User talk:Slrubenstein/Archive 24

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WP:AN discussion

As a user who contributed to the discussion concerning Koavf (talk · contribs), you're invited to comment at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Specific_Sanctions_-_proposals also. Thanks - Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:51, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Christian Zionism in the United Kingdom

It's a fairly horrifying piece of POV OR, that's for sure, and it states its agenda up front, which is refreshingly honest, but entirely at odds with policy. That said, it doesn't seem to meet any of the criteria for speedy deletion, at least from what I can tell. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks on SP

Sincerely appreciate your level-headed interest on the Palin article. I think you've managed to establish yourself as a dispassionate voice of reason very quickly. Fcreid (talk) 16:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

And again, well done. Frank Fcreid (talk) 20:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Not overdone at all, and a discussion long overdue. I can now see where I've been wrong (and occasionally right) during the past month! :) Fcreid (talk) 20:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Palin

I've replied at the article talk page.[1] No offense intended.Ferrylodge (talk) 19:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

ce needed

"My intention was to make clear precisely what you way" •Jim62sch•^dissera! 20:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Lost in Space

Thank you, Slr. You have initiated A timely and extremely important discussion. A few concerns;

• how do we keep it on point, focussed on the core principles?
• won't it be lost once it is archived? I know it will be there, somewhere, but not as an on-going conversation/lesson for newbies, myself, etc?
• can we whittle it down to a lable-sized paragraph?
• can I make some corrections? (copy/edit)........--Buster7 (talk) 21:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Palin and the Bridges

Hi there. I think the problem with a pure chronological portrayal is that the reader doesn't really know what you're talking about from the first sentence. I thought the section should read like a newspaper article, i.e. first paragraph: these are what the bridges are and their relationship to the subject of the biography; second paragraph: pre-Palin history; next paragraph: what Palin did; last paragraph today. Otherwise, you are saying something about Congress before you even tell readers what the bridges to nowhere are and why they're named that way. For example, on the city council section, the first paragraph says she served 1992-95 and only the second paragraph describes her election. The same is true with the mayor section. I think people are going to come here looking to know what the bridge(s) to nowhere is/are and why they're called that way and its relationship to Palin before they want the nitty gritty. That's my two cents and why the original draft was formulated the way at was. (It was also the subject of substantial compromise, so I somewhat fear the section's redrafting but I'll look at what you're done when you've finished.) One thing that definitely has to go back is the beluga whales. Maybe someone ruined my citation, but it's well cited and several editors wanted it.

On a side note, I just wanted to say that I very much respect your opinion and strongly agree with you about BLP as not allowing verified relevant information to be excised entirely as long as both sides are given.GreekParadise (talk) 01:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I responded on my talk page.GreekParadise (talk) 13:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You are mentioned again at Arb

This time you are accused of being my and Malik Shabazz' sockpuppet, an "extremist editor" and are likened (as all three of us are, to terrorists. Boodlesthecat ^Meow? 04:14, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Putting me in your edit summary

I really, really do not like that you've put me in your edit summary as suggesting your edit. I oppose your edit. You would know that if you had discussed your edit at the talk page before making it. Please make a correction.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I fixed it.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Nice work on the Palin article

While that article is undoubtedly saddled with numerous unreasonably critical editors with an ax to grind, I am deeply troubled at what I see as a trend favoring the exclusion from the main bio article of any material deemed to be critical of Palin, on the supposed grounds that it violates some Wikipedia policy on the nature of BLPs, the subcategorization of more specific articles, or various NPOV-related arguments. I can't help getting the impression of an ongoing attempt to whitewash that article.

I wanted to commend you on serving as a bulwark against that trend. I wish that I had the energy to keep it up, but the ongoing battle is quite dispiriting and it looks like very dirty work.Factchecker atyourservice (talk) 15:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I do think I value your attitude toward the issue. I cannot say I am without a POV on the subject, and have been careful in my edits to avoid inserting it into the article. I think a lot of people share this goal. But there are also those instances where it appears NPOV is simply interpreted as "no point of view" or otherwise used to remove material that somebody may find controversial, regardless of whether it is relevant and well-substantiated. It's quite maddening. Anyway, keep up the good work. Insofar as I have the time and mental energy, I'll be checking in periodically on the article content and commentary, contributing if I have anything to offer.Factchecker atyourservice (talk) 17:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for giving you're opinion on the Bullshit section, in Talk:Sarah Palin. Sorry I couldn't be around to give further comments, but life only affords me an hour or so a day by the computer. I try not to involve myself in long concensus debates, especially those which degrade into petty wording battles, but try to linit myself to "a point in the right direction" type comments, or to deflecting some of the more blatant rumors. Anyways, Thanks again.Zaereth (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, and you'e right, some people do start off antagonistic, and intend to remain that way. I see little point in arguing a specific viewpoint to no end. I say my peace, and those who will listen do, and those who won't ... don't. I think the ability to compromise is lost on some. You and I, I believe, may differ greatly on our opinions, but we can still be civil about it. I do believe, ideally, if people would commit to policy, then yes, the article would greatly improve. I'm no expert on policy however, (as you corrected me on in previous edits), and while I have backed off on my 'way to hard' stance on including opinions, I still think policy should be against wild conjecture, no matter where it came from. (ie: The notion that Alaskans are so removed that we don't even know what achille's heel mean, simply because she avoided a question). I know conjecture can't be ruled out completely, or there would be no articles on gravity, or particle physics, or astronomy. But there should be a line somewhere ... Still, I glad to see there is someone else who works toward compromise rather than against it.Zaereth (talk) 01:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops

Sorry about that erroneous rule-pulling on the Palin article. I thought what I described about the "source citation" was the expected conduct on talk pages. Didn't realize it had much more limited scope. In my defense, part of my confusion about Wiki rules is that if I can't remember which sub-article a particular policy topic is under, I can never find it ever again. Is there any way in which you can "search" Wikipedia policies, other than Google?Factchecker atyourservice (talk) 02:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Please enable your email, or mail me

I think it would be beneficial to have a conversation but it appears you do not currently have your email enabled. ++Lar: t/c 15:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: checkuser

Well, keep in mind that in many cases the policy being violated is Wikipedia:Sock puppetry or something of that sort, where there isn't any direct evidence of a violation unless the accounts are demonstrated to be sockpuppets; so we could only ask for evidence of a potential policy violation, not evidence of an actual one. But that may be just semantics.

As far as the substance of your idea goes, I see several issues with it:

• In some cases, the evidence driving the check is itself private, and simply cannot be posted on-wiki.
• Some requests come to us privately not because the evidence requires privacy, but because the party being accused is sufficiently influential that the accuser is afraid to voice their concerns publicly, for fear of being harassed over it.
• In some cases, we do not make the fact that someone is guilty public, at least not initially. When admins have been caught abusing sockpuppets in the past, for example, it has been traditional to offer them the opportunity to quietly resign rather than being publicly humiliated. Whether that approach is the best one is obviously a subjective question; but it has been the normal operating procedure in the past.
• The biggest issue, however, is that what you're proposing won't really give you what you want. Suppose we have accounts A and B, which are suspected of being sockpuppets. If we check B and find a connection to a third account, C, then we'll quite likely run checks on C as well. But if we were to reveal that we've done so, we would be violating the privacy policy by divulging the connection between B and C (particularly if it turned out that the connection was not indicative of a sanctionable violation of policy); and if we were not to reveal it, then you'd still have the problem of a check being run against C without being documented anywhere.

Kirill ^(prof) 09:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Two obvious examples come to mind:

• Oversighted edits
• External correspondence that's been forwarded to us

As far as general ideas go, I don't think it's really an active topic of discussion. It's not something that's easy to propose reasonable solutions for; I'm not sure if there is a good way of having more transparency in the general case without greatly limiting the usefulness of the tool for investigating anything more complex than the most obvious sockpuppetry. Kirill ^(prof) 01:19, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Intelligent design

Intelligent design has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:34, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Mesta

Hello Slrubenstein! The best I could find was:

• KLEIN, Julius (1920), The Mesta: A Study in Spanish Economic History, 1273-1836, Harvard University Press.

I know it is not exactly recent... but I do hope it may help. Here's a link to the full text in pdf (I think!). Enjoy!! Cheers. The Ogre (talk) 18:05, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Mathsci block

Mathsci made outrageous accusations on a previous incident thread that is now archived, preventing me from responding to them. In that thread he attempted to “out” me. Subsequently he attempted again on my “talk” page to out me.

