User talk:Fastifex

Question about Body Modification Edits

Fastifex, I'm about to do a total re-write of the whole page (I've been workign on this for about a week now, with my notes in notepad form.), I want to incorporate some of your material and remove some of it, as well, as some is redundant or NPOV (not much, but a little). Some of your changes, like adding a controversies related to body modification are in my notes, and I really like the edits you've done there. Are you going to continue to make edits, or should I just keep on going with my project? Glowimperial 13:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

• Dear Sir,

As body modfication is in no way part of my core interests (history and institutions; but we Flemish intellectuals are somewhat of the uomo universale type, as a medieval Latin professor literally called me), while you seem to be an expert, I am delighted to read you find at least some of my contribution worthwile, and even contunued my experiment of suscinct definitions with typology links- I find them usefull, as many laymen probably will.

Since I am in no hurry to return to the subject, I suggest you go ahead soon with any additions and even restructuring if worthwile. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the NPOV abbreviation (I started my account ths week, most of my already numerous contributions since april were anonymous on an IP) so I'm at a loss what you mean there, while redundancy can of course be tackled with my approval in principle - even though nobody needs approval, I appreciate your courtesy.

As I started re-examining the article, I formulate these remarks :

• you linked to "stretching", deleting my few lines on the subject, but there was nothing on body modification there - I made an attempt and linked it to your article (surprisingly the word neck links to Padaung, a usefull link though, which a quick google allowed me to elaborate a bit on too)
• why has the reference to needle heals been eliminated?
• I dare hope you find a way to include the distinction whether a body modification is reversible
• may I suggest you elaborate the Sources & References section, listing your treasure trove, as only the expert can be expected to be able to? This naturally goes for all valuable articles (In confess I don't allways do so myself, but then I do intend to return to the subject later and better my ways).

Sincerely, Fastifex

Anon!

Oi, its the artist formerly known as the best anon without an account. Redwolf24 (talk) 22:27, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Re:Physical punishment

Hi Fastifex

First off, let me say that I have very limited knowledge on the subject matter.

When I converted physical punishment into a redirect it was to avoid something called content forking, that is a separate article on the same subject set up in order to provide a different point of view. If you read the physical punishment article and corporal punishment article, you will see that they are very similar, for instance the physical article has the intro

Physical punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain or other bodily suffering intended as correction or punishment (see that article for general considerations and alternatives). The practice is generally held to differ from torture in that it is applied for disciplinary reasons and is therefore intended to be limited and justifiable (for (re)education, justice etc.), rather than intended to totally subdue the will of the victim (as for interrogation or pure terror). Severe or prolonged forms of corporal punishment are, however, more or less indistinguishable from torture.

while the corporal article has the intro

Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain intended as correction or punishment. Historically speaking most punishments, whether in judicial, domestic or educational settings were corporal in basis. The practice is generally held to differ from torture in that it is applied for disciplinary reasons and is therefore intended to be limited, rather than intended to totally destroy the will of the victim. Severe or prolonged forms of corporal punishment are, however, more or less indistinguishable from torture.

The way I saw it when I made the redirect, the two articles were on the same subject, they were structurally virtually identical and therefore prime candidates for an immediate redirect. Since the corporal punishment article was the older of the two articles, I redirected the physical punishment article.

My view is still that the redirect at physical punishment ought to stay as a redirect, and that the discussion on how the subject should be covered should be done at corporal punishment. I appreciate that this can be a very controversial topic, at least far more controversial than the subjects I like to work on (chess and transportation). However, making a fork at another title has some very serious downsides, most importantly it is confusing to the readers who use the encyclopedia, and it is therefore strongly discouraged.

I realize that discussions with other people on controversial topics can be tough and energy draining. Since I know very little about the subject, I can only provide some general advice.

• The formal rule on edit conflicts is the three revert rule. Except for simple vandalism, which is quite narrowly defined, no person is allowed to make a revert on the same article more than three times within a 24 hour period. Even administrators have run afoul of this rule, it is the reason for most blocks against established users who don't usually engage in vandalism.
• WP:COOL has some words of wisdom for handling conflict.
• On a hot topic like this, I think that an article RFC (Requests For Comment) might be appropriate. Add a link to Talk:Corporal punishment at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Society and law, and provide a short description of the conflict.
• If you at any point start to feel so angry that you have trouble thinking clearly: stop. Remember don't take what happens at Wikipedia too personally. I will refer you to a piece of advice I got from Rossami, who gave it to me here when I was feeling mad and frustrated at foolishness, breaches of policy and other terrible things. Following this is easier said than done, but I think that it remains good advice.

For the moment, that is what I have to offer. I won't convert the physical punishment article into a redirect a second time, but I won't be surprised if someone else chooses to do so. If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to give me a line on the talkpage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:31, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply re Bush hazing

Hi, Sorry for removing that information. I guess it looked to me like a typical frivolous edit (I didn't recognize your username). Also, on researching, I found that the hazing was done by President Bush's fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon - not by Skull and Bones - so it may indeed have been done to freshmen. I added a link so that those who might remove it in the future can verify for themselves. Again, sorry for the inconvenience. -- Pakaran 21:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Additions to Aden Protectorate

