User talk:Guettarda/Archive4

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Archives: Archive 1 (August 29, 2004-March 3, 2005) - Archive 2 (March 11, 2005-March 28, 2005) - Archive 3 (March 28, 2005-April 17, 2005) - Archive 4 (March 20, 2005-June 6, 2005) - Archive 5 (June 6, 2005-July 4, 2005) - Archive 6 (July 4, 2005-July 26, 2005) - Archive 7 (July 30, 2005-September 26, 2005) - Archive 8 (September 27, 2005-October 13, 2005) - Archive 9 (October 14, 2005-November 18, 2005) - Archive 10 (November 18, 2005-February 12, 2006) - Archive 11 (February 12, 2006-February 17, 2006) - Archive 12 (February 18, 2006-February 26, 2006) - Archive 13 (February 26, 2006-May 13, 2006) - Archive 14 (May 13, 2006-July 31, 2006 ) - Archive 15 (July 31, 2006-September 20, 2006) - Archive 16 (September 20, 2006-October 30, 2006)- Archive 17 (October 30, 2006-January 13, 2007) - Archive 18 (January 13, 2007 - October 3, 2007) - Current











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Contents

[edit] Intelligent Design

I appreciate your suggestion, but when I see verbiage that is obviously POV, I will remove it. --Goethean 17:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Contrib

That's OK. I felt that I was rambling a bit, trying desperately not to give offence. It seems to have worked in that sense, at least...

By the way, where exactly are you from (expecting the answer Port-of-Spain)? One of my closest friends while I was doing my first graduate degree was Trinidadian (David Myers; I don't suppose that you know him or his family. His father was a pilot (ships, that is), I think), and I spent a lot of my time around Trinidadians. I can still surprise people by identifying their Trinidadian accents. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:19, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oops, sorry; every Trinidadian I've met (of whatever racial origin) has been from Port-of-Spain, so I'd just assumed that it was the major population centre. David married an East Indian woman (I don't know if that's a polite term; if not, please blame it on ignorance rather than malice), and proved yet again that for children with beauty, brains, and character, you should mix the races.
On the accent: I taught a student once who was white and called John Morgan — and I'll never forget the look on his face when I asked if he was from Trinidad. He'd spent the whole of his time in England explaining to people that he wasn't Welsh but Trinidadian. Mind you, I can recognise it, but I can't reproduce it to save my life, though I'm usually quite good at accents. There's a subtlety to it that I can discern but not master. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:31, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Because I was often the only non-West Indian in large groups, I was occasionally (actually quite often) asked whether I though the Jamaican or the Trinidadian accent was the more attractive — an impossible question to answer, even if hadn't been surrounded by people with both . I usually got out of it by wittering on about how the Trinidadian sounded more Welsh, while the Jamaican sounded more Yorkshire. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:34, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Global Warming

Sorry for the delay in response, I've been busy. I want to re-emphasize that I do not consider calling someone biased at all the same as calling someone unethical. One of the central premises of Wikipedia, as layed out in NPOV, is that everyone has a bias, and the start to writing neutrally is to recognize our own bias. This is not the same as saying everyone is unethical. The problem is simply that bias each scientist has reflects in the work of that scientist. The scientific process contains no automatic immunity to bias, since intelligent people can do a spectacular job of convincing themselves that their preconceived notions are correct. This is not an unethical process, but simply a human imperfection process. — Cortonin | Talk 10:00, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lets start with a simple example, the urban heat island effect. If you read here, you can see the progression of thought. First, data is mentioned that since 1979, warming has shown up 4 or 5 times more strongly for surface measurements than for satellite measurements. Observations such as this are often used to indicate that the observed warming is potentially due to the clustering of temperature systems around growing populated areas (since they definitely are clustered in such a way). But then the referenced paragraph proceeds to explain this away by examining the subset of Northern Hemisphere temperatures, saying, and I quote, "the Northern Hemisphere land areas where urban heat islands are most apparent". Note the transition. First, they are dealing with urban heat island change, and then they select the region with the most pronounced existing urban heat island effect. In other words, they specifically pick the non-developing world, which already experiences the urban heat island effect, rather than the portion of the world which is experiencing rapid growth of urban areas. What this actually says, is that the urban heat island effect's contribution to the observed change in the developing world is even stronger than the 4 or 5 times value, but they don't notice or don't include this in their analysis. — Cortonin | Talk 10:00, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The other method of dismissing the urban heat island effect is the statistical analysis done by Peterson in 2003. He analyzes the temperatures, and concludes that once parameters like difference in setting (such as on rooftops or the ground), elevation above ground, and instrumentation, there is no urban heat island effect. From this, he concludes that the urban heat island effect does not affect temperature observations. Now there are some serious flaws in this. First, the most basic statistical error he makes is that he concludes that there is no urban heat island effect by removing variables which strongly correlate with whether the instrument is located in a rural or an urban area. If you subtract out enough of the confounding variables, you will certainly remove all trace of the effect you are trying to examine. So he continues to subtract these confounding variables until he has erased the urban heat island effect. Just a few days ago, it was a calm day, and it was 12 degrees warmer in the small city I live in than at the airport 2-3 miles from the edge of the city. An analysis which removes the presence of the heat island effect must be bogus, since it contradicts measurements on the short time scale, during which none of the factors considered by Peterson change. — Cortonin | Talk 10:00, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

