User talk:Paul August/Archive24

Reverting trolling

Good to see someone reverting that notorious Newyorkbrad on sight! I'll help ya! darwinbish ^BITE ☠ 13:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC).[reply]

Somebody has to do it! Though in this case some subconscious alter ego seems to have been indulging in some sleep-typing. Makes me wonder what else It's done? Paul August ☎ 13:44, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Death of a Salesman

Sorry about that. Brain fart on my end. - Ne ll is 01:40, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem ;-) Paul August ☎ 11:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mirror symmetry article

Hello Paul August,

I heard from User:AGK that you might be interested in reviewing the article on mirror symmetry, which is currently a featured article candidate. If you're interested, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this page.

Thanks for your help,

Polytope24 (talk) 23:59, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Polytope24. Sorry, but I don't think I will be able to help out there. Regards, Paul August ☎ 21:06, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Choka loka taka laka

floo flee burgenheimer I like to eat cherry piesers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fleebin bobbin (talk • contribs) 16:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Happy First Edit Day

Happy First Edit Day, Paul August, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! ~ Anastasia (talk) 21:44, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Editing of Medusa

Hello, Paul. I have received a request to look at your editing at Medusa. When I received that request, I had never edited the article, apart from one reversion of vandalism in April 2010, and as far as I recall I had not even looked at the article since then. I certainly had no prior knowledge or opinion concerning the issue that was raised in the message I received, but I have now checked the editing history of the article. I see that you have removed references to rape from the article. It is true that "vitiare" can be translated in various ways, depending on context, but the question to be addressed is not how you or I think it should be interpreted in this context, but how it is interpreted in reliable sources. The source cited in the article says "Poseidon also raped Medusa", but rather than just accept one source, I have searched for others. I found that a large number of sources explicitly refer to the act in question as rape, as for example, here, where we read "Ovid reports at 798 the rape of the maiden Meusa", here, where we read "When Neptune rapes her in the temple of the goddess", here "The aition of Medusa's hair provides the frame for the story of Neptune's rape of the girl", and so on. I found some sources which used less unequivocal language, such as "ravished" (which in any case is pretty certainly used to mean "raped"), but I have been unable to find any source which explicitly denies that it was rape, nor even one which seriously calls into question that reading. Do you have any reliable sources which contradict the reading of "vitiasse" as referring to rape? If you do, then it would be a good idea to indicate in the article that the interpretation is controversial, and to cite those sources along with one or more sources that take it as a case of rape. However, since there is clearly a substantial body of reliable scholarly opinion that does take it as rape, I can't see any justification for removing all reference to that view altogether. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:40, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi James. More (4.799) translates Hanc pelagi rector templo vitiasse Minervae dicitur as "Fame declares the Sovereign of the Sea attained her love in chaste Minerva's temple." And I think I've seen others which allow for something other than rape. If I have the time I may look for other sources, but unless I do, given the two sources you've provided above (I think you should add these to the article, they are better than the one currently there), I'm happy to let things stand as they are. Regards, Paul August ☎ 14:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness, "attained her love" for "vitiasse"? I can't find anything in any dictionary, either on paper or online, that supports that. About the weakest translations I can find are such terms as "spoil", "damage". For example, http://www.wordsense.eu/vitio/#Latin gives "make faulty, spoil, damage", and it also gives "violate sexually". I am inclined to the impression that Brookes More, who was born in 1859, was indulging in a little Victorian prudery, and censoring the text. As I said above, what you or I think the translation should be is not the deciding factor, but for what it's worth, it seems to me that of all the possible meanings of the verb, "rape" (or "violate sexually") is the one most natural in the context, but at the very least something like corrupting her by leading her astray must be intended, since all the meanings of the word have unmistakable connotations of damage or violation, which "attained her love" does not even remotely hint at. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 16:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well keep in mind that vitiasse (violate) might be being used by Ovid to describe what was being done to "chaste Minerva's temple" as much or more than what was being done to Medusa, and even if the sex were meant to be consensual, Ovid might still describe Medusa as being "violated". In any case this is poetry we are talking about here, perhaps we are asking too much of it. Paul August ☎ 16:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please read and comment delete or keep Dao's theorem

Hello Paul August,

I see history of Euclidean geometry I think You have knowledgeable classical geometry, please read pages Dao's theorem and comment anything You think. Delete or keep pages Dao's theorem. Thank to You very much.

Best regards

Sincerely

--Eightcirclestheorem (talk) 03:29, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

November 2014

Hello, I'm Robert McClenon. I noticed that you recently removed some content from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; I restored the removed content. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. You deleted content from WP:AN. It has been re-inserted. If this was an accident, disregard this message. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:26, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I don't know how this happened. Paul August ☎ 00:50, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Fat-finger syndrome? But Robert, I think asking a long-time administrator with I don't know how many harmlessly useful edits since 2004 to use the sandbox if he would like to experiment is a little uncalled-for, even if he did misclick. You wrote a few words of your own, which is nice, but they would have been enough; why post the template at all? Humanspeak rules, unless you're actually reverting vandalism. Bishonen | talk 01:14, 8 November 2014 (UTC).[reply]

Your edit summary made me smile ;-) While humanspeak is usually better, in my case templatespeak suits since I'm only artificially intelligent. Paul August ☎ 01:51, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

:-) Sydney Poore/FloNight ♥♥♥♥ 01:57, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Flo, wow Bishonen and now you. I should really misclick more often. Paul August ☎ 02:06, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Eleusinian Mysteries - note on change

Hey, I just wanted to drop a line explaining why I changed "spring" back to "autumn" on Eleusinian Mysteries - the paragraph in question describes Greene's theory that Persephone's time in Hades represents the parched Greek summer, not the winter, and that Persephone's return corresponds to planting seeds in the autumn, not the spring. In almost every other case, we'd be right to have "spring" there, but in this particular paragraph, "autumn" is correct. (Whether Greene was correct or not is questionable, even though his work is seminal, and that's discussed in the very next paragraph.) In any case, thanks for your efforts on mythology articles. ComicsAreJustAllRight (talk) 20:16, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Paul August ☎ 20:26, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Removing talk page entry on Reductio ad absurdum

You look like a very experienced editor so I was wondering why you reverted my entry on Talk:Reductio ad absurdum. As I'm sure you know, editing other editors' Talk comments is not done except for very specific reasons (WP:TPOC). I didn't think my remarks were off-topic or libelous :) Was it just an error? --Chetvorno^TALK 20:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No sorry, that was apparently a misclick on my part. Paul August ☎ 02:07, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, no problemo. --Chetvorno^TALK 04:54, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback from a user whose edits you reverted

I'm not going to start a revert war, but suggest you reconsider your reversion of my edit a while ago to waves. There is no such thing as an air molecule. In mechanics and acoustics we speak of air "particles" but gas molecules, or we skip the semantic issue entirely by talking about density rather than discrete items. There is no such thing as an air molecule. Altaphon (talk) 05:19, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In that context I take "air molecules" to mean any of the several gas molecules which collectively constitue the air, see for example this Google Books search. Paul August ☎ 12:30, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]