Your recent additions to Aden Protectorate are useful but they appear to all be sourced to WorldStatesmen. Although WS is often a good source, it has numerous gaps and errors on South Arabia. (FOTW also sources it). Do you know of any other confirmation source of the state names and treaty dates? LuiKhuntek 07:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Since the link to your user name is hellish red (a typo? a former account? - I never met such a case- maybe you never created your own page?), I can only hope you read this here, but anyway - your vigilance is appreciated, and yes it is definitely wise to look for more sources. Unfortunately Christopher Buyers' amazing website RoyalArk does not treat the former Yemeni polities yet (only the former imamate itself), but I do know of another website of interest- perhaps even more unfortunately, http://www.almanach.be/central.html Almanach de Bruxelles is no longer free, they now charge a suscription fee I'm not eager to pay until I'm confident I'm ready to get the maximum out of it in one go (best value seems $50 for a year; there's enough other sources to work while they probably work on the gaps they had, and update), but when it still was free I had the foresight to save a few megabyte of data on most (allways non-European) dynastyies they covered (I'll always regret I didn't get round to India, the second largest number of dynasties after Indonesia, which has many 'stub-like', so I guess India would have been even more data, but I saw no warning they would turn paying, so I thaught there was time). I don't have time right now, but I will check my archieved version (I wonder what's the copyright status- am I allowed to mail someone -you might be interested, but do provide a working link then to your page or talk page- what was free then? I hope so) I haven't got round to checking the relevant data, but certainly intend to see whether this is usefull in our Aden-case Fastifex 10:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Sorry, it's User talk:LuiKhuntek LuiKhuntek 14:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes to Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire

I notice you have recently edited Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire. One problem mentioned in the article is that "such a large empire inevitably sees many changes over several centuries, any listing is either a freeze in time or, as below (still incomplete), a compromise concerning overlaps and other alterations." In an attempt to systematize the listing, I made a chart based mainly on Donald Edgar Pitcher’s An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire (1972) that is a list of provinces in 1609 (near the height of the Empire’s power). The chart includes Turkish names, dates of foundation, current location, and other notes. I followed this with a list of provinces that disappeared before 1609 and provinces that appeared after 1609. Finally, to reflect the administrative reforms of 1864 and the decline of the Empire, I have a list of provinces in 1877.

This information would remove little of the information currently in the article but would be a reorganization of the article that would change its appearance (e.g., end the Christian/Muslim division of provinces). Because information on this topic is scarce and sometimes contradictory, I wanted to run this by you before posting the changes. Please give comment or objection at User talk:LuiKhuntek or the article's talkpage. Thanks. LuiKhuntek 21:34, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments about Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire at User talk:LuiKhuntek. I agree with your concerns about the need for more information on the provinces. However, I think that anything beyond the basics should be posted separately at independent pages for each of the provinces. (The same with Aden Protectorate -- I already created several pages there but haven't finished [e.g., Lahej, Upper Yafa])

The problem with a systematic master list of Ottoman subdivisions is that there were so many changes over the years and there sometimes conflicting accounts of names and dates, even in the original sources (see Pitcher’s An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire for details). Because of this, the "snapshot in time" method may be a good starting point. I will post something in a few days.

PS - And I have removed the Aden Prot. info you forwarded. Thanks again for that. LuiKhuntek 04:12, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Intendente

Hello! If you got the information for the article Intendente from a website, can you please put a link on the talk page? This would be helpful to other editors. Cheers and Happy Editing! Banana04131 16:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• Your question is utterly justified, except that the best place for a link is of course the Sources & References section at the end of the article, where I intended to put it (but apparently forgot to fill it in- now done, but I'ld spot that anyhow). These first data storages are from [[1]] (see each present country). I realize this is at present a rough mess, deservedly tagged, but much more will follow; as the title is originally French Larousse, printed in French, would be my first guess for more Fastifex 18:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Request for edit summary

Hi. I am a bot, and I am writing to you with a request. I would like to ask you, if possible, to use edit summaries a bit more often when you contribute. The reason an edit summary is important is because it allows your fellow contributors to understand what you changed; you can think of it as the "Subject:" line in an email. For your information, your current edit summary usage is 11% for major edits and 18% for minor edits. (Based on the last 150 major and 150 minor edits in the article namespace.)

This is just a suggestion, and I hope that I did not appear impolite. You do not need to reply to this message, but if you would like to give me feedback, you can do so at the feedback page. Thank you, and happy edits, Mathbot 22:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Double redirects

Keep in mind that the Wikipedia will not allow double redirects. If you redirect to a redirect page the second redirection will not be taken. Make sure the redirect links to the original article. --TheKoG (talk|contribs) 14:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

A friendly reminder to this once more, as you did the same again today with the French Cochinchina redirect. - Dammit 17:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like I was a little bit too fast there with reverting your edit, I noticed you moved the main article now. - Dammit 08:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems I must point out that I am aware some of my redirects only 'work' indirectly, which is usually the result of the way they are made: I see a red link, which is a double real problem (the reader can't get to the information, the contributor is in danger of erroneously creating a parallel article), so I lay a chain of 'probing' links till I either find an existing article to link to or know I have to create it (often I have a good source at hand). This solves both problems, and often on more counts then the original red link, as none of the links is left red; if a reader doesn't care enough to click a few times to get at the goodies, he's apparently not hungry enough, so that's not a serious problem in my eyes. By the way, it turns outthere are Bots who seem to specialize in hunting 'double redirects' to cut them short, and they seem to find them faster then I'ld like in some cases as not every redirect is to a synonym, some other would be better left as they constitute de facto stubs. Fastifex 09:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV warning re. emperor

Stop adding commentary and your personal analysis of an article into Wikipedia articles. Doing so breaches Wikipedia's NPOV rules. Furthermore, reinserting the same commentary multiple times may cause you to violate the three-revert rule, which can lead to a block. --Francis Schonken 09:50, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Primates

Thanks for the information. I must first of all apologize for a perhaps too hasty correction I have just made to the page you referred me to. There are two Primates of Ireland. I do not know when it was agreed that there should be two. In the second half of the seventeenth century the two archbishops, one of whom was Saint Oliver Plunkett, were disputing in correspondence with the Holy See about which of them had the right to the title of Primate. Now it is pacifically accepted that both have the title, and that the Archbishop of Armagh has precedence. Too late, I remembered that the section concerns those who were given special seating at "the Vatican Council". (Which Vatican Council?) Perhaps you have access to more precise information about whether both were specially accommodated at the Council. If either archbishop was a cardinal at that time, it was the Archbishop of Armagh, whom you mention as being given the special seating: I would therefore have thought that the place for a Primate would have been assigned to the Dublin archbishop.