It seems Mathsci does not understand copyright law as applied to U.S. Government documents. Nobody can acquire a copyright on any material published in a U.S. government document simply by quoting or paraphrasing it in a book published by a commercial publisher. The material remains in the public domain as public property. No publisher is going to come after anyone for reprinting material that is in the public domain, and nobody else has legal standing to do so.

Your unblocking was premature. There was a pattern.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 23:55, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I posted the following on Mathsci's talk page. Cross-post here since I think it's important.

Slrubenstein - you're plain mistaken about harassment, and you didn't check with the blocking admin who might know more than you do on this. Sorry. But everything in that policy states that even one incident, if serious enough, is to be treated seriously. You haven't checked Mathsci's record as Charles has; you didn't consider the blocking admin might know matters that you don't; you didn't read the long standing wording of the policy you cited, but merely the first few lines. In fact, Wikipedia:Harassment#Posting of personal information has a long standing consensus of the community, that's very blunt and very simple: "Unless unintentional and non-malicious [example snipped], attempted outing is grounds for an immediate block". Thats a well established communal consensus.

Please do not unblock without consulting with the blocking admin next time. This is not the first unblock I'm aware of where you didn't, and found you were not in fact aware of the case sufficiently to make a good decision. Please do be careful to check carefully in future, to avoid any more.

FT2 00:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Can I say that I think you have done everything wrong in your unblock? I'm in the UK, and sleep at night. You owe me a consultation before unblocking. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:33, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, I have concerns as well. I didn't want to make a big deal about it at Mathsci's talkpage, and I would have sent you an email, but you appear to have it disabled. In any case, aside from the issue of you overturning an arbitrator's block without consultation, there's also the issue that you and Mathsci have an extensive relationship "watching each other's back" on the race articles.[2][3][4][5][6][7] So do you see how your action could potentially have the appearance of an administrator using their tools to jump to the defense of an ally? Even if Charles made a bad block, you probably shouldn't have been using admin access here. --Elonka 18:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, don't see it. I am one of several editors who made serious, NPOV, V and NPOV edits to the race and intelligence article but it really shouldn't surprise anyone that many editors were involved in well, in a consensus. MathSci happened to be one of them but s/he and I have had very little to with one another elsewise. Our interests coincided on one page and we agreed only because both of us - in that case at least - cared about the same wikipedia policy, NPOV. Does this make us allies? I guess then i am the ally of every other editor who cares about verifiability and NPOV. I hope I am Mervyn's ally too. I really wish you would keep focused on policy, Elonka, rather than attempts to make it personal or political. Don't you care about NPOV and V? i guess that would make us allies too! Slrubenstein | Talk 19:49, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, I also got an error message when I tried to send you an email. It's obvious from your last post on Mathsci's talk page that you didn't see his reply to me further up on the same page. It made things a lot clearer for me, including the role of Paul August. I am convinced now that the best we can do is to put this complicated affair to rest, if at all possible. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

:(

Exquisite: doesn't save my neck from hanging from Eco's Pendulum however!Nishidani (talk) 20:53, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Unblocks

Could you please consider that when an Oversighter blocks somebody, even if they fail to say so, they may have private evidence. There is not much harm in asking them to clarify before you do an unblock. I think you could do a lot of good for Wikipedia by acknowledging this to Charles Matthews. It is a shame when a minor incident turns into a major drama. We've already lost one good editor over this affair. Please, let's not burn out any more. Jehochman ^Talk 12:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Not much new...

Same old same old, as they say! Still most of the same old crowd doing the same old thing. Boy, I'll be glad when the election is behind us! Fcreid (talk) 09:02, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed statement

Could you see User talk:Charles Matthews#Proposed statement and perhaps leave comments? It would be so much better for Wikipedia to resolve this with a minimum amount of fuss. Jehochman ^Talk 14:28, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Race and Intelligence revert

Hi. I noticed you reverted my latest edit on the race and intelligence article. I removed a sentence that starts "all commenters agree..." that has been tagged with "citation needed" for at least a month. According to the quote from Jimmy Wales at WP:PROVEIT : "There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced."

I'm new to Wikipedia so maybe I've misunderstood the rules. Could you explain why you reverted my edit, so I will know what to do in the future? Thanks.

talkback

Hello, Slrubenstein. You have new messages at Aervanath's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Elonka (talk · contribs)

slr, why did everything die out from all of the issues surrounding her retraction of the promise made to the community during her RfA? I know you were making a few points about it, but it just seemed to go away, which is a problem that is annoying about this project. I'm getting concerned about her constant interaction with POV-pushing editors. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 02:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, please don't discuss people without inviting them to the conversation. I recommend blanking this thread, or moving it to a suitable forum and inviting the subject to participate. Jehochman ^Talk 03:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Given today's events, I wonder why I was slapped around by you. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Ashkenazi intelligence

I am having some problems with this article, care to have a look and say what you think?·Maunus·ƛ· 06:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Snapp. Saw your comment at AN Slr and I made the same comment here. I'm not sure about speedy deletion necessarily, but I don't mind putting the article up for a deletion discussion if you want me to. Alun (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Alun (talk) 17:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Been thinking, it might be better to do a "soft" delete. The paper cited in the article does not deserve an article of it's own, but it can be cited in the R&I article. I suggest simply moving the relevant information to R&I (there's not a great deal) and then redirecting the page to R&I. What do you think? Alun (talk) 06:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I would second that proposal. BTW the problem I was having was the dimissive behaviour of the user who apparently sees it as his job to protect the page from those who would seek to make it conform to the WP:FRINGE guidelines.·Maunus·ƛ· 06:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

As I said before these sorts of articles are magnets for pov-pushers, both those supporting the brilliance of a certain group, and those opposing it. It's a thankless task to try and bring sanity to these sorts of articles, when one tries one often finds that so called "uninvolved" admins take the side of the pov-pusher. Alun (talk) 06:57, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

South American Linguistics

I don't know anyone working with SouthAmerican linguistics at all, at least not personally. However I've been reading the works of a linguist called David Fleck who works with the Matses of Lowland Peru. His dissertation is a grammar but he is extremely aware of and good at dealing with the anthropological and sociolinguistic parts of the linguistic description in my opinion. I also have a friend who is currently studying at SUNY Albany with Terrence Kaufman so I almost know him second hand.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Block template

I use Twinkle, which automates many tasks and gives you a set of drop-down menus that select the appropriate template. Saves a lot of time, I recommend it heartily. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I've also added the config text to your js page. I'd recommend changing the watchWarnings and watchRevertedPages settings to "false", otherwise your watchlist will grow very rapidly. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I tweaked the settings. Try clearing your cache. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I tried to fix it by adding more stuff copied from mine. If that doesn't work, try reverting back to the simplest version before I started messing about with it! Tim Vickers (talk) 03:05, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Too new?? As an experiment I added you as a rollbacker, but that's a shot in the dark. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:23, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you using Windows Internet Explorer as your browser? I don't think twinkle will work with that. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Firefox is free and much more secure and customizable than IE (Advert-blocking is especially good). Tim Vickers (talk) 16:15, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm still sort of around

SL, I think of you often. I too like thinking there are a few oldtimers around. Actually, your prod last winter got me back into editing with greater frequency than I had been showing, but to tell you the truth I don't really love it any more. I have no problem with NPOV but this business with the "fact" labels and all its related buddies is nothing but concern trolling as far as I can see. It makes the average article I like to work on unreadable and makes it look unreliable without making any contribution at all. I just plain run away when one of these guys shows up. I don't have the stomach for any kind of conflict here at all.

I feel, with great immodesty, that I made my mark on Wikipedia and made it much better than it would have been, fighting off the first wave of trolls, "Helga", "Lir" "TMC", writing articles on anything that struck my fancy. I am particularly proud of compiling the first version of the Manual of Style. Everything in that first draft is still around, despite the vast growth of the MoS. That means my mark is literally on every article, not to mention some of my most cherished stylebook prejudices.

Most of my edits these days are markup corrections, taking italics off quotes, alternate forms of title bolded, stuff like that, plus a little bit of messing around in the R&B and pop music space and some other odd interests. I periodically shred my watchlist because otherwise I'd go mad.

There is a great hostility to clear writing, I find, and a fanatic hostility against quirkyness, and an overwhelming animus against any information that provides context. Since those three things are the polar opposite of my own tastes, and my own writing style, I kind of feel out of place in Wikipedia now.

