User talk:Jmabel

Archived

Encyclopedic Standards

Hi. I think you make a lot of good points at Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. And it seems like we are sometimes online about the same time of day. Maybe it would be useful for us to hash out some things that we could then present to the rest of the group. If you're interested, maybe we could start with your idea about a mission statement. Maurreen 05:44, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your note and summing up the archives. It looks good. Maurreen 21:28, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You did a great job overhauling those pages! I hope it re-sparks some interest. I was concerned that maybe I was overdoing it. I have added myself to the members list, as you suggested. Part of the reason I didn't do so initially was the emphasis on formal education. It's really good working with you. I also think your think tank idea is good. Thanks. Maurreen 04:13, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel, just to say I most appreciate your work on the Forum for Encyclopedic Standards. :ChrisG 18:24, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Re: Category:Jewish Encyclopedia

Dear Jmabel: I have been meaning to ask you, why did you create Category:Jewish Encyclopedia? I am very puzzled by the need for a category about an encyclopedia which is only used as a source or reference for Jewish-content articles. Isn't it enough that articles using its material cite it as a source if and when material is derived from it (the Jewish Encyclopedia). You also mistakenly refer to it as the "Encyclopedia Judaica" (Template:JewishEncyclopedia "This article incorporates text from the public domain 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia (a.k.a. Encyclopedia Judaica). Please feel free to update like any other article.") which is problematic because the modern "Encyclopedia Judaica" exists and is copyrighted (a new hard-copy sells for around $1,350 see [1] for example) it's also sold as a CD, see [2] for example. Seems someone also started stub on it at Encyclopedia Judaica. My main point though, is that we don't need the "category" of an ancyclopedia as it serves no purpose that I can tell. I am thinking that it should be removed. What do you think? Thanks. IZAK 05:07, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Punk Rock

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your being circumspect about projecting your prejudices, but with your memories of the period and involvement in the movement, you are a primary source of Punk history, and likely to be more accurate than the majority of contributors here. And others will jump in to disagree if you go off the rails (I think we had a back-and-forth about the relationship between "New Wave" and Punk, didn't we?). More to the point, you know how to write, which is a less than universal attribute among Wikipedians. Even when the sentences are rendered clear and comprehensible, it seems to me that many contributors are anxious to annex whatever tidbit they know about a given subject, leading to excructingly repetitive and circuitous entries. The Punk Rock entry, though labelled an outstanding example, would be improved by cutting at least a couple of paragraphs, in my view. I think Wikipedia is a great idea, but so far the results often seems to suffer from the absence of traditional editors.--BTfromLA 06:56, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC) PS: Small world: I was at that Roundhouse show, too, next to the stage in front of Johnny (I'm told that my young hippieish self is glimpsed onscreen in the recent documentary about the Ramones).

Pnikolov

Just a heads up. Pnikolov is now posting as User:Rananim. Rick K 21:36, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

You're right it's two different articles

There is a consensus article, and then a new version written by HistoryBuffEr. He's done that on several articles, and he refuses to use the Talk: pages to propose any of it. I empathize your position, since the POV warriors showed up it has been quite unpleasant on Wikipedia for me as well. That said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Jayjg 23:51, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you weren't doing anything. I'm frustrated with all this Wikipedia policy violation and POVing, and the few neutral parties willing to weigh in keep getting their heads bitten off [3], so there doesn't seem to be much hope. Jayjg 00:04, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Goddams Ches

Do you really think that "Che" is the proper (and only) place in Wikipedia to refer to a French mediaeval slur directed to Englishmen?

