User talk:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters/Archive14

MONGO post RfA

I'm speechless at the outcome...all I can say is I'm sorry.--MONGO 05:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the sentiment. And also for the supportive comments along the way, and comments in my defence within the RfA page. I figured for the last few days it would fail as slightly less than 75%... which it did. If the bureaucrat had decided to take a really close look, she might have weighed the various voters and reasons; but I know that pretty much that only happens if it's between 75% and 80%. Below that, I think is an automatic "nope", and above that an automatic "yep".

It's OK though, I learned something about flaws in the RfA process by going through it. And all the folks that I actually communicated with in the process (especially those who switched in my direction after starting a conversation) will be useful contacts to work with on new issues. I think I'll sort through which of them are admins themselves, for reference. Most of the time when I might want an admin, it wouldn't be something I could do myself, because of the conflict of interest. So it really just means that I can't lend as much of a hand to other editors issues (which is slightly too bad). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think is wrong that people confuse strong opinions with contributions. It isn't a matter of whether they agree with your POV, it's whether your edits contribute to the overall improvement of article content and NPOV. For instance, Ward Churchill...I think the guy has misrepresented his Native American heritage to a degree, and has spoken harshly about certain things, but his article isn't to be used as an attack page as some have done. All you have done there is to ensure article integrity is maintained. Same can be said with List of dictators. As far as the process of electing admins being flawed...I would tend to agree...so much of it is based on not making any waves, but our best contributors are the ones that take a stand like yourself and back their citations with facts. As I mentioned on your Rfa, I see no evidence that you would have abused admin tools, and even if you did a little, there are plenty of admins that would do something about it. Interesting that in the real world, you really are a somebody and here is this sometimes pathetic little website, you fail to achieve all you deserve. It's no big deal...carry on!--MONGO 06:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Naturally, I agree that the opposition for outside political reasons is foolish (many of which are just fancied, not necessarily anything to do with my actual beliefs... though mine are indeed rather to the left of the "mainstream"). I'm all with you on Churchill (I don't even disagree with your characterization; but even if I did, all that matters is that what goes in the article is WP:V and WP:NPOV). And the silly dictators thing (where I was the one who first added Castro to the list, for gosh sake; but a couple POV-warrior went ape-shit that there wasn't enough irrelevant condemnation in the annotation). The worst though was the identitarian list people. There were three or four that came out of the Jewish list brouhaha, and two or three from the GLB list (I'm somehow tempted to say something about how absurd their assumptions of my anti-whatever bias are: I might wink about the fact that my dear Jewish mother wrote the first gay-rights ordinance in the USA :-)).

I wouldn't exaggerate how much of a "somebody" I am, but I reach slight notability. But that did hurt my RfA a bit too, obviously... or at least inasmuch as I made some edits on the page discussing my minor noteriety.

Still, there really is a silver lining. I had good conversations with a number of voters. For example, Pierremenard started as an oppose vote, changed to support after my contact, then we even worked together on a silly little article (but a fun one: List of animals (Borges)). Actually, much like with my conflicts with you, I think several editors who started out as oppose will wind up some of my most helpful collaborators. Lemons and lemonade and all :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Bureaucrat on RfA non-consensus

I'm sorry to let you know that your recent RfA did not reach consensus. Many nominations that don't succeed the first time do succeed on subsequent tries, so don't be discouraged. Read the opinions of voters to help guide you in the future. Good luck! Cecropia 05:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

While some of the oppose votes had some points, half of the oppose votes where: "we HATE your POV cause you disaggre with use so I OPPOSE". Not much to learn there, other than to avoid hot topics and let them rot away to POV trolls.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 16:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, that's not such a helpful lesson to learn. It makes me sympathetic with some sort of RfA reform. Maybe something more hierarchical in certain ways would help. For example, I'm certain that if you could somehow count the aggregate edit counts among support voters, and those among oppose voters, it would tilt the right way by more than 75%, or even by more than say 90%. Or if you only counted the admin votes, again that would tilt it in my direction. Or if Wikipedia had some kind of "karma" or "reputation" system like Slashdot and places like that, you could read the votes at (+3) (a lot of the oppose votes are POV-warriors who would presumably be lower rated under such a system, if stuff like RfCs, RfArs and prior blocks were demerits).

Anyway, thanks again, Voice of All, for the support you lent, and the pleasant comments. I think I need to make a nice "thank you" statement to send to all the supporters. Maybe just a one line appreciation note... but being who I am, I'm tempted to try to put in a brief couple sentences that describe a post-mortem too. Ah... maybe that's getting too preachy (a flaw I know I have, which I wish I could blame on my history of teaching college, but actually pre- and post-dates that interlude of my life). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Nah, leave out the brief sentences, the ones bright enough to wonder will know where to look for your thoughts on the matter... Anyway, here's waving a beer at ya, better luck next time, Cheers, Pete.Hurd 04:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You're going to be an admin?!?!

I cannot believe that they would ever think about letting a communist like you become an administrator. You would probably apply your Marxist ways to Wikipedia. Anticomm. 20:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Reword

Hope you don't mind the little tweak I made, but I reckon that some would use it as a club to smack you with... and you've got me in the wrong column! - brenneman^(t)(c) 22:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong column? You're an admin who voted support, right? I'm trying to make a checklist of people to thank, but I also want to break out the oppose reasons to better understand it. They seem to fall in a few types:

1. External political opinions
2. "Getting even" for my prior insistence on WP:NPOV and WP:V
3. Concerns about autobiography and edit counts
4. "Where there's smoke, there's fire"

But anyway, it's a sandbox for my own use, mostly. I may ask folks to opine after I've sorted it out. Well, there was a subtle link back in the thanks I sent you... but CJK seems to have discovered it by watching my edit history (I only sent out the first half-dozen thanks or so... lots more to go, but I wanted to refactor the link-back page more before that). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I did support, but ... And harsh experience has taught me that if someone is looking for something to stick it to you with, your sandboxes are the first place that they will look!

Sorry how it turned out, but I reckon that given a) The current RfA method, b) The areas the you edit in, and c) Your sweet disposition (^_^) it was inevitable. Most of the oppose recomendations were either grossly innacurate of totally unactionable, but there are a few in there that could stand some reflection. Keep doing the good stuff you've been doing, it should be no sweat next time.

Oh, and check out User:Linuxbeak/RFA Reform. Too late for you, of course. brenneman^(t)(c) 01:56, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I mentioned Linuxbeak's discussion area in one of the questions on my RfA. There is probably a slight something to learn. The areas I edit are going to attract some dissent; on the other hand, I'm pretty gruff and sort of "don't pretend shit smells like roses". I don't ever resort to personal attack, despite some accusations to that effect, but my manner indeed convinces some people that I'm suggesting something much worse than anything I actually write.

And the edit summary thing is dead on. I honestly hadn't thought about it too much; but I totally "get" why it is not such good editing practice to omit them as often as I have (still, it's mostly for minor edits, which I only mark for genuinely minor edits, like fix some spelling error... I'm not sure it really needs comment).

