User talk:172/Talk block 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Imperialism Lirath Q. Pynnor

your advice
Hi Abe,

An anon user recently added some quotes of Mahathir's recent anti-semitic ravings to Mahathir bin Mohamad, a page I have worked on for awhile. While I am not a big fan of the guy, it seems kind of unbalanced to have these quotes in an article. I mean, they seem more nutty than meaningful. I wonder if it would suffice to simply say that he has a proclivity for making anti-semitic remarks (something I actually had added earlier to the piece w.r.t. Soros).

Gracias por todos. Viajero 06:48, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi 172, sorry for not being in contact for a while. You might want to look at Mother Teresa, which is being dogged by the same POVing as Catholicism was. We are currently voting on how to salvage the article from the POV mess it has become. Your comments and vote are most welcome. lol FearÉIREANN 05:14, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Hi, I realize you are probably busy with other things at the moment, but if you have a moment this is not to be missed:


 * Chile's Failed Economic Laboratory], an Interview with Michael Hudson

Miracle? Hah!

A su servicio... -- Viajero 22:06, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Buena noticia: ¡dijieron no a Ríos Montt! -- Viajero 13:35, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

apropos of Vargas Llosa
Thanks for the pointer to the piece on Vargas Llosa. Following it up, I saw that he made the comments a couple of weeks ago, yet this was apparently the first mention in the English-language press; at least Google News didn't flag anything earlier. Anyway, what a piece of work MVLl is; don't you love the clarity his language? "bouts of collectivism" That would be democracy I guess!!! The man is truly hopeless; I happened to have been in Arequipa last year during the anti-privatization riots he referred to. I had been reading about the privatization palsn in the paper and I talked to people in the streets and had a good sense of what the issues were, which were of course inseperable from the historical context of the many disasterous Fujimori privatizations. Well, a couple days after the thing was settled (the Toledo gov backed down), Vargas Ll gets up on his high horse and writes another long essay for El País (which gets printed all over) called "Queremos ser pobres". Even though he was in Lima at the time, he literally hadn't a clue about what the fundamental issues were. He is a intractable ideologue; he reads like an editorialist for the Economist. It would be nice to dismiss him as a Thatcherite crank except that he has a prominent pulpit and the SOB can write well. Although the man may be cultured, he represents all the worst things of the Peruvian criollo culture. Let's just hope he doesn't win the Nobel one of these years; then he will be truly insufferable. Glad to see you are around again. Hasta pronto... -- Viajero 21:47, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You sure did a POV hatchet job on Robert Mugabe. Poor Mugabe, being picked on by all those white imperialists. RickK 04:56, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Quote of the day
"The petroleum does not belong to them," Carlos Arboleda, Ecuador's minister of energy and mines, said of the native groups. "The oil belongs to the state."

(from: "Seeking Balance: Growth vs. Culture in Amazon")


 * -- Viajero 22:13, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Contextualized article titles
Should articles like Origins of the Civil War (and a few others in the series) be at titles more like Origins of the American Civil War, given that these are top-level names, and conceivably we might eventually have an Origins of the Greek Civil War and similar? I would move myself, but it seems to be part of an interlinked series and I don't want to break anything. --Delirium 09:14, Dec 20, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Abe. I didn't know you were still here! I was going to say "welcome back" just now when I saw your handle but I see from your contributions that you never left. I'm very tied up with a couple of non-wiki projects at present and only popping in for a few small edits a few times a week, but I'll finish at least one of these other projects sometime in the next month or so and have time to slip my old wiki-harness back on and contribute something more substantial once again.

Best till then,

Tony (Tannin 10:56, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC))

This article is part of the History of the United States series.
The table is fine for pure daughter articles such as History of the United States (1865-1918) but it is not appropriate for distinct subjects such as the American Civil War. --mav 15:42, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

A very nice article on the origins of the Civil War. The complexities are explored very well.