You missed Argentina in your list. The Archbishop of Córdoba obtained from the Holy See the title of Primate (I do not know in what year) on the grounds that it was the first diocese in the country. If the Archbishop of Buenos Aires had known of the request in time, he would have objected that Buenos Aires was the first archdiocese in the country.

I must say I think the article is quite wrong to attribute some sort of honorary title of Primate to sees merely on account of their importance within a country, such as Sydney in Australia. As I see it, only the Holy See can explicitly or implicitly grant the title of Primate, just as only the Holy See can grant the honorary title of (Latin) Patriarch, and just as the explicit or implicit recognition of the Holy See is an essential element in the definition of an autonomous particular Church, or Ecclesia (ritualis) sui iuris (canon 27 or the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches). Buenos Aires is certainly the most important see in Argentina and was so also when Córdoba got the title, but even more certainly it is Córdoba that is the primatial see.

In the Catholic Church hierarchy page, would it be better to replace "The Latin-Rite title of Primate is in some countries given to the (arch)bishop of a particular (usually metropolitan, oocasionally exempt) see" with "The Latin-Rite title of Primate is in some countries attached to a particular archdiocese"? Or even return the text to how it was before the to my mind quite unnecessary specification about the kind of see (metropolitan, exempt, archiepiscopal) was added? My main problem with the present text is the word "exempt". I understand what you mean by it, but most people do not. The phrase "occasionally exempt" will mislead them even further into thinking it means that a primatial see must be a "metropolitan and from-time-to-time exempt" see. Can you fix it?

Returning to the page on Primates, I honestly think it is nonsense to say Primates are on a level with Eastern-Church Exarchs within the Catholic Church. Apostolic Exarchs are obviously on the same level as Apostolic Vicars, Bishops of titular sees appointed to look after an area that has not yet been raised to the level of eparchy/diocese. Patriarchal Exarchs are surely no higher. Would it not be better simply to remove all this most unsure talk about alleged rules of precedence?

That is my opinion: that both the precedence question and the attribution of the title of Primate to archbishops of sees that have never been granted the title should be removed from the article. But, as I prefer to prune my gradually growing watchlist rather than add to it articles I prefer to let go their own perhaps inaccurate way, I leave editing to you.

I see now a link to an article on Exarchs. However, the time I have spent writing this has taken from me any wish to look it up. That article too I prefer to let go its own way. Lima 13:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Hereditary title; Court appointment

Can you check my articles on Hereditary titles and Court appointment for accuracy, and see if there's anything that could be added? Walton monarchist89 07:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Although your request is most flattering, I'm afraid I will remain for a while to pressed for time to oblige properly. Hereditary titles definitely can be elaborated, but that takes serious consideration. As for court appointlment, I honestly feel that doesn't make much sense as a topic per se; it would be better to turn it into a redirect, and work in the titles in an article that allows to put them in context - Noble court seems an excellent choice, since many terms are not specific to one court, or even ambivalent in time and/or space. It would be best to create subsections before throwing in a host of titles, so as to give the reader an idea what belongs together. As I'm hoping you might be willing to do some usefull, but somewhat tiedeous work in the field of court titles, may I suggest also someone could do an excellent job going over the (mainly red) links in Medical Household and create/elaborate the necessary stubs, all to be marked with the category Positions within the British Royal Household, and -if not to specific for non-British equivalents- also Court titles; many -including some other already in the category- need to be turned unisex, as both previous and presumed future Monarchs are Kings: the best way is probably to create the article as a redirect form the form including Queen to one with King, and specify both possibilities in the text of each stub. Are you game? Fastifex 13:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I created both the Hereditary titles and Court appointment articles in response to red links on other related pages; although they may not make that much sense as topics, I just thought a page of some kind would help to 'fill in the gaps'. Most of the content of both pages consists of links anyway. As for the Medical Household page, I can take a look at it and see what I can do. Walton monarchist89 09:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Punishment article and user:Bignole

I see we are in agreement that Bignole's weird def of punishment, which excludes retribution, is invalid. There doesn't appear to be any point to talking with him anymore, he's just trolling for a fight. You can remove any weird def he has put in, and I will support you. Or, if you prefer, we can get an admin involved. StuRat 01:05, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

