User:Adam Carr/Talk Archive1

Greetings! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you have questions or doubts of any sort, do not hesitate to post them on the Village Pump, somebody will respond ASAP. Other helpful pages include:


 * Welcome, newcomers
 * How does one edit a page
 * Manual of style
 * Naming conventions

Note that articles are not signed, as anyone can edit any article. (Who contributed what can be traced in the Page history, though.)

Have fun! --Wik 14:50, Sep 13, 2003 (UTC)

It is habit forming! But welcome anyway. :) Tannin 04:03, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'd like to add a welcome also. Good to see another Victorian here - there are quite a few of us, including Tim Starling, Tannin, and myself. --Robert Merkel 09:36, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Welcome! Just thought I'd let you know that there's an easier way of marking text as bold. Just use three inverted commas either side of the word, rather than  and  tags. This ensures that the word is emphasised for people using screen readers. There's a list of Australian Wikipedians you might want to add yourself to. Angela 11:29, Sep 14, 2003 (UTC)

Thankyou all for your comments. AC

Wow, we seem to have an Australian history section all of a sudden! Two years with nothing but a few stubs and a poor main article, and in a couple of days you've really given Wikipedia a decent start. Keep up the good work! -- Tim Starling 14:37, Sep 14, 2003 (UTC)

Hello Adam :) Nice work on Australian electoral system, but I've removed the "Please refrain from editing until it is finished." comment.

This is a Wiki, after all - discouragement for others to edit can be considered a little unfriendly, though I do understand you want to get everything down right.

Anyway, keep at it! It'll all look great in the end, and its nice for others to edit so it'll be even greater :) Dysprosia 13:35, 18 Sep 2003 (UTC)

-

Are you the original author of the article about Hume and Hovell? If not, please note that we cannot use material by others without their explicit permission to do so under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights).&mdash;Eloquence 22:19, Sep 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * My footnote makes it clear that I am not claiming to be the author, though the piece as I have posted it is shorter - and more grammatical - than the original. I intended it to be an interim piece until I had time to write something more original. AC


 * The current version is OK, just make sure not to use copyrighted material without permission.&mdash;Eloquence 11:08, Sep 19, 2003 (UTC)

Hi! You can sign your name with ~. (It's just easier to track than "AC".) --Jiang 06:41, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

But my name isn't Dr Adam Carr 06:43, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC) (how do you pronounce that?)

oh i see, i didn't know that 4 tildes spell my user name :) thanks for the suggestion

Oh, and three tildes leaves out the date stamp. --Jiang 06:45, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

To solve your login problems, click the "Remember my password across sessions" checkbox on the login page. This will set a cookie, though.--Robert Merkel 12:32, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)

As for deleting Robert O'Hara Burke -- I don't have the authority either. It would have to be listed on WP:VFD. I (and the other ~130 sysops) have the authority to delete vandalism, to make way for page renames, and to act on a consensus existing at WP:VFD. But even if I did have the authority, I wouldn't do it, because deletion would be a violation of our Deletion policy. Instead you should redirect Robert O'Hara Burke to Burke and Wills expedition, see Redirect. Note that "double redirects" don't work, so you'll have to fix Robert Burke.

As for History of Australia -- I'm keeping an eye on it. I might make some comments if I have time. -- Tim Starling 05:24, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

Ahhh .... Culture of Australia. On the whole, I think the most telling criticism of it is the one made by the first poster to the talk page - young feller named "Tannin", I think it was. ;) It's a nice bit of ceative, more-or-less factual writing, and would sit quite well in a glossy Sunday magazine somewhere (you know: the sort of thing people carefully leave lying around the house in the hope that visitors will get the impression that the hosts don't actually read the sports page first). But as a 'pedia article, it's not relly appropriate. It's one of the very few entries I wrote "against my will". I'd only been here a couple of days, and Tim Starling, noticing my training, suggested that I write a "Culture of Australia" article because we didn't have one. Stupidly, I did. Seeing as Tim had asked for it, he had to be polite about it!

Oh, the missile defence thing, I nearly forgot. No, I'm afraid I know nothing about it. I haven't really kept current with aviation stuff this last year or so.

PS: I fixed up the Robert Burke pages: made them into redirects to Burke and Wills expedition. Tannin 14:25, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adam. With "History of Australian culture" you are indeed taking on a huge task! I'm afraid that I'm not going to take you up on your kind suggestion about Australian economic or environmental history. I've never studied Oz economic history (bar the stuff you pick up along the way looking at other things) and although I know enough environmental history to make a reasonable start (and am learning more as time allows) I'm mainly aiming to finish off some of the many things I have left lying around half completed in the 10 days or so I have before I take off on my 5-week trip up north.

Five weeks alone with a small car, a large camera, and as much wildlife as I can point a telescope at - bliss! Naturally, I'll be adding appropriate illustrations to the 'pedia when I get back. Birds are my #1 priority, but I'm interested in everything. I'll never get to everywhere I want to go, but the rough plan is to go up to Cape York via Broken Hill and Bourke, back via the coast. I'll be lucky to have time for half of that, but no matter. Cheers, Tannin

Done. You can move pages too. (Just look to the menu on the left side of your screen.) --Jiang 04:10, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi, is Adolf_Hitler_2 a draft? Fuzheado 14:40, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Note on Adolf Hitler 2

I have had several tries at editing Adolf Hitler, but I finally decided that it would be easier to write a whole new one. I know it is Wikipedia policy to "be bold in editing," but I am not sure if this extends to completely replacing a major article with a new one without any consultation. So I am posting it here Adolf Hitler 2, and readers can make up their own minds. If the Wikipedia powers-that-be decide to replace the current version with this version, fine; if they don't, also fine. I will place it as a link at my homepage and readers can have two Hitler articles to read.