And the most important aspect of global warming research, is that experimental observation can NOT demonstrate any significant projected or expected change in our temperature levels over the next 100 years. So since experimental observation is too sparse to make that prediction, climatologists have had to rely on climate simulations. The data available to test the climate simulations is a bit sparse, consisting of essentially only a century, and with the best efforts of the simulations to date, the best fit, found here at the bottom, is only a fourth degree fit. This means that almost any random simulation with at least four parameters could be made to fit that data. This also means, that the reliable predictive power of the climate models is zero if four or more parameters or parameter-like model choices were chosen in those simulations. A fourth degree polynomial could fit that just as well. So whenever someone takes that simulation, and says it is "evidence" that a warming will occur, they are making a mathematical error. Statistically speaking, a simulation with that many parameters and such a low degree fit to the data does not have any predictive power. In all the other fields of science, simulations like that are simply used as indicators about what types of things are worth investigating or measuring, and are not considered significant evidence. Climatology is unique in its adherence to simulations of that degree as "evidence", and it seems to have stepped outside of the standards of conventional scientific methods to do so. — Cortonin | Talk 10:00, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So I'm not sure which evidence you have been examining, but a field which rests on temperature measurements shown to be measuring another effect, which is then removed by faulty statistical procedures, combined with models which have no statistical prediction power, seems to me to be a bit "lacking" by the standards of science that I was trained to follow. — Cortonin | Talk 10:00, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Great pictures, Guettarda. Question - why do you ask for substance from my arguments then tell me that the ones I give are biased and "don't matter." This is very offensive to a practicing scientist.  :-| Salva 01:46, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Missed sig

Thanks, I've fixed it. Jayjg (talk) 17:46, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Civility

Guettarda, could you please be a little more civil. I read your comment on Graft's user page. I don't see the need for such comments.

On an entirely different point I noticed your political compass reading was almost identical to mine. Barnaby dawson 20:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mathematics. But I went to part of a course on cellular biology which I found fascinating. Barnaby dawson 21:05, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] reading comprehension

Ha.. I figured as much. It's okay, people have been getting my name wrong since I first showed up here four years ago. Ah well. Graft 21:11, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jooler's talk page

Hi Guettarda: Your intervention into the conversation about editing other people's user pages raised a smile here. Thank you. --Theo (Talk) 22:55, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you, Guettarda

For your supportive vote in my RfA! Much appreciated! Yours, El_C 01:14, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re:

I have replied @ User_talk:Sam_Spade#Germany, Cheers,

Sam Spade 16:02, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Zapatero

Thanks for ther vandal revert. I do seem to have a talent for attracting trouble here at wikipedia, --SqueakBox 20:01, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re:

I have replied @ User_talk:Sam_Spade#Germany. Cheers, Sam Spade 20:40, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I must say, your quite the pleasent person, an excellent spokesman for oklahoma if there ever was one (I suppose there is also the musical ;) My reply is @ User_talk:Sam_Spade#Germany. Cheers,
Sam Spade 00:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spiritweed

Please feel free to use any name you think is most appropriate. I am actually not that familiar with it and just took the first English name I saw (only because this is English Wiki). Use any name you think is best and move the article there. Thank you for the comment. --DanielCD 18:23, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

