User:Slrubenstein/archive 4

User: Slrubenstein

How to Break Up
Dear Slrubenstein: I wonder whether you suffer from the same antiquated web browser that I use. If an article is too long, one will get a message like this:


 * WARNING: This page is 43 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections.

"Breaking the page into smaller sections" must be explained somewhere. I figured it out by seeing how others had broken up an article after it got too large for me to edit. They broke it into sections by inserting something like << Section One >> (but each < should be replaced by an equal sign -- I don't want to actually break this page up.

When you make several sections like that you will see on the edited page something like this:

Section One [edit] (a few paragraphs) Section Two [edit] (some more material) etc.

The page is now "broken up" because by clicking on the word "edit" one can get just the material in that section. (The section heads automatically appear as a table of contents at the beginning of the article.)

My problem has been actually clicking on the "edit" link with one of the old browsers that I use. But with my other browser it works well.

Even though the page is "broken up", if you click the original "edit this article" link at the very top of the page, you will get the text of the entire article and the message telling you that you need to break the article up. The software does not have sufficient AI to realize that the article has already been broken up. It just looks at the length of the block of material you just asked to edit.

I hope the above is sufficiently clear. If not, there must be an official explanation somewhere.

P0M 07:12, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Beliefs
P0M: I went to find something which "turneth away wrath" and found a great deal that may be applicable to a common problem of ours. (See Proverbs 15.) I am amazed at how gentle both you and Peak are. I, myself, am keeping in mind lessons I learned from an old book called Games People Play. I think I may need to review the game called "uproar" (or something like that). Finding what will not reward the player of the game may prove difficult unless Eric Berne has given some advice. I must find that book again.

P0M: I wrote a message to you on my user page.

P0M 06:37, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC): I've put some ideas on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Patrick0Moran/Race_rewrite (The edit wars on the race page have been snapping my patience.)

Faith
Good job of applying your clarity there. Perhaps it will help. Wetman 17:54, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well I certainly agree with your points but I don't see how anything is going to get down under the current chaos of the talk page. I think we are just seeing a growing level of inevitable conflict as more and more users focus on a single page and have different beliefs. The whole "talk page" mode of discussion might work ok when only a couple people are debating -- but I don't think its working at all at DNA. Lirath Q. Pynnor

- Well, I guess I belaboured my point a bit but it was fun and it did get him/her off the TALK page:) I am bloody tempted now to write something on the fascist roots of Ayn Rand for the Ayn Rand article... but I won't ;) Andylehrer 22:47, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Suggestions? Why mess around? I just banned him for 24 hours. If you disagree, complain. ;) -SV(talk) 21:43, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

BTW Why do you have comments all up and down your user page?-SV(talk) 21:47, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) )

The Marx thing
Hi, I was wondering why you try to omit the quote that Karl Marx disagreed with "marxism" as it was popliticized in the 20th century? It's fairly instructive to readers that they should not confuse the "catch" with the "kitch". That marx was setting out to do analysys and people used his work to institute all manner of political impositions.

What manner of distinction between Karl Marx and marxism woud you make?
 * I think I addressed the issue of the Marx not being a marxist on the article talk page. That said, of course I see a distinction between Marx and Marxism.  Marx was a person, and I think the Karl Marx page should restrict itself largely to things Marx actually did or said, with as brief as possible a section on his legacy/influence with links to other articles.  Marxism is a set of values that guide both scholarly research and political action; a model for the historical analysis of social formations; and a body of work developed by people guided by such values and using that model. Slrubenstein

WHEELER and anti-Semitism
From Talk:Early National Socialism/draft


 * And by the way since you want to declare a pedigree just because your relatives suffered under the Holocaust.
 * The Nazis also committeed atrocities on the island of Crete. My uncle, Sirodakis, was a great underground fighter.  It was my island that lead a ferocious resistance to the Nazis.  It was my co-religionists, Catholic priests that went to the camps as well.  And it was Jewish communists that destroyed the Orthodox Church in Russia.  Many a Christian died in Jewish concentration camps in Russian before the Nazis ever killed a single Jew.  So don't cry buster and don't wave your victimhood in my face.WHEELER 15:43, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