One should be mentally very sick indeed to agree with Bignole on anything I ever wrote from his hand. Either he enjoys getting on everybody's nerves (a psycho form of vandalism) or his mind is utterly poisoned, as occurs more often with some 'Wickedpedians' who often terrorise pages related to physical punishments- there's no reasoning with them, and in my experience one gets preciously little support from reasonable Wikipedians- your noble intentions are therefore greatly appreciated. I can only hope that to be coincidence, but my experience with some admins (while I have nothing but praise for others, like Essjay) in such matters aren't very encouraging, some actually make things worse, blindly adhering to mindless literal versions of conventions as if it were a constitution or even abusing one's position as Adam Bishop did to me by lying blatantly in order to ban me himself for using the self-explicatory word countship (definitely in articles concerning the feudal era he's party to) in stead of the ambivalent county, while I didn't even re-revert; so I'm not leaning to starting a procedure, which I fear will only be a waste of time, but if you do I will of course testify the truth about Bignole, if the point isn't made best of all by his own unencyclopaedic hate prose- his last 'answer' was amusingly pathological, all ad hominem and besides the point; however it may be more effective to simply ignore him on Talk and see if he simply gives up as his ausience seems to loose interest, I found that worked better the previous round. Fastifex 06:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I can wait and see, too. I notice there is another person on our side confronting Bignole now. However, his "Psychology" section definition is still at odds with the rest of the article, and common sense. StuRat 01:13, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Boy edit

Look at the bottom of Talk:Boy for a comment on the headers of the Boy and Man articles stating inconsistency. Georgia guy 00:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

The edit you made recently is a link to a dis-ambiguation page. Are you familiar with the style guidelines of dis-ambiguation pages?? Please read them. Georgia guy 20:25, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Now I reverted to the sensible link of Man and reworded the text above in the Man article. However, I want to know what to do with the phrase "in contrast to...woman". Do you know what to do with it?? Georgia guy 23:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Revert of MoS edits at Consulate

Hello. For edits[2] to disambiguation pages, please refer to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). Also, if you disagree so vehemently with those descriptions perhaps you might consider updating the target pages, from which they were copied. Thanks! Ewlyahoocom 08:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Mutiny

What’s the reason for having another encyclopædia’s text on military law within Mutiny? I understand that mutiny is one of the classical offences in that field, but would a detailed treatment on military law in general not fit much better in Military law or a related article (e. g. Military law in the United Kingdom, or some such thing, or even History of military law in the United Kingdom), rather than the article on mutiny specifically? —xyzzy_n 10:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Any comments? Otherwise, I’ll remove it again… —xyzzy_n 09:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

If you bannish every matter covered by military law to that article, it is in danger of becoming the size of a law library, needlessly. Logically you should then do the same with other fields of law. Mutiny is a crime, ergo defined and to a large extend dealt with by law. If you say any passage not releant to mutiny, remove it; otherwise, I don't see why any explanation should be given to treat a subject under the more precise heading. Fastifex 11:32, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I am a bit confused; I thought I did remove the not very relevant passages the last time I edited the article. As far as I can tell, the Britannica text mostly deals with the transition of control over the armed forces from the sovereign to Parliament and constitutional issues with laws pertaining to the armed forces. All directly relevant content which I found I have summarised in the first paragraph of that section. Did I miss something? As for the rest, where it is relevant to mutiny, it is not exclusively so, but rather in the same way as to any other offence specific to the military, and therefore better treated in an appropriately named article; if that should be a problem because of length, articles can always be split and their subjects narrowed. (However, Military law is still a stub and has quite a lot of free space for a more detailed treatment of the general issues discussed in the Britannica text.) —xyzzy_n 12:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

So are you going to keep the text there indefinitely? Because, you know, it’s still largely irrelevant to the article. —xyzzy_n 12:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

US empire

Re:[3]

"...in Britain, empire was justified as a benevolent “white man’s burden.” And in the United States, empire does not even exist; “we” are merely protecting the causes of freedom, democracy, and justice worldwide." Quoted on: American Empire

I hope my edits will be satisfactory. Let's not name America an Empire. Lets just name it: United States. Is that okay?

Signed:Travb (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Empire is an ambivalent term, even more then its Latin root imperium; the meaning and connotations depend on the context. The inevitably in part ideological debate in American Empire is open to widely different interpretations, and cannot be settled objectively; I hadn't seen that page before, but may stay out of it, especially as long as the Iraqi episode (only time wll tell whether that turns imperial despite the original intentions, let's hope it doesn't) makes it all to emotional to hope for a serene debate. In the template Colonial empires, the term is clearly used for all colonial powers, benevolent or not, while only those which have been ruled domestically by an empire are designated here explicitly as colonial empire to avoid confusion with (usually phases in) their internal constitutional history; so either we include 'US empire' as such (there probably could be a point made to link to another article, but I'm talking about the captions in the template only), at least on account of the former Spanish colony Philippines that was neither a short occupation nor a territory about to join the US but saw its aspirations of independence suppressed for decades (at a time that all colonial empires were still rather hand-handed), or you might claim (I'ld have to diagree, though) that the US never would have colonized and consequently leave it out of the tamplate alltogether, probably taking Russia out as well (technically that never was colonisation, but -apart from temporary/preliminary protectorates- annexation to a rather feudal true, dynastic empire, in name transformed to a federation under the Soviet yoke). Fastifex 03:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Tui

Hi, Fastifex. I am reverting your edits, and here is why: 1. The change to the line about Polynesian nobles do not make clear that one link is to the Tongan version and the other to the Fiji version. The previous version did. 2. I cannot see the difference between a "word" and a "name" so have put those two categories back together again. How is the name of a bird or a beer a "word" but not a "name"? How are acronyms not "names"? Therefore the previous wording made more sense. 3. The previous version had wording that was more consistent. I accept the reinsertion of the TUI merchandising system reference. Mona-Lynn 05:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• And on it goes, because:

1) There are more then two Polynesian states with Tui's (the spelling varies, possibly rather by source then by culture), and far more cases, so referring to only two is wrong, if deliberate would even be a lie 2) use a dictionary or English course, if you really don't know, but that's elementary grammar- a rule of thumb is names generally require a capital, other words rarely; I had however failed to check the beer, which turns out to be a brand name from one brewer, so I rectify that; acronyms can be names or not (depending on what they abbreviate), but are put apart because they are spelled with capitals only (some contributors even use a separate dab-page) 3) that's too vague to mean anything, so no comment needed Fastifex 05:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

My mistake - I thought that Tu'i specifically went to a page on the Tongan version. I will modify the text to remove all references to particular countries. I am still not convinced that proper nouns and common nouns need to be differentiated, but since you feel that they do, then Tu'i is a proper noun since it tends to be capitalized. Also the Wikipedia standard for disambiguation pages is to put entries with links to articles first and ones without links afterwards so I'll fix that. Another thing: Wikipedia standard is that when you reply to someone's message to you, you reply on THEIR talk page, not yours. Mona-Lynn 05:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Template:Colonial Empires

I notice you reverted my change. I have two objections. First it would be American empire or US-American empire. The adjective generally goes before empire, like British Empire, French colonial empire, Spanish Empire, etc. Secondly, the template used to link to American Empire but the term used there is different than what the template is using, and may cause confusion. The case on the template is describing U.S. colonialism, while the other term controversial usage of "American empire" refers to U.S. global influence. Lastly, American empire, also ignores U.S. mainland expansion. If you believe the template is sufficient in explaining that then I have no objection to American or preferably US-American empire being used. 12.220.94.199 02:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Lastly, the link should go to History of United States overseas expansion because that is what deals with U.S. colonialism. This template isn't refering to any other form of expansion. 12.220.94.199 02:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I see no objection against US-American Empire, as it accomodates both the homogenous use of empire and your Anglophone feeling (I'm an allophone, I'll take your cue there) and I already suggested myself to send the link elsewhere, your suggestion seems a valid option to me. Fastifex 05:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you. I'm glad we reached an agreement. 12.220.94.199 22:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Ecclesiastical history of ...

Hello, wondering if you could explain your project here a little further. It's not every day that someone comes along and roughly doubles the history of an article about a city by copying a slab of material about the "ecclesiastical history" of that city. Mind dropping a note at Talk:Lyon? Stevage 09:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't challenging you. Anyway, the length of that section is really far too long for the Lyon article (as it stands now anyway) - it should be moved to Ecclesiastical history of Lyon or even History of Lyon - we certainly don't need pages of this stuff in the city article itself.

Incidentally...you might do well to keep your judgments on French people to yourself? Stevage 09:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello - I'd like to second the above. I left a note on the Bordeaux Talk Page about your Ecclesiastical history input. Just how many articles was this added to? I'm sorry but a subject like this can only be encyclopedic under its own heading, that is to say "Ecclesiastical history of ____". Please create the corresponding articles so that your contributions can have their proper place. THEPROMENADER 23:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

It is always under its own heading, but as a section- as a historian I'm amazed how the primordial importance of teh church (its institutions often more then matters relating to faith) tends to be underestimated or even ignored, even for the Ancien Régime and the missionary/colonial era outside Europe. It's a matter of appreciation when such section is big enough to deserve a separate page- Lyon as a major primacy is a fair candidate, most bishopric ee articles are (still?) so stubby as a whole and/or can only be given a short Ecclesiastical history history, so that the while stll remains shorter then encyclopaedic. Fastifex 08:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, leaving that aside, the problem is that the masses of text you're reading are barely comprehensible, and just not that useful. If you were taking the time to refactor this text, selectively including the most relevant bits, that would be really useful. But adding such unselective, bulk contributions, with sentences like When Felix of Urgel continued rebellious to the condemnations pronounced against Adoptionism from 791-799 by the Councils of Ciutad, Friuli, Ratisbon, Frankfort, and Rome, Charlemagne conceived the idea of sending to Urgel with Nebridius, Bishop of Narbonne, and St. Benedict, abbot of the monastery of Aniane, Archbishop Leidrade, a native of Nuremberg and Charlemagne's librarian. to Lyon doesn't really serve any purpose. At the very least you could add some sections to these masses of text so that we could attempt to dissect them and determine what should go in the main article.

If you are a historian, as you say, then help us out here - add relevant, selective, informative, useful, information to the appropriate History sections of these articles. Don't just dump these chunks of text everywhere. Is that a reasonable request? Stevage 08:39, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that the goal of these top-level city articles is to give an outline of the city's major points, outlines that would link to more detailed articles if the reader is interested. Please be so kind as to move your contribution to a proper namespace, and if you like include a link to this from the 'history' section in the main city page. THEPROMENADER 09:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello again. I see that you are quite active today - but give correcting the French city articles priority please. If you are unable to find time to tend to this I can do so tomorrow, in following the examples of your other contributions. Thank you. THEPROMENADER 20:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

List of states in the Holy Roman Empire

Is it possible you just accidentally deleted the Key section? Chl 21:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• It looks like it; I certainly didn't mean to, in fact I added a code to it this weekend! I've had a horible time with failing uploads on this page, perhaps related to its size. Attempted to put the key back, now, but bizarrely he content table seems to double itself. Fastifex 23:44, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Divan

There appears to be a word missing from the lead sentence of Divan. I checked the history and I think you wrote the sentence, or moved it from Diwan (title) (though I csn't find it in that hsitory either). If you have any idea what should go there could you please fill in the blank? Otherwise I'll re-write the sentence. Cheers, -Will Beback

Otranto

I deleted ecclesiastical history from Otranto for two reason:

1. Otranto's bishopric had never had any relevance in history. For example, the Patriarchate of Aquileia has every right to stay in Encyclopedia. I'm Italian and history expert: believe me, Otranto's bishopric has never had any importance...
2. It is hopelessly out of date. Maybe add it back when we will have some info not limited to 1911.

