User talk:Bepimela

About me
Giuseppe Sandro (Bepi) Mela taught «Internal Medicine» and, thereafter, «Statistical and physical modeling of biological systems» at the Department of Internal Medicine of the University of Genoa, Italy, from 1971 to 2003.

The U.S, National Library of Medicine, PubMed Service, provides almost all the papers he published on international journals with editorial board. In the box «for» type 'Mela GS', set then the box «Show» at '200' and click «Go». This list doesn't take into account the letters to the editors, congress talks and minor publications.

One can easily verify that these papers were quoted about 10,100 times by other researches through the world by referring to the impartial Google Scholar Service.

In 2003 he was retired form the University and entered into the Cooperatorum Veritatis Societas. He is the rector of the Society, the responsible for the database of the Society (about 25 TB of genuine Greek and Latin documents) and co-ordinates the electronic editions of the Migne Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina.

Your edits
Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. IrishGuy talk 21:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do not add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that attract visitors to a web site or promote a product. See the external links guideline and spam policy for further explanations. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page rather than re-adding it. IrishGuy talk 19:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure these automated messages are as useless and annoying to you as they are to me. I wasn't sure what IrishGuy's problem was with the links you've been adding...I thought they were a great resource, until I clicked further, and I noticed none of the actual documents work. They all come up with "page not found" errors. Do you know what the problem is? Adam Bishop 20:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not understand, but i wish to realize why the reference was ruled out. The references to a web page that holds the opera omnia of an author does not seem to me to be "inappropriate". the proposed site is not the my one, neither I am affiliated to that. moreover this site contains archives that are downloadable for free, no pass, no money. What's the reason by which my segnalation no and others yes? i am very surprised for the reported "page not found". With my calculator and internet connection all is ok. really speaking, sir, do you dislike that this site is a catholic site?


 * No Bepimela, that's absurd, of course it has nothing to do with being a Catholic site. The pages simply do not exist, as far as we can tell. What browser are you using? Maybe the pages can only be accessed from Europe? Adam Bishop 00:30, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Your edits to a.o. Peter of Vaux de Cernay
You have now been warned a couple of times. Wikipedia is NOT a linkfarm, we are writing an encyclopedia here. Please stop, and start discussing. An appropriate place can probably be found here: WikiProject

This is the only warning you will receive for your disruptive edits. The next time you insert a spam link, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Spammers may have their websites blacklisted as well, preventing their websites from appearing on Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have had a look. You link to this document Eudes de Sully.  Could you please explain what more information this document is providing?  To me it looks like a 'this library has documents available that pertain (in some way) to this document.  As this looks now, I can't see how this satisfies our external links guideline.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Dirk Beetstra, Plewase, let me understand. All the links I put deal with the writings of the authors, in their original languages. Usually, many people search with Vikipedia to found this kind of information, expecially when medioeval athors are concerned, since full texts are difficult to be found. I did not put any link to site holding comment or personal opinions. The more information these documents are providing is simply the the texts written by the authors. Please, can you try to find in internet the opera omnia of Peter of Vaux or that of Odo de Soliaco? Well, if you can find them my contribution is useless, on the contrary these citation can help people.

Have a good day! Bepimela (talk) 21:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand your intentions. The thing is, this is an encyclopedia.  We are not a linkfarm, or an internet directory.  You have a lot of information available in those documents, and I am sure they can be used to expand the documents on wikipedia.  Yet you choose to, indiscriminate of where (external links sections, but also to reference sections, while the documents have not, at all, been used as a reference), add the links only.  I would ask you to reconsider your edits, especially since there are above already two other editors who have the same, or similar concerns.  Hope this explains.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 21:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd like to comment that all the Patrologia Latina links added that I have seen have been appropriate and helpful to the articles. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear dr. Charles Matthews, I thank you very much for your comments, as well as for reverting Remigius of Lyon, Eigil of Fulda and Peter of Vaux de Cernay. These authors are in my heart, since I read them directly from the original manuscripts. I also thank Mr. Angus McLellan, who helped me to understand and quoted our site within the «WikiProject Middle Ages/Resources». Similarly, I want to thank again Mr. Dirk Beetstra: He corrected my mistakes and I appreciate the time and the effort he spent for me. I am aware that the job he is doing is important and necessary but tedious and boring. In the same way I thank all the members of the Vikipedia's Staff who are actively helping me to learn how to edit properly the references on this encyclopedia. I regret having given so many problems.

If I could ask another pleasure, can you check also some other reverted references? In this way I could learn when, where and how to put properly the link to the original latin texts coming from the Migne's Patrologia Latina.