WHEELER complaint
Please see Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User:WHEELER I need one (or two?) people to certify the complaint. If you can attempt to resolve the dispute or document your intervention on Talk:Early_National_Socialism/draft that would be helpfulAndyL 03:09, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Two things: One your last two emails to wiki-en dont show up on the WP:ML archives (something about some fancy client) and 2. I dont think you handled this well to make this a personal argument. This was verified by all the crap on the RFC page - you might have chosen to single out that anon AOL user as a target instead. Subjective interpretations (which I really dont understand anyway) designed to cause some survivor type "vote off the island" are bad form, IMHE. In any case you are absolutely among the most respectable editors here, and I'd hate to think that some stupid blowup caused you a distaste for the place. -Stevertigo 04:12, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I stumbled upon the WHEELER complaint during a review of the discussion of the No_personal attacks article, and your byline in the complaint was the primary draw. Other things being equal, I would have ignored the proposed prohibition on hate speech as yet another symptom of Wikipedia's movement towards increasingly authoritarian principles. However, as Stevertigo stated above, you are among the most respectable editors here, so I took a great deal of time to review the complaint and research the underlying dispute. (Note: Much of your commentary on the mailing list is not reaching the archive.)  After doing so, I was left somewhat perplexed by your position, but I remain open-minded and willing to hear exactly what good can come of a rule prohibiting hate speech on Wikipedia.

I note that you "sympathize very strongly, or just plain agree," with the proposition that "the best response to hate speech is more speech." What, exactly, makes Wikipedia a venue where this remedy does not apply? In the particular instance where you accuse WHEELER of anti-semitic remarks, it is not at all obvious to me how a prohibition on hate speech, presumably enforceable by a ban, would be more effective than noteworthy Wikipedians such as yourself censuring such objectionable behavior.

As I said, your complaint got my attention, and you have to mark it on the calendar nowadays when I delurk and actually become a participant observer on Wikipedia. Like Benjamin the Mule, I don't believe that life on Manor Farm is going to change by changing the rulers, much less the rules. // NetEsq 19:22, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Commodity Fetishism
Moved from userpage

Hi. Could you spare an explanatory comment in the Commodity fetishism discussion page? I corrected errors of oversimplification in that article, but you apparently favor those over my - perhaps overcomplicated - improvements. Wondering if we can't refine that process a bit in the next round? Adhib 22:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response. I'm noting the style points you offer and formulating a better article. Adhib 23:43, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Idolatry
Mr. Rubenstein, Hinduism is the oldest religion in existence. So the claim that the Bible was written before Hinduism is not necessarily true as there is no historical evidence for either viewpoint. That alternative view note was added by 2004--- even though that is the view of Hindus. Hindus were the only ancient peoples never to have persecuted Jews so the view is not really the alternative view.(perhaps the ancient Persians for only a brief time were the exception.) Please also see article on religious pluralism.
 * As I said, some historians argue that Hinduism is not the oldest religion in the world. This is a legitimate POV.  The claim that Hinduism is the world's oldest religion is a different POV.  I do not understand what "the view is not really the alternative view" means.  Slrubenstein


 * the viewpoint of 2004 is not an alternative view of Hindus; It is in fact the view of Hindus but I have chosen not to edit his note. He added the note, alternative view of some Hindus to my note which had the contents. You are correct that some historians do not feel that way. I think animism and spirit worship preceded Hinduism and Judaism. As for the Bible's mention, some historians have said that King Solomon, son of David, had trade with south India.
 * I have removed the alternative view.