I would, however, be opposed to anyone trying to amalgamate the two articles. My main criticisms of the original article are that it is incoherent and that its tone is inappropriate. These problems would only be perpetuated by creating a hybrid of the two articles. Dr Adam Carr 14:51, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * I see your concern. One solution would be to create a new page in your User talk: namespace, rather than the article namespace, e.g.:


 * User talk:Dr Adam Carr/Candidate replacement for Adolf Hitler page


 * If you click on the above link it will be created, and just copy the text. Then put a link on the Talk:Adolf Hitler and perhaps on your main User page: User:Dr Adam Carr asking for comment and proposing it as a replacement.  This way you don't have the confusion of two articles in the main article namespace, and the temporary page is clearly labelled as such.  I think if the original page really stinks, then it won't be a problem with replacing it, but as Hitler is a controversial topic I see your concern.  In any case, one can always revert the page to a previous state.   --Lexor 11:58, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hey Adam,

It's great to see how much the History of Australia and other sections you're working on are coming along, adding some much needed respectability. Regarding your concerns about "permission", e.g.:


 * Since Tim assures me that it is OK to rewrite this article, I have done so. Anyone who wants to argue with me about anything I have written is welcome to do so :) Dr Adam Carr 13 September 2003 (UTC) (on Talk:History of Australia)

and


 * Could someone who has the authority to do this change George Houston Reid to George Houstoun Reid? This is the correct spelling. Dr Adam Carr 11:22, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC) (on Village pump)

There really is nobody "in charge" (except for sysops who are elected themselves can protect pages and ban users from time to time, which is rare). There is no authority required or indeed, available, from anybody.

Don't worry about being timid with any updates, if you see something obviously wrong like mispelled pages etc., feel free to correct it, move the page (How to rename (move) a page). Occasionally you may get somebody objecting, but it's rare, especially for the kinds of errors you're talking about and it's a normal part of Wikipedia in any case. I think Tim Starling may have already pointed this out to you, but it does pay to check them out: Be bold in updating pages and especially Most common Wikipedia faux pas, particularly section #7.

Good luck, good to have you onboard. --Lexor 11:47, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It just seems to be the convention to list it that way (along with external links). Maybe it's because of the heading - having the indent just looks better. It's a potential list... --Jiang 07:52, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the changes. That little piece of gossip about Grynszpan and vom Rath is mind-boggling. Do you have a source for that anywhere? I would love to look that one up. Danny 03:50, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Adam, thanks for the great work on Adolf Hitler. Can I ask that you sign your comments on the Talk page, even very short comments, as it is now hard to figure out who wrote what. I'm making the same request to Danny. Thanks. zero 04:18, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

oh...i thought this was Dr Adam Carolla LirQ

I have many identities but that isn't one of them :)

On Grynszpan: http://www.roizen.com/ron/grynszpan.htm seems to be very careful work. --zero 11:35, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Nice work on the UN page, complex subject with lots of facets. Are the materials on your personal web site released under the GFDL? Some of the travel photos and corresponding information might make a useful addition in places, we always need more photos of well known locations that are released under the GFDL. BTW, as a Commonwealth legal historian (of sorts) I would be interested in someone putting a reasoned academic perspective on the debate about the status of the Governor General of Australia as a so-called "de-facto" head of state. As a Canadian I am fascinated how this issue seems to get some Autralians hysterical. Alex756 05:26, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * I posted information about your now GFDL'd web site here. Alex756 06:08, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Hi! I went ahead and made the formatting adjustments on Antinous. I think it might be a bit big to float on the page though; what I've usually been doing in cases like that is making a smaller image (say 200px) and then linking to a larger one on a separate page. Does that sound good to you? - Hephaestos 03:44, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Thought you should know that some of the images you've been uploading have ended up in .bmp format, which makes them very large byte-wise. But I think it's all taken care of. - Hephaestos 05:29, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Actually "1990's" is a pet peeve of mine too, I like to go around here eliminating it when the search engine's working properly. :) - Hephaestos 05:41, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Nice Daleks. But are they public domain/GFDL Daleks? &mdash;Paul A 09:01, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

reply
Adam, you wrote to me yesterday on my Talk page and I replied to you there. Just wanted to make sure you saw it. -- Viajero 18:21, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Adam, I replied to your comment on irrelevant links on my talk page. If you want to carry on the discussion, please do so there. Thanks. &mdash;Frecklefoot 15:39, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Regarding Goldhagen, I think the general consensus seems to be that what is good is not new, and what is new is not good. The fact that ordinary Germans were implicated in the holocaust is not a particularly new one. Certainly, Goldhagen makes this point. But so did Christopher Browning, with a lot more sophistication and a lot less self-promotion. But, in any event, I don't think it's that Goldhagen argues for unique German anti-semitism, so much as that he argues for unique eliminationist anti-semitism being popular among German people. I don't think there's that much evidence of this. Robert Gellatley's JMH review of Goldhagen puts it well, I think:


 * ''It is true that anti-Semitism did not simply fade away, as many Jews and other Germans had expected, and that before the nineteenth century ended it became more ubiquitous and more often presented as based in "science." Most historians would also agree that anti-Semitism enjoyed sustained growth during the Weimar era.  However, no political party could get elected with this one plank in its platform.  In the last elections before 1933 Hitler tended to downplay anti-Semitism, evidently because he thought it would cost him votes, and in the first years after the Nazi "seizure of power" he made few anti-Semitic statements in public, presumably because they would detract from his popularity.  According to Goldhagen, Hitler's role in the Holocaust was crucial, but not because the Führer cast some kind of demonic spell.  What he did was to "unshackle" an already existing anti-Semitism, making it more open and lethal.  Goldhagen tends to paint what happened after Hitler's appointment as chancellor monochromatically, as a continuing success story, so that he portrays even an evident propaganda failure - like the boycott of the Jews in April 1933 - as a victory.  In his view, there was at best minor dissent over the boycott and the later violence.  Although Hitler gave several bloodcurdling speeches on the subejct of the Jews in the periods before and during the war, Goldhagen exaggerates in stating that "rarely has a national leader so openly, frequently, and emphatically announced an apocalyptic intenion" - essentially to carry out the Holocaust (p.162).  Hitler's remarks on the "Jewish question" were neither open, frequent, nor unambiguous.


 * Goldhagen claims that "Hitler displayed an acute insight into the nature of the German people and into the way in which their 'instinctive' antisemitism [could] be activated by him for the necessary consequences" (p.443). But if there really was such a meeting of minds between Hitler and the German people, why did he say so little about the "eliminationist" anti-Semitism of Nazi state policy, and why after 1939 did he never state unequivocally in public - nor even among his closest confidants - what was happening to the Jews?  The half dozen or so "prophecies" he made public during the war, in which he talked about the destruction of the Jews, kept up this ambiguity, as what he said almost always constituted threats of what would befall the Jews at some point in the future.  In fact, during several of these wartime speeches the annihilation of the Jews was already well under way.  Why did Hitler evidently consider it inappropriate to mention any of these "hard facts" in plain language?  Why the need for the painstaking "language regulation" in the whole realm of the Final Solution, and why above all was the killing carried out in such secrecy?  If the German people were really under the spell of such "hallucinatory anti-Semitism," would they not have welcomed such publicity?  Evidently, the regime kept the tidings of anti-Semitic actions and of the existence of the camps in the east such a secret back home that even some leaders of the German Jews - people with a vested interest in finding out what they really faced as they were deported - discovered little about what was happening in the east until after most of the killings had already taken place.''

And so forth...the point is, this is a serious flaw. I think what made it worse in the eyes of a lot of historians is that Goldhagen took it outside the profession, turning it into a "public debate" in which he could be the brave iconoclast taking on the historical profession. At any rate, I think his whole "eliminationist anti-semitism" argument is overwrought, at least as far as the pre-1933 period goes, and probably even further on. At any rate, whatever the merits of Goldhagen's book, I think it's a bad idea for Wikipedia to recommend a book which has been savaged by pretty much the entire academic community specializing in the field. john 05:46, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

BTW, [here's] an interesting article on the Goldhagen controversy in Germany, which I think does a good job laying out what exactly was going on. john 05:57, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Do you still want your username changed? -- Tim Starling 01:35, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)


 * 1) Okay, I'll do it mid-afternoon today, that's roughly when server is least busy
 * 2) Indeed.
 * 3) I don't know. I've posted a question to wikitech-l about it. It seemed to me that it would be easy to get uploads working again, but I'm not game to try it because there may be some subtle reason why my method won't work. So I'm basically waiting for Brion to turn his attention to the problem. The root cause is that one of our two servers has crashed, but I can't see any good reason why the remaining server shouldn't be able to do uploads, as well as everything else. -- Tim Starling 02:04, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Adam, I wish you would discuss articles on their respective Talk pages so that other people can give their views as well. I'm just about to make a short comment on Talk:Adolf Hitler in support of john re Goldhagen. Incidentally, when a Talk page gets too long, the established practice is to move a large chunk of it (all but the recent things) to an archive page. Don't just delete some it. See Talk:World_War_II for an example. Cheers. --zero 04:00, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Okay, it's done. The "Dr Adam Carr" user account has ceased to exist. You can recreate it if you like, to prevent impersonation. You should now be able to log in as "Adam Carr", with the same password. I think you should add a note to your user page saying that you changed your username -- that way people won't be quite so confused when they see the old name in talk page sigs. -- Tim Starling 04:29, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

You can change your time zone in your preferences -- use the box labelled "offset". This affects article histories, RC, the watchlist, etc. There is no way to alter the timezone for ~ signatures, the deletion log or the upload log. -- Tim Starling 05:00, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Interesting work on Chifley. I've always been meaning to write more about him, but on the one cccasion that I tried, I got into a stoush with another user. I've amended what you'e written - no offence is intended. Arno 05:13, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What you did was Most common Wikipedia faux pas #5. At least, that's how Mav saw it. Making a major change is very difficult when a number of active editors have contributed to it significantly. It's just an unfortunate aspect of Wikipedian politics. You can improve your chances by increasing the length, and making it technically perfect. Editors will use flaws in the new version as an excuse to revert it back to the version they wrote. In this case, the broken redirects you left were such an excuse.