In the case that you should need to read some original latin texts in order to write a new article, please, do not hesitate to contact me. It will be an honor to collaborate with you. Best Regards. Bepimela (talk) 16:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll look at the other links shortly. I wanted to wait a little time, in case Dirk had more comments. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't have much to comment further. For me it is still unclear how the page that gets linked to is linked to the subject of the page (which is a 'problem' on the other server, I am sure it gets linked correctly).  I would suggest to have a look if the link can be used better, there are quite some documents where you added the link which are hardly referenced, or could use a better referencing style, and I think that these documents could very well help that.
 * By the way, I saw that you also add the link to other wikipedia, may I ask you to be careful, other admins who can't contact you and who have similar questions may request blacklisting when they see that. See you around, happy editing, and if there are further questions, please ask.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 16:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Making progress
Adding the links to the PLDD is itself not harmful. Then again, it's not as useful as it could be if you just add a link to the page and leave it at that. First thing you can do is to make people aware of the resource so that they can use it to write articles. WikiProjects are a good place to leave a note. Relevant ones include WikiProject Middle Ages, WikiProject Saints, WikiProject Catholicism and WikiProject Anglicanism. Most will have a resources page somewhere listing useful books and links, so mentioning PLDD in those would be helpful. If you have a look at the history tabs of the articles on relevant subjects, you can find editors who write about these things and may find them useful. Please don't go mad. A few messages will do: look at who started or expanded the articles rather than people who did spelling corrections or the like.

If you do add PLDD links to a page, and you can see that there's some resistance to that idea, you should probably do a few other things at the same time. Make sure the article has a section on the relevant writings (a bibliography of sorts). Link to the Patrologia Latina article and then you can work in a mention of the PLDD version. If you add a bibliography and the article has footnotes using, include a footnote and use the cite web or citation templates rather than just adding a mention in "External links". Jonas of Orléans is an example where there are mentions of the works in the PLDD, and where adding a footnote saying where to find De cultu imaginum or De Institutione regia would be useful. This would be more work for you, but it would help us and our readers more. I will change Jonas tomorrow to show what I mean and let you know when done. If you have any questions, please let me know. It seems to me that the PLDD is a valuable resource for Wikipedia's editors and readers (or at least those who can read Latin), and it would be regrettable we didn't make as much and as full use of it as possible. Regards, Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Angus McLellan, I thank you very much for your interest in the Migne, Patrologia Latina and for helping me to optimize the use of our resources. Really, I do not want in any way violate the rules Vikipedia. The fact is that we are digitalizing all the Migne and we have the relevant opera omnia of all the authors reported by the French editor. We would like to make available these resources to all worldwide people: our site is fully free - no money, no password, no ads, each document holds a complete full text with the relevant analytical index, and so on. Tomorrow I'll goto see the variations you will made on Jonas and i'll follow the way you will indicate. But, can we use this new method for all the remaining authors or we will again be accused of spam? Besides the Patrologia Latina we are also digitalizing the Migne Syriac Collection and the Mansi. Are you interest in these topics? In the case, my personal e-mail is: bepimela@libero.it. Looking for hearing somewhat from you, thank again. Yours bepi mela Bepimela (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Dirk Beetstra, I fully realize that your anti-spam work is very hard and obviously i'll follow your directives. Only a question. If in the future i'll use the method that Mr. (or professor) Angus McLellan will suggest to me, i will again be accused of spam or not? Please, before answering, might you visit the site www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu? If you will answer to me 'yes', I will accept you sentence. Again, have a good work! ours bepi mela Bepimela (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Bepi Mela, I believe that you performed your edits in good faith, though should maybe have reacted a bit earlier to warnings. You seem to have a great database at your hands, which contains a lot of information which can be used to expand wikipedia. My main concern is that you were adding links only, in a quite indiscriminate way, while I do see that the site contains a lot of information. The one example that I gave above did not show me why the external link was telling more about the subject, I had to click on to see what information there was (and still it was not obvious what I got), but I presume that they make valuable sources for information (attributing content, see Reliable sources, Citing sources, Footnotes, etc.). Also the suggestion that Angus and I gave you to contact one or more wikiprojects and talk about how you can contribute to the documents and see if they have pages where you could work on is a good thing to do.

If the link gets used appropriately, then there is no reason for us to call it spam (it now showed up mainly because you are the only editor using the link, which makes a couple of bells ring in our alert system. Upon investigation I did have a couple of concerns, upon which I decided to warn and revert.  I did recognise that the link seemed to contain a lot of good information, and I do believe that it can be used in a more useful way, hence the suggestions here.

