User talk:Doug Weller/Archive 16

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Re: Ahmose, son of Ebana

Thanks for adding the book reference -- I did the exact same thing on Google Books but didn't think of referencing it. Will remember to do that next time. A good way to "cement" the spelling of the name.

I also think that this is an article in need of expansion, and have managed to trawl JSTOR for primary sources that mention it.

Thanks for the extra effort made in this case! Cheers! Captmondo (talk) 13:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, glad you are working on it. I don't have JSTOR access, sadly. And my PC crashed and my backup was old and I lost a lot of the articles I had garnered from various sources! Dougweller (talk) 15:35, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Glastening

Was this what you were referring to regarding Glaestings? Just popped up on the ol' watch list. Handy thing, that.--Cúchullain t/c 17:57, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

That's the one, it's on my watchlist too. Thanks though, I might have missed it. Dougweller (talk) 18:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Intelligent Design

Funny, I thought I posted this here; must have previewed but not saved. I copied and pasted it on the ID talk page.

  • FYI

I have just posted this on Dougweller's talk page:

Intelligent Design

I'm sure you're very busy, but would you have time to read through the most recent part of the talk page at the ID page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Intelligent_design The sections to which I've contributed are "Factually Incorrect," "Einstein's intelligence," and "Peer review and Sternberg." I am now retiring from the scene unless I am asked for further comment. I am disappointed in the responses of LexCorp, Dave souza, and Guettarda. My specific request to you is that you explain to me how I could have been and can be a better Wikipedian. Thanks.

Sorry--for some reason I can't get those boxes off. When I copied and pasted from here to there that didn't happen. Yopienso (talk) 02:37, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Boxes are caused by spaces, never indent. Real life demands are eating into my sleep right now, and I'm afraid I don't have time for anything but pretty basic stuff here. I've looked at the talk page cursorily, I agree with Kenosis that you have been trying hard to be a good Wikipedian, some very good discussion there. Our polices on reliable sources and original research (have you read them) mean that we can't include Einstein unless a reliable source connects him with the ID movement. You could in a normal essay, because in essay writing, articles for journals, etc you expect to see the author's ideas, but not on Wikipedia. I also agree with the rest of what Kenosis has said. Dougweller (talk) 05:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


You're a wizard! Got rid of those boxes!
I don't have a question about Einstein; initially I accepted the rejection of my edit, but with some misgivings. I had thought it was pertinent because of Einstein's great admiration for the structure and apparent design of the universe, but after further consideration realize that the question in point was not design per se but intelligently-directed design. Therefore, I no longer have any misgivings about the removal of my addition.
What I was asking about was if I am appropriately contesting the inclusion of this sentence: "The intelligent design movement has not published an article in a properly peer-reviewed scientific journal."
I appreciate your attention; realizing you are so busy perhaps I will bring this to the attention of Jezhotwells. Do you have a suggestion in that regard? Yopienso (talk) 22:25, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

re Sue May

Nope. -- Cirt (talk) 20:11, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Good, then they were just after me I guess. Dougweller (talk) 21:38, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite of History of Anglo-Saxon England

Hi Doug

As promised I have ploughed my way through the History of Anglo-Saxon England and updated it. I think that we are pretty much there. It would have been quicker to rewrite it from scratch, but I have tried to retain what the original editors were saying. Anyway I think that you'll agree it is now somewhat better structured and has citations for everything. I have removed the discussion on sources as I think that would be more appropriate on the English historians in the Middle Ages and the discussion on accuracy of dates I think is more appropriate on Timeline of Anglo-Saxon England. If you agree then I think that we can remove the refimprove and citations request template. I am not sure that we need a further reading list now either? Regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 14:25, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Impressive. I don't like further reading lists anyway, anything worthwhile should be used as a source. I will say about the Timeline article that the statement about the 410 date bothers me as it is a contentious issue that we make look as though it is fact, so anything that can be done to improve that sort of problem is welcome. The English historians article is obviously sketchy and needs filling out. Then they can be linked to the HASE article. Dougweller (talk) 14:53, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

You're right both the Timeline and Historians articles are a bit problematic. I believe that Gildas was the source for most of the early dates that Bede used,(and the chroniclers followed Bede) the Timeline article cites Bede as the primary source which is obviously wrong. Zosimus was credited with providing the date for the Rescript of Honorius as 410AD and there is some doubt about that, I know. Dates and reliability of sources is a very tricky area! I will give it some thought!

I've removed the citation request and further reading from HASE. Looks a bit tidier now.Wilfridselsey (talk) 16:07, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I had a go at the Vortigern article and plan sometime to do more, dates feature there too. Dougweller (talk) 16:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

It's now on my watchlist. Wilfridselsey (talk) 18:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Doug, I have introduced a (?) flag for dates and events that are problematic on the Timeline of Anglo-Saxon England. I have also explained on the talk page that it should only be used when both the 'date and event' are contentious (none of the dates are particularly reliable anyway). I have used it against the Rescript of Honorius and Aella as I think these fit the criteria. I have also included citations by way of explanation. Regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 15:06, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I already commented on the talk page, that's a very good idea. Thanks for all your hard work, I look forward to the time when I have more free time for editing! Dougweller (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Doug. Thanks for the compliments, I think that I will go for a lie down now! Regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 11:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Some help (?)

Hello, i seek your help as an administrator and possibly your advice as an experienced editor. First of all i would like to ask if you would be willing to give a kind advice to User:Pylambert for his unconstructive behaviour towards me in Greeks in Poland. After this unprovoked rant, he declared his refusal to discuss the content dispute further and threatened to edit war. I seem to have lost my patience as well, and we have both reached 3RR. I am willing to accept i'm wrong, but his behaviour is unacceptable to me, he was making bad faith insinuations from he start and now has reached the point of calling my edit "chauvinist vandalism" in his revert summary. I admit i'm not thinking with a clear head anymore. If you don't want to get involved as an admin, you can give me your opinion on the dispute in brief here as well, i trust your judgement and character from our last discussion, i will back off if you think i don't have a serious case. Thanks and sorry for the long post.--Δρακόλακκος (talk) 19:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)oar

Sorry, but with little access and using a tiny screen and terrible keyboard with the cursor hopping around (all week), I just can't help you.Back Sunday. Dougweller (talk) 17:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Time Cube

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Time Cube. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Time Cube (6th nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:10, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Kungkang

Hi dougs, dont understand what are you talking about ? what is edit summaries, and which article are you talking about ? hopefully you can explain..thanks..

Your quote :

You are supposed to use edit summaries. If you don't know what these are, just ask. Information you add needs to be WP:Verifiable, that means readers need to be able to check your sources. But you don't add you sources. Given the above, and your failure to communicate, I see no reason not to revert your edits if they don't meet our guidelines. Dougweller (talk) 12:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kungkang (talk • contribs)

Good to hear from you, I've replied on your talk page. By the way, this should have been at the bottom of my talk page. There's a tab or something on the top of talk pages to start a new section.

The Wikipedia Signpost: 15 March 2010

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Re: "Ignoring requests on your talk page, failure to communicate, persistently marking edits as minor"

Apparently, Wikipedia communications should be simplified. There is no obvious reason to assume that one must respond to every or any message left on one's talk page, especially when one disagrees with the actions taken. It is also often very difficult to send a message to some participants. What Wikipedia could do is provide, adjacent to each message received by a participant, a link enabling the participant to directly communicate with the message-sender. The "Talk" link takes one to the Talk Page of the message-sender, but it is then necessary to click on the "New Section" or "Edit" tab before a message can be generated. In any event, I do not regard my actions as a "failure to communicate."

Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, it is erroneous to allege that I have been "[i]gnoring requests on [my] talk page." There have never been any specific requests on my Talk Page, or at least nothing for which response or compliance appeared mandatory. If you can point to one, please be explicit. You might be referring to a recent message indicating that quotations could be placed before periods or commas, for which I sent a belated message to the reverter. However, there was no implicit command suggesting that I was forbidden from making such minor edits, especially considering that most literary style manuals regard such punctuation as intolerable. Alternatively, you may be alluding to some very recent reversions by Skinwalker, to which I did not have any opportuntiy to respond, since your message appeared on my Talk Page less than three hours after Skinwalker's message.

Another issue perhaps in need of redesign is the characterization of edits as "minor." I just reread the guidelines at Help:Minor edit, and the rules for differentiating major from minor edits appear to have sufficient clarity for an algorithm to be developed. Thus, it might be appropriate to automate the process of differentiation, to facilitate a user's decision-making regarding whether to minimize the extent of editing in order to avoid making major revisions. It is inaccurate to allege that I am "persistently marking edits as minor." Admittedly, my default setting is "minor" for editing, and I have neglected to change that setting, but now that I am aware of the problem, I will aspire toward meticulousness.

With regard to the reversions made to my revisions of the articles about Viera Scheibner, Christine Maggiore, and AIDS denialism, I now understand that they should have been labeled "major edits." However, my purpose was laudatory, however poor the form, since I was attempting to reduce what an objective reader would recognize as stridently biased vitriol. In addition, some of the material that I attempted to edit appears to rise to the level of libel, slander, or defamation. Christine Maggiore, for example, recently died, yet the material in her article was reminiscent of the film "I Spit on Your Grave." Since I am a medical scientist and attorney, I made a few dozen changes in each article to euphemize derogatory language and correct inaccuracies. I would like the opportunity to redesignate the edits as "major" and resubmit them, but apparently they are no longer accessible.

If I am required to communicate directly with each previous contributor whenever editing an article, or compose edit summaries, please let me know. I would very much appreciate links clarifying the use of edit summaries, and the appropriate communication procedures when performing "major" edits. My knowledge of the intricacies of Wikipedia policy is limited. If such communication is not required, then your blanket undoing of all of my work was an extreme measure.

I haven't undone anything of yours. I'll reply to the rest on your talk page. Dougweller (talk) 05:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Sock Puppetry

Since you were vocal on the WP:COI and WP:COPYRIGHT of BioSlimDisk by User:Vernonheng, I invite you to read Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vernonheng and possibly comment.  Guy M | Talk  12:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey

Hey sir um ive been waiting long for a reply from you in the Moses Page and some help please do help,thank you!Highdeeboy (talk) 17:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding George Aaron Barton

You removed any reference to Kharsag Epics, which I can understand you doing, but then I must ask you...what do you call the inscriptions he worked on? If Kharsag Epics is the only name we have that is attributed as a name for them, then it is perfectly fine for them to be put into the article, as long as it is noted that the name was not made by him, but by O'Brien, which it was written like that. At the very, absolute least, there should be a link to the Kharsag Epics on the page. SilverserenC 20:09, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

He called them miscellaneous Babylonian texts. There frequently aren't any real names for such texts. We should be using the names used most commonly (or in this case I'm afraid sometimes numbers). As you know, the name 'Kharsag Epics' is only used by fringe authors - or at least that's what the sources indicate so far. Dougweller (talk) 20:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 22 March 2010

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Arb question

Thank you for alerting me to the Arb case. How long do I have to draft and add comments? Work-crunch situation for a couple/few days. Thank you for any information. With regards, --Tenebrae (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Further to this, I also received your message and would like to know about the time factor. I have questions about the proposed findings and obviously these things take time.

Regards Asgardian (talk) 03:45, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

This is still at the workshop stage, but other than that I can't give you a definitive answer. I'm not one of the two clerks on this case, just stepping in as there was a request from an ArbCom member to notify parties and I was the one who spotted the request first. If you look at the top of the pages, you'll see the names of the Clerks, ask them. OK? Dougweller (talk) 04:09, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Doug. Will do. Asgardian (talk) 04:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Kharsag Epics

Hi Doug. Thanks for your comments about The Kharsag Epics. I'm a new editor, so very grateful for your assistance getting this article reviewed and pleased by the additional sources it has generated. I'll soon be publishing a page on Kharsag and your help getting it right would be much appreciated. I would mention that O'Brien only breifly speculates about extra-terrestrial involvement and should in no way be labelled with other ufologists such as Stitchin, etc. Any advice and suggestions welcome. Best Wishes, Paul Bedson (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I have added the Gagne and Gagnon (which includes published material by Edmund Marriage) published sources to substantiate things better from notable sources independent of the theory. The Scales and Sullivan references were added by Silver Seren (not me) and I understand your comments about these, however they do establish notability. I may have to rely on Barton's original sources if O'Brien's credential are under question - he did qualify in Natural Sciences, despite working in exploration geology, so probably should be described as a Natural Scientist. Lawrence Gardner is soon publishing a new book which should satisfy some criteria as another reference. Regarding my sandbox, it's very much work in progress. I've copied the Catal Hoyuk template as a similar project to base a Kharsag page on. It won't be copy/pasted when finished. Regarding the archaeological survey, I led this expedition and should have some published sources to show from this after an upcoming press release. I hope you understand my committment to reveal this subject to the mainstream. After all, Lebanon has been off limits for archaeologists due to wars, etc for 30 years and I have a lot more to substantiate O'Brien's claims after actually having seen the reservoir the epics describe and walked along the remains of the Great Watercourse.

If you are interested in the subject and helping with our wiki entries, I can arrange for a complimentary copy of 'The Genius of the Few' by O'Brien to be sent out to you for review. Please just send me your address. Best Wishes Paul Bedson (talk) 15:43, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, Barton's material does allude to a link between creation and deluge epics to later religious texts. Whether this is eligible to link as an artifact relevant to the Bible, I'll let you decide. Paul Bedson (talk) 15:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Paul. Thanks, but Gardner is another fringe writer (by our criteria) and I'm dubious about his being accepted, as we are still looking for reliable mainstream sources.
I can see another problem. Wikipedia is emphatically not a venue for 'revealing this subject to the mainstream'. Our articles are meant to reflect the mainstream, not affect the mainstream - which doesn't recognise a body of texts called the 'Kharsag Epics'.
And now I'm a bit embarrassed as I have to tell you of quite a major problem, conflict of interest. Please read WP:COI. I should have noticed that, but I'm doing a lot of real life stuff and hadn't connected the two. I am going to have to tag the articles appropriately. If you want to get other opinions as to whether you should be creating and editing these articles, please ask at WP:COIN. Dougweller (talk) 16:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I am trying to promote the interests of historians, archaeologists, egyptologists, assyriologists and sumerologists, I must admit that, but disagree they have been reduced to the status of a 'group' Paul Bedson (talk) 16:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

If you can find any of those confirming what you've written, that would be useful, but at the moment you are effectively promoting your own interests and the interests of people close to you. This always raises concerns here, however well-intentioned it is. You aren't the only editor doing this, and it just means you have to work within our policies and guidelines dealing with this issue. Dougweller (talk) 16:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I've found one! Your opinion of my reference by Dr. Emilio Spedicato and the paper I've listed showing his discussion of the Kharsag Epics would be much appreciated. I'm hoping it'll get the article off the hook ;-) Paul Bedson (talk) 18:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Doug, The translation on my Eden Tourism site is Barton's document and only part of Christian O'Brien's, even I wasn't precisely sure how they corresponded. Gardner fitted in piecing bits of Barton with bits of O'Brien together from hard to reach records in the Penn Uni at the time he did. I don't believe it's pieced together very well, so many thanks for doing a much better job. Paul Bedson (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I hope you change it. I'll have to say it upset me quite a bit because, and this isn't your fault I can see, it doesn't present Barton honestly. It makes me trust Gardner even less if that's possible. I don't think you want this misrepresentation on your page, for anyone who knows it just drags you down. 04:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)Dougweller (talk)
I've done as you suggested and changed the page, taking Gardner's name out and titling it more accurately. I hope you don't mind, but I've also published your list of the cross-referencing of the tablets at the bottom of the page as a note. If you have any copyright or other problems with me doing this, I'll have it immediately removed or changed. Didn't think you'd mind due to the clarification it makes. If you would like a complimentary copy of the O'Brien book, I can have that arranged if you want to send me your address on the e-mail given on my website. Paul Bedson (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Hello, Doug Weller. You have new messages at Paul Bedson's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

I've compiled a list of articles on my talk page created / heavily edited by Yongle the Great. Check it out. _LDS (talk) 09:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Please take a look at my reply. I'm going out for a while, will be back in about 3 hours time. See you later. _LDS (talk) 10:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


Best of luck to you! :) _LDS (talk) 15:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, we've got another suspect, User:First Sovereign Qin Emperor. He seems to have become smarter and has deliberately "reversed" his tactics by proposing for deletion the pages he created. LOL. See Kingdom of Dazhou, Tianwan, Chen Han. You can check out his contributions log here. He gave himself away by choosing another "emperor" username and by editing the same pages. _LDS (talk) 04:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

And now blocked along with the IP. The range block is for a month, by the way. I've reverted the rest of his edits. Thanks for this again! Dougweller (talk) 06:24, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Jesse Ventura edit-warring

Hi Doug. Please take a look at the Jesse Ventura article and lend a hand if you don't mind because there is edit-warring going on amid attempts to insert WP:SYNTH into the article. Thanks. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 06:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Thankfully it was resolved, at least on my part. The editor was very civil and cooperative. Thank you Doug anyway. Take care. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 08:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Glad to see it was sorted, I was on my way to a cookery course! Dougweller (talk) 14:31, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
It was for the best. I hope you enjoyed it :) All the best. Dr.K. λogosπraxis 17:28, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

RE: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SuperHappyPerson

Hey Dougweller, thanks for the offer of help in this case. When I said I was endorsing it I meant that I was endorsing for a checkuser to look at that case, sorry, should have been clearer. The case has now been checked by jpgordon and all of the sleeper accounts that came up in the check have been blocked. See here. Kindest regards, SpitfireTally-ho! 17:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Question

You reported me for something you should not have. I have read your comments above that your goal is to "protect the integrity of this project." I have no reason to question that, so I would like to open a dialogue about the topic for which you blocked me.

Per WP:ERA, you should "not change from one [date] style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change". The article used BC/AD for many years, then someone changed it to BCE/CE. I simply restored it to its original format, and you blocked me. Per WP:ERA, my actions were justified. The original edits to the date style were not discussed, and a "substantial reason" was not given for the change. I had a "substantial reason" which was to restore it to its original format. How can I be blocked for complying with the stated rule, yet the person who made the unsubstantiated edits was not? (Jgw71 (talk) 20:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC))

First, I didn't block you, another Administrator did. Secondly, the original format was BCE - the first instance I can find of either BC or BCE is BCE on 20:24, 2 September 2002 . If I may quote you, you've said " No matter what the original date style is, that is the style that should remain--per Wikipedia rules". That isn't actually accurate, a consensus on the talk page will often suffice. In any case, you were not complying the the guidelines, your argument was that you were trying to make Ancient Egypt related articles consistent, remember? Your edits are pretty clearly aimed not at following WP:ERA but making changes to BCE. Dougweller (talk) 20:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
How can you know my intentions? Publicly stating you know for a fact what my intentions are is overstepping your boundaries. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that I could have an open and honest dialogue, but that seems not to be the case. You do not know me AT ALL. I wrote on this page because I trusted that you really were sincere about "protecting the integrity of this project." I did not expect to be insulted by you, not only on my talk page, and your talk page, but also on the page in question. I expect that you will remove your personal attacks against me (claiming my actions were clearly pov and Your edits are pretty clearly aimed not at following WP:ERA) and issue a public apology. If you would have simply pointed out that the first date style was BCE, I would have acknowledged that my edits should not have taken place and reverted them myself. However, the edits I made were done so because I thought that was the original format. Either way, I have never insulted you, so why do you feel it necessary to insult me? (Jgw71 (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC))
Furthermore, after reading the expected behavior of administrators, I believe these insults and false claims violate the conduct expected of an admin. An apology would be accepted and sufficient to move on from this discussion. (Jgw71 (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC))
{ec} (I was writing this as you were adding the comments above, and hadn't noticed that my edit didn't save). ::Ok, I retract those comments and expect you to retract your comments about Administrator bias which are pretty clearly aimed at me (and perhaps others). I hope you now realise that we do not expect or require consistency between articles andthat if consensus has been reached on a talk page you should respect that and not change an article without gaining a new consensus. I won't apologise because it was this edit [1] which makes it look as though you were making pov edits. If it weren't for that, and the claim in one article that you were editing for consistency when there were 2 instances of BCE and only 1 of BC, and you changed the two BCE's to BC, I would not have called your edits pov. Dougweller (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


We all have our own opinion. Clearly I do too. However, I do respect that this issue has been handled by Wikipedia, and I think their rule on the subject is fair, and I intend to respect it. If I make an edit and you disagree, please make your case like you did on this topic. If you are right and I am wrong, I'll acknowledge it and revert it myself.

