User talk:Coppertwig

Haselzweig im Schnee (Hazel twig in snow)

☺

Welcome to my talk page.

Messages that are welcome here:

• politely-worded criticisms of my behaviour
• calmly-expressed differences of opinion
• questions about how to edit Wikipedia (but I might not be here or have time to answer)
• just saying hello or whatever
• etc.; I like getting that "you have new messages" banner.
• I hope my friends will tell me when they disagree with me or think I'm doing something wrong.

Not welcome here:

• negative judgemental comments about Wikipedians, except as noted above. (If you're having trouble getting along with someone, you want to ask my help about it, and you feel you really, really need to say something a teensy bit critical of the user's behaviour, consider inviting me to discuss it with you on your talk page, and say it there instead; but note that the civility policy still applies there too, and that I'm semi-retired or retired from Wikipedia and might not reply.)
• comments, judgements or discussion about projects that are incompatible with Wikipedia policy

One way to leave a message here is to click on the "+" tab at the top of this page. Sometimes I reply here, sometimes on your talk page, etc.; feel free to let me know which you'd prefer.

Also Thank you

Re: your comment here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Null_hypothesis#%22File_drawer_problem%22?

That is a wonderfully lucid and useful explanation. Thanks! DeepNorth (talk) 20:02, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you

For this edit. I apologize for catagorizing you as a pro circumcision editor. You stood up to Jake and Avi with clear logic and listened to others concerns with an opened mind. Garycompugeek (talk) 13:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Gary. I accept your apology. In general, I prefer not to be categorized. I believe that each individual has their own unique set of beliefs that are not easily summarized in a single phrase. In general on Wikipedia, I try to base my edits and talk page discussion not on my personal beliefs (which I haven't stated!) but on reliable sources and policies and guidelines, as well as trying to find compromises.

You can help. I think a similar edit needs to be done in the body of the article, (perhaps a full sentence, based on that source or some other source) and perhaps the wikilink moved to the body of the article (i.e. "female circumcision" could appear without a wikilink in the lead since it's near the hatnote, and with a wikilink later in the article.) Perhaps you can find time to do that if I don't. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm

Would you mind taking another look at this edit? I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I don't think that both refs support both claims in that sentence... Thanks, Jakew (talk) 17:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. No strong feelings either way. I've self-reverted. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Jakew (talk) 21:23, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Search multiple prefix template

Coppertwig, I finally got around to finishing this template, the one we discussed a while ago here question about parsing in a template and here User_talk:Coppertwig#Extension:VariablesExtension. It is not the most eloquent solution, but the wikipedia templating language is not exactly the most sophisticated language either. Which is by choice, I was surprised to find out. But, I wanted to show you what I came up with. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment.

• Here is an example searching all the deletion discussions (I think.. there are a lot of areas) User:Stmrlbs/SearchDeletionDiscussions

Search All Deletion Discussions with instructions (strikeout/fix stmrlbs|talk 04:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC))

• Here is the template User:Stmrlbs/Template/Search_prefixes

stmrlbs|talk 04:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig, I realize you are on a wikibreak, but I thought I would let you know that I moved this to the wikipedia public template area:

Template:Search_prefixes. Hope to see you here again. stmrlbs|talk 21:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding parameters to templates

Hi,

I have an idea to improve a template, but have no idea where to start, to implement it.

{{NYCS-bull-small}} produces small bullets for New York City Subway services, for example . It is used on the rolling stock page to identify which trains operate on which services. Someone recently improved it with the capability to link to the service page.

Here's where the problem comes in. The bullet links to a disambiguation page listing all former and current shuttles. I kludged the output of the rolling stock page for the three current shuttle services. It looks silly, and I'd like to streamline the appearance.

How do I modify the template to accept the parameters of "42nd Street", "Franklin Avenue" and "Rockaway Park" to produce an bullet with the proper link to those shuttle's service page?

Acps110 (talk) 23:20, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Acps110. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going to be away for a number of weeks. I'm back, though not spending as much time here as before, and perhaps only on weekends.

I fixed the template as you suggested. Good idea!

I don't quite understand how the if statements work. Something about having to distinguish between the null string, "false", zero or some other kind of empty result. Anyway, as I understand it, {{{2|x}}} means use parameter 2 or if it doesn't exist, use "x". {{{2|}}} means use parameter 2 or if it doesn't exist, use the null string. But for some reason which I forget, you then also have to use an if statement, which will take the null string as a false condition. Anyway, that's the pattern I use, an if statement with {{{2|}}} as the condition to test whether the user has specified a second parameter when calling it, and it works. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

COOL! Looks Great!

Thank you for the explanation on how you implemented that! My request was not intended to be earth-shattering; thank you for getting to it when you had time. I'll update the documentation to include the new feature. Acps110 (talk) 23:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I was going to try to remember to update the documentation.

Actually, I was quite pleased to see several messages waiting for me when I got back from my wikibreak. I like getting messages. I'm glad you like it! ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Maintained tag

Hey Copper, hope life is well. Just a quick note that I added you to a maintained tag on the Che article as you and I are usually the first to respond. If you would rather me remove you, just let me know. As an aside, I miss running into you around the Wiki world :o) - hope you're not to busy.   Redthoreau (talk)RT 03:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Fine, although, as I said above, I don't expect to be spending as much time here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

First Roumanian-American congregation

Thanks, and thanks for all your help with it. Nice to see you editing again! Jayjg ^(talk) 01:25, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

DIA EMAIL POSTED

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/blog/

Sorry, I don't see such an email at that link. I see "New Energy Times Blog" and "Krivit and Marwan Report Published", etc. Is it somewhere on that page? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig, hope you don't mind me commenting. It was taken down. I emailed a copy to you, so that hopefully you can better see how much of a review process this document has gone through.

P.S. Think about it. If cold fusion had any remote possibility of working, would the DIA be releasing this publicly, so that foreign governments could read it and start putting serious money into clandestine energy weapons research? For real? It's laughable. Phil153 (talk) 00:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the copy of the email, Phil123, which I hadn't previously seen, but which has been superseded by later developments. The document from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has been officially released as an unclassified document and is published on both the lenr-canr and New Energy Times websites. I don't care to speculate as to their reasons for releasing it, but it's a report which, as far as I can tell, summarizes information which was already publicly available (and thus makes an excellent secondary source for Wikipedia to cite). The report came out of a collaborative effort involving consultations with technology experts as well as researchers in the field, and was "Coordinated with DIA/DRI, CPT, DWO, DOE/IN, US Navy SPAWAR/Pacific and U.S. NSWC/Dahlgren, VA."

By the way, the report points out that other countries are already doing more cold fusion research than the U.S., so I'm not sure your argument holds up.

Of course I don't mind you commenting. I like getting talk page messages. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the field intimiately, but I think the more accurate statement is "other countries and companies have done more cold fusion research than the US, and found cold fusion useless." Most of this occurred in the 90s, and much of the funding has been discontinued. The dates are right there in this report.

There are no new authors here, it's the same fringe walled garden. Example: Mosier-Boss; McKubre, etc. To give you an idea of their credibility...McKubre supports and cites the work of Dardik (if you don't know who Dardik is, have a read of this). This is par for the course...even the originator of cold fusion, Fleischmann, is getting treated by Dardik. The brightest luminaries in cold fusion believe in, or at least use and support, makers of AIDS/cancer/panacea-cold fusion wave cures. Think about what that implies regarding gullibility, critical thinking skills, ability to detect fraud, and general carefulness.

Anyway, I'm ranting and I apologise. This is not an argument against exclusion, just an FYI. Have a nice day. Phil153 (talk) 23:47, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not impressed by ad-hominem arguments. It's not up to us to judge the character of authors, but to report what appears in reliable published sources. Also, maybe it's just my lack of familiarity with the field, but I don't remember having seen the name Barnhart as an author of cold fusion publications before. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

What I wrote were not arguments against inclusion, despite what Abd (erroneously) believes. This is your talk page, not talk:cold fusion. I was merely trying to engage you; your unwavering support of Abd and sympathy toward cold fusion is curious to me; despite being fringe friendly you are not like other CF proponents, and I was curious as to why you believe as you do. Anyway, your replies makes it clear that you are not interested in being open about that. That's fine...I apologise for taking your time...all the best! Phil153 (talk) 04:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I enjoy discussion and argument. If I've said something you disagree with, I'd be happy to discuss it. When you say "why you believe as you do," I don't know what beliefs you're talking about. I try to edit according to reliable published sources, not according to personal beliefs (which I generally don't discuss on-wiki), and people often jump to false conclusions about what my personal beliefs (if any) on a topic might be. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Appreciate

I appreciate your follow-up on my talk page. All the best to you as well. Debresser (talk) 16:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the civil notice

I think you "seem to suggest" is civil. The current presentation has strong bias. I addressed Jake's criticism directly with him, with his own prompting discussion text.