 * I think the bible was written before hinduism was written. This is because writing existed first nearer where the bible was written. However, I think the bible was written after hinduism came into existance. This is because writing didn't exist that long ago. 81.156.181.197 19:11, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand how history works. Although stories in the Hebrew Bible surely date more than three thousand years ago, the Torah probably didn't exist until the Babylonian Exile, and the Tanakh didn't exist until the Roman exile. What is true for the Jews -- that their religion formed after it claimed to have formed -- is true of many other religions. Most historians see Hinduism as coming into existence in the 19th century as a result of English colonialism. Certainly there are texts refering to "Hindus" long, long, before the 19th century. But that does not mean that we know what relgion they practiced, and it does not mean that what we call "Hinduism" today is what those people, thousands of years ago, believed. The British drew on elite written texts to create a "Hinduism" that largely erased the Muslim contributions to and origins of Indian civilization; that reified and codified a caste system that made it easier for the British to apply indirect rule; and that made possible a monotheistic Hinduism European Christians could find more palatable. Slrubenstein

Dear reader, it appears the problem with this work arises because Slrubenstein has confused Hinduism with Sikhism. Note also this 10th century Hindu temple (which clearly existed before the 19th century). CheeseDreams 19:15, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, I meant what I meant. This temple certainly exists, but the question is, did it mean the same thing in the 10th century as in the 20th? Did the word "Hindu" mean the same thing in the 10th century as it does in the 20th? The word Hindu comes from a Persian word to refer to all peoples living east of the Indus river, who were not "people of the book.". In other words, at that time "Hindu" was a geo-cultural term, not the name of a single, systematic or clearly bounded, religion. The 10th century photo is of a Hindu temple in this sense -- a temple serving some group of people living east of the Indus. Slrubenstein
 * Did you then realise that this nonsense could also apply to your own sacred cow? Maybe the Judeo-Christian religion then was not the same as it is now (in fact it definitely isn't) - therefore Christianity / judaism is not the oldest religion in any case.

Of course Christianity and Judaism have changed considerably over the centuries. Of course the way Jews think today is different from how they thought one thousand, two thousand, or three thousand years ago. So?

Cultural and Historical Background of Jesus
copied from Pedant's discuss page: Please take a look at the section of the talk page on "edits as of Nov. 1." I am in an editing dispute with CheeseDream and someone has protected the article until the matter is resolved. I would appreciate it if you would look at the last version of eh article by me, before it was protected, and compare that to the last version by Cheese Dream, and then go over my discussion with him on the talk page, and comment. Thanks, Slrubenstein

Ok, I made extensive comments, not sure why you think I'm the one to ask, but thanks for the implications that seems to make. I'm going to consider it a complimentPedant 03:07, 2004 Nov 4 (UTC)


 * I notice Slrubenstein is trying to bring people who he sees as supporters of his POV into the discussion (see his contributions list). I do not think this is a very NPOV thing to do. CheeseDreams 00:13, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. The point is not to get one's POV into the article, the point is to make a good article, that's factual.  I hope you read my comments, and that you see that my point of view is that the article's subject is defined in its title, and that it's an article that presupposes an actual man named jesus from 1st century Judea, and that all information in the article shoould relate to that, as its subject.


 * You should note that I didn't agree with either of you entirely, and that in one case I disagreed with you both. So what, right?  My agreement doesn't make either of you right or wrong, and I suspect you both know more about some aspects of the topic than I do. Good information that doesn't belong one place can always find a home where it fits perfectly.  This situation won't go forever, let it play itself out.  The wiki always works, it just sometimes takes a while.  we all have tha same goals here, writing a good encyclopedia... people that don't share that goal just slip away unnoticed, the articles they worked on get polished to near perfection and nobody get's hurt.  It really works.