Nonetheless, I am thinking of an experiment. I have noticed that a major musical topic is missing. My idea would be to write it up completely, references, links, the whole thing, just a fantastic piece of NPOV work, and then see how long it tool for wiki-entropy to take it over. The topic has three distinct aspects and part of the experiment is to deal with all three in the same article to see if the splitting forces triumph. I will drop you a note if I ever actually follow through on this. In the meantime, best regards, Tom Parmenter, Ortolan88 (talk)

PS -- Have you seen this? Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy. http://www.technologyreview.com/web/21558/?a=f

It pretty much raises a lot of the problems I mentioned.

PPS -- Firefox is a CPU hog.

Ortolan88 (talk) 23:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I simply stopped using Firefox and my ten-year-old computer leaped back into near life (ability to watch Youtube restored, for instance). I miss Firefox, and I was just about to plunge in to all the wonderful plugins, etc., which my brother uses with great eclat, but when I watched the Active Process List (whatever it's called on the Mac) Firefox was using 50% of CPU just sitting there. Ironically, Safari is kind of buggy, and not compliant with Apple's own standards, but in the end, a web browser is just a web browser (except for Lynx, fastest browser on earth). Tom -- Ortolan88 (talk) 00:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Reply

No problem. I just don't like it when such issues are fought out on the back of somebody else, in this case Christianity. But certainly the anon did it much more than you did and was over all wrong in the issue discussed. I will have a look at NOR. Str1977 ^(talk) 16:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

NOR proposal

SLR, I do think your proposals head things in the right direction. My comments are more quibbles than objections. I'll think about how we might reword things to account for my concerns. Blueboar (talk) 20:25, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

NOR

Thanks for the note! I'll try to take a look at it, but I'm going on vacation tomorrow and won't be back till Nov 11th or so. I'll try to check in while I'm gone. Dreadstar † 03:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I dont really have much to say. -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:38, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Incest

cool (: ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 03:20, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Consensus

In spite of your explanations at SaraPalin discussion pages, I am still confused about Consensus and its many ramifications. I feel it is often abused and used as a tool to push thru actions that are questionable. Please see the on-going discussion at AN/I about protecting the candidates articles till election day. BTW...I realize that consensus is not a vote. But, I also know that consensus is "pronounced" before it is achieved. That is why, when I am involved in a consensus gathering situation, I feel it is necessary, for all involved, to provide a status report of where we stand. I also feel it is imperative to create a starting point, in some way, when consensus can begin to be measured. Iv'e noticed that when one editor begins to make a clear crisp BOLDED staement, usually at the beginning of an entry, other editors follow. No doubt where they stand. They have decided. Yay or Nay. Doesnt some type of "score" assist the process? I know that its not purely a numbers game. That one convincing editor can sway consensus. Just some thoughts on the subject.--Buster7 (talk) 12:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Slr. I will continue to learn with help like yours. I can see that, perhaps, your point about restricting the potential for problem edits so close to the election may have some validity. --Buster7 (talk) 19:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

bad faith request

Please take a look at the latest developments in Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Reply. PHARMBOY ^{(moo) (plop)} 23:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Disruptive editing, block policy, dealing with trolling

Greetings. I've been thinking about this too, and it's a tricky one. Blocking for disruptive editing is already in policy here, but the type of disruption we're concerned with is not on that list. To do anything useful I think we'd have to amend the blocking policy itself (good luck on that!) before attempting to make the WP:DE page policy. Or do you think I'm getting it backwards? At any rate WP:DE should expand and explain what is already in the blocking policy. The core of the issue is this, which you perceptively identified: a series of edits may be disruptive, even though no individual edit may violate any policy. Identifying those disruptive groups of edits as such requires intangible qualities sometimes known collectively as common sense, and I'm not sure how to either teach that, or write it in such a way as to be enforceable policy. In a way -- and I'm more than half-serious about this -- I wish every candidate for adminship had to pass a "which editor is the troll" test of some type. Antandrus (talk) 22:17, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Contact

Please contact me using my email. I think you'll find it to be worthwhile. -- Fyslee / talk 05:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#BLP prod

I thought you'd be interested in and might like to comment on the above. RMHED (talk) 21:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

RFC/USER discussion concerning you (Slrubenstein)

Hello, Slrubenstein. Please be aware that a request for comments has been filed concerning your conduct on Wikipedia. The RFC entry can be found by your name in this list, and the actual discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/SlrubensteinII, where you may want to participate. -- Charles Matthews (talk) 17:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

A Different Look

Slrubenstein. ---I noticed that you have an interest in Ethnic subjects. Can you please take a look at [[Talk: Dutch (ethnic group)]. We could sure use another viewpoint about Flemish/Dutch ethnicity. Thank You--Buster7 (talk) 23:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Policy changes

Slrubenstein, trying to rewrite longstanding policy, while you are in the middle of a user conduct RfC which cites that policy, is a really bad idea. If you'd like to participate at the policy talkpage, go ahead, but please stop editing the policy directly. Thanks, --Elonka 04:33, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Elonka, please tell me what edit specifically that I made which changes "longstanding policy?" Slrubenstein | Talk 15:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, this relates to a long standing "best practice" or norm, for experienced seasoned admins ("communicate"), that's a relatively new edit to the policy. A concern over COI might reasonably exist, especially given removal (reverted by another admin). It would probably be sensible for Slrubenstein to contribute at the policy's talk page, to prevent any issues for the while. But this is not about a longstanding part of the policy page as such. Much more to the point, an assessment of Slrubenstein's editing should not assume that text was in the policy when the events at RFC happened. They were probably norms, probably best practice, probably good judgement and commonsense. Quite possibly they (or something like them) should have been in the policy and followed by admins, and a number of admin disputes wouldn't have gone the way they did if they had been. Possibly it was a lapse of judgement in some cases, for admins not to think of them anyway, whether in the policy page or not, and it's possible that adding them will codify the need to communicate fully as "best practices" and norms, and help the community. But they weren't in that page, back then. So Slrubenstein should (whatever happens) not feel the ground is being shifted under his feet, for example. It isn't. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi FT2, I didn't see any harm in moving the content closer to the front of the policy. I see that you have made some changes. For the most part I appreciate your maintaning the spirit of my edits. I still have some concerns I expressed on the talk page. However, my main point is that there should be wider community discussion before anyone changes the policy.Slrubenstein | Talk 15:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

My solidarity with you

Fellow Wikipedian, Slrubenstein, thank you for requesting me to weigh in on this Rfc concerning you. As you know I have the highest respect for you, and I know that you always conduct your affairs with fairness and justice. I am sure that no other conclusion can be reached in this; however, I will read through the material. Shalom and goodspeed here.--Drboisclair (talk) 10:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Very sad to see this spat being dragged out, and Charles Matthews doing so much to draw public attention to allegedly confidential information. A point of disagreement: you wrote "Mervyn Emrys posted information about himself on his user page. he added content to an article, and mathsci provided us with information about the source." All the information about the source which Mervyn Emrys added to the article is public, available on Amazon.com using the information which Mervyn posted. Obscurity is not security. Perhaps mathsci could have been more discreet about drawing attention to publically available information, but then more discretion all round would be a good idea. . . dave souza, talk 11:39, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

thanks for the Flemish/Dutch...I will read it shortly. I have already commented at the Rfc. See:Outside view from Ramdrake..#4)--Buster7 (talk) 21:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Your RfC

I believe you have a broken link right after this sentence: A lack of transparency is at best a red herring and at worst compounds the abuse of power I agree with Jehochman's point that Charles's block was utterly lacking in transparency, as the link leads to a diff which has no relationship whatsoever with what you're saying. You may want to look again into it. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 16:19, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Works now. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 16:32, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Freddy

Hi Slrubenstein, I'd just like to compliment you on your patience above and beyond the call of duty in this case. I very much hope Freddy repays your faith by becoming less tiresome and belligerent. Yours worriedly (if that's a word) AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOR question

I was wondering if you could give your opinion on an issue, since you have been instrumental in writing and defining the WP:NOR policy. I'm having a dispute with another editor at Second intifada. He has added links to a series of articles as references for the sentence "Some view the start to be the September 28 2000 riots and injuries soon after Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount/Al-Haram As-Sharif." The sources are descriptions of the riots, and are reliable enough primary sources regarding them, but do not actually make the claim that September 28 was the start of the Second intifada, or that that "some view" it as the start. I've removed the references as a violation of WP:SYNTH, and potentially of WP:V. However, another editor insists that because they are reliable sources, they can be added "as description of the events". The discussion is here: Talk:Second_Intifada#WP:NOR_based_on_primary_sources. I'd appreciate third party views. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Non-exclusive ethic group

Apparently, the link was added today. It was not in the article prior to today.