As for being bold: it sounds like there was an active discussion going on, and you got sick of arguing and decided to do it your own way. You can't expect the others involved in the argument to sit idly by when something like that happens. Wikipedia relies on consensus decision making. If you want your version to be accepted, there has to be a consensus in favour. Otherwise it will just spark an edit war, the outcome of which is usually determined by tenacity. See More heat than light. -- Tim Starling 09:13, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adam, I actually live in Kew. I agree that some of the upper class live there -- and it is one of Melbourne's most expensive suburbs (after Toorak, South Yarra and East Melbourne).

But most of Kew is firmly middle-class, and the suburb used to have a reasonable number of working class families too (especially so when Whitlam was born there). Even in the most expensive areas I'm aware of, there are still a few poor families that haven't sold out. Of course, their houses get demolished when they do.

The expression "upper class" is very strong -- to me it suggests Melbourne Club memberships, serious money, friends in the Tory cabinet. Upper middle class might be the term you were looking for... -- Pde


 * Yes indeed. I probably got there by a different route (worrying about copyright and patents interfering with free software & digitopian fantasies, before I learnt about essential medecines issues), but that's what building coalitions is about, right? :)


 * PS - I presume you noticed that Kew (and surrounds) got within a small marsupial's whisker of electing a Labor MLC at the last state election? -- Pde


 * Yes, I had noticed your election archive. I thought we had a nice coincidence of themes :).  I agree about the disorganisation of politics articles -- but I don't think it's just a problem for Australia.  I almost wrote up and posted a rant about this with regard to the structure for country entries.


 * It seems that there are three places where the political history of countries can be written up: in the History_of_Country article, the Politics_of_Country article, and in the entries on various political figures. I suspected briefly that the CIA World Factbook material in Politics_of_X was stifling those pages, but I'm no longer sure that this is true -- in some cases it's been overhauled quite effectively.


 * In any case, it does seem like a good idea to have some standards about how these articles should relate to each other. -- Pde

Moving pages
Hello. I see that you moved the content of Francis Forde to Frank Forde a few days ago. If you need to move a page from one title to another, you can use the built-in page-moving feature. That's better than cutting and pasting, as it preserves the edit history of a page all in one place. You can access that feature using the "Move this page" link at the side of the page. Also, if you do cut (or copy) and paste text from one page to another, please could you put in the edit summary something like "text moved from Page"? Otherwise it gives the impression that you are creating the content yourself. I think it's important to allow people to attribute content to its original authors. Thanks. -- Oliver P. 06:18, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Oh, okay, that's all right, then. :) Thanks for replying. And well done on the article. It's a good one! -- Oliver P. 06:32, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really know anything about this Sidney Warburg nonsense, either. But, so far as I can tell from limited looking, there's no particular evidence of the existence of a "Sidney" Warburg, and the whole thing doesn't make any sense on the face of it. The Warburgs were a Jewish family. Why on earth would they have given money to Hitler? Anyway, I think we can just revert without discussion on this one. john 21:02, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If the casket's in Vergina....
If the casket's in Vergina.... where's the vessel with the pestle? (OK, it's an obscure reference, but if you get it, you'll be amused)... -- The flagon with the dragon holds the brew that is true!


 * I don't and I'm not. Adam


 * It's a paraphrasing of a line from Danny Kaye's "Court Jester"(1951) - hope that helps.


 * Before my time darling Adam


 * Ah, the young! So much is wasted on them. Full text available for the curious by clicking my name... -- Someone else 08:12, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Adam, sorry about the personal tone of my comment on T:A H.--zero 14:02, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

names in article
The discrepancy with the name must be made clear in the first paragraph of the article. you should see that Bill Clinton begins with "William Jefferson Clinton" and E. E. Cummings begins with "Edward Estlin Cummings". That's the convention we use here. Unless it is made clear that a person's birth name is not his full name, then I will insert it into the first line to conform to the convention. --Jiang 06:55, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * okay, it's clear enough now. --Jiang
 * I said it was fine. --Jiang

Thanks for pointing that out Adam. I'm not sure, though, about the "but this was cancelled out by the bigger drift of QLP preferences to the ALP" claim - the myth can be reduced to a factual core: "had all of the communist voters preferenced the ALP, there would have been a hung Parliament". It's probably not noteworthy enough to go on Menzies' page, though. -- Pde

I guess my edit didn't make it clear enough, since you reverted it, but we don't generally like editors to make links to themselves from the articles. It's fine to do it from the image description page, but images do get replaced from time to time, sometimes with a poorer version, and I'm sure you don't want to be in the position of being blamed for a poor photo that you didn't take. Check out "what links here" on User:Maveric149 - hundreds of links from talk and image pages, not one from an article. Stan 18:44, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The changes I made to Aussie PM pages were to do with the images. Most of the divisions the images were in, were set to a width that was different to the actual size of the image. This can lead to situation where some web browsers will expand the division to fit the image, while others will shift the image off to the side to make the image fit the division. Anyway it is all fixed now. Also some of the images you uploaded were .bmp that had been renamed to a .jpg. The images are much smaller when they are real jpg files so I converted them to real jpg files. For instance George Reid is now 20 times smaller than it previously was. It looks the same as before but will download a lot quicker when someone views it. -- Popsracer 07:04, 13 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Adam, go get 'em:  JE.