Just for the record, here is the direct quote in its entirety: "Do not change from one style to another unless there is substantial reason for the change, and consensus for the change with other editors." This seems clear. Two things must happen in order to change it from its original format: 1) there must be a substantial reason for the change; 2) consensus for the change with other editors. Please note that the 2 things are separated by the word AND and not OR. If there is not a substantial reason, even if at the time there is a consensus, the change cannot be made. In other words, you cannot change it just because at the time there is a consensus. Otherwise, this will be a never ending battle that switches back-and-forth every time a new consensus is reach (which could be regularly.)

It should also be noted that an overall consensus has NOT been reached on Wikipedia [2] and if we cannot establish a fair way to handle this, this will not be productive at all.

Lastly, my comment about some administrators is not directed at anyone in particular. After reading your comments about preserving Wikipedia's integrity, I tried to engage you in a discussion about the topic in question. If I assumed you had a bias, why would I do that? I took you at your word. I do, however, believe you have an opinion on the topic, as I do. I am assuming that you would not have reacted as you did if you did not favor one style over another, but just like you cannot read my mind, I cannot read yours, so I can only judge you on your actions. (Jgw71 (talk) 22:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC))

I have warned Jgw71 on his Talk: page that if he continues violating WP:ERA he will be blocked. Jayjg (talk) 22:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I have never intentionally violated WP:ERA. I really think this needs to be elevated to someone higher in the wikipedia family because I feel I am being targeted. NONE of those who changed BC to BCE received warnings, even when BC was the original format. Not a single one, yet the WP:ERA is very very clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgw71 (talk • contribs) 23:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
After reading Jayjg 's page, I believe I understand his passion on this topic, and I respectfully ask that he leaves this to Dougweller to determine if I am acting in good faith. Dougweller and I have had an ongoing discussion on the topic, and while we had rough patches, I generally believe he is not being bias. With all due respect, I am concerned that Jayjg may have a religious interest in the topic, which may make it harder to make a fair assessment. (Jgw71 (talk) 00:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC))
You know nothing whatsoever about me, and your speculation will in no way save you from administrative action, if I need to take it. Don't speculate about me again. Jayjg (talk) 00:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
many of your discussions and edits are related to the Jewish faith. You inserted yourself in a conversation between Dougweller and me with a great deal of passion. I just want to assure than any action taken against me is not based in religious discrimination. My interests are in history, not religion. I feel that even though Dougweller and I don't share the same opinion, that he has been fair in dealing with me. That is how an administrator should conduct themselves. No one should use their administrative powers on a subject that they cannot be neutral about. Based on the subject matter contained on your page, I respectfully ask that you refrain from passing judgment on this topic. (Jgw71 (talk) 01:07, 29 March 2010 (UTC))
Ah, I was waiting for this to spark a problem. Clearly this appears to be a conflict of interest. Regardless, as a Catholic AND a realist, I feel that both are fine. I prefer BD/AD as it is more commonly known and understood. HOWEVER, BCE/CE is more political correct. Thus, I feel the article is in a gray area and both should be included to end the debate. Of course this debate is ugly and inconclusive. So, I feel that we all should calm down and let it get filibustered to death. Don4of4 (talk) 04:18, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree completely with Don4of4. Please read my talk page. Does it look to you like I am being harassed? I admittedly have an opinion on the subject. However, I acknowledge Wikipedia has a clear rule on the subject. I am completely willing to follow and respect that rule; however, Jayjg is now saying that he will block me the next time I REVERT the date style to its original format. How is it fair for an administrator to block the person reverting the change but not the person who made the change (and is the one who has really violated the rules.) Because of this, it seems through promises of punitive action by administrators, BCE/CE prevails--even though that goes against the rules WP:ERA. Please, someone work with me on this. There is a clear double standard taking place. I wish the politically correct people could just find an alternative for BC instead of forcing a change. My opinion on this isn't even a religious opinion. For all I care BC could stand for anything and I'd be fine, but after 40 years of using BC/AD, I feel no need to change, because, no matter what, someone is going to be offended. By the way, I am perfectly fine with both being used (BC/BCE)(AD/CE) However, based on what I have witnessed, many seem to be on a mission to forcibly remove BC & AD from Wikipedia all together. (Jgw71 (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2010 (UTC))

Vandal

This user User talk:Pixel1080p has vandalised my userpage & User:Hairhorn--Jastcaan (talk) 14:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you complain at ANI as I am not at all clear what's going on here and am to busy right now, I'm afraid, to figure it out - in any case I don't think I would have taken action without going to ANI, and as you are directly involved it's best if you do it. Dougweller (talk) 14:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: Copyright

Sorry, I did not realise that Copyrighted materials where aloud here, Im still pretty new....

No problem, it's an easy mistake to make. Look at the text below the edit window (the one I'm typing in now) about copyright. Dougweller (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Beginning of Saul reign

Hi Dougweller,

On March 30 2010, I corrected the year of beginning of Saul´s reign from 1030 BC to 1050 BC. The reason is that in the article about king Saul is written this year (1050 BC or precisely 1047 BC). David became king in 1010 BC approximately and Bible stated that Saul ruled for 40 years, not only 20 years. That is why I suppose Saul began to rule around year 1050 BC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.80.191.190 (talk) 07:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

And now the article looks silly, with dates in the infobox contradicting the dates in the article. No one knows for sure that these people all existed, let alone their exact dates, which is why we get conflicting dates such as those cited in the article from Albright and Galil. Dougweller (talk) 08:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The "40 years" comes from Acts in the New Testament, not from an Old Testament source. The verse in the O.T. that would normally contain this information is 1 Samuel 13:1, but it's highly corrupt in the Hebrew text and literally says something like "Saul was 1 year old when he began to reign and he reigned for 2 years". (Taivo (talk) 13:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC))

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Pictish Symbol Stone links

Hello Doug, You already have a link as Ref 1 for one stone, I thought the general links would be useful. As I said in the link, the Megalithic Portal's symbol stone listings for the three different classes are sourced from The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (1903) J Romilly Allen, what's unworthy about this as a source? I would challenge you to find a better reference. The original source of data was [3] if you want to check (original site now dead)

Megalithic (talk) 19:10, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Jabal al-Lawz

Hello Doug, I was considering making an edit to the Jabal al-Lawz page, then I looked at the history, and I noticed all edits are removed. I can tell from the history that you are the man to talk to regarding this page. Let me know if it would be possible to add some facts regarding this fenced in mountain. Or is it a finished piece of work? This mountain is speculated to be the Arabian Mount Sinai, yet this information is only available in the early history of the page. Is it possible to get a minor sentence regarding this theory?

--Lampstand49 (talk) 19:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

That's been an IP trying to remove some well-referenced text. Make a suggestion on the article talk page, so others can see it. I don't actually control the page but I've clearly been active there. You need to prove reliable sources so will you read WP:RS and WP:Verify first. I've given you a welcome menu with our policies and guidelines on it. Ok, I've just done a google books search, and this is what I'd suggest you use. [4]. You might want to read WP:NPOV and WP:Fringe which deals with ideas put forward by people such as Cornuke and Wyatt. Dougweller (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey Doug, Thanks for the help. The user page that you gave me is great. You clearly know your stuff about Wikipedia. I may not have much time to spend on this, but I know that if I add something to the page you could be of great assistance in presentation and balance, after all this is a theory and needs to be properly designated as such in balance. I will probably play around with my User page first too see how any additions would look. If I get the time to make any additions, I will bounce it off you, or those who may be interested in its presentation before the official page would even be modified. I already consider you my friend, maybe we will get a chance to talk again. Know that's what it's all about. --Lampstand49 (talk) 06:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

That's great. I won't be around much until next week. Dougweller (talk) 07:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Pyramids of Egypt

There's no citation in the second paragraph, where it says the pyramids were built as tombs. It's been said for a long time that the pyramids were built as tombs- but as the first paragraph states, most remains have been found elsewhere. I think the article needs at least a couple of citations, telling exactly which pyramids were used as tombs. It's my understanding that both the pyramid named Djoser and the one usually called Khufu never contained bodies. King Tut's tomb was rectangular and found underneath workers' huts from a later period - not in a pyramid (this is my understanding, so I'd like to see citations in an article that states the opposite). I realize people have this notion that the pyramids were tombs (and perhaps some of them are), but I sure would like to see the academic citations. I tried to add citation needed tags at the various places where I find the article most questionable, but I guess I can't, because it's protected.--LeValley 06:06, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

It's academic consensus that the pyramids were built as tombs, so it's reasonable to say that, maybe I can find a citation next week. Of course Tut wasn't found in a pyramid, no on suggests he was, do they? The problem is that the pyramids were looted, mummies had valuable jewels, etc so they were part of the looted stuff. Dougweller (talk) 07:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Oneinthemillions

Hi, Doug. I'm afraid it's more complex than that, and I don't know how to deal with it: it appears that the account is just one of several new ones by a prolific sockpuppeter and permablocked user with a grotesque political agenda, User:Dacodava. I frankly got lost in the instructions about how to deal with that type of sockpuppets, so I made into a message to an admin who has familiarity with the case: User talk:MuZemike#Brantfordcan‎. I think the best solution is to block all those accounts (all assumption of good faith on the accounts' part is by now reasonably ruled out), but I admit I don't know how to deal with it through the proper system (that is, how to open a case in the specific category of reports relating to Dacodava). If you can help or advise me on this one, I would be grateful. Dahn (talk) 09:08, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


Complaint about an admin?

How do I file a complaint about an admin? NicholasTurnbull accuses me of having a sock puppet for no apparent reason, other than I have been the subject of heated debate about my strict rejection of religion. And he is not revealing what other account I allegedly have. · CUSH · 21:54, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. The issue is resolved. · CUSH · 03:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Apology

Dougweller, I am extremely sorry and embarrassed. This item was meant for tedder. I don't know what I was thinking when I posted it here (likely just a confusion of the two main admins to the article). For any reading, I have not had any concerns with Dougweller and have had only supportive, fair, and positive experiences with him.

Sincerely sorry,

Canadiandy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canadiandy1 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I was extremely puzzled by your post and that explains why. No problem. Dougweller (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

copyright

Are you sure of what you wrote to me? Youtube has its own copyright protection policy. Maybe the video clip linked by me is a courtesy of History Channel...Mazarin07 (talk) 20:45, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm positive. YouTube will remove stuff when asked to, but if it isn't asked... we take a much more conservative view of copyvio. If for instance you look at the edit summary made by another Administrator who spends most of her time on copyvio [5] and her comments to an editor [6] you'll see what I mean. Dougweller (talk) 20:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 5 April 2010

The Silver Star Families of America

Hi Doug

I am the creator of this page and did indeed have a conflict of interest. I discussed this with a number of Admins including Chzz and Nuujinn, who were kind enough to edit and clean the page and to make sure there is no violation of WP:COI.

Check page history: 1

Thank you for patroling the page. With your permission I am removing the tag for now, especially since this seems to be a high volume page. If you feel an edit is nessesary, I would appreciate the help.Steven1969 (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Steven1969 (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Silver_Star_Families_of_America"

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Contact us

The Silver Star Families of America

Sorry

Edited wrong page Doug

The Silver Star Families of America

Hi Doug

I am the creator of this page and did indeed have a conflict of interest. I discussed this with a number of Admins including Chzz and Nuujinn, who were kind enough to edit and clean the page and to make sure there is no violation of WP:COI.

Check page history: 1

Thank you for patroling the page. With your permission I am removing the tag for now, especially since this seems to be a high volume page. If you feel an edit is nessesary, I would appreciate the help.Steven1969 (talk) 19:51, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Steven1969 (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry Steve but neither of them are Administrators. If you look at their user page in particular, you'll see no mention of them being Administrators. Or you can click on 'User rights' at the bottom of their contribution pages, and that will tell you what rights they have. Not that it matters terribly, but in fact I am an Administrator. I think that you should use the talk page of the article at least to discuss any substantive future edits. I've put a talk page header on the talk page by the way.
Chzz is quite an experienced editor and his comments look helpful. If you look at his user rights, they say "edit filter manager, account creator, autoreviewer, rollbacker".
If you look at the bottom of the article, I've added a couple of categories. I've added the Wikiproject Military header on the talk page. Dougweller (talk) 20:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


Mercy Doug

Thank you for helping improve the article. I am still very new at this and want to do things correctly.

And will use the talk page you added. Steven1969 (talk) 22:52, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

ANI

Mentioned you here, hopefully that is the correct forum. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 19:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that was the right place. Dougweller (talk) 19:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Issues

Where do i put the sources of information when editing articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ImperialPride (talk • contribs) 12:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

See WP:Cite (and I presume you've read WP:RS and WP:Verify?). Dougweller (talk) 12:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

block

And the Autoblock on my IP address also please !!!! --Triwbe (talk) 13:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Houston High School

You want to delete the factual information about Houston High School under the Issues heading because there are no sources provided. But you KNOW that the information stated does not get reported, so there are no published sources. On the other hand, if you spend two or three hours at the school, you will easily notice what I have contributed is true, and if you ask any of the honest teachers or students, they'll tell you most of what i wrote. I only say 'most' because not everyone knows, for instance, that these problems are why some the clubs got started. Also, yeah, the whole thing about the principal being in possession of narcotics is not something I mean when I say factual. That particular bit was obviously added to mock what I had written about the racism at the school.Gold1618 (talk) 03:46, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It is a fundamental policy that material must be WP:Verifiable by reliable sources. Personal experience does not belong in an encyclopedia. That's just the way we work. See WP:OR. Dougweller (talk) 03:49, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Just because there isn't a single newspaper article on the matter doesn't mean it's not encyclopedia worthy. It's still a huge issue at the school, and if we want to give an honest account of the school, this information must be included. We can't help the fact that the South is so racist that it doesn't report on one of the biggest problems the community faces. If, for instance, South Carolina decided to take slavery out of the history books, should I get an F when I choose it for a paper in which my teacher said to write on any topic of American life before the Civil War? I'm not trying to be a jerk; I'm just trying to report on the school.Gold1618 (talk) 08:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Please don't think I don't sympathise, but this is all fundamental policy. Did you read the links above? I know you're not being a jerk and that you are trying to do the right thing, but this is the way we work, and I hope if you think about it you'd realise it could be someone trying to paint an entirely different picture of something, maybe even the school. If you want a second opinion there are various noticeboards, eg WP:RSN or WP:NORN, all listed at the top of my user page (but try to stick to one, not several). No one's given you a Welcome message so I've added one to your talk page. Dougweller (talk) 08:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for doing that. I'm now finding that there might be some referenceable (that's not a word, is it?) sources from the late nineties which might provide more accurate and substantial information about the issue, so I'm going to look into them. Thanks also for helping me to understand my error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gold1618 (talk • contribs) 04:17, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Governmentofperu

I don't think User:Governmentofperu is a sockpuppet. Luis Cabrejo has emailed me off-wiki and explained that he asked an employee to add the content to avoid COI. Also it seems they are in fact both employed by the government of Peru. I have tried to explain why the material cannot be included untill it generates independent notability and verifiability.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:48, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we'll have more problems here - it seems Mr. Cabrejo has changed his mind and no longer wants his theory to appear in wikipedias pages.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:11, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. The username still is against our policy I believe. And that was pretty fast, but possible. Dougweller (talk) 15:15, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Well to Hell Hoax page protect???

Are you serious? I mean cmon.....the last edit I made was a serious grammatical correction but wutever........if you feel you have to save Wikipedia by locking such a small article go right ahead. 76.180.169.14 (talk) 06:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Bloomex

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Bloomex. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bloomex (2nd nomination). Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:12, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion discussion: Comparison between roman and han empires

Hello. You are invited to take part in the deletion discussion on the redirect Comparison between roman and han empires. Regards Gun Powder Ma (talk) 01:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

TC Article

Hi Dougweller, I'd like to continue the conversation about the Timothy Christian article without clogging up the help desk. :) First off, thanks for your honesty. My purpose in reforming the article is to include more information about the school itself rather than just the history. (That's why I'm in the process of reforming the page live on Wikipedia now) I realize some of the statements may seem biased, so I'll try to eliminate those and make everything factual. But I do want to make the page more current, as I feel most people will be visiting the page to learn about the school as it exists now, not the history of the school. Do you think Wikipedia would delete the one I'm forming now if I made it live? I do realize you think it may seem promotional, but I am simply trying to provide a page for all the school's information to be more easily accessible. Again, thanks for being willing to discuss with me. TCWikiEditor (talk) 23:06, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The help desk is still the best place, but yes, it would be deleted as a duplicate article. That's definite. As for content, why not ask at our schools project, WP:WikiProject Schools. I can't help you more until Tuesday. Dougweller (talk) 04:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Kharsag

Hi Doug, hope you're doing well. Thanks for all the advice my friend. I've been using it to the best of my abilities to show Kharsag has enough notable sources. I get your point about many of them not mentioning kharsag as a single word, but hope I've shown that the word is in each case, a noteable part of a phrase that was widely understood by non-fringe scholars to mean the same thing, i.e. a sacred mountain or temple dedicated to a sacred mountain. I'm happy to revise the wording as you see fit and appreciate any further suggestions however harsh your opinions about O'Brien. I just feel this word has and I suspect will be so notable to the world that it's position on Wiki at least justifies AfD debate, if not it's own page. Also, if there is any particular point that I can further correct to lift the factual accuracy tag on O'Brien, please let me know. Thanks. I look forward to hearing from you. Kind Regards, Paul Bedson (talk) 22:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Question

Please can I ask you something? It's important.--Mychele Trempetich (talk) 07:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Any time, although I can't guarantee how fast I can reply. Dougweller (talk) 09:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Using websites as a reference.

I thought I would introduce myself. I'm Anneke Bart. I noticed a message to another editor: "I'm not sure about using a website on tombs by Anneke Bart Associate Professor Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Saint Louis University would qualify as a reliable source". The materials on my website are carefully researched (and often the references are given at the bottom of the page), but I certainly understand the sentiment. I prefer to see sources from the literature myself (not someone's website). Often people leave out the nuances of the theories as presented in journal articles. And I think wikipedia should be sourced by articles from (refereed) journals or reputable books if possible.