HIV belongs in the text, but not in the lead. It is not a significant healtlh issue basically unless you live in Africa.

No dates should be used (as is standard in the body), or all the association dates are needed (cite not just the AMA 1999 but most associations with their respective dates) along with the WHO/UNAIDS and CDC dates.

I will find religious advocacy statements. You don't understand, or disagree, that medical issues are over emphasized in the circumcision article?Zinbarg (talk) 23:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I've replied on your talk page. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

So much to address. You're right about being more civil. Is my last proposed paragraph OK? It leaves the HIV benefit info in the lead. If you and/or Jake insist on dates for the WHO/UNAIDS and CDC publications, I'd like to put in the several association statements and their dates (mostly post gold standard HIV/circ studies) that each say do not recommend.Zinbarg (talk) 03:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete it?

I would like to remove the "medical propaganda" discussion I started. First, I looked more carefully, and it's nothing near 2/3 of the text. The whole text loads slowly because it's so full of stuff that's not actually readable. I do think it's wrong to seek medical justification for something sacred. What set me off is it sometimes makes the text unprofessional and dated. The medical camp is a relatively tiny fringe group with generally weak research. But, there are more important things for me to do. Can I delete the section from discussion?Zinbarg (talk) 19:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Stephan Schulz

AfDM| page=Stephan Schulz|logdate=2009 December 10

I thought you might be interested in this vote. Vanity Pages for Admins really have no place on Wikipedia and it is high time to clear this detritus. ~ Rameses (talk) 11:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The above message appears to me to violate the WP:CANVASS guideline, especially the last sentence. I see from your userpage that you've apparently been blocked as a sockpuppet. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Ping

I have sent you an e-mail. --Tenmei (talk) 17:00, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Mentorship

The Revision History of Wikipedia:Mentorship records your participation the article's development; and for this reason, I am reaching out to you.

Please consider reviewing my edit at Wikipedia:Mentorship#Unintended consequences. In the search for a mentor deemed acceptable by ArbCom, I plan to cite this as a useful context for discussing what I have in mind. --Tenmei (talk) 22:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your time and consideration. As a gesture of appreciation, please allow me to share a rhetorical question from the Analects of Confucius: "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?" --Tenmei (talk) 17:58, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I predict that you will find that what I'm asking for is probably less than you imagine in the short term, and more than you anticipate in the long term. --Tenmei (talk) 08:10, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Prod placed on Yes/old version

As technically redirects aren't applicable to the WP:PROD process, I deprodded this one... and sent it straight to RfD here. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 10:23, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

NPOV section

(The discussion below appears to refer to the section User:Coppertwig#Neutral point of view.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Good quotes in the NPOV section of your user page. I agree completely that minority / fringe POVs should be represented as such, but that doesn't mean they should be eliminated. Depth perception.. good analogy. For any controversial subject, I think the public is interested both mainstream and non-mainstream opinion, and the reasons behind the difference of opinion. stmrlbs|talk 04:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!!

As I see it, "fringe" means a gray area, not an all-or-nothing categorization defined by Wikipedians to justify deletion of material that doesn't fit Wikipedians' concept of The Truth. An argument to delete some material as a "tiny-minority" POV should establish that the shortest reasonably feasible mention of the material in a particular article, in comparison to the overall size of the article, would give it undue weight in consideration of the proportion of its mention in reliable sources. Such arguments will vary from article to article, as some articles have room for more detailed examination of a subtopic than others. When I read an article, I like to see more than one POV presented, with enough information on the rationales for the POVs for me to begin to form my own opinion. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

You both make excellent points. Keep up the good work, and Happy New Year! -- Brangifer (talk) 15:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, Coppertwig. I've often thought (after seeing some arguments go on forever) that perhaps there should be some kind of "standard format" for controversy on any topic - a section for "Mainstream Opinion" (with this title) and a section for "Minority Opinion" with subsections, what weight the minority opinion has (if this can be verified - and I realize this in itself is a battle ground) and references for both sides of the fence. Fringe implies something on the borders of the "main" body, but it also implies that fringe is a small percentage of the whole. That is not always true for "minority" opinion, and sometimes the minority weight grows with new information (or the release of previously suppressed information, as in the case of tobacco). You can see this in history that many times that Mainstream opinion is something fluid that is greatly influenced by current culture, economics, and media. Look at the history of smoking and lung cancer - a battle over 50 years between science and economics and national priorities - and not much to do with "truth". Eugenics was "mainstream" in the early 1900s, and the U.S. created a Eugenics office in 1910, headed by Dr. Harry Laughlin who was instrumental in setting racial standards for immigrants, and sterilation of "defectives"[1] - all supported by the science of that time. Even though I think Wikipedia should represent the current view - what is current mainstream and majority opinion, it should always strive to present the background and references for all points of view. stmrlbs|talk 20:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Articles are not supposed to be written from the POV of the majority mainstream opinion—they're supposed to be written from NPOV, which coincides with majority mainstream opinion only when there are no significant minority POVs in reliable sources. Having a standard format wouldn't help that much, because minority opinions range everywhere from tiny-minority opinions that don't fit into an article at all, to minority opinions that are supported by almost as many reliable sources as the majority opinion. Also, rather than having a mainstream section and then a criticism or alternative section, it's better to have a single section (or sections divided by logical subtopics) and present all POVs that are relevant when discussing any subtopic, sometimes even within the same sentence. That way if someone only reads part of an article, they don't get a biassed view; and we don't have endless arguments about which POV should come first. But yes: POVs are fluid, and what was fringe in the past could be mainstream in the future. They usually don't change suddenly. So the articles need to be able to change gradually, too. If a POV gets a tiny bit more support in RS than it did in the past, we shouldn't have to suddenly declare that it's no longer fringe and give it a big section where previously it was totally kept out of an article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, Coppertwig. Perhaps we could have a whole new force of "RS weight patrollers". When an RS changed weight, a bot would pop up related articles, and stated weights would be changed. ;) Seriously, I have no problem with your method of presentation either. I just disagree with the attitude that I see sometimes with this type of presentation that mainstream opinion does not need to be cited or referenced as mainstream, because it is "the truth" and has been "proven". I think it always adds to an article to state the source of the opinion - or forgone conclusion. I think that presenting the many sides of so many topics is what makes wikipedia unique as a source and what attracts many people. stmrlbs|talk 22:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's NPOV that makes Wikipedia so great. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:06, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Now it's OK. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:10, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

FYI

I responded to you on my talk page. Have a happy and healthy New Year. --CrohnieGal^Talk 19:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Chabad on Wikipedia arbitration request

Since you have been kind enough to comment at the unresolved WP:COI case at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/User:Yehoishophot Oliver, you may wish to know that it has now been nominated for arbitration. Feel free to review at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Chabad movement editors and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requesting Arbitration;
• Wikipedia:Arbitration guide.

Thank you for your input and patience, IZAK (talk) 09:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Using court records

You wrote this: "if the only information we had about an author was in court documents, we might use those to help decide whether the author was a reliable source (without using the court documents themselves as a citation in the article)." on the RPOV noticeboard. can you explain how one might do what you propose? This could be really helpful to me. Thanks.

BTW: You need to remember that the AMA, et al was convicted in Federal Court in Wilk v. American Medical Association of a conspiracy to destroy Chiropractic. Since they continue to use Barrett's vituperation against Chiropractic in their journals, while, it would seem, from Court records supporting him financially, doesn't that call THEIR RPOV into qestion???. ^Д-р_{СДжП,ДС} 23:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I just meant by making an argument on the talk page of an article about whether someone is an expert or not. As I explained in my post, that can't be done in the situation mentioned, since there are more reliable sources than court documents available.

Remember that Wikipedia is supposed to present all sides of a controversy, not exclude one side as unreliable on the grounds that their position can be allegedly proven false. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Very good point Coppertwig. I have also replied to Drsjpdc on the RSN talk page. His misunderstanding of the ramifications of Judge Getzendanner's decision is explained there. The AMA was convicted for restraint of trade, not conspiracy, as he mistakenly states above. Criticism of chiropractic is still allowed and justified. Note that his references to the court documents involving Barrett are just parrotings of the libelous conspiracy theories of an editor who has been indef banned by the ArbCom. That banned editor has reported his own twisted and self-serving version of those documents. Why? Because he was arch quack Hulda Clark's spin doctor until her death, and Barrett had exposed her quackery. Drsjpdc is favoring him over Barrett who exposed her quackery. Very odd behavior. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

from JAMA:

The court conducted a lengthy trial of this case in May and June of 1987 and on August 27,1987, issued a 101 page opinion finding that the American Medical Association ("AMA") and its members participated in a conspiracy against chiropractors in violation of the nation's antitrust laws. Thereafter an opinion dated September 25, 1987 was substituted for the August 27,1987 opinion. The question now before the court is the form of injunctive relief that the court will order.