That's nonsense. I saw it there several years ago. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you did, but you could not have seen it there yesterday, or a year ago, or two years ago, because it wasn't there. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:36, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Editor review

I've placed myself on editor review at Wikipedia:Editor_review/Cosmic_Latte, and I'm reaching out for feedback to editors who seem to be reasonably familiar with my work. If you have a moment to comment there, your feedback would be most appreciated. Thanks, Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Archiving assistance

Slrubenstein, hi, I noticed that your talkpage was getting kind of long. If you'd like, I could set up an archivebot for you? Then it would automatically archive any threads which had been inactive for a certain period of time. You could still maintain the index manually, but this way you wouldn't have to keep up with the routine archiving itself. Would this be of interest to you? --Elonka 23:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, done. It'll start archiving on the next pulse, which should be sometime within the next 24 hours. It'll archive any threads which have been inactive for more than 30 days, and move them into your subpage at /Archive 22, until it reaches a size of 100K, at which point the bot will automatically move to the next number. I did move a few of your existing archive pages from "/archive ##" to "/Archive ##" (capital "A") so things would work properly. Oh, and if you want the maxarchivesize to be different, or the "age" of archiveable threads to be different, that's easily changed, just let me know and I can tweak as needed. :) --Elonka 18:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I saw that the bot tried to archive, but you reverted.[8] What was the problem? Too much archived at one time? I can tweak, if you tell me what the concerns were. --Elonka 04:28, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

User:Freddyboytoy

..seems to be dodging his block as Idiotsonwackipedia (talk · contribs) --CalendarWatcher (talk) 00:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Year 0

Year 0 was a key element in the plan of Cleopatra VII's political and social system called the "new era". Here's a good article if want to shed light on the backgrounds. http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-028.htmlZebra2016 (talk) 03:20, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

This is not an article, it is a term paper. It doesn't shed light on anything, it is a university' students thoughtful speculation but not based as far as I can tell on real research in classical languages using primary sources following established historical methods. The bibliography is short, many secondary sources. Reliable sources would be articles in peer-reviewed journals. The best ones are not online, you need to go to a library. This term paper does not mention a year 0. In ancient times calendars were often reset to 0 with the establishment of a new king or dynasty, though, so I do not see anything especially interesting here. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting, I take em as good interpretation on this. Thank you. Zebra2016 (talk) 04:38, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

While I was passing

You sir, as I've noted in other places, are a very wise man, all the more obvious because of the humility with which you express your wisdom. I am very glad you are not involved in my case at ArbCom, though no doubt you've seen it. I am sorry if my views or handling of the case have disappointed you. If you haven't seen it, don't go there, there's nothing interesting in it. But this is about you, not me.

What grabs me about your wisdom is that you often speak of things others are not always familiar with, but circumstances have been teaching me. I am merely informed by thinking about what I experience. You appear to have a weight of experience you bring to discussions. I'm sure we'd disagree about many things, but you are a champion of precisely the right vision of Wikipedia, and of community, in my opinion. It has a lot in common with traditional models of academic discourse. My teachers in Philosophy advocated what they called "rational consensus", both elements were significant.

What caught my eye was your defence against heirarchical models of Wikipedia administration, while acknowledging some necessity for this. Indeed! I expect no reply, and didn't familiarise myself with what you were discussing to have an opinion on the issue you were addressing. But having seen you in other talk pages, practising what you preach, I want you to know that the little I've seen of you has always struck me as exemplary of what a Wikipedian can be. I suspect you have been deeply involved in this project and at strategic points of discussion in various ways that have enhanced and guided the project because of your wisdom. I do hope the project hasn't become so big and popular that too much noise is drowning out its original wise ideals.

Is it possible that ideals you have such a clear grasp of are so successful they lead to their own demise? I'm sure you've asked yourself such questions, and imagine your partial answers are more useful than anything I'd have to offer. I hope I have seen clearly enough to encourage you.

I thank God for my involvement at Wiki, and one of the greatest treasures I've found here is your soul. Sorry for any embarassment my compliments may cause you. I have a reflex to express praise, that perhaps I should redirect in some other way. Respect and best wishes, Alastair Haines (talk) 06:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. Yes, good ideas a long time ago have brought a rich harvest. I wonder if part of a problem is that ideas communicate better via lots of personal contact than by documentation and formal systems. Perhaps personal contact, multiple shared experience of resolving issues, is a powerful force that needs to be recaptured. Some Wiki projects achieve it, others don't.

I learn lots of things at Wiki, people are infinitely variable, or at least variable beyond a life time of experience. I'm not sure I find most challenges in interactions with people on the grounds of differences. Differences prompt my curiosity and all sorts of adapting strategies. Where I find challenges most commonly is with people who are most alike, that's where things can get cramped.

Then, I am not a fan of modern Western culture. Mass-market careerism, consumerism and self-determination all reflect social changes associated with wealth and some of the justice that wealth can both afford and generate. There is much good, but it brings new problems.

I think Wiki works as a social networking site as a side-effect of people gathering around common interests. It's a fascinating community to study. My own preference is definitely English second language areas, I meet people very different and with communication limitations, yet there seem to be "constants of human-ness", and these seem to lie in the area of values. Though there is variation in those too, I fancy that some value-differences are actually deviations from a canonical ideal leading to different sets of social issues.

Anyway, I'm probably speaking twaddle, it's very late (early) here and I must sleep. I'll think more about your words when I wake up. Kind of you to reply. Shalom Alastair Haines (talk) 15:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm not sure my current issues are that much concern in the long term. When I get a chance I will familiarise myself with what is going on with SV and the various lines of thought. I will try to understand your perspective and reflect it to you. I may very well agree 100%, especially as I'm sure you'll show appreciation of alternative views. But the point is, I want to encourage you that you are not alone in caring. Also, I want to encourage you that there are many scattered idealists who would love to learn from Wikipedians like you. I will spend some time meditating and brainstorming possibilities. But, God willing that I'm not banned in the meantime, when I get back to you, I'd love to hear your thoughts first. You've been thinking about this waaaay longer than me. Enough for now, until we meet again. Alastair Haines (talk) 15:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Race

Thanks for your comment about my post. I tend to think that what I said in my post is already covered in the article. Was there anything specific you had in mind? I like Long and Kittles quote, it's my favourite expression of this idea, I like the "samples of size N" phrase, I think it's amusing, it might be good to quote this in the article, though I'm leery of too many quotations. Alun (talk) 08:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

What is your interpretation of "the Scriptures". Are you a Deist? If so, are you Jewish or Christian? I see above someone has called you a Jewish friend. I hope you don't get offended by me asking. Gabr-el 03:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Ahh what? What a disappointment that you won't share. Your edits most certainly are not POV orientated, I respect that, so far as I have seen them. What sparked my curiosity was when you said, "Gabr-el, your interpretation of Scripture, like mine, just does not belong in this article" - you know my interpretation of Christian scripture, but what is yours? Wikipedia is not a place for people to discuss their religion, but that doesn't meant they should not. Well, if you don't want to share your opinion openly, you could email me, otherwise I respect your privacy. Gabr-el 07:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

All work and no fun hey? Very well, see you around. Gabr-el 21:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Arb vote response

I've posted two responses to your concerns on my vote page, under oppose 67, SLR's vote. I've also paste them to my questions page. Let me know if you have more concerns. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I've answered your 5 questions. — Rlevse • Talk • 04:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering if you have any remaining concerns I can address for you. Thank you for your consideration. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:53, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

butting heads

SLR, you and I seem to butt heads more than we need to on the Jesus page. I think that you and I agree more than you think we do. Maybe I've rubbed you the wrong way in the past somehow? Maybe repeatedly? Anyway, you and I could do great work together if we were more in sync. How'd you like to work side-by-side with me on some other page for a while to get used to working together, and then we can bring that collaboration to the Jesus page, too? You could pick the page. Leadwind (talk) 16:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey I'm not angry or anything, just so you know. I'm contacting you today because I finally got around to it. I'm on a lot of separate threads on WP right now, and just now I've gotten around to this one again. You and I edit together a lot better than certain other editors and I, and that's why I wrote. I got the feeling I'd gotten off on the wrong foot with you, and I wanted to set that right if I could. If you think of me as a constructive editor, then we're fine, and there's nothing to set right. Leadwind (talk) 19:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey, it didn't occur to me that you'd take offense at being asked for a quote. You sounded familiar with the scholars' conclusions on the sedition issue, so I thought maybe you had at least one of them. Or any bystander with these books in their library could step in, as Soidi sort of did. Leadwind (talk) 02:41, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

ArbCom questions

Just letting you know the link that you provided is no longer valid as the discussion has been archived. The current page is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive178#ArbCom talk pages. I've taken the liberty of fixing the link on the two question pages you've posted to so far. Be well! Vassyana (talk) 23:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

In the same vein, I've fixed the link to a now-archived message thread. Thanks for the alert that the link had gone dead. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

A very off-topic comment...