I see no-one inserted a welcome message on this page, I will leave one shortly. Have a look through the policies and guidelines linked there, and don't hesitate to ask me if you have further questions. --Dirk Beetstra T C 23:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

A Proposal
Dear Friends, In the first, please excuse my poor English, but there are many years I'm speaking other languages. This handicap might generate some possible misleading, but I hope you can read the substance rather than the form.

With the help of some other Members of our Society we made a deep revision of the various Vikipedia editions: say, a sort of a little experimental test. Not a «scientific», but only a pilot study.

This is the test. About one thousand of items referring to medieval authors were visited in En, Ge, It, and Ro Vikipedia editions. The sample is small and it was not randomly selected, but it might be a first step for reasoning about this problem.

1] Almost invariably the referrals to the original writings were placed within the section of «External Links». (One should remember that the sample of interest has a small size, and therefore it may be not statistically significant, but, to my knowledge, it is the first attempt to approach this topic.) Such a procedure can really generate some confusion, as Mr. Beetstra properly had focused, and in many cases it does not fit in with Viki's guidelines.

2] The sources the referrals are linked to are rather few and this finding can lead to a somewhat resembling a «linkfarm».

3] Anyway and in other words, the procedure that put citations within the «External inks» by quoting moreover a little number of external sources seems to be sometime incorrect, of course, but it seems also to be a consolidated and generalized de facto format style of Vikipedia.

The results strongly suggest that Mr. (or professor?) Dirk Beetstra had identified a real and big problem within the Vikipedia editions. The problem deals with finding the best way to clearly evidence in a proper form the referral to the original writings in their original languages or in good translations, taking moreover into account that, as far as classical and medieval authors are concerned, in many cases there are available also different critical editions. These referrals are useful both in the author's section and in a summary table(s) placed within a general section, say, i.e. «Latin Patristic» and so on. In fact, the common user usually simply does not know that these summary pages are available, as well as the links to these pages are not always clearly reported and their importance and content well evidenced.

If one states that the referral to the original works of an author could be of interest in the Vikipedia's pages, invariably it follows that a sort of «linkfarm» should necessarily arises. In fact, the number of databases of original texts are rather few through the world and therefore the Url's address could surely be reported at least several times. As more a database is large and specialized, as more the number of referrals. This fact seems to be true especially when one deals with relatively narrow research field, such as the medieval or Christian literature. Consider, please the site «Vatican.va»: is this a spam or a linkfarm? Ok, Vatican is Vatican, but it has an overwhelming amount of citations.

In my opinion, one should deeply think about these topics. I agree that the metric unit system is highly rational and useful and that it should replace all the other measuring systems, but I also realize that yards, inches, miles and so on are a de facto standard among several populations.

Let us, please, to consider two paramount examples.

First example. Gottschalk (theologian) shows an external link pointed to «The Gottschalk Homepage», a site that holds a nice critical edition of the Latin texts, as well as some professionally performed translations. In this case the link seems to be useful and properly put, although the label «External Links» is clearly not specific for this kind of links and might not follow exactly the Viki's guidelines.

Second example: Augustine of Hippo. In this case the «External Links» section holds a lot of interesting information, but this information is highly heterogeneous. Correctly, in my humble opinion, the Editor(s) of this Viki page subdivided the external links into several subsections, so that referrals to the original writings are clearly separated from the comments of good value but always comments, and so on. Clearly, such a format could be improved, but it seems to me a good start. Probably, this editing format may not comply the Vikipedia's guidelines, but it seems to be very clear and easy to be sustained and rearranged. Anyway, the referrals to the original texts are gathered within a clearly defined subsection, which has been placed at the end of the page. Moreover, notice please that the external link point to, e.g. Gutenberg.org, Latin Library, Intratext, and so on. All these resources are all well known and are quoted a lot of time (properly and usefully, in my personal opinion).

However, this editing effort is not the rule among Vikipedia, and in many cases «External Links» may hold heterogeneous links, usually put in time order. Moreover, in some instances, it might be difficult to distinguish the real content of the link(s). This problem becomes important when the items of minor authors are concerned. In fact, the Editor(s) of the St. Augustine Viki page seems to continuously restyle the format, but this procedure is time expensive and cannot be extensively applied to pages of the minor items, and these minor items are really a lot.

The problem becomes great when people on the road should try to find the proper location where a citation could be put. Usually, as I did in the past, he simply follows the format he has found, by adding his referral just after the others. Really speaking, the «content policies» and the «guidelines» are surely well done, but cannot consider all the cases, and the referral to a Latin Author coming from the Patristic is surely a very particular case. Almost invariably the common user does not read these sections, but he simply replays what he is seeing in the page of interest.