 * I actually think that if you two are both really good wikipedians that you can find a way to make a good team. Opposing viewpoints work great together, if they are trying to make good articles, and not just debate.  You both have added value to the article and to its discussion.  Feel free to link to this thread, on my page or yours, or copy it somewhere... and let me know if I can be useful in any way.  Thanks for dropping by.Pedant 00:34, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

copied from my talk pagePedant 00:36, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)


 * I am not accusing you of POV bias. I left the note to merely point out to Slrubenstein that I have discovered what he is up to. By the way, he has started threatening to delete a whole section which disagrees with his POV from the Historicity of Jesus article now. As well as slandering my name on the Talk page for Cultural and historical background of Jesus against thencivility policy. CheeseDreams 00:41, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Posting this to both your pages: Would you and he like me to mediate this? I think we could wrap it up pretty quickly, and I am interested in the topic, and you both are, and seems like a lot of others don't want to get involved. I'd think some sort of informal friendly discussion on a neutral page would be good ... we are all active so we can probably work this out fast. I'd be happy to do it.Pedant 02:18, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

The passage I threaten to delete is one that literally makes no sense (the writing is obscure) and that seems to be based on no research, and does not reflect scholarly views. I explained this on the talk page and provided time for discussion. No one (as of last night) was able to explain the non-sequitors, provide evidence, or scholarly citations. I think it is completely within the Wikipedia policies for an editor to point out a problem in an article, suggest deletion, provide reasons, and allow for debate on the discussion page before making any changes. That is all I did and I don't see how anyone could criticize me for it. CheeseDream's acts would have the effect only of censoring my views. If CheeseDreams is asking for mediation, and Pedant is offering, I have no problem with that. However, I must clarify my own (or original) position: CheeseDream says my action is "not a very BPOV thing to do" which to me is just one more prrof that he does not understand NPOV or the Wikipedia process, which is collaborative. There was a little revert war brewing on a page, and I thought that rather than engage in an endless discussion with CheeseDream, who seems either not to understand or agree with anything I say, the best sollution (in my opinion, better than mediation) is to braoden the discussion -- to get more Wikipedians involved. I thus asked Pedant if he would comment. Note: I did not ask him for support, and I did not ask him to take any action against CheeseDream. I asked only for comment. Pedant himself wonders why I asked him. It certainly isn't because of some conspiracy against NPOV, as CheeseDream suggests. The fact is, I know little about Pedant and have no idea whether he agrees with me or not. What I do know is this: he commended on an earlier version of the article, or he made some edit, or somehow expressed some interest in the topic earlier. That is the only reason I asked him to comment. I looked at the history of the article and talk pages and left messages for a few people who had been involved earlier. That's it. I do not see how inviting a broader discussion is in any way bad; on the contrary it is what we should strive for at Wikipedia. CheeseDream is now slandering me by accusing me of orchestrating a conspiracy; he is exploiting the concept of NPOV to justify his exclusion of points of view other than his own; he is discouraging a more general discussion which is essential to the collaborative process of Wikipedia. These are procedural issues and on these alone I think CheeseDream has been acting in a malicious and damaging way. Slrubenstein

OK - but I suggest mediation and taking it to a /subpage and dealing with some better writing compromises. It takes me som time to get up to speed on what the threads have been, but that also lets me step back and open my big mouthful of generalities based on the merest tactile and osmotical impressions. But it looks to me like it can use some rewriting, both for articulation and to address the problems with the oxymoronic contexts of "ancient history." And while were at it, maybe it also needs some divine guidance with respect to the filling of gaps in our limited material history. ;) -SV 02:00, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Inquisition
Responded. Stbalbach 01:49, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Question for you
Email sent, I'll reply to your reply quickly so please check a few mins after writing back FT2 21:31, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Rfar
I'd similarly prefer you not ammend your request to mine, which already covers yours. What you have would be better suited to an evidence page, I think. Snowspinner 19:36, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

question
What is the difference between my old namespace and my new namespace? Thanks, Happy New Year, Slrubenstein 19:39, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm not entirely clear what you mean, but if this is about the user page moves: In the old days, wikipedians used to have userpages that where just like article pages, which caused namespace conflicts (what if someone had the same username as an encyclopaedic topic?) and made it hard to separate articles from the rest. Nowadays user pages live in the User: namespace which means all userpages start with User: (and all user talk pages start with user talk:). A bunch of us are currently cleaning up the remnants of the old userpages, moving them to subpages of the users new User: page. (A subpage is a page "under" the main page, just like on a filesystem). Does that clarify things? Have a wonderful new year yourself too! --fvw *  19:45, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)

