User talk:Rktect

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[edit] Rktect

Age 62 Registered since 1986 Interests include architectural proportions, green buildings, passive solar, photovoltaics, hydronics, AutoCad, construction law, common law, constitutional law, peak oil, global warming, building envelopes, design, bicycling, the ancient near east. Rktect 15:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents Discussion

Hello Rktect. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue that you may be involved with. The discussion can be found under the topic Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#IP user apparently wikistalking Rktect. You are free to comment at the discussion but please remember to keep your comments within the bounds of the civility and "no personal attack" policies. Thank you.

 --Dynaflow babble 08:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know

I am blocked indefinately from editing articles about weights and measures, but continue to hope that when this block ends, if it ends, the reference material that stalkers have removed can be restored. Most of what I contribute is references and discussion on talk pages. I also archive deleted material on my user pages under the impression that archiving on user pages is not editing and permitted, and that discussion on talk pages is not editing and is permitted.

I collect reference material which supports my knowledge of architectural proportion. As a registered architect I expect I am permitted to claim expertise on issues related to architectural proportion and that proportion is separate and distinct from weights and measures.

Rktect 20:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the discussion you referenced above but was unable to respond because first off I have been involved in moving to another state for the last couple of weeks and not availible to respond for that reason, and secondly due to being blocked by another user for a week so I can't edit the discussion page you invited me to
I thought the issue was wikistalking and the deletion of a large block of articles. Going off on a tangent served to ignore this. I don't think wikipedia should encourage such vandalism by first noting it and then in effect condonong it.
I was unable to respond to the discussion due to being blocked for a week by another user. This appears to be a result of some confusion as to what my ban refers to.

Your diffs refer to articles not on weights and measures (metrology) but to measures (mathematics)

1) Should Rktect (talk · contribs) edit any article which related to weights and measures (metrology) he may be briefly banned, up to one week in the case of repeat offenses.

I am banned from editing weights and measures. My understanding is that wikipedia has disambiguation pages which set up categories such as weights and measures so that people understand the words can refer to different things. Some of these were not intended to apply to the ban

[[1]] measures.

Measure can mean:
Measurement, the process of estimating an object's magnitude relative to some unit of measurement

The ban was intended to apply to measures in the sense of weights and measures not the subjects in the diffs you cited which were about mathematical theory.

Here is the original charge.

The article [[Historical weights and measures]], begun in February 2003, used to contain reasonably sober content, and was gradually evolving and improving as a Wikipedia article should. A snapshot from August 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ancient_weights_and_measures&oldid=5188805 After this point, things became more complex, and the article begun to be subject to various kinds of pseudoscience, original research and patent nonsense. Due to is evolving size, the article was split into Ancient weights and measures and Medieval weights and measures in December 2004.

Aside from the complaint being based on a false premise and being approved by people who didn't bother to verify if it was true or false, thats the limit of the ban as I understand it, weights and measures. The entire discussion is complicated, and probably not worth going back over, but none of the discussion mentioned any of the following.

Measure (mathematics), a way to assign non-negative real numbers to subsets
Measure (physics), a way to integrate over all possible histories of a system in quantum field theory
Bar (music) or measure is a unit of time in Western music representing a regular grouping of beats
Bill (proposed law) or proposed measure
Countermeasure, is a system designed to prevent weapons from acquiring and/or destroying a target
Coal measure is a seam of coal
Measure (termination), a way to describe termination of processes, algorithms, or functions
Measure (bartending) (also called a "jigger"), a bartending tool used to measure liquor

My premise was that Wikipedians would care whether what went into the encycopedia was properly cited and so I provided a lot of cites in the form of references and footnotes. Unfortunately I was not correct in this premise.

User Egil didn't like the concept that standards of measure were historically diffused between cultures and handed down to modern cultures as a legacy rather than independently invented by Europe. He was convinced Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome were incapable of accurate measurement let alone creating standards of measure and he argued that any reference which said so must be pseudoscience.

The following are only a very small selection of claims made in the contributions of rktect.
Miles and stadia have been intended to be unit divisions of a degreeof the Earth's great circle circumference since they were first defined as standards of measure by the rope stretchers of Mesopotamia and Egypt. (From Mile)
This seems to be a central point in rktects argumentation, one upon which he seems to build many of his claims.
The source of these thoughts is probably the writings of Livio Catullo Stecchini (found at http://www.metrum.org/ )

Egil believes that studies of the economic connection between the historical weights and measures of various cultures established by international trade and their preservation as standards of measure in legal definitions of property are pseudoscience and has contineued for the last two years to delete reference to them from articles. I save the deleted material on my user page in the form of a sandbox archive. I have kept it archived because some of the information may someday want to be used.