Best, Ejrrjs 09:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Systemic bias oops

Thanks for moving me to the proper systemic bias project participant page. I was wondering why I was the only person to sign up for such an important project. :) BanyanTree 05:55, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team

Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I fixed it. If anyone has ideas for a better name, I'm certainly open. Maurreen 09:01, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

FA references

Yes, any one of those would be. My idea was to finish that list then create a message to be pasted to all of the talk pages. Feel free to coordinate work on adding references to any of them - Taxman 12:28, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

CSB redux

Well, thanks for asking me. :) I've reduced my participation in WP:CSB because I'm tired of being shrieked at that whatever I do isn't good enough. I genuinely believe Xed started CROSSBOW/CSB as a vanity project, and even though it's an exceptional goal and a great undertaking, his recurring bouts of ego make it difficult for anyone else to join in. Wikipedia chose to change his pet cute name for the project and it's been all downhill from there.

Overall, we have basically two approaches to CSB. Laissez-faire participants believe the value is in having a to-do list and letting people work on articles as they see fit. You've also talked about the value of recruiting more diverse subject-matter experts, which I agree will be most effective in the long term. Activist participants place more importance on the COTF and in attacking every article on the to-do list, doing outside research to fill in our own knowledge gaps. I don't disagree that this would make me a smarter and better-rounded person if I were to do this. :) There's always going to be tension between those two approaches, but I think most of us are reasonable and perfectly happy to accommodate both.

The bigger problem comes when one ego-driven hyper-activist (as far as I can tell, only Xed is doing this) decides that the laissez-faire approach is worthless and that unless everyone is willing to put in the level of activist effort he deems necessary, the entire project is worthless and should be cancelled. I notice from the Talk page that other activist participants do not agree with him, and even he himself flip-flops... today he's back suggesting fixes.

I have two thoughts on trying to resolve this. One would be a writeup on the laissez-faire vs. activist approaches: codify as part of the project that either is acceptable and that lulls in activity are OK because the to-do list is always there when things pick up again. If we can get consensus on that basic principle, maybe we don't have to fight about it all the time. Two, if we wanted to be heavy-handed about it, we could list WP:CSB on WP:VFD and let wikipedia decide, once and for all, whether the community as a whole thinks the project is worth keeping. I'd vote to keep, of course, and I'd list the reasons we've discussed. That's probably excessive, but it'd be one way to get disinterested third parties to weigh in.

I'm glad you're involved, and I hope any of this helps. :) —Bsktcase 19:31, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please, please reconsider. The CSB project is such a good idea, but it's not going to go anywhere as long as we let Xed pull this sort of stuff - I think Bsktcase accurately summarises what's going on. It's a collaborative project, and he shouldn't be calling the shots. I think it's about time the rest of us took it back. Ambi 02:39, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think it's about time we just ignored him. If he wants to work with us, he's welcome to do so, but I don't think we're under any obligation to let him play overlord. If he reverts, we can always re-revert.

What would you think about moving CSB to the noticeboard format? It's probably more suited to that - WikiProjects were always more about enforcing standards across existing articles, and it might be easier to get people involved than having all that garbage that's presently on the front page. Ambi 03:01, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think we need to come at this from three different angles - recruitment, retention and using the people we have to do as much as we can. Recruiting is important, but it's the hardest to do, and it rarely seems to come of anything. I don't really agree with your suggestion that it's only the privileged who are thick-skinned, either. In my opinion, the best way of tackling this is to move it to a subpage and really brainstorm the best ways of doing so - I don't think there's much added benefit in all that stuff being on the front page.

The same could probably go for the participants list - in most cases, I don't think there's a need to have a list of people to contact (and if there is, that purpose can be served just as well by welcome messages and looking at discussion pages). For places where this is necessary, such as translation, once again, I think setting it up on a subpage is probably the way to go, as it only applies to a subset of the people involved.

Retention, on the other hand, is I think the best way of going about this. Wikipedia gets bunches of editors who come along, make a few edits, maybe even register an account, and disappear off into the sunset. We've been very successful in solving this problem with the Australian noticeboard and such - new users editing related articles invariably get a welcome message dropped on their talk page that points them to a place where they can find like-minded people interested in working on the same articles - in this case, the noticeboard (or better, a specialised subpage). We've picked up numerous editors in this way that I don't think would've stuck around otherwise.