Response
You are welcome!Refdoc 20:05, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Anon (81.157.101.99)
This user has continued to vandalize despite warnings. They've displayed bad faith by changing the test template numbers (i.e. test4 to test3) to make it look like they hadn't received their last warning. I'm not a sysop so I've done all I can do at this point. Carrp | Talk 21:32, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

User:Jcbos and "Christian Bible"
User:Jcbos has started another vote on the "Christian Bible" issue, at Talk:Bible. Thought you'd want to know. Jayjg (talk) 18:32, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Bernard Lewis
You must be kidding. If removing correct and immediately relevant info while calling people names at talk page without any explanations is not vandalism, then it is trolling. Anyway, I followed your advice. But I deny that it is my edit conflict with him. I did not put the initial text that Lewis was from Jewish family; you may see it yourself in the history. I was restoring multiple (or one and the same) anon vandals, trolls, or ignoramuses, whatever, who at one moment put Lewis into category:Arabs. Mikkalai 22:53, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anarcho-capitalism
I'm not really suited for these kinds of procedures. However, I thought you might benefit from some insight into RJs motivations here. Well before he ever attempted to edit the capitalism article he had been going through the anarcho-capitalism article and pushing his bias line by line. On that talk page and the one for anarchism he repeated his desire for a kind of perpetual edit war. In particular, he was extremely vexed that I qualified an early statement in the article claiming that anarcho-capitalists support a "free market". The problem with this statement is that anarcho-capitalists also claim to stem from the individualist anarchist tradition. Individualist anarchists endorsed market economics, but rejected capitalism as fundamentally opposed to the free market, given that it uses coercion to back institutions like rent, interest, etc. The individualist anarchist market did not include these institutions, and a primary modern day criticism of anarcho-capitalism is that its claim to the tradition of anarchism is entirely without merit, in no small part because when an anarcho-capitalist says "free market" this would to an anarcho-individualist be a market that is anything but free. In other words, they mean completely different things when each says "free market". But without that link to individualism, anarcho-capitalists have no grounds for claiming a tradition in anarchism. So RJs solution to this problem was to try and eliminate the ability to even present this disagreement by shoving dictionary definitions into the text which specifically refered to a "free market". Unfortunately for him, his first attempt to do so also heavily implied that the capitalist market works directly with the state, so his subsequent definitions have all carefully avoided any such implications. What he is doing is hand-picking definitions that fit his bias and then claiming they are the most common, first he claimed that MW was the most common, and when that didn't suit his bias it became OED, and then when that was rejected it becamge MW unabridged.

Anyway, the relevance to all of this, and this really is kind of funny, is that he only started editing the capitalism article in order to have something to link to in order to support his case on the anarcho-capitalism page. Apparently he feels that he can just change the entire definition of capitalism on wikipedia whenever it doesn't suit his needs, and shove everything else aside as "less common" or as he once stated in the anarcho-capitalism article "marxist in origin". Kev 08:35, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My Brahms Story in the 'Capitalism' Article
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I can't at the moment give you the source for it, though. I'm sure I saw it somewhere in the writings of Jacques Barzun, the cultural historian. More than that, I would have to work too hard to recover! --Christofurio 00:20, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Use of "conspiracy theory" in article titles
There's a debate (and vote) going on at several articles regarding the proper titles; in particular, certain editors want to remove the words "conspiracy theory" from any of them. If you're interested, you'll find the relevant talk (and votes) at Talk:9/11 conspiracy theories, Talk:9/11 domestic conspiracy theory, and Talk:AIDS conspiracy theories. Jayjg (talk) 16:02, 2 May 2005 (UTC)