User:Silence/Archive0001

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Hello, Andre. Buhaha. ^^ Andre 08:20, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Bureaucratship 2 Just a quick point 3 Numbers 4 Edit summaries 5 those who have no belief(s?) 6 GIA logo

[edit] Bureaucratship

Hi, Silence. Thank you so much for your support and kind words on my bureaucratship nomination. Unfortunately, it didn't pass, but I intend to run again soon. If you'd like to be informed next time around, please let me know on my talk page. Thanks again! Andre (talk) 05:09, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Just a quick point

if you're working on an article and want to save it's progress, (or testing) try leaving it in something like User:Silence/Workshop . It helps to alleviate clutter on your personal pages. Keep up the good work with the Sandman. Toffile 04:12, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I was in a hurry, else I'd have put it someplace more convenient. But now I know a good place for next time! -Silence 07:17, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers

Yeah, sorry. Spelling out the centuries was per Chicago Manual of Style, I didn't realize Wikipedia had a different style for centuries. My spelling out of percentages was just plain wrong, it turns out, even by Chicago style. Babajobu 15:07, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

That's perfectly fine. I get confused all the time by different systems of style, too, because so many things I edit follow different rules. For example, the small newspaper I edit favors never using serial commas, while in my essays and fiction I prefer using serial commas, and Wikipedia is somewhere in-between, tending to prefer no comma where they aren't necessary and using them when they're needed for clarification. And don't get me started on Commonwealth/American spellings. English grammar and spelling are both so messy... -Silence 15:11, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summaries

The edit summaries you just made at Bath made me laugh. Thanks; we need more humor here sometimes. Joyous (talk) 21:06, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I do try. :D -Silence 21:11, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] those who have no belief(s?)

Er... about my wee edit here [1], when there are none, it's singular, isn't it? "Those who have no belief". English is not my mother tongue, but I tend to be quite good at it. If you confirm I won't argue. Jules LT 22:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

As shown by your question "when there are none, it's singular", none can either take the singular or the plural—if your use was singular, your question would have been "when there is none, it's singular", since "are" takes the plural. For example, "None of the editors is awake" ("not one of the editors is awake") vs. "None of the editors are awake" ("not any of the editors are awake"). The same applies to "no"; whether it is singular or plural depends on whether the noun is referring to is singular ("No water is allowed here!") or plural ("No drinks are allowed here!") Now, the sentence in question

• This definition includes both those who assert that there are no gods and those who have no beliefs at all regarding the existence of gods.

can either be singular or plural, depending on our exact intent. The sentence as-is works perfectly fine; "no beliefs at all" in "no beliefs at all regarding the existence of gods" means "not any beliefs at all". Your version, "no belief at all regarding the existence of gods", is also correct grammar, but the meaning is different, as the singular belief in this case falls under the first definition of belief at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=belief ("The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another"), as opposed to the current definition of belief on atheism, the third ("Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons"). If you prefer to use the singular one, and thus the first meaning, however, we should probably rephrase the sentence as follows:

• This definition includes both those who assert that there are no gods and those who merely have no belief in the existence of any gods.

It's up to your disgression. I think that the current phrasing is slightly clearer than that, though I also don't think that either phrasing is ideal; if someone comes up with a better third alternative in the future, I'd gladly go with that. But no, unpluralizing "belief" isn't necessary. -Silence 23:15, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GIA logo

Hi. I was wondering if you could detail your source for the GIA logo (Image:Gialogo-1.jpg? It differs from that shown on this GIA announcement, and its iconography seems rather odd for such a group. I suspect some mistake, but I may be wrong. - Mustafaa 21:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I obtained the logo from http://www.interet-general.info/article.php3?id_article=764 ; I was trying to find any sort of image for the GIA, so I finally found that one by searching for the French name (Groupe Islamique Armé) on Google, the only thing like a logo or flag or icon I could find for the group. I don't speak French, however, and that is the only site I found the image on, and I have no way of checking the site's validity, so the image could very easily be a fake; part of the reason I uploaded it was because that seemed the only way to find out whether the image was really the group's logo or not, and because I wanted to provoke others to donate more images to a featured article badly in need of them. Feel free to delete it if you believe that it is not one of the images they actually used. -Silence 21:17, 30 September 2005 (UTC)