talk page. David D. (Talk) 19:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

And now i discover you have your own article in wikipedia. So your opinion on this issue becomes even more relevant. David D. (Talk) 19:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm. I've tried to avoid editing my own article, and I don't think any of the editors who have knew me before Wikipedia, but.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. I am begining to think the Stephen Barrett talk page needs a few disclaimers with regard to ethics. It is becoming a battleground. David D. (Talk) 20:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think anyone should be banned from editing an article, based only on their interest/involvement. However, the Barrett-related pages have become very ugly with long tirades, and that should stop. The only issued discussed should be a specific item for inclusion/exclusion. Then consensus should be reached and proper sources cited. Jance 18:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Things were going along relatively well until User:Ilena came along and started treating Wikipedia like Usenet. She has only one mode of action -- attack mode. No constructive editing can happen as long as she occupies everyone's time with her constant vanity link spamming, personal attacks, assuming bad faith, and generally trying to force her personal opinion on the articles in question. If she would only collaborate with editors of opposing POV (as required here), used good sources, and made articles better, it would be an entirely different matter. There is currently a notice posted at the admin noticeboard. -- Fyslee 20:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The Barrett article requickened after the change of faces after the October reprise, please stop projecting everything onto Ilena.--I'clast 04:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, methinks Fyslee is correct, Ilena does seem to only have one policy, attack until she finds support, then attack with support. Shot info 04:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Shot, do you think this is constructive criticism? If Ilena said that, she would be jumped on for attacking. I do not think your making such comments is any better. It seems to me this article is polarized - Fyslee, you, Curtis, Ronz on one side and Ilena, L'clast, and Levine on the other. I don't see a whole lot of difference in the failure to negotiate or establish NPOV. If people get banned from this article, then I suspect it should be about 7 editors. I have watched Ilena comments and I don't condone them. I don't much like some of her edits. But then I am shocked to see the Barrett sympathizers be equally as aggressive in POV editing. I have yet seen any one of you try to negotiate. No wonder the article is as contentious as it is. And if you prefer I 'but out', I will be happy to do so. It is a waste of time. I also don't like to see a few ganged up on, and this is exactly what it is beginning to look like. I did not think so at first, but now I am beginning to see her frustration. Jance 09:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Not that I want to argue this out here on Arthurs Talk page (sorry Arthur) but now I share Ronz' and Fyslee's frustration, I never used to, until I began to see non-notable pieces of trivia develop a life of their own and I'clast presenting him/herself as the final arbitrator of discussion, on anything to do with Barrett. I am not a Barrett sympathiser, however I won't allow the POV and SOAPBOX sops to turn these particular articles into a long spew piece on whatever POV they are articulating. You will note, I don't stop the critism of Barrett (et.al) within reason and wiki guildlines. Wiki has excellent examples of how Barrett, NCAHF and QW should appear, and they don't which is testimate to the PUSHPOV expertise of what you call the "non Barrett sympathizers" (to use a name). Either we wikify or we pander to those who are wikivandels. If this makes me non-neutral in your eyes, so be it.Shot info 12:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
"final arbitrator", how flattering. I have entered each QW-related article very reluctantly, avoiding them for months, precisely because they were clearly such adverse, hagiographic timesinks. I hope that you are not attributing wikivandal to me. FYI, at one time I would have been counted as a Barrett supporter, perhaps before you were born. The degrees, decades, applied research and legal/political/corporate experiences have somewhat shifted my views on the scientific accuracy and probity of QW, etc. I still read QW bios, a good starting point for an in-depth view of any personality covered, including muck raking; I do consider the source & pov very carefully. I can count on QW, etc. to explore any negatives and then some. I feel sorry for the average readers who have less knowledge & experience trying to make timely sense out of the modern medical-pharmaceutical complex and its fellow travellers.--I'clast 23:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I do not like the idea of disparaging wiki editors. Period. I see it all to often, whether I feel it is "justified" or not. A better approach is to criticize the edits. I haven't noted criticism from (Shot) of Barrett, but if I missed it, it won't b e the first time I have ever missed anything. A controversial subject should be identified as controversial. Reliable resources should be used as sources. I do not agree with some of the edits by "Barrett critics". I also do not think some of the "Barrett sympathizers" should delete properly sourced relevant information. That has occurred - I am thinking of Curtis, offhand. I will also note that Fyslee put that back. Jance 03:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

RFC

Since you were involved there somewhat: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tim Smith FeloniousMonk 19:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

They huffed, and puffed, . . .