I have added some information (with references) to some pages and started some new pages. Just making sure I'm not missing something obvious or doing something silly. --AnnekeBart (talk) 19:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, that quote could be from me! Your site is great, but I don't think it qualifies as a reliable source as we mean the phrase. The sources you've used are probably the sources we'd actually prefer. I'm glad to see we agree. The problem is with Egyptology articles and many others, editors tend to look for websites as sources and there are quite a few Egyptological websites, some good, some dreadful. You seem to be doing a good job, although I think you should read WP:CITE as your citations don't quite follow our MOS. Actually probably read WP:MOS also. I'm sure you know more about the subject than I do. Dougweller (talk) 18:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 12 April 2010

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Zecharia Sitchin

Please discuss before you revert good faith edits. I am surprised that an administrator would behave like you have on the Zecharia Sitchin article. Being against his ideas is one thing, and that's OK, but removing a call for a free picture is something that I find stange and improper. John Hyams (talk) 14:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe you owe me an apology. I have in no way abused or even used my Administrator status as you have claimed irrevocably in your edit summary. If you want to accuse me of something like that you should have the courtesy to do it on my talk page or on any talk page, not where it is part of the permanent record. The only thing I have done wrong is my edit summary. I was agreeing with an Administrator I know and respect (who is also an ArbCom member) and who I know is more of an expert on such things than I am. As he was the first to revert you, why have you complained to me and not to him? Now you have been reverted by yet a 3rd Administrator. None of us are using our Administrator's tools in any of this, just the knowledge we have gained through experience. You've been reverted by 3 editors, give it a rest.

Abu Bakr II

Hi Doug, you reverted an edit of mine [7]. I'm fine with the revert, but I just wanted to clarify that I was trying to attribute the claims and tighten up the language a little, and I didn't intend to change the meaning of the text. Anyway, I certainly appreciate your attention to the article. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 19:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realise that was yours, I just compared the latest to the one before the IP, and noticed changes like 'no interest' to 'an interest', was I wrong to revert? Dougweller (talk) 19:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
No, the writing before I edited it was poor, but in retrospect my edit really didn't do much to fix it. I'll work on it some more later. ClovisPt (talk) 21:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and as long as you're interested, you might like to keep an eye on Garifuna, as well. Cheers, ClovisPt (talk) 19:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Done. Dougweller (talk) 19:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Great. Keep up all the good work. ClovisPt (talk) 21:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

TM Movement RFARB and Tuckerj1976

Dear Doug, As you may know, one of the "involved parties" in the TM Movement RFARB was Tuckerj1976. However, several days ago that User was found to be yet another incarnation of a banned User: The7thdr. As a result User: Tuckerj1976 was blocked indefinitely.[8] This raises the question of whether or not it is appropriate for Tuckerj1976's section to remain on the Evidence Page or if at the least, a notation could/should be made, in that section, regarding Tuckerj1976's sockpuppetry and subsequent blocking. [9] Thanks,-- — Kbob • Talk • 19:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, looking into it to see what we've done in the past. Dougweller (talk) 19:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Reply?

Hi Dougweller,

How do you know when I reply to my talk page on what you wrote? Do you get a message saying "I replied"? If not, how should I alert you? Click on my talk page to see my reply. Thanks. COMDER (talk) 16:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Out-of-place artifact

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Out-of-place artifact. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Out-of-place artifact. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

List of prophecies of Joseph Smith, Jr.

I object to recent deletion of content at List of prophecies of Joseph Smith, Jr.. The claim is that it is a copyright violation. No text was duplicated at all (although I can see how someone may think that given that the table format looks similar) Could you restore the deleted text so it can be used for discussion on the Talk page. Or, alternatively, here describe where the copyright violation is? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 13:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, Abanes' list of false prophecies did not originate with him: the original compilation was made by Jerald and Sandra Tanner in their book Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? (pages 186-195 of the 1987 edition) originally published in 1975. In 2002, Abanes took that list, formatted it into a table, and added his snide comments. The table in the article List of prophecies of Joseph Smith, Jr. is a collation of those two lists plus many prophecies that came true. None of Abane's commentary is quoted in the article's table. I can see how the table format, at first glance, may give the appearance of copyright violation, but it is not. --Noleander (talk) 13:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
The table as it was in the article and the table at the end of Abanes book were extremely similar, with a lot of the same arrangement and exact wording, and where the wording wasn't exact, the paraphrase was still to close. I did check carefully before deleting. There weren't enough differences to make it salvageable and as there was a good version immediately prior I restored that. I can't restore the deleted text for discussion as I think it is copyvio. I'll see if anyone else wants to check it. Do you have the book? Dougweller (talk) 14:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I have the book. I respect your opinion about the interpretation as a copyvio. I'll agree that the current version of the table is not acceptable, and I'm willing to work on the content so it does not violate perceived copyvio. A table format is very useful to readers of that article, so where would you draw the line on what is an acceptable table? In other words, what sort of table would - in your opinion - not violate copyvio? Eliminating the "commentary" column? Re-arranging the table so it is not in chronological order, but instead topical order? --Noleander (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll think about that if I may. Dougweller (talk) 15:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Dougweller asked me if I might give some feedback here. This question has come up before, and I once knocked on the door of our estimable attorney over something similar. His answer was a bit vague, but that's the way copyright works, I'm afraid. Basically, if the information is not copyrightable (as it would be, say, with "The best prophecies of Joseph Smith", since that's subjective, or if you are using somebody else's copyrighted language to describe a prophecy), then a table does not infringe to the extent that it would be created by anyone with the information. For example, anyone might create a table of the residents of a neighborhood including last name, first, address. Creativity might exist both in elements the table chooses to include and prioritizing the elements.

I can't seem to view the table, even at Amazon books, but I'll say that rearranging the structure can help, presuming that you do not have phrases reproduced. If there's a sensible order other than chronological, that could be good. It can also help if by chance you have entries of information in your table that he does not. Can you add a column to the table that he doesn't use with information he does not convey? Even better. This can be a very gray area, I'm afraid. There are obviously going to be plenty of cases where people can look and say at once, "Yes, this is a copyright violation." But there's a lot of room for people to go, "Well, I don't know...." and that's where you run into danger. Even an attorney can tell you he thinks something is not a copyvio that the courts will say, "Oh, yes, it is." We kind of just have to do our best here to make such things as different as possible unless it happily falls into the black/white area of "no creativity."

It can be very hard to clear yourself of the taint of knowing how somebody else handled something. You might get some good feedback by finding somebody completely unfamiliar with the subject and asking them, "What would you want to see in this table?" For instance I could easily imagine a two-column table covering this subject, with one column listing the prophecy (footnoting source, of course) and another explaining how we know it didn't happen (again, footnoting source). Other people might have more complex ideas. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. The way to view the table is to search for earthquakes, then choose page the mention at I think page 468, which is in the middle of the table. If you reach the limit at one country's Amazon, try another, eg co.uk and .com. That's how I did it. The basic problem I picked up was the wording, which as I said was identical at times and not sufficiently different at other times (in my opinion, this is as Moonriddengirl says a grey area). Certainly it was easily recognisable as a copy of the table in the book. Dougweller (talk) 16:01, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
FYI: Here is the layout of the table (all content removed to avoid any copyvio issues here :-)
Source Date Prophecy Notes
D&C 1:42 Feb 4, 1830 This text of some prophesy that failed Here are some details explaining why it failed (only if not obvious).


D&C 2:33 March 3, 1830 Here is another prophecy, but its wording or source makes it debatable whether or not it is a genuine prophecy Here is an explanation why some feel this item is not a prophecy
The list of prophecies itself is not a copyvio issue, since those are listed by the Tanners and many online web sites (plus the table includes additional prophecies NOT in Tanners or Abanes). I suspect the biggest issue was in the "Notes" column, which was a statement "the prophecy came true" or "... did not come true". Abanes and Tanners both claim that many (about 75% of the prophecies in the table) did not come true, and that "Notes" column summarized their opinion, with footnotes citing the Abane's book. Many of those notes were, indeed, paraphrases from Abanes' book, and I can see how that may be perceived as a copyvio. But the table format is immensely useful to the readers. And that is why Im suggesting that we simply delete that entire "Notes" column, or perhaps replacing with a simple "Yes/No" (Critics claim it to be false or not). The "Prophecy" column is not as much of a problem, since in most cases it is just a direct quote from the Joseph Smith himself, however, I think there were a few prophecies that had a paraphrase in the "Prophecy" column and that paraphrase maybe bore too much of a resemblance to Abanes'. Those certainly need to be corrected. --Noleander (talk) 16:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Disclaimer: In case it is not obvious, Im the editor that formatted the prophecies into the table, and researched all the footnotes. I invested a couple days of my life on that table, so I am not without bias here :-) But I'm willing to modify it as needed. My primary goal was, and is, to convert a (difficult to read) long list of prose prophecies into a table format that is much, much more useful to readers. --Noleander (talk) 16:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
A laudable goal. I see Routerone is removing stuff, maybe you should say something on the talk page there so that other editors know the table is coming back? I know he didn't like the article in its table form anyway, so... anyway, why not copy over this discussion or some of it? Dougweller (talk) 17:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Done. --Noleander (talk) 17:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Just saw his comment on the talk page, he's 'very impressed with the rewrite'. Dougweller (talk) 17:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Dougweller: Is there anyway to provide me with a temporary copy of the original table so I can modify it and create a proposal that has no copyvio problems? It would take me forever to re-create it from scratch. To avoid any copyvio problems in the temporary copy, perhaps you could delete the "Notes" column? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 17:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't think a table format in itself is an issue. I still haven't looked at the book, but if it follows the same structure there are things you could do. For instance, you could drop the "source" column and put the source inline with the prophesy. If the main problem with the comments was that it closely paraphrased, then I'd say keep the "comment" column (or retitle it, if you must), but just make sure that these comments are completely rewritten. I believe most people would think to include some kind of "Why this isn't a true prophecy" column. I spontaneously generated the idea above, for instance. :) I'll go try to dig up the book as soon as I deal with a copyright matter at Bureaucracy, but,Doug, does that seem proper to you? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
You are correct that "why wasnt it true?" content is the crux of the article, and indeed any readers of the article would go straight to that column/content for the alleged "dirt" on Joseph Smith. So simply converting the "Notes/Comments" column to a "yes/no" column is not satisfactory; especially because some prophecies came partially true (for instance, the "Civil War" prophecy, which is the most famous). So the content has to explain which parts came true and which parts did not. It seems like the best solution is to totally rewrite all the "Notes/Commentary" to remove any trace of Abanes phraseology (and any such text in the "Prophecy" column). --Noleander (talk) 17:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Sounds good, I agree about keeping the commentary column. Dougweller (talk) 18:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Dougweller: Did you see my question above? Is there anyway to provide me with a temporary copy of the original table so I can modify it and create a proposal that has no copyvio problems? It would take me forever to re-create it from scratch. To avoid any copyvio problems in the temporary copy, perhaps you could delete the "Notes" column? Thanks.
And I don't know how to delete a column without messing anything up. Ask Moonriddengirl what can be done, she is the real expert here. Ah, is it the wiki version you want or are you just after the text? I might be able to do some fancy scanning work if you are just after the text and not the markup, but my guess is you want the markup. Dougweller (talk) 19:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like the Wiki markup. The Wiki markup contained dozens of (painstakingly researched :-) citations in it, and dozens of wiki-links to the Joseph Smith documents. If you can get the Wiki version and somehow strip out the Notes column that would be great. It should be pretty easy to strip it out: I dont care if you mess up the format / layout: I can repair any mistakes you make. You just need to look for the 4th column in each row, and delete that line of text. If there were, say, 35 prophecies, that means there are 35 rows, and you'd have to delete 35 lines from the Wiki text. Or maybe you can think of some other way to get it to me in a legal and sane way. The key thing is all the citations and wiki-links. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 19:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, BUT -- it'll have to wait. I've got things to do in the little bit that's left of this evening, and an early start tomorrow and out all day. Sorry about that, but I'll get it done this weekend. Dougweller (talk) 19:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. The only "rush" is that I'm concerned that other editors may edit the existing article today or tomorrow, and then when I do the update, I'll have to merge their changes, and that is an error-prone process. But I put a large warning in the article's Talk page (plus, it is a rather dormant article) so the risk of changes is low. Thanks again! --Noleander (talk) 19:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that. I'll scrub the table to ensure no OR, no copyvio issues; and I'll add a "citation" tag to those prophecies that dont have sources (to give the originating editor a chance to find a cite). --Noleander (talk) 15:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

How to request removal of a userbox?

Hi. On his user page User:Weaponbb7 features a box containing this text: "This user understands that the category of religion is an invention by European Christians which they falsely and inaccurately apply to the rest of the world, and that atheists who demand the elimination of religion from public affairs are acting out of extreme ignorance, if not outright disregard for other cultures." First of all, I am not really sure whether this is proper English. Anyways, due to its hostile and above all inaccurate depiction of atheists I would like to ask for the deletion of said userbox. However, it seems to be no userbox template. · CUSH · 23:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You can take this to ANI if you want, that's been done before with issues like this. Dougweller (talk) 10:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok. Thanks. · CUSH · 11:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I'd forgotten about your page. Doesn't put you in a good position to complain. And if I'd known about the previous interaction with the editor I would have probably not advised ANI. Dougweller (talk) 12:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
The particular user keeps assailing me and also seeks to remove objective material from articles to create a respective article text that is sympathetic to religious positions. He is the one who drives the removal of "myth" from the Genesis creation myth article, so that his ideology is not possibly presented in a manner similar to other creation myths. · CUSH · 13:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Cush, quit this that it a distortion and you know it. Weaponbb7 (talk) 13:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
So far you tried every trick WP has in store because you just don't like your religious convictions being presented objectively: RfC, MfC, Appeal to Jimbo, and your constant dragging out of discussions that had already reached consensus. · CUSH · 13:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Eyeroll lets not mess up this guys page with your bickering Weaponbb7 (talk) 15:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Doug if I could respectfully suggest you direct users to WP:MFD (rather than ANI) for stuff like this in future. The whole page would need to be nominated, but it would focus only on the one item in contention. –xenotalk
I'd thought of MFD, but didn't recommend it for two reasons - it wasn't a userbox and I hadn't realised that you could nominate a page with only one item in contention, but mainly because I've seen such discussions on ANI several times before. Dougweller (talk) 17:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
ANI is generally disfavoured for these types of discussions for a number of reasons: in particular, they are disorganized and have no natural "end point" where an administrative may step in and divine consensus. And MFD is fine for discussing "a portion" of a page. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:WebHamster, for instance, focused almost entirely on an image that was displayed on the page. The last few discussions of userspace content at ANI were closed in favour of taking it up at MFD (admitting for disclosure that I was one of the drivers of that result). –xenotalk 17:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I will remember that next time! Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

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Catholic Diocese of Chicester

Doug

Someone has created an article called Catholic Diocese of Chicester, however it should be Chichester (with two 'h's), I spotted this and did a cut and paste to and created Catholic Diocese of Chichester, I now realise I should have done a move! Sorry! I wonder if you could merge the two edit logs? regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 17:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Easier just to delete your new creation, but I note that if you look at List of Roman Catholic dioceses in England and Wales you'll find that although piped to eliminate the 'Roman Catholic', they are called 'Roman Catholic Diocese of...'. So I think that should be the name of this article, what do you think? Dougweller (talk) 17:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. My only concern is that some people don't like the prefix Roman, but as it ties in with List of Roman Catholic dioceses in England and Wales it should work. I'll get back to you if I have a problem! Wilfridselsey (talk) 20:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I did some copy-editing. It needs a rewrite still, eg getting rid of steadfastly and working on the 'invasions' stuff. Dougweller (talk) 20:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I knew it had been copy-edited because I Googled Wifrid (instead of Wilfrid) and both the article and website came up. There must be something about Chichester as the article on the city isn't up to much or the Diocese of Chichester for that matter. Wilfridselsey (talk) 21:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You don't have a Watchlist? Dougweller (talk) 04:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Vinland

I've got the copy of Damals 5/2010 lying on my desk. It is in fact fascinating and I haven't seen it reported anywhere else yet so I thought I'll bring it up here. The report extends what is already stated on the Parks Canada site as Birgitta Wallace was the chief excavator at LAM for a long time). De728631 (talk) 19:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If you click on the cover image of that issue on the Damals homepage you'll get an enlarged pop-up of the image where you may read the announcement of the article in German: "Archäologie: auf den Spuren der Wikinger in Kanada (Archaeology: Tracking the Vikings in Canada)". De728631 (talk) 19:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I know about Wallace, I have been hoping she'd write some more. I think the vineyards thing looks like OR, there is no source relating it to Vinland, so the whole paragraph should go. Dougweller (talk) 20:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, I've just removed the vineyards paragraph. De728631 (talk) 17:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

kharsag

Hi Doug, You seem to have left me no choice but to take the Khrasag page to deletion review (even though it hasn't really been deleted, just incorrectly merged). It needs unmerging sensibly and I again appeal for your help to do so. Thanks. ==Deletion review for kharsag== An editor has asked for a deletion review of kharsag. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Paul Bedson (talk) 11:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

something of a bystander comment

Since I'm only something of a bystander, I hesitate to get too involved in this, but I don't think this mess is making progress. Perhaps it is time to take this to a higher court. Mangoe (talk) 19:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, the article's creator now agrees that Barton, the only person to use Kharsag as a word on its own, isn't used by Barton to refer to a mountain, so I think we can wait a while. And he is trying to work with others, not just reverting. Dougweller (talk) 20:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

RFC/U on User:Jagged 85

There is a request for comments pending on the editing of User:Jagged 85, in which it is claimed that this editor has persistently misrepresented his sources over a long period of time. Since I notice that you have edited articles in which this user has contributed a large portion of the content, such as Inventions in medieval Islam and Timeline of historic inventions, I thought that you might care to comment on the RFC. Spacepotato (talk) 21:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

You have my full permission to delete away

Doug,

You have my full permission to delete the David Ryon article.

David Ryon 614-890-1362 Done by another Administrator. Dougweller (talk) 10:21, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

Dear Doug, I'm the one who thought that my 12 Apostles picture was removed. Thanks for your help again. I'm an old fan of Wiki and I felt it was time to start contributing. Although I'm in the IT business I'm inexperienced at Wiki. I've already read and learned a lot but, of course, it's far not enough. I'll do my best to catch up. I have a huge photo archive, some of them are pretty good, I even won some prizes. I'd like to make it available for Wiki. And, of course, I'd like to develop my own page and maybe Wiki would consider to accept my biography, as well. Long way to go, I know. Thanks again, your work is not just great, it's fantastic.

If you ever want an article on you (which depends on meeting the criteria at WP:People, don't write it yourself, we have a page where articles can be proposed. See WP:COI. When you do upload, make sure you understand what to add about licensing/copyright. And don't forget to sign with 4 tildes: [1] Dougweller (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Re: Thanks

Re, your message; you're welcome. Happy to help! :D — Dædαlus Contribs 07:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

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A big thanks

Hey Doug,


I want to say thank you. You turned a very frustrating night for me (I'm graduating in a month and very behind on my thesis, which has nothing to do with the archaeology paper I was writing) into a good archaeological conversation, and you listened to me. I'm glad there's people like you on Wikipedia; I'm actually not afraid to edit anymore.

Thanks for the cookies.