And here is the full statement. stmrlbs|talk 03:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Here is the article, where you can also find links to the full case: Wilk v. American Medical Association

A complete reading of the case is very educational. There are many statements in it which chiropractors routinely fail to mention, likely because they have never read the whole thing, or wish to ignore what they consider to be unjust or untrue statements made about chiropractic by the judge.

There is no question that the AMA engaged in a (legitimate and justified) conspiracy, but they broke the law when they engaged in an illegal boycott, for which they were properly punished. They should have tried educating the public, which is what skeptics do now using books, websites, journals, and interviews. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The AMA also lost on the patient care defense :

The court concluded that the AMA had a genuine concern for scientific methods in patient care, and that this concern was the dominant factor in motivating the AMA's conduct. However, the AMA failed to establish that throughout the entire period of the boycott, from 1966 to 1980, this concern was objectively reasonable. The court reached that conclusion on the basis of extensive testimony from both witnesses for the plaintiffs and the AMA that some forms of chiropractic treatment are effective and the fact that the AMA recognized that chiropractic began to change in the early 1970s. Since the boycott was not formally over until Principle 3 was eliminated in 1980, the court found that the AMA was unable to establish that during the entire period of the conspiracy its position was objectively reasonable. Finally, the court ruled that the AMA's concern for scientific method in patient care could have been adequately satisfied in a manner less restrictive of competition and that a nationwide conspiracy to eliminate a licensed profession was not justified by the concern for scientific method. On the basis of these findings, the court concluded that the AMA had failed to establish the patient care defense.

But looking at the boycott itself, imo, the AMA trying to prevent medical doctors from teaching at chiropractic colleges, and preventing any joint research between doctors and chiropractors, and not allowing chiropractors access to hospital diagnostic services seemed to be more about stopping competition and communication, than preventing unscientific practices. stmrlbs|talk 08:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

True enough. It was a mixed bag of competition, politics, scientific concerns, consumer protection, etc.. The AMA certainly isn't any more of an altruistic organization than the ACA. They're both political machines. The judge made it clear that the AMA went too far, indicating that its motives weren't completely pure. I don't think anyone can deny that. The position of the AMA cannot be understood without looking at the long history of opposition and enmity between the two professions, right from the beginning. At the time when the lawsuit was started, there was significant cause for concern, since there was little reform at the time. (Keep in mind that Homola was still banned from the profession until about 1993.) Those concerns are still legitimate, but to a lesser degree. Some reform efforts are succeeding in some schools, but unfortunately there are still some schools that are churning out subluxationist chiros right now. Chiropractic history is fascinating! If you want something really interesting to study, study the history of why the legal definition of chiropractic and the Medicare laws are all based on "correction of vertebral subluxations". There was some interesting trickery that occurred at that time. Barrett knew the parties who were involved and he tells the story here. -- Brangifer (talk) 09:28, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Drsjpdc asked a question about how to apply policy, and comments relating directly to that question are welcome. Although I'm usually very happy to receive a variety of types of messages here, my talk page is not an appropriate forum for general comments about chiropractic nor to argue one side or the other of the controversy mentioned in Drsjpdc's question. BullRangifer, note that my talk page is also not an appropriate forum for comments about the behaviour of editors other than myself. Banning of an editor doesn't imply banning of expression of ideas by other editors. Criticism of an editor, if it occurs at all, should be in an appropriate forum such as the user's talk page or other WP:DR fora, should be expressed as civilly as possible, involve objective criticisms related to policies or guidelines or the purpose of Wikipedia, and should be accompanied by evidence. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Coppertwig. stmrlbs|talk 17:52, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, Stmrlbs. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Understood. Sorry about that. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding, BullRangifer. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration case opens/Chabad movement

Hi Coppertwig: Since you have been involved in the topic of Chabad, this is to let you know that an official arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Chabad movement. You may wish to add your comments for the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Chabad movement/Evidence. The ArbCom asks that evidence be submitted within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Chabad movement/Workshop. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 05:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Your note with reference to comments on Talk:New_Chronology_(Rohl)

Thanks Coppertwig. I intended no offence and have added a further statement to clarify my intention. I was simply shocked to find an admin engaging in such a degree of incivility. May I say that the readiness of anyone to interpret my comments as antagonistic is indicative of how over-heated the entire discussion has become. Oh and thanks for the welcome but I have been a member here since 2005, although I usually don't log in to contribute. :) All the best. Nigedo (talk) 23:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Nigedo. Note that people tend to see comments directed at themselves as more uncivil than others see them, and to see comments written by themselves as more civil than others see them. We have to compensate for this effect. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 03:03, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Help with a user who maintains a user page attacking me?

Can you help out with this?

User:Tom Butler#A perfect quote.

It refers directly to me and I would like it taken down. Tom Butler does not like me, and so I'd like to get an outside, uninvolved user to advocate for its removal. Would you be willing?

Thanks,

ScienceApologist (talk) 19:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I might or might not be able to help. One problem is I'm not here as often these days.

Could you explain it a bit? (Use email if you prefer.) I see your name in a section heading mentioned in something like a link. I see a diff, but the diff seems irrelevant: it doesn't seem to lead to the quote. It's not clear to me whether Kww is the one making the comment or the one being commented about. Do you mean the part introduced with the word "comment"? Is that about you? Sorry to be slow.

Users should not have negative comments about other users in their userspace. See Wikipedia:User page#What may I not have on my user page? point 10: "Material that can be viewed as attacking other editors, including the recording of perceived flaws. ... Users should not maintain in public view negative information on others without very good reason." ☺Coppertwig (talk) 03:10, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Durova has agreed to help in this regard. Thanks for looking into it. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I hope it's been resolved to your satisfaction. (I wasn't clear which passage of text you were concerned about.) If not, you can let me know (being more specific about the text) and I may still be able to help. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:37, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Al-Durrah

Thanks for your note about this. The feedback is much appreciated. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 23:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps at some point I'll find time to look at it in more detail. I see you've put a lot of work into it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 03:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes. :) SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 04:08, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Tom Butler

I'm well aware of Tom Butler's user page. He doesn't quote me out of context, and he is as entitled to believe that I represent what is wrong with Wikipedia as I am to believe that he represents a fatal flaw in the system. He never did seem to get the point of what I was saying, which is a bit sad.—Kww(talk) 18:58, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Consider the possibility that Tom Butler understands your point but disagrees. If I remember right, your point was that some POVs have inherent validity, such as sides of a nationalistic dispute, even if one doesn't agree with them, but that other POVs such as that homeopathy really works lack such inherent validity according to you. I think there's no practically useful way of objectively defining such "inherent validity". Possibly you mean that nobody actually believes that homeopathy works, but that people only pretend to believe it. Whether anyone believes in a POV or not would be one way of objectively defining "inherent validity", but trying to use such a definition in practice would present intractable problems of evidence, straying from AGF and heated disputes. I think the best approach anyone has found so far is simply to apply the NPOV policy. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

That's part of it, and the one that I expect that he understands but disagrees with. The other point (and the one that I suspect that he doesn't grasp), is that using our real names, as he and I both do, doesn't let us use WP:NPA to defend our off-wiki actions. If I published a website, people would be free to discuss my qualifications to do so, whether I had ill-intent, and perhaps state that I was a fool or a charlatan. So long as they were doing so in the same way as they would discuss the authorship of any website, User:Kww hasn't got the right to complain that they have violated WP:NPA when they went after Kevin Wayne Williams. Similarly, SA can make any statement he wants about Tom Butler the website creator and his ability to make reliable statements about EVP, and Tom Butler the Wikipedia editor hasn't got grounds for complaint.—Kww(talk) 00:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the context, but here's my opinion. If someone posts a website or publishes something, they can expect to be commented about, in general. On Wikipedia in particular, if there is a discussion about whether to use a website as a reference, then comments about the credibility of the author etc. are relevant and normal, within the constraints of BLP and other policies. That doesn't give a blanket freedom to comment about a person in any way one wants or in any context one wants to on Wikipedia. Civility and BLP still apply. Comments can be made which pertain to credibility, if relevant to the particular discussion (re using the website as a reference), if it's necessary to make the comments in order to make a relevant point, and if the comments are expressed in a reasonably civil manner (I would tend to lean towards "as civil as possible while still making the point"). ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

testing templates

Thought you might be interested, as per previous discussions about templates. bugzilla:22135 stmrlbs|talk 20:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

ANI report you may be interested in

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Tom_Butler.27s_maintenance_of_an_attack_page_against_me.