Similarly, the common user who search for an author, usually hopes to find in a unique page all the information he needs. And among this information, he usually hopes to find a link to the author's texts. In my humble opinion, there might be a difference form the common user who searches for «Gary Cooper» or «Batman» and the user who searches for «Faltonia Betitia Proba‎». Both are users, but they search usually different contents.

As a user of Vikipedia and only in my personal opinion, I could suggest that the format used in the St. Augustine page seems to be the more clear and intelligible form for the common user of this Encyclopedia. You should also remember, from my own point of view, that many visitors of English Vikipedia are not English spoken.

Summing up, might I suggest you to evaluate the following proposal?

When an external link should be put into a page, an automatic warning should be generated suggesting to insert also the name of the subsections the link refers to: 'original texts', 'translations', 'audio books', 'comments', and so on.

Simultaneously, a warning should be sent to the editors of the page of interest, suggesting him/her to visit the changed page and deeply check the new entry. This solution could solve two big problems. Firstly, this procedure could reduce the work of anti-spam Editors. Secondly, the review will be made by an expert of the argument, who can, where and when appropriate, consult other experts through the world. In my opinion, one cannot pretend that general Editors be expert in all the fields, as well as one cannot pretend to leave all the weight on one back. If one put a page in Vikipedia, he should also provide a continuous monitoring of its contents.

Restyling all the inputted external links appears to be an enormous work and the use of two conflicting format styles may be misleading. The insertion of the subsection label seems to me to be the quickest way to obtain the result of clarity and easy readability.

Moreover, take please into account that this is not a problem of the only English Vikipedia, but it also concerns all the Vikipedia of all other languages. One should restyle all the Vikipedias, in order to obtain a common editing format. In my opinion, it is easy to claim this necessity, but it might be just a bit more difficult to correct all the items in all the Viki's editions.

Sa va sans dire, anti-spam action is mandatory, as well as an anti-vandalism close survey. We are grateful to all who have made this commitment and we must help them. Moreover, one might suggest that it might be useful also to check the site the links refer to: usually they are professional sites, but this may not be the rule. In this case, for example, editors might arrange a list of sites usually used for the external links. E,g, the Calvin University has a big and useful database, as well as the New Advent and so on. Usually these sources are well known.

I apologize if I have taken the liberty of making a suggestion to expert Editors and without knowing all the inner problems, but I hope to contribute to improve the performances of this Encyclopedia.

Lastly, please, let me peep a consideration. Documentacatholicaomnia was born 17 months ago. Over this time window, despite the fact that it is clearly a site for specialists and that it holds mainly greek and latin texts it received 4,743,374 contacts and it delivered 3,078,255 documents (*.doc or *.pdf files). Our Society receives more than an hundred mails a day asking for otherwise unavailable latin texts. We are the first to recognize that this result is insufficient and that it must be improved. We collaborate with Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvinists, as well with Muslims and Atheists: we respect them and they respect us. We only search and follow the Truth and operate in the full sunlight. In the next future we will put on line the Migne's Syriac Patristic and the Mansi (all the 58 volumes), which are, to our knowledge, rather difficult to be found in internet.

It is disheartening to have been publicly accused of being a «linkfarm» or a «spamming» organization.

When I, as well as many other Members of our Society who are well known full professors at big Universities through the world, did and do the referees for international journals, we firstly read carefully all the documentations and thereafter we contact privately the author of the submitted paper to ask him for further information. In the case of rejection, we always write him privately, not publicly. And, to my experience, all researchers, especially the Nobel Prizes, whom I had the good fortune to meet in the world behave in this way.

We thank all people who spend his/her time to help us to optimize our work, as well as people who corrects our errors: these persons are very useful for us. Although the following statement might seem to someone to be politically incorrect, we pray that God will bless Them.

Best Regards, Giuseppe Sandro Mela Bepimela (talk) 11:24, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Post Scriptum.

1] Sometimes, it may be useful to state self-evident statement. It is simply obvious that I, as well all other Members and supporters of the Society I direct, will respect and strictly follow all the decisions you will take, even if you'll state to remove all our links and to put our site in the blacklist.

2] In my past experience, different opinions almost invariably lead to choose the best possible solutions and, at least in my personal opinion, we really can be, or become, good friends and coworkers no matter what we think about the Vikipedia organization, structure and link allocation.

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:31, 23 November 2015 (UTC)