-Kelsey Karooney (talk) 15:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Now to start the process. If you have any issues, questions, etc just let me know. Dougweller (talk) 15:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


Original research

I see that your edits are either

  • copying en masse from some boring, old and biased encyclopedia

or

  • are original research

well, thats according to your definition of original research

When wikipedia quotes "the sea is not wet" must the reader have to work out, if its true, or if its false,

if if it is false, is it because it is not a sea, or it is wet ? 202.92.40.202 (talk) 07:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

It isn't my definition, it's a fundamental policy, see WP:OR, and what you wrote and I removed [[10] although quite possibly correct is exactly the sort of thing for which we want reliable and verifiable sources, see WP:RS and WP:VERIFY. I'm curious, where did you see (a picture?) of the wood? Dougweller (talk) 07:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

anon. anti-semite

Thanks. I told Jrosenzweig that I do not really care what someone says about me, but it is bad for the project. My concern is, how does one deal with anonymous users? If it s a teenager at a school library or an internet cafe warning an IP address does nothing, it ony works i it can be established that the IP address belongs to one person (something I cannot do). Anyway, I appreciate your action.

I have long thought WP needs a kind of "impersonal attack" policy i.e. when what could be read as a pesonalattack really operates through a slur against a whole group of people (you Jews, you women, you Arabs, you White people ... whatever - the object of the attack is really not just one erson but a whole group of people that that offending party can't possibly know personally, not even in WP's vertual kind of knowledge).

In the meantime - thanks. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:43, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

addition to 1421 page

Hi Doug, I didn't add that second quote from the China Heritage Newsletter because I didn't think it belonged in the "popular reception" part of the article. I set myself the limited goal of making one complete correct addition with citation including functioning hyperlink. You have no idea how long it took me to actually do that, with no instructions (must be around here somewhere), just examining other citations in the edit page until I got it right...

I'm not trying to make waves, and I have no problem with the inclusion of other content from the China Heritage Newsletter. But I really do think that second quote should be in the "Academic Reception" section. --Other Choices (talk) 10:55, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that they come from the same context (I think, need to look again). I'll take a look at the article. I see your point. Dougweller (talk) 11:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

File licensing

right|thumb|140px Heyo, what is the right license for a screenshot of GoogleEarth? It's free software, but I suppose the satellite imagery is copyrighted to Google. So what do I use? · CUSH · 06:15, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

You can't, see Google Earth#Copyright, but also see this [11] for a possible substitute. Dougweller (talk) 15:30, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Aha. Well, I only used the screenshot to illustrate the geography of Avaris/PiRamessu, so I will let the bot remove the image on Tuesday... · CUSH · 16:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Henry H. Bauer Entry Conflict

Editor Keepcalmandcarryon insists on quoting Seth Kalichman that Henry H. Bauer is a "pseudoscientist's pseudoscientist". Kalichman's context is as follows: "Bauer has never done AIDS research. In fact, he has never done any scientific research. Henry Bauer is a pseudoscientist's pseudoscientist!" Clearly, the third sentence in this passage implicitly begins with "Therefore". Bauer's C.V. lists over 80 publications pertaining to scientific research in mainly electrochemistry. What Kalichman writes about Bauer's research career is wrong and libelous. Also, Keepcalm places this quote in a context of Bauer's interest and/or belief in UFOs, Loch Ness Monster, and AIDS Denial. But holding minority beliefs does not make anyone a pseudoscientist. And, in fact, there really are "unidentified flying objects" insofar as there exist observations for which no satisfactory scientific explanation has been made. Despite some of Bauer's unorthodox views, he most certainly is not a pseudosceintist in the sense that Velikovsky, von Daniken and Wilhelm Reich were and are. I do not believe that it is part of WP:BLP to allow a patently erroneous, and knowingly so, quote, no matter how correctly reproduced, to be used in a biographical entry. Keepcalm also objects to other edits of mine pertaining to bolstering Bauer's reputation against Keepcalm's persistent efforts to demonize and denigrate Bauer's scientific and writing career. He also think I have a COI in my attempts to provide balance to Bauer's entry. Please, how might this issue, esp. of "pseudoscientist's pseudoscientist", be subjected to arbitration or adjudication? Might you be interested in initiating such a process? Kindly advise as necessary. Phaedrus7 (talk) 20:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, the following discussion has been deleted twice from Bauer's Talk page. Is there a good reason for this? Begin passage: Wikipedia does not forbid use of content from blogs written by a subject when the blog is the only source of content to redress a grievance. Therefore, in the interest of equity, the comments that were deleted on the grounds of being "poorly sourced" are reinstated: Excuse me! Kalichman is not the "reliable source" and paragon of scholarly virtue you seem to believe. I invite you to read Bauer's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl-Kalichman and Mr. Hyde-Newton" which details the unprofessional research practices engaged in by Kalichman while corresponding with AIDS denialists using the pseudonym "Joseph C. Newton" and where on p. 16 you may read: "Not only was Kalichman-Newton deceitful with the people about whom he was seeking information, he continues the deceitfulness with readers of “Denying AIDS” by not letting them know that he never talked openly with any of his subjects. More than that, by publishing a photo of himself with Duesberg, he implies that author Kalichman spoke with Duesberg even though he didn’t, it was Joseph Newton with whom Duesberg was interacting. I’ve pointed out that the Code of Ethics of the psychological profession bars deceit in research, unless it has been approved by an Institutional Review Board; in which case the deceived subjects are to debriefed as soon as the research is finished, and given the opportunity to withdraw any information gleaned from them. None of that happened. It’s also rather troubling that Joseph Newton’s registration for the Aneuploidy Conference gives his contact information (street address and phone number) as Kalichman’s Social Psychology Department at the University of Connecticut. That suggests there were people in that Department who were aware of the continuing deception and colluded in it. It’s perhaps even more troubling that Kalichman mentors graduate students, at least one of whom appears to have been aware of the deception he was practicing, since she attempted to become my “friend” on Facebook." N.B.: the photo on p. 27 of Kalichman's book shows him to the right of Duesberg, whose name badge shows his name; but the name on Kalichman's badge is whited-out because the name shown was "Joe Newton", the name under which Kalichman registered. Elsewhere on his blog, Bauer points out that Kalichman has the chutzpah to say on p. 71 of his book (and similarly elsewhere therein): "Bauer has never done any scientific research", which is just plain wrong. Kalichman cannot be considered a "reliable source" because the book contains blatant falsehoods and was researched using unethical procedures. Finally, I would also add that belief or interest in UFOs, Loch Ness Monster, and AIDS denialism does not make anyone a "pseudoscientist" or a "pseudoscientist's pseudoscientist", as at least one editor seems to think. Taking the UFOs as an example, believing in the existence of "unidentified flying objects" is not pseudoscience because there are many recorded observations of objects seen the sky for which there has been no scientific explanation. When Kalichman's quote is seen in its true context, and not the one asserted by an editor, its thrust is seen to reside, as explained above, in Kalichman's blatant denial of Bauer's scientific research career, which should not be countenanced by Wikipedia, regardless how "reliable" a source he may appear in the abstract. Phaedrus7 (talk) 18:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC) End of passage. Phaedrus7 (talk) 23:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but it really belongs at WP:BLPN but it needs to be more succinct or else some people won't read it. As this is a BLP, that's the best place to bring this up right now, see how you get on there. Dougweller (talk) 09:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Talk page question

HOW DO I PUT COLORFULL STUFF ON MY TALK PAGEex:usuerboxes,COMMENTS IN red,purple,blue ,ect--Eikipitiki (talk) 17:27, 29 April 2010

Ask at WP:HELPDESK, that's the best place, more experts there. Dougweller (talk) 18:46, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanx!--Brian Greenwell 17:08, 30 April 2010 (UTC)user:Eikipitiki

The Irving Literary Society

Thank you, I will refrain from making comments. I was just a little frustrated when people were claiming that the society does not exist now.

I can understand how frustrating that could be. My grandfather went to Cornell, by the way.
I hope you understand that to demonstrate notability as we definite it we need to rely on non-Cornell sources. I'll also comment that having read it, it doesn't read like an encyclopedic article but more like a short pamphlet. The style, the amount of detail, etc. are all very different from any of our good articles (the bad, of which there are many, are of course not something you'd want to emulate). There's quite a learning curve here.
Please remember to sign your posts with 4 tildes, eg ~~~~ which gives a signature like this: Dougweller (talk) 18:26, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Cookies

I just wanted to thank you for the cookies. Anyone else who got the letter from Dougweller with cookies, sign after me. Ora Stendar 18:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Sarai Alamgir (gUJRAT) should not be a redirect - take a closer look

The two articles refer to different things. Sarai Alamgir refers to the town, and Sarai Alamgir (gUJRAT) (despite the problems in capitalisation) refers to the tehnsil. Please do your homework. I thought I explained this in my edit summaries. Regards, Xtzou (Talk) 14:18, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Please AGF. Why wasn't the article moved to fix the spelling? And what is the naming convention for a tehsil? Shouldn't this be Sarai Alamgir Tehsel like other Tehsels in Punjab (speaking of homework, I've done mine and discovered a category for these and that they are all named like my suggestion). Dougweller (talk) 14:29, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thank you for restoring the name. I really feel that we fortunate editors should go the extra mile for editors from disadvantaged places who try to write articles, like Pakistan. I thought of moving it to the correct spelling, but the last time I did that while a page was on "New pages" I got blamed for the articles sins by a bot and called the article creator. I take enough grief as it is, so I didn't want to chance it. I agree that the article should be properly named. I'm not sure what the proper name is e.g. Sarai Alamgir (tehsil), although I have never seen an article named that way. Gujrat is the name of a city and a district. So maybe Sarai Alamgir (Gujrat District), or Sarai Alamgir (Gujrat district)? Regards, Xtzou (Talk) 14:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I explained above why I did not fix the name. I am tired of being blamed by bots. I did add a category. Further I added the project name on the talk page. Xtzou (Talk) 14:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
OK, I take your point. However, if you click on the category I've added, and then on some names, you'll see the format they follow, which is the one I'm suggesting. Good work adding the project page. Dougweller (talk) 14:42, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And I added many links to the article to give it credibility. That is how I discovered there was a town and a tehsil by the same name. I know very little about Pakistan. Xtzou (Talk) 14:40, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Good work, I'll do the rename today to bring it into line with the other tehsils. Dougweller (talk) 14:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
I also wikilinked it to many articles that mentioned the tehsil by name but didn't have it linked, at least seven other articles. And I created a disambig page. It seems that to the degree an editor goes out of his way to help, that is the degree he will get grief and a lecture. Xtzou (Talk) 14:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
And I've said you've done some good work. I was a bit miffed when you asked me to do my homework. I've found all these articles with the name in it but some will be the tehsil, others the town. "sarai+alamgir"+site:en.wikipedia.org. Dougweller (talk) 15:02, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
I already went through those and linked them correctly, as I noted above. I did that first, when I was linking the article to figure out what was going on. Once the name is changed you can just go by "what links to" etc. Xtzou (Talk) 16:47, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Well, someone moved the page to the proper spelling, so alls well that ends well. I feel a special obligation when people from rural areas in non English-speaking countries attempt to add their village without having it wiped out by zealous wikipedia editors. Sorry for being huffy, but I know nothing about Pakistan, barely where it is on a map. Regards, Xtzou (Talk) 23:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Doug

Hi Doug, you left an couple of messages on my talk page, referring me to here. I've been away for a couple of weeks with no access to the internet, sounds serious but actually just on holiday. Was it anything important? regards Wilfridselsey (talk) 18:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

It's been archived, it was:

I knew it had been copy-edited because I Googled Wifrid (instead of Wilfrid) and both the article and website came up. There must be something about Chichester as the article on the city isn't up to much or the Diocese of Chichester for that matter.Wilfridselsey (talk) 21:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You don't have a Watchlist? Dougweller (talk) 04:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC) Dougweller (talk) 18:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Brain still on holiday. sorry! Wilfridselsey (talk) 19:03, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

No problem, but do you have a watchlist? Dougweller (talk) 20:17, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes I do. Wilfridselsey (talk) 21:37, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Cretan Diet

Dear Mr Dougweller, the Cretan diet article is a translation from the greek wikipedia Κρητική Διατροφή. It has references and bibliography, as the Greek translation. I have already send an e-mail to Greek wikipedia explaining all these. This article about Cretan Diet is written from a phd scientist and it is verified from its resources. The article you have added has no resources, no links at all. Could we replace it with the original translation about Cretan diet?

Thanx in Advace

symfono_gram 11:44, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I've moved this to Talk:Cretan diet so others can take part. Dougweller (talk) 09:12, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Sabawoon

Regarding this and this, can you please explain why you believe Sabawoon or AfghanPedia doesn't meet Wikipedia's criteria as a reliable source? And, how is a reliable source determined in Wikipedia? I want to know this from you because you asserted that Sabawoon and AfghanPedia are not reliable.Ahmed shahi (talk) 12:29, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Read WP:RS. If you disagree, start a discussion at WP:RSN - reliability is not the default, if it's not obvious then you have to demonstrate it. In any case, you claim there are other sources, if none of them are clearly reliable you have a serious problem, if some are, then use them. Dougweller (talk) 12:52, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
I've read WP:RS before. I have links to primary as well as secondary sources, and according to the rules of Wikipedia secondary sources are preferable over primary. I want you to briefly explain why you found Sabawoon as an unreliable source? Is it because it's work done by Afghans? Is it because they are not popular? Or, is it because another editor (User:Tajik) has said so?


If I wanted to know something about Cambodia I will have to find a reliable Cambodian site to explain to me about their country, history and people. Why can't the same be done with Afghanistan?


In here Sabawoon states that "More than sixty five percent of the population speaks Pashto". This is one of the "official languages" of the country and I don't know why that line surprises someone. If Spanish and English were both the official languages of your country, and a source stated "More than sixty five percent of the population speaks Spanish" or "More than sixty five percent of the population speaks English", will it surprise you? Will you call that source of information unreliable?

Ahmed shahi (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

As I said, take it to WP:RSN which is the appropriate forum for discussing reliable sources. If you are sure a fact is correct, find a reliable source - unreliable sources aren't always wrong, they just don't meet our definition of a reliable source. You still don't seem to understand our concept. Dougweller (talk) 13:20, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Nutrition External links

Hello! Today I added an external link (www.caloriefacts.org) to the "Databases and Search Engines" Section of Wikipedia's Nutrition page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition). I was wondering why you removed it. I admit, I'm slightly biased, since the link was to a site run by two of my colleagues, but it seems like the perfect fit for that section. Why can nutritiondata.com have a link and not caloriefacts.org? Especially since NutritionData is a commerical site which is only partly a nutrition database (the focus more on nutrition blogs, products, etc., wheras CalorieFacts is a dedicated nutritional database search engine.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.11.24.193 (talk) 00:31, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Several points. based on our guidelines at WP:EL. First, there should be a minimum number of links. Secondly, we shouldn't link to "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article." I couldn't see anything that met that criterion. And thirdly, there's the fact that it is a minor site, with an Alexa Traffic Rank of 10,281,672. Adding it would promote it of course, but we aren't here for that. If you want other comments, we have a board where you can raise the matter, Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. I very much appreciate your coming to my talk page and asking me, you'd be amazed how many people respond by verbal attacks or vandalism. Dougweller (talk) 18:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 3 May 2010

Requested ban again

Thought I'd bring it to your attention: I requested a ban again, since the user sent an email declaring his intentions to continue his prior behavior. Maybe a permanent ban is too much, but six months seems about right. — Timneu22 · talk 13:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

He's up to his old tricks. Namely, he's a copyvio king. — Timneu22 · talk 11:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I see he's been blocked today. The 1837 book though is out of copyright. Dougweller (talk) 18:06, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Apparent block evasion

Anon. editor from Qatar that you blocked for one week on 4 May is back at Talk:Israelites, using a different IP address, with the same post as previously. It is disruptive, especially as one of the "regulars" on that talk page is sympathetic to the "challenge" to religion (challenge that I've called "defamation" and that you called "anti-religious rants") posed by the IP. I deleted once; it came right back. I don't want to provoke (or engage in) an edit war. Can you have a look, please? Hertz1888 (talk) 07:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Just for info

Next time when I found some mistake on Wikipedia (like this or this) I'll inform you personally about it because I don't want you guys to consider it as vandalism. I know my situation and I don't have time for appeal to unblock my account, but some articles are important to me coz I'm working on one academic work so I use "what links here" very often - that's why I've found many mistakes. Cheers, vandal-killer! :) --93.142.161.161 (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2010 (UTC) (Orijentolog)

That sounds like the best idea. I'll obviously check it first but if you are right I will edit the article appropriately. As long as you don't resort to sock puppetry and just let me know about problems, we're cool. Sometimes I may be away from the computer for a while but I will deal with it. Dougweller (talk) 18:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
OK. By the way, my IP adress is changing constantly not because me but ADSL router, but as you know it would always start with "93.14X.". Of course, I won't inform you if I change something simple like "Parthennon" to "Parthenon" coz I don't want to bother, and edits doesn't include disputable things like result of battles, etc. - Just indisputable mistakes like upper given links. See you, bye. --93.142.129.181 (talk) 11:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

recent conversations about the fringe

Hi. I'd just like to take up one or two things you've written recently.

  • In Talk:Piri Reis map you wrote "it does need to be basically a scholarly article", I responded "just like every other wikipedia article" and you replied "We do not expect all our articles to be scholarly, unless you have a very different definition of scholarly than I have. We have huge numbers of articles on music, villages, cities, towns, books, tv programs, cartoons, etc. that we don't expect to be scholarly."
    • Of course I'm aware of the fact that in many cases we have to make do with sources which are less than ideal. The point I wished to stress is that we should be as scholarly as is possible in the circumstances, that is, to use scholarly sources whenever and wherever they exist, and to cultivate a scholarly detachment (WP:NPOV) and accuracy (WP:RS).
  • In Talk:Ica stones you wrote "I'm not sure I agree that our policy is 'to present attested facts, neutrally and accurately.' 'Neutrally' to you may not mean what NPOV means to me, for instance. An article on evolution, for instance, isn't expected to be neutral, it is expected to be written from an NPOV standpoint."
    • I have never before in wikipedia seen any attempt to counterpose "neutral" to NPOV. The N stands for "neutral". I really don't know how you are trying to distingusih the two ideas. As for evolution, to say that the article "isn't expected to be neutral" seems to me quite wrong, and flatly to contradict wikipedia policy, which I support. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I was suggesting that 'scholarly' is not what is expected in all our articles, eg actually watching a tv episode and describing it seems to be sufficient for articles about tv programmes, odd as that might sound. As for NPOV, of course the N stands for Neutral, but neutral usually means things like equal time for both sides, etc. and our NPOV policy makes it clear that that is not how our articles should be written. Minority viewpoints do not necessarily get equal time. Articles on subjects like evolution aren't neutral in the sense many people use the word. Dougweller (talk) 17:53, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Hmmmm. Well, thank you for your reply. I certainly think that within wikipedia discussions it would be better if we all treat the word "neutral" as identical to NPOV. I haven't suggested, nor as far as I know has anyone else, that a neutral approach means equal time for all viewpoints. Its meaning is better summed up as a focus on facts rather than viewpoints, with opinions always attributed and sourced to those who hold them. This also implies an avoidance of tendentious labels and categories (including wikipedia categories). SamuelTheGhost (talk) 22:47, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
But I have seen new editors explicitly state that articles should be neutral and say that means equal time for all viewpoints, so our experiences differ. And so far as I know, we do not treat the word 'neutral' to NPOV. We do not ask editors to edit neutrally, the 'nutshell' states "Editors must write articles from a neutral point of view, representing all significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias.". That's actually different. And our guidelines and your opinion on tendentious labels and categories clearly conflict. In other words, your view of what our policy should be and what it is are not identical. You're welcome to your opinion but you should not use it to guide your editing of articles although of course you and anyone else are free to attempt to change our policies and guidelines. Dougweller (talk) 04:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Very well, I'm prepared to accept that you've seen new editors explicitly state all sorts of odd things. However, NPOV isn't an algorithm for allocating space to various non-neutral point of view; it's writing from a single point of view which is based on established facts and neutral in tone. WP:Words to watch#Contentious labels is just as much a guideline as those you have in mind, and gives better advice. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 09:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

About 'Original' Research

If you are so against 'original' research being in the mainstream of Wikipedia, why don't you make a section strictly for 'original research' since a great deal of new ideas do come from 'original research' which would never be known (if they were not allowed to be told about)? I thought that Wikipedia was striving for truth and excellence. Not just a few but, many are blocked out of revealing unknown new ideas. Having a section devoted to "new, original" ideas would eliminate a lot of Wikipedia's New Users' frustration.