Hi, I'm sorry you're having problems with Stan. My comment to him was not in any way supposed to imply that you were in the wrong. All I did was reply to the fact that he had said he didn't time to write articles because of this dispute, and I suggested that it would be good for him if he could escape that for a while. I would suggest the same to you. It's not advisable to carry on with an article which is causing so much ill-feeling, so perhaps you need to take a break from it too. I know you said that you are able to brush off any attacks he makes against you, but you may find this gets too tiring before long, so maybe you need to seek input from others rather than feeling you need to be the only one defending the article. The comments I made to Stan were just generally about the problems of edit wars and other disagreements in general, not a reflection of this specific one. Please don't take what I said as an attack against you. It was really not meant in that way. Angela. 00:05, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

No I haven't seen the article you refer to. If you have it in a form which you can post / email / thought-transfer to me I would be interested in reading it. Adam 03:09, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

-- Stan:

I deleted just to compete with your rudeness. When someone mocks me and refutes my claims, I expect some evidence or intelligent criticism. 172 05:59, 25 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Should I assume that you aren't intending to revert New Imperialism? Lirath Q. Pynnor

It's not a big deal, the ban was barely effective anyways. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Thankfully it hasn't come into force yet. Bureaucratic cock-ups meant it could not be introduced on 1st January and may not come into force until March. But there are legal challenges to come yet. So here's hoping the nutty scheme will collapse! :-) Happy new year, by the way. ''FearÉIREANN 03:45, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi 172, I hope 2004 got off to a good start for you. I've seen you editing articles on topics from all over the place -- except the Middle East. Is that a concious decision or not? I have been, and I don't know why; the investment in time and energy and loss of peace of mind is incredible. After yet another tortuous, acrimonious debate with the usual suspects, I got a private msg from the First among Equals in response to our modest efforts to see the Palestinian predicament honestly represented saying that he "will not allow Wikipedia to become a mouthpiece for a tyrant" (Arafat), a "murderous lying slug, who is killing people to advance a stunningly irrational agenda.  Anti-semitism in Europe is complicit in allowing him to continue.  The result, if popular opinion in Europe had it's way, would be a second holocaust." Yikes. The personal politics of the person who pays our bandwidth needn't further detain us, but I was still shocked, particularly since it is so completely at odds with what I see and hear around me (I have lived in Northern Europe for twenty years). Anyway, going from one extreme position to another, there is an amazing interview in Haaretz with Benny Morris where he basically comes out in support of ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories and takes B-G to task for not getting the job done in 1948. If you are interested, see When these ex-Lefties turn to the Right, they really go all the way!!! One more thing: I think that that one exceedingly tangential paragraph of you-know-who in the intro to New Imperialism has finally been excised. All the best. -- Viajero 11:22, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * whoops, spoke to soon apropos of New Imperialism. After the usual back-and-forth, it is now protected. Thanks for your reply just now; don't worry about that email; just the fruits of a weekend of a little too much Wikipedia Sturm und Drang -- nothing that a few weeks' respite couldn't -- and did -- cure. More anon... -- Viajero 17:14, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My problem with Lance is not that he is a Marxist, but that he accuses everyone who diagrees with him of being an agent of corporate America etc etc. His tone is arrogant and dismissive, and his edits are frequently (I won't say always) unhelpful and POV. If you're a friend of his you might suggest he modify his behaviour. Otherwise he is heading for being banned. Adam 11:32, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * First I am not in charge of banning people and I am not nominating Lance for banning - I was just making an observation about what will happen if he continues on his present course.
 * Second I should explain that I was a Communist for ten years, so I know what I am talking about. His edits are offensive to the millions of people who were killed and oppressed by the regimes and guerilla movements he glamourises.
 * Thirdly everything Robert Conquest said about the Soviet Union has turned out to be true, indeed the truth turned out to be worse than he said in some respects. Adam 14:36, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

That stupid paragraph in New Imperialism has taken on a life of its own: Conflicts between users/Lir v. Viajero and Adam Carr. Where the the silliness end??? -- Viajero 22:27, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * First of all, that was not my sentence. Second of all, I do not appreciate being called infantile, being accused of writing "bullshit" etc. Please be a bit nicer, or I might just provoke you more by reverting the comment. Ilyanep 03:12, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

...