He was a sort of politician: president of the Liberal Party for a long time (wasn't he?). Since the existing text is useless, I think the correct action is to turn the article into a stub. But then again, I'm one of those people who think that the ideal content for Wikipedia is "all human knowledge", so what would I know? --z

Hello Adam! I am just browsing in recent changes and i noticed your comments. Dont you think you are being too hard on a new user? All of us were new here sometime... All the best, Muriel Gottrop 15:51, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I think you may disagree with the other user (i didnt read the article in question, nor i want to get involved in edit wars), but wikipedians should exercise moderation in speech. When you write comments like that in the recent changes, everybody who accidentaly reads it (at least I) feels a bit "assaulted", so i imagine what the new user felt... I just dont think harshness a good thing: it's not what you say, it's how you say (portuguese popular wisdom).
 * About the Romans: i'm always so glad to find people with a fondness for history!! It's rare and you and I know it. I think the Augustus Caesar is very nice. If you find time, have a look on the biographies i started (list in my brag section.)
 * Cheers, Muriel Gottrop 12:17, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

-- Great work on Léon Blum! I can't believe that there hadn't been an article on Blum for so long. Great job finding that embarassing gap in Wiki's articles on modern French history. BTW, it's a great honor to have another historian on this site, along with Jtdirl. 172 02:11, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Re: the Winged Victory--it seems suspicious to me as well, but I've found several sources claiming it was presented to the Louvre by the Greek government, though how reliable they are, I'm not sure. The frieze story can be found at, and claims something similar. Other sources claim it was discovered personally by the French consul in Samothrace (who was also an archaeologist), but are silent about the legalities of who allowed him to take it back to France with him. If you can find some more definitive information that'd be great; otherwise, I'll try looking at a library in a week or two when I get some time. --Delirium 04:02, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

After some more searching, it appears that perhaps a plausible story is that it was the Winged Victory's hand that was exchanged by the Greek government for a temple frieze (the rationale being that the hand was valuable to the Louvre, since they had the rest of the statue, but relatively useless by itself, so might as well trade it for something that can be displayed more productively on its own). This was probably corrupted into the other story. The 1863 discovery appears to have been done entirely by the French consul who took it back himself, perhaps without really consulting with any authorities (I'm not sure what the Ottomans did about this sort of stuff). --Delirium 08:34, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

- A page on History articles needing writing or rewriting is an excellent idea. I'm going to start compiling a list right away.

Wiki articles often ignore diversity, complexities, and context. Many neglect long-term historic processes and broads pattern of structural change. Consequently, they often fail to understand historical actors in the cultural, political, and economic realities of their times. It's all too common to run into disputes with users approaching things from a more values-laden angle and a narrow frame of reference. Wiki is better, however, at more matter-of-fact summaries or chronicles.

As a result, I've tried to make up for that by focusing very broad, complex topics - which are the ones often needing the most work. However, this has left me with a plethora of my own unfinished articles and series of articles. Many articles that I'd add to that list would be my own pet-projects languishing unfinished.

BTW, sorry about the lack of a list on the user page. After months on this site, it's been frustrating that the external links have failed to inspire any comments. So I decided a while ago to forgo a conventional user page, hoping that listing these links in isolation would leave them more noticeable. That idea has been a complete failure. 172 04:55, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Zionism
Hi Adam, your Adam Carr's Draft Zionism article was actually in the main article namespace. I have now moved it to User:Adam Carr/Zionism. Is it ok to delete the redirect from the article namespace? Angela 15:14, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)


 * The user namespace is just any page that comes after User:. Pages in that do not need to follow the same rules as the rest of the encyclopedia because they are part of a user's "own" pages (although they aren't really your own). If something is not the real article, it can either be at a "temp page", like Talk:Zionism/Temp, or in the user space. As you had called this one "Adam Carr's draft..." I thought it was best in your space as you seemed to be saying it was yours. Namespace might help. People will still be able to see it and comment on it in the same way. I'm not sure if what I've said makes sense (trying to do 2 things at once) so let me know if you need further clarification. I shall delete the original. Angela 15:29, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Adam. For the first statement, The key event in triggering the modern Zionist movement, I would modify it to read: The key event in triggering the modern political Zionism to distinguish between other forms of Zionism (cultural, religious, proto-Zionist attempts, etc.). Hope that is okay with you. The Bund should definitely go in, as we agree. It certainly needs an article, but so few people know about it today. I can do some research, but it will need time. Another thing to consider is the impact of romantic nationalism on early Zionism--Herzl was actually from Budapest: was he influenced by Kossuth, etc.? Did von Trietschke's nationalism impact early German Zionist authors (Hess comes to mind). De Haan is a fascinating subject: a gay Dutch Jewish poet, who was attracted to Zionism then had a religious apotheosis, became spokesman for Agudath Israel when it was vehemently anti-Zionist. He was assassinated by representatives of the Yishuv, while leaving afternoon prayer services in Jerusalem. I would love to write more on the Jewish materials and clean up what I see as a terrible mess in some areas, but I do not want to get into partisan fights with people, so I let it ride. Danny 17:00, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, a lot of them are pretty old, but in Canada, where I grew up there are still schools associated with the Bund, and here in New York there are some Yiddishists who also associate themselves with the Bund. Incidentally, Marek Edelman, a Bundist and the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto, is still active in Warsaw. He is pretty old though. Danny 06:01, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"I don't know who you-know-who is but I dare say I can handle him/her/it". Good luck mate. Just hope he's true to his word and is just back for a small number of articles.