Maybe I'm better off without the mop anyway though. It gives me a certain liberty to "call bullshit" that I might not have if I were an administrator. And doing that is often, in fact, quite productive. It ruffles some feathers (too many metaphors, huh?), but once their smoothed what needs to happen happens more quickly than it would with a purely touchy-feely approach. The fact I've never tried to win a popularity contest hurt me, but then maybe admins should be people who want to win them... since they can come in as smelling neutral and removed from the fray. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry it didn't succeed (econ thread)

As a fellow Marxist - Leninist, I was sorry to hear that your RfA did not reach consensus. My first RfA also failed, but I got through the second time. I would advise you to wait 2-3 months minimum and then try again. I will certainly support you again. --rogerd 05:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I hoped you noticed where my above links linked to. Actually I am a Republican, but I recognize a good wikipedian. Don't let the oppose votes get you down. --rogerd 05:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

See How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All by The Firesign Theatre --rogerd 05:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh well, I'm suffering from foot-in-mouth disease. Should have looked at the links. Still, I think it was Abbie Hoffman who first used the phrase "Groucho Marxist", and he wasn't exactly Republican. Would it help if told you I was born in Manhattan.... Kanas? :-) Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:00, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

good god! an economist and a republican voting for a marxist. yea verily do the lion and the lamb lie together at wikipedia. jimbo hath wrought a miracle. Derex 22:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Isn't Marx in everyone's "top 10 economists" list :-). Just personal trivia: well-known Marxist economist Rick Wolff was the outside member on my dissertation committee at UMass. I probably shouldn't say this, but he was probably the only member who actually read the whole (rather long) document. In fact, the only other person whom I believe to have made it all the way through the thing was a friend of mine, and one of Rick's doctoral students, Yahya Madra... I certainly couldn't have made it through reading a tome like that (writing it was hard enough). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters

yeah, you have a regular coven of marxist economists out there. actually some really bright folks, and the only such collection i'm aware of that's viewed as 'credible' by mainstream economists. it's cool though, i'm an expert on 'market failures', which makes me unpopular with the chicago economafia too (the misguided disciples of a misinterpretation of coase). i'm just not completely kook ;)

Do you know Doug Henwood's coining of the term "sado-monetarism"? I think it really gets to the heart of Chicago :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

coffee out nose, onto keyboard. damn you! that's good. Derex 14:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Btw. I was under the impression that UU also had at least a klatch of the Marxy economists, if not a whole coven. No? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

utah? i take it. it appears they do, though i've never heard tell of it. there's kind of a big reputation divide between the 'players' and the rest economics, whether justified or not. you hear about umass, but for all i knew utah didn't even have an econ dept. not to say some of them aren't good, but they're either not making waves or not being taken seriously. do you know gunseli? Derex 02:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I just read the faculty list. It's positively rife with those (us) commies :-). A few of them actually say "Marxian" (what kind of word is that, I know that the adjective ends in "-ist"). But it's not hard to see the wink-and-nudge euphemisms in the rest: "Political Economy", "Race, Class, Gender", etc. Even those ones that mention "Labor organization" seem pretty pink to me. I think you're right that those aren't really "names" at UU though... I probably just know it because several of them came out of UMass, and I knew either by acquaintance or reputation. I think I might have briefly met Gunseli Berik, but only to say hello; there was this large Turkish contingent of Marxist Economists for some reason, and I knew a good handful of them, to varying extents... actually, initally through my good friend Irfan Acar, who is Turkish, but a UMass EE Ph.D. [but actually math], no economist... but naturally still a Marxist; the econ folks though, were much closer to what I do than were folks in my own department, what with Postomodernists Rick Wolff and Steve Resnick corrupting the young minds. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

for the record, i don't read dissertations either. my view is that if i don't already know what's in there, i shouldn't be asked to sign it. learned that the hard way, after having to be the last-minute 'bad guy' too often. Derex 23:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

JDG (talk · contribs)

Hi. Sorry the WP:RFA thing didn't work out. I'm here asking for a favour. You're the only editor I know with a good working relationship with User:JDG, so I was hoping you might have a word with him. I'm concerned about this edit and the following warning JDG left for User:Zscout370. Whatever the provenance of the image in question is, surely its not worth being this confrontational about. If you could have a word, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Jkelly 17:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Lotle, thanks for the message on my user Talk. You put the issue well. Unfortunately, this new drive by folks like JKelly to take a chicken-little approach to copyright is now one of the major threats to the project. If I have the energy I'll be fighting it on the level of policy, but thanks for taking the time... BTW Lotle, you may be wondering why I didn't show up at your RfA. The answer: you're too valuable an editor to lose to Adminship. There's a whole class of people now in WP whose main interest seems to be Arbitration, Policies, Mutual Admiration-- everything but researching and writing good articles. The temptation to wield power is there, but except for born Administrators like Raul654, mav and a few others it's really in the end a net distraction. Are you really Marxist? Then surely your better self tells you there is no higher position in WP than Editor. JDG 20:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

This effort wasn't initiated by JKelly, but rather by Jimbo Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation board, on advice of their lawyers. I'm afraid I tend to agree with them on the "chicken-little approach". However unjust the current laws are, there are plenty of folks like the RIAA and MPAA who are quite happy to launch massive lawsuits at the slightest whiff of copyright violation. Better to go without a few images on pages than to face Wikimedia spending millions on laywers fees and fines.

...(all power to the soviets)... :-). Maybe I'm actually an anarcho-syndicalist though; not to say that gives a lot of sympathy to our Administrator Overlords necessarily... Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:37, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to go check out what these lawyers are feeding to Jimbo.. Just got off the phone with a lawyer buddy who just happens to be one of the top copyright specialists in Manhattan. He was incredulous that Wikimedia would go in this direction after so many years without a problem, as am I.. I actually don't really adhere to this "Information wants to be free" notion. I strongly believe there is a time and place for airtight copyright and patent protection and that, in fact, the strength and wisdom of the U.S. Patent system through the 19th and 20th centuries was one of a handful of reasons the US became such a powerhouse... But images of entertainers? No. These people take in millions and tens of millions by putting themselves out into the public eye. Sometimes that eye is a lens. The doctrine of Fair Use couldn't be clearer when it comes to images of public figures intended for non-commercial purposes. I'm pretty sure Jimbo will have a better grasp of this than neophytes like JKelly, so I'll make my case to him I guess. JDG 01:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The Wikimedia lawyers are definitely on the right track here. I mean, not as a moral issue, but certainly as a legal one. There's not only the copyright issue, but also the publicity rights one. For example, the family of Martin Luther King was paid a lot of money (I don't know exactly how much, but quite likely in the millions) to use King's image and sound recording in an advertising campaign. Now I think that's a crass use of a great figure, but quite apart from the issue of kitch, the family/executors had this legal control quite independent of the copyright on the specific images (many of which are public domain). But at the same time, the narrow copyright issue has been radically cut back in cases such as the publication of the book The Wind Done Gone (an intellectual derivative Gone With the Wind, but not using any of the literal words from the prior work). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep it up! (Revealing results)