 * Yes, I agree my comment was a bit too agravated, and I do admit that my historical knowledge may not be as great as yours, but I do not appreciate being bashed and flamed when I submit a simple message to your talk page. Ilyanep 03:25, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I am the one who added the comment in the first place. In response to 172's criticism, I have included sources (to Robert Conquest) and a link to the Gulag. As the Red Terror and mass murder of kulaks is a key feature of Stalin's reign, I believe it deserves to be treated in the introductory sentence. Hitler's wikipedia page does not include a sentence up front about his revitalization of German industry, as while that was an important feature of his rule, it was not the central feature of the Third Reich - the Holocaust and World War 2 was. A mention of Stalin's industrialization of Russia without a mention of the Gulag which enabled it is not appropriate. godless 05:31, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Thank You. Ilyanep 21:53, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)

--

I am troubled by your second unilateral removal of the neutrality dispute message in History of the United States (1980-1988), which I have restored. Should you find it imperative to removal the message again without the consensus of the other contributors to this article, I would probably be advised to move to Step 2 in the proscribed Dispute resolution. --Hcheney 20:19, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

172, I would sincerely appreciate it if you could leave the neutrality dispute on History of the United States (1980-present) until we can achieve a consensus on it's final form. --Hcheney 18:40, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hey, you had me worried there for moment. To be sure, this is a crazy place, but it will too fascinating a spectacle to miss if it eventually implodes from its own weight. Illegitimis non carborundum as we used to say in grade school. -- Viajero 22:54, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Please see my comments on Talk:Aleksandr Lukashenko. You haven't justified your edits at all, and your unexplained deletion of masses of factual content - such as deleting any mention of the 1998 crisis - will not stand. -- ChrisO 21:36, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with your comments regarding the list of names. It would probably be best to move that sentence to another part of the article, perhaps even rendering into a "see also"; it may even be best placed in an article on Famous people of the late nineteenth century

As for for the rest of my paragraph...

At some point in the article, we should note its relationship to World War I. We should also provide a brief summary of some coinciding historical trends; particularly, the Long Depression and the Second Industrial Revolution. We should also, probably in that same section, expand upon the article's intro (where it refers to colonialism) by specifically referring to which nations are most notable for their renewed expansionist and industrialist vigor (ie, USA, Japan, Germany, Italy, etc) and; at some point (perhaps not within the same paragraph), we should also have a list of the wars which were fought during this period (particularly wars over colonies, such as the Filipino-American War).

Such was the point of my paragraph, I am completely open to discussion of editing or rearranging the paragraph (to better fit into the article). For example, I personally think the list of names should be placed in a seperate portion of the article (if not an entirely different article). However, Viajero simply deletes my paragraph -- which is not a productive form of editing.

The wiki is a work in progress, you were quite correct that the list of names was "random". I merely listed as many significant people as I could think of, that were alive during the period. The point is that somewhere we should have a list of people which a student of this period should be familiar with; while it is arguable whether one need know of any particular person on the list, or whether said person is truly part of this historical process (such as, say, Cleveland) -- the point is that such a list has a place, somewhere on the Wiki.

It shouldn't be deleted simply because it is a work in progress. Furthermore, itll never improve if it is deleted before one can take the time to improve it.

Lirath Q. Pynnor

172, thanks much for your kind words at Talk:East Germany...I was stepping waters I am only moderately familiar with (made my studies largely in earlier periods in history than the 20th Century, I'm afraid), and just wanted to make sure we made decisions for the right reasons. Glad to see you're still around, by the way--you've made excellent contributions to many articles here, as far as I can see, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of them, as you have time. Thanks again, Jwrosenzweig 22:00, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Didn't you say you were going away?

