User talk:BrainyBabe/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Welcome to the Wikipedia

Welcome, newcomer!

Here are some useful tips to ease you into the Wikipedia experience:

First, take a look at the Wikipedia Tutorial, and perhaps dabble a bit in the test area.
When you have some free time, take a look at the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines. They can come in very handy!
Remember to use a neutral point of view!
If you need any help, feel free to post a question at the Help Desk
Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Also, here are some odds and ends that I find useful from time to time:

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can most easily reach me by posting on my talk page.

You can sign your name on any page by typing 4 tildes, likes this: ~~~~.

Best of luck, and have fun!

ClockworkTroll 21:13, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I came over welcome you but I see you're already an old timer. Thanks for your contributions! Cheers, -Willmcw 23:19, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Deliberate to draw attention

You caught me. :)

Actually, no - those were genuine mispellings. Thanks for the touch up!

ClockworkTroll 13:39, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Two questions

Posted on User_talk:ClockworkTroll

Thanks for your welcome. I must admit I was a bit surprised by it, as I had created my account several days previously and wasn't aware of having done anything controversial. So my first thought was (especially with your nickname, which looks at first glance like an automatic non-human thing, at least to people like me who don't know better): the software has finally got around to acknowledging me after several days of existance. My second thought was: oh, it's a real person, so I must have done something wrong to get their attention. I'm glad that's not the case.

I would like to take advantage of your friendly helpfulness to ask two questions.

1. I use the computers at work to pursue my own interests (eg Wikipedia), with my employer's knowledge. When I get to the first page of Wikipedia, and click on "log in or create an account", it already shows my username, with the field for the password blank. I would prefer that it did not show my username. Can this be re-set more securely?

2. I found an article that appears to have been lifted from another webpage. ( I think the plagiarism is this way around, because the other organisation is highly reputable.) I can't list it now, as I seem to have lost my sources, but if I ever find it again, is there someplace I can report this to within Wikipedia? Simply editing out chunks of text (or the whole text) might only result in an edit war.

Many thanks. BrainyBabe 14:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)BrainyBabe

Taking the opportunity to step in...

What browser are you using?
Wikipedia:Copyright_problems

— David Remahl 14:17, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hello BrainyBabe. Looks like David Remahl beat me to the responses, but I'll elaborate a bit:

The contents of that input box, unless somehow stored as a cookie (which we have no way of changing), are specified by your browser's default behavior.
If the entire article has been lifted, then remove the text of the article, and replace it with the following:

{{copyvio|url=place URL of allegedly copied material here}}
  
~~~~

As David said, there is alot more detail in Wikipedia:Copyright_problems

Cheers! — ClockworkTroll 00:14, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

menstruation changes

Look again, you were too fast for me. With refinement, I think they were good ideas. Which ones can you confirm, or are you happy with my suggestion? Just respond on the menstr talk page. alteripse 01:34, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ephebes and bishies

Hi, Brainy! Thanks for your message. "Ephebe" makes sense to me—I know what an ephebe is—but I have to say I'm so far from an expert on bishies that I'm not sure. The username hides me more than it describes me: I'm not pretty, not a boy, and, most importantly in this context, not knowledgeable about Japanese culture. If you want to see why I picked the name, take a look at User:Bishonen, my userpage. Bishonen | talk 23:50, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

UK COTW: Transport in the United Kingdom

Hey, just to let you know, an article you supported, Transport in the United Kingdom, is this week's collaboration. Cheers! -- Joolz 19:22, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nice Add!

Nice add over at Ernest Callenbach. Now that you mention it I wonder that she and Gary Snyder hadn't occurred to me before. Well done! - Rorybowman 16:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks. I've been a fan of Starhawk for years to. Usually when I comment on a section I just hit the little "edit" button at the section head and then precede it with a colon (to indent it a bit). Two colons indents a bit further, etc. Don't worry, though. If you stick around a bit I'm sure you'll get the hang of it! Be bold and have fun! - Rorybowman 00:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Herveys

Thanks for the message. I've cleaned up the father's article a bit, and I'll try to keep an eye on them. Makemi 05:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Message

Hi, thanks for the message. The message to the anon was actually a template; simply put {{subst:sofixit}} in a talk page to include it. (Try it in a sandbox.) I'm not sure who reverted the trivia thing, but the problem is amassing enough content that the section doesn't look too, well, trivial, if you see what I mean. Halliburton is already mentioned under tolls; the palindrome thing is mildly interesting... why not start collecting stuff on the talk page, then we can move it into the article when it gets some momentum? If you can include references to back things up, that would be great. Cheers, — Johan the Ghost _seance 15:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that, most of the time its someone blanking the page, I just looked at the page and it appears you've fixed it before I could get to it so thanks! -- Tawker 16:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Update: I just noticed you put the redirect in "quotation marks" - thats what caused the bot to be triggered. -- Tawker 17:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I used the quotation marks because I was following the instructions on Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages under "performing the merger". I have never done this before (we all have to start somewhere) so perhaps I followed them too literally. If you know how to change that page, so that it says "without the quotation marks", that would help. Also, I found the bot message harsh and unhelpful, to be accused of vandalism when I thought I was following all the proper procedures (discussion to merge, waiting for comments, etc.). It put me off my lunch till I figured out it was an auto-thing and not a person reverting me. So perhaps you could consider changing the message. I am sure your bot exists for a good reason; I just hope you can see that it can come across the wrong way. I hope these comments are constructive for you. THanks BrainyBabe 17:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've bolded the automated bot text in the message, I've been yo-yo'ing between the messages, essentially its a copy paste of a stock message with the automated bot portion and link if you think the bots in error. If you have any suggestions on how to make the message both friendly enough and stern at the same time, it would be very much appreciated. I've also changed the help page to note "without the quotation marks", let me know if it looks more helpful. I hope I didn't ruin your lunch, it really is entirely automated, I only saw the message in the morning when I woke up -- Tawker 17:29, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and also for clarifying the help page, whihc I hadn't realised was open for everyone to change. I think your bot paragraph of explanation is good (friendly AND stern); it is just the little tag that comes up on the history (which I can't find right now) that uses the words "revert" and "vandalism". I think that is the most abrasive part of the procedure. I have had lots of chocolate biscuits since lunch and feel good about having learned yet another Wikipedia process. BrainyBabe 17:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

ESL etc.

Yes everything should be in order, for now. I moved all the double-redirects. You have to do that or else people get redirected to a redirect page, which can cause some confusion. There are a lot of pages that link here under several redirect pages so it's a bit troublesome. Dforest 18:09, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. How can you move all the redirects at once, instead of one by one? And what does that really do? BrainyBabe 18:17, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually I moved them manually; I use a tabbed browser (Apple's Safari), and just cut and pasted the redirect text. Double redirects are explained here: Wikipedia:Double redirects Do you get the idea? Dforest 18:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Sort of. I understand they are a bad idea. I read the page but it is a bit technical for me. I expect it will make more sense when I have done it a few more times and know more about it generally. BrainyBabe 18:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, both. It all looks good to me. I've started re-doing some links to go direct to the page rather than via redirects and TLA pages. I'll continue working on that from time to time. Gailtb 23:47, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