The results of the RfA were revealing. I would argue that having the support of 73, most of which are admins and/or long-time contributors to WP, is a sign that you have done good in your efforts as an editor. I would also argue that the nature of some of the oppose votes is also an indication that you have done good in your efforts. I just hope that the RfA results do not discourage from continuing with your efforts in editing controversial articles. We need more editors like you, that are willing to comit to WP content guidelines and to assert their unwillingness to compromise on these. Keep up the good work, David. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @

Not to worry... I'm disappointed, but I've gotten over it. So many articles left to fix :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Kuhn, Foucault, Borges

Thanks! By the way, your talk page sure seems to get vandalized a lot. I wonder if this is because of your Hero-Of-Socialist-Labor medal image. By the way, do you have the citation that I asked for about Franz Kuhn and Borges? (In case you have not noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with citations). --Pierremenard 22:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't know for sure whether Kuhn and Borges were actually acquainted. I probably made too much of an assumption when I first wrote that sentence... but you took out the acquaintance, then put it back in, so I just figured you had determined it. We can probably find a more neutral phrase that doesn't commit us to whether they actually met. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Is it not the case that Jorge Luis Borges writes in his Otras Inquisiciones ("Other Inquisitions") that a doctor named Franz Kuhn gave Michel Foucault a volume of a Chinese encyclopedia that Focault used for classifying animals? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you riffing on us, or is this true? It's hilarious if true, and we should put something about it in the List of animals (Borges) article. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I looked through my copy of "Other Inquisitions" and could not find this. However, "Other Inquisitions" includes "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins," so we may be talking about the same reference. --Pierremenard 19:07, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. It was in Borges essay "El idioma analítico de John Wilkins" Read online]. Focault refers this in the preface of The Order of Things. There is an interesting article about this here [1]≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Ummm... are you pulling my leg here? The Borges story you give as a link doesn't mention Foucault in any respect. It sure looks like you were saying above that after Foucault wrote the preface citing Borges, Borges responded by attributing a connection between Foucault and the list (other than the one of Foucault reading Borges story). That would have been clever, and conceivable given that Borges and Foucault were contemporary, and probably both knew of each other (and perhaps even met; though I do not know). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Prego, prego... my confusion. Interesting how things get mixed up sometimes. I may have made that same deduction in my head. Go figure... I felt so sure I read that, though!≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

General post-RfA appreciation messages

Damn, I thought you'd be a shoe-in. -- Danny Yee 23:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You're very welcome. It's a shame you didn't get in, but you can always try again later. Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 09:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Better luck next time, I am surprised that your RfA wasn't successful. In any case, let me know about any in the future and I will be happy to add my support. haz (user talk) 12:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with above, and please do not loose heart, and please continue with renewed zeal. --Bhadani 16:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I too am sorry that you didn't succeed. I wish you luck in the future. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 10:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• It's a shame your nomination failed, but I'll be on the lookout for the next one. --King of All the Franks 05:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
  • ditto here. Grutness...wha? 08:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Just want to say that my oppose vote carried no malice at all, and it was most definitely not about your edits to controversial articles. Keep up with the good work, use edit summaries more, and avoid too much campaigning next time, and you should cruise.

Note that the problem I have with campaigning isn't a procedural one, but the somewhat dangerous assumption that a lack of detailed explanation beside the vote indicates a lack of considered thought before voting. Sometimes there is a bandwagon problem, but not in all cases, and if you acknowledeged that when posting to talk pages it would make a big difference.

I have empathy with you for having to deal with so many editors with a vendetta, and you'll most likely have my support next time. - dharmabum (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

jayanthv86

Hey do something abt dat anti-communist,he is making me mad.i have seen that often you dont respond so strongly as he does.Tell him to come to my page,and i think he will have a tough time.--Jayanthv86 10:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

sorry abt ur RfA dude,wish u all the best some other time,maybe i will nominate you.and i saw your leftist vabdal once again--Jayanthv86 09:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

from jayanthv86 2:

well anticomm hasnt spoken a single word to me.But to see him vandalising ur pages is irritating me,so i want to divert him away from ur page,so dat i can tackle him.

Anyways,ur photo and messagewas extremely beutiful. i liked it.--Jayanthv86 19:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Max rspct

Hey bud, sorry yer bid for admin status didn't succeed. What is it 2/3rds of vote to win? We need more philosophers than IT bods on there! (even tho u are both!) I think your fairness shows in reverting my revert of source tags on Ward Churchill. Better luck next time -- max rspct leave a message 23:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Nah, normally at least 75% minimum for consensus. 03:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, You've Heard It Above, But I'll Say It Anyway (Karmafist)

You'll do great in a few months, just keep on with the niceness and the staying away from your article(as well as e-mailing rather than putting edits on talk pages in sticky situations), and you'll likely get what you need in votes to become an admin. Let's get some more coffee sometime, eh? Karmafist 04:21, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, let's. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Welcome (Pete.Hurd)

Aye, it is good. Gracious, and seeping wisdomly vibes, Rock-on. Pete.Hurd 05:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Jtdirl

Hey, I didn't know there was a vote on your adminship. If I had I would have supported it. I just found out about it now. Next time it comes around, let me know and I'll support you. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 23:55, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind if I decide to allow another nomination. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Sethmahoney

Hey, been kind of flighty with my wikipedia edits (and everything else) of late, so I never got around to sending you a post-RfA message. So here it is: Sorry to hear it didn't go through, though I'm also kind of glad - you're a great editor, and admin responsibilities may well have just proven a distraction from editing. Anyway, keep up the good work, and whatnot, and such-and-such, and oh! hey! whatever happened with the possible new text for philosophy of sex? -Seth Mahoney 21:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah... I'll have to try to get around to looking at that again. I think I took it off my watchlist... I tend to feel like there's too much when it nudges past 100. Sorry I haven't done much with the social contruction stuff either (though I've done a wording tweak or two, but thanks so much Seth for the great work you've done). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, no worries, or need for an apology. I was just reminded of that when I was commenting (lately, I've had the attention span of a cat). -Seth Mahoney 03:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

LGB lists

I'd be comfortable with having them semiprotected, but I wouldn't be comfortable just imposing that without some discussion on the talk pages, since different people seem to have different ideas about what it's meant for. Bearcat 19:15, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Ward Churchill, please review WP:NPOV

Please do take care to review this Wikipedia policy. I'm sure the Churchill article is not the first one with political/contentious content you've worked on, but I see that you've made over 180 edits to the Churchill article in various edit wars with a number of different people over the last two months.