I think sometimes we have here unuseful things only for the sake to have them, or because some guy once copied them from an ancient Encyclopedia when Christian stuff was considered more important than any other one... but this is an opinion of mine, of course. Let me know if my explanations were clear or not. Ciao! Attilios

I disagree. Your philosophy seemS to be: "it interests me, then it is relevant and I add it". I think you can take 200 books about Otranto or Apulia history, and never find anything about the bishopric of the city. There are surely so many details about history that we have left away and that maybe were more relevant to the city, instead of facts about bishops who nobody cared at the time. For example: why don't you find something about the siege of 1480, which was an event of European importance? Anyway, if you're so stuck with your opinion, at least add historical things that are not out of date (i.e.: the number of parishes in 1901... when no data is available for today). Let me know. user:Attilios

The only modus vivendi will be to agree to disagree - your attitude seems to be "I don't care for it, delete it", but an encyclopaedia is to cater for all tastes, so I often add things, and usually let in things, that I couldn't care for in the least, and expect the same form others. Whether I, you or any number of individuals care for something is NOT a valid criterion for exclusion, at most for what I go to the trouble of adding to. Obviously updates are welcome, and possible for dioceses, but that will have to wait till another round, I don't have the time. Why a contributor does not contribute on anything is his business, I don't order you what to research and will never take anyone's orders myself- if yiu find it so important, do it yourself, or find someone who doesn't set other priorities. Fastifex 09:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Sahaptin people article

Hi. Please see Wikiproject Indigenous peoples "nations, tribes, groups" table (scroll down to find "Sahaptin people" in this table) for my comments about your expansion of Sahaptin people; also see Talk:Sahaptin people.Skookum1 17:58, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Epithet

Hi Fastifex, I see you have reinserted zoological epithets. I am sure you mean well, but if you would examine the ICZN you will find that these do not exist. The internet (and wikipedia) contain a lot of pure myths. Let us not add to the latter? Brya 07:51, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Fastifex, I see you have reinserted zoological epithets (again). I am sure you mean well, but if you would examine the ICZN you will find that these do not exist. The internet (and wikipedia) contain a lot of pure myths. Let us not add to the latter? Brya 07:51, 22 May 2006 (UTC) repeat Brya 06:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

• Clearly there's a difference in angel of approach: you focus on the ideal way for a zoologist to use a standardized jargon (if it is that, but I suppose you know better there), as is probably most appropriate on a specific page on, say, biological nomenclature, while I and probably the average reader of the Epithet article look at any major application of the general notion Epithet, which has its universal linguistical logic, regardless whether there is any authority sanctioning it or an alternative term as 'official' jargon.

I would say the difference is between trying to build an encyclopedia and just gathering odd facts. If you want to put in something about usage of "epithet" in the zoological world you would first have to research who is using this, and since when. It would also help if you could establish why? Then you would have to place this in a pattern of other such aberrant usages of other terms in the zoological world.

After you have done this, and after you have written separate pages on all cases of such usages you might begin to build a case for including it in the page "Epithet". You would have to show that there is a significant amount of people to do this and you would also have to document who these people are. Of course you would still have to make very clear that this is a form of aberrant usage, in defiance of the official norm.

The statement as you made it is patently false. You refer to usage on a single website (one PoV) and raise that to be the standard to be followed. Very much at odds with the policy of Wikipedia. Brya 07:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Barca

I don't see why you changed my heading up top. The most common use of Barca is relating to the football club and therefore there should be a direct link there. I took example from the page: Arsenal which lists Arsenal FC and the Arsenal disambiguation page up top.

• You cannot equate both cases: Arsenal is exactly the same word as the team's name, but Barcelona is NOT exactly Barca, nor is that even the actual abbreviation, which is Barça (which has a separate redirect), not BarCa. P.S. Please sign you entries on talk pages (with Fastifex 05:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)), otherwise one doesn't know who to talk back to, and it ay be taken as suspicious by some - if you didn't put my Talk page on you watcglist, you may not even read this yourself Fastifex 05:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

My bad, however, most people do not have the ç character on their keyboards and therefore would search for Barca and if we could check for statistics I'm sure we'd find that most people aren't looking for the ancient city. Yonatanh 15:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Lado Enclave

You reverted my change to Lado Enclave where I removed the following information about the names of the Belgian commanding officers: 15 January 1897 - 1898 Louis Chaltin (b. 1857 - d. 1933)

 + *1898 - January 1899 Hanolet (1st time)  
 + *January 1899 - 1900 Josué Henry (d. 1948)  
 + *1 May 1900 - 1902 Louis Chaltin  
 + *March 1902 - 19.. Hanolet (2nd time)  
 + *19.. - 10 June 1910 .... 

As you can see, the missing information I referred to includes when this chap named "Hanolet" (first or last name, I'm not sure) finished his term in office and the name of the next commanding officer and when he or she began his/her term in office. As it stands, the information is incomplete and looks unencyclopaedic. If we can find the missing information then it would be great to include it. --Roisterer 16:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Catholic Encyclopedia

Just done some editing on Pammachius. Problems I notice with stuff copied from Catholic: I think that work was meant for people that had a certain kind of education, and then things were given without further specification, which were deemed obvious. An example: the original articles speaks of Tiber and Porto, considering obvious that a Catholic (probably priest) scholar knew they were located in Rome. The same for the church of SS. John and Paul. Check the modifications I made. Another note: don't forget to add the categories, otherwise the article will be less easily reachable by other users. Ciao!! --Attilios 23:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Son of "Ecclesiastical History"

It's been brought to my attention that you are continuing to insert large swaths of text from the catholic encyclopaedia into city articles and titling them "Ecclesiastical history of...". You and I have had an explaining over this practice once before, and I believe you then saw reason my suggestions why you should discontinue that practice, yet I have been told that elswhere you have even continued into an edit war: for the sake of Wiki and reason, please stop this.

