User talk:AlotToLearn

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Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! ≈  Mi nd st or ms Kid  02:36, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
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Checking user rights
In addition to the method they posted at the village pump, an easy way to see a user's rights is to go to that user's contributions page (go to the editor's user page or talk page, then select "User contributions" on the left toolbar). At the very bottom of the page are several links, including "User rights" and "Contributions summary." "User rights" will show all the user's rights (sysop, rollbacker, checkuser, account creator, etc.); "Contributions summary" shows an in-depth page of that user's editing statistics, and also shows the user rights. Politizer talk / contribs 06:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome! The contribs summary tool is great for getting a good idea of whom you're talking to when you start to discuss things with someone...you can see what areas they are active in, etc.  Another useful tool that's similar is this (I think it's called "Kate's interiot tool")&mdash;to see any user with it, just replace "Politizer" in the URL with the username (if the username has spaces, you have to use underscores instead); it shows not only which namespaces the user contributes in, but for each namespace shows the 15 pages in which they have the most edits (for example, the contribs summary tool can tell you that X user makes a lot of edits in the Talk: namespace, but this one can also show you specifically which talk pages he's edited a lot).  It also shows their editing history by month, which is a good way to get an idea how active someone has been over time, since the other tool only shows when they started (for example, for a lot of people you'll see that they first registered in 2004 or something, but when you look closer you might see that they only made 2 edits, then didn't do anything for years, and didn't become active until a couple months ago or something). Politizer talk / contribs 19:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

culture
I can add references in the next few weeks. As for the concept of culture, I did not cut anything about the concept of culture, or theories of culture, from other countries. They were not there before I made cuts. What I did do was add more information to what was already there about the concept of culture. There was inadequate coverage of Germany and I added, there. The article pre-revision also had a lot of material drawing on UK and US sources, but without attribution or explanation and jumbled up - I sorted it out, so the differences and relationship between US and UK anthropology is clearer ... but that information was in the earlier version, it just was not explained clearly. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:12, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Please do not move talk I put on one page, to another page. You should not change or move other people's talk comments. Only your own. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I do not know about the GA conventions - if you are right, my comments would indeed go above the GA transduction. But I just used the talk page tab to "add a new section" and it placed it blow the transduction, so i assume that is okay (otherwise wouldn't it automatically have put my new section above?) Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

To start a new comment thread below a transcluded one, you have open the whole Talk page (the "edit" link at the very top) then add below the code. --Philcha (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your recent comment. For now, just a brief response to:
 * (what about culture and language for example, when a language dies or is overtaken by another, etc, both in history and nowadays. Look at Papua New Guinea, about 800 living languages, one in each inaccessible valley, how does the Minister of Education handle that for teaching. Does he say forget their cultures, they'll die anyway, teach thenm in English? Actually, no he doesn't - at least at primary level!)

I hope I have understood you correctly and am providing you with serious and adequate responses. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 05:22, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * First of all, none of this was dealt with in the earlier version. In other words, my revision did not delete any material pertaining to these matters, because it was never there.  you are proposing new additions, and you would have had to propose this even had I not made a revision.
 * Second, culture and language are two different things. Your questions about language are good, but should be raised in an article on sociolinguistics or historical linguistics, these are the academic fields that research language in relation to your questions.
 * Next, while PNG may have 800 distinct languages, no scholar would say that they each have their "own" culture. It is TRUE that (1) modern states have a notion of culture as property, (2) modern states are imposing this model on non-state peoples, (3) this is a fascinating topic and (4) the article does not cover it.  But the earlier version did not cover it either, so again, my revision is not to blame for this concern you have.  I would be glad if the culture article addressed these issues but they are complex and have to be based on notable sources e.g. James Clifford, Gerald Sider, and Beth Povinelli, so we need to wait for someone willing to do the research ie read these books and develop the appropriate section.
 * Finally, you allude to PNG policy towards indigenous or minority groups. Many states face these policy questions, but these do not have to do with any theory of "culture," they have to do with state policy and play out differently in different countries.  I believe they are best dealt with in articles on different countries.

culture
There is a major problem in accusing the article of being "American centric." That would be like accusing an article on research in outer space of being American centric. So far the US is the only country to have landed on the moon and has sent the vast majority of satellites to the outer planets. It is inevitable that an article on this topic would devote a good deal of space to US activities. But this would not make the article "non-global" since the US government has shared what it has learned (and in some cases its facilities) with researchers from other countries. This is even moreso for the concept of culture. In the twentieth century a great deal of academic research has taken place concerning "culture" and the vast majority of it by anthropologists and for a variety of reasons, the vast majority of anthropologists who have written about "culture" are American. There is no way to mask this fact. But the research produced by Americans has been influenced by research by people from other countries, and has influenced researchers in other countries, and the article makes this clear. Please do not remove material from the article because you think it is "too American" - that is crappy scholarship. Content should provide an account of significant views from notable sources, and that is what I have added. The bulk of the sources are American because the bulk of research in cultural anthropology has been American; when people in France or Germany or New Zealand read "cultural anthropology" they read work mostly by Americans. If you feel that there are significant views from notable sources that are not represented, by all means add them, but add them not because they are American or Canadian or Mexican but because they are significant views from notable sources. Aside from cultural anthropology the main discipline that looks at culture is cultural studies ... there is less of it as it is newer (founded in the 1960s as opposed to the 1890s) and I have left messages at the user-pages of several editors who know something about cultural studies inviting them to add that section.Slrubenstein  |  Talk 14:23, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