What is TLA? This is my opportunity to get one level more proficient at Wikipedia! BrainyBabe

Three Women in a Boat

I did misunderstand what the work was. It looks marginal for notability, but I won't take it out unless someone else does. Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Premarin

Your recent edit added " to become horse meat for human or animal consumption". I was about to revert this as nonsense as in the UK horse meat is not, as far as I am aware, used for human consumption. Likewise the article 'horse meat' confirmed my understanding that it is not eaten in the USA either. With a foal presumably having little useful meat on them, are you sure about them being used for human consumption, and if so where ? David Ruben ^Talk 01:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi David. It's a reasonable question, but just because the US and UK don't do something, doesn't mean there isn't a globalised market in it anyway. As I understand it, most of the pregnant mares' urine is produced in Canada (some in the States), and all is processed by one company in Ontario. The foals are shipped from these farms, and either slaughtered in-country, or, sometimes, exported live, to Japan, Italy, and other countries where there is a taste for horse flesh. Apparently most are 2-4 months old, so the "little useful meat" argument would be as for veal calves -- less of it, but tender. I got this info from www.premarin.org, an "anti" website that has conducted its own research into the trade (including fact-finding interviews in Japan). Hope you consider this sufficient. BrainyBabe 05:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

My correction: that should be http://www.premarin.org/ BrainyBabe 05:38, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

ELL page

Hi BB,

Re: the TALK: English language learning and teaching page

If nothing else it saves me from scolling till doomsday. So yea, nice job, much more manageable.

-- Malangthon 23:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Flashman

I hadn't heard that the fictional Who's Who entry was created for the U.S. editions. I have read all the books in the UK versions and I'm fairly sure that the San Serrafino reference predates the Guardian's joke of 1977 by some years. The spoof award is referred to several times in the text of various books as well, although I could not say off-hand which ones.

However, you are likely quite right that it is essentially the same joke. One might consider adding a reference in the San Serriffe article, however this might be considered original research unless you can find any verifiable info on it. Sorry. --Guinnog 17:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Your edits to English language learning and teaching

I reverted your last edits because the links didn't seem to work. When you create or modify links, be sure to test them. Say, did you see my reply to your comment on my talk page? -- Chris53516 (Talk) 20:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I responded to your question on my talk page. :) -- Chris53516 (Talk) 14:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dogme

If the page is not noteworthy, as you noted, it is not worthy of an encyclopedia article. See this policy: Wikipedia:Notability. – Chris53516 (Talk) 18:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

That might be a bit harsh. I would call Dogme ELT a small but significant movement. It is influential. It has appeared in industry publications and conferences (not only by Scott Thornbury) for several years. Having said that, I am not in a position at the moment to search for those articles. Yes, you are correct, Scott should not have created the article, but nonetheless I consider it a useful addition to Wikipedia. BrainyBabe 18:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. You have no idea how many people think something is important or noteworthy because it is to them personally. Please don't be like so many others that fight this process. If it is not noteworthy, it shouldn't waste valuable memory. Additionally, this is borderline advertisement since it was written by Scott and it largely supports his ideas. Please read the relevant policies--they exist for a good reason. – Chris53516 (Talk) 18:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Frank Delaney

Indeed, it is apparently a year old copyright violation. I have sent it to Wikipedia:Copyright problems, as Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations is a page where only User:Wherebot should post notes. If you ever find a similar page again, where most (if not all) of the content is copyvio, tag it with {{db-copyvio}} if the page is less than 48 hours old, or {{copyvio}} if it is older. Thanks again! -- ReyBrujo 04:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Dogme Issue

Hi Brainy,

Hope you see this. The email for you has evidenlty not been sorted out.

The Dogme issue is sort of a no-brainer. This makes the attitude by some on Wikipedia toward this issue a little puzzling. I think we can go ahead and write an article with no problem and with what we compile present a nice rounded collection of perspectives. Do you have the original article? Malangthon 00:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Dogme ELT

Hi Brainy Babe,