Once, a long time ago I wrote an article in which one administrator eliminated my work (even banned my IP Address) while another administrator was very angry about it because it had so much useful knowledge in it. I never wrote again and, now, I don't think that I want to ever make Wikipedia better. I did not vandalize anything; I merely showed people a clearer image on how to learn something. I have even written something on a website in which both Google and Yahoo! put me in #1 spot. But, since you of Wikipedia do not want such excellence, I will never try to make your online encyclopedia better since you don't want new, better ideas. And, if you ever ban me from Wikipedia again, take note that I have four different computers with four different IP Addresses and I will still get the information I need for my research. But I will never try to make useful changes to your encyclopedia again--I will merely get the information off of it, put it into my word processor, change it for the better, put it on a CD, and still sell it to others for their better benefit than what you have. And, this is not meant as a threat--just as a "fact." Sincerely, Ruth Jacobsen.```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rujacgeh (talk • contribs) 15:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

In other words, you plan to be a parasite on the work of other Wikipedia editors. Sadly, you won't be the only one. Dougweller (talk) 15:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Define "parasite." Wikipedia is called "the free encyclopedia. Are you saying that no one can use it? I would rather have new sections called "Original, New Research" and "New, Original Ideas" so that New Users can truly make Wikipedia an all-encompassive encyclopedia and not one which does not "truly" make it this way. Otherwise, it can in no way be the "best, comprehensive" encyclopedia in "the WHOLE world." Or, do you have an aversion to "originality"? Only small minds do not accept better change and I don't think that you really want to be labeled that, do you? There must be people on Wikipedia who truly want all of the truth which can be accumulated for a better encyclopedia. Why are you so "negative"? Why don't you want change for the better?--Rujacgeh (talk) 16:10, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I was wandering past and heard the racket - the bottom line is this, the community does not want original research, if you don't like that fact, you can either get everyone to change their minds (unlikely) or you can set up your own blog/wiki and publish there (much easier). --Cameron Scott (talk) 16:14, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
So, how do I start my own blog/wiki? Maybe that's the answer!!!--Rujacgeh (talk) 16:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

can you help?

User:Wikiwatcher1 has been trolling around the Judaism page; see this bit of talk for a sample. He insists on using dictionary definitions over sources by Jewish scholars. I suspect he has a general agenda reflected in his POV pushing in other articles. I see you have had some experience dealing with him. WP:DE points out that a disruptive editor often evades detection because the disruptive edits are spread out among different articles. I think there may be just such a pattern here. Would you mind watching the Judaism page and see how he has been altering a consensus-version text without any consideration to points made by editors who have been working on the article for years? If you see any shenanigans you are familiar with, your experienced comment would help. Thanks. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:43, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I've commented on the talk page about the edit warring. I've also warned Wikiwatcher1. Could you look at Bani Isra'il, no longer a dab page, should it be a redirect do you think?

Vandalism Page

Just wanted to give you a heads up that I thought your vandalism explanation page was so hilariouseloquent that I decided to stealcopy it over to my userspace and use it on my talk page. It's attributed to you but I thought you might want to know. Is it okay if I link to the talk page on your namespace for improvements? --N419BH (talk) 00:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, but don't attribute it to me, at the bottom I have "I shamelessly stole this from User:J.delanoy.". Dougweller (talk) 13:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I saw that, but he doesn't seem to have it on his userspace anymore. I'll attribute it to both of you for now. Okay to link to your talk page about it? --N419BH (talk) 20:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Sure, go ahead. Dougweller (talk) 21:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 10 May 2010

Articles for deletion/The Irving Literary Society

I have a strong suspicion that there is a considerable amount of actual sockpuppetry going on (not just "meat" puppets). The article's creator Cmagha (talk · contribs) was blocked for 2 weeks on May 1st. On May 5th, two other contributors to the AfD, Coldplay332 (talk · contribs) and Lebowski 666 (talk · contribs), registered new accounts within 10 minutes of each other and both began editing another article created by Cmagha here. Same method of straight copy paste and highly unusual and non-standard method of formatting references, e.g. "at 203" instead of "p. 203". Lebowski 666 has also been editing another copypaste article created by Cmagha here.

There have been other dubious edits, e.g. Brb72 (talk · contribs) comments on Cornell1890's user page and then Hadem (talk · contribs) comes back to make minor copyedits to it two hours later.here. How would he know that Brb72 had placed that comment, especially since it was erroneously placed on the user page instead of the talk page? Meanwhile, Cmagha refers to himself in the third person here.

I assume (hope!) the closing administrator will look at some the "keeps" with a jaundiced eye. I'm reluctant to bring an SPI, as it will just look like I'm picking on them, and there are four other "keep" opinions from non-COI editors so it may well close as "keep" or "no consensus", anyway. If so, with that army on standby, it will be virtually impossible for anyone else to turn it into a decent article. Sigh! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 11:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, we'll see, I'll get back to you. Dougweller (talk) 11:44, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
It's also possible that some may have given each other their passwords, which would make it all the more complicated. Cmagha uses non-standard html coding for lists e.g. here and on his "vote count", here, the same coding used by Coldplay332, Lebowski 666, Brb72, and Tea36. They could have just been copying him, but my AGF well is starting to run dry. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Image reversion

Thanks for fixing the manning.jpg image uploaded by a vandal I blocked. I was about to and discovered you'd beat me to it! Dougweller (talk) 16:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Credits go to User:Chzz to be honest. He gave me a nudge in the #wikipedia-en-help channel asking if i could revert and remove the offending image, so if anyone deserves credit for it, its him ( I was merely swinging the mop at the target he pointed to). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 16:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

User:Separesh, User:Asraramiz and User:Ditanditan

These 3 users show exactly the same pattern of vandalism (including blanking and moving pages to unacceptable titles, such as using dragatory words in the title [12] [13]). Sometimes these 3 accounts are used in partially reverting each-other to fool others and avoid complete revert of their vandalism (for example in Bukan). Alefbe (talk) 22:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S: Add User:Ditictur to this list. Interestingly, none of these 4 accounts have been blocked yet (though their vandalism has been obvious). Alefbe (talk) 22:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, Asraramiz and Ditanditan blocked. Dicitur should be blocked the next time he clearly vandalises. I don't undertand the page moves going on that you and Separesh are involved in, but he probably should have been blocked before and should be blocked the next time he crosses the line. I'm surprised these editors haven't had more warnings, that may be the problem. Dougweller (talk) 13:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
These 4 users are not independent of eachother and they shouldn't be dealt independently (they are most probably sock-puppets of the same user or at least meat-puppets). Moving a page to a title with a derogatory term (like "Tajzietalab" which is a derogatory political term in Iran) is a clear intentional vandalism and Separesh has done it and Asraramiz has repeated it [14] [15]. Just this example is enough for them to be considered as vandal sock-puppets (or at least vandal meat puppets). Also, all these 4 users have been involved in blanking of Wikipedia pages (like Medes, Nowruz, ...). Alefbe (talk) 21:46, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Sockpuppet case

I notice that you have opened a WP:SOCK case against Moutray2010 (talk · contribs) and his assumed sock Fdiamond (talk · contribs). However, I don't see a warning on either page informing them of the investigation. Isn't it customary to inform a user that there is an ongoing investigation, so they can at least defend themself? WikiDan61ChatMe!ReadMe!! 11:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

No, actually. The instructions say "Notification is not mandatory, and may, in some instances, lead to further disruption or provide a sockpuppeteer with guidance on how to avoid detection.". And there is some guidance there in my evidence. Another Admin already blocked one of the socks, it's a WP:DUCK case in my opinion but I want to go through the formalities. Dougweller (talk) 11:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Fun with anon accounts

Hey Doug. I noticed your earlier posts about your suspicion that an IP was using multiple accounts on the Gavin Menzies article. I thought I would point out that 71.68.249.69 (talk · contribs) and 98.71.1.5 (talk · contribs) appear to be the same person/oddly-pluralized-group-of-people. I am personally not upset by this, because they haven't tried to appear as if they are separate editors, so I figure it's more a case of a person using two different computers (work and home, perhaps) or two different internet access points (wireless at the local coffee shop, etc.). Just thought I'd point it out. ClovisPt (talk) 17:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm more bothered about the behaviour, calling edits vandalism, threatening to block, etc. Also, the IPs seem to represent some group or organisation. They are somewhere near Columbia, S.C. Dougweller (talk) 18:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, insults, editwarring, threats to block, threats to avoid blocks, etc., are far more bothersome. I hope this will be resolved soon enough. Regards, ClovisPt (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed this earlier comment of yours: Talk:1421:_The_Year_China_Discovered_the_World#IP_socking_.26_pov_editing. I suppose were dealing with the same individual; this may no longer be current, but would any of this be grounds for blocking the two IPs 71.68.249.69 (talk · contribs) and 98.71.1.5 (talk · contribs)? ClovisPt (talk) 18:20, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
I think that looking at the history of the talk page of 71.68.249.69 (talk · contribs) that editor is ripe for a block, he should be reported to ANI the next time he steps out of line. I would support such a block but wouldn't make it myself due to my involvement. I'm not sure that the socking warrants a block yet. Dougweller (talk) 19:07, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

User_talk:Samofi

Seeing as how you warned this user here over name-calling, could you offer an opinion here? I'm liable to block him for the name-calling as I think a warning is insufficient at this point but if you have some further insights, I'd reconsider. There's also another issue. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you. Can I help?--Mychele Trempetich (talk) 16:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Wait a minute - Nefermaat and Itet have 15 children; Rahotep and Nofret have just six. I will wrote new sections on pages about Nefermaat and Rahotep, and I will tell when I will do that, and then we go on. Agree?--Mychele Trempetich (talk) 16:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


Please, can we start with Rahotep's six children? I am working on them right now and I will sent you a message. --Mychele Trempetich (talk) 16:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

You should redirect these pages - Prince Djedi
Prince Itu
Prince Neferkau
Princess Mereret
Princess Nedjemib
Princess Sethtet to this one - Prince Rahotep#Children.

We know something more about prince Djedi. So I think we should let his article.--Mychele Trempetich (talk) 16:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC) I take look on your edits, and I thank you. That's all.

The Wikipedia Signpost: 17 May 2010

User:Separesh and User:Ditictur again

Their last edits (in Iranian Kurdistan and List of Iranian cities by population) is just another example of their childish vandalism. I couldn't find a single constructive edit from this set of 4 accounts and they have been active for several months and apparently, nobody cares. This is another example of their vandalism which wasn't corrected for more than 3 weeks (after I reverted it, they have tried to remove it using different IPs and I think that page should be semi-protected for a while). Alefbe (talk) 04:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Why aren't these editors getting warnings? In particular, Ditictur's lastt warning was almost 2 months ago. Editors are reverting Separesh's edits to his. Dougweller (talk) 10:49, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
If I may... I noticed similar vandalism on here, perhaps it's the same person... --93.143.32.168 (talk) 16:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC) (Orijentolog)
Possibly, not exactly an active editor though. Dougweller (talk) 16:21, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio

Hello, I disagree with the copyvio on this part. The only part subject to copyvio criticism and corresponding to p.39 is the following:

"What resides at the center of the human state is Purusha, or Brahmâ considered "inside" (or "at the center" of) the human being. Purusha, in order that manifestation may be produced, must enter into correlation with another principle, although such a correlation is really non-existent in relation to the highest (uttama) aspect of Purusha, for there cannot in truth be any other principle than the Supreme Principle, except in a relative sense. The correlative of Purusha is then Prakriti, the undifferentiated primordial substance, a passive principle represented as feminine, while Purusha, also called Pumas, is the active principle, represented as masculine; and these two are the poles of all manifestation, though remaining unmanifested themselves. It is the union of these complementary principles which produces the integral development of the human individual state, and that applies relatively to each individual."

I can quote it if you prefer, and refer to the text in a note, but deleting the entire section for that is exqgeration. So I'll reintroduce the section and put the above part in quotes, with the reference. Thank you. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned 20:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I made a mess

Doug, I (A) cut the section Pharaohs in the bible from the article Pharaoh, (B) pasted it to Pharaoh of the Exodus, then (C) redirected that article to Pharaohs in the bible, intending to then create an article with that name covering both subjects. Steps A and B went fine, but step C never panned out - I can't create the new article. You might like to step in and undo or correct my botched job (please). PiCo (talk) 04:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you actually did, but I copied the stuff from PotE into a new article with the word Bible in capital letters, saved it, deleted it from PotE, fixed the redirect spelling, and it's there now. Dougweller (talk) 10:50, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you kind sir :) PiCo (talk) 10:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Patriarchy

Dougweller, I have - quite unexpectedly - run into a conflict with editor Hammy, who filed a report at AN/I (now closed0 against me and left several warnings on my talk page. Could you do me a favor an look at the edits I made to the Patriarchy article, and my explanation on the talk page (I began leaving comments perhaps a week ago. You do not have to read a lot of talk, it is just two or three sections and they are short) and tell me if I am out of line? Patriarchy is a sociological concpt although it has been used by historians and others, thus this article can draw on a wide range of approaches. I am concerned (as I always am in such cases) that an article can loose focus or that different views can be combined in ways that violate SYNTH. I respect your grasp of our core policies and would appreciate it if you could tell me if I am out of line - I KNOW I need to resist getting into an edit war with another editor. But my concernis: am I really of-base about my ESSAY and NOR concerns?

I do not want an RfC, at least not yet, but I do think that the article would benefit from the participation of more editors who know how the term is used in scholarly contexts. Any suggestions of what i can do? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up (although in my experience most people who say they are leaving come back). But I really am concerned with, whether in making the cuts I did to the article, I was throwing out the baby (relevant content) with the bathwater (NOR, ESSAY). Hammy was not only virtually an SPA, he really dominated the talk page, and this is a problem because any article can benefit from a diversity of views. If you ever have time to look at my original cuts (they do not add up to a lot) and can tell me if you think any of it should be restored, I'd be grateful ... Slrubenstein | Talk 15:32, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Columbus

Dougweller, for years a few of us have been trying to add factual information to the pages relating to Christopher Columbus so that readers can benefit from their reading of Wikipedia. For years you and your cronies have been removing our edits and reverting the pages back to an inaccurate representation of the facts. Lately I added information gathered from several authoritative historians (names and references were included) that is not new nor contested yet you keep removing this information saying it is my point of view which it is not. What can I and the other members of the Association Cristovao Colon need to do to add information to these pages without having it deleted every time? I would like to think that your job is to make sure the information added is credible and not to be targeting specific pages and specific individuals. Honestly I don't have time to keep going back and fixing what you guys keep breaking. Colon-el-Nuevo (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Note + suggestion

1. I added "Agesilaus (Xenophon)" to disambiguation page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agesilaus_(disambiguation) link).
2. I suggest you to make new page Themistogenes and redirect it to Xenophon; the first name was his pseudonym while he wrote Anabasis, as you can check on JSTOR and Britannica. It may confuse Wiki-readers that certain Themistogenes is not even mentioned in whole Wikipedia except on this list page. Cheers, --93.143.32.168 (talk) 14:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC) (Orijentolog)

I agree there should be an article, but haven't decided yet if it should just be a redirect as although that's the consensus I find things like "Greek commanders in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.: politics and ...Włodzimierz Lengauer - 1979 - 189 pages

Such reasoning assumes, of course, that Xenophon himself hides behind the name of Themistogenes of Syracuse, ... The opinion that Themistogenes is Xenophon's Qj^ pseudonym is quite widespread , though accepted too is the possibility of ..." & 'probably' so need to be a bit more research, we may actually need a stub on this. It's a bad time for me, life is hectic.

In my opinion the best solution is to make redirect with making mention in article "Xenophon" that there's general consensus he wrote under name "Themistogenes of Syracuse", although it's hypothesis made by both ancient (Plutarch) and modern sources. If you make specific article "Themistogenes", only thing you can mention is mine last sentence. I found one analogical article example - Bardiya: it encompasses both legitimate king Smerdis and usurper Gaumata, and it includes (by far larger academic) discussion. Also, I'll ask MinisterForBadTimes for his opinion... --93.143.39.39 (talk) 15:21, 22 May 2010 (UTC) (Orijentolog)

No purpose

No purpose to this post other than to say hello and hope all is well and that you're getting ready to enjoy a great summer. :-) Take care. MarmadukePercy (talk) 03:49, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, the same to you! Dougweller (talk) 05:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

His Majesty's back!

Hi, nice to see you again. I've found another suspected sockpuppet of User:Yongle the Great, User:Wuxinghongqi05. I've listed the case at SPI, so what should we do this time? 暗無天日 contact me (聯絡) 03:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, away for a couple of days. I've blocked him, keep an eye out for more! The IP range, if it needs reblocking, is 123.23.240.0/20 if you need to ask at ANI. Say Nishkid64 blocked it before. Dougweller (talk) 19:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 24 May 2010

Awards

Can I give rewards to some user? I mean, am I allowed to do so?--Mychele Trempetich (talk) 09:24, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean barnstars? Sure. Dougweller (talk) 09:51, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Breein

You unblocked Breein1007, unfortunately you did not lift the autoblocks, [16]. nableezy - 16:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Oops, I was heading out the door as I was unblocking and forgot. Now done, I hope! Dougweller (talk) 17:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Reverting

Just curious: why did you feel the need to revert Crystal skull to include a link to a redirect instead of a direct link? Thanks! 74.102.195.24 (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

You ever try editing with a netbook? (Especially one where the cursor keeps jumping around). I didn't mean to do that and I've undone it. Thanks for pointing it out. Dougweller (talk) 19:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Posting Again Because you did not answer- Columbus

Dougweller, for years a few of us have been trying to add factual information to the pages relating to Christopher Columbus so that readers can benefit from their reading of Wikipedia. For years you and your cronies have been removing our edits and reverting the pages back to an inaccurate representation of the facts. Lately I added information gathered from several authoritative historians (names and references were included) that is not new nor contested yet you keep removing this information saying it is my point of view which it is not. What can I and the other members of the Association Cristovao Colon need to do to add information to these pages without having it deleted every time? I would like to think that your job is to make sure the information added is credible and not to be targeting specific pages and specific individuals. Honestly I don't have time to keep going back and fixing what you guys keep breaking. Colon-el-Nuevo (talk) 19:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC) 71.111.215.249 (talk) 23:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Very inappropriate behavior of administrator Ckatz

You might like to have a look at these episodes.[17],[18],and [19].