It doesn't matter who may be 'for' or 'against' the content of your contribution; the reference you are citing from is a secular point of view of a single movement's influence on world matters; this is hardly what one could call a mainstream reference appreciable by all. Again, I suggest you continue to create new articles in the same naming scheme you created before - and there's absolutely nothing wrong at all with linking those articles to main city pages through a category or "see also" link. Anyone interested in such information will find catch on and follow, and, thanks to the search function, they will be more easily found this way.

Thanks, happy continuations, THEPROMENADER 11:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

AfD:Names of European cities in different languages

I notice you've contributed in the past to Names of European cities in different languages. There is a proposal to delete this article and the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Names of European cities in different languages might intersted you. AjaxSmack 18:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:Autocratic

Good add of categories: you are right on the singling-out of different forms of monarchy. Cwolfsheep 03:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

1. Can you please cleanup your adds to the template: they're making it unwieldly. Cwolfsheep 12:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
2. I attempted to integrate your changes, and yet you still revert to a badly worded, unwikified template. Its like you're ignoring any attempt at consensus at all. Please do something other than revert. Thank you. Cwolfsheep 15:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

List of colonial, imperial and otherwise controlled foreign territories by dominant power‎;

Hello, I noticed you reverted the changes to the above article. While I would agree that some are debatable, some are outright silly. Let's take Salzburg for example. How is Austria a foreign/colonial/other power in relation to that city ? There are numerous others. Travelbird 12:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Missionary

Hi Fastifex. Saw your work- most of which I think is good. This article had previously been in a pretty disorganised state - and still pretty average from my POV. It still needs lots of referencing to bring it up to scratch. But I disagree with two things you have done - and it would have been helpful to have a longer edit summary (preferably on discussion page) to know why you have done it the way you have. The two things I queary are: 1. Restoring the title "India-based Religions". The correct nomenclature is "Eastern Religions" (I'll find references if you need them)- but further to this, the list seems pointless - sort of an afterthought for later development. That's why I deleted it altogether. I think it should just be deleted- and have done so again - but you restore and improve if you want. 2. Restoring "other Christian Religions" as a sub-heading for the JW's and the LDS churches. I had removed the specific heading "Christian" because this is disputed, indeed mainline Christian groups teach that neither the Latter Day Saints nor the Jehovah's Witnesses are Christian at all - but that both are "sort-of" (neither practise the defining Trinitarian baptism). I had left them under the general heading "Christian Missions" but had removed the pointed reference to "Other Christian Religions" - and I did this a way of being more neutral. Your restoration is I think unecessary, because it now looks to be driving home a point that is certainly disputed (vigorously). I suggest we leave them under the general heading, but remove it from the subcat. heading.

Cor Unum 05:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. Point taken about the multiple saves. I'll try - but I spend a lot of time in media editing and doing computer stuff where failure to save results in the loss of hours of work! My prejudice is always save, save and SAVE again. I'll try to change my ways to prevent wasting wikis memory. I am becoming less dissatisfied with the missionary article (though it still needs some serious academic references). I think we are improving it. My understanding of redaction criticism tells me that it probably grew like topsy as a means of actually getting the LDS and JW references in (rather than as a comprehensive article on missionary work and methods in general). It's going in the right direction now - but I wonder if it might benefit eventually from being compared closely with the article on proselytizing- perhaps they are trying to achieve the same thing?

I also meant to say the psychology of wiki is still a bit of a mystery to me - but your notion of putting a teaser in is rather hilarious. You are so right. It is amusing to think of hundreds of obsessive-compulsive religious wikipedians twitching away at their computers as an ERROR is detected in a religious article. I'll remember this one. Sort of like burley in fishing?

cheers Cor Unum 10:33, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Capua

You merged the articles without noticing that I had added some info to Bishopric of Capua. Of course Archdiocese of Capua was full of errors and bad style, and corrected some, plus adding dates of some bishops. Are you happy? --Attilios 09:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Hickory

Can you verify that more than even 0.1% of hickory wood production is destined for the uses you claim to be significant? I doubt it very much, and certainly nothing remotely like the 50% of the wood use description space you are taking up with it. They are vanishingly minor uses, and not ones for which hickory, rather than any other woods in particular, is specifically important. Any wood can be used for the purpose, is that sentence going to be added to every tree page on wikipedia? - MPF 10:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• The specific punitive device term in the text is hickory stick, obviously not just hickory; only very few wood species get such mention, if memory serves me right the other ones are willow (willowing means birching), birch, hazle (the 'Manx birch') and tamarind (switch). The percentage of production used is utterly irrelevant, such blind quantitative reasoning would be a carnage among woods uses (e.g. golf sticks) and is arbitrary as one use may well dwarf all others, nor would it take account of value or socio-cultural relevance. If other uses are not getting more lines, that's either because nobody considers them worth elaborating upon (which would make them apparently not even as important) or probably because nobody got round to them yet, wikipedia after all is only a few years old, countless pages and must sections are in fact still stubbish or even absent Fastifex 10:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair comment, though I think the coverage is still a little 'over the top' - I'll think of some slightly more compact wording and post it here later for your thoughts before I make any changes - MPF 13:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Spanking implements?