Thanks for your help.

ScienceApologist (talk) 23:03, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to see this seems to have been resolved. (link) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Motion to dismiss or keep the Chabad editors case

Hi Coppertwig: A discussion has started if the Chabad editors case should be dismissed or should remain open. As someone who has been involved in the serious COI discussions leading up to this ArbCom case you should be informed of this motion and have the right to explain if you agree or disagree with this proposed motion and why. Please see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Chabad movement/Evidence#Contemplated motion to dismiss. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 08:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Rfc - Blood Libel / Israel's Brutality

You may be interested in commenting on this. NickCT (talk) 15:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey

Nice to see you editing again. Jakew (talk) 14:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Jake. Nice to be noticed. Naturally, I expect you to check all my edits thoroughly for errors. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Durrah

Hi CT, I've replied to you here in case you miss it. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 20:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Gardner's relation

Hello. Maybe you'd know how best to remedy the current orphaned status of Gardner's relation. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Mike. I managed to add links from three other articles. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Editing advice

Coppertwig -- You may not know that PMDrive1061 agreed to be a non-public mentor.

With regret, I have to report that today's attempt to reach out for help was unclear:

A. I intended to ask for comments here about the use of formatting as a device (a) to focus my comments and (b) to limit the number of words.

B. Also, I wanted to invite PMDrive1061 to consider posting a comment at the active ArbCom thread.

Instead, my words were construed as puzzling. I tried to restate my purpose and questions here.

Do you have the time to take a look at this? Can you offer suggestions about what I might have done differently? Can you propose plausible modifications in the formatting or in the wording?

Thank you for your helpful postings here and here. --Tenmei (talk) 19:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Please notice my revised "2nd try" message at User talk:PMDrive1061#Mentorship — only 8 sentences + 2 quotes? It is shorter and thus better? It seems to me that I've not explained enough.

The re-thinking rationale is a variant of less is more; but in this context of initiating a working relationship, I would have thought that less is simply less. In other words, less would seem to be too little?

Like my "1st try" message, this is also puzzling but in a different way. --Tenmei (talk) 16:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Your "2nd try" is much better. It's shorter and clearer. It takes much less time to read and is less puzzling.

"Less is more" means "less is better". It really is, most of the time at least. You want to impart a complex set of interconnected ideas, but that is just not possible: after reading one of your messages, short or long, the reader will not have memorized or internalized all those concepts, but will remember only a brief summary. If your message is brief, the reader will remember an accurate representation of it. If your message is long, the reader will fail to see connections, possibly due to having forgotten the first part by the time they come to the end, and will form and remember an inaccurate summary which focusses on a minor detail or completely misunderstands your purpose. Also, long messages take up the reader's time.

I suggest you avoid complex formatting: it only adds to the complexity and puzzlement. Instead, use short messages and simple formatting such as ordinary paragraphs or bullet points and perhaps bold text for main points (but avoid bold text if it might be construed as aggressive). Saying "NO" comes across as aggressive: avoid capital letters or bold text etc. for that reason, and choose different words e.g. "I disagree", which comes across as softer. Avoid quoting if possible, which adds to complexity and length of your messages; instead, use diffs. I suggest quoting passages only if short (usually at most a sentence) and only if you're saying something about the passage in the same or following sentence of your message, (e.g. "I disagree with ...") and even then just a diff may often be better.

I suggest it's best if you don't answer the arbitrators' questions about how the mentoring will work; I think it's the proposed mentors who are supposed to answer. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:35, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, I plan to add nothing more to the currently open ArbCom thread. --Tenmei (talk) 20:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Another parser function problem

Hi,

I've got an unintended consequence problem here. Someone recently showed me Special:ExpandTemplates; I was playing around with it the other day.

If I put in {{NYCS Franklin-Botanic}}, I get the expected output of 2, ​3, ​4, ​5​, and S, with the proper link the Franklin Avenue Shuttle. However, if I put in {{NYCS Franklin-Botanic|time=bullets}}, the output is ​​​​ with the S bullet linking to the S services dab page. I think the problem stems from the implementation of the bullets in {{NYCS time 2}}.

Help! I can't make heads or tails of that page and where to insert your solution from {{NYCS-bull-small}}. Thanks, Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Or, if your solution from {{NYCS-bull-small}} is appropriate. Perhaps, the bullets should pull the correct link from the {{NYCS Franklin}} template. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:59, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, Tinlinkin fixed it after I wrote you this message. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad a solution was found. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry

To take so long to reply to your question in circ discussion. I'd been on vacation.Zinbarg (talk) 16:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The tag poll

The poll tally favored keeping one of the three tags Coppertwitg. And it was there for a long time. The problems leading to that decision have not been fixed. I've revisited some issues recently. You know the tag rules; three known, discussed but not fixed issues of bias in content or presentation ie POV. I've detailed, discussed and tried to fix. Reverted by Jakew with often silly spurious comment.

As for the current discussion conclusion, please see this cut and paste:

• "Reading the lead with and without the reference to HIV I think the level of inclusion when mentioned gives the issue undue weight. This seems to underpin the discussions below about the sources. My feeling is that the relation to HIV prevention should be mentioned but in a softer form with the evidence being elaborated on in the text - having 1 full paragraph of 4 on what is really only section 6.4.1 is too much. I will think about better wording to see if you agree. |→ Spaully τ 23:10, 14 April 2010 (GMT)

Spaully has yet to present that repair suggestion.

I suggest you study the nature of introductions and reconsider HIV having it's own exagerated references ending lead paragraph! Silly POV.

Deleted.Zinbarg (talk) 00:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

But highlighting Jakew is fruitless. I need your help to make Circumcision neutral.Zinbarg (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I've replied on your talk page, among other things asking you to delete or strike out your comments above about Jakew. A further comment: you say above "you know the tag rules". No, I don't know what rules you're referring to. I asked you what rules you meant and in your reply as far as I could see you didn't answer this question. You said, "I've detailed, discussed ...": please give links to where you've done this; I've followed much of the discussion on the article talk page and only saw generally very short comments from you about each article content issue, not what look to me like detailed arguments; as I said on your talk page, I'd like to see fuller discussion about article content from you. Whenever you refer to earlier discussion, it would be helpful if you would provide a link or specify what paragraph on what page you're talking about. Your quote above of Brian Hamilton/MrEguy also lacks a diff link or date-time. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

There are several identified POV issues with Circumcision. You're not being fair asking a revisit of discussion. It's all there. You know HIV does not belong in the lead, at least as present. Please focus on the issue at hand. Either the introduction is made such, or we need the POV tag. As for Jakew, it's all there too.Zinbarg (talk) 00:13, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

You say "it's all there", but you don't say where precisely "there" is. I'm not asking for a revisit of discussion; I'm asking you to tell me the date-and-time, or a diff link, of where your full arguments are in favour of the article content changes you're proposing. You said "You know HIV does not belong in the lead": you don't seem to have read my comments, which make it clear that my position is that it does belong in the lead: [2] You need to accept as fact that not everyone has the same opinion as you on these questions, and work from there to try to be effective in convincing others to change those opinions. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't you read discussion? It's not fair that you don't keep up. With respect to HIV in the lead, which you reverted to with it's own paragraph ending the lead with exagerated references and unusual dates, we're not talking about something there can really be an opinion on; it's a fact that introductions do not contain main body material/detail.Zinbarg (talk) 01:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure Coppertwig has read the discussion, where the consensus is quite clear, particularly given Coppertwig's comments in the relevant sections. And the HIV material in the lead is well supported by the material in the article body here: Circumcision#Human immunodeficiency virus. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:23, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Coppertwig was asking for more specific information, suggesting he had not read discussion.

The concensus was quite clear; there should be a tag given the content bias. Please read the discussion vote. Nothing much content-wise has changed from that vote. Not all three tags should stay (tallied the vote), just the single POV tag. So, why has it been removed? I've tried to make necessary changes through discussion.

Thank you for pointing out body material regarding HIV. It is proper there. I have suggested that if you insist on having HIV in the introduction, it should be in the paragraph with Schoen. I looked at prior concensus introductions, and found it that way. For example:

• "Genital integrity supporters condemn infant circumcision as a human rights abuse and a genital mutilation like female genital cutting,[9] while advocates of circumcision regard it as a worthwhile public health measure,[10], particularly in the control of HIV.[11][12][13]."

