User talk:King Vegita/Archive 1

Hermeticism

Everything looks great so far. No compliants here. I will do some touch ups on my write ups over the week as well. The article is coming together nicely. Take care.

--Armadel

For what it's worth, I think that the article on Hermes Trismegistus is the proper place for mentioning any theories about the figure being based on a real person. It is quite peripheral to the main subject of Hermeticism. Myopic Bookworm 12:44, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I know too little about it to be able to contribute, but thanks for asking. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

If you mean the userboxes (admin, firefox etc.) they and many many others can be found at Wikipedia:Userboxes. All the best. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 18:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alchemy problems

I can empathise with the problem you're having vis a vis Alchemy. Iv'e had similar problems in the past. Consensus reality on wikipedia is didactic materialist, and at about the level of imagination of a Ohio University grad student. The only way to introduce upopular ideas is to use unassailable prose and cite a lot of sources: basically you have to exceed the standards that other wikipedists get away with. This is always preferable to looking for an admin, because admins are usually like the people you're debating, only worse.

Citing web sources is easy. External link like this [1] and whoopie, it's a source. Citing book sources is a pain in the ass. You have to use footnotes in the Harvard referencing format, i.e.

Jesus was a pot-smoking essene¹ and really he was a butterfly².

And because it's unpopular you can't just say it. You have to couch it in language like:

During the late middle ages and especially the renaissance the idea of Mystical or Hermetic Alchemy became popular, wherein alchemy was seen as a metaphor for the purification and transformation the of the human spirit. Writers on alchemey during this era distinguished between esoteric alchemists and those they derisively called "blowers", who were frowned upon for being mere chemists.

With plenty of quotes, footnotes, citation links, and so on sprinkled throughout. Remember that you can't say it, you can only say that someone else said it.

Fortunately there's a lot of online source material for you to use if you want to sift through it. The Internet Sacred Texts Archive is one good starting place. You could also look for writings by M.P. Hall, CG Jung, etc.

Hope this helps. —Clarknova 18:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

1. Charles Manson (1972). He Was Just Like Us Maaaaan. Spahn Ranch: Corcoran State Press. 23-25.

2. Dr. Henry Moreau (1896). The Origins of Evil in the Human Genome. Moreau Ilse: BeastMan Press. 237-239.

Reiki and Psychic Surgery

As fas as I can tell, the "psychic surgeries" of Reiki and of the Filipino/Brazilian surgeons have nothing in common except the name and the use of hands. If that is the case, it doesn't make sense to discuss both in the same article. The only issue is how the articles should be named. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 19:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self

^{superscripts work like this} Jack Daniels died in a wheat threshing accident¹. He was always playing with that wheat thresher².

Cubeb

Hi, thanks for granting the good article status. Could you please add the article to Wikipedia:Good_articles#Biology_and_medicine, in which it is supposed to be listed. Thank you very much. --BorgQueen 19:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'd like to recommend to create footnotes section for Hermeticism, if you are not planning to do it already. --BorgQueen 19:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pentacle vs. Pentagram

I'm not going to revert your edit to Wicca, as "pentacle" is the common Wiccan term as far as I've seen. However, I think you might find the discussion of this issue on Talk:Pentagram to be interesting, and I wanted to comment that yes, there is such thing as a circumscribed pentagram, and quite a few people do think that "circumscribed pentagram" is more correct that "pentacle," considering the issues about the historical origins of the term "pentacle" brought up in the pentagram article and on its talk page. - AdelaMa e ^{(talk - contribs)} 02:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Christianity

If you have any thoughts on changes to the article, I'd welcome your joining in on the talk page. Tom Harrison ^Talk 23:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto - but you might want to take a look at this page before you invest a lot of time on the Christianity page. Whatever you decide to do as a result, please don't just go away. Your voice might be important in the future. Trollwatcher 17:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; I appreciate your providing input when your time is clearly limited. Stop in whenever you get the chance. Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear KV: Forgive me for being a little blunt, but if you are capable of confusing Christian Science and Scientology on the basis of where you used to smoke at school, I do not think you know enough about the range and relative importance of Christian and non-Christian sects to criticize some of the more knowledgeable contributors on this topic. Myopic Bookworm 21:25, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you caught me at a bad moment: I had been trying quite hard to work on text that had to accommodate a very wide range of Christian opinion, from American Baptist to Syrian Orthodox, in a neutral enough way to mollify apparently anti-religious contributors, and suddenly to have someone throw Scientologists into the equation was really frustrating. I'll try to be nicer. Myopic Bookworm 16:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi KV.I just saw your message on Christianity. I hope you don't stop looking completely. I know what you mean about it being time consuming. I just left a defense of fixing the POV problems with "communist states." Maybe you can take a look at what I wrote and the edit I made to fix this problem when you get a chance. Thanks. Giovanni33 00:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for calling me in on Hermes Tris