If you think Chandon benit is better, let me know and I'll move it back. --DanielCD 18:36, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I actually think there are places for each. If people will recognize a common name, like Blackberry, better than the scientific binomial, I don't see a problem with it. However, when there are a lot of common names, the binomial might be better. If this plant is one of those with a lot of names, perhaps the scientific name would be better, and the common names can just be noted in the article. LMK what you think and I will see to the change. --DanielCD 18:44, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. We can use redirects for any common names that might get used. --DanielCD 18:51, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stanley Temple

I changed the Amazon links in Stanley Temple because there's no reason to give free advertising to just Amazon—using ISBNs allows a variety of bookstores to be linked to. —tregoweth 02:24, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Ah. That would be a mistake on my part, because I didn't know about the capitalization convention. Sorry about that. —tregoweth 23:14, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment on my talk page

I'm afraid I don't understand your comment on my talk page. I've done no such thing. Kind regards, jguk 17:44, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it's crystal clear that my comments were directed at Slrubenstein's argument rather than yourself. Kind regards, jguk 21:28, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cricket portal

It's happily sitting on Portal:Cricket waiting for the formal creation of Portalspace. I understand the Dutch, and possibly also the German and Polish Wikipedias also want a Portalspace - though some, like the Dutch, already have an informal Portalspace. Kind regards, jguk 21:36, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trinidadian music

Category:Trinidadian styles of music should be part of Category:Music of Trinidad and Tobago. Or am I misunderstanding your question? Tuf-Kat 08:10, May 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus

Please comment on Jguk's most recent actions [1], [2]. It seems to me that he is destroying what I thought was a carefully constructec (though not, of course perfect) NPOV article. I really trust your committment to NPOV and would like to know what you think. Frankly, I think we may have reached the point where arbitration or at least mediation is required. I honestly do not believe Jguk understands or cares about NPOV. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:14, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uploading images

Hi. Long time. Thanks for your link to Wiki Commons. I decided I'd follow it and see what happened. Well, I finally successfully got an image up. As it turns out, it was actually easy -- but I couldn't downsize it, so I decided to save that battle for another day. See for yourself: Golliwogg. (I'll take small victories.) :D Peace. deeceevoice 17:47, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Hey.

I knew about changing the number of pixels, but not about removing "frame" first. Thanks. :) I went back to Golliwogg and toyed with different image sizes, and decided not to downsize it as much as I originally intended --but I did reduce it slightly. Perhaps it's the subject matter -- it being a children's illustration 'n' all -- but I rather like a relatively large image. Now that I know how to downsize it, maybe I'll switch the image with the one I put in Blackface, since this is the one where Golly's minstrel attire is more visible. Thanks again for your assistance. Regards, deeceevoice 22:46, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Please check out Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate, Slrubenstein | Talk 00:06, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Patrick Manning

I accept the point about the image and copyright. An error on my part.

With regard to the POV:

The President appointed Mr Manning as PM in 2001 in accordance with the powers given to him by the Constitution. Your point about it being a break from parliamentary procedure appears to be incorrect as the appointment of a PM is dictated by the Constitution and not the Parliament. In fact, at that point their was no Parliament as such. The matter was unprecedented and there was no convention for His Excellency to follow, as such he acted 'in his opinion' -- one of the very few times that the President can act indepentently. Stating or suggesting otherwise appears to be more POV.

Mrs Manning was appointed a Senator and Minister of Education by the President acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. Fact -- otherwise, POV.

--Emrolgould 12:02, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BCE/CE proposal

Gene Nygaard replied to you,

Did you notice that when Slrubenstein talks about years like 5765, he never identifies the calendar with "A.M." or in any other way? Perhaps he figures that since he is using the "real" calendar, it doesn't need to be identified; but I think that mostly he is hoping that people will not notice that this calendar also expresses one of those evil, culture-centric points of view.