59.95.9.117 (talk) 01:16, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Then take it to ANI, but note that the last person who did this was a disruptive editor who ended up being indefinitely blocked. I see no problems here. Dougweller (talk) 05:26, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Sun tzu art of war institute

Hi dougweller, I had created the above mentioned page but it was deleted under g G8 . Seperately I recieved in my inbox that it was due to G12. I am the manager of the institute and have submitted request for permission of copyright but before I repost will like ur input on G8. Appreciate it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xenium88 (talk • contribs) 05:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

As manager, what you really should do is request that someone else create the article at Wikipedia:Requested articles, as you have a conflict of interest - see WP:COI. Dougweller (talk) 10:49, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Question

Am I still about to be blocked without further warning? Ceoil (talk) 20:44, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

As I recall, I struck the warning. I said in any case I wouldn't block you. You told me to back off and asked me to get lost and I haven't posted on your talk page again. I don't know why you are continuing this, but I'm going to bed. Dougweller (talk) 21:13, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Night, you deserve a rest. But you maligned me on two pages, and when I faulted you on the first -wrong offence - you shifted and came up with another reason - insufficiently clear edit summaries. Since you are so free with badly researched openion, allow me the same. I dont respect you. Ceoil (talk) 21:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Dougweller (hopefully one more thing before you go). Did you approve of this? If not and that part of your comment was meant to stand, could you please revert or let me know? The closure was just to limit the same thing being discussed in 2 locations so there's no issue with clarifying a comment you previously made - but there would be an issue if your comments are being clarified in a fashion that you did not intend. Ncmvocalist (talk) 21:46, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Ncmvocalist you are sturring as is you habit. Go with the obvious, there is a good little boy. Ceoil (talk) 21:55, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Ignoring your bad faith assumptions and incivility, perhaps you have difficulty understanding basic talk page guidelines Ceoil - do not edit others comments. Were you given permission to do so or not? Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Both ye guys miss the point. But like, I have had worse from better. Ncmvocalist you are a wonk -talk page guidelines - he warned me and near blodked me for percieved slights. Wake the fuck up from your process haze. Ceoil (talk)
Unlike Dougweller, I will not strike my final warning to you; do not edit others comments without their permission, even if you disagree with what is said, and do not make any further uncivil edits, be it personal attacks or bad faith assumptions like you have done on this page. I'm aware of the misunderstanding about your rv edit summaries and didn't think it was an issue. However, that misunderstanding does not justify the type of commentary that you have made on this page. Ncmvocalist (talk) 22:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Good man, you are following the rules. And not thinking. Youll be an admin some day, Ncmvocalist, dont give up hope. Ceoil (talk) 22:29, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Ceoil clearly needs to try and learn to WP:FOC. --dab (��) 22:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

What content? Look at who I am fighting with. Or do you mean substance, but dont know how to say that and point instead to blue linked policies. No substance here, its all about apperance, rules and the veneer of civility. Ceoil (talk) 22:59, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Ncmvocalist has move to AN/I. Your considered openion would be appreciated. You too, Dbachmann as you are so full of commentry and free with words. I'd be trilled to hear from you. Ceoil (talk) 23:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
It's closed. I was, by the way, going to apologise for templating a regular, but you told me to get lost. You've got no business striking other people's comments and as a regular you must know that. You got off lightly at ANI because this discussion and your talk page comments weren't mentioned. Dougweller (talk) 05:25, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
And you did not strike my comment after I said I was going to bed, you struck it over an hour before that. Dougweller (talk) 05:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
Added: "Since the stele recounts the victory of an Aramean king over a "king of Israel" [81] the translation of "BYTDWD" as "House of David" is not illogical." BHhunter (talk) 20:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC) BHhunter

Re: Ambrosius Aurelianus

Hmm. I don't know what to say about this article, seeing how I wrote what is, in essence, its present shape back in 2002 &, except for some edits in 2004 -- & adding a much-needed source a few weeks ago -- I haven't touched it since. I'm not sure what to say about my early attempt to follow NPOV in the article -- which is possibly why it reads like a personal essay -- & I'm not sure that I could properly rewrite it to better fit current Wikipedia expectations. (Sometimes I feel too protective about my contributions.) As for the fact you don't have time to get to it -- no problem: except for the section on "Ambrosius in fiction", no one has made any significant changes to it in the last 8 years -- which disappoints me, but life goes on -- so I guess there is no hurry to fix it. (PS, I hope I don't sound sarcastic or bitter here; that's not my intent. I'm simply puzzled, & a little sad, over yet another of my articles surviving from 2002/2003 almost exactly as I had written it, & would have done more about it than my one recent edit had I the time & inclination to do so.) -- llywrch (talk) 05:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if I seemed critical. 8 years is a long time in terms of changes here in expectations, and I think all of us who can write good essays probably started off using the same style as our essays. I can understand disappointment in the lack of attention to it. Hopefully sometime this summer I can bring a fresh eye to it, once I have my books, etc to hand. Dougweller (talk) 05:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
No you didn't sound critical... Well, OK, I'd be happier if the "personal essay" tag were replaced with another one that conveyed the same idea that "this article needs a lot of work", but I'm not going to expect anything to be changed. My response was based more on bafflement over an article I really hadn't concerned myself about in a long while (I'd be much happier if I were to simply get any one of a dozen articles on Ethiopian history written that I've been putting off doing) & I wouldn't have my feelings hurt if it were thoroughly re-written -- as long as it was a clear improvement. (For example, that's what Mike Christie did with Aelle of Sussex, & he ended up creating a Featured Article out of it.) And after reviewing what I wrote, I was honestly worried that I might inadvertently come across as "sarcastic or bitter". No sense creating ill feelings accidentally; I do enough of that intentionally. :) -- llywrch (talk) 06:38, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Traditional Wing Chun and reliable sources noticeboard

Just did a response over at the relaible sources noticeboard regarding that article and what my actual stance was (vs. the misscharacterized representation). Likewise, while I agree the section could use a more neutral wording, it does need to exist for neutrality (which I covered in my response as well). I'll put back only the very neutraly worded statement "Other Yip students, including Yip's own sons claim there was never a special version taught to William Cheung by Yip Man." once I find the exact IKF issue with the VTAA response. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 01:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

And I really have to say, I don't appreciate the accusor's continued accusations about me and continued agressive tone, which is really bordering on complete ignoring of WP:Civil and WP:Assume good faith. If I wasn't interested in a discussion or resolution, I wouldn't have participated in the discussion on the noticeboard, nor try and familiarize everyone with the subject matter when I realize not everyone would be. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 03:20, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Clarification please

You recently wrote in the edit summary for this edit that you agreed with Sam the Ghost over an entry on the disambiguation page Sharaf al-Din.

As I wrote in my reply, I thought I had made sure the reference to Sharifuddin in the article on Guantanamo captive Abdul Matin was piped to Sharifuddin (Taliban intelligence leader). The article's revision history shows I had not done so. That is fixed now.

In my reply I explained why I strongly disagreed with Sam the Ghost's comments that seemed to say that redlinks were only appropriate on disambiguation pages in exceptional cases. WP:BLP1e says that individuals who are known for only a single event should be covered in the article on that event. It seems to me that this implies that the use of redlinks on diambiguation pages that also contain a bluelink to "the event", or reasonble equivalent, should be routine.

Were you agreeing that redlinks were only appropriate in very exceptional cases? Geo Swan (talk) 15:30, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Moderation Required on the article "Cheikh Anta Diop"

Hello, I would just like to ask for your input on the article in question as there has been a bit of an edit war over the past three days. The controversy centres around the use of the term "Afrocentric" to describe Mr. Diop and his views, and also the notion, by one user in particular, that Diop was an Egyptologist. In my view, there really is no question to the former as Diop is often cited as such by his proponents (read here Molefi Asante, Ivan van Sertima, John Henrik Clarke, et al) and opponents alike. As far as the latter, I will charge that there is absolutely no evidence that Diop had any formal training in egyptology, or archeology for that matter, and his work is generally considered pseudohistoric by the mainstream egyptological community. To be quite blunt, as far as I'm concerned, the article as it currently stands is completely unacceptable. A cursory read would leave the previously uninformed the impression that modern day scholarship has proven formerly "scoffed at" theories advanced by Diop to be in fact true. Now I'm quite sure that you know very well given your line of work that this in fact couldn't be further from the truth. Equally peculiar is the fact that throughout the entire article, there is not a single mention of Cheikh Anta Diop's noteriety amongst Afrocentric apologists. It is my hope that the highest standards of academic integrity will be preserved in this matter; thus any assistance that you may be able to provide would be greatly appreciated. ~Fawal~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fawal24 (talk • contribs) 21:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 7 June 2010

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_review:_User:Valkyrie_Red

You might be interested in this if you haven't seen it already. It seems to have been sparked by this comment that mentions you: [20]. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:37, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It's seemed pretty clear to me for a while that he sees this as a bit of a battlefield. He really didn't like other editors getting involved through the RfC, did he? Dougweller (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Which is odd, since he was busy canvassing people for his own side. I also find it strange that this fellow was blocked while other editors behave in far more disruptive ways without attracting any attention...but consistency is not Wikipedia's strong suit. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:32, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
We don't deal with a lot of disruption we should deal with. I've got a situation right now I should probably report, but I'm just too busy and my laptop keeps crashing! Dougweller (talk) 00:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
In recognition of your work in this now completed CCI. Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you. Hard to believe it took almost a year to wrap, but that one was particularly grueling. :) Whoot! It's gone! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Savvy newbie

I assume good faith without having to have a WP policy about it, but I'm seeing something funny at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Gore Effect. User:Kindzmarauli has made 3 contributions there that seem above the level of a newbie. According to User talk:Kindzmarauli he's only been around for 4 days. Of course he could have gained experience as an IP and have just gotten around to establishing an account. Or he could be experienced in another venue and be naturally sharp. But, he could also have established a new account as a, well, a sock puppet. I'm not accusing or upset, just wondering. Yopienso (talk) 22:09, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I can understand you wondering, and I do too, but I don't see any problems yet that would require Admin action - and I don't see a pattern of edits that ring a bell, as I think we just need to AGF at the moment. The edits at the AfD don't seem problematic, there are legitimate opinions on both sides. Dougweller (talk) 23:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, and thanks so much for your advice. Yopienso (talk) 03:15, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
Check out what s/he did to the Sarah Palin article. How could s/he edit a locked article, anyway? Yopienso (talk) 03:51, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
It's semi-protected, not fully protected. There's still no cause or need for admin intervention despite the edit. Dougweller (talk) 00:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

I just realized my reply to you might have sounded snippy: it wasn't meant to, and I appreciate your interest. I've found it's all too rare. IronDuke 14:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Ups... one notice

I just checked some facts on article "Battle of Thermopylae" and I saw someone removed "decisive" so I put it back. After that I saw your message on discussion board which says: "Look at the discussion just above on the desire by some to call it a decisive victory."

Well, it actually isn't mine or any other's "desire" - it was put there by MinisterForBadTimes who made 90% of all article. It was reverted by some unknow IP address as you can check it here, and then MinisterForBadTimes put it back with an explanation on top: "Also, it is a decisive victory by any standards, and I'm no POV pusher.".

I reverted it more then month ago and I didn't noticed that Simonos started POV battle on discussion board. In any case, just notice that decisive victory isn't "mine invention", but of original author (MinisterForBadTimes). I don't share all views about history with him, but I have huge respect for what he did on Wikipedia about ancient history. I also know that article isn't his copyright but changing such an important things is the same as painting over Leondaro's Mona Lisa smile. Of course, if you believe that he's wrong, revert it and I wont say a word. Cheers. --93.142.166.222 (talk) 05:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC) (Orijentolog)

I basically agree with you about MinisterForBadTimes, but we all make mistakes, at least I know I do. I think that we need reliable academic sources for statements like this, it's not up to us to decide what is decisive or pyrhhic, etc. I guess you could argue that such a word could be used if there was consensus but I'm not convinced that would be right. The problem is I've seen edit wars over these words elsewhere, and the obvious answer to such edit wars is to say that we go with what the sources say. Part of the problem of course is Infoboxes which are an attempt to summarise what is sometimes complex information. If the article had sources saying it was a decisive battle I'd have no problem with it. But like leads, infoboxes shouldn't have information not in the body of the article. Dougweller (talk) 11:21, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Could this be another puppet of Orijentolog the banned user? At any rate, at least I started a discussion in the talk page and not indiscriminately and silently/stealthily change stuff in the article. Simanos (talk) 21:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes Simonos, I agreed to participate a little bit but acknowledging the authorities in the same time.
Dougweller, indeed we all make mistakes, that's why I'm permanently banned (haha). OK - I removed "decisive", but I have to notice you there is one big problem about "Decisive victory" classification: Term is defined not long ago (Colin Gray, "Defining and Achieving Decisive Victory", 2002) so even that article itself has lack of sources. On other side, terms like "Pyrrhic victory" are almost 2000 years old. --93.143.9.24 (talk) 05:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)(Orijentolog)
Please check this change at Greco-Persian Wars (I hope I'm not bored with this one again); it's not kind a dispute, just adding some more facts and information - for example, there was big defect by excluded Artaxerxes I, who was CINC for 16 years during the war.--93.143.58.151 (talk) 09:59, 14 June 2010 (UTC)(Orijentolog)
Hello! Well, I'll happily admit that for a long time I supported the inclusion of "decisive" in the infobox, but I was scarcely the first person to call it decisive. But I now agree with Dougweller that, without a reliable source (or five) to support the assertion, it shouldn't be in the infobox. I guess I've also got rather tired of constant edit wars in infoboxes, which are easily the least important parts of articles. "Persian Victory" is perfectly adequate; it's my opinion that despite the heroic last stand, it was a decisive Persian victory; but obviously, my view is not a reliable source, and shouldn't go in the article.  M.F.B.T.  Yes, Minister? 06:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 14 June 2010

Cyrus cylinder

Hi Doug, you provided useful input to Cyrus cylinder a while back. You might be interested to know that I've done a lot more work on the article since then and have nominated it for featured article status - see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cyrus Cylinder/archive1. Any comments would be most welcome. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:22, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Violence Against Women Act

i reverted your edit & made a note on the talk page - any discussion on the talk page would be most welcome. thanx YouAndMeBabyAintNothingButCamels (talk) 07:01, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The Nennius Problem

Dear Mr. Doug, you reinstated the word mythical here [21]. I consider this a weasel word, being that they can neither be proved nor disproved. Scientific testing of the human genome proved that all Europeans are decedent from seven fathers. Just like Nennius (but more directly from the Bible) stated. Nate5713 (talk) 16:38, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Please see the lead: "The Trojan genealogy of Nennius was written in the Historia Brittonum of Nennius and was created to merge Greek mythology with Christian themes. It was probably written by the Welsh monk Nennius in the 5th century, although there is little known about him. It serves little historic value but does establish the mythical genealogical line of Aeneas of Troy, Brutus of Britain, and Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome." This is a mythical genealogy, and thus 'mythical' is correct. What certainly is not correct is leaving it out and thus having the article state that those 3 really are the ancestors of Europeans. Your link to Sykes, by the way, doesn't mention fathers does it? Thanks for letting me know.
Mythical is not a weasel word, by the way. We have a whole project on mythology, if you want to discuss this further, start at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mythology. Dougweller (talk) 17:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
The Trojan genealogy of Nennius is not listed under Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mythology. As to my link, (well, actually, my source is do not open by John Farrndon, page 154, but I needed an internet link) it mentions seven mothers. DNA testing can only trace women, while genealogies only mention men. Therefore, I extrapolated, assuming that for every 1 mother, there is 1 father. Nate5713 (talk) 03:18, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
It's part of the wikiproject, see its talk page at Talk:Trojan genealogy of Nennius. Even if Sykes is correct, and we don't know, there could be 7 mothers, one father. My genealogy certainly mentions women as well as men. And no scientific testing can determine the name of any of the fathers. Farndon is a popuar writer, having written over 300 books it seems, and we wouldn't use him as a source, we'd look for his sources, although that isn't actually relevant here. Dougweller (talk) 05:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
My point in removing the word is to stress the fact that they can neither be proved nor disproved. Everyone knows how Europeans got to Europe, but there names and families are open for opinion. Nennius (and his sources) are the oldest text that gives such opinion.Nate5713 (talk) 02:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
Reliable sources call this mythology. As an encyclopedia, we report what reliable sources have to say about a subject. These names are names of mythical characters according to reliable sources and that should be what we say. Dougweller (talk) 05:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
What reliable sources. Nennius wrote his book as precisely as a chronicle, maybe he knew something that that no one in the present day would know. Imagine if (or when) all references except 1 encyclopedia were lost by the year 2900 A.D. Such people as Ramesses I, Tiglath-Pileser and the Zhou Dynasty are called preposterous works of mythology by "reliable sources" of 2900 A.D. Thus any sources from the modern day have no backing (assuming you any sources yo give me). Thus unless someone challenged Nennius personally, you cannot challenge me personally. Nate5713 (talk) 00:15, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back

I do not remember! There is always something happening here that I think could stand for some additional good judgment, so it could I m sure have been any number of things. Nothing specific I can recall. Welcome back! Slrubenstein | Talk 16:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Royal Forest

Another herfordshire case! On the Royal Forest page there is sentence saying 'irchenfield forest,herfordshire'. Do you know whether its hertfordshire or herefordshire? Gobbleswoggler (talk) 17:15, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Herefordshire this time! Turns out we have 2 articles on the missionary order. Dougweller (talk) 17:25, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

List of future transport developments in the East of England

Again! There is another herforshire. It is opposite where it says 'thameslink programme' Do you know this one? Gobbleswoggler (talk) 17:30, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

That would be Luton in Bedfordshire, if the geographical reference is to Luton. But most of it (Thames link) is in London, so I'm a bit confused. Although I know some of the geography, I'm mainly checking via Google. Oops, dinner burning. Dougweller (talk) 17:35, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Quit meddling in my affairs!

I was just about to undeniably prove that Resurrection Day originated from the anointed Son of God, and not some Greek sex goddess. and I would have gotten away with too, if wasn't for you meddling Kid! Nate5713 (talk) 00:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
I'M NOT JOKING!!! I'M JUST HUMOROUS!!! I like to have some fun while I make my point. Nate5713 (talk) 13:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Now I remember:

I think the first two paragraphs of Marriage are weasily and uninformative. I began a discussion here that went nowhere. Mostly becaue of the opposition of two editors, and lack of interest of anyone else. Even if you disagree wtih my proposed solution, I wonder if you agree that the article is weak. I don't have the time to rewrie the whole thing and thought that just a better lead would be a start in the right direction ... I have given up, but please take a look and at least consider whether or not this is important to you. Thanks. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 21 June 2010

Re: using two accounts

I really have two accounts due to a blunder on my part. You see, I have two computers, so the other computer does not automatically log me in. and I forgot my password. So I was forced, and am continued to be forced to make a new account. Nate5713 (talk) 12:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

By the way, not that I love this stimulating conversation, but the constant communication with you is starting to get annoying. Are you like my Wikipedia counselor or something?