I appreciate being called in to discuss this matter, and I will give it prompt attention. Yours faithfully, drboisclair 15:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have read your post on Hermes Trismegistus and I agree with your sentiments. Specifically that it is not POV to state: "some people believe that HT was a real man." You are right to say that it would be POV if the statement was made baldly: "HT was a real man in history." I think that some of us, not you, need to be a little more careful about bandying the POV accusation. It would be better to say that an article is NNPOV if there is no neutral point of view than simply POV. POV is not a bad thing. As you state in your post you have to represent all POVs or at least major ones to approach NeutralPointOfView for your article. I think that the skeptics should be represented with their POV, but, as you stated, that does not mean that they should have their whole way and remove everything that cannot be proved absolutely 100%. That would be insisting on their POV to the exclusion of others. As to Thoth's existence as a real person. This is parallel to Asclepius and Pythagoras. Of course, there is consensus that Pythagoras was a real individual. The Egyptian pantheon invites the slim belief that some of them were real people. Osiris was a pharaoh perhaps with Isis as his wife and Horus, his son. Thoth may have been a real person as well. However, in order to put it forward without being laughed at is to have historical record from good sources. As you stated the belief that he was a real person was a conceit of the Renaissance. This POV should be mentioned in the article as a POV with its disclaimers (i.e. that this is not historical verified). This you have done. I agree that others should respect the time and industry that are put into these articles. I hope that that gives you the "weighing in" that you requested. I will look more closely at this article as in my studies the figure of Hermes Trismegistus has intrigued me. Thank you again. drboisclair 17:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly unfree Image:Tuyayuya.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:Tuyayuya.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. Please go to its page to provide the necessary information on the source or licensing of this image (if you have any), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you.

-SCEhard T 05:42, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the image was published in a book with a copyright of 1987, the image is still copyrighted. Just because the mummies are very old doesn't mean the photo is PD. If you want to keep the photo, you may make a {{fair use}} claim on the image page. -SCEhard T 05:51, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hermetic view

Thanks - will let you know when I come across anything where the Hermetic view should be. I must admit I have been looking along racial lines at the moment with countering systemic bias and have created an obscure (to me - very important to them) nigerian geographical feature article Oguta lake - just stub at the moment but I'm looking for more stuff.

Having read the Hermetica and found it a beautiful text you have inspired me to go read it again as there is a lot I have forgotten. Sophia^TalkTCF 07:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject: Egyptian Religion

My idea for this Wikiproject is a group that focuses on Ancient Egyptian religion, such as Atenism and Hermetism, and attempts to:

Remove or otherwise balance skeptical or ethnocentric dismissal POV of Egyptian beliefs from articles.

Vastly increase the information in these articles based on well cited additions

Increase the number of articles on the subject of Egyptian Beliefs as it becomes possible, making daughter pages.

Having any Egyptian influence on other systems added into the articles on those systems. This can be done in a short paragraph.

KV 18:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Just wondering if you might have any comments yet on the way that a group of mainstream Christians effectively own the Christianity and Criticisms of Christianity pages and effectively supress anything they do not like, including of course your contributions. Any observations welcome. Trollwatcher 15:14, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient Egyptian Religion

Hi

Just a note to say thank you for the welcome message. Do you have a template that could be inserted at the bottom of any pages that are relative to this wikiproject? Such as the one for Mall_Tycoon? I think it would look great and might attract more interested partys to the cause.

Phil Ochs image

Hi there, I just wanted to remind you of the tag on your Ochs image [2] -- you might want to change the copy rights tag (perhaps releasing it?), so we don't lose it . Thanks! Hestemand 23:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal Information removed

Hi, King Vegita. Administrators have been removing links to a website that attacks and claims to identify by name other Wikipedians. The users who were posting such links have been blocked, and anyone who attempts to post that link again anywhere on Wikipedia is likely to be blocked also. When I deleted and partially restored your talk page, a message from Hestemand got lost. I have restored it, immediately above this one, but am unable to restore the diff, so in the history of the page, it will now seem as if I added that message. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 13:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

egypt

I like how it's going so far. Bibliomaniac15 03:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page appearing twice on watchlist

Hi, KV, sorry for ignoring your last message. I'm away from home all week, and the internet access in my hotel room disconnects from time to time, and I have no mouse pad and can't get the mouse to grip any surface properly, so I'm spending less time online at the moment. I'm having trouble answering e-mails as well. Regarding the problem with a page appearing twice on your watchlist, I think something similar has happened to me once or twice, so I assume it's just a glitch in the system and has probably been fixed by now. When I looked on my watchlist (which was several hours after you had sent me that message), I could only see it once. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 18:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Christianity article with Egyptian references

The references in your recent additions to the Christianity article don't appear to be (technically) "right" - the reference templates appear to be broken in some way; it may just be that the references don't exist. I don't know if they were mangled somehow in the vicious and constant editing and reverting that plagues that very busy article or if your edits are incomplete. --ElKevbo 14:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind. Your (interesting and fascinating) additions have been completely edited out. Man, that article moves fast! --ElKevbo 14:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"...involving whether God could have a son, based upon God needing to have a mate and procreate in that manner."