On political topics such as Churchill (which as you know has been a particular draw for POV-mongers and vandals), you need to take special care about not attributing motives, slanting characterizations to promote a specific POV, and so on. In particular, you should make sure that when you edit the article that you are basing your contributions on fact and not opinion or hearsay. (Lulu on Doug Bell talk)

In regards to that, I came to this article today for the first and noticed some clearly POV and factually inaccurate information on the article, which I corrected. It turns out that you have reverted attempts on at least half a dozen occasions of people attempting to make essentially the identical correction. I am of course refering to you changing the statement regarding Bill O'Reilly on the The O'Reilly Factor from (emphasis added by me)

"suggesting his viewers to e-mail the college to cancel Churchill's invitation"

to

"imploring his viewers to e-mail the college to cancel Churchill's invitation"

Absolutely correct! "Imploring" is just terribly POV-laden, and I entirely agree with that change. I didn't put that word in there in the first place, but you're right that I hadn't (yet) taken it out either. I certainly did not put back "imploring" when taking out "outraged" and "uproar" from your changes. Actually the "flood of emails" was there from who knows when, which is very POV-ish too (and I took it out). Saying "Campos was appalled" is POV if stated as WP editorial opinion, but it's OK to say that Campos stated that he was appalled (which is what is there now). See the difference?

I'm not going to get into pointless back and forth by repsonding point-by-point to your comments, but I do need to correct another factual inaccuracy you've introduced: I never used the word "uproar". And the word "outrage" was used by O'Reilly to describe his reaction, but it was used at a later point in time (at the point where he did initiate a campaign, which was also a later point in time than where his "campaign" is referenced in the article) so I left it out. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 23:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

No, no... the point is that the word uproar is too POV, not that you introduced it. Sorry, I guess I misstated that in my above comment (I had just looked at my diff, not yours... just explaining why I made the changes I did). The linked article does not use the word "outrage" (or any forms of the word). It's quite possible, even likely, that O'Reilly subsequently used that word... if so, it would be perfectly OK to point that out in the text. A citation to a specific later program might be helpful, but a general "O'Reilly described himself as "outraged" during some segments on this topic" or the like should be fine, if true.

Please don't try to turn editing into some kind of pissing contest. Fine, you have a bigger dick, you're smarter, your book sold more copies, the games your wrote are really great, and you're prettier too. I don't care in the slightest (while wearing my WP hat) about any of that; I just want articles to follow WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It is not a pissing contest for me. I simply can't let stand without comment the patronizing remarks you've made regarding my factual, verifiable, referenced, well-intended, and NPOV contributions to the Churchill article after seeing the petty edit wars you've engaged in on the article. I was so much more inline with WP:NPOV and WP:V than you have been on this article, so I wasn't in a mood for a lecture from you. The advice you left me has merit, I emplore you to heed it. (And I'm willing to let the AfD on Doug Bell proceed on its merits and not edit the AfD 37 times as you did for the AfD for David Mertz, so don't accuse me of vanity and pissing contests.) – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 00:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Some of the content you added was indeed NPOV and verifiable, and I happily left that part (in fact, I'm happy you added it). I changed the parts that were to POV in tone. Despite the personal attacks like you make in the immediately preceding comment, I really hope you learn to edit even political topics in a encyclopedic fashion. Good luck. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I certainly never put back "imploring" if anyone took it out. There were a bunch of vandals who rolled back the entire article to some much earlier version and/or inserted long POV-mongering digressions. I suppose it's conceivable that somewhere in the middle of paragraphs of doggerel one of them actually made something better; but you're right that I revert vandalism. Notice that I did not revert your additions, which contained good information, I just toned down the excessively POV parts. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

You can check the history for yourself. I was nowhere near thorough and I found at least four occassions where you changed it from "suggested" → "implored". So you pick: careless or deliberate? And I'm sorry, but I have to laugh at you characterizing my use of "outraged" and "appalled" as "excessively POV" when these were the words actually used by the people I was attributing them to to describe their reactions. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 23:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I would be very interested in seeing what diffs you are thinking of. If you would put them here, that would be helpful. There's no question that "suggested" is more neutral than "implored". Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I was going to post them here when I found them, but it seemed like that was just inviting a pissing contest, which I'm not interested in. Some of the dates were in mid-December (≈16-22, +others) as I recall, but I would have to go search for them again and it's not my problem. I have no interest in investing yet more time in this discussion, which is the most pointless use of my time so far on WP. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 00:49, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Clearly, as the reference I added to the article today indicates, Mr. O'Reilly did not implore his viewers to take any action. In fact, the statement that you repeatedly reverted was itself an overstatement of Mr. O'Reilly's actions. To quote from the transcipt of The O'Reilly Factor:

Good job with adding the reference. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

And if you wish to voice your opinion to Hamilton College, the phone number is 315-859-4444. Or you can e-mail the school's president Joan Hinde Stewart at jstewart@hamilton.edu.

Please keep your comments respectable. Any threats or bad language diminishes a worthy cause. We'll let these misguided people know they are doing wrong.

Within twenty minutes of my editting the article to correct the mischaracterization of O'Reilly's statements (mischaraterizations which you had repeatedly replaced in the article), you reverted other edits of mine to minimize attributions of O'Reilly and his guest Paul Campos—an attribution in Campos case which used the exact word (appalled) that Campos himself used in describing his reaction to Churchill's statement.

Please chill on this! I never did what you keep claiming here. Not once. Not ever. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

To remove POV from the article, the entire statement about O'Reilly "mounting a campaign against Churchill" should be removed. The cancellation of Churchill's speaking engagement came after a single dedicated segment on Churchill's statements, which hardly constituted a campaign at that point. The way it is stated in the article now gives the incorrect impression that the cause of the public outcry against Churchill's statements was largely motivated by the effort of O'Reilly to mold public opinion rather than the honest reaction of people to Churchill's statements. However, in the interest of trying to maintain NPOV I did not remove this statement because I was attempting to simply correct factual inaccuracies in the article and not get into a pointless edit war with some misguided zealot.

I don't really care about the "mounting a campaign" thing. You seem to think I wrote the whole article or something; I'm actually a late arrival to it, but I've assumed a certain felt responsibility to keep it non-vandalized. I think the idea intended is that O'Reilly ran multiple programs on this topic, not that he made the comment in that one segment. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

So it is with some degree of irony that I now find you leaving a comment on my User talk:Doug Bell#Ward_Churchill_and_WP:NPOV lecturing me on being careful about editing these articles and maintaining a NPOV. Clearly, it is you that is having difficulty maintaining the NPOV, and also you who is reverting factually correct statements to factually incorrect statements—either purposefully, or because of not bothering to determine what are facts and what are POV.

You're new to WP, and haven't worked on political topics. It's good advice; hopefully advice that you'll figure out the merit of sooner rather than later.

And now I see that you have nominated the Wikipedia page about me for deletion (which BTW, I only added when I found my name already mentioned in several places in Wikipedia the first time I ever came here.) I find this interesting, because again, based on your comments, you failed to actually get the facts before proceding. The book was added only for completeness. My "notoriety" comes from the fact that I was the principle developer of several number one selling and quite "notable," and in one case seminal, computer games. Which, I might add, is probably a much better claim to notoriety than you can make for your self-created Wikipedia page.