But then, why not likewise introduce UTI, mastrubation, hygiene, and appearance benefits?Zinbarg (talk) 16:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

As has been explained to you multiple times by multiple editors, 16 month old discussions about tags are irrelevant. The significance of AIDS in particular has been explained at great length on the article Talk: page. The fact that you were unaware that the body of the article discusses HIV/AIDS at length indicates that you were blindly removing this material from the lede, without any true rationale or policy-based reason for doing so. And finally, this WHO is the world's pre-eminent global health organization, and UNAIDS is the UN's body coordinating the response to AIDS; neither can be blithely dismissed as unnamed "advocates of circumcision". Jayjg ^(talk) 04:47, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Unindent. You evidently haven't read the UN/WHO statement, which is quite clear about benefits. Coppertwig noted that only in S Africa would wiki readers find the info relevant. (Only english speaking country where AIDS prevalence is sufficient to find public health benefit).Zinbarg (talk) 15:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I consider your statement "Coppertwig noted that ..." to be a false statement about me, Zinbarg. Please don't do that. You always have the option of only quoting whole sentences of editors verbatim, therefore there is no excuse for mischaracterizing another editor's position. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:40, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Your Edit history statement

Misses the primary change in the edit. Instead, You highlighted a very minor change.Zinbarg (talk) 01:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

You're right. I missed the HIV sentence deletion at Circumcision; but if I'd noticed it I would have reverted it back in just as I did, anyway. Please stop editwarring. Use discussion to try to get the changes you want. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not edit-waring. Seems like others might be. Please see discussion, or bring new questions. Actually, mostly, please make suggested CHANGES. You must know they are warrented.Zinbarg (talk) 01:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Motion proposed for the mentorship of Tenmei

Please be advised that voting has commenced on a Motion concerning your mentorship of Tenmei.

For and on behalf of the Arbitration Committee -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 18:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Link to the motion: [3] ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Mentoring

Your passive oversight may be needed at Talk:Shinto shrine#Revert. I am posting an alert on the talk pages of the others in the mentorship group; however, I anticipate that none of you will need to intervene.

If something does develop, I agreed in months ago to be guided by Leujohn's active mentoring lead.

The contributions history here + an old dispute thread at Talk:Iwashimizu Hachiman-gū#Top three shrines cause me to guess that this is precisely the kind of problem which calls for a heads-up. For more background, see also here

In response to an early-2009 dispute, I created Hakozaki Shrine, Usa Shrine and Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines. The research which went into developing these articles informs my reaction to an otherwise trivial edit here. The small change suggests that this may have something to do with pre-1947 State Shinto ranking.

From 1871 to 1947, the Kanpei-sha (官幣社) identified a hierarchy of government-supported shrines most closely associated with the Imperial family. Included in the highest ranks were these three:

• Usa Shrine, Usa, Ōita —Kanpei-taisha (官幣大社)
• Iwashimizu Shrine, Yawata, Kyoto— Kanpei-taisha, 3rd among the most highly ranked Imperial shrines
• Hakozaki Shrine, Fukuoka— Kanpei-taisha

Before 1947, the mid-range of ranked, nationally significant shrines or Kokuhei Chūsha (国幣中社) included Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū at Kamakura, Kanagawa.

Maybe nothing will come of this, but I will invite Oda Mari and Urashimataro to watchlist Shinto Shrine. We'll see.

Thank you for your investment of time and concern. --Tenmei (talk) 17:32, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I had a look at the talk page section and the edit. I'm not sure whether "not fact" in the edit summary meant that something was factually wrong, or that the Wikipedia article was expressing opinions rather than facts. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:16, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Regardless -- right, wrong or impossible to determine -- the fact of the matter is that this one short sentence was married with a verifiable inline citation. Also, that citation incorporated a hyperlink to a reliable source. Our core policies encourage the work that went into posting this sentence. In contrast, the deletion of this one sentence is presumptively wrong ... despite whatever might have been meant by the words "not fact" in the obscure edit summary.

• A. The editor who posted the sentence (plus the accompanying citation) invested time, thought and care here. This valued contributor has fully met his/her burden as explicitly encouraged by our core policies.

• B. In contrast, the one who deleted this sentence invested only a minute at most -- only the time it took to block-and-cut. There is no showing of compliance with policies which are designed to ensure academic credibility. I can only make guesses about what might have informed this deletion, and the words "not fact" are a red herring.

Any sentence which complies with WP:V and WP:RS presumptively enhances the quality of an article; and because of this, the one who drafted the sentence earns my respect, appreciation, and solidarity. This is black and white -- very clear, unambiguous. Do you see what I mean?

FYI: Oda Mari's fuzzy logic here resonates with your take on this. --Tenmei (talk) 00:53, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I like how you explained your revert on the talk page, referred to a reliable source and Wikipedia policy, and drew attention to your talk page post in the edit summary. Excellent!

There's no point in arguing with me about article content. My role in this is not to take sides in a dispute nor to argue about article content. My comment about the "not fact" comment was intended not to persuade you to change your position on article content, but to encourage you to make an effort to understand the point of view of the other editor (whether or not you agree with it). I'm not answering your question about whether I see what you mean because I'm not getting directly involved in the discussion, but I'm encouraging you to think about whether you see what the editor who said "not fact" meant.

Re asking other editors to watchlist the page: per WP:CANVASS it seems to me it would probably be better not to do that in this situation. There are ways such as article-content RfC to get more editors into a discussion if necessary. This situation seems very far from needing anything like that. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:26, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back

I just saw your name in my watchlist, for the first time in about a month. So I wanted to say 'welcome back'. Jakew (talk) 20:48, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!! ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

New article

Hi Coppertwig. I've created a new article, Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom, I thought you might be interested in reading it. Cheers! Jayjg ^(talk) 16:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I see you are an uncontrollable hyphenator! :-) By the way, I really expanded the section in the article on all the shenanigans, court cases, and internal politics at the time. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:40, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Incorrigible hyphenatiholic. How about finding out the name of the other congregation that merged with them due to expropriation? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:12, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you know my weakness! Don't think I haven't searched high and low for that tidbit! :-( Jayjg ^(talk) 00:05, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 04:33, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Good news

A couple of good things happened today: A minor edit here reminded me of an article I created in 2008.

Елисеева is Russian for Elisséeff; and it caused me to remember writing about Serge Elisséeff at Harvard. It will take time for me to figure out how to explain why this seemed helpful.

A more immediate consequence was the opportunity to enjoy effective collaboration. I worked with In ictu oculi in improving the text of William George Aston and Kim Chae-guk. This was a very small illustration of what I hope to encounter whenever I log on to Wikipedia. Good news is good to share. --Tenmei (talk) 22:28, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing that things are going well -- even if I don't know the context in this case. Glad to hear it, anyway! Funny how sometimes chance occurrences lead to things. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

RfC

I have added a Outside view by Tenmei at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Teeninvestor. I would very much appreciate your impression, especially

(a) if you can suggest a way to improve the clarity of the writing and/or

(b) if you construe any part of the diff as insufficiently moderate and forward-looking.

As you will guess, I invested quite a bit of time in drafting this; and I want to encourage you to contact me by e-mail with any constructive comments and criticism. --Tenmei (talk) 19:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I sent comments by email. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed improvement to watchlists

Hello. I have revived a discussion you took part in back in 2008. It's about improving watchlists to allow a little more user control. Perhaps you would like to contribute? --bodnotbod (talk) 08:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist

Please take note of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea#Requested move discussion at Talk:Eulsa Treaty and watchlist Talk:Eulsa Treaty#Requested Move, especially in the context established here.

I endorse Nihonjoe's summary of the substance of my scrupulously mild comments.

I am especially eager for your close scrutiny of any further comments about the role of mentors, if it develops an issue. --Tenmei (talk) 16:08, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

here when you insert your comment about relisting, you're inserting your comment and your argument at the top of the thread, above other comments. This gives undue prominence to your own argument and should be avoided. Comments are normally added at the bottom of a thread. By doing so you also create two more problems: it looks as if your comment was what started the thread. Because you said "relisted", I wasted time looking for the previous discussion; there was no previous discussion. Also, two comments below yours someone says something like "support per above". You inserted your comment above that, which gives the mistaken impression that the person is supporting per your comment. You could have just posted a very brief note saying "relisted", and then posted your argument at the bottom of the thread.

The actual comment which you posted at the top is well-written: it's short and to the point. It states what you think the article should be renamed to, gives a reason why, and doesn't mention any ideas without explaining them.

Your other comments in the thread are much too long. Please be considerate of other editors' time and post shorter comments. If you can't figure out how to shorten your comments you may need to do more thinking to identify your key points, or just refrain from posting and let others work out a solution. Regards, ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Becky Quick (sigh)

You may no longer care a year later, but User:KeltieMartinFan is up to the same old tricks re: the Quick article. (There's a sock puppet, User:Fourviz that may do damage, too.)