I got a new stub up for Dogme and it was deleted. The reasons are unknown to me but someone named Calton has basically gone off at the mouth making spurious analogies and claiming right of censorship. Whoever Calton is that user has serious problems with consensus. Do you know that user? I have replaced the stub and it received a speedy deletion notice evidently by claiming that it was deleted before--i.e. the first spurious deletion now becomes the sole argument for the second. I have Requested arbitration. Anyway, do weigh in and let your thoughts be known. It looks like a one man crusade to delete at will. Malangthon 00:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Candy and Crete

Thanks for your 2006-11-17T17:50:18 contribution to the Candy article, which reads in part:

Circa 1000 CE, the Arabs controlled the strategic Mediterranean island of Crete, famous for its honey. They built a large sugar refinery, possibly the first such industrial facility. Their name for the island was Qandi, the Arabic word for crystallized sugar. [History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat,Translated by Anthea Bell (Barnes & Noble Books:New York) 1992 (p. 549-554)] The island and its capital, now known as Heraklion, were subsequently called Candia under Turkish Ottoman Empire rule (Greek Χάνδαξ or Χάνδακας, Turkish Kandiye).

Alas, Toussaint-Samat is a really, really unreliable source, full of legends and misinformation, and since she doesn't footnote most of what she writes, there's no way of verifying it. In this case, there is one major error, one minor error, and another dubious claim. The Arabic name Khandaq quite clearly comes from the Arabic word for "moat" (they dug one around the city), and has nothing to do with Qandi or Candy. It is true that Crete was sometimes called Candy, short for Candia, but this is pure happenstance. The island and the capital were not called Candia under Ottoman rule, but under Venetian rule (before the Ottomans). I don't know where she gets the idea that the Arabs "built a large sugar refinery". This may or may not be true, but I don't know of any evidence for it. ِAn article I found, "The Mediterranean Sugar Industry" (J. H. Galloway, Geographical Review 67:2:177-194 (Apr., 1977)[1]), shows sugar being produced in Crete from 1300-1600 (during the Venetian period), but shows only question marks for 800-1300. Upshot of all this, I have deleted this section of the article. Of course, if you have other sources for the Cretan sugar refinery claim, that would be great.... --Macrakis 22:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I bow to your superior knowledge and cookbook library! Without going back to the history of edits, I think I can say that I had tried to add as little as possible, attempting to smooth the connections stylistically and logically, between the facts as they had previously been presented. If this led to error, then thank you for rooting it out. BrainyBabe 16:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Horse articles

Hi, I do appreciate that other eyes are looking at the horse articles with an eye to improvements, but please be somewhat careful with edits on the "big" articles...there have been many edit wars settled and much hard work put into some of these sections, and while it's good to be bold sometimes, other times it can't hurt to check on the talk page first. I don't mean to be as snippy as I probably sounded when I changed some of your edits, and in the case of horse there were edits other than yours in the mix, so I didn't want to imply that I was picking on only one person. You had some solid ideas and when I changed the articles, particularly the revert on horses in warfare, I did attempt to reincorporate some of your stronger edits that contained good ideas. I tried to eliminate ambiguity without creating redundancy, kept useful facts that weren't overkill, and the need for some subheadings in one section was a good idea...just trying to keep things in an encyclopedic structure. Montanabw 22:13, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for this. I too have put hours of work into horse (29 May, 2 Aug, 18 Sept 2006 especially) quite boldly reorganising, limiting, and clarifying the article -- and other related articles as well, e.g. horse meat, premarin, and kumis. Leaving aside the question of vandalism, horse seems to attract padding, presumably largely from new editors, perhaps because of the emotional connotations but also because it is a top level article.

I did understand your edit comments negatively ("snippy" is a lovely word, and I shall now add it to my ideolect), and was confused by the one where you said:

" Expand or merge, but don't say the same thing twice."

I thought that meant you were encouraging me to go ahead and reorganise that section, which I did, and which you then largely reverted, which was rather discouraging. However, no harm done -- the articles end up all the better for multiple checks.

BrainyBabe 07:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No harm, no foul. Horse has needed massive work and I agree with what happens there. It's bloated, it desperately needs more sources (thanks for yours, by the way), and everyone wants their "thing" in there. I broke out a couple of sections and made completely new articles out of them, so did some previous editors. What I have seen happening with the bigger articles is a lot of redundant material gets inserted too...the same basic statement in different sections. Perhaps not identical comments, but so closely related that you can wind up with near-duplicate sections. As for the US-Centric tone in much of wikipedia, well, that's where the authors are coming from, as more people worldwide make contributions, that will probably improve. As far as misunderstandings in Horses in Warfare, well, much of what's in there is a carefully crafted compromise between myself and some other editors (well, they whined more than they actually edited, I did most of the real work), we had quite a dustup over the Polish cavalry issue, and in general I just do not want to attract the attention of the military historian types--they can be quite brutal in their edits and comments. Montanabw 20:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

re: [2]