Sort of in this case, I don't doubt your good faith about the two accounts. If you think the other one shouldn't be blocked, you can go to the help desk at WP:HELPDESK and ask if it should be blocked. If you were to keep using the other one, you could get into a bit of trouble. So far as the Nennius thing goes, you've been posting to my page and could just discuss it on the article talk page. I don't want to be heavy handed but we have guidelines and policies for a reason. Dougweller (talk) 14:35, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

Please be specific as to what is considered vandalism here on Wikipedia, because clearly I am being accused of such a thing since I chose to add a disclaimer to a controversial article (which is biased in itself because it has a term "conspiracy theory" in its title), directing people to conduct deeper research. It is a fact that Wikipedia often produces incorrect and biased information, that is why it is prohibited from use in almost every college/school/educational setting (that I know of). I understand that Wikipedia needs to be monitored, and with a right, but administrators are at this point monitoring a completely wrong edit. I am actually encouraging people to dig deep and to form an opinion After they have conducted a thorough research instead of just pulling up the first article that comes up on Google (which is the article in question), with a biased title - there is no opinion in that. I am also in support of the internet Self-Regulation but Wikipedia policies seem to be in violation of the First Amendment which protects free speech. This is, after all a free, open website. My comment was peaceful, professional and had no malicious nor defamatory intent, therefore while it is non compliant with Wikipedia terms, but is not in violation of free speech and certainly is not vandalism.

Have a great day! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adnezal (talk • contribs) 19:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

"Wikipedia policies seem to be in violation of the First Amendment" - No, whilst the First Amendment protects the right to freedom of speech, it doesn't give anyone a right to write whatever they want on any website. It means you could set up a website saying what you like, not that you can go on someone else's website and write what you like. Whilst Wikipedia invites anyone to edit, the organisation that is responsible for hosting the site still has the right to decide whether to remove the right of an individual to edit.
That Wikipedia articles are sometimes incorrect is an unfortunate reality. If you notice something that is incorrect then please correct it or, as is probably more appropriate here, raise the issue on the article's talk page. As to the issue of the page's title, I doubt you would find consensus to support removing "conspiracy theory" from the title. Adambro (talk) 19:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Adambro. I wish people who complained about their free speech being violated would read the First Amendment which as interpreted today bars any US governmental body (federal, state or local) from passing any laws " "respecting an establishment of religion", impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances." It gives no one any rights concerning private venues, be they newspapers, radio or tv stations, or websites. There is no right to free speech here. And vandalism is attempting to bring Wikipedia into disrepute, which is how I interpreted it. Or just being disruptive, which is another way of looking at Adnezal's edits. Dougweller (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Your insistence that I read the First Amendment is an infringement of my First Amendment rights. I demand that you apologize and resign your position as Chief Wikipedia Thought Police Constable immediately. ClovisPt (talk) 00:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Reminding people to research a serious subject outside of a source which has apparent favoritism toward encouraging matters to be swept away as "conspiracies" is disruptive only to those who are not in favor of any sort of critical thinking. My edits simply stated something that can actually better the quality of the articles on Wiki, which will actually help its declining reputation in the long run. (As "Dougweller" clearly stated) "There is no right to free speech here" shows that the administrators of this venue have no interested in encouraging people to think, speak of seek further information. I also am not quite certain who here is insisting on the user above to read his amendments, but maybe he should. I don't mind doing that either. It is always good to brush up on the freedoms that you do have, which are ever so slightly being monitored and edited by those who do not care for expression. I, also, doubt that I will find any sort of a consensus here, on removing that part of the article's title and that is actually why I wasn't looking for it. Consensus is received from those who can interpret that label for what it really is. While trying to make an example of my edit, you have actually showed Me how pointless your jobs can be at times and I mean no offense, I do understand where this can be applied. Pick on someone who is actually causing problems on Wikipedia, not the ones who are making a small effort to solve them. I'll be more than happy to include this is my upcoming student film; it's a small example of how the minds are occupied with someone else's battles. And, I will be more than happy to not edit the contents of this site, because, really, it is a waste of time. Best regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adnezal (talk • contribs) 09:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

You have misinterpreted my comments about free speech entirely - if you include this in your student film you will be falsely representing what I said and how Wikipedia works, which you obviously don't understand yet - which wouldn't be a problem if you'd accept that there is a learning curve and that virtually all editors have misunderstandings at one time or another. This is an encyclopedia reporting what reliable and verifiable sources have to say about a subject (or rather that is what we are trying to be, many articles don't achieve this of course). Personal commentary does not belong in our articles any more than it would belong in the Britannica. ClovisPt by the way was jokingly referring to me. Dougweller (talk) 11:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
What, you've never been misquoted in a student film? I try to have it done at least once a month.--Cúchullain t/c 13:00, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I understand how Wikipedia works, I am not illiterate, I am capable of reading terms and policies before I sign up for something. But, if you wish to not be "misunderstood" than I suggest you leave room for interpretation, because your statement was clear and to the point. You have also misunderstood me for a "vandalizer". Do not worry, however. I will include this whole conversation here and people can form their own opinions based on what they see; I do respect objectivity. Being that Wikipedia is Not a real encyclopedia at all, and that not every article achieves accuracy then this site should very well contain a disclaimer - as soon as you open it, that encourages to people to conduct actual research before they assume that Wikipedia is providing correct information. Do you have any idea how many students fail their classes because they derive large portions of their studying material from Wikipedia? And, that simply happens because they assume that everything is correct. Why? Because there isn't a visible disclaimer anywhere advising them of potential misinformation - which was my entire point in the first place. It is something that the operators of this site do not think about and, honestly, it should be the first priority, if you are insisting on protecting Wikipedia integrity, that is. You as an administrator do not seem to understand this. I chose to apply this thought to a very controversial article, which is something I have been researching for many years and I felt that I was within every right to advise people to go read beyond an article (which by the way is the very first search result on Google - how much does Wikipedia pay to be the priority result on the most popular search engine?) I am certainly not trying to overstep my boundaries or be rude, but we clearly do not see eye to eye on this issue. I completely understand that there are too many inappropriate people who have no respect or common sense, and those are the kind to watch out for and you need to protect this site from them, but to try to 'shut someone up' because they put up a disclaimer on an article full of disinformation is an entirely different issue for me. Best regards, A.

Google doesn't take payment for ordinary search results, it has to do with links, but this isn't the place to discuss this. If you want to make basic changes in how Wikipedia works, my talk page is not the place. Take it to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Don't try to put disclaimers in articles. But before you do, there are a number of templates that can be added, see Wikipedia:Template messages but some of these have to be justified on the article's talk page and if objected to you may have to seek WP:consensus Dougweller (talk) 14:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

For the removal of one of those edits to my talk page (although some of them are still present). There's enough info on my userpage that someone could reseach sex offender databases and see that I've never committed any crimes (haven't even been caught for my constant jaywalking), but I guess there totally couldn't be any other "Ian Thomson"s in the world. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Do you want more diffs deleted? Dougweller (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm going to be teaching public school in about a year. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't care, but I honestly don't trust the intelligence of a lot of people in charge of my school district. Pretty much everything after this would be good, if it's no trouble. I'm considering applying for adminship some time (although I've got a bunch on my plate at the moment), I may be able to apply and remove it myself before anyone in the district would see it, if it'd be any trouble on your part. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
It's no trouble, and best if someone else does it. I can still see the edit summary but presumably you can't. I guess you noticed I blocked Lan.thomson. Dougweller (talk) 16:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, thank you, and thank you for that block as well. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Trojan genealogy of Nennius

Looks like this has ended with an amicable resolution. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 04:23, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I just wish I had the time or inclination -- it had virtually no content about the genealogy before all this, and I haven't added much although there's quite a bit more that could be added. Dougweller (talk) 08:48, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Reviewer rights

I would assume so -- but when I tried to test the new Pending Changes feature (see Wikipedia:Pending changes, in case you forgot the name of the page as I just did), I couldn't access some of the features I thought I should be able to. So I'm playing with options at the moment, trying to figure out if something's broken -- & if so where. -- llywrch (talk) 08:10, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Let me know then, will you? I've done one reversion but that's all. Dougweller (talk) 08:31, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Jorge Stolfi/Pre-Siberian American Aborigines

The article Pre-Siberian American Aborigines which I had created some years ago was posted on the AfD on december 27, 2009 and the vote was closed on january 2, 2010, for deletion, based on the results of a bungled Google search --- all of that before I had a chance to see the notification. I got the article restored to my user space as User:Jorge Stolfi/Pre-Siberian American Aborigines, but that was deleted too at some unknown time while I was kept away from Wikipedia by my real-life work.

The article is about a controversial but legitimate scientific topic --- human presence in the Americas before the post-ice-age migrations posited by the standard out-of-Siberia theory. Such alternative theories have been published in scientific journals and are backed by substantial (and growing) archaeological evidence. The article did not have many references simply because it had been created before they were required, and even before the<ref> mechanism ws available. It may contain substandard parts but those could easily have been edited out or moved to the Talk page. The arguments used on the original AfD are bogus; for one thing, the title does not show up on Google because there are several alterative (and competing) theories for such early Americans, each called other names by their authors; the title is just a general phrase that tries to encompass them all while being as politically correct as possible.

Please restore the article to my user space. I do intend to work on it, perhaps in the next school vacations (January 2011) — although I also have a few thousand articles on my watchlist that will need tending too. Sincerely --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 03:38, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Userification is not for indefinite storage. That's simply too long a period of time. When you are ready to work on it you can ask again, there is no rush and no need for it to be userfied until you are able to find time to work on it. Our article Paleo-Indians already covers (although not adequately) the basic time period in any case, as it says "Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia (eastern Alaska), ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago." and the one you wish to work on would be a duplicate. Dougweller (talk) 04:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, thanks for your opinion. But please restore the article and its talk page to my user space. Whatever its state now, a substantial amount of serious work (mine and probably others' --- I can't even tell that now!) went into that article. I will work on it if and when I feel like it. I am not your employee; you can't delete my work in progress just because you think I am not working fast enough, and I don't need yor permission to write a draft on a legitimate topic. The article should not have been deleted in the fist place, but since it has then at least let me have access to it. If you can't be of help, then at least do not be a nuisance. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 03:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
PS. Dear Dougweller, perhaps you didn't realize it: but when the article was first deleted, it was implied that it was just baloney and original research. Given my profession and my track record in wikipedia, I took that as very serious personal offense --- which, if you check the dates, I was not given any decent chance to respond to. Deleting the article again from my user space was not only doubling the offense --- again, without giving me any chance to respond --- but also a blatant abuse of administrative privileges. I don't know your involvement in the two episodes, but I don't care; I don't need excuses, I just want access to my work, and the chance to respond to those offenses by cleaning it up. Please. (And, by the way, the article is not about the Siberian "paleoindians" of the other article, but on very different claims and research; which I do happen to be somewhat familiar with, but in which I have no participation or personal involvement whatsoever.) All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 03:08, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for emailing me a copy. That will do.All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:32, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
PS. I may not have created the article but I believe I gave it its present name, during a general reaorganization of articles on american aborigines ad such. If you had nothing to do with the deletions, then accept my apopolgies for the spilled bile. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Fragment_Earth Speedy deletion protest

Delete No evidence of notability, self-published. Dougweller (talk) 13:03, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

This is well stated within the opening body of my article itself and therefore of no surprise and not a legitimately shocking claim to have made. can you state a reason of greater concern than this? -- because lacking notability and being self published is not a crime of warrant. everyone starts somewhere, even wikipedia. i lack notability and i am self published because this is inline with my development scheme. i am if you must know almost trying not to be discovered. But most certainly not submitting myself to any consideration of publishing houses or reviewers. therefore your requirements to be included in wikipedia would be contrary to my very business model, and ethically over stepping your boundaries by more than a tolerable amount.

Article of question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fearth

my article contains a boat load of new, accurate, encyclopedic information. from the source, me, on a fictional subject of no priorly established concern to anyone. this is likely your greatest problem, but given the lack of an established field such as i raise this is not a problem of concern to anyone, yet you judge me by the same measure you might a physics paper... who verifies me? i do, that is who -- this is fiction not physics, you should relax.

is there any dispute the book exists? is there any dispute i wrote it? is there any dispute the subject i claim its about is not what it is about?

until and when someone disputes me publicly, let it be handled on the page as it would be any other page. fill my page with flags and markers. but do not delete me simply because my business model of not wishing to be discovered before my story has had time to develop properly does not come adorned with the requirements some rubber stamper of yours previously established as a broad basis requirement for submissions, without considering all the fields it might effect.

cite changes that are within my capacity to make and i will make them. but dont cite fiction for lack of notability. its fiction! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fearth (talk • contribs)

You need to read Wikipedia:Notability (books). Among other things, Wikipedia is not in any way a place to start or to promote anything. Dougweller (talk) 09:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 28 June 2010

Yongle the Great again

I believe User:Peter I the Great is another sock of Yongle the Great again. I checked his contributions log, and as I expected, he's editing articles on the Ming Dynasty again. He gave himself away once more by choosing an "emperor" username. This time, it's Peter I of Russia. 暗無天日 contact me (聯絡) 13:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I gave him a welcome template and a request to use edit summaries. I did make a mistake once, don't want to do that again, but I agree and have been watching him. Dougweller (talk) 13:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
He's really a pain in the ass. Is there any way to permanently block him from editing? 暗無天日 contact me (聯絡) 13:51, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
A range block would help - he uses a lot of IP addresses, but range blocks can catch up innocent editors. I'll ask Tim Song. Dougweller (talk) 13:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Here're some defining characteristics of Yongle the Great that may come in handy when we're looking out for his sockpuppets:
  • Edits articles related to the Ming Dynasty
  • Usually uses a Chinese emperor's or any other famous historical ruler's name as his username, but there are also exceptions, such as "2008 Summer Olympics", "14 Blades"
  • Sometimes makes drastic changes to certain articles, including replacing references
暗無天日 contact me (聯絡) 14:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Heh

...but isn't "Gratuitous Self Promotion" (usually GSP502) a core course in almost every prestigious non-accredited degree-granting institution graduate program? *snicker* (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 22:17, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Routerone

How about you pay attention? I haven't posted on his talk page since he had his little tantrum ... he still feels free to not only post on my talk page, but also to re-factor it as the mood strikes him. Duke53 | Talk 16:24, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I am paying attention. My point was that you were posting on his talk page today and he was posting on yours. Any ban should be an interaction ban on both of you. Dougweller (talk) 16:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, it was the 25th, but the point still holds. Any interaction ban should be on both of you. Dougweller (talk) 17:02, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, no real difference between 06/25/10 and 07/01/10. I guess my point is the one that still holds: pay attention. Duke53 | Talk 17:27, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
What solution do you propose then? Sarcasm isn't a solution. You two won't play nice with each other so you need to avoid each other. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Dougweller (talk) 18:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Teesta Setalvad

Hi, Thank you for the message you sent me regarding specific terms and conditions for BLP. I have gone through them as you suggested and I understand how regulating this sort of thing is important especially on open and free software. I appreciate that your comments and concerns are extremely valid in upholding the integrity of the website. It is for this reason that I would like to request you to perhaps give me some more detailed advice on this specific page. I am the first person to admit that it is indeed a touchy topic and understood in the Indian context its not surprising why. To give you a bit of background information, this a sensitive topic in India that isn't talked about very much. Moreover, this being a political issue there are very few who actually voice their opinions. A google search will reveal how much defamatory and misconstrued information actually exists on the person in question. In addition, the cause which the person has devoted her life to is one that has been abandoned or simply ignored by the vast majority of people especially the media in India. This makes it quite difficult to gather a significant amount of external references for each bit of information that I have tried to include in the page. In fact, the reason I posted this in the first place was in an attempt to make detailed, correct information about this person readily available on the internet. Through a variety of online media like blogs etc, I have been volunteering a few hours of my time a week to spread more awareness on Teesta Setalvad and Citizens for Justice and Peace. The wikipedia page that I tried to edit is also rife with misinformation or de-contextualized information. I understand fully that the wikipedia's primary mandate is verifiability, and I particularly grateful for some of the really great pieces on the website, it is my one-stop for a quick overview of things. Which is why, I would be extremely grateful if you could assist me with this page given the complex nature of information. I am happy to remove whatever words you feel are too charged to be neutral, and re-work it, but I feel that you are certainly better placed to give me some helpful advice about this. I know its not your job to edit what I have written, and I am certainly not asking you to make any exceptions or compromise your work ethic for this, but I would truly appreciate it if you could help me out so that this page can be a source of accurate and complete information without violating any wikipedia norms. Best Regards, GD Gayatridivecha (talk) 16:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


I'm not sure what else to do....

Hello, Dougweller... I appreciate your consideration and words some time ag, to me and "Novaseminary". You were right on the mark. Both of us were not perfect, but I'm glad you see that Nova is obviously being spiteful and out-of-line with me. (And the Admin "B" was also correct a few weeks ago, and warned Nova to knock it off.....B warned both of us. But B doesn't want to have anything to do with this anymore....I don't blame him.) Nova keeps edit warring with me. (And even has stalked me, on his watchlist.....as Admin B acknowledged.)

He has not stopped. It has to do with this article "Separated brethren" that he never even wanted to be there to begin with. He second-guesses EVERYTHING I do, and starts edit wars and reverts. I put in simple modifications, NOT "reverts", but he'll run now to board pages CLAIMING they're "reverts", force-fitting it that way conveniently and dishonestly, SIMPLY TO GET ME BLOCKED. I can't deal with it anymore. I feel on edge every time I try to edit that article now. KNOWING that Nova will inevitably come in AND UNDO AND CHANGE EVERYTHING I PUT IN. For real.

The problem with Nova is that he WANTS me blocked no matter what.
I don't think I technically violated 3RR as those were basically (if you check carefully) UNRELATED edits, and just simple modifications. Not all were related "reverts" in that sense.
But here's the clincher....Nova requested on the Talk page that I remove the word "mainstream" and put something else, otherwise he'd notify the board....WELL I GRANTED HIS REQUEST BEFORE I EVEN KNEW HE WENT TO THE BOARD. He never gave me a chance.
Below is pasted the last two exchanges in the article Talk page...and see what's up here, please read it carefully.