But just as important is making use of what we have. We've already got a bunch of interested writers, with some, such as Filiocht, being particularly brilliant. If we're to make any real impact here, I think we need to get all the interested regular Wikipedians together and come at this. After all, while local experience is certainly helpful, it isn't necessarily vital if one is to write something of even FA-quality. Once again, the notice boards seem to have been particularly effective in doing this. Six months ago, our Australian articles were wretched, and the Australian editors we had were working off in random places around the 'pedia. Now we're getting an average of ten new Australian articles every day.

What I'd like to do is set it up like these noticeboards (the UK and Ireland ones also having been very successful), with a brief to-do list not unlike the one we have now, but a bit longer, a full one with all the articles needing work (which I'll try and start, but will probably need some help, particularly with African and ethnic topics), a log of created articles, so we can see what others have been doing, and subpages for a list of participants list, translation and recruitment (which would all be linked from the to-do list, and could be mentioned in welcome messages). I apologise for making this so long, but in my opinion, this is the way to get things back on track. Ambi 03:58, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Effort at Consensus

Thanks for your contribution - I noticed your well put edit in "Who is a Pashtun". I think we have done our bit, and I will be ending furher discussion on the topic (hopefully). A collective action like this always helps.

Best wishes, Insaaf.

Culture

Hi, nice work on the "Culture" article. Thanks for your help! Maurreen 06:23, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Barnstar

I gave you a barnstar for your work on Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards and the Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. But I don't know how to add this info and put it in a box and make it pretty. Maurreen 02:50, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the edits I did are what you have in mind. If not, well, then I tried *shrugs* --Josiah 03:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Haute Couture

Joe, I inserted "haute couture" back into the Culture article. If you really feel it's inappropriate then I won't keep re-inserting it, but my reasoning is that many men and women (the group that also goes to the opera, buys expensive art etc) have it as an article of faith not to buy clothes off-the-peg. Haute couture doesn't only refer to high-fashion designer clothes. It refers (I believe) to the very best tailoring (the phrase means "high sewing"). So even the Queen, though it doesn't always look like it, wears clothes of that quality. That's why I thought it would be classed as part of that "high culture", but if you still feel it's wrong, by all means remove it. Slim SlimVirgin 03:18, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Partition of India

You voted for Partition of India, this week's Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article.

spanish page of the week

I was working on the spanish page about the explorer, when i realized that you were working on it at the same time. I didnt want us to step on each other´s toes, so i backed off. Contact me if you need any help. --Handel 03:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Addendum

What if we are both working on the same page, and you edit a page X into version y, but then I, still working with version X, edit it to version Z? My changes to the article would not record your changes if we both open the ¨edit¨ page before either of us makes a change.

As of

Mr. Mabel, based on the Wikipedia policies you showed me Re:United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, I have gone back and revised the pages for the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 1st thru 8th Circuits and the List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Thank you. — DLJessup 03:21, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

On systemic bias

Joe, what you say is very interesting, but I have one objection and one query. The query is: how do you know that most editors are men? How do you know that most are white? Are you inferring this from the subject matter covered or not covered? If so, you're begging your own question.

The objection is that I'm not sure I agree with your use of the word "systemic". There's nothing about the way Wikipedia is set up that discourages certain groups of people from joining, or that treats them differently if they do join -- unless you mean the fact that it's online discourages people with no access to computers, but then you'd have to argue books portray systemic bias because not everyone can afford equal access to books. But if you're not referring to the online nature of Wikipedia, what do you mean by "systemic"? Slim 09:11, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Replied on User talk:SlimVirgin -- Jmabel | Talk

CfD confusion

Hi! You expressed some confusion about the listing of Category:National Bolshevik topics at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion, but its listing has been there for one week and is due to removed, so I thought I'd respond here.