Actually, you may remove my name, as my contribution has really been very minor - mostly some copy editing. It is Maunus who did almost all of the work and he should receive full credit for this. Iblardi (talk) 16:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Um...

Kirk, ok I guess. But Ringo??? Tvoz/talk 05:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, you make some interesting arguments, but consider the idea that perhaps the emphasis on Ringo in the films was a combination of tongue-in-cheek and guilty feelings that he wasn't getting as much adoration or credit as the rest of the boys. I actually agree with you that in general the drummer is the heart of a group - Levon Helm, Don Henley, Graeme Edge, hell, even Dave Clark come to mind - and I think Ringo often didn't get enough credit for his contribution. But I can't agree with you that he "made" the Beatles - the beat was certainly important, but the songs, the melodies, the harmonies, the transformation of old styles into new styles is what made the Beatles, and that's Lennon and McCartney far and away first, and Harrison and Starr notable, but clearly seconds. But I can recall having had this same argument in junior high over 40 years ago, and the Ringo and George lovers among us were as adamant then as you are now. Meanwhile, Ringo seems to have slightly lost his mind lately, but hey, he's a survivor, so no complaints from me.

Now, about Kirk.... Yeah, sure, there wouldn't and couldn't have been a Picard without a Kirk, and as a first-run TOS watcher and fan I give him his props, but no comparison in terms of depth of character or intellect. Much as I love "City on the Edge of Tomorrow", "The Inner Light" was pure poetry and incomparable - and Kirk never came even close.

So, any views on Ochs vs. Dylan? Cheerio Tvoz/talk 21:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I can't even bring myself to write anything negative about Kirk or TOS, but Shatner v. Stewart as actors is a slam-dunk to me. (I actually saw Stewart in a 2-man Mamet play in London a few years ago with Joshua Jackson of all people, and Stewart was just incredible.) But that's not what you were talking about - as Captain, I can see your point. And you hit on the greatest of the great TNG shows for sure.

Back to the Beatles for a moment - to me it's really all about the songwriting. I don't know, Octopus' Garden v. Eleanor Rigby v. Across the Universe - or so many dozens of other less obvious choices.... that's what convinces me. But don't ask me to pick between Lennon and McCartney because that's brandy and cognac or something like that.

And finally.... while an orange is juicy, textured and satisfying, a good apple is, well, sublime. So I'd be taking the Ochs cds to the desert island. Tvoz/talk 23:18, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

By the way - how do you figure that Ringo had the most successful post-Beatle career? (I'm not asking sarcastically - I don't see what you're talking about.) Tvoz/talk 23:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Bee Gees of course! Harmony perfection - the best blending of voices I can think of that rivals the best of the Beach Boys (actually I like the Bee Gees harmony better). The disco days not my favorite of their incarnations, but overall brilliance. And some of their songs - not all - are also genius. But please, no Frampton. Ever. Under any circumstances. I have nightmares about the Sgt Pepper movie. Back to Ringo - I haven't done an analysis, but I know McCartney had numerous number one singles and albums, as solo and with Wings - and many, many more releases than Ringo, so I am reasonably sure that his post-Beatle career was more successful by any standard than Ringo's - I'd even think Harrison's was as well. Lennon, I'm not sure since it was so tragically short, although I am certainly with you on Double Fantasy. Tvoz/talk 01:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Disruptive editing

I've made a sandbox version of WP:DE at User:Vassyana/insanity/Disrupt 001. It's part of a sandbox playground for experimenting with policy paring (User:Vassyana/insanity). Regardless, it is a good representation of what I personally would prefer to see. I took it from about 14k to ~5.5k in size.[9] I'm curious about your thoughts. Be well! Vassyana (talk) 08:43, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to share the sandbox with other editors. It was mainly an intellectual exercise for me, spurred by your questions, but I certainly wouldn't object if it can be put to practical use. I revised the "dealing with" section a bit more to tighten it up and keep it focused on the main subject (DE).[10] For example, page protection and discussion of edit warring were leftovers from my borrowing of the "dealing with" section from Wikipedia:EW#Dealing with edit warring. While I appreciate the intent of your enforcement idea, I am very wary of "by the numbers" identifiers and solutions. "Checkbox" type policy issues tend to be abused and misused. Perhaps there is some way we could provide additional clarity and limits without a systematized approach? For you, what's the crucial point of your proposed enforcement mechanism? What is it principally intended to correct? Vassyana (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Consensus

Somewhere in the archives at Talk:Sara Palin you provided a concise treatise on Consensus. I tried to save it but some bot recently cancelled the page I had it stored at. Do you remember, and if so any clues as to the date or location. I think you were having a discussion with JamesMLane. Thanks.--Buster7 (talk) 19:34, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPA

Please see Wikipedia's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on contributors. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks will lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. I refer to [this edit. Blackworm (talk) 16:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Um, it is trolling that damages the community and deters users. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

(deleted: comments by sock-puppet of blocked user[11])

Nope, DNFTT is a long-established Wikipedia principle, and a very important one. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:22, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

(deleted: comments by sock-puppet of blocked user[12])

Hey, what's a nice SPA like you doing on a talk page like this? :) --Ramdrake (talk) 02:35, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

<charade>Ramdrake, I liked the first word of the your statement and the last :). However, could you possibly rethink the intervening words? How would you feel if somebody asked you a question like that? Looking at your own editing history, I see that you too concentrate on a very restricted set of articles. You have been warned multiple times about your tag-team membership problems and your appearance here as a wiki-friend of problematic administrator Slrubenstein only corroborates that. In some cases you voted similarly to him in the ArbCom elections. </charade> Mathsci (talk) 07:41, 16 December 200--Ramdrake (talk) 15:07, 16 December 2008 (UTC)8 (UTC)

Mathsci methinks Elonka finally rubbed off on you... ;)--Ramdrake (talk) 15:07, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The Christmas pantomime, starring Teacher's pet - but where's Widow Twanky? Mathsci (talk) 09:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Evolution

Sorry I have not responded more promptly. Evolution could not have happened, and for demonstrative purposes, I will use the bacterial flagellum.

The bacterial flagellum is made of 40 different proteins, 30 of which are totally unique, which act as molecular motors. The problem with saying that nature selected the flagellum is that natural selection, according to Darwinian evolution, chooses only those changes that provide an advantage to that particular organism, and eliminates functionless mutations. Now, in order for the flagellum to be evolved, it would have had to be evolved in increments. I.e. one protein at a time. Without all 40 proteins, the flagellum is completely useless, and would posses no advantage to the bacteria. Natural selection would then eliminate it. Natural selection, which is the hypothetical driving force behind evolution, can only act after a mutation has occurred, and cannot guide it. It is for that reason that I say that evolution is just a theory, and not a fact. Those are approximate numbers; every bacterium is different.

-A hypothesis attempts to explain an observation, or predict it's cause. Evolution attempts to explain the origin of species, and seeing that millions of species exist qualifies as an observation. The logic used is that they all had to come from somewhere.

-A scientific law is a statement of a normal observation, e.g. the Law of Gravity. On Earth, things normally fall towards the ground. Since evolution hypothesizes about how we got here, it can not properly state that how we got here is a normal observation, especially since nobody was there to observe.

-A scientific model by definition must both describe a series of observations, and accurately predict future observations. Evolution describes a hypothetical process (which is also known as evolution) by which the species originated, but it that process has never been observed (on eyewitness). Furthermore, evolution has only predicted slight changes within species, but not between them.

Hypotheses and models can not be proven true, but can be proven false by way of experiment. Note: an inaccurate scientific law is simply replaced with a more accurate one. If you do not believe me, look it up for yourself.