"The only reason I didn't have my sysop privileges taken away" was because I did nothing wrong. And of course YOU would support the whitewashing of the East German government. They were dictators, your specialty. RickK 04:30, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, why should the Stalin article be more "NPOV" than, say, the Hitler article? "He was the principal instigator of the Holocaust and World War II, which together led to the death of an estimated 40 to 50 million people." Is that very NPOV? And how about casuality stats? I think, since Stalin killed about 20 million people himself, it would not be NPOV not to include that in the introduction. Zw 05:04, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Im afraid you lost me. I see no reason why the beginning of the article should not briefly mention such topics as the Long Depression and the Second Industrial Revolution. Lirath Q. Pynnor

-- Why did you move collapse of the Soviet Union to History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)? The collapse is its own topic and thus should not be just a daughter of another page. --mav 00:46, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Of course, Im still interested in everything. I believe that the article should, early on, mention that the New Imperialism has a connection with World War I, the Long Depression, and the Second Industrial Revolution. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Sandinistas is under surveillance, and has been; it was on my watchlist, and I saw your lively commentary and reference to the Encarta text, which I did indeed check out. Yep, our article is unquestionably lame. So much to do here, and I squander far too much time in endless, fruitless debates on Middle East topics with indefatigable zealots... a task for which I don't think I temperamentally suited. Maybe I can lend a hand with here, but I would like to work on Shining Path first. As for the Fox School of Journalism, all too true, alas. I thank my lucky stars that I am able to exercise that particular vocation without ever having been subjected to "professional training" (read "ideological indoctrination"); just baptism by fire. Enfin, I have been meaning to ask you: if you have a spare moment, could you cast your learned eye upon population transfer, another one of our modest offerings? The term seems to be particularly in favor among the "Samaria and Judea" crowd (you know who I am taking about) for whom it is a clean & wholesome euphemism for "ethnic cleansing". Despite the trappings of NPOV, the text for me exudes a faint but lingering scent of ersatz scholarship, a kind of genteel exercise in stretching the terms of debate. Noticeably absent BTW is any discussion if Nazi Germany's not insignificant efforts in the bespoke realm. However, if the article looks ok to you, then my fears are probably nothing more than a twitch of paranoia. All the best -- Viajero 17:29, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Abe. Well, I've just blown my ability to protect Problems of land distribution in Zimbabwe. ;) No matter. What I wrote is hardly purple prose, and I don't claim any great knowledge of the area (I've never studied it, though I do have a broad familiarity with African history up to about 1940 or so), but it's a good deal less worse than it was. At least if someone protects the entry now, it will read a little better and seem less like a polemic. If Mr Anon reverts again, and makes a habit of it, then I daresay another admin will step in and protect it. Best Tannin

I truly and sincerely apologize for including material on a reference page that was the work of a troll, and not you. I have removed the offending material, and all that remains is Wikipedia texts that are properly related. As I mentioned in that private, un-linked page, "It is best to understand those that you have conflict and disagreement with so you can empathize with their viewpoint and achieve consenus." I look forward to putting this matter behind us so we can productively work together on Wikipedia. --Hcheney 00:58, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I am very eager to hear about where you are coming from and your principal influences.


 * However, I do not feel comfortable removing the page at the present time. I use it for reference, and have never linked it from any other page - in fact, it would have been an orphan if you did not link it. I am concerned by your unilateralism, choice of words in certain articles, and manner of debate. I assure you, once my concerns disappear, the page will be blanked. --Hcheney 23:36, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

An excellent suggestion, thanks very much. Adam 23:07, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for editing the East Germany article. It is very hard to keep cold war-era assessments out of the article. As I'm sure you know there is no consensus on how to describe these kind of states. I'm trying to avoid moral judgements but some US contributors feel the need to add "it was Bad" to these sort of articles. Secretlondon 09:12, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Your thoughts/advice might be helpfull over at Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks. Thanks mate. PMA 09:22, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, no I haven't any email from you. Angela. 22:55, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)


 * Did you send it through the wiki? That seems to not be working. I just tried sending one to myself and it didn't come through. Could you try sending it directly? Hopefully that will work. I won't be around now until tomorrow evening though, so I won't reply instantly. Angela. 01:43, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I sent a reply and reported the bug about the emails not working through the wiki. It should be fixed later today apparently. Angela. 10:11, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)