I listed Category:National Bolshevik topics for deletion because it's not a very good name for a category. (It's basically redundant. A category is assumed to contain articles related to the topic of the category. You could have a List of National Bolshevik topics or a Category:National Bolshevism, but Category:National Bolshevik topics is just plain unnnecessary.)

Some well-intentioned Administrator deleted the category and moved it to my suggested replacement before the CfD period was over. This caused some confusion, but Category:National Bolshevik topics was the only one of the two that was ever listed for deletion. As far as I know, no one is challenging the existence of such a category, just its name. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 19:11, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 most active Wikipedians, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know at my talk page what you think. -- Ram-Man 20:47, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

If you are concerned about attribution, then paste the {{MultiLicenseWithCC-By-All}} template into your user page and save it. This will allow licensing under the GFDL (which requires attribution) and all of the Creative Commons licenses that require Attribution. By no means will it release anything into the public domain. -- Ram-Man 17:49, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

Blind Uncle Gaspard/Cajun man

Yes, you're right in your critique of the edit. Thanks. Is the Ethnic Groups Wikiproject still going? User:Bennmorland 1226 EST, Nov. 30, 2004

Very well. I would have been interested in joining the project. Benn M. 10:32, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

Marriages

Joe, I'm laughing at you saying Wikipedia is easier for single people, or for people with good or bad marriages. To which I might add: and for people with good marriages going bad, thanks to Wikipedia. :-) Slim 23:31, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

CheeseDreams

Since you seem to be involved, would you be interested in signing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/CheeseDreams#Users_certifying_the_basis_for_this_dispute? --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁᑐ]] 23:32, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

photo permission gotten

I've just updated the permissions to a photo of Alex Chilton that you previously questioned a different user for uploading without getting permission. I have made sure to get the needed permission from the record company site it was taken from. I'm going to add it to the Alex Chilton page in a bit. Bebop 05:46, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

History of Argentina

I made further changes to the early years of independent existence. Would you mind reviewing the wording for me? Thanks in advance! Ejrrjs 11:48, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, el de Yucatán

Thank you for your question. I have answered in the same page. --Vivero 22:54, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Categ for keep/delete ?

Hi Jmabel, I know this will interest you: Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Jewish Russian people [4] and Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Jews [5] Some people are confused about the ethnicity vs. the religious aspects. Thanks. IZAK 14:32, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

laicite

laicite page has been cropped. I aint admin, and so the reverting is hard for me-change it back will you? CheersLink title

Re: AIDS

Thanks for your answer, Joe! It would be interesting to find the real identity of Patient Zero, through, ah? Because, sad but true, this was a person who made history.

Anyways, thanks and God bless you!

Sincerely yours, "Antonio Madonna Lauper Martin"

Political spectrum

You said: "I'm confused, Quadell, are you suggesting that because he is strongly opinionated I should just let him do whatever he wants to articles? Or that I should "balance" him with deliberately POV edits of my own? Or what?"

Oh, no. I meant it's best to decline to debate his politics on the talk page. On the article itself, you have to insist on NPOV.

He's opinionated to the point of being obnoxious, and it's tempting to get into a long and angry debate with him on talk pages, not about the text that should appear on the article page, but in rebuttal to the things he says on the talk page. I've seen it, plenty of times. I've given up trying to talk Silverback into not provoking other people. Instead I try to talk other people into not being provoked. Hope this helps. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 13:56, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

- Not to intrude into anyone else's business, but I couldnt help but read this tidbit, since when I was a new wikipedian I had to learn about NPOV the hard way. A couple of my first articles, for example, compared Carlos Monzon with Fidel Castro and said that Felix Trinidad "destroyed Maurice Blocker".

At the time, I saw this as a magazine. After I learned the ropes, I stopped saying things like what I used to put on my articles. Maybe we should tell Silverbullet that he shall not put his own views on articles because this isnt a magazine. If he still doesnt understand, as they said in Puerto Rico's version of Remote Control: "Pa fuera! Pa la Calle!", in other words, can him then.