Something that I find particularly annoying is when evolutionists start screaming "FACT! FACT!" instead of actually providing a sound argument. You said that I should actually read articles (implying that I have not researched this matter); you should actually read my argument instead of weakly denying it. Gefreiter (talk) 05:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

"Your" argument is taken directly from Behe. It's the standard claim of "irreducible complexity", and it has been refuted over and over again. It was dissected in painstaking and judicially controlled detail in the Dover case, and nothing useful remained (see Michael Behe#Dover_testimony. In fact, the flagellum is a very good test for evolution, as it can be shown that the parts of the genome that make he flagellum are indeed independently useful, just as predicted by evolution. See this talk by Ken Miller or read his paper. Evolution does indeed describe a process and makes predictions - for a recent and famous case, see Tiktaalik. The researchers predicted not only how a link between fish and tetrapod should look, but also when it should have lived (roughly 375 million years ago) and hence in what rock formations it might be found (late devonian sedimentary rocks). And, searching for just such rock formations, they found it... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Take the Type III secretory system and subtract one protein. Does it still work? Using the Co-option argument does not refute my argument (which is also Dr. Behe's argument). Even if all forty or fifty (depending on the species) proteins in the bacterial flagellum had some other function in the cell, each addition would have to have had its own unique advantage, otherwise it would not have been preserved by natural selection.

When I mentioned "evolutionists," I meant people like you; I do not have to be a scientist to be considered a creationist, and you do not have to be a scientist to be considered an evolutionist. An evolutionist believes in evolution, and a creationist believes in creation. It is as simple as that. (Note: intelligent design differs from creationism in that intelligent designs states that someone is guiding evolution, instead of natural selection, while creationism believes that God created everything.) When I mentioned "screaming FACT!" I meant evolutionists, like you, simply stating (in an in-your-face manner) that evolution is a fact, instead of explaining why they think that. If you read your first comment, you will notice that all you did was say that evolution is a fact, and that the reason you believe evolution to be true is somewhere out there, although you would not provide even a logical argument. So, I suggest a compromise, I will read the articles that you cited, providing that you come up with a reasonable argument, instead of simply saying, "Well, read some stuff and it will prove me right.... See? You didn't read, so therefore you cannot prove me wrong." By the way, I have studied plenty of scientific literature; if you studied enough, and were able to subject your own beliefs to close scrutiny, you would likely come to the same conclusion as I have (although I won't guarantee that you will follow the same path of reasoning). Gefreiter (talk) 20:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

What is this "Darwinian evolution"? MET includes genetic drift, the degree of significance of which is debated, and there's more to evolution than adaptation. . dave souza, talk 22:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

re: trolling?

Whoopsie daisy! Thanks for pointing that out to me. I had absentmindedly assumed that his link was to a "Don't Feed the Trolls" explanation page; so, when I scrolled up, it looked to me like I had been the one he was referring to since he had just typed a response to me. I certainly want to be fair to him. Thanks for pointing out my mistake! -BaronGrackle (talk) 16:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: more research

Re: As to the quote from Daphne Patai, I would need to do some more research about her and the context of the book to be able to assess its significance([13] Talk:Feminism#Lack_of_a_criticism_section) -- has any progress been made on this? I have already assessed it to be significant, and I would like to add it, given the original poster's request for some kind of criticism of feminism to appear in the article. Your tone seemed to imply that you still opposed this material until you had a chance to investigate. Should I now just be bold (per this, perhaps)? Blackworm (talk) 10:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

JBap

Understood, and in my defence I did go to RPP after a couple reverts to try and avert an escalation of the situation. And are the closing questions directed at me, or the newb? It isn't entirely clear, from wording. But I will refrain from engaging him anymore, as that seems to be what I should do with regards to dnftt. Carl.bunderson (talk) 02:45, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

European ethnic groups

As it happens, three editors working together on the European ethnic groups article are there from the WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard: Dbachmann, Mathsci, and dougweller. The article is also being discussed there [14] ....apparently without notifying other editors of the article. I have sometimes been active on that noticeboard, but have become increasingly concerned with how it functions, which I now regard as problematic, and which have gone my best to explain on the Village Pump. I understand that, more likely than not, you will not agree with my assessment there, but I would be interested in getting your view of what I wrote. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:38, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, conspiracy theories yet again. But here the cart is clearly being put before the horse. Please don't group editors together like this, it's quite unhelpful and certainly not the way wikipedia functions. Why not take a look at the rest of the talk page of the article and some of the recent archives? You'll soon find out that the article is on my watchlist. I occasionally look at WP:FTN, partly as a check against anti-scientific administrative creep. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 06:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.. "Conspiracy theories"? I could show some that were generated on Fringe theories/Noticeboard, like this strange one about the Baha'is. I am not impresses when buzz word terms like "Conspiracy theorist" are used as handy clubs against those who disagree with you. The simple fact remains that the article is being discussed on Fringe theories/Noticeboard without supplying a link to the discussion from the article talk page, and that three of the editors most active on FTN are working together on the article.

If you want to argue with me about this it would be more civil of you to do that on my talk page, rather than Slrubenstein's. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy holidays

Thanks for making 2008 an interesting and enlightening year for me; at some point, our paths have crossed and I've found your comments amusing, helpful or thought-provoking—I'll let you guess which!

Wishing you and yours a joyous holiday season, and happiness, health and hopefulness in 2009. I trust you'll enjoy this little token, a favourite performance of Baby, it's Cold Outside, for your holiday amusement.
Best, Risker (talk) 03:36, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Wishing you the very best for the season. Guettarda (talk) 23:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

And a Happy Darwin200 Year! . . dave souza, talk 00:33, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

RFC at WP:NOR-notice

A concern was raised that the clause, "a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge" conflicts with WP:NPOV by placing a higher duty of care with primary sourced claims than secondary or tertiary sourced claims. An RFC has been initiated to stimulate wider input on the issue. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

a text's one true meaning?

"Do you believe that a text has only one true meaning, generally that intended by the author of the text?" More or less. If it's a recipe or instruction manual, more. If it's an ad, less. If it's a sacred text, poem, or song lyric, way less. I'm not sure how I'd rate a grocery list. Anyway, the author had meanings while authoring (not just one meaning, not all conscious), and readers invent complementary meanings in their heads. So I'm not a fundamentalist. But I'm neither am I on speaking terms with the idea that all texts are totally arbitrary narratives. Good question! Leadwind (talk) 21:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

You prove that a recipe can have more than one meaning. Granted. That's why my answer is "more or less." It's not either/or in my book, it's more/less. Leadwind (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you! Slrubenstein | Talk 21:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

information in leads

This topic touches on personal style so probably belong here rather than on Talk:Jesus. One of my recurrent projects on WP is getting more information into leads. My read of the WP:lead guidelines is that leads should be more informative, not less. The same is true of good writing in general, but leads, as summaries, have a special burden to pack in a lot of information. They are specifically to be able to stand alone as concise summaries of the topic. If there's anything in WP guidelines that says that leads should avoid details, I'd be obliged to have it pointed out to me, because more informative writing is better writing. On Jesus, you seem to want to keep the lead vague, except for the sedition issue. Sometimes I get the feeling that you really don't want changes made to the lead, either to add details or to change them. Leadwind (talk) 02:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

one little thing

Heh, :) that's Gwen Gale (talk) 21:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Particularism

Hi Rubenstein,

When I performed that merge, I was debating between either doing as I did or splitting all the sections off into their own articles and turning Particularism into a disambiguation page. The various concepts might have some vague connection between them, but they seem to all be fairly separate topics on the whole. What do you think of this idea?

Neelix (talk) 00:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Independent sourcing for Elements of Fiction

I read with interest your views on WT:OR, as I thought you made some well thought out points. I would be grateful if you would consider applying your intellect and skills to the discussions at WT:FICT#Independent sources were the participants are very close to agreeing on the current draft of Notability (fiction) guideline, but an impass has been reached on the issue of independent sourcing. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

wow

Hey, thank you for taking the time to come talk to me, I really appreciate that. I completely understand what you're saying, and I hope that you didn't take my closing comment to mean that "I give up". I'm the type of person that tends to be reflective. When confronted with opposing points of view, I'll listen, back away, and think about what is said. Then, if I feel a need to clarify my position, I'll attempt to approach the topic from a different angle or point of view. Given that many editors here have had much more academic training than I, sometimes I need to do a little research before I respond. I do understand that "truth" can be a very subjective thing, especially when discussed from a philosophical standpoint. I've seen entries allowed to stand (at least for a while) simply because a newspaper printed it. For example, if the NY Times writes a piece on politician A, that says he is cold-hearted (that can be verified, and is allowed to stay) - If I witness the same person help an elderly lady across the street, that's OR. In fact, if I even mention it on the talk page, I can be told that this is not a forum. But I'm getting off-topic here. I love this place, I love to learn, and that very statement on WP:V (not truth) is the final push that prompted me to join and start editing. I've found as much knowledge on article talk pages as I've found on the actual articles. When you throw in the "boards", "Policy and guidelines", "Reference Desks", and history tabs, there is are huge resources here beyond the articles themselves. (As well as all the entertaining AN/I and alert pages, although much of it is more entertainment and soap opera than actual knowlede [...] at least for those of us who tend to refrain from commenting). I admit, I don't envy you administrators when slope gets slippery. I haven't even looked at the ArbCom stuff yet. Although if you look at the User:FT2, or F2T or whatever issues, I suppose it could be considered quite the soap opera. And the flagged revisions? [...], but again I've gotten way off topic.