I am at a disadvantage whenever Nygaard disses me because I announced I would not participate in discussion. But I thought it was obvious that when I said I think the year is 5765 because I am Jewish and this is my point of view, and repeatedly said it is my "POV" that everyone would understand that it is a POV. It pisses me off that he says "evil" since I do not think my people's calendar is "evil" and I certainly never said that the Christian calendar is "evil." Or, do you think he believes that to call something POV is to call it "evil?" I am pretty confused by his comment. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:24, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] thanks

Thanks for responding. Also, I really appreciate all your attempts to raise the discourse on my proposal page. As with your work on evolution, you've shown that you are one of our must valuable editors. Perhaps one day someone else will find a more effective way to get a serious NPOV discussion going ... Slrubenstein | Talk 19:06, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of ethnic slurs

I was just browsing around and found a comment that seemed to indicate that you believe the above list to be an inherently offensive article. I was just wondering why that was and if you wanted to discuss it (myself being the original author of the article). --Dante Alighieri | Talk 18:32, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

I see. Certainly there have been (over the course of the list) many incarnations... some more "infected" with nonsense than others. I am glad you see, conceptually at least, the academic interest in studying language... even language designed to malign. I disagree that it could never be encyclopedic. Some of the entries are certainly better than others, but I originally envisaged a comprehensive listing of words, origin, usage, and (most importantly) social/historical context for the words. I agree that it is of limited use (although still valuable as a lexicon) to simply list a slur. The ability to understand how the words are used and to explore their origins is very important to the study of the phenomenon.
I grant you that there is inherently a bias towards English-speaking cultures... but this is true of the entire English Wikipedia. In fairness, the list does contain MANY terms for whites as well as terms for non-whites used by other non-whites. I understand your concerns and hope that your worst fears for the article never get realized. If you don't mind, I'd like to add the terms you left on my talk page to the List. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 19:10, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] E-mail

Yes, I did get it, thank you, and responded. If it hasn't arrived, let me know, and I'll resend. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:19, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Politicians of Caribbean nations

I did this in a hurry with a note to myself to come back later and insert the category in the various bios. In the meantime, please feel free to change anything you like, with thanks. Ted Wilkes 15:48, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BC/AD

I'd like to explore your argument that BC/AD is POV here in user space where there's not as much noise. I disagree with your claim, but I'm interested in a rational debate about it, and maybe you can convince me (or I can convince you). At the very least, we can come up with things for you and/or me to muse over. Let me know if you're not interested in discussing this here, but if you are, feel free to respond either here or on my talk page, whichever suits you best.

You continue to state unequivocally that BC/AD asserts the deity of Jesus, yet faced with the parallel problem in Thursday, you say that Thursday is not a problem because few, if any, people worship Thor. It seems to me that you're effectively suggesting that BC/AD would be sufficiently NPOV if very few people believed in Jesus. Is that a reasonable conclusion to draw from your argument? Alanyst 06:34, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I think the dilution argument is precisely where I'm coming from. I don't think anyone seriously argues that "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini" express no POV, but since the initialisms "BC" and "AD" have been used so extensively in so many contexts without reference to their expansions, they no longer mean what they originally stood for. In essence, they have become new words: "beesee" and "ehdee". Their modern meaning is nothing more than "before the start of the current era" and "after the start of the current era"—not what the letters stand for, to be sure, but what they now mean.

It is difficult to provide evidence for (or against!) my argument that the meaning of BC/AD has changed enough to dilute the original POV such that BC/AD is acceptable for Wikipedia's NPOV policy. I guess I would cite as evidence the fact that BC/AD is so widely used that, statistically speaking, among those who comfortably use the term are probably millions of people who do not espouse a Christian POV. So your conclusion as a child that "non-Christians can't use that term" was naïve (no offense intended) because you did not recognize that the original meaning, which you had just learned, could be diluted by time and by the diversity of those who use it—in other words, you thought the original meaning was necessarily the current meaning, which is a very forgivable yet mistaken conclusion for a ten-year-old to draw. Since many non-Christians comfortably use the term in an identical manner to how Christians use the term, one cannot tell whether a particular usage of BC/AD is, by itself, expressing a Christian POV or not; the context in which it is used must be known to gauge whether it lends to a POV or not. (On the other hand, if I saw someone write "500 years before Christ" or "Anno Domini 300" then I could more readily conclude that a Christian POV is being expressed, since non-Christians are much less likely to express dates in this manner, and the trouble taken to go beyond the common abbreviations is indicative that the author is trying to make a rhetorical point beyond the mere expression of the date.) So, writing "500 BC" in Wikipedia cannot reasonably convey an endorsement of the Christian POV by itself or in an otherwise neutral context. But in contexts where use of BC/AD would be unusual, its appearance would in fact be indicative of POV. Does this make sense, or do you see problems with this argument? Alanyst 15:44, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You said: As I see it, POV or NPOV is not a function of the intention of the writer, but in the possible interpretations of the readers...What the writer meant to say is irrelevant. What the writer said is all that matters...Majoritarian POV (like BC/AD) would only work if we circumscribe our audience.