76.114.197.43 (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi! It's nice to hear from you! Sorry for the delay in replying; I'm spending a lot less time on Wikipedia these days; and for the same reason I might not have time to help with this -- sorry!! You might consider posting a message on an appropriate noticeboard. I don't know much about what's happening now at the Rebecca Quick article so I don't know what would be the most appropriate noticeboard, but maybe WP:BLPN, WP:SSP, WP:COIN, WP:RSN or WP:ANI. Or WP:3RRN. Please don't editwar yourself, but use methods consistent with WP:CANVASS (such as posting to noticeboards or Wikiprojects) to get more editors involved if needed. Good luck! ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

note

You complained about a comment I made a week ago. The guy had lumped me in with the NAMBLA perverts, and I took exception to that. He also hasn't been paying attention. I have said over and over again that my interest in this is not to glorify Letourneau; it's to not make Wikpedia look stupid by trying to make a big thing over the episode of Letourneau and that kid years ago, given the current situation of them being married and presumably happily so. He's got blinders on, so I got tired of dealing with it, and almost a week ago I stopped watching both the article and his page. Enough, already! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The comment by Blackworm you allude to above was, I believe, made after your comment that I was talking about in my message on your talk page. There was a delay in posting my message to you because I'm not editing Wikipedia very often. I had also posted a message on Blackworm's talk page due to the comment you allude to above. If, by the time I posted my message to you, you had already realized that article talk pages are not for speculating about the motivations of editors or about one's own views about the topic of the article, then my message to you was unnecessary and I apologize for taking up your time. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Award of a Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		This barnstar is hereby awarded for extraordinary scrutiny, precision, and community service, especially in regard to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank). Awarded by PhilKnight (talk) 18:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much!! ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:49, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

"Shameless" plug

As a heads up, I complimentarily "name dropped" you in my recent RFA --> answer (#3). I hope you don’t mind :o)    Redthoreau -- (talk) 18:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I really appreciate the compliment, Redthoreau; thank you very much. I think you have a lot to offer as an editor, with your extensive knowledge and quick access to references, and I hope the disappointment of the RfA won't discourage you from continuing your extensive contributions as an editor. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-a1/doc

Template:Db-a1/doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Mhiji 04:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-a5/doc

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-c3/doc

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-g12/doc

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-g7/doc

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-r3/doc

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Db-u3/doc

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Editor assistance list

Hello. Since your account has recently not been editing very regularly, on the page Wikipedia:Editor assistance/list you name has been moved to a list of editors who are willing to give assistance, but may not always be available. There is an explanation at Wikipedia talk:Editor assistance/list#Problem with inactive accounts on the list. You are, of course, welcome to move yourself back to the other list if you wish to. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

That's fine. Thanks for taking care of this. I'm sorry I neglected to do something about it myself. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:28, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Exotic letters?

Hi.

Maybe you'd know the answer this question? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The discussion is archived here. I'm sorry I missed it, and that I don't really have anything to contribute, but I enjoyed reading about the obscure Greek letters. I think I vaguely remember having heard of digamma and qoppa, but I'm not sure if I'd heard of stigma. Funny name for a letter; perhaps it originally meant "mark" (or did the word stigma come from the letter?) Probably not helpful, but I have a vague idea possibly using hbox within TeX to put text within a formula might help. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

for your kind words about some of my recent editing! Nandt1 (talk) 00:51, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Coppertwig. You have new messages at Jayjg's talk page.
Message added 18:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Mentoring Tenmei

I want to thank you again for your mentoring.

I appreciated your efforts; and my participation the project was affected by your investments of time and thought. --Tenmei (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Roger Davies commented about here about "recognizing the very considerable efforts that went into mentorship" ....

In my opinion, each of us did everything we were asked to do. Those who volunteered to be mentors deserve repeated thanks and acknowlegement, nothing less. --Tenmei (talk) 03:18, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your message, Tenmei. I'm glad to hear that my efforts during the time when I was mentoring you had an impact.

I don't see that quote in the link you give. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:17, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

New page Hypothes.is

I started the article Hypothes.is. People are welcome to help edit it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:53, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

About the cleaned-up citations, yeah ... Rescuing Theo Botha from AfD taught me that these things matter. Theo Botha was well above the bar for Wikipedia notability, but the references were such trash it wasn't immediately obvious to some people.[4] I should confess to some borderline COI in the case of Hypothes.is: I've donated a little, and I know for a fact that cleaner citations can contribute to a better impression of a subject overall, so I figured I was just doing my part for Hypothes.is Kickstarter funding as well as for a Wikipedia article. But who knows whether these things really make a difference? And if they do: who knows where COI starts to become an ethical problem? I'm still dithering on whether to start KickSat (another Kickstarter project, already funded but not yet expired) based on the references and content I've collected so far. [5] Hey, if a Kickstarter project clears the bar for notability before it even gets funded, it's fair game, right? Thing is, I'm even more into COI with KickSat, at least in terms of dollar amounts. Yakushima (talk) 14:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Dispute Resolution

You may be interested in this. Peter jackson (talk) 10:56, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Your post

I have no clue why you don't like my comment; if you have anything constructive to add, add it at the conversation. No one likes arguments that go around in circles. You should look at the various proposals for dealing with these timewasters in various fora on this particular article, especially. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 00:33, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Carlossuarez46. Thanks for your message. For the record, this is about your comment and my comment on your comment.

I assume that by "timewasters" you mean "arguments that go around in circles". I realize that at Talk:Circumcision there have been a lot of RfC's lately about content disputes.

There are various techniques to try to avoid having arguments go around in circles, and in my opinion one of the techniques which it's important to use in such situations is to keep the discussion free of inflammatory remarks and free of unwelcome comments or insinuations about other editors. The reason I commented on your comment is primarily because of your use of the word "doh", which I feel is not the type of thing that will help keep the debate cool. I would also like to point out that this part, "... because some folks have a POV that they feel threatened by its inclusion," seems to be a comment about editors, and I think it's important on an article talk page to comment only about article content and reasons for the article content, not about editors, in order to help maintain as collaborative an atmosphere as possible.

The reason I commented on your talk page was that my comment was about your behaviour, and user talk pages are the appropriate place for such comments.

I look forward to working with you on the article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Now that you have got that off your chest, do you have anything to add to the topic being discussed? or does every comment require more commentary. Focus on the article not the messenger and we will be building an encyclopedia - which, I assume, you are here to do. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 16:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 18:55, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to comment at Monty Hall problem RfC

You are invited to comment on the following probability-related RfC:

Talk:Monty Hall problem#Conditional or Simple solutions for the Monty Hall problem?

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution RFC

Hello.As a member of Wikiproject Dispute Resolution I am just letting you know that there is an RFC discussing changes to dispute resolution on Wikipedia. You can find the RFC on this page. If you have already commented there, please disregard this message. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 08:50, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject:REHAB update

You signed up for WikiProject User Rehab

Hi there, I'm RDN1F. It's come to my attention that you've signed up for WikiProject Rehab, but since that time the project has retired. I've decided to take it upon myself to rejuvenate the project - but I could do with your help. If you are still willing to help mentor (or even give me a hand in bringing this project back!) leave a message on my talk page
RDN1F TALK 16:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Your help requested at WP:Split

Greetings.

I'm a newbie, and I'm wise enough to say so, so pardon me if I'm doing things the "wrong" way or seem to be out of place. I'm trying to learn all I can and practice techniques in my own userspace before attempting to do things in the "real world" and inadvertently causing a big stir, as newbies are wont to do.  :-)

It seems like you were the original contributor of Template:Split from some five years ago. So it seems to me like you may be an excellent person to have in the discussion we're having on how to properly split an article, and then properly updating WP:SPLIT to reflect what we've learned. I think I'm not the only one who's a bit confused about how this template is to be used and what the final result should look like.

I'm actually an old computer geek, myself, and pretty good at writing documentation, so I can certainly help there ... but where we're weak is understanding specifically what the template is calling for.

I'll also be inviting contributors of Template:Split to to our discussion, so we can have a full understanding and agreement on this.

Thanks in advance for your help and comments!