Back to "the truth". Yes, I understand that I can say "It's cold in Pittsburgh, PA., today", and someone who lives in Alaska can offer a very viable dispute. There is an abundance of academic types here, many professors and post-grads who are able to use vocabulary and fine points of policy to further their "truths". As a more "blue-collar" type of editor, it's up to me to work a little harder to get my alternative points of view across in a way that they are allowed to stand. In the Larry Sanger article, the "Citizendium v. Wikipedia" section just has a very POV feel to it, and I'm not fond of attempts to shed anything or anyone in a negative light. I believe that all people and issues can be discussed on their own merits, and it's a more mature attitude to find the good in life. To be sure, Wikipedia has it's short-comings, but it has merits that deserve their day in the sun as well. I don't care for the "throw stones at the guy on the top" mentality, and believe that "truth" should be equal and fair. That's why I came to WP:V again, to find the fine points in an attempt to allow my edits to stand without being reverted. After research, I do understand that I may be dealing with an editor who loves a wiki-drama, and it will take me a few days to decide if I want to make any more attempts at improving that particular article.

Well, thank you again for taking the time to come talk to me, I really appreciate you taking time out of your wiki-work to do that. It shows once again how valuable the wiki admins are, and how hard they work to provide "knowledge", and provide constructive input to our little slice of the web. Sorry for the extended forumish, it lets me work through the jumbled thoughts in my head. It's a real pleasure to meet you. ;) Ched (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Boy does that entry need some copyedit work! First draft and all I guess. LOL Ched (talk) 18:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

NO! Not bored in the least, in fact as I was watching the NFL playoffs, I was wondering if it would be proper etiquette to put the blurb about my ref. to BLP rather than essay on your page. But I didn't want to distract you from your work, or abuse the talk pages in a "chat" fashion. You bring up several points that I hadn't considered. (yet) The ArbCom thing was just an off-the-cuff note of something I'm not really interested in (yet). I do enjoy some of the AN/I conversations, even though I find some revolve around some very childish issues. They can also be educational in what not to do here. I was told 30 years ago that I had a very philosophical outlook on life when I was a young man, I guess it's still true today.

The sheer volume of articles at Wikipedia makes it an almost inexhaustible read. I've also learned that reading the talk pages and history can be as enlightening as the articles themselves. I'll probably join the Citizendum site eventually as well, but I don't see a need to bash one site over the other since both have some very admirable traits, and are worthy in their own rights. Even if one doesn't always agree with Jimbo, it would be nearsighted to at least not respect his vision.

Also, I was in fact debating about creating an article titled Pseudo-journalism, as a counter to some of the presentation in the Larry BLP. Reading his talk pages, and interviews, I think even he would take issue with the way some of the items are presented on his BLP page. Even if he couldn't directly edit due to COI, it would be interesting to hear his input, and Jimbo's as well. And I haven't even touched on your views on religion yet (although I was raised with the New Testament). I admire your thought process, and outlook on education and thought. So please don't ever feel you're boring me with anything, even if I don't always agree with you on some topic, I'll always appreciate the input - it helps me make a more informed opinion. Ched (talk) 21:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Culture/GA1

I see you added some comments then deleted them. What's up? --Philcha (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I see that you have done a substantial re-write of the whole Culture article. I am worried that, with so many changes at once, and so little discussion of best approach to resolving the problems there were with the article: (1) some worthwhile material may have been lost; and (2) the article now seems to cover the subject as a history of development of US/UK (and a bit of other Western) academic thought. It does not seem a very worldwide approach, even historically. Surely the topic must have been thought about and studied in other parts of the world! It seems a bit radical to add so much material and delete so much material from an important article in one run. Would it not be best if solutions to the pre-existing problems are arrived at by discussion and tackled bit by bit? Under the verswion you have put up, many items are not referenced and there are several important aspects of the topic, to my way of thinking as a non-academic - which are not covered. In my view, your changes should be undone as they are too radical, but the contents of your new version of the article should be preserved as a communal resource in fixing the previous problems. Would that be OK with you? I am thinking of copying my remarks to the GA1 discussion but am not sure if that is appropriate --AlotToLearn (talk) 00:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

My understanding as a relatively new user was that the GA subsumed page goes at the bottom of the Culture talk page, and anyone wanting to add a different or new or separate topic would add it ABOVE the GA review discussion. Is that wrong? By adding a topic below, surely you are cutting the GA review short and terminating it? Is that what you want to do? All I was trying to do was fix that problem.--AlotToLearn (talk) 00:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, if you want your comment to be added to the GA discussion, then you click the Edit next to the GA review main header (ie just above my first entry. When I did this it says at the top, within this GA review discussion, do not use == headers, use only === and more headers. Maybe we are both right, in that if you wanted your new topic to be a new topic not forming part of the GA review, then maybe you did the right thing, ie maybe you don't need to stay above the review. Look, I'm busy on other stuff. I've said my bit and you can ignore it if you think best. I know you put some good effort into it, it's just that the whole thing now seems to me to be much too academic and not cover the common meanings and practicalities in ordinary language at the top (what about culture and language for example, when a language dies or is overtaken by another, etc, both in history and nowadays. Look at Papua New Guinea, about 800 living languages, one in each inaccessible valley, how does the Minister of Education handle that for teaching. Does he say forget their cultures, they'll die anyway, teach thenm in English? Actually, no he doesn't - at least at primary level!). I'll come back in a few days to see what is happening.

--AlotToLearn (talk) 00:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeshua

The whole talk page? You indicated no particular discussion. -Stevertigo 18:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

cultural history

Sorry, I don't really know. I've not been keeping up too closely with wikipedia in general, and I've rarely come across much on cultural history, which I think we always tend to do badly with. john k (talk) 00:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Culture

Thanks for the implied invitation to collaborate on Culture. Unfortunately I'm in the middle of re-vamping Ctenophore and you should see my To Do list - the zoology and paleontology parts of which are preparation for the Cambrian explosion. In addition I'm GA reviewing some articles and have others awaiting GA review. I only got involved at Culture because I saw it was up for WP:GAR - and I can't remember how I saw that. If you like, I can drop in and make what I might think helpful suggestions(!?) - but only if and when and when invited. --Philcha (talk) 08:10, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Jesus

If there's antisemitism there, it's a little too veiled for me to see it. Good luck with the discussion. I think you're obviously right about keeping Yeshua out of the lede. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 14:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Twas maybe a kind of pithy reaction to a perceived latent anti-Christianism that has some echoes with a concept in anti-Judaism... But not anti-Semitism. Twas you who pulled the "race" card, not I. But what do you expect - this is fucking Jesus were talking about.-Stevertigo 16:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

SLR, what are you doing? -Stevertigo 16:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• when have I axpressed any, even latent, anti-Christianism?
• please do not use "fucking" in relation to Jesus. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• I have never once seen you personally expressing any anti-Christianism in any form. If I have given that impression, I apologize, but it seems only natural that 1 Judaic sources on Jesus be regarded as.. particular, and 2, that Judaic sources on Hebrew not claim authoritarian ownership of that language. I would love for you to present the sources you claim contradict the Yeshua transliteration. I for one am curious as to the nature of the so-called controversy you describe, and I greatly appreciate both your interest in Jesus and your expertise in the subject of Judaism and Jewish thought.
• I am a fucking Christian - I can say it all day if I want to. But I will refrain from doing so on your talk page if you like. -Stevertigo 16:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Correction. I actually have now seen you expressing a certain concept of anti-Christianism on the Jesus article. Your revert of my edit[15]

basically undid three valid changes to the lede and elevated Islam to the lede of the Jesus article. Elevating Islam in its importance with respect to Jesus could be percieved as an attempt to indicate a closer tie between Jesus and Islam than there actually is, therefore denegrating the Christian concept of Jesus by association with a contradicting view that has some, but not much, consideration for the being, his concepts, and the Gospels. Subtle, but obvious as a brick at the same time. -Stevertigo 16:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• Whether you did it on accident or not, you violated 3RR on Jesus. As such, I have mentioned this along side the Stevertigo report at 3RR, as much as this may pain me. As an admin, you really should know better, so please consider this a final warning, and also consider other ways to contribute besides reverting.-Andrew c ^[talk] 17:18, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"Some Great Truth"