do you have a source substantiating that a) their horsemanship was superior at this time; and b) the Byzantines/Persians underestimated it (thus playing a part in their eventual losses)? the second point is related to the location in which you inserted the passage. ITAQALLAH 20:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

1.That horsemanship was taken very seriously:

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10213/10213.ch01.html

Understanding Jihad, by David Cook, University of California Press

Cook quotes from Sunni scholar Al-Bukhari, and summarises "It should already be clear from this description how important the fighter's mount was to the success of his campaign. Each of the canonical collections (and most of the other collections as well) devote an extensive discussion to the merits of horses, donkeys, and other animals used in fighting, and to their upkeep, good treatment, and ultimate reward."

Re Persians' underestimation -- not sure exactly where best to insert the above. If you think it better elsewhere, I am open to suggestions. My point is not about the underestimation per se, but the high level of equestrian skill. Thanks for your attention. BrainyBabe 21:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Levirate marriage

Plese see responses in Levirate marriage. BTW, Levirate is a noun, not an adjective, which makes Levirate marriage a misnomer. Simple "Levirate" would do, sonce it is a specific marriage trait anyway. And... I am gratful for your scrutiny. Barefact 08:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I am familiar with that statement in WP:A (for attribution), but nowhere in the WP articles I saw it followed, and I can say for good reasons: one would have to re-type a mass of text, and then this mass of text would unnecessary load the article, increase download time and print. I can provide you or anybody else with the original sections, now, but 6 mo from now it would be a struggle. I wish WP had a pouch annex to the article, where the citations, illustrations etc can be stored, but until its done, I believe posting the original texts is impractical. On top of this, none of the non-English WPs provide English texts in footnotes for their translations to individual languages. I hope this is a satisfactory explanation. Barefact 05:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Good work on the Ayaan Hirsi Ali article

And thanks, especially, for picking up a couple of small things that I'd misunderstood. Metamagician3000 09:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Glossary of Language Teaching etc.

Thanks for your edits. They helped a lot. 01:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pmbcomm (talk • contribs) 01:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Lolita

Please do not add unreferenced controversial biographical information to Wikipedia articles, as you did to Lolita. Ward3001 02:20, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

References duly added. BrainyBabe 13:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Threepwood Boldness

Hi,

I'm afraid I have to question your changes to the boldness on List of P. G. Wodehouse characters - I think the family relationships are amply shown by the nested bulleting, while the bold links are used to highlight those characters significant enough to merit their own page, rather than just an entry on one of the 'Minor characters' pages (as implemented throughout the rest of the page). I hope you don't mind if I change this back some time :) JohnnyZen 12:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear, did I misunderstand the system? I agree that the nesting is clear (I contributed to it some time ago, I believe). It wasn't obvious to me that bold meant the named person has their own page. Surely that's what brackets are for? Or am I failing to grasp something here? Wodehouse did delight in complex family structures. BrainyBabe 13:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The only issue I have with the nesting is why Emsworth's children don't come straight after him - otherwise I think it's great. The boldness thing maybe needs an announce at the top of the page - basically most chars are merged onto a long page for each series, but a few regulars (and cross-series people) have a full page to themseleves, as shown by the bold links. It's all a work in progress after several complaints about too many tiny pages on Wooster characters, I've been putting off sorting all these out in favour of finishing the Blandings, Ukridge etc ones (only a handful of stories/chars left) but guess it'll have to be done sometime. I'll be adding the last few Blandings entries in a few days, I'll most likely reinstate the boldness then :) JohnnyZen 11:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for explaining. It wasn't clear to me, and I am a fan of Wikipedia AND Plum! I've subdivided Emsworth's family -- if you don't think it helps, just change it back. I like clear nesting. BrainyBabe 11:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		Your recent work on Farid Esack (besides other articles) is careful and skillful, and I can't help but appreciate it. Jizakullah! -- Rob C (Alarob) 22:28, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

cite needed

hello, would it be possible to provide a cite for this edit? no doubt Manji may have contributed to the spreading of what she considers ijtihad, and indeed it is likely that some people may have only learned the term through her general medium (whether or not it truly encourages 'critical thinking' may be a subjective judgement). i suppose the Ijtihad article in general is a little inaccurate itself, even in its lead (e.g. ijtihad refers to deriving a legal ruling on an unaddressed issue- or to re-address peripheral rulings not derived from primary texts, when new circumstances arise; and isn't necessarily the direct opposite of taqlid). thanks. ITAQALLAH 17:54, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, no I don't have a specific quote, so feel free to change the wording or drop the final clause about critical thinking if you think that best. I just wrote that brief edit (with lots of intended-to-be-helpful wiklinks) to flag up one current use of a word, that, as you acknowledge, many will only have heard of because of Manji and her Project Ijtihad website. BrainyBabe 15:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The Persecuted Apostrophe