The AfD discussion is the place to indicate that. I don't find the principle developer title notable by WP standards, but other editors may disagree. I'm not sure why you are trying so hard to find a personal conflict here with lots of accusations that border on WP:PA. It's really not good Wikikette. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Certainly, I can see now why your bid for Adminship was declined. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 22:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

(dedent) OK, I'm really not insisting on having the last word, but you are tossing another WP policy at me in an inappropraite context. My comments above do not constitute a personal attack anymore than if I were to say that you made a personal attack on me in your last post by referencing WP policy. My statement regarding your editting of the AfD on David Mertz is simply stating a fact, and then making a statement regarding my intent not to attempt to influence the outcome of the process unduly simply because I happen to be active on Wikipedia. You tell me what in WP:PA I've done that constitutes an attack or quit tossing around the names of WP policies. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 02:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Umm... I don't care that you stated that I edited the AfD on David Mertz. I have no idea if the count you give is accurate, but it might well be. Moreover, I do not believe that Doug Bell violates WP:NPOV. "Vanity" has a slightly special meaning on WP, but generally it's not a criticism I would make of Doug Bell (that's why I described it as "possible minor vanity concern"... I can point you to some autobiographies that actually have a POV problem). There's actually an unfortunate tendency on AfD for people to vote on a kneejerk misreading of WP:AUTO; I want other editors' input on the notability of your bio, but I tried to urge them away from voting on what I think is a silly basis.

The part of your comment that I felt was a personal attack was... well, the part that attacked me. But fine, let's just drop it; this site really is here for creating an encyclopedia, not for schoolyard posturing. Please won't you try to take a breath, and act like a professional, which I presume you've had occasion to do in much of your life? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Dropped. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 03:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Notability

Thanks for your comment. My question about notability was due to the fact that i assume the original author (principal editor) of the page had some reason to highlight this fellows achievements. As an academic (I think you are as well), you wil recognise how few of our achievements (despite the books and articles) are really worthy of encyclopedic treatment. Hence my question: where's the significant contribution? I should add I am also a deletionist however, so my bar is admittedly high. I appreciate your taking the time to comment. Eusebeus 22:36, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... maybe I just have a much lower standard for keeping academic folks than you do... "Wikipedia's not paper" and all of that. I figure that if some local indy band or minor porn actor has a WP article, an academic who's spent some real effort in serious intellectual pursuits deserves one. I don't take it quite so far as thinking anyone with a Ph.D. or an academic job needs an article, but at least anyone who the people in a given subfield can be assumed to have heard of is worth writing about. It appears that this Robert Elsie guy is one of the main names in the study of Albanian literature (at least in the Anglophone world), so that seems like plenty to me (it's a niche, sure, but it's his niche for whatever reason).

I guess my question was more narrowly about this assumption of some special role for the original author. It sort of seems to me it doesn't matter why someone started an article, once it's there, it's everyone's. Actually, I suppose I might now by the "principle editor" of that article, after adding the various book references (I didn't count edits, or words, or whatever). Not that I know anything about the subject, or actually care enough about it that I'll keep it on my watchlist after the AfD is closed. But I might momentarily have done the most edits. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I misunderstood your pt. Edit counts are irrelevant - go look at the user and his/her contribs (as I did). S/he seems to have in depth knowledge of serbo-croatian linguistics and culture (most contribs are in that area) and had received personal permission form the subject in question, leading me to assume s/he could speak to the notability I was asking about (which, with all deference, I doubt you can). Anyway, moot as you say. Eusebeus 11:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi David!

Hi there, David! First of all, a belated "thank you" for taking the time to stop by my talk page regarding my support to your RfA. Rest assured that, when you feel the time is right and go for it again, I'll be there adding a loud "yes please!" vote one more time. Don't get down on me because this time it didn't pass - great contributors like you are too rare and precious to be lost over such a trivial matter.
Your request for a new user page design has been heeded as well! I'll have a go at it real soon - just let me finish other compromises and I'll get to it asap. While we're at this, do you have any preferences regarding colors, or a specific design? Speak now, or forever hold your peace! ;) Kisses, - Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 01:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks you so much... for the kind words, and for the intent to spiff up my user page. Not to worry about it effecting my editing. The comment I put in my little thank you card is really true, I honestely made some wonderful new collaborators out of the process, even though the nomination fell a bit shy of consensus this time around (not sure if I'll want another pass at it later... but no need to decide now).

I saw you added me to a TODO list on your user page. I haven't really studied the designs you've done very carefully... but in terms of colors, I guess I like ruddy/pinkish colors (but definitely not too dark)... because, y'know, I'm a Pinko. :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Organic vs familial retardation

Organic retardation results in greater societal impairment than familial retardation at given IQ's. It might be thought of as a special disability the way dylexia is a special disability in relation to more general disabilities such as low-IQ. So, yes, it matters whether one is speaking of organic or familial retardation. Familial retardates do not "act retarded" any more than a typical family dog "acts retarded." --hitssquad 03:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Race and intelligence

Hi. The structure of Wikipedia rather easily allows special interest groups with strongly held opinions to "colonize" certain articles and try to control content by numbers and persistence. The article will probably continue to get more and more pov to fit their worldview. The easiest solution is probably to add warning templates and direct people to the talk page. Ultramarine 04:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

A gift for you

File:Jujube fruits CDFA CA.jpg

Some jujube to help you daydream

For a lotus-eater since these may not be easy to come by. Pretty much I think I'm done here and on the AfD, although you may have to tolerate me at some point in the future on edits to articles. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 21:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the kind gift. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Question

I was wondering why you have a hammer and sickle on your page? Thanks. 134.58.253.114 22:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Because I deserve a Hero of Labor medal :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Fidel-Speech.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Fidel-Speech.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images on Wikipedia is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. You can get help on image copyright tagging from Wikipedia talk:Image copyright tags. -- Carnildo 05:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Image:Fidel-Speech.jpg

I did not originally upload the image. I made a minor modification to the image uploaded by someone else. I assert no copyright (release to the public domain) on my modifications, but cannot speak to the copyright on the original image. That said, Cuban copyright law is... well, essentially they don't claim copyright on material produced in Cuba. So if it's a Cuban source, it's probably fine to use. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Since you're the most recent uploader, and your upload didn't look like a revert, OrphanBot picked you to notify. If there's evidence that the image was produced in Cuba by a Cuban (and not a Canadian reporter or something), then it should be tagged as "public domain" and the reason given. --Carnildo 07:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of the specific production of the photo, as above. It might well have been published first outside of Cuba, and therefore likely subject to copyright. In any case, it's not currently being used in any article, so probably no particular harm would come of deleting it. I guess my five minutes of work in cropping the image would go down the drain... but I can live with that :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You might want to check with User:Comandante to see if s/he can provide source information. It is a nicely done photo (I believe improved slightly by my cropping), though not the one that editors of Fidel Castro seemed to settle on using (there was a silly edit war about the matter). But if the image really is PD because first published in Cuba, it might be usable in some other associated article in the future. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Ward Churchill

sorry, I didn't look at it too closely. I didn't have a huge problem with the changes made, but the person signed in the article, so I just rolled back. Kind of lazy of me, I will avoid doing so in the future.--Alhutch 04:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability

Hi David/ An editor has chosen to remove a whole section of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy without seeking consensus first. Could you please take a look? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

genotype/phenotype series template?