I was checking out you userpage after reading your comments at anti-Semitism. I wondered if an affirmative answer if "South Park" were part of the question would count? ( the Bible for me is affirmative with out a doubt). Just a little levity. See you at the talkpage.Die4Dixie (talk) 17:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Awesome. Let's dialogue then.Die4Dixie (talk) 17:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I was just on the phone with their head quarters! My biggest problem is the use of "exclusively" with out direct attribution to Lewis, as in academia there has been peer reviewed literature broadening the application. Before I do too much at the articles, I have an essay to write for Wikipedia on my views of Palestine, since I have had one user misunderstand a userbox on a different project. In fact, I probably should do it before I go too much further. Thanks for the advice.Die4Dixie (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Stevertigo is misbehaving

He's calling you out personally. He's trying to "spread the word" about "Yeshu," etc. He's trying to be an iconoclast, is my guess. The status quo is for Christians and Jews to try to get along, and the Yeshu stuff is a reminder of uglier times. He's also sticking the Nicene Creed in the lede, probably to emphasize the three-century delay between Jesus and the Trinity. It's possible that he's not just an iconoclast but actually has some hateful purpose in mind, but intellectual tomfoolery seems like motive enough. Honestly, I'm not following the whole deal and didn't read your entire post on my talk page. Please don't let a misbehaving editor totally get to you. If you need to go to extreme measures, they're time-consuming, but they can work (sort of). Leadwind (talk) 18:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course, Stevertigo's description of the trouble he's causing on Jesus is misleading and self-serving, but I'm not on wikien either. Leadwind (talk) 01:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Culture and archaeology

Hey, thanks for the collab invite! I'll dig through and see what I can do. I'll talk more specifics on the talk page. SMSpivey (talk) 20:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Just so you don't think your message has fallen on deaf ears -- I have looked over the Culture article, and it already is far better than the last time I read through it (for which improvement I suspect, without looking at the edit history, that you're largely due the credit). Will try to improve the section on cultural studies if I can (I see that it's largely made up of some muddled and not really apropos discussion of "subcultures" at the moment), but I do not have a lot of free time for Wikipedia at the moment. Nonetheless your invitation is appreciated. -- Rbellin|Talk 01:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

anti?Semitism

Hi, User:Slrubenstein. You may not realize the respect I developed for your work, and I was dismayed by (a) backing an incorrect, neologist spelling and (b) dismissive personal comments. I bit my tongue at the time, hoping you might be persuaded by the venerable OED, Websters, American Heritage, etc, that are aligned against Wikipedia's non-English (apparently German) spelling. Based upon my regard for the quality of your contributions, I hope by extending an olive branch, I might persuade you to reconsider the present stance.

What say you?

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 05:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Culture

Hi User:Slrubenstein. Thanks for the note. I have only browsed through the culture article so far, but it seems like you have done a thorough job. A great improvement. Though I am an anthropologist myself I actually learned quite a few things. I have a few comments and suggestions for some inclusions, but I will have to read the whole article more carefully in a few days and post them on the talk page. I do have a feeling that you are the more competent of us in these issues, so I will only chip in where I feel I can contribute. pertn (talk) 11:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, User:Slrubenstein, I will try to look into it shortly. Iblardi (talk) 10:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

V and context

Sorry I did not join in the conversation earlier at WT:V. Real life and ArbCom have been keeping me pretty busy. To the point, NOR already covers your concern repeatedly and explicitly. For example, see the first paragraphs here and here. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes

SLR, I want to apologise to you for my outbursts. I was a bit more offended than I realised by your accusation of my anti-Semitism, and I must have let it get to me. Indeed, the concept of dealing with Yeshu(a) (he.wiki appears to use the former and redirects the latter) requires care, and I'm know from history that you have this quality in good measure most of the time. Regards -Stevertigo 05:25, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Culture

Hello. I saw your request on my talk page. You're right; it isn't really my field. But I'll do what I can. I'll try to get my feedback to you in a couple of days. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 06:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

By the way, thanks for asking for my input. Any particular reason you chose me, or are you just going through a lagrge number of editors and asking them for input? (I'm good with mythology, but not too reliable with culture in general.) --Phatius McBluff (talk) 06:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Regarding this edit:

Err, fancy explaining why you blanked that template, without any form of edit summary? _TalkIslander 19:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Fair do's, mistakes happen :). Just wanted to make sure you hadn't gone crazy :P _TalkIslander 19:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

See my comments on Culture

Now is the moment of truth (i.e. the moment when I learn whether I have any idea what I'm talking about). Please take a look at my comments on the talk page for Culture. Thanks. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 10:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The Nicene concept issue

I appreciate your contrition as well. At this point Im not going to debate with you the Yeshua concept, even though this transcription appears to be common for others of that era. I'll deal with that at Jesus. Its telling to me that you appear to reject the usage of Yeshua in the lede as a common or even compromise original name, but you do not raise an issue with that etymology in the etymology section. I think you would be well suited to the job.

The thing I want to deal with now is the concept that he was a human incarnation of God, and how this is improperly expressed in the current version on the article. This concept is the central doctrine of the Nicene creed, and needs to be distinguished from other Christian belief, which might regard his divinity but outright reject the Nicene concept that God is he and he is God. I made this edit in good faith, dealing with the issue of incarnation and putting it in context as a Nicene concept. For one reason or another you decided against discussing it, and I'm quite certain you did not know what you were doing with this revert. -Stevertigo 06:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I understood when it happened that you didn't "know enough of the history to judge one way or the other." But my point is that you didn't let your obvious lack of knowledge of the subject stop you from reverting an edit. And not being responsive to the point meant that you were (putting it nicely) employing a WP:NINJA tactic. I will certainly work with you on the Yeshu(a) issue, (noting your new comments on talk:Jesus) but I ask that you restore the changes I made to the lede per the Nicene, incarnation, and Islam concepts. (Note also that I carriage returned the ref tags, to make it easier to distinguish text from ref). -Stevertigo 16:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

SLR: "If you want to restore the various edits you made before you were blocked, I will detail my objections on the talk page and see what others say before making further edits." Well, there were three edits, Yeshua to the lede, a controversy section under etymology, and the edit to the lede dealing with Nicene/incarnation/Islam. I will restore the last edit, and leave a justification on the talk. SLR: "But it is a massive sign of bad faith to accuse people who reverted your edits as being ninjas when you seemed not to be able to justify them on the talk page." I actually did. Look on the talk page for any response to that point. There isn't any. SLR: "I resent being called a ninja when I was reverting what I considered nonsensical edits." In the future, if you have a problem with one edit, please don't assume that and and all edits are the same concept or otherwise "nonsensical". I know you must be pressed for time, but if you had read the diff, you would have noticed that the change I made had nothing to do with the Yeshua issue. If you don't read the diff, its like you're killing things with both astonishing accuracy and senseless disregard, hence the "ninja" term. SLR: "I'll give you another chance if you wish but you should take seriously the thought and care of the other people who work on this article." Of the three people who reverted me, only one dealt with me on the specific edit, and that was only one brief comment without much explanation. I will give all considered statements responsiveness and respect, but where any actual consideration is nonexistent, who could? There was nothing there to actually deal with. The one thing you did deal with was unrelated, and you even removed from the talk [16]. Sorry for copying it there, but it seemed relevant to deal with on that page. I appreciate your "giv[ing] me another chance" and if you like I will request your permission whenever I want to stand up, sit down, or otherwise deal with my basic bodily functions. I you don't know what you're doing, please at least discuss it, so I can clarify things for you. -Stevertigo 17:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

PS: SLR: "As far as I can tell, you just made the lead more wordy, when details can be spelled out in the body or in linked articles." Clarifying an issue to make it less incorrect and more accurate, may appear to some people to simply be "more wordy". Without being to wordy here, I'm sure you see the point. And in the future I'm certain you will develop your conceptual vocabulary to include more advanced concepts regarding the substance of other people's edits. "Good" and "bad" might be a good start.

The Nicene concepts did not originate with the Creed, but the Creed did indeed formalize the concept - three hundred years after Yeshua left the planet. In those three hundred years, Christianity as a concept was seriously distinct from the Nicene expression, and to this day there continues to be serious ambiguity (using a non-controversial term) regarding the concept. Stating or implying in any way that all Christians believe Jesus to be God is not just incorrect - its not correct. -Stevertigo 17:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)