Good luck, Quad and Joe! God bless you two!

Sincerely yours, "Antonio Remote Controlled Martin"

culture

thanks! :) Slrubenstein

Emergent Punk in Canada

Re: punk rock

I'd like to attempt to justify the adding of Canada to the cultural origins of punk.

First, here is an excerpt from the page:

"In the mid-1970s, influential punk bands emerged separately in three different corners of the world: The Ramones in New York, The Saints in Australia, and the Sex Pistols, in London. In each case, these bands were operating within a small "scene" which included other bands..."

While perhaps not as widely influential as the Ramones, The Saints, or the Sex Pistols, Canada indeed had its own mid 1970's punk scenes that included bands like: The Viletones, The Battered Wives, The Demics, and of course Teenage Head (all operating in the Queen Street scene of Toronto around 1977), not to mention The Pointed Sticks, The Schmorgs, The K-Tels, and Young Canadians (all operating in scenes on the West Coast, particularly Vancouver, as early as 1976). The influence of these bands in Canada was and is great, and their sound suggested new Canadian bands to come, such as D.O.A, Nomeansno, SNFU, and Subhumans (the Canadian punks, not the British ones)

If it's an issue of timliness rather than influence, these Canadian bands where rocking out in unison with their contemporaries. The Saints released their first album under that name in 1976, The Sex Pistols released "Never Mind the Bollocks, Its the Sex Pistols" in 1977, the self-titled Clash album came out in 1977, and The Damned released their first album in 1976. Just for contrast, The Viletones released "Screaming Fist" in 1977 on Razor Records.

I think that this might serve to justify a place for Canada in the cultural origins of punk rock--it was an implicitly organic sound that emerged out of the breakdown of cultural traditions, i.e. it was a punk sound that was entirely culturally original. If you and others disagree, I promise I won't keep putting it up for you to take it down.

(unsigned, but this was User:Brooker). -- Jmabel | Talk 01:23, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Troublemaker issue

Will do. Thank you for your interest. Regards, Redux 18:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I Jmabel. That issue appears to be resolved, but in a rather concerning way (please read MacGyver's comment on his talk page and my follow up). Following up on MacGyver's encounter with Pinnecco, I decided to go out of my way and ckeck Pinnecco's list of contributions. See my latest entry in village pump and you'll see that there seems to be smoke in the air. I really hope I'm wrong, but it might take an Admin to handle this guy. Regards, Redux 01:11, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your follow up. I didn't mean for you, as an Admin, to be my "bulldog" in "handling" Pinnecco, sorry if it might have sounded like that. I intended that last sentence as a comment, since you posted in my talk page and you happened to be an Admin, meaning that an Admin's intervention may be (or not) necessary in the future, should his attitude not change. I guess I misspoke, sorry. I won't start a "let's ban Pinnecco" campaign just yet. I believe at least some of his work so far will be reviewed and he will be approached by other users. The reason why I'm not doing all the reviewing myself is that it could create the sense that I'm in a cruzade against him because he edited an article I had written (and it's even worse if he starts to believe that and decides to retaliate), which is certainly not the case. I expect to observe how he will react to this before I even consider any action. As I said before, I hope he proves me wrong. Regards, Redux 02:03, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Lenora Fulani

A Newmanite has arrived to push his POV. Since you say you're familiar with her, I thought you might be of assistance. (I'm just familiar enough to know that her relationship with Fred Newman needs to be explained in the article.) RadicalSubversiv E 22:06, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Translation of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba

I have added book and web referrences to the spanish article, as promised. I think I can help with some of the translation problems (from the Spanish side of the translation, of course). I will add this in the discussion page of Francisco Hernández, where the translation problems are described. --Vivero 22:56, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Think before you type