I'm somewhat persuaded by this reasoning, although I'm not entirely satisfied. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the author's intentions don't matter; only the readers' interpretations are of concern. Under that assumption, consider the problem of "Thursday". (I don't mean to keep harping on this example but I haven't really been satisfied with past attempts at refuting it.) Almost nobody considers that "Thursday" is POV—but, if the Thursday article is to be believed, some Quakers do in fact eschew the term because they feel it communicates a pagan POV. Let's compare the possible interpretations of BC/AD and Thursday:

BC/AD interpretations
  • Original meaning unknown; "BC" and "AD" are simply letters that tell us the era.
  • Original meaning known but most modern uses of "BC" and "AD" do not convey that meaning.
  • Original meaning known and most modern uses of "BC" and "AD" convey that meaning.
Thursday interpretations
  • Original meaning unknown; "Thursday" is simply the name of a day of the week.
  • Original meaning known but most modern uses of "Thursday" do not convey that meaning.
  • Original meaning known and most modern uses of "Thursday" convey that meaning.

Now, under what principle do we allow "Thursday" in Wikipedia, despite knowing that a Quaker might find an unacceptable POV in that term, but ban "BC" and "AD" from Wikipedia because some people find an unacceptable POV in those terms? In other words, what are the criteria for establishing that a particular term carries an unacceptable POV? Because the mere fact that someone can find an offensive POV in a particular term doesn't seem to be sufficient. Does it matter how many people may or may not subscribe to a particular interpretation? Alanyst 15:43, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ID

Why does everyone have such a hard time accepting that I'm a legitimate convert? I've quit my grad program, shaved my head and joined a monastic order devoted to debunking that materialist trash. Also, I can earn way more on the lecture circuit this way. Who do you think makes more money, Jerry Coyne or Jonathan Wells? Graft 18:09, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have come clean, as you suggest. Graft 19:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Full-wit

Oh, I'll promote you all the way up to a full-wit, if it makes you feel better! ;-) Thank you for your confidence, but I'm happy with not being "official". People who have admin status seem to think that requires some sort of special mode of conduct, and I think we should all be able to call one another jerks or cranks every once in awhile without fear of having tongues wagging at us. --Fastfission 17:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cross-naming

You'd have to ask me on a case by case basis. Hamburg, for instance, was captured by Polish forces in WWII and houses a large Polish diaspora. Halibutt 15:58, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Yup, perhaps there are other ways to deal with it, but unless you want to start yet another voting, we'd have to stick with it. Also, whether my interpretation is broad or not has no meaning here. This specific rule was used by various wikipedians (admins included) to add German names to, for instance, articles on sports clubs in Poland. When I tried to call for common sense I was told that the current ruling of the voting is final and there is little that can be done about it. So, in other words, dura lex sed lex. Halibutt 16:29, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

I have mentioned the problem on the Administrators noticeboard. See [3] and [4]

also several times on the 3rr noticeboard. [5] (today)

However the problem was not solved and the user "group" around User:Chris 73 added again German names in articles like Lechia Gdansk (football club) or Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (political party), or suburbs of Szczecin like Szczecin-Grabowo, even for the city of Bialystok (east Poland) - they provoked edit-wars and exempt themselves from the 3RR (if needed).--Witkacy 18:04, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... I dont know where the right place is to solve such issues - However, Chris is an administrator so.. :)--Witkacy 19:31, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] [[:Image:Unc.jpg]]

No worries. If there are previous versions of an image, they show up in the image page, and you can revert to previous revisions by clicking on the "rev" link. Since there is only one revision on Image:Unc.jpg, it seems you are the only person to upload an image with that title. It doesn't seem there ever was an image on the Irish Uncial alphabet page. It probably just had a "missing image" notice.

Wikipedia should have more editors as thoughtful as you. Nohat 01:25, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)