I like RK because he gets on my side in pseudoscience debates. Getting in his firing line would be... unpleasant. -- Tim Starling 09:11, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

LOL You're not too good at taking advice, are you? :) -- Tim Starling 09:45, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

--- I would say Go for it, but put a note in the Talk pages explaining why you are making the change. One thing you might want to add is the "Zionism = Racism" resolution of the U.N., or at least amend what already exists and attach it. Good luck. Danny 12:02, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well that was a bit of an anticlimax, wasn't it? -- Tim Starling 12:55, Oct 19, 2003 (UTC)

Just wait.--Zero 13:53, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

<<"By 1945 few of the surviving eastern European Jews believed any longer in the Bund's vision of socialism and a future for the Jews in Europe">>

Should it perhaps be: "...longer in either the Bund's vision of socialism, or a future for the Jews in Europe" -- Is there a quantifiable distinction there? 12.233.97.211 16:37, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You can find the easy way to remove vandalism on any page at How to revert a page to an earlier version - no need to fix all the text manually, just editing the last good version will do it. However as an Administrator I have another handy tool to remove them - a button called "rollback" which does the work described above automagically. This only fails if two vandals (or one vandal with changing IPs) work at the same article before it gets spotted. andy 10:37, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * I remember having the rollback button before I was a sysop... I dunno. Evil saltine 10:43, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * I doubt it - I first saw it when I became a sysop, so it was either removed for normal users before February 2003, or you are remembering wrong. BTW: Adam, if you wonder why your article was vandalized - it is listed on the main page as a "New Article", and thus getting much more readers then it would get normally. Normally the more obscure a topic the less likely is vandalism on the article. andy 12:25, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * Don't worry too much about vandalism. There are lots of people watching out for it, so don't feel you have to be the one responsible for checking every day. The chances are someone else will spot it. Angela 19:06, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

Re: Your comments on the village pump -- If you use a watchlist, you don't have to manually check each article for vandalism.

In any case, you also need to trust your fellow editors; belief in the wiki requires a belief that the majority of people are good, such that, there will always be more people removing vandalism, then there are people adding vandalism.

You should never make the mistake of thinking an article should be "finalized"; that is completely contrary to the wiki notion. Nothing is ever finished. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Hi Adam, your The Wikipedia Quality Survey page has been moved (twice). Camembert moved it to the Wikipedia namespace but suggested it might be better at Meta. I agreed and have since moved it to Meta. If you use a title like that, it is in the main article namespace. This means it is a real encyclopedia article. I'm sure you realise that a survey like this is not an encyclopedia article and would be quickly listed at VfD.

To put something in the Wikipedia namespace, just type Wikipedia: in front of the title. That is the area that is for pages relating to the running of Wikipedia &#8211; like policies and help pages. Therefore, it isn't really suitable for a survey, which is more of a discussion about Wikipedia, rather than something which is a utility for editing here.

The Meta Wikipedia is for discussing things relating to the project as a whole, and would seem the perfect place for your survey. You can now find it at English Wikipedia Quality Survey. I added in the word 'English' because Meta is a place for all the Wikipedias.

I hope this makes sense. Please let me know if it doesn't. See also. m:MediaWiki User's Guide: Namespaces andNamespace. Angela 19:06, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)


 * You may also be interested in Louis' post to the mailing list on this issue. Angela 20:19, Oct 20, 2003 (UTC)

I did not delete your text. It is in the second paragraph. You, however, did delete my text regarding his status as an ascetic. Lirath Q. Pynnor

I have readded the text u added, I did not see it before. Please note that, regardless of the historical veracity of Jesus' ascetic status -- it is a defining aspect of what he is believed to have been; so, rather than deleting it -- you should edit it (as I did) to state that he is "beleived" to have been such. Lirath Q. Pynnor

I do not accept the Gospels, and I still believe that he was an ascetic; as do others. What do you think he was, a general...or a diamond miner? Furthermore, the Christians do believe in the Judaic prophecies of a Messiah -- they believe that Jesus is the fullfillment of those prophecies. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Adam, I'm not finished with commenting on Zionism. Your suggested changes sound good though. I'll list a few other issues on the article talk page in the next day or two. --Zero 00:57, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Adam. I liked your "quality" article and suggest that you move it back as a subpage of your user_talk space. I don't believe that it will get the attention it deserves on the meta where Angela has moved it. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 02:39, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, you could think of a way of getting more people to read Meta, which is what I suggest at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Quality Survey. Angela 06:26, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)


 * Louis, thanks for your comments on the Quality Survey. I'm a little vague on all these "spaces," I had never heard of the Meta-thing until Angela moved it there. I don't really mind where it is, so feel free to do with it what you will. By the way, it was in no way intended to be critical of Wikipedia, which I think is a wonderful project. It does however draw attention to issues which Wikipedia will have to deal with if it wants to be a complete and accurate encyclopaedia. Adam 09:37, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * I may move it elsewhere. I too think the Wikipedia is a wonderful project, and would add that I think it an important one as well.  Some Wikipedians apparently believe that the presence of discussion about Wikipedia itself somehow detracts from the project.  As you point out, your Quality Survey does draw attention to matters that will have to be addressed for Wikipedian to become comprehensive. Louis Kyu Won Ryu 18:25, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm thinking you and Pde and I should get together for coffee or lunch or something. You work in Richmond, right? How hard is it for you to get to Carlton? -- Tim Starling 02:54, Oct 22, 2003 (UTC)

Adam re Jesus page.