This shouldn't be personal, Sweetpoet. We are only talking about a few imprecise words. I don't think any of the editors editing today actually disagree on substance. Please self-revert your edits so I do not have to report you, Sweetpoet. Some word other than "mainline" or "mainstream" should be used, per my edit history. "Mainstream" most often refers to specific Protestant denominations, per Mainline Protestant. More than just these groups are considered separated brethren, so limiting it in this way (which I don't think you mean to do anyway) is inaccurate. Further, Sweetpoet is the only editor who has inserted "officially". It was actually not me who removed it earlier today in the first instance. So as to not violate 3RR myself, I will not revert again. Novaseminary (talk) 18:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
ok, to keep some semblance of peace and civility, I granted your request. I removed "mainstream" and put in the word "most." But to be honest, I'm not sure why you have this thing against the word "Mainstream" as I see you removed it also from the other part of the article. Why???? Your thing is that "evangelicals" are not considered "mainstream"? Well maybe, there's a case there, but sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder too, and not so black and white. My only point about "mainstream" is that per that paragraph, "Mormons" ARE CONSIDERED "PROTESTANT".....but NOT "mainstream Protestant." It was simply clearer and contextual to the paragraph.
As for "officially", I'm sorry, there's NO good reason at all to remove that one, because as I said, it should be made clear to the reader that it's actually an OFFICIAL Catholic view that "Mormons" are not "separated brethren" and are "polytheist" and "nontrinitarian", and is not just the view maybe of some individual Roman Catholic apologists. You MIGHT have a point about the word "mainstream" (maybe)......but the word "officially", I'm sorry, there's really no excuse or reason to remove that. Anyway, like I said, I don't think I actually violated 3RR per se, as they were mostly unrelated edits in a way, but to keep civility and respect and courtesy, I did what you asked. See how it looks now. Sweetpoet (talk) 18:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


As you can see, I granted his request, but he never gave a chance to even see it, but ran to this page (hastily and neurotically and spitefully) ANYWAY....
the Admin "B" knows about Nova's antics, and warned Novaseminary a couple of weeks ago to stop this with me, otherwise he'd be banished. He warned both of us......two to tango. But Nova continues doing this with me, STARTING EDIT WARS.....wanting me to get in trouble, manipulating things where I look bad, running to boards, and trying to have it where he comes out smelling like a rose, and just to hurt me...
(you should see the nonsense he did with me with something that had nothing to do with him, with another editor in the Columbus article, where it showed that Nova was STALKING me....on his watchlist.....just like how he even now makes biased references to what I do on other people's talk pages, assuming automatically that I must be in the wrong in those cases, where those other people must be totally perfect.....rank bias....Admin "B" told him he was out of line, and to stop bothering with me.....Nova does not stop.)
Anyway, if I did violate 3RR, it was TOTALLY UN-INTENTIONAL.....but in reality, I don't think I actually did in that sense, because for instance the changing of the word "orthodox" was not even related to the other edits before that, but was a new and separate edit, in a way. Also, the first one was not even a revert, but simply a modification because of incorrect grammar. Again, it becomes obvious that Nova WANTS me to violate 3RR to simply get me blocked.
And again too, even after I granted his request and pretty quickly I did too...he still goes to this board page. What does that say of him and his integrity and word? Nobody's perfect. I know I'm not. But Nova does not seem to think he does ANYTHING wrong or out of bounds. Admin "B" does not agree with Nova though. Anyway, sorry for the trouble here, and thanks for your patience. Sweetpoet (talk) 18:55, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Anyway.....if you haven't already....see the page Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Thanks. Sweetpoet (talk) 19:05, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Really? 5 minutes after acknowledging the message about forum shopping on my talk page, you forum shop on another admin's talk page? The appropriate forum for this issue is WP:AN3, not an individual admin's talk page. --B (talk) 20:21, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Yes, really, because you yourself said you were not dealing with it, and you showed no interest. You didn't even read what I wrote carefully and blatantly mis-quoted me, and left things I said completely out. I wanted someone I could trust seeing this matter. And Doug knew about the situation too. Why are you maligning what I did as "forum shopping"? I simply went to another Admin who knew the matter, CUZ YOU SHOWED NO INTEREST......as you said you "recused" yourself. What of it? I simply wanted someone who was familiar a little bit. I see no WP policy that says that what I did by asking an Admin I know to check out the situation is a violation. Yes, the board page, which is where I mainly wrote anyway.... But I'm not sure what the big deal is with what I did as I see many other editors in general "forum shopping" or going to Admins they may know or have dealt with. I meant no harm. But it's a closed matter now......peace out. (And Doug, sorry for all this nonsense....but for REAL.....put 80% of the blame on Novaseminary....and 10% on "B" as he didn't even read what I wrote on both the Article , and actually mis-quoted me big time, and also 10% on me, as I tend to react to insanity with my own insanity at times...Nobody's perfect.)
It's a closed matter now, as another Administrator determined the thing already. I'm tired of all this at this point. I don't like being second-guessed by some stalker editor at every turn....it's stressful and demoralizing. Anyway, Doug...thanks for your patience. Sweetpoet (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Courtesy blanking

I noticed you were pretty quick to delete the page I nominated for speedy deletion as advertising, so I was hoping you could tell me if I used the courtesy blanked template appropriately here; I just filed a thread on editor assistance asking this same question but since you've seen how I used it, I hope that you can let me know if this was correct or not; I'm a fairly experienced contributor but have never used that template before, but felt it best to play it safe and check for next time afterwards. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 13:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Good question, and I think a good idea although I don't know of anything specifically about doing it in this context. I was just working through my dashboard. Dougweller (talk) 13:37, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Grand Unified Theory

Since you and ArglebargleIV were interacting with Dale Ritter at Talk:Grand Unified Theory, can I trouble you to look at Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#Request for Clarification of 'Grand Unified Theory' Page Content Policy? It's beyond me, a mere mathematician. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:10, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Copyedit - yes.

Druid - what do mean that is not a copyedit? You have wholesale eliminated every change I made without consideration if they were good, bad or indifferent. So what's your definition of a copyedit? And also, this is a Wiki and you seem to be owning that article. I am going to reinstate my change , and more. Lancashire Druid (talk) 09:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

This describes copyediting. Wikipedia:Basic copyediting. No one owns the article, and this one gets a lot of vandalism, addition of unsourced or badly sourced material or material that doesn't meet our criteria at WP:NPOV. Dougweller (talk) 10:03, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for the welcome note. I think most of what I did would constitute copyediting. Maybe adding a fact tag wouldn't. I'll work through the whole article later for some more copyediting. Lancashire Druid (talk) 10:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Comments on Hero's RfA

Thought I'd extract this from the mess that is WQA, as it's a bit irrelevant there. MF is being a git (as usual) but he didn't actually call Hero a paedophile, no matter how you dice it up. I have no idea why Keepscases comments weren't revdeleted - Fences only removed them from view. I guess it depends on who you know - or how unpopular the person saying it is (pace Off2riorob being blocked). Nothing has been done about Balloonman's comments on the talkpage either. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, take the whole issue to ANI or AN? Or? There really should be some consistency. I deleted something similar because the editor was concerned about real life consequences of even an obviously stupid accusation like this because they were going to have a job involving contact with children. Dougweller (talk) 09:26, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
Well, I pointed it out at ANI and no-one is interested. I pointed it out to BubbaHotep at WQA too. It would be hard to remove the comments now, as there are so many intervening edits, and (as BHotep did point out) any action taken against an editor now would be punitive not preventative. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 09:44, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:ANI#User:ThomasK

Heads up :) S.G.(GH) ping! 10:55, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Something you should know

Please tell me which administrator is responsible for Bronze Age articles about Middle East? Those articles can be described in one simple word - DISASTER! :( First, there are many factual errors. Second, there is no any consensus about chronology; some Wikipedians use long chronoglogy, some middle, and some short, so there is complete chronological mess - dates can varry +/- 120 years! Third, there is category problem also; I saw very useless (& nonexisting) categories for ancient empires (example: Akkadian Empire) like "2200 BC disestablishments" - schoolars are not agreed did that empire collapsed in 23th or 22th century, so even something like "22th century BC disestablishments" wouldn't be enough precise. In any case, first point is typical while third point is easy, but for "long/middle/short chronology problem" you should organize some serious "Wiki aministrators discussion" and find some agreement. I also noticed that many foreign languages Wikis copied wrong & contradict dates so problem is even deeper... Cheers, --93.143.27.175 (talk) 17:06, 4 July 2010 (UTC)(Orijentolog)

No one is responsible for any particular article or group of articles, although there are collaborative wiki projects dealing with groups of articles. Ancient Egypt articles have the same chronological problems although I think one editor has been working on that. I'll copy this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ancient Near East which is the best place. It doesn't help also that we get nationalist wars on some of these articles. Which categories are you thinking of? I can see 2 redlinks that I can't get rid of for some reason. I agree with you completely. Dougweller (talk) 17:34, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
I left my comment on upper discussion link:
_________________________________
My suggestion is compulsory using acronyms like SC, MC or LC for short, middle or long chronology respectively after absolutely ever year, otherwise it would always be a complete mess. I found useless categories on this links also:
Don't think only Wikipedia has chronological problems, I also found it on reputable academic encyclopedias like Iranica, example is begin of Epartid Elamite dynasty / end of Third dynasty of Ur:
  • This article says "2004 B.C.E." (according middle chronology)
  • This article says "1,940 B.C." (according short chronology)
Note: Dating differences between short, middle or long chronology are 0/-64/-120 years.
_________________________________
In meanwhile, you can correct three links above (useless cats). At this moment I'm very into 2 millenium BC (because I wrote articles for my academic work) so I'm glad to help. :) --93.143.56.206 (talk) 16:03, 5 July 2010 (UTC)(Orijentolog)

cummins Uk

No probs with you (or indeed the marketing manager, although he would have to watch for COI!!) removing the prod. All the hits I got were for the parent company, and I thought it odd that cummins inc didn't have an article (you're going to tell me it does, aren't you LOL ). Teach me to try NPP while still focused on the PED gig. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Yep, Cummins - I've weeded copyvio out of both. I'm not sure if the UK one should be a redirect to the parent company or not. Dougweller (talk) 20:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


Dr Rachael Faye Hill Page

Hi Doug, just wondering why you deleted the wiki entry on Dr Rachael Faye Hill? She was widely reported in the International media as being the youngest person to ever graduate from medical school in the UK and will be the youngest practising doctor. Because she graduated so young, medical schools in the UK are considering lowering their age of entry requirements to allow other young people in - surely this is a notable article? The deletion reason stated was that the article was about a person but did not say why the person was important/significant... this was explained throughout the article.

MartinManson (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think being the youngest makes her notable. I didn't see anything in the article about lowering age of entry requirements. Did I miss something? By the way, new sections should be at the bottom of my talk page. Dougweller (talk) 20:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

There are quite a few articles about "the youngest doctor" etc... Here is one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heenal_Raichura Dr Hill has just beaten this girl who was previously the youngest doctor. I think it is pretty notable, especially as she made the international press and could sway government legislation and has beaten a record that was previously held by someone else.... I hadn't got to that bit yet about the government... you guys were too quick to delete it! MartinManson (talk) 21:36, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I would like to point your attention to this previous Wiki deletion case where the same topic was covered but moderators decided that the article had achieved good coverage from reliable sources - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Heenal_Raichura

Due to this, I believe this article should be reinstated.

MartinManson (talk) 21:47, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Thank you.   — Jeff G. ツ 23:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Jeff - as Jeff has just shown the Other Stuff Exists argument can be used as a way of creating consistency across Wikipedia in regard to the types of articles that are both kept and deleted. As such, by applying the Other Stuff Exists argument the Wiki entry on Dr Rachael Faye Hill should stay as a previous discussion occured on the same topic and the previous article was voted to stay.

MartinManson (talk) 23:19, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you being sarcastic? Because that would mean that we would have to abandon all our core policies - you're saying 'take the worst as the standard'. What I see now is that we could theoretically have a succession of articles 'this is the youngest', 'no, this is the youngest'. Dougweller (talk) 07:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
To be honest I am inclined to agree - I do think that the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument can be used here. We cannot ignore the fact that another article on Wikipedia has passed an afd process and due to this the article should be kept. CrazyMiner (talk) 10:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
The new on is at AfD. Both claims are wrong, the youngest doctor was 19 - ok, that was 1815, but that shouldn't matter. I'd say that the prospect of even more 'youngest doctor' articles suggests that the first AfD was wrong. Dougweller (talk) 10:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
I understand where you are coming from, however unfortunately the statement in regard to the previous afd decision being wrong was decided by the majority as being an article of interest and should be kept - as such your statement can only be taken as your opinion on the matter. CrazyMiner (talk) 10:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Sure it's just my opinion, hence the word 'suggests' - I assumed it would be read 'suggests to me'. Dougweller (talk) 10:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Teesta again

Thanks for your reply. Will go through BLP and make changes. Also, can you please ensure that any mention of Teesta's family is removed since this is very sensitive information that we typically monitor online. Thanks a million, Gayatridivecha (talk) 04:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

You need some glasses

http://www.google.ro/search?hl=ro&client=firefox-a&hs=kxP&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=Clearly%2C+there+is+a+bit+of+correct+history+in+Anonymous+work%2C+and+at+least+a+few+o+site%3Aeprints.ucl.ac.uk&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Are you happy now? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzzsolt (talk • contribs) 09:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Bizarre. I searched the pdf, I don't know what happened. Apologies. Still, rudeness isn't a good idea and I don't know why you deleted the links I gave you. Dougweller (talk) 09:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Cummins UK page - new entry - Not sure what to do..?

Hi Dougwella,

Thank you for your talk. I am having problems writing this article from an encylopediatic format because i thought it was, obviously incorrectly! Can you please help me - Cummins UK has not had much press or references statements in the past and I can't find much information written about them, which hasn;t been written by Cummins.

Not sure what i can do to improve!! It doesn't have to be much words but I definitely want Cummins UK as a company to have a presence on Wikipedia....

Thanks!

Harvy

Harvymoore (talk) 10:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I know you posted on my talkpage as well, but I thought I'd answer here to save Dougweller duplicating what I say. Wikipedia isn't a directory or listings site (see WP:NOT for a whole raft of things Wikipedia isn't). It's an encyclopaedia, and things have to be notable to get into it. There is an article on the parent company - Cummins. If you can't find enough sources for a standalone article, you could make your article part of the Cummins article.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 11:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Layerbit

Hello Dougweller,

Just wanted to see if I could get a little more information about the deletion. This was my first submission so I would like to clean it up and resubmit it but I am not sure exactly what went wrong. Thank you for any help.

Kevin —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevinclubman (talk • contribs) 13:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the first question is are you affiliated with the company? But the main thing is that it read like a brochure. "revolutionized the design process", etc, all unsourced or sourced only from the firm itself. It needs to pass our criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). Read that carefully and see if you think it does. See WP:RS for our criteria for reliable sources. Dougweller (talk) 13:50, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

ANDRÉ DU NAY

why does he have a dubious reputation? (Karpatia1 (talk) 13:22, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

For being inaccurate. Do the Google books search I suggested. Dougweller (talk) 13:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
The author is cited here too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pannonian_Romance
I did the google books search http://www.google.com/search?q=andre+du+nay&btnG=Search+Books&tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1 and and I don't really understand what I should have found... can you give me pls a more detailed explanation?

PS The other account is mine too. I did not know it is lllegal to have 2 accounts. I will give up the other account(Karpatia1 (talk) 14:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC))

Ok, thanks. I've gone into more detail on the article's talk page. Dougweller (talk) 14:36, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Sorry to be so insistent, but you said the contested work of an anonymous author written over 30 years, and the work seems to be from 1996 http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/dunay.I/dunay00.htm. In addition, it belongs to Library of Congress (USA), so it is not a dubious book.
And don't see where it is written that Andre du Nay is a pseudonym. Which do you say is his real name? (Karpatia1 (talk) 05:55, 7 July 2010 (UTC))
The Library of Congress has every book, no matter how bad. That's the law, every book is deposited with them.
[22]The early history of the Rumanian language / André Du Nay [pseud.]

André Du Nay - 1977 - 275 pages us ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andre Du Nay is the pseudonym of a prominent European scholar of the Rumanian language. Political circumstances in Rumaniaforce him to remain anonymous. All correspondence with him regarding this book should be ... Dougweller (talk) 06:27, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Garifuna

Just wanted to let you know that we had an edit conflict on this page. Please let me know if you object to the changes I have made. I did not go back and repeat the substitution of Garifuna with an accent on the i, for the unaccented one. I was incorporating material from Nancie Gonzales' book Sojourners of the Caribbean into the text, which struck me as being more accurate and reliable than the material in the present article.Beepsie (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Right, edit summaries. Sorry, I was caught up in the moment as I often am--I will be more attentive in future. However, I was unaware of editing out a citation, which is something I try very hard to avoid.Beepsie (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, not a problem, thanks for the quick reply. Edit summaries are really important in my opinion. Dougweller (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Israelites

Doug, I've revised the article Israelites quite extensively. As this isn a hot-button topic for some people I expect it be contentious. You might like to cast an eye over. (Did I mention I want to break my wiki-habit?) PiCo (talk) 12:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

The Many Birds and THE ONE Douglas

How many are you? Is this just a figure of speech? Dougweller (talk) 06:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Doug. I keep forgetting how international this group is-- yes "we" is an editorial we, meaning me, a 70 year old half blind prof at MIT. Some guy named Anderson criticized this, thinking "we" are many. Does Schizophrenia count? If so... hmmm, he may be right. I've got a large staff of really smart guys who work for me, but I'd be way shy to have them see what a mess my efforts are here. I'm sure some of them are admins here, but it would be a COI for me to ask for their help, not to mention the embarrassment of having the "boss" ask for help for not understanding Mickey Mouse stuff! Thanks for asking, and for assuming value and withholding judgment, rather than accusing right out of the box as a few other guys have. In particular, this "Uncle G" guy has sent threats... probably not realizing that old farts like us (sorry: me) don't worry about whatever it is he's worried about! Phoenixthebird (talk) 19:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes you use 'I', sometimes 'we', and too often we have groups/marketing departments etc setting up accounts with multiple users. The trouble is we have a large number of articles created every day by people trying to advertise their self-published book, their car salesroom, etc. And honestly, your Garth Loy article does not follow our guidelines, as I've said already. Just don't take these things personally, those of us who spend time trying to keep things straight are fighting an uphill battle which I think you'd really support if you had the full picture. Dougweller (talk) 19:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Another administrator did some Loy edits, again, this is a guy we have no knowledge of personally, we simply saw one of his books on an MIT "best picks" book list, and noticed he didn't have a page, which is where we learned of him. I get your drift-- there are a bunch of folks trying to self promote on Wiki, and I feel your pain, trying to keep an avalanche of ad types from creating a bunch of toothpaste commercials. Loy and Fuster are both notable, by any criteria, not because I know Wiki at all, but because I'm on a dozen journal boards with peer reviews and these guys are the real deal from an academic standpoint. No one at Wiki actually criticized the notability aspect of these guys, and they certainly didn't solicit a page from me or anyone else. Our only "grind" with EENG on Fuster is that, even though he is not an administrator, he blanked the entire page down to "Joaquin Fuster is a professor at UCLA" -- which isn't even a stub! In doing so, he wiped out a few other references from Scholarpedia, SJN and other sources, and didn't allow time for the subject to put GNU language on his own site. Fuster didn't even want a page, but was kind enough to cooperate when I suggested one. Take it from another old guy-- at 80 years old I'm sure he's much more concerned with legacy than some PR thing, and anyone would be proud to have his publication and discovery record. His fourth edition of PFC is pure genius, and those of us still doing active CNS research use it as a bible. Thanks for taking the time to coach me on this stuff, and I empathize with the work you guys have to deal with in the used car sales genre! ;=) Phoenixthebird (talk) 11:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Doug Weller. You have new messages at Raeky's talk page.
Message added 08:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Doug Weller. You have new messages at Raeky's talk page.
Message added 15:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

I have replied

Hello, Doug Weller. You have new messages at Steven J. Anderson's talk page.
Message added 08:20, 10 July 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Any interest in peer reviewing the Rosetta Stone article?

Hello there:

Another user and I have been working extensively on the Rosetta Stone. It has undergone extensive revisions in the past month and I am looking for potential reviewers who can ensure that it will be able to pass Feature Article review. Since you have been active in the past on articles having to do with Ancient Egypt, I thought I should call on you to give it a once over.

Hope you can help. Cheers! Captmondo (talk) 00:58, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Will try to get around to it tonight or tomorrow. Dougweller (talk) 16:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
  1. ^ ~~~~
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