Say, Fastifex... we need to talk. What is with this "Spanking implement" stuff in the pointing stick article? Is it REALLY necessary to have that in there? Its kinda ridiculous. Thanks. --CoolFox 17:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Sans-culottes

Can you please see my questions at Talk:Sans-culottes about your edit to that article about a week ago? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 16:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

OOOPS on Canons Regular

Hey Fastifex- I think we are editing the same article at the same time: Canons Regular. I have just restored the contemporary new stuff to the top of the article. Hope you don't mind. It's the journalist in me...

cheers Cor Unum 11:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Hairbrush

Hello! I once again removed the paragraph on child spanking and erotic spanking that was put in the hairbrush article. The paragraph has nothing to do with brushing hair and seem quite ridiculous in the article and was longer than the brushing article itself! If you would like to add a short sentence about spanking then please do so, but the entire, detailed text belongs in the "Spanking" article. Thank you! loulou 01:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Abbey of Batalha

I've corrected your move of the article, it is not an Abbey, but a monastery. I don't know if there is a great difference between both terms, but the second is the most common. Cheers! Mário 22:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• By definition you cannot 'correct' what but you own admission you don't know yourself; but I do know the 'difference', and they overlap: every abbey is a monastery, but many monasteries aren't abbeys, the criterion is whether the head is styled abbot, which is a high clerical rank, in some senses comparable to a bishop. So, monestery is not wrong, but abbey is, in this case, the precise and better term; in fact it is a bit misleading not to use the precise term, because one rarely is so uncurtuous as to use the vague term is stead of the prestigeous one, so monastery is normally only used as a generic term (about abbeys and other moasteries), for variation within a same text (one it has established to be about an abbey) or in other cases for a non-abbey, a bit like a precise rank is better then just officer or field officer; formal texts would only use abbey for one, it is the 'correct' term, monastery just one of many tolerated alternatives. Fastifex 05:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't undersant your first sentence. My point is that I never heard about "Abadia da Batalha", I always heard about "Mosteiro da Batalha", along with that, UNESCO calls it "Monastery". And how do you know this is an abbey? Actually, the building is not the house of a religious order anymore. Searching for "Abbey of Batalha" in Google gives 89 results and searching for "Abadia da Batalha" gives 1, while "Monastery of Batalha" gives 20,000. Mário 09:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Uzès

I moved another of your masterworks to Bishopric of Uzès... Maybe it'd need some copyedit from you. A note: if consensus had been reached that ecclesiastical histories, if not relevant to the generel history of topics, must be in separate articles, why don't you follow this procedure in your new additions? Another advice: please don't limit yourself to paste-and-copy work, search the Internet for updated news about the dioceses you're adding, all dioceses should have an official website (see Diocese of Gaeta for example). Keeping data from 1905 or so is totally absurd. Ciao! --Attilios 12:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And please avoid to add back "and episcopal see" etc. in the abstracts. Otherwise we should add all the other things the cities are seat (why not university seat, for example? Don't you think that it should be more culturally relevant for users here than Catholic administration things?)--Attilios 12:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The Return of the Son of "Ecclesiastical History"

Fastifex,

I've noticed that yet again you are dumping unorganised catholic encyclopedia exerpts 'en masse' into what are supposed to be summary city articles - you know quite well how disruptive this is. I've noticed that you've even begun replacing articles created for your content with a redirect to the main city page - this is not only disruption, but disruption planned in advance. For what I hope is the final time: please desist. It would also be quite kind of you to repair the damage you've done instead of leaving this quite unproductive work to others. THEPROMENADER 15:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've also noticed that you're a bit overzealous in your page moves - moving "departement of Ardèche" to "Ardèche" ? Ardèche is indeed a departement, but was once a historical region - your move cancelled someone's efforts to dispel ambiguity! THEPROMENADER 15:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your corrections - if there are any other "missing" bishopric or diocese city articles, you can most likely find them under one of these terms appended to the city name. Regards. THEPROMENADER 07:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Stop perverting the encyclopedia

Fastifex, please stop spamming the encyclopedia with perversion material ("Pervertible" - your word, not mine).

Just about any object could be put to some kind of perverted use, couldn't it? Does that mean that every encyclopedia article should have references to that perversion? I don't think so.

The comment for your latest edit to Pointing stick says "(restore original and still main use)". Let's take a closer look at that. I will grant you that the term "pointing stick" may be used to refer to a wooden stick, but is it still the "main use"? Please check the following references:

dictionary.com

Merriam Webster

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Yahoo!

MSN

Google

Then come back and tell me that your definition of pointing stick is still the "main use". Not even close. But it did allow you to get the pervertible reference back into the article. (Which I then removed - again.)

I'm sorry if I sound hostile about this, but I'm pretty upset. You have made a lot of great contributions to Wikipedia, but some of these edits in articles like Pointing stick, Ruler, and Broom are appalling.

So please, stop it. I'm not the first person to have to ask you this. Hopefully you will stop and I can be the last.

Michael Geary 23:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I'm sorry if I laid it on a bit thick with all those search references. I wouldn't claim that a topic needs to be mainstream to be included in the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a big tent. You can even have your pervertibles - somewhere.

Here's what this is really about: When I'm sitting at the computer with my 9 year old daughter and she asks a perfectly innocent question like "Daddy, what's the red mouse button on my ThinkPad called?" or "Why are some rulers in inches and some in centimeters?", shouldn't we be able to look it up on Wikipedia without throwing obscene material in her face?

Michael Geary 00:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)