I didn't delete anybody's comment or vote. I made a footnote underneath the votes saying the votes were invalid with a link to the contributions page as an explanation. Do not lecture me when I have done nothing wrong. Reene ^✎ 08:02, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Except they're not gone. They're still there, just with my footnotes beneath them. He's accused me of removing them on the VfD pages as well. I don't get it. Perhaps he's just confused. Reene ^✎ 08:09, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I should have realized as much. I'm sorry for snapping at you. I have had a very long day, but that is no excuse. I hope you'll accept my apology. Reene ^✎ 08:17, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Wikidemia

Thanks for your interest in the new project on academic research about Wikipedia, Wikidemia. It would be wonderful if you'd like to get involved! I think the project page had a small section titled "Participants" when you visited, but your comment on the talk page there indicates "Members" is a better label. I'm very excited about this project, but also still a relative newbie, so as things proceed I would be extremely grateful for your feedback and help both about research ideas and about how best to organize the project. Tobacman 07:17, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Uqbar, et al

L'Elenco Telefonico di Uqbar is one instance of a variant of the game Lexicon, a game in which people take on the roles of encyclopedants and construct an encyclopedia together. I thought you'd appreciate it. +sj + 19:55, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

and Wikidemia looks quite interesting...

Alberuni

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Alberuni/Evidence [6]. IZAK 19:05, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Alexis de Tocqueville

You know, you're probably right, while it is a profound and insightful quotation, but it isn't something that he is widely known for. I'm rather new to this, so if you could move it to Wikiquote for me, that would be fantastic. Cheers Micah 01:31, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Liberalism

Thank you for the kind words, I don't regard it as nearly complete or well enough written yet, and certainly haven't reached down the page far enough to add the bibliographical references. Regular writing (The Pyramid and the Sphere) takes precedence at the moment. The article is in far better shape for being under your guidance and I marvel at your patience on the liberalism and conservatism pages in keeping the material from falling into a shapeless mass of comments, rants and POV. Stirling Newberry 04:37, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Formale Organisation

You say you translated this. Is this really your translation work and not just a machine translation?
I translated it with Babelfish [7]. After that, I went down the road to buy a newspaper, and you noticed it before I came back to the work and tidied it. Anthony Appleyard 09:21, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vandal

Just FYI: I blocked 220.236.152.72 for you. -- Clockwork Soul 07:30, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The edits in Shudra don't seem unreasonable, which mostly stems from the very bad state of this article and other articles on Indian caste system. For instance, he deleted [8] a paragraph I tried to NPOVify [9] some time ago, but wasn't sure whether deletion would be better.

I also had a quick look on some of his other edits. If he would start responding to discussion, and stop deleting other POVs, there may be some relevant POVs in his edits, which should be kept.

Pjacobi 14:50, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

RFC pages on VfD

Should RFC pages be placed on VfD to be deleted? I'm considering removing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Slrubenstein, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jwrosenzweig and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/John Kenney from WP:VFD. Each of them was listed by CheeseDreams. Your comments on whether I should do this would be appreciated. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:51, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think that the process should be the same as for a main-space page; clearly, in all of these cases the emerging consensus is to keep, but I could imagine a good reason to delete an RFC page. After all, if we decide RFC pages can never be deleted, then they become magnets for inappropriate material and someone will start one for that purpose. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:41, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Good point. I'm not going to remove, though maybe a policy needs to be ammended or a new one should be proposed. Not sure what the process is. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:02, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image copyrights

Hi! Thanks for uploading Image:Osona Arms.png. I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much, Edwinstearns 18:23, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ola!