 Thank you for offering your opinion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard (2nd mfd). Look forward to seeing you around in 2007 at Conspiracy Central! For a little fun, check out Brad Greux's video blog at The Most Brilliant and Flawlessly Executed Plan, Ever, Ever. Good cheer from The Mad Dog, Morton devonshire 20:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Century Years

Regarding the article 2400:

Apologies for the century leap years dispute. My reasoning was based on the fact that every leap year is divisible by 4 and did not include the exception for leap year rules.

--Insane 17:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I've read somewhere that the former Soviet Union had 2 of 9 century years as leap years in their calendar, so that 2000, 2400, 2900, 3300 were leap years, instead of the "western" 2000, 2400, 2800, 3200, etc. It's called the Revised Julian calendar in our articles. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Help!

We need help on NCAHF. Curtis is reproducing (badly, I might add) entire webpages. I have summarized and added proper formating. I have asked him what specific points that are important that are left out of summary. He is not willing to discuss this. He is belligerant, and an edit war has ensued. I need the help of some rational editors here. Heck, I even suggested we ask Dr. Barrett! Jance 20:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm involved, albeit as a generally pro-Barrett editor. I may not block. Has he violated 3RR in re-adding the information 4 times? If not, I'm afraid normal, slow channels, are the way to go. Sorry. Do you want to suggest that Ilena edit it down?! — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, more like a dozen times. I won't revert anymore. Go take a look at what he has added, just on one section. He had half a dozen or more sections this long, in this style of writing. I have to actually work today. Please take a look at the article -it would be 100 pages long with what Curtis has added. By the time you look at it, my guess is that he will have reverted the whole thing back. If you have any suggestions as to an admin that would help sort this out, it would be much appreciated.Jance 20:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)Jance 20:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
He has already reverted it back. Take a look, please. I'm not touching it. It is awful.Jance 20:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Why did you revert it?

Why did you revert my edit to Arthur Rubin? You should be happy I put your user page in. I did that for you. You are a good editor on Wikipedia. 62 (number) 22:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It's on the talk page, where it belongs. We rarely have references from the main article space into user-space (user:). — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

HELP!!!

Now Curtis followed me to the "Breast Implant" article, and is in another edit war. He has reverted twice and I expect he will again. Even the most ardent fan of implants would not agree that there is "No" evidence of harm. This is ridiculous. This user needs to be banned.Jance 00:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Whom can I contact?

Curtis is attacking me repeatedly, and what he is now doing is beyond 3RR and uncivil. What on earth can I do? It's breathtakingJance 00:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AN/I, if you don't want to wait for an RfC. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you've both committed 3RR on Breast implants. Be careful. (Has Curtis ever gotten a 3RR warning?) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 03:17, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, he has received two 3RR warnings.

RE my comment about IR on the AN/I (too many TLAs). Yes, possibly a limited public figure. However, since the articles have stated the court's decisions unambiguously, Curtis' statement on its face demonstrates "actual knowledge of falsity" and "reckless disregard for the truth." Therefore, I believe that this would meet the standard for even a public figure. It is clearly libel. Of course, nothing is clearly anything until a court rules on it. Not that it matters now. The real issue is what is going on at NCAHF now. I have backed off and now Curtis is attacking Ronz. I would rather let Ronz or someone else file an An/I. I thought I had filed an An/I. Shows how much I know of the processes here! Jance 04:28, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I may just give this one up, and let someone else deal with Curtis. I have spent the entire day on it. I have no doubt that he will transfer his wrath to others, as he is already doing to Ronz.Jance 04:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)