Djdubay (talk) 13:03, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link fixing one-day contest

I have decided to put on a mini-contest within the November 2013 monthly disambiguation contest, on Saturday, November 23 (UTC). I will personally give a $20 Amazon.com gift card to the disambiguator who fixes the most links on that server-day (see the project page for details on scoring points). Since we are not geared up to do an automated count for that day, at 00:00, 23 November 2013 (UTC) (which is 7:00 PM on November 22, EST), I'll take a screenshot of the project page leaderboard. I will presume that anyone who is not already listed on the leaderboard has precisely nine edits. At 01:00, 24 November 2013 (UTC) (8:00 PM on November 23, EST), I'll take a screenshot of the leaderboard at that time (the extra hour is to give the board time to update), and I will determine from that who our winner is. I will credit links fixed by turning a WP:DABCONCEPT page into an article, but you'll have to let me know me that you did so. Here's to a fun contest. Note that according to the Daily Disambig, we currently have under 256,000 disambiguation links to be fixed. If everyone in the disambiguation link fixers category were to fix 500 links, we would have them all done - so aim high! Cheers! bd2412 T 02:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

i like your style and patience

I came across by chance your repeated reasoned attempts at finding compromise and civility on the beleaguered Circumcision article talk pages seven years ago. As an editor now experiencing the same frustrations as editor Blackworm at what we both perceive to be a pro circumcision cabal/patrol/ content skew in the article it does give perspective and pause to see that this process is cyclical. --— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht ^Talk/_Stalk 22:58, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Arilang1234/Sandbox/images

User:Arilang1234/Sandbox/images, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Arilang1234/Sandbox/images and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Arilang1234/Sandbox/images during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Mys_721tx (talk) 03:30, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:29, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Request for assistance

Hi Coppertwig. A long time ago I asked people for help with removing misrepresentations from an article (it was a BLP though I didn't realise that for some time). Unfortunately everyone I asked , including admins and a ?sysop candidate (JMW)?, failed to recognise that it was a BLP. As I remember you were at the stage were WP:Verafiability hadn't yet sunk in. I was repeatedly advised to enter into a dispute resolution process. Unsurprisingly this went no-where. Soon after the involved misrepresenting editor was banned as a WP:DE serial sock-puppet user. And his off-sider warned.

However by then I had found the stress of running ineffectually in circles trying to get help for something that was so very obvious too much and I came to the conclusion that WP was broken and formed a culture that promoted dehumanisation and hopelessness.

Many years passed.

About 3 weeks ago I came across a very strange WP article. And began comparing the content with the sources. About 50% of the content consists of misrepresentation of the sources. With another 30% OR, non-RS and POV. All negative to the subject.

So I raised the issue on the talk page and deleted the first 3 BLP violations. I put in a BLPN. A week later many violations remained. I put in a ANI. A week (today) later I put in an Oversight email. (My deletions were soon reverted, edit summ. "please discuss before", the ANI and BLP are gone to archive. And multiple BLP violations remain.)

There is an admin who defends the BLP violations. "Guy". You could look on User:SmithBlue for my interpretation of Guy's approach to editing the article.

Guy indulges in a lot of handwaving, smoke-screen WP:DE.

I have no faith in WP processes. This is the second article where BLP violations have been replaced, BLPN & ANI have been ignored and all my attempts to address the violations have come to nought.

I see you are intelligent enough to avoid the unpleasant side of WP. And I see too much evidence of a healthy, humanising influence on WP that could be lost or damaged by me trying to push you towards something that you don't want to involve yourself with.

So here is my request. Please send an admin (or higher), who will call it like it is, to WP:Brian Martin (Professor).

regards SmithBlue 124.171.110.75 (talk) 03:25, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Coppertwig. I've since asked for a next step from ANI. The result:

{{https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=706761062#BLP_violations_ongoing}}

Things here look very very broken. SmithBlue (talk) 05:51, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Split from

Template:Split from has been nominated for merging with [[Template:]]. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. PanchoS (talk) 12:30, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Shih apso listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Shih apso. Since you had some involvement with the Shih apso redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Steel1943 (talk) 18:39, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Brief Return of the Prodigal Son

Hi. You once told me if I ever came around to stop and say hi. So, HI! I came back and found some things never change, except for the worse. See my talk page at November 2018. I tried to float a proposal at Larry Sanger's talk page for a new project and it was deleted by Guy Macon before I even had a chance to finish a line requesting comments. He could not possibly have read it, but claimed it was "promotional," which it was not intended to be. Query: if a mere proposal seeking comments on a talk page is "promotional," what is the article about Julian Assange? Isn't WP promoting his ideas and actions simply by publishing an article about him? Anyway, Sanger never saw the proposal, so does not know what it is about. If people are deleting things from other person's talk pages, how does any communication or productive discourse ever happen on WP today? I mean, is WP discussion today limited only to confrontation? From my brief encounter today, it would appear so. I don't know who or what Guy Macon is, but he appears determined to stifle communication between editors, and his arrogance is breathtaking. Hardly one foot in the door and again I'm being driven away from WP. I like Jimbo's comments at the top of your user page a great deal, but I don't take intentional provocation very well. I have an idea for a very large project on the causes and causers of climate change (which DoD now considers a national security issue), but it looks like I won't even be able to get any discussion going about it with the current brain police regime (Frank Zappa's term, not mine). I'm not even sure I can send it to you without this bird dog preventing you getting it. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 07:52, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

No,, you will NOT be allowed to to violate our WP:BLP policy, and you will NOT be allowed to use Wikipedia as a WP:SOAPBOX. And you were told exactly how to contact Larry Sanger. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, look who followed me here, as he appears to do everywhere I go now. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 08:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Mervyn Emrys! Nice to hear from you! But I'm sorry I wasn't here to answer your message in a timely manner. I was away from Wikipedia for years. If I'd been here, I could likely have straightened out some misunderstandings, made you feel that someone understood what you were saying, and helped persuade you to follow the advice you were being given at ANI, and all that would likely have led to less incivility directed towards you and likely avoided you being blocked. I'm sorry that when I left Wikipedia I didn't know I was going to be away so long and didn't have a chance to update my template to show that I was essentially retired. People shouldn't have been uncivil to you anyway. I hope you'll consider coming back to Wikipedia. You have a long history of edits, including adding references, fixing a broken link and probably lots of other helpful edits. You have valuable knowledge to contribute.

At ANI they said they had explained to you several times about the "rollback VANDAL" button, but as far as I saw, they only explained things of peripheral importance such as what it is, how it got there and what happens if you click on it, but apparently it didn't occur to any of them to explain the crucial point in this situation, i.e. that two editors looking at the same diff at the same time may see different things. The edit summary and changes to wikitext may be the same, but the way it's displayed and the buttons and stuff around the edges may be different. The time zone of any date-times may be different. Some editors might see certain buttons that don't appear for most other editors. So you saw "rollback VANDAL", but most editors looking at the same diff wouldn't see it; and I think as time goes by and more edits are made to the page, the button would no longer appear for you either, since rollback can only be done on the most recent edits. Similarly, two editors looking at the same article may see different sets of buttons at the top; for example, an admin will see a "delete" button, some editors and not others will have a "move" button, etc. This was a huge misunderstanding. I think if this had been explained to you properly, things would have gone differently, there would have been less incivility, and likely you wouldn't have been blocked. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:01, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry you found Wikipedia to be a hostile place. I hope you'll give it another try. Editing Wikipedia can be like walking through a minefield; but I find that if you strive to follow the policies and guidelines and do lots of keeping an open mind and assuming good faith, that it can be a satisfying and rewarding place. Misunderstandings crop up frequently; that's one reason we need to assume good faith. By editing Wikipedia, I've learned a lot about seeing things from others' point of view. It's a constant learning process.

The reason for having an article about Julian Assange is not in order to promote him, but, as with all Wikipedia articles, to provide factual information in a neutral tone.

I read the message you posted to Larry Sanger's talk page. You are to be commended for wanting to do something about climate change, a huge issue. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't host projects that try to reach out and change things in the real world. Just providing factual information, which is what Wikipedia does, can help with lots of real-world things, I believe, but that's as far as Wikipedia is willing to go. I understand that the project you described would be based on reliable sources, so it's somewhat similar to Wikipedia, and I understand that you believe that it could be done in a way consistent with Wikipedia policies, but I don't think it could. Besides facts, it would add calculations, and, more to the point, meaning and implications, so it would violate WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. It would implicitly assign blame or responsibility to individuals in complex situations involving large numbers of people where there is no unique agreed-on way of assigning responsibility. Also, it's my understanding that Wikipedia space, including talk pages, sandboxes etc. is not supposed to be used to plan off-wiki projects. It's tempting to feel that one's talk page or sandbox is one's own private space, but it isn't. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:34, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I think what happened was: when you read at a dispute resolution guideline to ask another editor for help, you asked me, not realizing I was away. Then you were accused of canvassing, so you probably felt you couldn't ask another editor. Things went downhill from there. Very unfortunate. I regret not having posted a more informative header about not being here, before I left, and I hope you'll return. While we have to be careful about looking at user contributions as some people don't like having theirs looked at, I think in general it's fine to click the user contributions button for a quick glance to see whether the person has been editing recently. I generally don't mind people looking at my user contributions.