PS please do not think I am unsympathetic to your concern. I have read a great deal of fine research by British, French, Brazilian, Swedish, Italian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Finnish, Norwegian, and other anthropologists and researchers. Those who have made significant theoretical contributions have generally written on issues other than "culture" ... a great example is the very important anthropologist Frederick barth - he was born in Germany and maded the University of Bergen, Norway, an important center for anthropological research. But his MA was from the University of Chicago (in cultural anthropology) and his PhD. was from Cambridge, England, in social anthropology. Most of his research was in social anthropology and he wrote important books on ethnicity (and he is cited in the article on ethnic groups for just this reason) but we have spearate articles on ethnicity and culture and society because they are different. When Barth talks about culture, he refers to the cultural anthropologists he learned about (or trained under) at Chicago, in the US. I could give other examples. People around the world may all love vodka, but the article on vodka is going to talk more about Russia and Poland ... our policy has to be: significant views from notable sources. When it comes to "culture," the vast amount of research specifically on culture in the 20th century was by US anthropologists - just like the vast majority of resaearch on "society" in the 20th century was by British, South African, Australian, and New Zealand anthropologists (and of course sociologists in many different countries) - but not by American anthropologists. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Your proposed edits to Culture
I've taken a look at what you have done and I think it is both good and useful. It is too bad that you did it all in your own "sandbox." In a collaborative editing project, we need to get into the same sandbox. Considering Slrubenstein's subject mater expertise (anthropology prof), and your editing skills, we have the makings of a great team effort, if you are up for it. So, I would propose that from here out, it is just a matter of timing for you to add your edits. If you are up for it, we could create an outline of the work to be done. As I mentioned on the talk page, I would suggest that we not edit the whole article right now because it is still being (re)written. However, we could go through section by section and edit each once they are declared complete. One last point: WP editorial decisions are made by consensus. It is not everyone' cup of tea, but if you are up for it, it can be both exciting and rewarding. Sunray (talk) 07:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * AlotToLearn, I want to thank you for holding off on making deletions to the article. I realize that my revisions seemed to come out of the blue to you, but I ask you to consider that you are a relatively new user here and I have been working on the Culture article for years.  I do not say this to put down your views or efforts in any way, just to explain why you and I may experience things differently - from my perspective, I was making changes that I had been planning on making for a couple of years (ever since the last major revision by Alex Golub two years ago) and did not have time to do.  I would really like to have a dialogue with you - I have tried very hard to respond to your comments and concerns on your talk page and on the Culture talk page.  I have responded to you because I take your views seriously and want to have a dialogue.  I ask you for now to consider two things: (1) it is important to draw in more editors who know about different facets of culture, and (2) it is okay for the article to get bigger before it gets smaller.  I hope we can agree on these two points, and then take other issues case-by-case.  I assure you that in all of my changes to the article, my intention was to respond to your comments and Pilcha's following the RfA, and to comply with Wikipedia's core content policies. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

History of Education
Agreed, the article is important but horrible. I added some suggestions... Is there any way we can flag this as very seriously needing improvement? NittyG (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. I've replied as best I can on the article's Talk page--AlotToLearn (talk) 08:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * As I said in my reply just now, I'm really sorry for the delay. I'm sorry if I offended you, I'm sure you've put a lot of time into things by now. I'm looking forward to working with you on this. But I really want to focus on it when I come around to it in the next few months, and really do a thorough job, so just so you know, it'll be sudden, and a lot all at once, or over the course of a few days. Thanks a lot! NittyG (talk) 22:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Euclid gathering
We meet again!

I appreciate what you did to the Euclid article. I don't know if you'd be interested in helping out with this - I've been going around, copy-pasting this in an attempt to gain a group...

I have done a considerable amount of objective work on this article myself. Turns out that there are reputable scholars who question Euclid's origins and even his existence. The links are provided below of my work. Please in the next two days, by 4/24 respond to me about this on my talk page. We need a good group of people to go in on this. Below are the links to my revisions.

The article with my addition before reversion

The article before my addition

The comparison

NittyG (talk) 18:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

attention pleas
Hi AlotToLearn, I have reason to believe that your edit in Ontogeny (in 2009!) might not be so correct. Please take a look at my proposed addition as a properly sourced substitute for what you removed. If possible I would like some feedback since I am an inexperienced editor.
 * --Fan Singh Long (talk) 06:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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