Egil also believes that reference to the establishment of an easily restablished standard linked to geometry or measures of the earth is pseudoscience despite historical reference to it.

Stating that the measurements of length of these ancient civilizations are derived as divisions of the degree, implies that these civiliations must have known the circumference of the Earth to a high degree of accuracy at the time these units were defined, perhaps around 3000 BC.

His belief that this is pseudoscience stems from a conviction that ancient civilizations were primative and incapable of measurement despite evidence to the contrary.

Comment by Arbitrators: Several notions in this passage have not been shown to have been within the intellectual repertoire of the Egyptians or Mesopotamians. See [2] Fred Bauder 18:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no historic evidence to substantiate this. Indeed, the earliest known claim that even indicated knowledge that the Earth was a sphere are from Pythagoras. The first known estimate of the size of the Earth is by Aristotle (400,000 stadia, around 400 BC), which is almost twice the actual size. Eratosthenes (around 100 BC) came to a measurement that was off by perhaps 15%, perhaps even less (which is brilliant, considering his calculations were based on measuring distance by days of caravan travel) [1]. It was not untill the 18th century that the circumference of the Earth was measured with sufficient accuracy that it could be used as basis for a measure of length.

In other words Egils history and Fred Bauders comment show an appreciation of History that begins with they don't know that Aristotle, (384-322 BC), and Erathosthenes, (276-194 BC) and others are using a standard of measure documented by Pythagorus,(569-475 BC), and Herodotus (484-425 BC).

Furthermore, the entire concept of a degree as a unit for angle measurement was not known by the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, anyhow. The Greek Milos or Milion of 4800 pous (From Mile)

References to the Milion or [2] Mia Chilioi are found in the Bible and in Webster's as of prehistoric etymology.

Webster's English Dictionary mileCross references: 1. measure mile \'mi-(*)l\ n [ME, fr. OE mi-l; akin to OHG mi-la mile; both fr. a prehisto]ric WGmc word borrowed fr. L milia miles, fr. milia passuum, lit., thousands of paces, fr. milia, pl. of mille thousand, perh. fr. a prehistoric compound whose constituents are akin to Gk mia (fem. of heis one) and to Gk chilioi thousand, Skt sahasra - more at SAME : any of various units of distance : as  : a unit equal to 5280 feet  : NAUTICAL MILE

Egil has not read Websters and states

The Greek milion is simply the name of a Roman mile, it is not a Greek unit of measure at all. The ancient Greeks predominantly used the stadion, and sometimes the schoinos. Where rktect gets milos from, I don't know.

From Webster's (see above)

  • 1 Milliare Scotia in 1503 = 1600 elle of 1616.8 mm = 3200 pous = 2560 remen
  • 1 Milliare Scotia in 1595 = 5 minutes of arc of the great circle of the earth = 9.25 km (From Mile)

Egil says

These definitions are quite typical of the claims . Based on an assumption that an Egyptian remen is directly based on the circumference of the Earth, he can then go on to turn some discussions done by a 16th century geographer into something that looks as defintions. The Scotish mile was in no way connected to an Earth great circle in 1595, and these definitions are meaningless.

Run the numbers, do the math. A degree is 111 km , a minute of degree is 1.85 km, 5 min is 9.25km. and its the same measure used by the Greeks and Romans in their stadia of 185 m

Ten itrw would be 700 stadia of 300 royal cubits or 1 degree of the earths great circle. The Romans and Greeks appreciated the concept. If a distance of 75 Roman miles could be covered by a river barge or an army could march an equivalent distance of ten atur in ten hours then that made navigation a little easier. (From Itrw)

Again run the numbers, Gardiner, Gillings and Herodotus were cited. A Royal cubit is 525 mm, 300 are a length of 157.5 m, 700 of those are 110.25 km, not quite as good a value as the Greeks and Romans but within the precision to which we know the value of their standards.

In addition to the wrong assumption that ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian measures were derived from the degree, this is pure fantasy. Based on concepts that we today take for granted, they make look innocent enough, but the fact of the matter is that in ancient times, there simply were no maps where degrees of latitude and longitude were indicated. In fact, this concept were developed in the middle of the second millenium AD.