Other misunderstandings included: different interpretations of the words "retract" and "redact". I think many people would consider that removal or striking-out of comments on a talk page would be covered by these words. Once I asked someone to delete a comment, and when they did, I felt great relief as if I'd received an apology. The word "apology" is sometimes described as "to unsay". It's up to each person to decide what they consider an adequate apology, but it's not possible to force the other person to apologize. Asking for an apology can be difficult, with usually hard feelings on both sides, and typically both people feeling they're the one deserving an apology. If we're angry we can't help allowing it to tinge our edits and then the other person may feel there's been incivility directed towards them even if we believe we've acted civilly. Another misunderstanding: whether reverting your own talk page to an earlier version counts as editing another editor's comments. Different people may interpret this differently. Except maybe in mathematics, the meanings of words are never unambiguous so there are always chances of misunderstandings.

To get unblocked, you might want to look at user:Coppertwig/Unblocking as well as the standard guidelines. Likely you can still edit your own talk page, or email an admin, to ask to be unblocked. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:00, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello, Guy Macon. Welcome to my talk page. I hope all Wikipedians can assume good faith, get along, and unite against the common enemy which is the misunderstandings which all too often crop up between users. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:29, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

The above conversation is regarding this edit: [6]

Related: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive996:Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Mervyn Emrys/sandbox.

This is not about "assume good faith, get along, and unite against the common enemy which is the misunderstandings which all too often crop up between users" This is about our core policy at WP:NOTADVOCACY: "Wikipedia is not a soapbox... This applies to talk page discussions... Wikipedia is not for: Advocacy, propaganda, opinion pieces."

There are people who really, really want to advocate something and they think that it is OK to spam it everywhere. You see this with Abortion, Gun Control, Politics, Religion, Climate Change, Drug Policy, etc. Someone is 100% committed to getting the message out that [abortion should be outlawed/abortion should be legal -- take your pick] and they really don't care whether someone who is having a nice conversation about PC memory upgrades or baking bread doesn't want the conversation hijacked. It's a form of Spam. and is (rightly so) prohibited on Wikipedia.

But this isn't just a case of someone being promotional. In this case the message they are promoting is evil. As I said to Mervyn Emrys at the time:

"Your proposal:

'the aim is to compile the names of individuals and their employers who share responsibility for stimulating global climate change... Each named entry will include a brief paragraph describing the role of the individual in stimulating global climate change. This will include individuals managing major energy production industries, such as coal mining and oil production, and major energy utilization industries, such as low miles-per-gallon automobile manufacturers and electric utilities. Most of the information given will be based on the office held by the individual and the role of the employer in the industry.'

Is despicable. Just reading it makes me want to take a bath in bleach. We live in a time when a member of team red sent bombs to a bunch of people on team blue, and a member of team blue tried to murder everyone from team red at a baseball game, and you want to compile a hit list so that these deranged freaks can target people because of where they work or what political party they belong to? have you no shame?"

I stand by the above. You (Coppertwig) should be clear that you don't agree with the evil that is inherent in Mervyn Emrys' "proposal", and that you are against spamming unrelated Wikipedia user talk pages with promotional material. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Oops!!! I didn't intend to re-start an old discussion. It's my understanding that there's a strong consensus on Wikipedia, which I agree with, that Mervyn Emrys' proposal is not to be discussed on Wikipedia talk pages because it's a project incompatible with Wikipedia policy. So let's not have any more discussion of it. Also let's not have any negative judgements about other Wikipedians posted on this page. Nevertheless, I do wish to extend a warm welcome to you, Guy Macon. I just edited the list at the top of this page as to what types of edits are welcome here. You're welcome to discuss things here within the bounds of Wikipedia policy and that list.

I've attempted, in my message to Mervyn Emrys above, to refrain from commenting about Mervyn Emrys' proposal per se, except insofar as to explain to Mervyn Emrys why it can't be discussed. I don't intend to comment on it. Related issues can be discussed.

You clearly have strong feelings here. It can be difficult to see other points of view and assume good faith when experiencing strong feelings. It's easy, under the influence of emotion, to see others' posts as "spam" and "everywhere" and "interrupting" and not to see anything wrong at all about one's own posts. It's a fact, though, that not everyone sees things the same way. It's good to learn to calm down the emotions and see other points of view, understanding them without necessarily agreeing with them. It can be like an actor taking on a role and temporarily feeling the emotions of a character. It can lead to insights and openmindedness and is one of the things I've found rewarding about editing Wikipedia.

Apparently you and I have different theories about what motivated Mervyn Emrys to do various things such as post to this talk page. Since Mervyn Emrys is not here, I think it might be inappropriate to discuss that any further.

My message to you about misunderstandings was intended as a friendly greeting and was about misunderstandings on Wikipedia in general, not only the ones I described above. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 18:34, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! consider this a friendly reply to your friendly greeting. Speaking in general terms without discussing any individual or any particular post, it is an easily observable truth that some people insist on turning every discussion into a discussion about abortion. Or gun control. Or climate change. Or Donald Trump. Or veganism. Or Scientology. Or Amway. Or -- an issue that I personally feel strongly about -- cabotage and the Jones Act. (You don't want to get me started on the Jones Act...[7])

The thing is, people feel very strongly about their favorite cause, and it can be really annoying when you are trying to have a nice discussion about Pokemon and somebody tries to hijack it and turn it into a discussion about vaccines. And one of the classic ways people do the hijacking is by posting to Wikipedia talk pages that have nothing to do with whatever they are pushing.

You appear to disagree with the above opinion, which is fine (although I wonder whether you would change your mind if someone decided to hijack one of your conversations with arguments about the holocaust being a myth), but I don't think it is fair to dismiss my opinion that people really do hijack discussions as being based upon emotion and telling me to calm down. I believe that the evidence supports my claim. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for giving a calm, friendly reply to my friendly greeting. Actually, I was about to delete most of my last comment above if you hadn't replied yet, thinking that I was falling into the same trap and doing the very type of thing I was advising against. I really appreciate you having taken it calmly.

I don't disagree with you about whether people sometimes take over discussions and change the topic. A good way to help control that is to separate discussions into separate sections (threads) of talk pages. The trouble is, in my experience often the veering from one topic to another is somewhat gradual so it's not clear exactly where to put a divider.

I apologize for saying something about emotion and calming down. When I said that, I didn't intend it to sound like dismissing your opinion. I didn't intend to dismiss your opinion. But I later realized it would sound like that and was going to delete it. I respect your opinion and am not expressing agreement or disagreement with it (per the list at the top of this page).

All the best, ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:12, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

I didn't mean that your opinion was based on emotion. It's quite possible to have emotions associated with an opinion which is based on sound reasoning. That seems to have been a misunderstanding. So there seem to have been at least two misunderstandings just in the last few comments.

What bugs me in in-person ("real life" or RL) conversations is people who talk more than they listen. I don't recall experiencing a problem with that online; I find that there's lots of room for people to express themselves and then others can skip what they don't want to read; as opposed to the RL conversations where pretty much only one person can talk at a time. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 20:30, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

Awesome

Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:24, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

... and again! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:33, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Db doc

Template:Db doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. --Trialpears (talk) 12:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2021 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:12, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Copyeditor's Barnstar
		Awarded for the significant reworking, rewording and paring down of text in numerous articles. SpookiePuppy (talk) 22:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks!! Wow! Really?? You sure you mean me? Has someone been editing under my account while I've been away? (last sentence = kidding) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Article and Talk: Dietrich von Bern

Hello Coppertwig, I am a very interested observer of the discussion page of this article. Perhaps a "modern review" on his profiles and historical identity/identities will help. In this monograph, Heinzle and Lienert are quoted and commented among other text-critical researchers: https://www.badenhausen.net/harz/svava/MerovingSava.htm Regards, Yours Jonathan C. Wood. 87.151.75.220 (talk) 19:57, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

metis page

The second paragraph is from (R. E. Gaffney, G. P. Gould and A. J. Semple, Broken Promises: The Aboriginal Constitutional Conferences (1984), at p. 62, quoted in Catherine Bell, “Who Are The Metis People in Section 35(2)?” (1991), 29 Alta. L. Rev. 351, at p. 356.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:24, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

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TylerBurden (talk) 22:46, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I love your smiley

I just had to say that that character in your signature is awesome. It's such wonderful polish that can maybe calm things down. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:46, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I used to wear out my fingers copying and pasting the smileys to get a variety of sizes and colours, but some of my friends at Simple English Wikiquote (when it was active) helped me edit my signature file to automatically post a random colour and size each time. The smiley is a single unicode character, to avoid taking up a lot of bandwidth. I like it. I think we all, myself included, need reminders from time to time to be friendly and get along with other editors. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

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