Understated and well-put. Genuine spontaneous laughter.Timothy Usher 05:23, 26 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

O.T.O.

Just out of curiousity, do these letters, or the number 93, hold any significance to you?Timothy Usher 21:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"I think he doesn't have a firm grasp on GOOD"

Sounds right to me. I was just curious. FYI, 93 is neo-qabbalistic shorthand for "do what thou wilt" etc. They'll even use this number as a greeting.Timothy Usher 22:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Content dispute and edit warring at Christianity

Hi, KV. Regarding your comments about Giovanni's revets at WP:AN/3RR, there were six reverts. The last one does indeed count as a revert. The {{totallydisputed-section}} tag wasn't the only thing he reverted in that edit. If you look at it again and scroll down further, you'll see that he readded the stuff about mystery religions, which other editors had taken out. However, even if reinserting the tag had been the only part of that edit, it would still count as a revert, because the removal of a POV tag does not count as vandalism. Also, there's no requirement to get his agreement before removing that tag. This time last year, I was involved in editing an article where there was a constant edit war over a POV tag. I felt it should be there, but never actually added it, as I knew there was opposition and I didn't want to edit war. There were about four people who felt it should be there, and about ten or twelve who felt it shouldn't be. One editor in particular kept inserting it, and it would be removed by someone from the other side within minutes. There was never any feeling that it couldn't be removed without his agreement, and eventually he got blocked for repeatedly reinserting it when others were taking it out.

While NPOV is absolutely non-negotiable, according to Jimbo, it doesn't give people the right to make a fourth revert. You can revert vandalism as many times as you see it; you can revert POV edits no more than three times within any twenty-four-hour period. A possible reason for that is that people can sincerely believe that they are NPOV when they're not. It's hard to vandalize an article, in the sense of blanking content and replacing it with obscenities, without actually knowing that you're vandalizing; but you could have a very POV edit and could still believe in good faith that it's the other people who are POV. If something really is POV, it's likely that other editors (who haven't already done three reverts) will see it and correct it. If nobody else does, then it may not be as POV as we think.

Regarding your message on my page, I'm sorry I can't help you more. I know very little about Egyptology. Str1977 has posted a request for help at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ancient_Egypt#Calling_for_help, and will certainly accept it if it is shown that "Resurrection" is a term which modern scholars of Ancient Egypt use. I hope that helps a little bit. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 23:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion

"Ripping out so much of the text without discussion, I personally think is vandalism." [3]. First, it's better to use the edit summary to just summarize your edit. It's not a mechanism well-suited to dialogue. Second, our policy on vandalism says explicitly that "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." Third, you certainly are not the only person who does this occasionally, and I don't intend this as a rebuke or anything. It's become so common that it's easy to get the idea that it's normal practice. I would like that not to be the case, so I mention it when I notice it. Thanks, Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moses

Considering he was casting the fourth level spell "sticks to snakes", I'd have to guess he was an initiate of something or another.Timothy Usher 22:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should add references

KV, you should probably add your references to the Mediation page, as these play a big part in the discussion - as it is, the numbered cites lead to nothing.

I'll be watching the mediation, and probably commenting after I see what's said on the other side.Timothy Usher 19:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I copied your text from the article in order to add it with references intact, only to find that the references do in fact display in the edit window. For some reason, the links are disabled - is it because it's a mediation page? Because they're in italics? Because the references section doesn't have the right subsection title? I don't know. Anyhow, I suppose they are visible, and have been all along, through the edit window.Timothy Usher 19:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: non-Christian editors blocked

I'd like to ask who you had in mind when you said that non-Christian editors were being punished, presumably over content disputes. Perhaps I haven't been around long enough to see what you're talking about, but I only know of two cases. 1) Alienus, whom I reported for 3RR, and who'd relentlessly engaged in personal attacks - unsurprisingly (though unbeknownst to me), he'd behaved similarly on other pages and there was a ready supply of editors to denounce his conduct - what originally was to have been a short block was extended and then reapplied because he continued attacking them - nothing to do with AnnH, and 2) Giovanni33 and puppets (who persists in this behavior on other pages).