I suggested an another alternative sentence in your introductory paragraph. I think it got missed in the discussion, though I replied to your query on Jesus and other religions on the talk page.

Suggested new first paragraph. Islam sees Jesus as a prophet other religions see him in much different ways. Also added Lir's sentence about the Gospels because I think it is well written and allows Christian movement with the phrase divinely inspired as to whether it is literally correct.


 * Jesus Christ (or Jesus of Nazareth, see alternate names below) (c. 4 BC - c. 30) was, according to Christian belief, the Son of God, who brought salvation to man through his crucifixion and resurrection. Jesus is considered to be a major religious figure by several other religions, for instance, he is regarded as a prophet in Islam. The primary source of historical knowledge, about Jesus, is contained within the Christian Gospels, which Christians view as the divinely inspired writings of God. Most secular historians accept that the Gospels are sufficient evidence that Jesus existed, but do not believe that the details of his life can be known from the available evidence. : ChrisG 16:22, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What do you think about Lir's line in replace of 'Word of God'. There are many Christians who do not believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible.
 * ChrisG 09:40, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The "also learn some grammar" comment you made on China and the United Nations article was a little inappropriate &mdash;considering the fact that WP is a worldwide thing, and many of our valued Asian contributors speak English not perfect. (Allah knows, they forgive my Chinese and Japanese.) That spelling and grammar can easily be corrected by native English speakers is part of the reason why the en.wikipedia so active. (There was a recent CNN video report on Wikipedia, where a Chinese contributor said just that.) English is a world lingua franca after all &mdash;its proper use isn't to be limited to proper speakers. ;) That said, I want to express my deepest appreciation for your work --your bold, thoughtful, and sincerely tempered contributions toward several serious and severely contentious topic areas. Much overdue. G'day. -&#25140;&#30505sv 00:27, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * It probably was an inappropriate comment, and I wouldn't have made it to many people, but I find Jiang's habit of inserting ill-considered, pedantic and ungrammatical comments into articles very annoying. Jiang is in any case an American college student. Adam 00:37, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Certainly &mdashI will give it some attn tonight. Here is a short statement I wrote on the whole controversy over balance, and such. &#25140;&#30505sv 01:08, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Attn: User talk:Adam Carr/Mother Teresa. &#25140;&#30505sv 02:14, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

He is a Senator, however this title does not need to be placed at the head of the article, as it is a temporary title only granted during his time in office. Even if it were not, there are at least some Wikipedians who would prefer such titles not be used in that manner, instead introducing the person as a person, and later mentioning what offices and titles they hold (perhaps later in the first sentence if important). See John F. Kennedy for similar usage: it starts off "John Fitzgerald Kennedy...", not "President John Fitzgerald Kennedy..." -Delirium 09:30, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)

It's probably something that should be standardized at some point to avoid future conflicts, so I'll leave things as they are for now (feel free to change back if you feel strongly that way). I personally would prefer not having the titles at all (Sir, Dr., President, Senator, etc.) unless they are an integral part of the person's identity without which the name wouldn't make sense (as in Pope John Paul II, Saint Peter, Mother Theresa, and so on). Then later in the article if they have honorific titles, whether because of offices or degrees or awards, these can be mentioned. I'll get around to proposing this on the village pump or mailing list at some point and see what comes of it. --Delirium 09:37, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)

Adam re Jesus page. Adam you say you are happy with the paragraph above. Are you happy with the:
 * "Jesus is considered to be a major religious figure by several other religions, for instance, he is regarded as a prophet in Islam."

Would you like to rephrase it? You did suggest that you disliked it before. Essentially the page was protected because of this first paragraph, so if we can get real agreement on this, then we can restore the page and just restore is wikiness. Obviously Lir will won't to add 'Ascetic', which ought to be dealt with once and for all by a vote of interested parties I suggest.

Also I would suggest we retitle the first section of the article - "Introduction" rather than the 'Problem of Jesus' which is rather less inflamatory and describes it more accurately.: ChrisG 10:33, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Adam re Jesus page. I'll put the compromise up on the the Jesus talk page. Looking at the entries on the page it seems clear that Lir has no support for listing in the introductory paragraph since it is not considered so important. Hopefully he will be mollified by the addition of some of his text however.

You didn't comment about changing the title of the first section, but I assume you have not problem with that.

Since it was the cause of problems we should be able to get the protection removed.

How do we go about getting a page unprotected anyway?
 * ChrisG 11:46, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You need to ask a SysOp. --Zero 12:04, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

From Zero 12:04, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC) concerning this: ''And indeed relations between the Arabs and the early Jewish settlers in Palestine were generally harmonious. Jewish settlement and investment in Palestine stimulated Arab immigration from other Arab countries, and the Jewish and Arab populations grew in tandem to their mutual benefit. At this time, it seems, there was no sense of Palestinian national identity, and apparently no opposition to Jewish settlement.''
 * There is some vagueness in this section about which time period is being referred to (but this is easily fixed).