I've noticed you've been adding lots of "see also" interlinks among articles relating to genotype/phenotype interactions. This is nice to let readers see connected topics. You've done enough, that I wonder if it would be time to create a Wikipedia:Article series that would provide navigation for all these interrelated articles. I confess, I've never created such a template, and don't know all the fiddly details, but it seems like it would be nice. What do you think? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I've also been wondering whether some of the articles should be merged. I'll also bring this to Peter's attention. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, yeah the merge idea has struck me a few times. I hadn't thought about the series templatey option, but I like that. I think the place to start is just making a bullet list of merge candidates and brief description of what might make each article unique in it's present form pro/con merge with other candidates. If they seem to clump up into a couple of unified articles, then the template would be an unnecessary step, but if no natural super-group emerges then a formal series seems like the thing to do. I have nolittle experience with the series template (via the Game Theory project) but it doesn't look hard... I suppose the first thing would be to decide where to put the bullet list, here? Pete.Hurd 20:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

We'll need to discuss the title of the template. I can think of "development of phenotype" or genetic architecture (the latter of which is an actual term).

There's a few templates at population genetics to pick from. I've taken Template:popgen and created a draft page from that at User:Samsara/Template01. See you there? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Great. Some merging might make sense indeed, but I don't think we'll merge the whole forest into a single tree. For example Nature versus nurture approaches things much more in terms of popular, philosophical/ethical concerns, and with a human-specific focus. That should remain separate, I think. And also, someone recently proposed a merge of Phenotype into Trait, which seems supportable to me; but the votes in the discussion lean against merging. A few pages like Norms of reaction, which I basically did all the edits on so far, I'd feel comfortable acting unilaterally around; but most others would need some consensus, which I think would be against merges (not necessarily how I'd vote, but that's how things seem to work out). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I like the template so much that it seems like a shame to merge things and have them disappear from it :) I think each of the articles really is covering a different angle, but some don't necessarily have the most appropriate titles, e.g. gene-environment interaction is obviously pitched at a psych - nature/nurture rather than Evo Devo audience and might do better with something psychological in the title. Hmmm, I take it back, this might stll be a merge candidate (into nature v nurture, then replace with a more Evo Devo article), but not really at a high priority level. Pete.Hurd 05:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, even though I think Pete is being slightly tongue-in-cheek in the last comment, I think it has more of a point than he says. By having these separate topics, albeit many closely related to each other, it gives readers of the template box lots of topics to take a closer look at. And hopefully, the more eyes look at each listed article in the template, the more improvements each will undergo. I think strategically, merging would attract less attention to each slightly different content or focus. Then maybe a few months from now, if the several articles have improved, might be a better time to think about merges. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Canalisation (genetics)

Hi Samsara: Despite my layperson's interest in some developmental biology topics, I'm no biologist. So I'm hoping you can clarify an issue relative to the graph I added: If a trait exhibits a strongly bimodal (or multi-modal) distribution is that ipso facto demonstration that canalisation is in effect? Or might there be other mechanisms of bimodalization that wouldn't be called canalisation? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole field is not very well developed yet, and some of the stuff that goes on is fairly esoteric. Some people would call your example plasticity, because the organism is producing two different phenotypes, although each is fairly canalised, according to your graph. I guess the conclusion would be that canalisation is always easier to decide on when you're looking at the molecular mechanism, and you can say that a specific enzyme (say, a chaperone) is acting to constrain a developmental path. The way to think of it in epigenetic landscape terms is to say, there's a high ridge either side of the "intended" pathway.

I'll just change the caption of the picture to reflect these thoughts. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 12:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

phenotypic plasticity

Just my thoughts on the image you just inserted. I think it is a good thing to add, I only would not make it as extreme as you did, as that is biologically not very realistic. In fact, you often find individuals that are intermediate at the switching point. --KimvdLinde 19:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I produced it first to use with Canalisation, but after some comments from User:Samsara felt that it was even more fitting for the Phenotypic plasticity article. What I have in mind is some examples like those discussed in the article of social insects who assume different castes, based on early care schedule/diet; i.e. morphologically distinct forms. So the trait might be "size", where all the worker ants are smaller than all the warrior ants; and each ant is one or the other (unless it is drone, queen, etc, of course). I also thought that trimodal or N-modal would just be confusing to readers, beyond making the basic point. Of course, it might just be that an ant raised in the "intermediate" environment is very rare, which is the reason there are not intermediate caste forms.

I produced the drawing, and the similar ones at Norms of reaction in OpenOffice Draw. If you'd like to modify them to produce any other norms-of-reaction charts, I'd be more than happy to send them to you and/or upload them to WP. I like the idea of having the same font/line style/etc. between several related graphs, and modifying one of the existing ones to show a different norm is easy. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Trait-phenotype merge

I have the feeling we are not going to get many responses anyway, and the responses untill now are except for razhaar (who normaly is only editing in technical articles) against merging. So, my proposal is that we change what I proposed and maybe some more stuff and move on... KimvdLinde 20:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Go for it. Even before I changed my vote from support to neutral on the merge, it was only weak support. And even if it had been stronger, it's obviously not going to be consensus. Your several redirects and renames seem eminently sensible. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

What's up?

Well, I see you're kind of under attack here...sorry to see that...I had a project for you, but am curious how up to dealing with controversy you are right now...or do you just want to kind of lay low?--MONGO 09:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

You mean the vandal who keeps putting silly stuff on my page? Trying to maintain the Churchill seems to have won me a lot of enemies, a lot of the childish vandalism sort. But in the last couple days I've had much more fun doing some work on a bunch of semi-technical biology topics, including the fancy new Template:genarch ("development of phenotype"). It's funny that I'm no biologist—heck, I never even took a college biology course—but get to cooperate with these fine real biologists. It is a nice relief that all the conversations are cordial, and no one violates WP:PA or engages in edit wars.