A couple of things;

On behalf of the entire wikipedia community, thanks for you trnaslation work.
As per you request on Talk:History of Nuevo León, i uploaded the images to commons, however i have not added them to the article because there was no copyright notice on the origanal pics on es, so i have left at note on the talk page of the user who origanaly uploaded them requesting clarification.
I created Fiestas of Nuevo León, however i got a little confused translating the first paragraph, could you have a quick squiz (the origanal spanish is commented out at the moment)
Re: you speil on systemic bias; i dont know if actively trying to recruit contributors (from particualar backgrounds) is a good thing. I like the idea of providing access in disadvantaged areas (as has been discussed by the foundation), but actively pimping wikimedia/pedia to certain groups (or anyone at all for that matter) is a bit to close to advertising for my liking. As for important issues that are not at the moment covered (like everything to do with africa for example) i think that it will slowly right itself, and as it does it will draw in more people from those under-represented groups, but while a digital divide exists, we will never be able to properly banish our systemic bias. The bellman 09:43, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Your input needed for new Template:Jew

Hi Jmabel: Recently the Jew page had a make-over with the creation of a new {{Jew}} template (Template:Jew). Material from the main article was moved to create some new indvidual articles. One section that I know you wrote is being discussed, so please see Template_talk:Jew#Secular_Jewish_Culture your views are needed. There is also discussion about the main table on the Jew page that I know you have an interest in, see that at Talk:Jew#Jew_template and the other needs relating to new spin-off articles, see Talk:Jew#Changes to the Template/New articles. Thanks and be well. IZAK 05:12, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia audience

Does Wikipedia have a system of monitoring how many people visit a page on a certain day? Sometimes I wonder how many people are reading what we write. (Decius)

Craciun

I still haven't learned how to sign my comments so that a link to my Talk page comes up. I'll learn. I'm not in any way closely related to Cristian Craciun, but a relation is possible going further back. At the moment, I can trace back my Craciun family to Ion Craciun, my great-grandfather, who lived in Vaslui county near the town of Cetatuia, as I remember. If I checked records I could find out more I guess. I don't know if you already know this, but 'Craciun' means 'Christmas' in Romanian, and 'Ion' is the Romanian equivalent of 'John', so in English my Great-Grandfather's name would be 'John Christmas'. Anyway, thanks. (Decius)

Your Romanian is quite good. :)(Decius)

Read-write

The site is now read-write again. It was switched to emergency read ony mode on the standby database master for about 15 minutes. More details over at BerliOS. Jamesday 09:46, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Help

I need some help. I want to contact some Romanian linguists of good standing to look at my research and get some opinions, positive or negative, but I don't have any connections. All I have is an email adress of this Thracologist named Sorin Olteanu but I couldn't get through. I'd appreciate whatever help I can get. (Decius) ````

Okay, thanks, I'll see what happens. Decius 23:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chilean coup of 1973

Rewritten some of my changes to meet some of your criticism on this article. Let me known what you think. --Martin Wisse 21:54, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Exilarch/syntax

I'm just wondering, given your recent edits at Exilarch: what is supposed to be the problem with using a left square bracket as a normal character? Why put a nowiki element around it when it doesn't need one? There has been a lot of this lately. Is it a new standard? If so, where is it documented? -- Jmabel | Talk 19:03, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

There have been people running scripts to find syntax errors on pages, these scripts often pull up examples where a square bracket is being used as normal character. Exilarch was one such page, so I added the nowiki bit, thus "fixing" it from the point of view of the script. Apologies if a messed up the page, I suppose that these projects are a wee bit questionable, encouraging people to edit pages that they have no "interest" in. Suggest you consider bringing this up here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Wiki_Syntax? Grinner 10:14, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject computers

Please, by all means feel free to help us out! I am also interested in the history of computers. Feel free to totally change the structure of the project. Be as ruthless as you want, I'm quite happy to see what people come up with! I reckon we already have so much information on computing topics it just needs polishing. Hopefully if this project gets off the ground we can make a Wikireader on computers: one that's as good as the crypto guys have. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:50, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Trey Stone

I had reservations about doing it myself because at times he is willing to play by the rules while disagreeing with other users such as myself. However, there can be no appearance of a conflict of interest in me blocking him at this stage, as his latest behavior on Talk:Joseph Stalin constitutes unambiguous vandalism and warrants a block. 172 16:59, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)