Anyone who took the time to run the numbers or who had any familiarity with metrology would have found the statement that "this is pure fantasy" WP:Uncivil


Hmmmm... Looks like Rktect has possibly violated his or her Arbcom ban against editing articles on weights and measures: diff. --Dynaflow babble 07:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC) [EDIT:] He or she is also creating preferred versions of articles in his userspace (User:Rktect/Ancient egyptian units of measurement, User:Rktect/mile, User:Rktect/History of Measurement, User:Rktect/pous, User talk:Rktect/cubit, User:Rktect/degrees, User:Rktect/Imperial Unit, etc.) that he would otherwise be barred from editing. He or she is even creating new weights-and-measures articles in namespace: diff. More: diff, diff, etc. --Dynaflow babble 07:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Your diffs don't refer to articles on weights and measures (metrology) but rather to measures (mathematics) How about dealing with the stalking and deleting and then we can talk about thisRktect 14:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blocked

Per the ruling of the Arbitration Committee, found atWikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Rktect, you were indefinitely banned from editing any articles relating to weights or measures. To prevent further breaches of this ruling, you have been blocked for 1 week for violating this ruling (example edits include [3], [4], and [5]. I suggest if you wish the ruling to be overturned, you consider appealing it, by contacting the Arbitration Committee directly. Neil ム 08:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Rktect/Egil

I have deleted the subpage User:Rktect/Egil because it is contrary to multiple Wikipedia policies, most notably WP:CIVIL, WP:DR and WP:ATTACK. Behavior like creating pages that accuse other editors of attacking and damaging articles will not be tolerated. Caknuck 18:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

What you deleted was an [archive of user Egil's accusation] that I was attacking and damaging articles and my response. Yes his charges were uncivil, and an attack, but they were tolerated by arbcom. Feel free to explain why. Rktect 10:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
The page I deleted is not an archive page, as the text therein does not appear anywhere in the diff you provided and it was created almost a year and a half after the ArbCom rendered its decision. As I am not a member of the ArbCom, I am not familiar with their decision-making process. What is clear, however, is that you created a page within your userspace that accuses another editor of making disruptive edits. Regardless of your past history with this editor, this is both unnecessarily disruptive and against policy. This matter is not open to discussion. Caknuck 01:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not Egil. In that record of Egil's remarks from two years ago Egil accuses me of making disruptive edits. Please correct your mistake. Rktect 00:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Etham

Could I make a suggestion? How about discussing what you'd like to do in the talk page? Get some consensus as to what's appropriate, and then act accordingly. As it is, I think you'll just end up stuck in an endless cycle of reverts, which isn't going to make you or any of the other editors concerned very happy. Just a thought. Waitak 02:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Stations list

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. A contribution you made to Stations list appears to carry a non-neutral point of view, and your edit may have been changed or reverted to correct the problem. Please remember to observe our core policies. Thank you. 209.244.42.97 22:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Etham

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. A contribution you made to Etham‎ appears to carry a non-neutral point of view, and your edit may have been changed or reverted to correct the problem. Please remember to observe our core policies. Thank you. 209.244.42.97 22:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Pi-hahiroth‎

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. One of the core policies of Wikipedia is that articles should always be written from a neutral point of view. A contribution you made to Pi-hahiroth‎ appears to carry a non-neutral point of view, and your edit may have been changed or reverted to correct the problem. Please remember to observe our core policies. Thank you. 209.244.42.97 22:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Marah (Bible)‎

Please do not add commentary or your own personal analysis to Wikipedia articles, as you did to Marah (Bible)‎. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy and breaches the formal tone expected in an encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. 209.244.42.97 22:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Elim (Bible)‎

Please stop. If you continue to violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy by adding commentary and your personal analysis into articles, as you did to Elim (Bible)‎, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. 209.244.42.97 22:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Red Sea - Exodus station‎‎

This is the last warning you will receive for your disruptive edits.
The next time you violate Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy by inserting commentary or your personal analysis into an article, as you did to Red Sea - Exodus station‎, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. 209.244.42.97 22:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Palm

Hi there, just letting you know that I fixed a link on one of your pages regarding 'Palm'. If you are referring to the unit of measure and are linking it please link to Palm (length), such as Palm. Helps keep down links to Disambiguation Pages, more info here