Anyway, feel free to let me know what your current issue is, and I'd be happy to try to weigh in or otherwise do something helpful. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Things seem a bit quiet now...but there is a strong POV push in the article Collapse of the World Trade Center where adherents to the theory of controlled demolition are seeking equal time with the mainstream diagnosis of the events. One web site in particular (I believe it's this one:[2]), which gets a lot of google hits, has essentially provided links to Wikipedia articles in an attempt to get people to edit this POV into the article space. Like I said, the efforts seem to have died down over the past two days, but I may need help in seeing how wrong I may be in my efforts to only give this theory a passing comment and then a redirect to subarticles such as Researchers questioning the official account of 9/11 and or 9/11 conspiracy theories. It's probably no big deal, and I'm not trying to get you involved in something controversial aside from an outside view, though you can take a stand if you wish, even if it is in opposition to mine and I'll respect that...it's just nice to get you into an area that may be a little different from some you may have been involved in before. In a nutshell, I can agree with the probability that the Bush (and Clinton administrations) had both faulty intelligence and or failed to act as thoroughly as they should have prior to 9/11, but I just don't buy into this controlled demolition stuff...anyhoo, check it out if you wish...the discussion page makes for an interesting read if nothing else.--MONGO 19:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah... funny thing. These conspiracy people have driven me crazy for a while. I actually wrote a little article about the conceptual trap of such simplistic ultra-leftism a while back: The Appeal Of Pseudo-science. Well, it's not only leftist who do this, there's a whole different (but not so different) thread of the same thinking on the far-right too. But I quite agree with you that such positions should not get "equal time" in the base article; that's not the meaning of NPOV, of course. Of course, that's not to say that the child articles are not perfectly legitimate to have, or cannot be encyclopedic. I don't have to agree with something for it to deserve an article. But such stuff should definitely be a child article. I'll take a look at it, and try to keep an eye in that direction. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Sights unseen

Yeah, I could make a list of the great shows I somehow didn't go see for really stupid reasons. Minutemen & Husker-Du would be at the top (with MDC & Black Flag). Those bands were my religion, might still be... I was just listening to the Huskers "New Day Rising" yesterday, and my mp3 player is clogged with Minutemen... Poor youth of today, I'm still waiting for my students to bring in some tunes that don't sound 20 years stale... Pete.Hurd 04:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw MDC at some outdoor protest-ish thing in SF in 1984 (I forget what the event was for, maybe anti-imperialism in Central America). Never Black Flag. But actually, better, in my experience, than any of those I mentioned was Social Distortion at Mabuhay Gardens, also in SF in 1984. My single "moment of epiphany" in life... which really just means exhaustion (unusually for the time: no drugs involved :-)), though if I weren't an atheist I might think it had some religious or revelatory meaning. Anyway: loud concert, but I was still dozing off. But then they came on with a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising, and I was at this whole other plane of reality. Or also wild was Sonic Youth in some warehouse in Providence, RI, maybe in 1985-6. Ahhh... dim memories of youth. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, my closest brush with Social Distortion (if I remember correctly) was that 2/3 of "Agent Orange" touring c1989-1990 were founding members of SD. A very disappointing show. The band that penned what my circle of friends considered the anthem of punk rock integrity (what song was that? "the public gets what they deserve not what they demand / unless we decide to be a business not a band") touring in as empty a washed-out shell as any one-original-member ersatz "reunion" act of that era. Pete.Hurd 18:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Marxist Wikipedians

Your user page says you are a "Marxist". May I ask why? I think capitalism is the most productive known method for a society to manage itself. When robots do all the work and we no longer need force and fraud to add to mutual self-interest in maximizing productivity, then we can (will) switch to some other system of force and fraud ("Oh, look I have the cooliest brain implant!"). Why maximize productivity? Survival of the "fittest" society. Amish society doesn't maximize productivity, but then it is a protected "zoo" specimen with regard to war and the nation as a whole is not. WAS 4.250 04:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

This is too big a question for a WP talk page! I wrote a doctoral dissertation on Marxist philosophy, and a Ph.D. barely scratches the surface of the question. If nothing else, you can't really understand what Capitalism is unless you read Marx first. To not be a Marxist and try to understand the nature of historical change is kinda like being a non-Darwinian and trying to understand biology. Oddly, there's a sense in which I am an anti-Darwinian (but in a "dialectical" sense of finding traces of teleology remaining in the concept of "fitness"; not in a know-nothing anti-science creationist idiocy). So in a similar (or analogous) way I'm also a "post-Marxist" (or post-Freudian, for that matter). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course, it is way too big. But let's cut to the chase. Surely there are specific realistic choices being made by real people today that you could use to illustrate the difference between someone making choices using your "marxist" beliefs versus someone making choices you perceive I might make given what I just said above. Any behavior as an individual trapped in a system you can't change? Any leftist democratic policies you think are not leftist enough? Any criticism of China's capitalism? South America needs a great deal MORE socialism in my opinion, so I'm not sure any illustrations from down there would put into relief any differences we might hold. WAS 4.250 05:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

There's not exactly a "Marxist ticket" on my ballot. But then, per the above comments, there's not exactly a "Darwinian ticket" either. Nor, say a "Pasteur ticket" or an "Turing ticket". I'm a Marxist because I want to understand the world... and, well, if you're interested in history or the mechanisms of political conflict, if you're not a Marxist you don't understand those things. You also don't make much of a medical doctor if you reject Pasteur's germ-theory of disease (which isn't to say Pasteur was the last word, or that he wasn't wrong about all sorts of things). Unfortunately, the American cold war anti-Communist history has left us with this odd sort of ideology that being "anti-Marxist" can be anything other than rejecting knowledge. None of which, of course, means that I agree with most other Marxists on any particular question... it's simply that understanding the nature of commodity production, of class structure, and of ideology, are starting points for anything else in political philosophy or economics.

The choices one makes come from all sorts of places. If I were Venezuelan I'd vote Chavez; and if I were Bolivian I'd vote Morales. But I'm not. In Massachusetts, I usually cast the Democratic vote, but don't exactly feel good while doing so :-). If I make it as an expat to Canada, I'll vote NDP. Not to say every choice is about voting... but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be telling you (or why you would care). And yeah, China's current regime pretty much sucks; you knew that though. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the conversation. It gives me a beginning point to understand your use of the word "Marxist". I bet if we had a week long discussion we would find almost all our political differences were in our choice of words rather than any actual behavior differences based on those differently expressed political opinions. I'm X because I want to understand the world... and, well, if you're interested in history or the mechanisms of political conflict, if you're not X you don't understand those things. I'm glad I'm X. I bet you are too. You just call it "Marxist". WAS 4.250 10:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Kamin was referring to Zambia, not South Africa

Kamin was referring to Zambia when he was discussing the Pons data. In IQatWoN, Lynn did not use the Pons data for Zambia. He used MacArthur, Irvine, and Brimble (1964).[3] He did use Owen's 1990-collected Standard Progressive Matrices data (published by Owen in 1992) for South Africa. In Appendix 1, he wrote: The mean IQ of the Blacks (N = 1,096) was 69, which needs to be reduced to 67. He also used Lynn & Holmshaw's (1990) result of 65, which he Flynn-Effect reduced to 63. --hitssquad 19:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi again, Dave!