 * Arab immigration into Palestine was insignificant both before and after WWI.
 * The settlements of the first aliyah employed Arab workers, but not enough to make a major difference to the Arab economy. After about 1905 there was a campaign to employ only Jews and this was reasonably successful. Thousands of Yemenite Jews (who were willing to work for "Arab wages") were imported as laborers.
 * There was Arab opposition already in the 1880s. Several times the Ottoman authorities were successfully petitioned to restrict Jewish immigration and especially against land sales to Jews, which drove the prices up beyond Arab means.  These measures were not very effective.  After the aims of the Zionists became known in the 1890s (contrary to common perceptions, the Arabs were very well informed of news from Europe), serious political opposition started.  I'm looking at Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I, which documents all this.
 * Palestinian nationalism, as opposed to Arab nationalism, is sometimes traced into the 19th century but did not really become significant until after Palestine was separated from the rest of the Arab world in 1918. However, opposition to Zionism preceded Palestinian nationalism by decades.
 * As to what to replace it by, I didn't write anything yet. I think the whole section needs reworking.

From Zero 12:57, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC) about General Jewish Labor Union, concerning the name given: That's three different permutations.
 * In English: Lithuania, Poland and Russia
 * In translitered Yiddish: Lithuania, Russia and Poland
 * In Yiddish: Russia, Lithuania and Poland

I think that the attitude of Zionism towards the Arabs is important, not least because it is the thing that ended up causing the greatest trouble. The Arab reaction to Zionism is perhaps less important, though some mention is needed in order to put the former into context. However, probably something can be done in about the same amount of space. Another missing topic (as Danny suggested) is Ahad Ha'am. He was quite important but I'm not sure I have a suitable overview. Maybe we can Danny to write it. --Zero 13:14, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I guess I must not be an expert on Edgardo Mortara since I never heard of him. Sounds interesting though (but only 3 Google hits, why the interest?). Incidentally, I can read a tiny (tiny) bit of Hebrew but not enough to understand a newspaper for example. Yiddish has essentially the same alphabet but uses more vowels, and many words are stolen from German. So sometimes I can understand it a little, but only sometimes and only a little. --Zero 13:57, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

re: Jesus article Adam,

I hope you will reconsider your decision. The article will be far the weaker without your contribution.

Chris

Hi Adam, good work on the Mother Teresa article! Re titles, the issue was debated extensively on wiki many months ago and a detailed policy decided on re the use of titles for monarchs, peers and clergy. You can find the details at Naming conventions (names and titles). Delirium may not agree with them, but they are wikipedia policy and have been followed and implemented by everyone in thousands of articles for nearly a year. lol FearÉIREANN 22:22, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi. I am checking with someone at work who knows quite a bit about the historical Bund. I noticed the differences when I added the Yiddish, but just left it till I could check with him. I have a day off tomorrow, so I will see what I have about Ahad Ha'am around the house. Mortara is a fascinating topic. Not very well known now, but it was a major sensation back in the days of Pius IX. His great-grand niece is still around in Italy and was very upset, apparently, about the beatification of Pius as a result. Didn't get quite the press as Mother Teresa (thankfully) or even as much as St. Edith Stein, but it is an interesting story and relates to the issue of forced baptisms. In some way it relates to a project I am working on now--non-Jewish rescuers during the Holocaust--since there is an ambivalent attitude about Catholic rescues. Many were genuine acts of kindness (I like the term "a conspiracy of good"), but in certain instances, there was a lot of pressure on some people to convert. I won't get into Cardinal Lustiger, because I haven't researched all the details (What's the difference between the Cardinal of Paris and the Chief Rabbi of Paris? The Cardinal speaks Yiddish), but Mortara was also a forced conversion, ostensibly for the good of the child. Lemme do some checking. BTW, you're doing some great work on the Jewish history stuff. Keep it up. We may even grant you an honorary membership yarmulka. Danny 23:16, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I made the page "list of caucasian people" in response to a debate on Votes for Deletion. Look at Oct 20, list of multiracial people. I didn't realize there had already been debate regarding lists of (majority) people. However, I stand by my comments on the votes for deletion page that I feel creating list pages for only minority groups is offensive and POV of the majority group. I would be content if there were list pages for both majority and minority groups, but not as it currently stands. -- zandperl 03:58, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Sigh...is it really interesting to anybody to have a list of white people? Is there anyone who'd be like "wow, I never realized so many people were white?"  How about "List of men" and "List of women"? john 04:09, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Sigh...is it really interesting to anybody to have a List of famous Chinese people? Is there anyone who'd be like "wow, I never realized so many people were Chinese?"   -Audia

Adam: "I think all lists are a waste of time" I'm not sure myself if they're a waste of time or not. Even if I don't use them, others apparently do. Either way, I keep hearing talk of an automated list-making system, and that'd hopefully get rid of the bias problems that I am concerned about. -- zandperl 04:36, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adam, please can you put the most recent vandalism at the top of the page on Vandalism in progress rather than the bottom. Thanks. Angela 04:33, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

It may be protected on request but that would mean you could not edit it either. Whether or not others have any business editing another user's homepage is a matter of debate. Some feel strongly against the protection of pages in general. You might want to speak to Martin about it as his views seem to be against it. I don't hold a strong view either way although it seems rather unnecesaary to preemptively protect a page. If someone wants to vandalise something, they will do. They will just move from the protected page to a different one, and seeing that a page is protected is more likely to frustrate them and lead them to further vandalism. Angela 04:46, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Attn:User talk:Adam Carr/Mother Teresa-&#25140;&#30505sv
 * Sorry -- just an asterisk highlighted the link. -SV

Yours said "...born...born...". You had born twice in the same sentance. Jiang's version was easier to read and contained whole sentences. Angela 06:04, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

In writing about the Mortara case, did you notice the Jewish Encyclopedia article?

Yes