Is there someone else you were thinking of? Based only on what I know now, there doesn't seem to be anything nefarious afoot, other than the unfortunate coincidence that two high-profile "dissenting" editors just happened to also flagrantly violate policy. Conversely, I see nothing whatsoever in your conduct that would justify anything but respect for you as a good-faith editor and a honest and hard-working contributor,Timothy Usher 19:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The essential difference I see between what you are doing with the article (see my comments on the mediation page if you've not already) and the approach of some others is that you are adding useful information, and uprooting unexamined POV in the treatment of a crucial period, while others are introducing sneering doubt more or less at random (e.g. "those who claimed to be"). One approach contributes to the reader's knowledge, the other is merely obfuscatory.

A measured discussion on whether Christianity is or isn't monotheistic would be useful, and if you'd like to add it, I'm likely to support it. I just don't want the intro to read, "...supposedly considered by its self-proclaimed followers to be a so-called "monotheistic" religion...", which frankly, I believe, is exactly where some editors would like to see this go.Timothy Usher 22:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of MPOV comment

Hi just wanted to let you know I deleted your reference to MPOV, because Tom Harrison deleted his original mention of it at my request, as it offended me. Hope its ok. If not I will revert it back. - Drogo Underburrow 18:42, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mediation Cabal case on Christianity

Hi, I have taken the Christianity case over at the mediation cabal. I am reviewing the case now. -- Joebeone (Talk) 17:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crowley refs and cites

Hi, KV -- my husband, nagasiva (user Bo-Bo) is attemtping to add the edition data you requested of me re: Crowley books.

I am very appreciative of your interest in the progress of the page -- however, i think we need some help: At this time the length of the page is causing us problems in editing. Apparently our browsers (we both use IE) cannot edit a page of the length that this one has become, so as we edit sections, the bottom of the article continues to fall away and disappear. At this point that includes refs, ext. links, and cats -- all gone, except on earlier verisons, which we cannot capture and re-insert. I feel that the length of the article (with all that stuff on chess(!) ) is a hindrance to editing, but at least there is some dialogue ongoing, which is better than what was there before. Can you reinsert the dropped-off bits? If not, do you know someone who can? TIA.

By the way, i have taken a brief tour of some of the pages you have edited and am very interested in your work; you seem to have a level head, a good sense as a writer, and you share a series of parallel interests to ours.

Cordially, Catherineyronwode 03:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC) (and nagasiva)[reply]

You have left a message on my talk page about refs and cites. I am copying my reply here for you. Please read the above as well, as it spells out quite clearly who made the cites. here it is again:

Sorry, but your disturbance is wide of the mark and your fears are misplaced. I think you have me confused with Bo-Bo. He was citing book pages in footnotes, per your request a few days ago; i did not do that. I do not know which editions of which books he used. Please contact him at his talk page. Catherineyronwode 21:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{fact}} tags

I removed most of the {{fact}} tags, but left some. I left my reasoning on the talk page and I look forward to your reply. Have a nice day, ---J.S (t|c) 20:25, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm bringing this to the admin noticeboard. ---J.S (t|c) 05:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as what I'm doing is in place with an overriding Wikipedia policy, I'm not scared. —Preceding unsigned comment added by King Vegita (talk • contribs)

I wasn't trying to scare you. Just letting you know. The fact remains that there is no justification to disrupt an article. ---J.S (t|c) 05:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{npov}} tag

3rd rv. You never remove a NPOV tag without the problem being solved, or the editor who put it up removing it.

That's actually untrue. It's common practice to remove the tag if the person who left it doesnt give any reasons. Personally I thought you might be trying to prove a WP:POINT again, but I was going to give you till tomorrow before I removed the rag. ---J.S (t|c) 06:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disruption

So far as I know, I have never had any dealings with you. Your behavior is disruptive, and you can be blocked for repeating it. Your additions of multiple tags is inappropriate, and you should stop, or I will block you. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Contribution to The All

As you requested, I added citations to the section "Possible origin of The All." My sources are web pages, so I do not know page numbers. Where a reference came from a web ebook, I referenced the chapter. I also added additional references to correspond with the other citations.

KamiLian 00:45, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my last update, I included the book attributed to Ra in the References section. It is called SUMMUM: Sealed Except to the Open Mind. This is the url to the ebook: http://www.summum.us/philosophy/ebook/ebook.htm

KamiLian 14:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.

Thanks for the courtesy of pointing of Chooserr's ANI report. If only he had done me that courtesy, this whole thing could have been avoided. Al 05:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note to Self

Make article on Dismal's Paradox.

KV 03:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]