Dear David, I'm truly sorry about the very belated reply to your request for a userpage design... but I must confess I had lost all contact with my Wikidesign muse for some days :( Anyway... I hope she's back now! I just made a basic draft for you; you can have a look at it here. I used a pink color theme, as you requested. Your page contents are rather complex, so I limited myself to a mere table-color layout; if you want me to make further enhancements, or changing the contents structure, just let me know. If you happen to like it as it is, please, feel free to copy it directly from my sandbox into your userpage. A big, huge kiss, Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 23:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Dave, you little brat! Your page looks great! I had no idea you had such great design talents... what did you need me for anyway? ;) Really, I like it a lot, nevermind that it has nothing to do with the design I made. If you had told me you wanted split tables for each section, I could have done that for you, but I guess you came up with the idea after my you saw my design for yourself, am I right? It usually happens to me that I don't really know what I'm designing until I see a more or less complete picture and start meddling and touching here and there. Again, congrats! I will ask for your advice next time ;) Kisses, Phædriel ♥ ^{tell me} - 00:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I did not have anything in particular in mind. If you look through all the edits I made, you can see I tried about a zillion different slight tweaks (and some more that I only previewed). But after I looked, I thought the several div's for different sections looked nice. And the little trick with putting a table inside the top section seems to be attractive. I copied yours over first, but that got me started on seeing if I could tweak things.... I probably would never have thought to do any prettification at all if I hadn't seen the mention on your page... so that was a good nudge, and your color stuff a good start. XXOO. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

BCE vs BC and User:Eldrone

Hi Dave, I noticed your reversion on the Liu Xiang (author) page. Your calling the previous editing from BCE to BC as POV is unjustified. We might as well notice that 9 BCE redirects to 9 BC. Cheers, MarkBeer 08:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

WP style indicates that the non-Christian-specific dating system is preferred for topics that are unrelated to the history of Christianity or Christendom. See WP:DATES for reference. In any case, it is certainly inappropriate, as brand new editor Eldarone did, to edit numerous non-Christian historical articles to make the sole change of BCE->BC (or CE->AD) where the more neutral usage was already in use on that page (essentially, the whole of this editors history was doing this). We've seen such "Christian-POV vandals" from time-to-time in the past. Although the dates are numerically the same, it imposes a Christian-centric worldview on a topic to express every date in terms of these Christian dates, even for figures or events that were unaware of an uninfluences by Christianity (or, for example, also in Jewish or Islamic topics where a different religious tradition specifically stands in theological contrast to Christianity).

If an editor adds or changes a date system as part of some larger edit on a specific topic, that's relatively understandable, since they may just be in a certain habit. But to join WP for the sole purpose of imposing Christian POV on dates, and edit articles with no changes other than this, is... well, vandalism. I happened to see this on an article I maintain, so looked at Eldarone's edit history, which was such. Liu Xiang is not an article I had otherwise worked on, but I saw it in Eldrone's history, and rolled back some of his/her semi-vandalisms. In any case, stating that, e.g. some classical Chinese poet lived so-and-so many years "before Christ" as a uniform reference point is extremely ethnocentric (or maybe theocentric). I'm not going to go to articles I'm otherwise uninvolved in to make that single edit-warring change; but fortunately, the large majority of WP articles on such historical topics now use the more neutral date naming. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 17:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Assuming good faith, we presume user Eldarone had felt that BC is a more adequate and more common term than BCE in addressing years. BC is indeed more common to the best of my knowledge. Reverting all Eldrone's edits by calling them vandalism is just as inappropriate as their sole dedicated endeavour in changing BCE to BC. You might have noticed that 9 BCE still redirects to 9 BC and might still feel this is Christian-centric. And in the first place, to define the year Jesus was born as the start of Common Era would still be Christian-centric.

Whether or not it makes sense to assume WP:FAITH, the user's edits were in clear violation of WP policy on this, which states that "BCE" articles should stay that way, certainly unless consensus is reached to change it. If it was just a change to one article I wouldn't think much... but to go between many unrelated article and make only that change... well, it's hard to assume good faith. FWIW, I did not revert all of the user's edits. I first did it on one article that I actually actively maintain. Then I took a look and saw that several different editors had reverted a number of different articles (presumably because they each watched the respective articles; whether you describe them or vandalized or not). I then also fixed a few more of the articles Eldarone had modified (without explanation or consensus), but only a randomish subset of them. I do indeed resent needing to do such pointless housekeeping, I confess.

I actually would rather rename 9 BC and friends to 9 BCE and the like. But if that were done, obviously the redirect would just need to go in the other direction anyway. I wouldn't do such a thing without consensus though. There's a certain stare decisis type principle here. Articles that use an existing convention should not be changed gratuitously, and especially not by editors otherwise uninvolved in the article. For example, regional spellings are a similar principle: I sometimes see obnoxious editors who go through an article and change all the existing USA spellings to British spellings (rarely the reverse: perhaps that says something). As with dates, such change violates the WP guideline that a given article should choose a spelling convention, usually matching the predominant subject matter of the article. So a US politician's article should use USA spellings, and a English politician's British spellings (obviously, some examples are more ambiguous; for example a person from a non-English speaking country, who uses neither spelling themselves). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with BCE, if some perceive this as more politically right. Let's go and change all pages of title year BC to title year BCE and redirect year BC to year BCE, if that fulfills some's needs. I have no objection of any sort as long as the system makes itself consistent. MarkBeer 02:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

For better or worse, WP is not likely to become uniform about either usage soon. But the conventions about not making obnoxious and disruptive changes is still a good working policy. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Hey thanks for that

Yeah, I saw a few prodding comments above by one user and didn't take the bait on those and probably shouldn't have made my latest comment either. I have withdrawn a bit over the past day and I will take your advice...thanks for looking out for me! Your userpage looks great now. Appreciate your insistance on that matter.--MONGO 21:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad I have stepped back some as I was close to retrieving your don't feed the trolls logo and sticking it on the discussion page there...oh, the temptation was strong...--MONGO 21:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Also...an article I created and have had much help on by several editors including a glaciologist may make a scary but interesting read...your input is more than welcome and it's along a different train of thought than you may be used to...Glacier retreat--MONGO 10:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The Nation

Hey,

A dispute is on which might be of interest to you. You probably have heard of the US periodical, The Nation. It is one of a number of publications that exist or have existed using that name. However some US Wikipedians have decreed that all other publications of that name must be shunted off to a disam page with the US publication given sole custody of The Nation page, even though neither it nor any other publication with that name is international nor widely known outside each state's border. The confusion this causes can be seen in the fact that people making entries to the Thailand newspaper, the British magazine, the famous 19th century Irish paper, etc usually end up innocently creating links to the US periodical page on The Nation rather than the obscure disamb page (which is only found by a link at the top of the US article). It is blatently wrong. While most links are for the US publication, that is because most contributors on WP are US and the US publication covers a lot of people mentioned on WP. If the US publication was something like Time or Newsweek or The Times then one could justify it getting the main page. But even many US people have not heard of the US magazine and it is largely unheard of outside the US. Technically the Irish newspaper is more international in noteworthyness — it features in history books in Australia, the US, the UK etc because it was a prominent politically motivated radical newspaper in the 19th century. But IMHO it too does not enough international recognition to justify getting pride of place and claiming the name for itself.

The dispute is at Talk:The Nation. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 21:22, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid my vote isn't as you wanted. Btw. the US publication is also a prominent political magazine dating from the 19th century, and referenced in history books and the like. I'm persuaded by the London example here... try going to Ontario sometime, it'll definitely throw you for a couple days :-). FWIW, no one hereabouts means the London Times when they say The Times either (they say it, normally, of the New York Times; but the disambig is handled OK on WP). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)