Hello there, BrainyBabe:

How are you? Thank you for your message! I am very glad that you like my name; I chose it out of great sympathy and solidarity for the poor apostrophe, being as it is so abused and tortured by so many of its captors! Things are not made any better by the lack of proper grammar and even spelling teaching^[1] and not helped by the common attitude to-day that one can 'deform the language howsoever one wishes.' I do not quite remember where I was on the day that much of the Western Anglophone world decided that one could remove the 92% of the vowels from one's writing- 'bcz1tz kwka'- but it really is a horrid turn out for the books. I can see no excuse, even money, for writing the language in a way that buggers it to pieces. Even on the very few occasions when I receive a mutilated 'text' from someone who does not happen to be my telephone company, I ensure that I reply as I would to a letter, even though this means that, despite receiving possibly the lowest number of these messages in Western Europe, my expenditure in replying to them amounts to the public service spending of a small Sub-Saharan nation. Well, to be honest, I wonder how the great works of English literature would read, if their authors decided that writing like a flock of cherry-merry lewdsters would save them ink!

Although I have heard of her, I have not read Lynn Truss' books yet, as I dislike following a crowd, and, furthermore, I tend to read slightly older books (from the 70s and further back, being the boundary) unless I am particularly moved to waive this, as I have the strong belief that, if a book is good enough, it will still be around in ten years' time. However, if her works have spread grammatical consciousness in the minds of one person or more, then I laud her for it!

Unfortunately, despite that single instance of punctuation-related invigilance, there is not, as yet, an Apostrophe Protection Society, but, in these drab times, one desperately needs to be instituted! Tip-ex patrolling is and would be quite the arduous job, but worthy.

^ I remember, when I was asked by an acquaintance to teach French to her children, that I looked over their schoolbooks to see what they had learnt of grammar and noted that they could barely write English; taught as they were a solely phonetic approach, they wrote positively frightening things, at the age of 7 and 9 respectively, like 'moy muva' and 'bohuhl' for 'my mother' and 'bottle', respectively. That thing was unspeakable only over a decade or so, ago, when I was their age; it's bizarre! Agh, I had to put this as a reference to avoid having an idiotically long parenthical phrase, excuse that!

Best wishes,

Islam and domestic violence

I tried to do major clean-up on Islam and domestic violence (which I started about a month ago, and you wrote the intro to) and An-Nisa, 34 earlier today, as well as to the domestic violence section of Criticism of the Qur'an. User:Matt57 seems to be pretty hostile toward my changes. I appreciated your work on the Women and Islam article--could you check these out too? Thanks! Calliopejen1 13:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been talking to User:Matt57 more, and I'm less on the defensive now. :) The attention is no longer so urgent, but if you want to help by checking out the articles, you're still welcome to. Calliopejen1 14:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I am flattered that you ask for my help, but it seems things have settled down somewhat and I'm not sure what I can add to the article overall. I will do my usual Wikipedia:WikiGnome stuff of italics and links. I may also add some bland sentences that provide overview and useful links; I'm not attached to the exact form of the wording, but rather that important broad issues are mentioned to give encyclopedic context. For example, I wrote what was once the intro:

Domestic violence exists in the Muslim world, as it does in other countries. To what extent it is sanctioned or opposed by Islam is a matter of debate. Islamic feminists and other proponents of women's rights seek to eliminate it and all forms of violence against women. In addition to physical violence, other forms of restrictions or abuse are faced by Muslim women.

The second and third sentences remain, separately, but the last seems to have gone by the board, as does the first. I may try re-adding and see how it fits. BrainyBabe 10:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

C20 Travel writer?

In William Dalrymple you had mentioned in a previous edit "One influence on his writing is early C20 travel writer H. V. Morton." What is a C20?--PremKudva^Talk 03:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You are quite right to pull my up when I use a casual shorthand. It stands for "twentieth century", and I will make the amendment. BrainyBabe 12:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Hah! Hah! You had me there man;-) Meanwhile you would have noticed that I had deleted the reference to Morton. This was because I had a e-mail from Mr Dalrymple (in response to a request for his photo for his Wikipedia page) in which he mentions:

"Also someone has written that HV Morton was an influence on my travel writing which is not true; the influences on my travel writing were Robert Byron and Bruce Chatwin; while my historical work has been strongly influenced by the work of Sir Steven Runciman, Stella Tillyard and Richard Cobb (again if you want to reference this, a Google search of my name and any of these will I am sure reveal reviews comparing our work.)"--PremKudva^Talk 04:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

QT: QueerTelevision

Irshad Manji's credentials as a Muslim feminist had virtually nothing to do her role as host of QT; she was chosen for that job because of her much more basic credentials as a fairly well-known Canadian journalist who was out as lesbian. Her writings on Muslim feminism didn't even begin to register as part of her notability until several years after QT ended. Bearcat 09:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for alerting me to your changes of wording and additions, which add to our understanding of the subject. BrainyBabe 10:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I overlooked something, sorry. Would it not be fair to her, and useful to the reader (who may not have heard of her), to add something along the lines of "who developed some of her ideas relating to Islamic feminism there"? (Or "Islamic reform", or some such wording, to show what she isnow known for) BrainyBabe 10:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Film that may be of interest

http://www.seattlefilm.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=26174&fid=32 (Gagarin's grandson). If I'm not mistaken the actor is the offspring of an African student.

Of course, if this is not of interest, please ignore.--Gregalton 19:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It serves as a good indicator that black Russians have a presence (toe-hold) in Russian pop culture. BrainyBabe 19:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

DYK

Saw your recent article. Liked it ... I proposed it here Hope you don't mind - may need a good opening para ... Victuallers 17:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn,t know which one you meant, but the critic is correct, it is just a hived off piece from a longer (too long) article. Not sure why my name came out in red. Can,t find tides on this keyboard, sorry. BB

E-mail

Do you have an e-mail address at which I could contact you? --Counter-revolutionary 13:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I have just turned on the "accept email" option, and would be happy to hear from you. BrainyBabe 14:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Reference

Shouldn't there be a reference that there exist BA degrees in Business English? Admittedly, the provided reference was imperfect, but isn't it better than nothing? NerdyNSK 16:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this; I will reply on the article talkpage. BrainyBabe 08:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Inuit

Thanks for helping to clean the page up. I made a start but it's hard doing it when you live here. It takes a bit of work to not end up making the article more sympathetic. Right now one of the biggest problems I have with it is in several places it seems to indicate that all Inuit are similar/same but that's like saying that all Europeans are similar/same. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and improve the article! Be bold! If I or others find it too NPOV or sympathetic, I am sure it will be changed. You have great resources on your doorstep. Not just stuff you know, which can guide you to the sections that need improving, but I would imagine the settlement has some sort of library, at the school or council or community centre? (Sorry if I am getting the words wrong.) Then you can add the refs. Your contribution is valuable.

Unfortunately in a town of 1500 the library is fairly small. They have pretty good section of Northern materials but for the most part are written by outsiders who spent a limited amount of time in the North. Many things got missed or were just seen as not interesting. The people who did spend a lot of time here, such as Diamond Jenness, did so such a long time ago that the their works may be somewhat outdated. As an example of the article indicating that all Inuit were the same look at the sentence "Some Inuit looked into the aurora borealis, or northern lights, to find images of their family and friends dancing in the next life,..." Originally the section applied to all Inuit, however, in this region traditional belief is that if you whistle at the lights they will come down and cut off your head. Not really something your "family and friends" will do and nothing I can source. Even the word "Inuit" doesn't apply to all the people living in Canada. In the Inuinnaqtun language it just means "people" and is applied to anybody in the world. The correct term in this area is Inuinnaq (plural: Inuinnait) which means "a real Inuk; an Eskimo person". CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 06:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I had a look at your page and at Cambridge Bay and wow! Wherever you go, there you are, as the hitchhiker said, but for those of us in more mundane places, how very different your town seems! I completely understand your point above. The lack of contemporary academic sources is a problem. But could you not insert something into the article to that effect? To state clearly that most of the written sources are out of date or written by outsiders or not specific (or indeed wideranging) enough? That way it provides a warning for those who might otherwise read the article uncritically. (Not that one should ever read uncritically, least of all on Wikipedia, but casual passers-by do.) Re the example of Northern Lights, would it be fair to generalise that traditionally Inuit ascribed supernatural sources or powers to them, and in some areas these were conceived as benevolent and in others malign? And you could add the specific words to the language section within Inuit and also at Eskimo. (I find the overlap of articles confusing: any ideas on how best to blend, or separate, or point between them?) Life in the Canadian Arctic is clearly one of your areas of expertise, and I look forward to seeing what you can add. Let me know if I can help. BrainyBabe 09:28, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Club

Please see my discussion of edits, disambiguation and illogical structure on the Club talk page. --Zeamays (talk) 20:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)